Bloody Kisses Amidst Suicidal Dreams {Part 1}

[Nwalmaer]

“The regime has fallen. The state of affairs of the government is pathetic. Shambles of the once militaristic isolationism nation are scattered and free for those willing to rise up and take them. It is not unrealistic to assume that the very name of Alerar could be erased if order is not restored. Yet, the damned officials do nothing. They sit in their keeps, behind their walls, on thrones of gold and hope the taint of chaos does not touch them. They do not know what harm they cause. The corruption they fear is already eating away at their hearts, their minds, and their souls. They fear it because they cannot see it, and because it is very real.

“For those outside the walls, those people that cannot defend themselves from the roving sell-sword out to earn an easy coin, or the rage filled Kyorl that roam the streets, there is no compassion in Alerar today. The once glorious Thoracis with his shining example, his fucking pride, promised but never delivered. The drow assassin that followed, little more than an impractical prick having filled a position of power for the promise of dominion over others alone; he has long since disappeared. His wake is not gone though. No, it lingers in the shadows, in the alleys that were once safe to walk. It lingers in the fleeting name of The Banishment, on the tongues of the outcast mercenary, Kyorl.

“Neither leader was good for the nation. No prosperity was brought, the economics dwindled just as fast – if not faster when Praenuntio held sway over the political relations – the affairs to the east were no closer to being closed. ‘Great General Thoracis’, the people that survive without his ‘glorious’ leadership have all but forgotten his name. His deeds were once unanimous with the betterment of the nation, once the name was revered by the children for his war against the Raiaeran elves. No more do they celebrate his memory. No longer do any of us.

“For a new power is awoken, a far more dangerous thing than any of Alerar’s people could have imagined. It woke when the realization of the weak infrastructure was realized. It budded in the minds of everyone in the drow aristocracy. Bloomed with the dying breath of the queen, and flourished on her last word. All hail the end of days! All hail the usurpers who took the throne! All hail the refuse engulfing the drow, the rot that eats at our society!

“Not us. No. We will not be like them. We will rise above, be something more. In the remembrance of the queen we will eliminate the revolution that has stirred and boiled. We will remove that which is embraced due to obligation, not respect. The Kyorl has been destroyed, the Banishment has been strewn across our great nation, and only one truth threat remains. The remnants of an attempt to build a more sinister, wicked version of those devious assassins still lingers.

“The Sereg'wethrin are hiding, their numbers unknown. But by our blood we will destroy them. We do not fight with blind rage, but for the irrevocable purification of our home land. This filth waits at our hearts. They give heed to the word of the traitorous head of the throne of power. And with their destruction we will give way to the age of prosperity, Alerar’s preparation for the final destruction of the Raiaeran elves, and our dominance on Althanas!”


~X~

The words weighed heavily the one yet lingering within the hallowed halls of the Elen En’Alerar. The speaker of the house, who’s face was never to be seen or their identities known, had offered a speech much like he had the previous few days. They were turning more violent, more zealous, and more inspiring to those that believed in the seeds he was planting. Many were like the young drow Feredir, emboldened by the words screamed from the pedestal, flustered and ashamed by their lack of devotion to the cause. The young drow is a warrior though, not a fickle mage of Raiaera. He would kill the profane that polluted Alerar just as the speaker commanded – a man who might as well be god to the Elen En’Alerar.

Never mind the fact that the mass murder of fellow drow is for the simplistic and trite excuse that they disagree with what you have to say. It is not war because it is attractive though, is it? Would it have been something palatable it would not be warfare, it would be an attractive painting hung on an aristocrat’s wall for their vain pleasure. No, conflict was not something that others looked highly upon, though the necessity of it is undeniable. Feredir was one of the hundred that would dawn the mask of war, hide behind a miasma of lies, and remove the threat of the Sereg’wethrin – unholy assassin spawn created by drow technology and ingenuity, and Salvaran magic.

He rose from his place. The others are already gone, the room quiet, just a lone drow pondering thoughts in the shelter of the hidden room. The cloud of deceit was thick, hard to see through. The mask was firmly in place, sliding into grooves worn and dug by the words of the true ‘righteous’ of Alerar. Peering around the room with a visage of resolve a sigh passes his thin lips. It was a pleasure being a member of so true and real a society as the Elen En’Alerar. His soul is sold, his mind warped, but the enemy he seeks is not an enemy easily found… nor one that he would so willingly gamble his life against should he had known.

The shambles the speaker had preached was true. Alerar had fallen to a state of disrepair, long overdue for the rise of the lower classes. Would they have taken an initiative and done more, instead of cowering in the mire of their own refuse, they would have spurred the economy. The distant, powerful orator lectured on the downfall of the common man, he spoke of the garbage they spew from every orifice only to lie in it for comfort of mind. How ridiculous had society become to allow the avarice of the government to overrule the needs and desires of the backbone of the very culture?

The drow warrior touches the right door frame as he walks through. He touches his forehead with his first two fingers, kisses the two outstretched fingers, and touches the frame again. Behind him the emptiness of the room is consumed by the only true omniscience reality can claim; darkness and shadows. To look into the room is to feel the empty void looking back, as if the proverbial eyes and ears of the room’s four blank walls are watching every move. Feredir looks back; his stoic eyes a muted stone coloration, his mind racing. No one waits, despite the feeling of a pair of piercing eyes stabbing his back when he turns. He was the last. All that rests is the babble soaked walls, screaming thoughts that bound about the room freely, emotions that drown the very sensation of sanity with there passing.

Under his breath he sighs again, turning finally and closing the door behind him. It clicks lightly, quietly. The latch falls, and the recoiling noise is barely audible, yet sounds worse than a clash of swords on a clear hushed night. He pats his blade, mumbling: “Soon enough.” His mumblings are those of the disturbed, the depraved and morbid souls who find pleasure in their grizzly tasks. But young Feredir’s mind is filled with promises of the purity of Alerar. Being a child of the nation and having lived for over seventy years throughout its gradual and sharp decline alike, why would he will for anything less?

[Nwalmaer]

The project moved quickly, as it had been from day one. The workers scurry from room to room, tank to tank, charts in hand and notes scribbled about each observation made. The dank cave infrastructure is small, housing a network of tunnels beneath the Fields of Khu’fein. Within them live those working on the project, the creation of new strings of racial augmentations designed to form the most perfect warriors of Alerar. The tunnels are quiet, silence long since having consumed the bustling network. There is much to do, far too much to greet a passerby, stop and have idle chatter with another, or anything remotely characteristic of recreation.

Creatures are being made, the Sereg’wethrin are being blended and added to, formed by the intricate minds of the drow and the powerful magic of the humans. They are to be the pinnacle of Alerar’s technomancy; the pure fusion of metal, machine, life, and sorcery. The first string was created, used, lost. The second would not be, they would not become broken minds tainted and out of control. Their resistance to the mythic Fields would be heightened; the maddening disease would not shred their minds, or the connections that linked them to the Freiherr in control of the experiments. Those involved would not fail as the first had. They would not be killed for their miscalculations and misguided attempts at linking.

“Vanya,” the voice of the man is strong, confident, no question in any mind present as to who it belonged to. The drow woman turns, her eyes falling and meeting the pressed dirt floor instead of the eyes of Freiherr Talfagoron. The man is one of the few without dirt caking his boots, their sheen reflecting the dull light of the awakening chamber. She wonders if he had done any work at all, or if his presence is required for the sole fact that the culture demands the constant degradation of the lower, non-nobility despite their utmost use. “We are being commanded to cut the second string today.”

She wants to raise her head, wants to speak but the opportunity has not been given to her yet. “The first strand has strayed far too long. Our Burgraf fears their discovery. If we do not return or eliminate each of the first four then we will have our heads put on a stake for our failures. If the existence of the race reaches the ears of the people, or worse yet beyond the seas or across the mountains, it will be the heads of our beloved Alerar that will suffer. Am I understood?”

Was he truly asking her? The answer is clear; she knows that the question must be rhetorical. Why then is he still standing before her? Why are the tips of his boots clicking nervously? They kick up dust around them, the clear shine surrounded by a slowly drifting cloud of dirt, embracing the traitorous oils. She takes the chance, raises her head to his knee level, and sees the top of his curled leather boots. It has been a long time since she has seen the tip of his boots, years since he was nothing more than another drow without prestige. The new King and the administration that surrounded him must think highly of those Aleraran people that strike fear into the rest.

“It is understood Freiherr. The second strand will be released immediately. Do you wish to command them personally? Or are they being restrained by another?” Seconds pass, time uncountable. Did she offend? Was he thinking? Finally his voice booms once again, his boots having turned and steps taken towards the exit before the first wave redoubles off the far wall.

“I will assume personal responsibility of them this time.”

When the final tap of his boots was stilled by the distance, and his journey back to his quarters assured, the drow lifts her head once again. With a quivering hand she pushes aside a strand of loose black hair, the silky texture slips loose of one of the sharp ears and falls to her shallow cheeks. As her hand falls it touches the three golden hoop rings, reminding her of her place, her slave like status to Talfagoron. Her dark eyes look from side to side, her head following as she meets the eyes of the other four drow within the chamber.

“Today?” One asks; his voice timid, scared. “But… they are not prepared correctly yet. Their minds have the possibilities of splitting the same way the first strand did. These Fields are a powerful source of untapped, raw energy, but far too unstable to be considered manageable by any means.”

Vanya looks at the boy. She has lived for two hundred years, studied the convoluted mystic fusion of technology and magic known as technomancy. The woman is one of the most experienced, though her servitude status has given her no other option with her life but the will of the Freiherr. The only greater technomancers available had already failed in their duty, failed in their mingling of magic and technology. Their heads were a constant reminder of their failures.

“Do you think I don’t know that?!” She snaps as she storms towards the sleeping chambers the next five are resting in. The pod-like chambers are closed, the chimera within waiting in an induced coma, waiting for the finalization of the link that places them together. Whether they are ready or not it does not matter, the command was given. Issued by the lower noble, to a personal servant be she his or not, Vanya has no option but to do as he commands.

For the first time though, for as long as she can remember, questions bud in her inquisitive mind. Should they be released and find their way to the same path as their predecessors will it be her head on the spikes that line the entrance? Or would the head of Talfagoron be adorning the chambers of the King? Her servitude would be at an end if he was put to death, but she would probably follow right behind him for the disappointment. If she did not though, if she is granted her freedom, what a gift her technomancy and the wild homunculus would be.

With a soft hand she touches the latches at the front of each pod, in order from first to last as it was designed. The white, seven foot shells buzz, a rhythmic and cacophonous noise that fills the chamber and drifts into the hallways. Clicking the locks at the base and head pop, releasing their hold. Mechanical arms shift in whining movements as the head of the sarcophagus shaped case is slowly pulled away. A cloud of smoke drifts listlessly from the opening, seeping more and more as it expands. The smoke drifts down the side like an avalanche, spreading across the ground. It is cold, soft, swirling irritably around the ankles of the drow woman as she shifts towards the first pod.

The beasts eyes open, pure white without a set of pupils to still the nerves of the technomancer or her companions. Its T shaped nose wiggles, sniffing the air. A pale, bone-white tongue slips from between its lipless hairy muzzle, testing the air for the first time. It is alive. The second is not, eyes never opening, a collapsed skull speaking volumes for the cause of its unsuccessful attempt at life. “I said it should have been aborted,” Vanya whispers as an aggravated curse under her breath. “I said it would not survive.”

She turns to the other three, but five more pairs of bland eyes find hers as she looks around. The sound of the resurrection has drawn a crowd. No matter, the task is completed, as her lineage has demanded, and four out of five of the creatures are living and breathing. Should they play god with their knowledge? Who ever questioned their abilities, whoever gave query into their strange practices? None, and no thought of failure was ever put to word.