[Mkguild] "To Steal a Soul" (1/?)

[Kendo Virmir]

Normally I don't like to post unfinished works, but this thing is just
taking so long to write, blast it.  Maybe posting what I have in
chunks like the pros will inspire me to write a bit more quickly. :)

This is the first part of my next Metamor tale, "To Steal a Soul".
I'm not sure how many parts there will be, but I'm pretty excited as
this will be my longest story yet in my short time doing this sort of
thing.  This isn't saying much, as everything else I've written, MK or
not, has been pretty short. :)  My guess is around 7-9 parts if
they're all this size.  This is a continuation of my previous three MK
tales, which can be found in the link in my signature or... in the
archives!

This is a draft.  I intend to do some polishing before this goes up on
the web, so comments and critiques are hugely appreciated.

Action and adventure awaits!  Also, explosions.

Enjoy!

----

"To Steal a Soul"
Part 1



"Ah!  My darling Vale!  Come give your father a hug!  Yes, I am so
glad to see you too!"

"What is that?  You want to be just like me when you grow up?  Now,
now, don't be silly!  Proper ladies are to remain at home!"

"Women cannot wrap their minds around the concepts of war!  You are
too fragile!  Here, put this dress on.  Oh, you are so pretty!"

"No, no, no!  You can't play with toy soldiers!  Here now, dolls are
so much nicer!  Look at how adorable you are!"

"Glory and fame?  No, no, silly!  There are no women generals!  Come
now, there are rules a delicate flower like your self must adhere to!
You will bring our house glory by being a proper lady!"

"You will wear your hair up, like this!  Marvelous!  And more powder!
You are beautiful darling, but your breasts are a little small.  Here,
wear these.  Much better!  I'm afraid you're eating a bit much, my
dear.  This corset will fix that.  Tight?  Comfort is second to
beauty!"

"VALE!  What are you doing?!  By Akkala, put that awful thing down!
Where did you get a BOW?  One of your father's men?  Tell me his name!
 He will be punished!  By the gods!  Get off of that horse!!"

"Darling!  I've found a wonderful husband for you!  You will be so
happy together!  And this union will bring our house so much
prestige!"

"My betrothed!  I am honored that you will bare my children!  Look!
Look at all the shiny things I have brought you!  You love jewelry
because you are a woman!  We shall be so very happy together!"

"... So..."

"... Very..."

"... Happy!!"

...

You ran away?  You always run away...

It's time to run away again, isn't it?

Cold whiteness surrounds you.  Here they come, the little green men...
 The stench of death hangs heavily in the air.  It's all your fault.
You failed again, trying to be something you're not.  Flee for your
life!

Flee!

----

Vale awoke with a start, the entire bed frame shaking with a jolt.
The discomfort was there.  She clasped her hands over her muzzle,
trying to fight it.  But it was too strong, and she felt as if she
would suffocate and burn up.  Finally she let her mouth gape and her
tongue roll out.  She panted heavily in short shallow gasps like a
dog.

It was one of those quarks she despised about becoming an animal.  The
uncontrollable panting when she was warm.  Some aspects she had gotten
used to, but this one would always bother her.  It was so degrading,
even in the presence of other canids.  At least she was alone.

The dreams didn't happen often, but it was always like this when they
did.  The cold air was soothing.  Soon she would stop and be able to
return to sleep.  But in the meantime her mind began to wander.

Every once in a while when she had a quiet moment to herself like this
it would hit her.  What on Earth was she doing?

It was better than home.  That was here only consolation.  She
repeated it over and over in her mind, willing it to be true.  But by
the gods...

She rolled over onto her other side, shifting her tail, feeling the
weight of the covers upon it.  She could no longer sleep on her back,
of course.  It was like a fantasy.  Everyone trying to pretend they
were living a normal life.  And then there was the killing, the
death...  She shut her eyes as the chilling air brought memories of
that past winter's living nightmare...

----

For a short time, things actually started to look up...

I'd found my grandfather's notes!

Like any other day, the pig man and hyena were busy nipping at each
other and Lady Vale was too far ahead to notice anything.  We'd been
milling around the forests for hours when I suddenly recognized a
grove of trees.  I immediately wondered off-path and began beating
around the bushes.  It took some time but I finally found my
water-dampened pack wedged in between some branches along with a few
discarded Lutin weapons.  I claimed a jagged rusty knife, thinking I
could perhaps sell it for a copper or two.  It seemed fitting that I
should obtain something from that miserable encounter that day.  The
other weapons were too large for me to carry.

Lady Vale was not pleased when she discovered I went off on my own.
Good.  Maybe she won't pet me anymore.  At least she seemed more
involved with the rest of the group lately.

Unfortunately the pages did suffer a bit of water damage around the
edges that were facing the flap, but the majority of them were
perfectly readable.  Any significant rainstorm would have destroyed
them, so I suppose I should had considered myself lucky for the
relatively dry weather in the few weeks they'd sat out there.  I
bought a wooden chest with a lock to keep them next to my bed in my
room.  Together with my new door latch I thought they would be secure
enough.

I found myself becoming somewhat used to all the walking required of a
scout.  At first my feet killed me every day, as the change to
digitigrade paws was quite a shock.  But it slowly became easier to
balance on my toes as the muscles became stronger, and the pads on the
bottom of my feet became rough and calloused.  Of course it was
nothing like walking flat-footed wearing boots, but at least it was
bearable.  Unfortunately the weather grew colder and colder with each
passing week.  I had my cloak refitted to fit my smaller form, so
under that, my tunic, and my fur, I was plenty warm.  Yet my exposed
feet stung from the exposure to the frigid autumn air, especially in
the mornings.  I could not imagine what winters must be like this far
north.

One particularly cold morning our unit trudged through the frost laden
fields northeast of the keep.  We were a good two hours out and though
I was glad for the new scenery, my freezing toes insisted otherwise.
The sun would take a few more hours to burn the frost off, and that
period of time increased every day.  Claudia seemed warm and smug in
her thick sheep-skinned boots or whatever she had.  Blast her.

Claudia and I had formed a sort of unspoken pact to guard the rear
each time we went out.  Vale was always in the lead with her snooty
noble attitude and Rufus and Vincent were constantly engaged in
irksome banter.  The human woman rarely spoke, so she was at least
bearable.  I suspect she felt the same way about the other three as
well.  Occasionally she would stop and point her bow at something
rustling in the bushes.  In darker reaches of the forest I had the
better eyesight.  Usually I would simply take a look and shake my head
'no'.  She would purse her lips in a frown and we would move on.

In the fields that morning, I didn't know what it was...

Vale saw it as well, and had her shorter bow readied and aimed before
even before the over-zealous Claudia.  The pig and hyena dropped their
bickering mid sentence, Vincent speaking for the both of them. "What
the blood is that?"

We were fairly spaced out in a field of mostly low lying shrubs and
the occasional taller bush.  Something stirred from a particularly
spindly leaved shrub a few paces to our right.  It stood roughly lutin
sized, which unfortunately was my size as well, the vines of the bush
clinging to it.  No, rather the leaves seemed to protrude from the
creature's arms and side, as if it were born from the bush itself.
The rest of its body was a conglomeration of dirt and stone, looking
much like dried clay.  Its features became more distinguished as it
took a step towards us, its body forming before our very eyes.  Unlike
a lutin it had a protruding muzzle and two small horns instead of
ears, giving it a somewhat draconic appearance.

Mouth gaping, it extended its claws and began trotting towards us with
a screeching laugh.

"He he he he he!!"

In a heartbeat, two arrows bore into its dirt-like flesh.  Claudia's
stuck into its chest, Vale's directly into its right eye...  The thing
screamed, spewing forth some incomprehensible obscenities.  Yet it did
not bleed.  It yanked the protrusion out of the socket, the speared
eye crumbling to dust, and barred its fangs.  I sent a ball of flame
into its abdomen and blew it to pieces.

"Holy-- blast it, Virmir!" Vincent snarled as he shielded his face
from the superheated air.  Everyone was taken by surprise by the fiery
explosion, including myself.  The sharp echo from the blast bounced
off the mountains a couple of times.  The little monster scared me, so
naturally I had poured a bit too much energy into the hastily conjured
spell than necessary.

Then it began to rain body parts.  I gritted my teeth and folded my
ears back as the dead lumps fell all around us.  Most pieces shattered
on impact with the ground, dissolving to mere piles of rock and dirt.
Some retained their shape, however.  A claw, a leg...  Vincent prodded
the half of the head that had fallen in front of him with the tip of
his broadsword.

The jaw moved.

With wide eyes the hyena smashed it, turning it to a mound of
unremarkable dirt.  We did nothing but stare at the remaining pieces
and each other for a few moments.

"What was that thing?"  Rufus finally ventured.

All eyes turned towards me.  Of course.  Assume the mage knows
everything.  "No idea," I murmured.

"Think we should... report it?"  Rufus surmised, staring at the bush
where it emanated from.

Vale crouched, warily approaching one of claws lying upon the ground.
It looked as if it were a piece of a broken statue.

"Yes," she finally answered after a moment's deliberation.  "We should
report this immediately."

Wonderful.  We walk all the way out, kill one little monster that
we've never seen before, and now we get to walk all the way back to
report it.  Probably end up waiting outside the Patrol Master's office
for five hours while Vale describes how the thing's left nostril was a
slightly darker shade of gray than its right.

"Uh... guys..." Claudia's voice faltered.  She was to my right, facing
the opposite direction, and slowly stepping backwards.  I turned
around and gasped.

Behind us, over a dozen of the vile creatures were making their way up
the incline we had just traversed...

"Oh, blast it!"

"He he he he he!!!"

"RUN!"

We bolted in the opposite direction, which was unfortunately northward
and away from the keep.  Blast my short legs!  I soon found myself
trailing behind the others, despite my best attempt at a sprint.  I
hated being cursed to a childish body.

"What are you waiting for, Virmir?"  Vincent yelled over his shoulder.
"Blast them away!"

I curled my lips in a snarl.  The insipid hyena never missed an
opportunity to demonstrate how little he knew about magic.  Of course
I had my hands outstretched to my sides, conjuring crimson energy
within my palms.  This had to be a real spell, not a poofy plume of
flame like I threw at the Metamor guards weeks ago.  But casting and
running is extremely difficult, and near impossible when one is
fleeing for his life.  Not to mention the fact that I was being left
behind.  Non-mages constantly assume that we can pull unlimited power
out of thin air.  I suppose choosing not to study magic and stupidity
fall hand-in-hand.

I stopped in my tracks and spun around, the fur on my neck and back
rigid.  Having a good start on the spell already in place, I cupped my
claws on top of one another just above my right hip.  The fireball
appeared between at once, the warm soothing flame massaging the skin
under my fur.  Fire can never hurt me so long as it burns my own aura.
 Blast it, there were a lot of them...  I thrust my hands forward,
sending the burning orb slamming into the leading creature before
shielding my face from the impending explosion.  Once the flame leaves
my hands, it is as deadly to me as it is to any other.

The rush of superheated air nearly knocked me on my tail.  The little
monsters shrieked in shrill voices, many of them flying skyward,
wrapped in flame.  I think I took out five or six, but I didn't have
time to count.  I turned and resumed my run as soon as I regained my
balance.

By that point I was becoming exhausted.  My tongue involuntarily hung
out of my mouth as I took in short gasps of  cool air.  I hated
panting.  I glanced up, expecting to have fallen far behind the rest
of the squad, but much to my surprise Vale stood there waiting.  Her
gauze was fixed behind me as she coldly stared the surviving creatures
down.  In her right claw she wielded a long slender blade, though it
was less slender than swords I've seen of eastern design.  The
mirror-like metal reflected the image of the dying flames behind me.

The russet-furred dhole waited for me to catch up, then ran by my
side.  I suppose she realized I was the only one capable of fending
off the beasts, so thought it safer by me.  A shallow ravine loomed
ahead, and Vincent, Rufus, and Claudia disappeared down into it,
perhaps thinking the forest on the other side would offer us the
chance to loose the beasts.  My eyes widened as Vale and I approached
the edge before the decline and looked down.  The three were
surrounded by perhaps two dozen of the creatures...  What were these
things?!

Two creatures broke off of the group and began trotting up the hill to
meet us.  Six of our original pursuers caught up and the eight quickly
formed a ring around Vale and I.  Blast it!  A rumbling growl emanated
from my throat as I extended my claws, desperately trying to summon
flame before they could close in.  They were hideous things, like
mounds of dirt held together by spindly plants.   Some bore metal
weapons, jagged swords and knives.  Others seemed to have weapons
comprised of the same materials as their earthy flesh.

We stood back-to-back, Vale with her gleaming sword held low, me with
my burning hands outstretched.  I took a few steps in reverse as the
circle began to tighten, but jumped when my tail brushed against hers.
  (The creatures merely had me nervous.)  Blast it!  A near fatal
distraction.  A clay-and-plant monster thrust its spindly sword
forward, barely clipping my left arm.  I sidestepped to the right,
nearly tumbling over, and grasped the thing by its earthy arm for
leverage.  Got you.  Close contact was enough, and I poured the flame
into its body, setting it ablaze.   It flailed around screaming as it
withered and died.  Motioning towards the next nearest creature, I
discharged the magic stored within my other hand with similar results,
and directed my attention to another after finding I had enough energy
stored in both hands for one more.

And at this point I made an unnerving observation.  Most sentient
creatures become horrified upon seeing members of their party burned
alive, screeching as their bodies twisted, trying to fight the flames.
 Humans are easy to scare.  I've seen an entire goblin horde turn tail
and run at a simple burning of their front line.  Even lutins, in my
limited experience with them, are terrified of flame.  Some flee, some
hesitate.  In any case, the display allows me another chance to
conjure more spells.  Unfortunately, the monsters I fought that day
weren't intimidated in the least.

Another one leapt over the bodies of its burning brethren, brandishing
some sort of stone mace that should have been too heavy for its
spindly arms to carry.  My short sword was out in a flash and I
clumsily deflected it.  We began circling each other, and I caught a
glimpse of how Vale was faring behind me.  She was swinging her blade
around in huge arcs, smacking the remaining four little monsters away
one after another.  She lunged forward, stabbing one right through its
heart, or rather where it should have been.  The creature merely
shrieked once, then struggled to move forward, slashing at Vale's
knees.  Her sword was stuck, and she shook the thing around before she
was able to free it just in time to sever the axe-wielding limb of
another creature.  The one with a gaping hole in its chest rose to its
feet immediately.

I brought my blade up to deflect the heavy mace once more, but my
sword was so small and flimsy...  With a yelp I dropped the weapon,
the painful vibrations from the block traveling up my arms.  I reeled
for a moment before falling backwards on my tail.  The monster wasted
no time, smashing downwards with its mace.  I fell backwards and
rolled out of the way as it struck the ground, dust flying into my
face.  In front of me was a small weed.  I plucked it out of the
ground as I turned upright and threw it at the creature's
foliage-laced chest, sending a plume of flame with it.  The plant
caught on fire as it hit the creature, and it frantically slapped at
its leaves to put the fire out.  The time bought was insufficient,
however, and the monster quickly pressed its foot into my stomach as
it hatefully leered at me.  It had three clawed toes, two at the front
and one at the heel, all digging into my flesh.  I felt as if they
would pierce my intestines...  Then the creature raised its weapon
high...

A flash of silver suddenly split the thing's head from above, the
blade becoming lodged at the base of its neck.  With a violent jerk
Vale ripped her sword from the monster's head and delivered a firm
kick to its side, sending it smashing into the ground.  The remaining
creatures became excited at seeing me lying there like a wounded
animal, but the noble was quick to step over me, slashing them away.
I simply lied there for a moment with my eyes wide, anxiety paralyzing
me.

"Hurry, Virmir!"

Right.  I snapped out of it and swapped fear for anger.  Seething
rage.  I rose to one knee as I clenched my fists, crimson flame slowly
beginning to flicker about them, traveling upwards to my body.  All
the while Vale danced frantic circles around me, narrowly keeping the
little monsters at bay.  The were relentless, insane little monsters.
They kept coming even after the noblewoman had managed to sever some
of their appendages.  Biting, clawing, anything they could do to
kill...  It was a harrowing thirty seconds...

"Get down!" I screamed the instant the spell was ready.

Vale flashed back a frightened glance and hesitated for an instant,
but complied by falling to one knee.  Blast it, when a mage tells you
to get down, you do it!  I leapt towards her in a single bound and
touched the back of her neck with my right claw to ensure that she
would not be scorched.  The delighted creatures swiftly descended upon
our prone forms.  I shut my eyes and slammed my left palm into the
dirt.

The Feaular Tranj, or Fire Bomb, always hurt my ears.  But performing
it with the sensitive ears of a fox proved a hundred times worse.  The
white flash engulfed everything, and the violent BOOM bounced off of
the distant mountain walls five or six times before fading.  I held
Vale in position for a moment just to be safe, then slowly opened my
eyes.

We stood in the center of a fifteen foot diameter circle of charred
ashes.  The grasses and bushes fifty feet and out rustled as bits of
burning bodies fell from the sky.  I would have taken the chance to
laugh maniacally had I been in a better mood.  Instead I fell
backwards in the soot and clamped my ears shut, trying to will away
the horrible ringing.  My entire body ached.  Vale fell on her rear
and did the same, additionally blinking her eyes over and over again.
Probably should have told her to shut them.



Thanks for reading!

-- 
- Virmir
http://virmir.com