RE: Grand Battle (S?) (Round 1: Matmor Atoll)
06-14-2013, 01:04 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-14-2013, 01:20 AM by Brom.)
And Volter St. Kepral was left gasping on the calcified ridge of an alien world.
His inky eyes stung and ran with the unfamiliar sensation of brine. He took one unsteady step, collapsed onto his hands and knees, and dry retched heavily.
The air. Why is the air so heavy?
The ground beneath his hands dug shallow grooves into his palm in a thousand little places. It was pale, and knurled, and desperately foreign.
He was on parade grounds. Where were the parade grounds? It was a moment ago he was watching the Duke emerge from the castellated gate, all train and polished brass and fanfare.
And now he was knelt, he realized slowly, on a spit of coral, surrounded by horribly bright, horribly clear water, blending into a razor-straight horizon.
His breath pushed through him in sharp, desperate half-sobs of disbelief. His fingers curled and palpated along the ground until they closed around the reassuring haft of his halberd.
The monumental loss he had just experienced did not yet register in Volter's panicking mind. Its extremity was some great undiscovered void on the rim of his consciousness. But he was Officer St. Kepral, and he was a palace guard for Cloudrest, and he was a soldier, and he was not without his Halberd.
He propped it shakingly upright and tugged himself to his feet.
Analyze, Volter. Analyze, triangulate, and adapt. Find the higher ground.
There it was. A long, crust-over lancet of coral several hundred paces off, blading high and sharpened off into the air. It looked for all the world like a colossal spear, thrust up and grotesquely assertive from the glassy ocean.
Whatever it was, The Gandeerish Duelist's creed was very clear: verticality meant a better look, a stronger position, and maybe, in this case, the chance for Volter to see one of those nightmares held captive on this thrice-accursed strand before they saw him. Perhaps from there, he would see the shoreline of Cloudrest again. Perhaps he could glide home. The Duke would be furious, of course, and it would be privy duty for a week at least, but perhaps things were all right.
He tightened his grip on the tiny piece of world he had brought with him as the reassuring hish of compressed air rose and thrummed and then blasted through the tubes snaking along his greaves. It plucked him from the atoll like a breeze catching a dandelion achene.
Volter soared.
His inky eyes stung and ran with the unfamiliar sensation of brine. He took one unsteady step, collapsed onto his hands and knees, and dry retched heavily.
The air. Why is the air so heavy?
The ground beneath his hands dug shallow grooves into his palm in a thousand little places. It was pale, and knurled, and desperately foreign.
He was on parade grounds. Where were the parade grounds? It was a moment ago he was watching the Duke emerge from the castellated gate, all train and polished brass and fanfare.
And now he was knelt, he realized slowly, on a spit of coral, surrounded by horribly bright, horribly clear water, blending into a razor-straight horizon.
His breath pushed through him in sharp, desperate half-sobs of disbelief. His fingers curled and palpated along the ground until they closed around the reassuring haft of his halberd.
The monumental loss he had just experienced did not yet register in Volter's panicking mind. Its extremity was some great undiscovered void on the rim of his consciousness. But he was Officer St. Kepral, and he was a palace guard for Cloudrest, and he was a soldier, and he was not without his Halberd.
He propped it shakingly upright and tugged himself to his feet.
Analyze, Volter. Analyze, triangulate, and adapt. Find the higher ground.
There it was. A long, crust-over lancet of coral several hundred paces off, blading high and sharpened off into the air. It looked for all the world like a colossal spear, thrust up and grotesquely assertive from the glassy ocean.
Whatever it was, The Gandeerish Duelist's creed was very clear: verticality meant a better look, a stronger position, and maybe, in this case, the chance for Volter to see one of those nightmares held captive on this thrice-accursed strand before they saw him. Perhaps from there, he would see the shoreline of Cloudrest again. Perhaps he could glide home. The Duke would be furious, of course, and it would be privy duty for a week at least, but perhaps things were all right.
He tightened his grip on the tiny piece of world he had brought with him as the reassuring hish of compressed air rose and thrummed and then blasted through the tubes snaking along his greaves. It plucked him from the atoll like a breeze catching a dandelion achene.
Volter soared.
let's post righteously & having good times /// check out The Book of the Courtier /// ensure proper vegetable consumption /// also check out The Blade and the Cycle /// post it up!!