RE: TERRARIUM - Round 1: Apocalypse
08-23-2017, 05:54 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-23-2017, 09:55 PM by Hellfish.)
With the advantage of Abhararcan’s aerial spying the pair gradually made their way deeper into the abandoned city, followed at every step by the distant gurgling howls of the undead. The roving creatures were slow-moving, if persistent, and several times they were nearly caught between two or more packs as they picked their way through the empty streets.The city’s broken towers rose above them like decrepit giants, the hollow eyes of their windows watching them sadly.
“Are they really dead?” Mercator asked, shards of glass crunching under his feet. “I mean, they’re still moving, ain’t they?”
I know dead when I smell it. I’ve seen armies of corpses walking, in my day, Abhararcan bragged. Mercator spun it thoughtfully between his fingers as he trudged along the street. You’re too young to know about it, but in Tell Khar a necromancer raised a host of ten thousand wights from the necropolis. I was there, of course, so she didn’t succeed in taking the city. They come apart like wet paper when you strike them. Pride radiated from the arrow’s mind like heat from a candle.
“I don’t know if I would have wanted to see that,” Mercator said. The empty city was starting to put him on edge; nothing like the metropolis he was used to. Here and there he would see a ruined storefront that would remind him, just for a moment, of some place back home, some deli or bar. It was unsettling.
Well, no one wants to see it, that’s not the point, the arrow said. Mercator felt its vision rolling around the area, making his own eyes follow in sympathy. Somewhere nearby there was a faint, rather mechanical tune playing, as though someone had left a music box out in the open.
That sounds like bait, Abhararcan said with an undercurrent of excitement. For the dead? For the living?
“If it’s bait,” Mercator said hesitantly, “Shouldn’t we not-”
Shut up! God! You are so goddamn boring. Follow it! Now!
Mercator hurried to obey, nocking the arrow as he went. It thrummed with bloodlust as he half-crouched, half-ran towards the sound. It was coming from an alleyway, the entrance nearly blocked by a collapsed awning. Closer the song was rather charming, some tinkling thing like a child’s lullaby.
In there. In there!
Mercator kicked the wreckage of the awning aside. There, curled between two crumbling walls, was what looked like a food cart, the smell of boiled corn thickly wafting over the similarly powerful scent of eviscera. Mercator almost thought for a moment that there were two people waiting by the cart’s side as if to order- but no, only one of the figures was human, and it was dead, its head smashed to a watery red pulp. The other-
A cheerful red hood over a masked face was the only human thing about it, this mechanical insect-like thing hunched over the corpse with a needle sticking out from under one of its four wrists. It was delicately maneuvering the body into a sitting position, nosing its needle deep into the femoral artery as blood still fresh enough to flow was sucked somewhere into the thing’s anatomy. It turned as Mercator entered, peacefully, still whistling its cheery little song. “Have you come to buy?” it asked curiously, tucking the needle back into its arm with a precise click.
Mercator had already fired, Abhararcan’s prodding for once not needed.
“Are they really dead?” Mercator asked, shards of glass crunching under his feet. “I mean, they’re still moving, ain’t they?”
I know dead when I smell it. I’ve seen armies of corpses walking, in my day, Abhararcan bragged. Mercator spun it thoughtfully between his fingers as he trudged along the street. You’re too young to know about it, but in Tell Khar a necromancer raised a host of ten thousand wights from the necropolis. I was there, of course, so she didn’t succeed in taking the city. They come apart like wet paper when you strike them. Pride radiated from the arrow’s mind like heat from a candle.
“I don’t know if I would have wanted to see that,” Mercator said. The empty city was starting to put him on edge; nothing like the metropolis he was used to. Here and there he would see a ruined storefront that would remind him, just for a moment, of some place back home, some deli or bar. It was unsettling.
Well, no one wants to see it, that’s not the point, the arrow said. Mercator felt its vision rolling around the area, making his own eyes follow in sympathy. Somewhere nearby there was a faint, rather mechanical tune playing, as though someone had left a music box out in the open.
That sounds like bait, Abhararcan said with an undercurrent of excitement. For the dead? For the living?
“If it’s bait,” Mercator said hesitantly, “Shouldn’t we not-”
Shut up! God! You are so goddamn boring. Follow it! Now!
Mercator hurried to obey, nocking the arrow as he went. It thrummed with bloodlust as he half-crouched, half-ran towards the sound. It was coming from an alleyway, the entrance nearly blocked by a collapsed awning. Closer the song was rather charming, some tinkling thing like a child’s lullaby.
In there. In there!
Mercator kicked the wreckage of the awning aside. There, curled between two crumbling walls, was what looked like a food cart, the smell of boiled corn thickly wafting over the similarly powerful scent of eviscera. Mercator almost thought for a moment that there were two people waiting by the cart’s side as if to order- but no, only one of the figures was human, and it was dead, its head smashed to a watery red pulp. The other-
A cheerful red hood over a masked face was the only human thing about it, this mechanical insect-like thing hunched over the corpse with a needle sticking out from under one of its four wrists. It was delicately maneuvering the body into a sitting position, nosing its needle deep into the femoral artery as blood still fresh enough to flow was sucked somewhere into the thing’s anatomy. It turned as Mercator entered, peacefully, still whistling its cheery little song. “Have you come to buy?” it asked curiously, tucking the needle back into its arm with a precise click.
Mercator had already fired, Abhararcan’s prodding for once not needed.