How Everything Changes...

[Witchblade]

Alerar.

Yep, Alerar.

It was one of the only regions on Althanas that Witch tended to shy away from. She didn’t know why and really she’d never bothered questioning it because there wasn’t much interesting in the place anyway. It was just a bunch of Drow and Dwarves and in her opinion the Dwarves stunk something fierce to her sensitive nose. She preferred to keep as far away from them as physically possible and well, Corone was pretty far away. At least from there, their horrid smell would not come for her. Though she disliked the place she now found herself wandering through some random area of it. Alerar wasn’t a place of forests; instead it was fields and valleys with cute little happy, bright flowers that danced with every breeze. It made her long for the deep, tangled boughs of Concordia. The paths she knew all too well and the smells and sights that were a comfort to her even if they were solitude. Of course, her solitude was not so bad with Daegun by her side.

Shame most of the time he just slept.

That’s what he was doing at the current moment too, sleeping. She could hear the odd sounds he made in the throes of his dreams coming from the depths of her rucksack. His tail was pressed uncomfortably into her back as well and every time she’d tried to nudge him into another position with her elbow it hadn’t worked. So she’d given up hours ago and contented herself to just ignore the constant pressure digging into her spine. Her cloak was helping to dull it a bit anyway.

Every now and then she’d pass by a small farming community that had ripped up the land and selfishly plant what they needed to survive. She was quite sure that from the air it would look like patches of earth in almost perfect rectangles and squares instead of the seemingly random patterns that nature itself created. She preferred them to these little villages and especially the larger cities like Ettermire, which was why she steered clear of them and kept to the fields. She needed no directions and she certainly did not want to talk to any of them let alone get near them. They weren’t human, they were Drow, though she was pretty sure she’d spotted a few humans here and there, but that didn’t mean she wanted to walk right up to them and be friendly.

It was a good thing she could avoid all of these places on her way to Kachuk. It would make the journey easier and less complicated, not to mention much quicker. Whenever she went into town she always found herself getting dragged into one thing or another and the next thing she knew she was knee deep in danger fighting for her life, not that she really minded that. She actually enjoyed being knee deep in danger and she definitely enjoyed killing things but now was not the time for it. She was just here to pick up something real quick and then be on her way. Nothing needed to happen in between and nothing was going to happen in between. She may actually have to talk to a few Dwarves to find the exact location of the item but besides that it should go over rather smoothly.

Of course it would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to travel all this way just to get the item.

From out of nowhere, even on this clear and bright sunny day, a ninja dropped down in front of Witch and silently handed her a piece of rolled up parchment before jumping back up into the air and once again disappearing.

Why can’t you just communicate like normal people?

Unrolling the parchment, Witch began to read the words written:


“Stop complaining or I’ll throw a group of bandits at you that you’ll have to defeat before you can even think of getting that sword.

Sincerely Megan

P.S. Don’t complain about me communicating like a normal person when you’re the one whose mouth is sown shut.”

The halfling growled as she crumpled up the parchment and threw it into the tall grass beside her, My mouth is only sown shut because you made it happen to me!

Not expecting another answer from her she was actually surprise when another ninja dropped down in front of her and handed her yet another piece of parchment. She examined him for a moment wondering if it was in fact the same ninja that had appeared in front of her seconds ago but she could see no characteristics other than his eyes, they were a brown so dark they almost looked black. The rest of him was covered in tradition black clothing covering him from head to toe. Even Witch would have an extremely hard time spotting him in the dark. She did wonder why her creator chose to use ninjas as her messengers though, especially in broad daylight when they tended to stick out.

Grabbing the parchment from him, the murderess didn’t even bother watching him go as she quickly opened it, not caring that she was bending and creasing the delicate piece of paper; she was just going to throw it out anyway:


“Yes, I did have your mouth sown shut and I can do much worse. So stop your bitching and start walking.

Sincerely, your benevolent creator, Megan.”

Crushing the parchment in her hands, the halfling snarled as the paper burst into flames and turned into nothing more than ash. She really, really hated her creator. That bitch had some serious issues she needed to have dealt with; either that or she was some kind of masochist. Who has a person’s mouth sown shut? Honestly, that’s one the cruellest things you could do and on top of that the string used to do it is enchanted so it’s not even like she could cut them, no she had to break the magic seal on them first which she had no idea how to do! One of these days she was going to get her revenge, somehow, some way. Until then, she had to get that stupid sword.

[Koran]

Shit.

This was bad. Real bad.

The air was clear and clean cut, icy winds pummeling his face as he swooped up or down, catching warm thermals rising up from the earth far below him. He could see for miles in every direction, pick out small details on the ground below him, catch the faint glimmer of bright, distant stars in the heavens above him. This however, wasn't at all the source of his discomfort. Indeed, quite the contrary. This landscape was rather appealing to him, it felt good and he wouldn't have minded at all simply landing and enjoying it from a normal persons perspective.

No, it was the fact that this landscape was one he had never seen before, that brought about his discomfort. He squinted down at the land beneath him, trying to find any recognizable land mark.

No, it was no use. It was official, he was lost.

Shit, shit, shit, shit shit!

He tipped his wings to the left and banked slowly in a ever narrowing circle, staring silently down at the land beneath him, a scowl growing steadily on his face.

Well, as he saw it, he had two real, accessible and probable options. He could either continue flying and hope he was going in the right direction - flying for hours on end was terribly boring and he just couldn't say if he'd end up back where he wanted to be or someplace he'd really rather not be. Or, two, he could land and ask some directions and hope to whatever god or gods were worshiped here, that they knew where they were and how to get where he wanted to be.

The latter was most certainly the most complicated of the two, probably the most painful but also possibly the most entertaining. The former was easy, boring and very unentertaining. The machine contemplated the two for about a half a nano second before making his decision.

His wings tipped and he banked to the left again, aiming toward the ground. Once he picked a spot of land on the ground he marked it mentally in his head and then tucked his wings in close to his body, straightened his limbs and flattened them to his body, and each other. What happened next was perhaps the funnest part of his stolen ability to fly, the free fall.

Once, a long time ago, he had attained what he thought was close to four hundred miles per hour during a free fall, but with very little to base his speed on when falling straight down, it had been a wild guess in the dark. This time was no different however, as it was hard to make air to ground speed calculations when you didn't know your altitude at the start. He could make rough estimates, very rough, but in the end that was why they were, rough estimates with no conclusive closure or accuracy. Perhaps one day he'd find the time to actually try and calculate all that stuff out. In the mean time however, he thought he'd best focus on not slamming into the ground at umpteen miles per hour.

His wings snapped open at what he thought was about two thousand feet, and he hauled himself into a slow spirally descent as he searched for a place to land and people to talk to.

*~~~*

Fields.

That meant farms.

Farms meant farmers.

Farmers meant they hadn't the slightest clue as to where they were.

Fucking shit.

Graduating up the cursing scale had always been a fun event for the cyborg, this time however, it was rather frustrating. He'd have to find a city.

Wonderful.

He banked his wings to the left and spiraled up and away from the ground he had just been about to land on. He was just about to start climbing in altitude when a lone figure appeared in the fields below him. Normally he wouldn't have paid much attention to a single, lonely figure, especially not in this environment but this one was different and his attention it received. It might have been the simple fact that it didn't look anything like a farmer, or the fact that twice in less than six seconds, two people appeared out of nowhere, addressed something to the figure and then left just as suddenly.

Umm, okay. That was weird.

He banked around again just in time to see whomever it was get rather pissed and catch something alight in its hand. Suddenly he was not so inclined to land and ask this person directions. He looked up at the sky, then back to the ground, then back to the sky again. He sighed and banked toward the figure.

He landed with a heavy whump on the ground some fifteen feet in front of the figure, put on what he thought was a winning smile and extended his hand in a friendly greeting.

"My apologies for just materializing from thin air, but I was wondering if you could grant me with directions back to Radasanth, Corone?"

Koran's Appearance at the moment (because I'm not sure I have an accurate description in his profile) is something closely akin to a night elf with large, leathery bat like wings. He wears dark green - almost black except in direct sunlight, then it sort of glitters between the two colors - clothing, dark green leather boots and has a bark green scarf covering his nose and mouth, tied around his face just below his ears. His great sword is strapped to his back, laying flat against his back with the hilt coming up between his shoulder blades and wing connections.

[Witchblade]

She was just in the middle of graphically going over how she could dismember her creator very, very slowly and still allow her to live through the majority of it when she felt something tickle the edge of her senses. At first she ignored it, after all it was probably just some stupid farmer or even then an animal. But then she felt it growing closer to her from…the sky. It wasn’t human, that much she was certain of. After all, there wouldn’t be any reason for a human to be in the sky unless they were plummeting to their death, which was a rather humorous experience to witness. But, no, it wasn’t human. Her senses were accurate enough to tell her that, the thing was they couldn’t seem to tell her exactly what it was. The only thing she was able to sense was the energy. Male, female, nothing. Just energy. So she shrugged it off, curiosity be damned, she didn’t have the time to deal with it and it clearly wasn’t her problem. Until it plummeted from the sky and practically landed in her lap some fifteen paces ahead of her.

Due to the speed that the thing hit the ground at, Witch was expecting a pile of broken bones and mushy flesh resembling what had once been the body of some creature or another. So when the elfish looking something or other stood up and offered his hand to her, she was a little surprised and more than a little suspicious. She would even have a hard time surviving that kind of fall, well maybe not, but she’d probably have quite a few broken bones and she wouldn’t be able to get up right afterwards and be all chirpy and happy like, that was for sure. She’d probably be on the pissed side actually, since a fall like that would not be on purpose and would most likely be the cause of someone else’s doing.

The thing in front of her looked like no elf she’d ever seen before, though clearly that’s what it was supposed the be. The ears gave it away and the skin colour, it was bizarre. It didn’t even smell like an elf.

Ignoring the proffered hand and the meaningless words he spoke to her for the moment, the halfling began to move closer to the…elf. From the darkness of her hood she examined the creature from head to toe. It was supposed to be male but it didn’t give off the usual smell most men gave off, of any species. Every species and person smelled different, but under that was the scent of a male or a female, but he had none of that. She even noticed how his eyes were wrinkled at the edges meaning beneath that green scarf covering half of his face he was most likely smiling, not that she could be absolutely positive. It was impossible for her to see much of his face at all except for his eyes, which appeared to be a solid black. Appearances could be deceiving though, for as she stepped closer to him there definitely seemed something odd about them and him. From here she could pick up the smells of metal, oil and other various liquids she could not properly describe more so than flesh and blood.

It was intriguing.

Once she was about three feet from him, the halfling began to circle the being before her. Her eyes pausing for a moment on the massive sword set between two black and leathery wings not unlike her own. It was an impressive weapon and would take more strength than a normal human possessed to lift it, let alone carry it around on their back. Then he would have to be able to wield it properly and quickly. Swords like that could be clumsy and awkward if one didn’t know how to use them. Witch preferred shorter weapons like her daggers and sais. They allowed her to get up close and personal and really see the fear in their eyes before they died. This man, no, this being before her would truly be an interesting opponent, especially is he was quick with that smasher of his. But now was not the time for her to be fighting, nor the place. She usually tried to keep her battles to The Citadel as of late, she attracted less attention to herself and the bodies were revived afterwards.

“Interesting…very interesting.”

By the time she finally spoke to him, she’d travelled around him two times and was once again facing him only feet apart.

“Radasanth is quite the distance to fly from here.” She specifically did not tell him where that here happened to be. “But why don’t you show me what you really look like as I’m not going to believe you’re an elf for one second. You don’t smell like an elf.”

He actually didn’t smell like anything she’d ever come across before, but she wasn’t about to tell him that or shake his hand for that matter. Witchblade did not touch people and she really, really, preferred it when they didn’t touch her. She was also rather positive they preferred it that way as well considering she had a bad habit of removing the limb that happened to brush against her skin and even sometimes killing the person. Though leaving them in pain and agony was also a top one of her list, especially if they were left with only half of their arm. Let that be a lesson to someone who touched another without permission.

[Koran]

Have you ever wondered what the slave must feel like, standing alone on the block, bound and strung to a pole by a rope, awaiting his or her fate at the lash or pole? When the figure the cyborg had addressed asking for directions suddenly began circling him, eying him up and down, taking in his every physical characteristic, he suddenly found himself wondering exactly that.

Twice the figure circled, and twice the cyborg felt the piercing gaze of the figures eyes against his flesh. It was an unnerving feeling, not because the figure was studying him, but that it was doing it in such a manner that denoted a slaver checking his stock, or perhaps a predator studying its prey just before the kill. It was enough to slowly slid the smile from his face and retract his arm slowly back to a rest position against his side.

The figure stopped its circling just a few paces to his front and stood, silent and shrouded in the shadow cast from its black cloak. There too it studied him and he felt anger begin to boil in his gut as it did so and pulled back his lips in a sneer. He lifted his hand, pointer finger extended toward the figure, and was just about to open his mouth to demand the reason for its actions, when something brushed across his mind. Words failed him and his hand stopped, half-way extended toward the figure as the brush became thought, and those thoughts became words.

"Radasanth is quite the distance to fly from here. But why don’t you show me what you really look like as I’m not going to believe you’re an elf for one second. You don’t smell like an elf."

He stared, stunned and slowly his hand reached up toward his head, gripping the side as though something had just hit him there. Slowly the feeling faded, and along with it, the shock. Soon all that remained were the words, or perhaps the memory of words because he could not recall exactly how they had gotten there. His eyes fell on the silent figure and he squinted.

No, can't be.

Have you ever considered the fact that perhaps things of 'mystic' and 'fable' were perhaps true?

A second voice, this one familiar, echoed through his mind, replacing feeling with thought, thought with words and then back again. He flinched. He knew this voice alright, just as well as he knew himself.

I've never encountered someone with the power to transmit their thoughts.

Well, now you have.

Shut up.

His eyes loosened, losing their squint, and he sighed. Then his eyes widened slightly as something the foreign thoughts had 'said' to him earlier came a little bit clearer.

'Smell like an elf'?

Telepath's have heightened senses.

Oh.

The cyborgs head moved a little back, as if in sudden understanding of something that should have been easy to figure out. Then his eyes abruptly narrowed and his head lowered a little and twisted slightly to his left, as though he was speaking in a whisper to some next to him, or just behind him.

Wait, now how in the fuck would you know that?

I hear things.

Uh-huh, sure. Through my ears! And when the fuck did you hear this?!

Careful, she might hear you.

Buh?

The cyborg lifted his head to stare at the figure. She hadn't moved and he narrowed his eyes. Something he had just said came to him abruptly, and his eyes widened slightly.

Wait, did you say 'she'?

It was the delivery that gave it away. I'll admit however, she is fairly good at hiding it. I almost missed it.

Oh jeez, I can't believe this.

What? The fact that you're talking to yourself, or that you've just encountered a telepath?

Maybe a little of both.

His hand had risen to his head again and he was shaking his head. He pulled the hand away, stared at and then replaced it on his face. He sighed and after a few moments, let it pull the flesh on his face down a bit as it dropped to his side.

I guess, perhaps, that I should indulge in her request then? Lest she get kung-fo queen on me?

That might be a good thing. She looks deadly.

Like I didn't already assume that. At the same time, "All right, if it gets you to say more than it's 'a long way from here,' I'll yield."

And with that the cyborg closed his eyes and formed the image of himself - Us. - in his mind and felt his body shift between one form and the next in all of two seconds. The first things to change were his wings, melting into his shoulders, flowing down into his arms, bulking them up. Then his chest liquefied and stretched, filling out as the mechanical mechanisms designed to adapt and adjust to his constant changing assumed their natural states and structures. Then his waist stretched and extended upward just as his legs reformed and stretched up as well. By this time his arms and chest had finished filling out and the remaining substance from his wings flowed down his body and filled out his waist in legs. The last things to form were details such as scars, facial features, hair and his clothing. He reopened his eyes and spread his arms.

"Do you wish to walk circles around me a second time, or need I only spin in a slow circle?"

Careful.

Can it.

Your funeral.

Whatever.

[Witchblade]

She’d heard of shape shifters. She’d heard of all manner of creatures, beings and magic, but that didn’t mean she’d seen them all and this was definitely a first for her. It was something interesting to see though. The transformation was not long but she had caught most of it. The melting of the skin and the remodelling of the body as he grew taller, his wings disappeared and he filled out. His natural form, if it truly was his natural form, was much bulkier than the elf he had pretended to be and also littered with scars. There was one in particular that ran down across his face and neck and disappeared into the shirt he wore. She couldn’t help was wonder how he got it and just who had been strong enough to give it to him.

His reactions to her speaking within his mind were not new. The halfling had received such looks many, many times. In all honestly she hadn’t expected him to notice at first, most people didn’t. When they couldn’t see her mouth moving due to the shadows of her hood, most humans refused to believe that the words though oddly sounding were not being heard from their ears but were in fact transmitted thoughts inside their minds. Then again, this man was not exactly human. Keeping an open link with him meant that she could pick up on his thoughts, the ones that lingered on the outer surface of his mind. She did have the ability to dig further, but Witch was never one to want to look too deeply within a person unless they had something she wanted. A mind was a private place and she preferred her own thoughts to those of others, especially after years of being forced to listen to them without control over her telepathy.

“You should be wary of the voices that whisper within your mind…”

“You’re one to talk.”

I do not believe I was conversing with you. She was careful that the man could not hear her speaking with The Malice within her. It was easy to conduct and control her own thoughts so that he could only hear what she wanted him to, it was much harder for him to control his so she could only pick up what he wanted her to. After all, when you’re not a telepath, you can’t block your mind like one.

“I don’t remember needing an invitation.”

I don’t remember ever giving you one.

“He seems interesting and he’s definitely not a human.”

Tell me something I don’t know. She growled at it.

“He’s a cyborg.”

She started at that one. Had her hood not been blocking her face he would have seen the brief flicker of emotion pass through her crimson eyes. But there was darkness shrouding her and perhaps he had caught the subtle change her in body language, but perhaps not. It didn’t matter either way.

Are you certain?

“No, I’m lying to you. He’s a cybernetic shape shifter, why don’t you just ask him if you’re so untrusting of me.”

I’ve never trusted you.

She pushed The Malice away. Its influence was the last thing she needed. A trail of bodies following her to the Kachuk Mountains was the last thing she needed and that was exactly what would happen if she interacted with it so much. As of late it had been getting stronger and the urges it planted within her mind to kill were becoming harder to ignore. Concordia had been a safe place to hide but ever since civil war had broken out in Corone she’d been loathe to wander the through the bending and twisting trees. Things were too complicated. And then this had come up. All this for a sword she didn’t even want. So here she was, crossing some grassy plain in Alerar with what might be a cybernetic shape shifter in front of her. The fates truly enjoyed messing with her life. Then again, it wasn’t the fates, it was that bitch, Megan, her creator.

“Koran, Koran, Koran…” She’d picked up his name with the briefest brush against his mind, the easiest of information to gain from someone, “If it pleases you, you may dance your circle in front of me all you want, little man.”

Smirking, Witchblade reached up and pulled back the hood from her face and allowed unnatural crimson eyes set in a deathly pale face to clash with unnatural black ones. Her smirk tugged at strings holding a mouth long ago sown shut for the pleasure of a madman and along her pale cheeks were two purple lines that curved back towards her ear on either side. The scar across his face made the one she hated so much adorning hers look like a scratch. The scar that travelled down through her eyebrow and cut into her cheek. The only reason why she hated it was because like so many other things she had no recollection of how she’d gotten it. Another fragment of a fragmented memory that she would never be able to piece back together.

“I suppose it would be polite to answer that question of yours now, then again, I never have been one to be polite. You are in Alerar, home to the Drow and the Dwarves. Now, it’s my turn to ask you something… what exactly are you?”

The halfling didn’t come out and ask if he was a cybernetic shape shifter, nor did she beat around the bush with the subject. That only wasted her time and though that was something she had in large quantities, patience was not, well, not all the time.

[Koran]

Man, talk about a freaky lady!

You are seriously wanting to die here, aren't you?

What? No, why the hell would I want to do that?

Never mind. If you don't see it, I doubt you ever will.

Ummm, okay.

At that very moment something brushed his mind, turned to thought, became words and then promptly faded. It was hard to pick out everything she said but he figured that it had something to do with being polite and asking a question of her own.

Umm, what did she say?

She said you're a fucking moron and that she'd take delight in carving out your little mechanical heart.

Oh shit!

The cyborgs eyes widened, his face twisting in horror and he moved back a step, arms coming up defensively. There was a moment of silence in his head at that moment and it at that moment it became clear exactly what had just happened to him. The voice began to laugh and the cyborg hastily tried to cover his previous emotional discombobulation by crossing his arms and ducking his head, sniffing loudly.

Jackass.

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.

I'm sure. Now what did she say.

She asked what you are.

The cyborgs head whipped up then, not in terror, but in confusion. He looked hard at the face of the woman in front of him, trying hard not to stare at the man scars and mouth sewn shut, and wondered exactly why she would ask such a question.

Why would she ask me that? She's the telepath.

Telepaths read thoughts and actions, perhaps you're not thinking or acting clearly enough for her.

Are you saying I should think harder?

Oh shit, please no. You might hurt yourself. Just answer her question.

What did you say?!

You know what. Now, talk.

He suddenly felt like he was being pushed, and in a direction he didn't want to go. He tried to resist, tried to pull himself out of the situation he was in, tried to hold back the words back but that something just kept pushing and eventually - all of maybe two or three seconds - he failed and started speaking.

"You'd be the second person I've told concerning exactly what I am. Take some pride in knowing that." Inwardly he growled and if that voice of his had had arms, he knew that the fool would have raised them innocently. If you were alive, I'd kill you. Well, just piss her off. I'm sure she'll be happy to help you with that. "I am a machine. The only flesh I have is what you see, everything else is gears, oil, computer processors, blinking lights and miles of electrical conducting tracts." His arms uncrossed themselves and he bowed for a second time, a wicked sneer pulling his lips back to reveal unnaturally white teeth.

Do you suppose she's satisfied enough to answer my original question with more than just a half hearted attempt?

You don't women do you? They're never satisfied, regardless what you, or any man, does.

Now what in the hell is that supposed to mean?

Be glad in the fact that you don't know, be glad.

[Witchblade]

He was amusing to say the least. The interaction of his own mind playing against the voice that whispered within him was enough to bring a bout of laughter from deep within her throat. It never truly bubbled out of her mouth though, not when her lips were sown shut, but he would clearly be able to hear it none the less. Never in all of her life had she listened to such a thing through a telepathic link, but then again she assumed should another person tap into her mind they might find the interaction between her and The Malice just as humorous. She certainly didn’t. That voice was more trouble than it was worth and could very easily destroy her one of these things. The only kind of satisfaction in that was knowing it would die right along with her and after all, death was only the beginning of another adventure. There was no doubt in her mind that should her physical body die, the soul or energy or whatever it was that was the essence of her would live on.

Even the voice within his head had a great time messing with the shape shifter. She kind of liked his inner voice, sadistic in a certain manner that brought a smile to her lips. It was a good thing she found this whole exchange within him entertaining, otherwise she might get bored or impatient with how long he was taking to answer her. She hated it when people made her wait.

When he started speaking though, the smile slowly slid from her lips. Take pride in what he was telling her? He should be taking pride in the fact that she hadn’t killed him yet. Keeping her temper in check, the halfling crossed her arms under her chest and listened as the man—no machine—explained what he was. Most of it she didn’t understand. The word computer was foreign to her, she’d never even heard of it before. Electrical conducting tracks was even more confusing. She couldn’t wrap her head around what he was saying enough to understand it, but it was clear that The Malice had been right, he was a cyborg, well, not entirely. Cyborg’s were part human part machine, from his explanation he seemed to be all machine. In the back of her mind she wondered if she could touch him without the usual nuisances of physical contact because he wasn’t flesh and blood? It was an interesting thought, yet not one she wanted an answer to any time soon. If she was wrong, she did not feel like going through the whole ordeal of physical contact.

“I have never met a living machine before…”

She was rather tempted to see if he bled like a living creature. She also wondered about what she would hit below the surface of his flesh. Metallic bones perhaps, or maybe a hard metal shell that protected these computer processors and electrical whatevers that he had.

Her arm came down from it’s crossed position under her chest and reached into the darkness of her cloak. Behind her, her fingers wrapped around the worn leather handle of her dagger, but when she moved to remove it from its sheath an unexpected scent caught her on the wind.

“Fucking humans, in Alerar!?”

She spun around on her heel just as she spotted a group of bandits appear practically out of nowhere no less than twenty feet from her and new guest for the time.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

Of course, no one was kidding her. Just to prove this point another one of those damnedable ninjas dropped down from the sky in front of her and handed her another piece of parchment. Ripping it from his grasp and watching him jump about six feet into the air and then disappear, the halfling tore into the paper reading the neatly scribbled note.


“I told you to get a move on it, but no, you had to lolly gag and stand around talking with strangers. Well, now you’ve got a group of bandits to deal with, maybe next time you’ll listen to me.

Sincerely, your benevolent and magnificent creator

Megan”

The brownish piece of paper crumpled within her grip and burst into flame once again, turning into nothing more than ashes that were carried away on the wind. She didn’t even know what it meant to lolly gag, but she could figure it out in her head that it meant standing around doing nothing. That fucking, stupid bitch of a whore. If Witchblade had one goal in her life now it was to kill that woman slowly very, very slowly.

Growling, the halfling pulled the mythril blade from its sheath and reached behind her with he other hand, producing the twin from its sheath. There were about ten bandits, though she could be wrong since they were bunched rather close together. Once they noticed Witch and Koran though, they quickly seemed to form the half-assed plan to attack the two of them and steal whatever valuables they had on their person. She, for one, did not plan on allowing that to happen. The only good thing about this whole bandit mess was that now she had a reason to kill and no one would even blink an eye at some heroine freeing Alerar from a random group of bandits.

With that the last thought to cross her mind, the halfling smirked something that looked too inhuman and turned her face from the porcelain mask it was to the look of the monster that hid just below the surface. Using her speed, Witch covered the distance between her and first bandit in less than two seconds, her form becoming a black blur and once she stopped her daggers were embedded up to the hilt in the stomach of one of the bandits. The look of shock and pain on his face was more than she could have asked for. Ripping the blades from his flesh in a sick, sucking sound, she kicked him away from her and left him to slowly bleed to death on the ground where he belonged.

[Koran]

Bwuh?!

Soooo cliche.

No sooner than had Koran finished his most heartwarming - he thought - description of his inner most self, than did an entire slew of bandits appear. And out of no where to boot!

This would one of those rare moments in life where if you kill first, and ask questions later, you won't get reamed by the lawyers when or if this goes to court.

"Well then," Koran muttered, to himself. "I think I can live with that."

You’d better, cause I don’t give a damn.

Koran was beginning to think that that inner voice of his was more than just a tiny bit on the insane side. It hardly ever showed any emotion, and when it did it was usually some form of crude humor or else some bash on Koran’s particular actions in a certain situation.

Almost sounds like someone you know, don’t it?

Almost.

There has to be at least ten or fifteen of them, Koran thought as he reached back to pull his massive blade from its sheath. And if they’re smart, they’ll all converge on one target to eliminate it as fast as possible, leaving them with as many men as they can keep.

If not?

Fun times.

His massive blade slide free of its sheath, the death black metal ringing softly as it pulled free. The bandits, as it turned out, weren’t smart and split their forces. It became clear at that point that there were only thirteen of them, down from an original fourteen. Koran’s at the moment sorta-friendly telepathic fighting friend, had kindly taken down the first of them. He offered her back a small smile and shifted his lopsided stance into a more suitable one for a weapon the size of his; half crouched, with blade pointing straight up on his left side and slightly behind his horizontal center of gravity.

Bring it on.

Psh.

Of the seven that came toward him, only two wore armor - a battered breast plate on one, and a dented bowl helmet on the other - and only one had something greater than a short sword. Everyone else wore either thin hide or loose fitting cloth clothing and carried a short sword or over glorified dagger. All would need to get close to their target to inflict damage and with the machines longer reaching weapon, this was going to prove challenging for them. So, they did what any fight oriented individual in a large group would do; they spread themselves out to give each other as much fighting and dodging room as possible. Or it might have been because their opponent had such a large weapon. Any weapon of that size must take a lot to swing. So, they’d simply dance around him and dodge in, causing little tiny wounds, slowly wearing their pray out, perhaps lose a man or two, then all rush in once their prey was tired out and then finish the deal. Either way however, that move spelled their doom.

So predictable.

Careful, that which is usually easily predictable has a tendency to become rapidly unpredictable, in very nasty manners.

I know, I know. I was one such manner, or don’t you remember.

I try not to.

The machines lips curled back in a rather nasty looking smile and the bandits returned the smile, blatantly unaware of the doom they were now about to face. The group had now spread into a semi-circle around the machine and was just about to start attacking when the machine struck first.

His first victim was a young man, shaggy blonde hair, clear green eyes, the makings of a nice beard on his face and what would have been a rather nice smile on his lips. All he had was a simple short sword, probably iron, as steel would be reserved for older, more veteran members of the bandit pack, and he was not one of the two with armor. He was smiling when the machine struck , his eyes bright and alert; his face, so full of life.

That all changed in an instant.

Surprise bloomed on his face, like a sun flower opening to the first rays of the spring sun, and a small mist of red peppered his cheeks, mouth and nose. His green eyes, as wide as they could go, flickered, dilated then faded as a milky glaze formed over their surface. The clear blue sky, just visible beyond his shaggy blonde hair, spun violently and abruptly became the dull gray, brown and tan of the earth beneath him.

The machine laughed insanely as his black blade cleared the boys neck, his head popping off like a ball being pressurized in a long hollow tube, and let his blade follow through into the second victim in his abrupt dash forward. The second fellow, an older man, possibly in his forties, the look of a veteran soldier about him, never saw the blade coming and took it clean in the neck. His forward momentum took the blade in a full quarter of its length before stopping but his eyes too, had already glazed over by that point. The machine inhaled sharply.

Death is bad, death is cruel, death is a game and it’s so fucking cool!

What an interesting rhyme. Did you read that somewhere or just now make it up?


You are really, a fucking ass. You know that?

I try.

The machine ripped his blade free from the dead man with a nasty sucking noise, thick red blood squirting from the gaping hole in the mans neck like a waterfall, running down his chest in waves, and reset himself in a defensive position.

That was two down. Five more to go.

[Witchblade]

She didn’t pay attention to the chatter going on inside Koran’s head. Not right now. Not when she could be having such fun instead of listening to the random ramblings of a…machine. It was still something hard for her to swallow to think that he was made of metal and oil and not flesh and blood. There was just something slightly unsettling in her mind about a fully functioning machine being able to act like a human in every possible way, well perhaps not every way. She hadn’t interacted with him enough yet to know.

From the corner of his eye though she watched as he easily decapitated one of the bandits with the smasher sword of his and practically did the same to a second all in one swing. It was truly quite a powerful weapon, but as she’d suspected the sheer weight and size of it slowed his movements down. He appeared to be more than enough for the bandits quickly converging on them to handle, but she was not a bandit. After she took care of these pathetic humans perhaps she’d test the limits of his skills with that blade. Her small size and quick reflexes may allow her the advantage to weave in and out of his attacks, not to mention land a few of her own. And unlike the pathetic bandits, she wouldn’t just go for the small wounds; she’d hit him where it counts. She’d attack muscles, tendons and organs, maximizing the amount of damage she could do in a single attack while keeping him alive for enough time to have fun with. But that was neither her nor there. The freckled face bandit in front of her was though.

Her mind clicked back into the fight before her. Every thing else faded away as the smell of blood began to permeate the air. The human in front of her looked older than sixteen, maybe even less. The look of a child was still on his face, made even younger by the freckles that peppered his cheeks and nose. He tried to look tough; he tried to seem intimidating, she was after all only a female. But his eyes, they kept dancing to the dying body a few feet to her left and then back to her and the bloodied blades in her hands. His brave face was nothing but a front to hide the fact that his hand trembled and shook the iron blade that he held in the wrong way and at the wrong angle. His wrist was too tight and the muscles all up his arm were strung like a bow.

Smirking, the halfling took a half a step towards him; only to see his face flushed with fear and him take two steps back. She couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that erupted from the depths of his throat. It was just enough to make the stupid human child narrow his eyes at her and try to defend his wounded pride in front of all his comrades. Comrades that didn’t give a shit about him. Only five for her to kill and none of them would pose any kind of challenge. They’d only serve to drench the dry earth with their blood. He charged at her, his arm arcing back for the swing that he could only hope to kill her with. Pathetic and predictable. She rushed in as his armed reached the pinnacle and with a quick slash cut his arm clean off as it came down towards her. The severed appendage went flying through the air, spilling blood in a thick mist and dribbling down into the grass. The ear-piercing scream from the child was almost enough to make her cover her ears, but at most all she did was flinch.

With him distracted over having lost his arm, the halfling spun her dagger around in her hand and then thrust it right into his face. The blade broke through the bone with some effort, but she easily made it to the brain it was protecting. For a few seconds, the gurgling sound of him trying to breathe filled the air around her as his body twitched from the effects of her blade buried in his brain. But when she ripped it free, sending brain matter and bone flying through the air, he finally stopped moving and fell to the ground just as lifeless as the rest of them were going to be in a few minutes.

The four living humans around her backed away a little bit, but Witch wasn’t going to let them off so easily. Using her telekinesis, the halfling pulled two of her throwing daggers from their sheaths along her hips. A few of the bandits were so stunned by this that they didn’t even think now would be a good time to run, not that it would save them. With precision accuracy, she guided them towards one of the bandits, catching him right in the eye and watching with a satisfied smile as he dropped to the ground, lifeless.

“Maybe next time you send a bunch of bandits, Bitch, you send me something a little more challenging. These guys are a little on the boring side.”

Shaking her head, Witchblade watched as the last two remaining bandits from her group began to run, thinking they could escape from her. She allowed them a few seconds head start but she quickly began to give chase.

[Koran]

Watch your left.

I see him, I see him.

The machine danced deftly to his right, just barely avoiding a deadly blow to his left shoulder by a zealous bandit youth. Of the five that remained, two wore armor and one possessed a blade of greater length then twelve inches. Of the five there were also three youths, one veteran and one geezer. The geezer wore the breast plate. Apparently, in bandit culture, the older you got the more armor you were entitled to wear. Not that it would save the old man, all it did was make him feel better about himself. He was protected, in a manner of speaking.

As the blade whisked past the machines shoulder, he in turn returned the kind swipe toward his flesh with a swipe of his own. The boy who had swung the blade, screamed as the machines death black blade took his sword arm off at the shoulder. He fell to the ground, instantly limp and although not quite dead, dead to the fight as any corpse would be to life. The machine put the boy out of his mind immediately, dwelling to long on a near or otherwise complete kill could in turn get himself killed. He focused on his next target.

The old man, he seems to be the heart of this operation. Perhaps we should kill him next?


The machine avoided a downward slash of the bandit to his front and side stepped around a second who was moving in to try and catch him off guard. That might work. The machine grappled with nearest bandit, pushing the bandits blade away even as he knocked the hilt of his sword against his skull. The bandit recoiled in pain, his blade falling from his fist as he tripped backwards and Koran struck with a closed fist to the mans chest. There was a crunch as bone and cartilage broke beneath his flesh and the man fell to the ground with a gurgle, clutching his chest and coughing up blood. The man was dead to the fight as well. Koran advanced toward the older bandit.

At that very moment a scream issued from where the telepath was engaged and Koran looked up just in time to see her down three bandits in the space of three seconds. One had his arm severed and the other two had knives protruding from their chests. The other two, valuing their lives more than what little loot these two resisters had, were running as fast as they could away from the telepath. Their flight was short lived as the telepath soon began chase, gaining back what ground they had put between them quickly. Soon they would join their dead comrades and the machine could give a good guess that it wasn't going to be pretty.

You think we should let these three live?

They could have some gold on them.

Good point.

The three remaining bandits, having heard the scream and seen their comrades turn tail and run, were now looking to each other, confused. Of the fourteen that had started, five now remained. Two were as good as dead and if they weren't careful, they would be too. Do they run and maybe stay alive? Or do they stay and die? They waited a half second too long.

Although he had been slightly surprised at seeing what the telepath had done to her small group of bandits, this hadn't caused the machine to slow or stop his advance. So by the time the bandits had decided that perhaps it was best if they run, he was already too close for them to go anywhere. The first bandit died without so much as a scream, the death black blade taking him just above the waist. Flesh and bone did little to stop the blade and it torn clean through the mans body, sending his severed upper half spinning to the right while his legs and remaining waist simply fell to the ground. As luck would have it the flying upper portion of the bandits body landed dead in the arms of the next nearest bandit, knocking him clean off his feet. He was for the moment, incapacitated and that left Koran with an easy go at the old man.

The poor geezer didn't even stand a chance.

The man took one look at the machine then turned, and ran. The machine twisted his mouth into sickly smile and twisted his sword up over his shoulders and down his back. He then gripped it with both hands and arched his back, took a long step forward then threw his massive blade as hard as he could, end over end toward the retreating back of the old man. The massive blade instantly became a side ways windmill of death, hurtling toward the running old man at a speed the normal eye would find difficult to trace.

The old man had just begun to pick up speed when the blade took him clean in the back of the head, then his shoulders, then through his armor, then down through his waist and then finally into the ground beneath his feet. It all happened in the space of a single second, both the immense centrifugal forces at work in pulling the blade around in a tight circle, and the weight of the blade playing a part in the complete passing through of the mans body. The end product was an old man, dead before the blade had even cleared his cerebral basin, taking a jagged and halting step forward then abruptly folding sideways on himself, blood, guts and bones spewing from his mid-section, then falling too his knees where his two half promptly parted ways and fell in opposite directions.

Nice toss.

Why thank you.

Course, you still have one thing left to do.

The machine smiled suddenly and returned its attention to the just now reemerging seventh bandit. Covered in his dead comrades blood and various organs, he might have, had he laid perfectly still, passed himself off for dead and possibly survived. This however, was not going to happen.

Please, try and limit the mess to just a few drops of blood.

But -

Just, please.

Oh, all right. I'll try.

In the end the remaining bandit, one of the younger generation, died with about as much dignity a man who knew he was going to die could muster. That is to say, he only screamed for a little bit.

After whipping the blade that which he had borrowed from a near by corpse clean of what blood stained its surface, the machine cast his eyes around him at the surrounding countryside. Searching, as it were, for any other nasty surprises that lay in wait beyond the rolling slopes of those distant hills, as well as the still on the loose telepath.

At chance she'll ever come back. Once she finishes with those two she'll probably loot their bodies, burn them with whatever magic it was we saw before we landed, then head for the hills. Slaying bandits in defence of your own life is one thing, but slaughtering fourteen individuals, regardless of previous aims or goals, is quite another. We should consider ourselves lucky if we only get a hefty fine.

Aye. Let me see what these bodies carry first, I'll not pass up the chance at gold when the law is still some days off.

I agree. First, the loot. Then, some reliable directions and no bandits.

The machine cast aside its borrowed blade, kept an eye on his blade, which was still standing upright in the ground, and began rummaging through the dead or dying bodies of the scattered corpses. Perhaps he would find more than just bits of old cloth, rusty knives and a few pieces of gold. Perhaps something of a bit more value was in these pockets.

Perhaps.

[Witchblade]

It didn’t take her long to catch up with them. Their hurried breathing and quickened steps a sound that drilled through her head with her sensitive ears. She could pick out every step that they made on the dry grass, crushing it beneath their boots. If she focused she could even hear the beats of their heart, so quickened that she could dance to them if she wished. She wasn’t really in the mood for a dance, only a kill. Now that the blood had already been spilt on the land she wanted more of it. She knew part of it was just her nature, but she also knew The Malice was influencing her and making the lust to kill stronger. It was a hard thing to resist and right now she didn’t care to. She was a predator and the moment they turned and fled every instinct in her body told her to hunt them down and kill them and that was exactly what she planned on doing.

Sheathing her daggers and reaching for her belt, Witch pulled out one of her throwing knives. Taking careful aim, which was harder than one would think when her target was running and so was she; the halfling sent it flying towards him. Using her telekinesis she guided it so that it landed right where she wanted it to, in the back of his knee. The human was tumbling forward with a small cry, his friend slowing down for an instant only to forget his comrade and keep running. Witch didn’t let him get far though, she quickened her pace and jumped, slamming into his back and sending him tumbling to the ground with her on top.

They always ran in the end. A last ditch effort to stay alive. With her chasing them it was an act in vain, but she supposed it made them feel like they’d done everything they could to survive. Whatever, it didn’t matter to her anyway.

Straddling the human between her thighs, which kept him pinned around the hips, the halfling smirked. Raising her hand, she let the human with his large blue eyes that showed so much emotion and so much fear watch as the nails on her fingers extended and turned to claws. He struggled when he saw that, but she was stronger than him and when he reached up to grab at her, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist careful only to touch cloth and snapped it. His cry echoed in the field, surely heard by his comrade who was probably struggling to get away with his wounded leg.

“Human filth…”

With that she ripped into the flesh of his neck, tearing into his Adam’s apple and ignoring the areas with the most arteries. It was one of her favourite ways to kill a person. They always died, slowly, usually choking to death on their own blood and even now she could hear it. Her claws having ravished his windpipe, blood was flowing down it and into his lungs causing a sick bubbling sounds and before her very eyes bubbles began to form in the wound as air escaped. She watched him for a few seconds later as his one good hand clutched at the wound in futility. There was no way he could live from something like this. So she got up off him and began walking back towards his comrade, who seemed to have other plans than death for himself.

The knife was ripped from the back of his leg and lying bloody in the grass. Raising it with a quick thought, she brought it back to her hand, cleaned the blood off and sheathed it.

“Running is futile…”

When he heard the voice, or at least thought he heard it, the man turned around and the look on his face made her burst out into a sadistic laugh. A face of youth contorted into a look of pain and then absolute terror and fear knowing that he life was about to end. There was a short sword in his right hand, but he didn’t even make a move to protect himself with it, instead he redoubled his efforts to get away from her, limping faster through the open field. How he thought that was going to save was beyond her, at least she didn’t have to bother hurrying towards him. It wasn’t like he could get very far.

Quickening her steps, it took the halfling about ten seconds to catch up to him, not really seeing the need in expending more energy to use her greater speed. With a quick thought and a snap of her fingers, a small blue flame rose just above her palm. This she tossed toward the human male, whose clothing the flames quickly began to devour. Realising what was happening to him, he dropped to the ground, trying to put the flames out, but they were a little resistant to a simple roll. They continued to spread across his clothing and quickly began eating away at his flesh, which was when he screams intensified and she began walking away. The smell of burning flesh following her all the way back to where this fight had initially started and the cyborg stood, having finished off the last of his group a few seconds ago.

The smell of human was all over the place now and the ground was no longer the golden colour of dried grass, now it was stained almost black with blood. A truly lovely colour as it were. She had no interest in the cyborg though, she came back only to retrieve her weapons. Pulling them from the corpses with her mind, she returned them to her outstretched hand, cleaned the blood from their blades and then sheathed them. Without a second glance towards him, she began heading off into the distance. There was a lot of ground she had to cover and not a lot of time to do it before crazy bitch from on high decided to send more pathetic humans her way.

[Koran]

What do you suppose we do now?

We? You mean you, I'm going back to sleep.

What?! You mean to tell me that you only came out because I was in trouble, and now that that trouble is finished, you're saying fuck it all and going back into hiding?

There was a moment of silence in his head.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

And then, just like that, the presence was gone from his head. The machine groaned, cupping his face in both his hands, and sank into a crouching position over the top of one of the decapitated bandits. He was alone in his head again.

So much for that, he thought as he idly poked at the chest of the dead bandit. Despite the implication that he might have been insane, talking to one self had that effect on people, he enjoyed the companionship of that voice. It had helped to pass the time and despite its rude tones and twisted sense of humor, had been an interesting person to converse with. The machine sighed again and looked up just in time to see the telepath return from killing the surviving two bandits. No chance getting her to stay. She was a loose cannon and had showed obvious dislike in the machine, either from his schizophrenic personality or relative disconnection from the rest of humanity, or any other species for that matter.

Or, maybe it's because she's a telepath. I can't imagine how many peoples thoughts she can read in any given second. Probably one great big headache, all those thoughts, with no way to control or mute them.

He couldn't fathom it and as such, pushed it form his mind. No need to give himself a headache because he had a theory on another persons headache. He shifted his attention away from the departing telepath to the matter at hand. The bandits, their loot and where he was going to go now that his only source of directions had just left him.

The bandits were a motley collection of rotten cloths, hand me down weapons, scattered bits of low quality valuables and a few gold coins. Twelve to be exact, just enough to buy a room for one and perhaps a third rate meal. These boys had been desperate, hoping their latest score could get them through the next few days, perhaps even only a night.

If it hadn't been us, then it would have someone else. Someone else's life, love and possessions lost.

The machine looked down at the small pile.

Well, on the bright side of things, I got to kill some people and not have to worry about the emotional and humanity repercussions. And I got a little bit of gold too.

The machine laughed lightly to himself and scooped up the gold and deposited it into his pocket.

Now, to find a map and a way out of this place.

Not wanting to bother with getting lost further by flying, the machine opted to walk for a while and after retrieving his sword - and cleaning the blade - he set off in a direction that went away from the sun. West, he thought, as it was still rather early in the day. The sun felt warm on his back.

*~~~*

It was a pitiful looking thing, leaning heavily to the left and rotting in more than seven places but, it had a roof and looked to be lived in. This was more than enough for the machine, who, standing behind a rather large tree, thought himself unseen.

He had been watching the shack for at least an hour now and nothing had moved, in, out or around the wooden structure. This told him that it might in fact be deserted, but the clothing hanging from a rope suspended between two trees, and the small garden to the left of the shack, told him otherwise.

The machine ran his eyes across the shack and the surrounding land one last time, then stepped out from behind his tree and trotted toward the shack. When he got to be about fifteen feet from the front of the shack the machine crouched and approached the shack as such, hoping that he hadn't been seen. The porch made loud creaking sounds, despite how soft he tried to walk, and the machine had to very nearly crawl the rest of the way in order to minimize his sound.

Once at the front of the house the machine stood up just enough to look into the shack, the top of his head and his eyes the only things visible from the inside. Inside it was a dark and messy thing, shelves and stools and tables all leaning at haphazard angles from the ground. The ceiling had at least six holes that he could see, and the walls weren't much better. the furnishings were little better.

A bed, small and showing serious signs of wear, was positioned in the far right corner, a patch work blanket on it with a large straw filled pillow draped over it. A large wooden chair, perhaps the only free standing thing not to be drooping or twisted in some way, was at the foot of the bed, facing away and bathed in the light from a rather large hole behind it. The table, leaning sharply to the right because of a broken leg, was piled so high with a wild assortment of bottles, books, bowls, cups, sticks and various stones and bones that the machine wondered if that leg wasn't broken because of that severe weight on it. The shelves, themselves filled much like the table, held an equally strange assortment of filled bottles, cracked skulls and even more wild bones, books, bowls and cups. The machine was silently beginning to wonder exactly what kind of shack he had stumbled upon. He was just about to lower himself down to leave when a large barrel filled with rolled scrolls and large pieces of parchment caught his eye. If there wasn't a map of some kind in there, he'd kick himself.

The front door, thankfully, was open and the machine gained entrance to the house easily. Once inside the machine noticed that the shack was larger than he had first thought, with a small ladder leading to a small upstairs section that was probably a second bedroom. Small walkways, worn from constant use, made a tiny maze through the jumble inside the shack and finding his way across the room to where the barrel of scrolls was proved to be much harder than simply walking straight toward them. He didn't want anyone to know he had been here, and besides some of those bottles looked to be filled with liquids more dangerous than just water or ale. Knocking one of them over might have lead to a very bad day.

Finally, and not after more than one moment of hair raising close encounters with the strange and bizarre, the machine arrived to his destination of across the room at the barrel of rolled scrolls. Travel time was approximately two minutes at an altitude of six feet. He didn't want to imagine exactly who it was that lived here, despite the fact that he could probably figure it out if he just looked a little more closely at how they lived.

Probably some perverted old man whose seen better years and has nothing left to him but living here alone with his potions and strange bones.

He reached out his hand to take a hold of the nearest roll of parchment when something crashed heavily to the ground behind him. At the same instant a female voice screamed out. "Freeze, you thief!"

Oh, shit.

[Witchblade]

Killing all those bandits had been a nice little warm up but not her muscles were begging for something else, something more challenging. She couldn’t give it to them though. She had to continue forward to get to Kachuck or else next time Megan might drop a freaking dragon on her and Witch had no intentions of fighting a dragon. Those things did not like to go down very easily. Shame her little pet wasn’t exactly like that. She was really beginning to think there was something wrong with Daegun, like he was defective or something. She’d had him for over a year now…well, it must have been a year and he hadn’t grown at all. Just a few inches after hatching out of his little egg and that was about it. Why wasn’t the little guy getting bigger? She wanted a dragon, damnit, and not a little pup that purred at her when she scratched it under the chin from time to time.

Speaking of the little guy, the halfling was beginning to feel movement from her rucksack. After being kicked in the back about three or four times, the top flap of the leather bag flipped open and out popped the small, white head of her pet Daegun. His large, black eyes blinked against the light of the sun a few times before they grew accustomed to the light. She could just see him from the corner of her eye if she turned her head to the side, but she knew he routine. He would yawn a few times, shake himself a bit and then climb up onto her shoulder. Sure enough after a minute later, after she’d turned her head away from him two, white and clawed pays landed on her shoulder and helped drag the body of her dragon there.

“Good morning, Daegun.”

Witch was pretty sure it was late afternoon. In fact in a few hours the sun would probably begin to set and Alerar would be blanked in darkness.

His response to her was to purr rather loudly in her ear and give her a bit of a head butt. He really was an odd creature.

Together they walked in silence for a little while. Daegun vacated her shoulder rather quickly after waking up, taking it upon himself to walk in front of her and sniff every hole in the field and look through every rock. In fact, she could barely see him through the long grass. It was almost up to her knees and seeing as Daegun was still baby size he was less than a foot tall when he was running around on all fours. So there were periods of time where all she would see was moving grass indicating where he was. Occasionally he would stop dead in his tracks and she would see him suddenly leap at something she couldn’t see, possibly a field mouse. He was horrible at catching the little buggers though and that could mean only one thing. They needed to stop off in town so she could get him something to eat.

Witch didn’t touch food, which meant she never carried any on her. Most of her and Daegun’s time was spent in Concordia where food was a lot easier to come by than here. In Alerar she didn’t know what she could feed Daegun, what was poisonous and what wasn’t and the last thing she needed was a poisonous baby dragon. So the next town she came upon she’d have to head into, which mean before then she should find a stream and rinse off a bit of this blood.

[Koran]

The machine sighed, letting his hand fall limply down to his side. Fuck, he thought as he slowly lifted his other hand up in a show of it not holding anything 'dangerous.' There was a shuffling noise behind him as the woman moved either closer to him, or around him for a better view.

"Turn around," the voice said quickly. "But do it, slowly." This in a more commanding tone, with a slight drawl to it. He had no idea what the speech pattern was of this land and he knew that in Corone the tones were a wicked blend of quick clips and almost illtangible drawls, so he could tell if she was around here or simply just a hermit who had settled.

Never heard of a woman hermit. He hadn't heard of a lot of things, perhaps this would be another one of his many firsts. Lifting his other hand up from his side in the same manner as he did his first, the machine slowly turned around. What he found probably shouldn't have surprised him, but it did.

The woman was short, probably in her mid to late sixties and was brandishing what looked to be a knarled and heavily worn walking stick. Imbedded into the end of the stick was a slender sliver of what appeared to be a quartz of some kind; milky white in appearance and having to many sides to be considered a worked piece of crystal or diamond. She was dressed in a ragged assortment of loose fitting rags and patches and what appeared to be a once grand looking cloak, draped haphazardly across her shoulders. It wasn't her age, or the weapon she brandished, or her clothes that caught him off guard however, it was her eyes. They were a pale, foggy white.

She's blind? She proved as much when she bumped into the corner of a table and cursed. Her head twisted as if to see what it was she had run into but her eyes never made it to the table, but someplace in between. Exactly what a blind person would do. I'm being held up by an old blind woman? If he had been on the outside looking in, the machine would have been laughing as hard as he possibly could. On the inside looking out however, he was instantly very embarrassed, becoming more than a little pissed. Well, can't have any of this, now can I?

The machine knew well enough that when a person became blinded or lost their sense of hearing or taste or touch or smell, that their other five senses became super endowed and made up for the loss of the other sense. This would probably explain how the woman knew he was there, she probably heard him or felt the vibrations of his weight in the floor boards. The machine flexed and unflexed his hands, eyes flickering and his mind raced.

She's blind, you're not. She knows her way around, you don't. You're strong and a machine, she's old, frail and not a machine. The odds are ever so slightly stacked against her but you've no idea how good she is with that stick, or the purpose of that quartz piece. What to do, what to do. The old woman, having regained her balance from the bumping incident, resumed her blank, foggy stare toward where she thought the machine was. She was off slightly, perhaps staring a little to his right and over his shoulder. She inhaled sharply through her nose, testing the air. She started to advance slowly, picking her way carefully through the strewn piles of bones, parchments and books. If the machine didn't act now, he would quickly find out exactly what that stick might be used for aside from a walking aide. But what to do? His eyes scanned his immediate surroundings.

To his right there was a small bench that was full of hide bound books, various small binding and hole punching tools and a few slender brushes. Beside the bench was a small three legged stool and atop it was a small stack of small bottled potions. To his left was the barrel of rolled parchment and beside that one of the many shelves containing skulls, the larger potions and empty bottles. He was within an arms length of items on both sides.

Hmmm, perhaps a little diversion is in order. The woman was now about half way across the room, her foggy eyes locked in the same place over the top of his shoulder, her bony legs moving slowly around objects on the floor and the machine decided that if he was going to act, now would be the best time. Moving as quietly and as quickly as he could, the machine reached out and took a hold of the two nearest objects on the bench and shelf. They were a bottle of green, semi-clear liquid and a bizarre looking cat like skull. They would have to do.

The woman cocked an ear when he moved and stopped moving. "What are you doing?" She asked suspiciously. She waved the stick in a small circle toward the machine. "What are you doing?" She asked again, this time a bit more forcefully. Her stick paused in its slow circle and was now pointing ever so slightly toward the ground. "Stop it, whatever it is. You've no idea - " She didn't get to finish her sentence because at that point, the machine had already thrown his two items.

The skull crashed into a table just to her left, exploding violently on impact and caused the woman to scream shrilly and flinch hard away from the point of impact. The green liquid filled bottle broke spectacularly on the edge of another near by table, but this had a more interesting effect than simply shrapnel bone pieces. Upon impact a green smoke began billowing up from the green liquid that had splashed across the surface of the table, down its legs and onto the floor, and almost instantaneously filled the small shack with this smoke. In the same instant that the machine saw this he switched on his infrared vision, the world going from color to reds, blues, greens and oranges, and dashed forward.

Apparently that stick was indeed used for more than just walking, and the woman was entirely handicapped because of her blindness. For the instant the machine drew close enough to strike the woman out of his way so that he could make his escape, the butt end of the stick took him hard in the stomach. Surprise and pain over took him and he stumbled back, doubling over to clutch at his stomach. He didn't have much time to dwell however, as the stick made another pass, this time hard against his head. His vision exploded in a bright flash of white, reds, blues and purples and he stumbled dumbly to his right.

What the hell? His brain screamed for him to move, to react to her abrupt and completely unexpected attacks, but all he could do was gag and stumble drunkenly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a white glow and instantly knew that it wasn't the forgiving white light at the end of the tunnel.

"Oh fuck," he mumbled dully, just as a massive and silent concussive explosion took him hard against the side and slammed him through the nearby wall.

[Witchblade]

By the time she found a stream cutting across the land, the blood was dry and caked onto her skin. The more she moved the more reddish brown pieces began to flake off and fall into the grass below. The stained splotches of her skin looked even darker considering her deathly pale complexion. Grotesque and macabre, it would probably be an interesting sight to any who happened by her. But of course, she was rather deserted in this area. She had seen only one farm on her walk here and none of the occupants had bothered to even wave at her, which was fine with her. She had bloodstains on her, a baby dragon following her around and she would rather not talk to anyone. After that whole incident with Megan and the bandits she was a little on the pissed off side. She wasn’t just ticked anymore, she was just plain angry as all fuck.

Kneeling down in the long grass, the halfling reached out and dipped one of her hands into the stream. The water was cold, ice cold, but immediately began doing what she wanted it to. The dry blood was quickly washing off her fingers and hand, turning the clear water around her a slightly reddish colour. The blood around and under her fingernails needed a little motivation to wash away though. As she was cleaning her hands, Daegun jumped right into the stream splashing her in the face and sending a few cold shivers racing down her spine. Shaking her head and sighing, she continued to scrub the blood off her hands as he jumped upon imaginary targets that only he could see.

If only her little dragon would hurry and grow. If only he would become as big as he’s supposed to, if only he would become a little more vicious. The only time he saw fit to attack things were when she was in dire need of some assistance, not that she liked admitting it. But it was true, from time to time she got herself in enough trouble that she did need a hand. When that happened in came her little dragon, growing and snarling and giving a whole lot of bark with very little bite. The little guy so far could bite and claw at someone’s ankles or knees and conjure large spikes of icicles to kill them with. Then again, she’d only ever seen him do that once. For all she knew, he could be some really strange breed of dragon in which he always stayed this size.

Perhaps after she got this item she should think of going to the Eastern continent. Witch had been hearing rumours of a dragon race there that had the ability to communicate with dragons as well as raise them. They may be able to help with her little dilemma. Besides, the Eastern continent may hold a few new adventures. Change may be in order, who knows, perhaps the races there would be so different from human she could actually tolerate them. The only problem would be getting there. She’d heard that not many vessels would travel to the place as it is considered cursed by a lot of sailors. Merchant ships probably went there, some merchants shun superstition for a good profit.

It was an idea anyway.

Cupping some water in her hand, Witch splashed it onto her face to scrub off any blood that may have made it there. Her clothing had a few splotches on it, but she doubted the eyes of a human would even be able to notice. Blood on black was really hard to see.

“Come on, Daegun.”

Her little dragon was chin deep in the stream, but the water seemed to just roll right off his white scales, which quickly dried from the warmth of the sun. He also looked a little upset to be leaving his new little game. But he had a short attention span, some little bug or animal would cross his path as they travelled across the grasslands and sure enough he would pounce on it and chase it until he’d mauled it to death. Very rarely did he eat it unless it was a field mouse. She noticed that once it stopped moving he tended to lose interest in the creature, leaving it half dead.

Witch didn’t have to say it twice though, saddened he may seem, Daegun left the stream and quickly began to follow by her side. Now, barring any other strange occurrences that Megan may throw their way, the two of them should find a village within the next few hours. Witch didn’t know her Alerar geography very well. If push came to shove though, she’d ask the next farm she came across for directions.

[Koran]

There was very little pain when the machine hit the wall and the same could be said when he hit the ground. Perhaps it was a certain mindset, attained usually when you were in extreme danger or extreme pleasure. This, obviously being the ladder of the two, was no special occasion. And like all events of extreme danger or extreme pleasure, it was almost disappointingly over much too quickly. Over so quickly in fact, that even as the machine lay staring at the smoldering side of what used to be a shelf on the wall, he was left ponder if it had all been just a dream gone seriously awry.

Then the shelf tipped toward the machine and came crashing down on his chest.

Pain, unlike any he had ever experienced, burned and bit in his arms and chest where the shelf landed. Like a thousand stinging needles per square inch on his flesh, the pain slowly spread from his arms and chest to his hands, legs and up into his neck. A silent scream opened his mouth wide and his body clenched and writhed and bucked and turned, trying desperately to free itself from beneath the shelf.

It was no use and as the machines pain narrowed vision slowly began to clear, he could see that it wasn't just a shelf that had fallen onto his flesh, but an entire section of wall with it. He could account his survival only to the soft, almost muddy ground beneath him. If anything was to be gained from this experience he was suddenly living through, it was that he was thankful to be alive. In pain and fearing a certain, immanent death to follow shortly there of, but thankful all the same. Something moved at the corner of his vision and he twisted painfully to see what it was.

What he found, did little to reinforce his previous joy at being alive. There, leveled straight between his eyes, was the deadly business end of the blind woman’s stick. Either she was lightning quick on her feet when she needed to be, or he had really been knocked unconscious for a few instants, else the machine could not really believe the woman could reach him so soon after unleashing a blast like she had. His eyes followed the stick up to the old woman’s face and despite her being blind and unable to see, he smiled sheepishly.

"Now, what is it you be trying to look for? Now that you be stuck beneath all this rubble of my house?" Her voice was no nonsense and the machine was more than ready to believe that she meant it. He laughed nervously, soon after having to cough because of the still settling dust around him from when the wall and shelf fell, and the gulped loudly when the stick inched closer to his face.

"A map!" He nearly squeaked. He usually wasn't one to be afraid of sticks, but when the wielder of that stick could throw his body around like a rag doll, one of his state of mind could become very afraid, very quickly. "A map," he said again, this time a little calmer. "A map was all I needed."

"Why didn't you just knock, like any civilized person would?" The stick jabbed closer toward his face and he shifted quickly away to avoid being poked.

"I - I didn't think anyone was home?" He knew he probably shouldn't have turned it into a question, much less a pleading one at that. This woman was really going to get on his nerves soon, despite her obvious advantages over him.

"Didn't think anyone was home?" Her cackling voice filled the air for a moment. Her stick shot forward, poking him hard in the face three times before he could even think to move away from it. "Out here, in this wilderness?" She began to laugh a little harder. "Oh my, aren't we a smart one." She poked him again, this time perhaps just for good measure, and straightened.

Then she turned around and walked away.

For a moment the machine was stunned. She launches him through the wall of her own home, thinking him a thief out to rob and kill her. Then she comes over and has small talk with him, laughs then walks away? Now, Koran wasn't one not to have small talk with someone he was certain he was about to kill, especially after they had tried, or appeared to have tried, to kill him. But, to talk to them, laugh at them, then leave them trapped in an inescapable spot with no hope of survival?

"Oh no you don't, you fucking bitch!" The machine writhed in his wooden prison, twisting and spinning, trying to free his appendages from the weight that held them down. He growled, he grunted, he groaned, he screamed. After a few minutes of vainly trying to shove his way free, he opted to try a little more finesse. This quickly proved inadequate, as instead of steadily working himself free, he steadily dug himself a deeper hole and thus allowed the wall and shelf to settle further.

He yelled, spit and cursed at the wall, the shelf, the woman, the fool land he was in. He even yelled at himself for getting lost. The whole while, digging himself deeper into the ground, pinned beneath a wall and shelf.

Wait a minute. All writhing, twisting, cursing and yelling stopped suddenly and the machine closed his eyes. He reopened them a moment later and a cackling laughter filled the air.

"No such luck, no easy escape for you!"

His transformation ability, had been blocked.

"How the fucking hell is that even possible?!" He screamed toward the heavens. "It isn't even a magical process! It's electrical! Mechanical!" His mouth opened wide in a wordless howl of rage and he redoubled his efforts to free himself.

Being a machine meant that he had a very long lasting stamina and could maintain the same pace or workout for hours beyond what even the most fit human or humanoid could manage. By this, he would be free. If not because he managed to weasel his way out tactfully or by some dumb luck strategy, but because he muscled his way out and endured this torture.

Rage and hatred burned in his chest as he worked.

He would be free.

He - would - be - free.

[Witchblade]

It was like every other town she came across. The only real difference was instead of humans filling the houses and streets, there were Drow. They passed by her on the road, giving her plenty of space yet not even acknowledging her presence. Groups of women, men and children talked amongst themselves in a language she’d heard from only one person before, Izvilvin. Children ran around playing games she’d never seen before and parents went about their daily business. They were too much like humans for her to care that their skin came in different colours and their hair seemed almost unnatural to human standards. She should fit right in here, but still the Drow that crowded the street tried to pay her no mind or give her passing glances that did little to make her feel comfortable here. Comfortable was something she rarely felt outside of Concordia though, and the only reason she felt that there was because she was utterly and completely alone.

What did she care though, what did it matter? It didn’t. Pulling her head from useless thoughts the halfling continued to walk through the town. Her steady steps kicked up small amount of dust from the hard packed dirty road. Her little pet just happened to be walking behind her and ended up breathing the stuff in, sneezing a few times before he learned that perhaps he should walk in front of her. The only place she needed here was a tavern where she could get something for Daegun to eat and rest her legs for a while. Then she would be on her way, perhaps with some good directions, towards Kachuck if she were lucky. Yet lady luck had never been one to smile on her.

A small group of children seemed to get the smart idea to play with Daegun though. They ran out in front of her dragon and stopped, preventing him from walking any further. Even as their guttural words floated to her ears, Witch was beginning to pick out what exactly they were saying through her telepathy, their young minds having no protection. She didn’t really care what they were thinking about, she just wanted to make sure they weren’t going to hurt Daegun. The last thing she needed to do was create a scene because she attacked a group of children or her dragon did.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know… it looks like an overgrown lizard.”

“Touch it!”

“No, you touch it!”

It was impossible for her to tell who was saying what as they were all talking so fast.

“Look at it’s eyes, they’re pure black!”

“How come it has wings, can it fly?”

Daegun just seemed to be looking from one excited and happy face to the next, confused on what exactly he should do. When one of them reached out to touch him, he sniffed the little girl’s hand, who recoiled as if afraid that he would bite her. Scrunching up her face, she tried once again and this time her fingers made contact with the back of Daegun’s head, carefully running down his pure white scales. Daegun, never one to shy attention, arched up into her touch and soon all of the children were petting him as if he were some kind of dog.

Hearing her approach, the children turned and looked up at her, their faces seeming sheepish as if she caught them doing something they shouldn’t be.

“He’s a baby dragon.”

“Wow, really!?”

“A dragon! Aren’t they supposed to be rather massive?”

“She said it was a baby!”

“Oh, so it’s going to get bigger?”

Their chatter was beginning to hurt her head.

“Can he fly?”

“How big is he going to get?”

“He’ll probably get to be bigger than your house and he eats children.”

Daegun, her ever intelligent little dragon seemed to understand exactly what she was saying and pulled back his teeth to show off a few nice rows of sharp, pointy teeth. The children all had looks of either sheer terror on their faces or utter disbelief.

“I was joking. However, we must be on our way, what is the direction to the tavern?”

Most of the children still seemed too stunned to say anything to her, but one of the girls pointed in a northern direction.

“It’s that way.”

Nodding her head, the halfling turned and walked away from the group of children, Daegun making one last strange, purring noise and trotting off behind her.

[Koran]

"Nngh! Aagh! Gsssgggnh! Mmmph, mmmph, mmmmmmphaaaaaaauck! Dammit!"

There was a loud creaking noise as the machine punched at the bottom of the section of wall. Howling wordlessly, the machine threw another dozen punches into the section of wall, which only resulted in his knuckles being sore and the place where he had been punching looking a little scuffed up.

"What in the hell is this shit made of?!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. "It weighs a ton and doesn't even scuff right! What the fuck!" There was another hollow thump, this time from his head being beat against the nearest section he could reach.

“Ow,” he moaned, sobbing softly as he let his head fall back into the dirt beneath him. “That hurt more than it was supposed to too. Mmmm, phhhhhahhh. Ho boy, yup. Definitely gonna feel that one in the morning. Ow.”

Shifting so that his back wasn’t laying quite so hard on a very pointy rock, the machine cast his eyes around him to see if he could see the old woman. There wasn’t anything there except him, a few trees, the piece of mountain weight wall on his chest, and a chipmunk that had been staring at him for well over an hour.

“Pretty funny huh there, little fella. Big guy like me, top of the food chain, stuck here like some bear in a trap. And look at you, face all stuffed full of food, staring at me like you’re the top of the world.” The chipmunk turned its head a little to the side, blinked then turned, and ran. “Yeah, that’s right!” The machine yelled after it. “You’d better run, fucking moron. You hear me! Moron!”

There was a creak from the wall and something scrapped against the section closest to his face. The machine jumped and tried in vain sink himself further into the ground than he already was. The old woman was standing just above him, her stick hovering dangerously close to the right side of his face, her milky white eyes burning murderously in her face.

“Uhh, huh ha ha, I can uhhh, explain?”

The stick jabbed him sharply in the face. “Ow,” he mumbled just as she began to speak. “Explain what? That you were patronizing one of the Mothers creatures? Calling it names. Baad, bad names?” The stick jabbed his face again.

“This woman’s been dropped quite a few times,” the machine whispered to himself.

“What was that?” The stick drove hard into the machines face.

“Nothing!” He screeched, a little louder than he would have wished. “Nothing, just saying that you’ve, said that, more than a, few times?”

The woman smiled crookedly. “That’s a boy, a good boy.”

“Phew, that was close.”

The stick pulled away from his face but he still watched carefully. More than once that thing had come out of nowhere to hit him hard on the head and he was steadily beginning to fear it. The stick planted itself on the boards above his head and the woman began to speak again.

“You’ve been under this thing now for about three hours. What have you learned?”

The machine blinked. What had he learned? What kind of question was that? He opened his mouth and before he could even think to speak, or so much as blink, the end of the womans stick rammed itself into the hole.

“Mmphnnaaagghaa,” the machine yelled, twisting violently. “Be careful what you say boy,” the woman whispered softly as the machine continued to writhe beneath the stick. “Might get ugly if you answer incorrectly.” The stick pulled out of his mouth and the machine spat loudly, sticking his tongue out and blowing raspberries in an attempt to clear the wood chips.

“God dammit, what the hell was that for?” He yelled, as of yet unawares as to what just happened. The woman only smiled, then nodded for him to answer her question. “How th’ fuck am I supposed to learn somethin’ while being stuck under here?” The woman shrugged.

“I’ve no idea, never been stuck beneath a wall before. Tell me, what do you find strange about this?”

“Strange?” The machine blinked, and bit down on his lower lip. “Lots of things. For starters, how the fuck is it I can’t transform? I mean, I’m mechanical, not magical.”

The woman burst into loud and uncontrolled laughter. When she finally calmed down, about thirty or so seconds later, she answered. “Boy, don’t you know that anything created by the Mother has magic?”

“But, but, I wasn’t created by the Mother, or whatever the hell she is! I was fabricated in a lab on a distant planet!”

The woman leaned in close to the machines face, a small smile forming on her lips. “Then explain to me why it is you can’t transform?”

The machine fell silent, unable to answer. The woman straightened. “What else can you tell me boy?”

“This piece of wall is real heavy. Almost, too heavy. Unnatural.”

The woman laughed again, but this time it didn’t last as long. She leaned back in close to his face. “Right you are boy, right you are.” And with that, she vanished from his sight.

There were a few seconds of silence after her disappearance where the machine only stared blankly up at the sky. Fabricated, but still being controlled by magic. Only things created by the Mother contain magic. Fabricated, but still being controlled by magic.

The machine blinked, then shook his head. Nooo, that can‘t be right. She must be… Be what? The machine was dumbstruck, unable to answer. “Fuck,” he groaned, shifting his weight and pushing up on the wall. It moved easily off his chest allowing him to roll onto his side.

Fabricated in a plant, on a distant planet. Made of metal, electrical circuit boards and genetically engineered, lab grown skin. The machine twisted back onto his back, once again shifting the piece of wall easily up to allow his movement. But, that makes no sense! How is that even - Wait.

The machine lifted his head and stared at the piece of wall. He slowly lifted his hand and pushed on the underside of the wall. It lifted easily off his chest. He let it settle back onto his chest, then pushed again, this time a little harder. It lifted completely off his chest and was now resting on just his legs. He let it settle back onto his chest. He was silent for a few seconds.

“Sonuva,” he mumbled before pushing the piece of wall off his chest easily with both hands. It landed with a loud crash just to his left, bouncing a few times, shattering easily into two whole pieces, before finally coming to rest. He lay there for a few moments, staring at the two pieces, before getting to his feet and dusting himself off. In front of him, the woman began cackling.

“See? I told you.”

The machine smirked sarcastically and dusted his knees. “Yeah yeah, whatever.”

The woman walked slowly up to him, casting her head about, as if looking for something, or surveying the carnage that was once her house, and stopped just a few feet in front of him. In her right hand was her stick, a deadly piece of wood that was, and in her right. A rolled piece of parchment.

The machine looked up at her face quizzically, but she only smiled and extended her left hand. “You may now look, at my map.”

The machine looked from her, to the map, back to her, then back to map again in rapid succession. It was all rather confusing. There has to be a catch. Still, it was a map and he was rather lost. He winced, shrugged then reached out to take hold of the map.

She released it easily and smiled a little wider. The machine didn’t pay it any attention, instead busied himself with unrolling the map. A few moments later he cursed and threw the piece of parchment aside. It landed on the dirt inside up, blank and gleaming in the sunlight.

“What the fuck was that for?”

The woman cackled. “I said you could look at it, not see it. In order to do that, you have to help me put my house back together again.”

“Fuck,” the machine mumbled. “I knew there was a catch.” The woman cackled even louder and the machine stared longingly at the blank piece of parchment. His head dropped to his chest and he heaved a sigh. “All right, I’ll help.”

“Good, good. We’ll start over here, with these pieces.”

~*~

“Holy shit,” the machine wheezed as he shoved the last piece of wall into place. “How big was that explosion?”

“Pretty big, and silent, if you can believe that.”

The machine chuckled. “Well, as with most explosions, the person in it, usually doesn’t hear a thing. But seeing as I can hear right now, I can believe that it was silent.”

The old woman cackled. “It felt good, on my part that is. It’s always good to flex muscles that haven’t been used in a while. Even if they aren’t tangible ones.”

The machine rolled his eyes and dusted his hands. “Right, that should about do it. What’s next?”

The woman waved her stick a bit and pointed behind her. “Just stand over there, I’ll have this finished in a jiff.”

Not wanting to argue, or ever have to be on the business end of that stick again, the machine complied immediately and moved to the spot she had indicated. He turned around just in time to see a bright flash of white light and watched in awe as all the seams and various detached pieces of the house, fused themselves back together into a collective whole. In the blink of an eye, the house was once again whole.

“Holy hell,” the machine gasped, astounded at what he had just seen. “You mean to tell me, that you could have done all of this, by yourself?”

The woman smiled broadly. “Yes, but you wouldn’t have been able to see the map then, now would you?”

The machine sighed and smiled. “I guess not.”

The woman pointed toward the still open piece of parchment. Instead of being pure white however, it was crisscrossed with lines and dots. The machine smiled broadly and ran over to the parchment.

A few minutes later he slowly walked back over to the woman, a confused look on his face. “I can’t, ummm, can’t read it.” The machine looked up at the woman’s face and instantly his heart sank when he saw her smile.

“For that, you’ve got to clean up the inside.”

“Shit.”

~*~

“There, finally!” The machine, leaning heavily against the newly repaired wall, wiped his face clean of dirt and stared tiredly at the woman.

Seated comfortably in a homemade, overstuffed chair, the woman was knitting when she looked up. Casting her eyes around the main room, the woman inspected the condition of the room. After a few, agonizing moments, she nodded and stood.

“Looks good. Very good.”

The machine sighed. “Can I read the map now?”

The woman nodded and pointed to the map. The machine heaved another sigh and ambled over to the map, picked it up and looked at it.

He then let the map fall to the ground and leaned his head against the wall, banging it softly against its surface. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly through his nose.

“This is a map of Salvar, not this place. You knew that this entire time, and yet you still made we work for it.” He punched the wall with his fist gently. Suddenly he began to laugh and after a few moments, the woman joined in.

“A map, of Salvar!” He picked it up, still laughing, and rolled it gently back into its original state. “You don’t have a map of this place, do you?”

The woman, still laughing, shook her head. The machine nodded, chuckling still, and stuffed the rolled parchment back into the barrel.

“Well then, can you at least point me in the direction of the nearest town?”

The woman nodded, and stood up. “I get supplies and powders from a town some fifteen miles to the west. You can check there.”

The machine nodded and turned toward the door. Just before walking out however, he stopped, looked back to the woman, and smiled. “You had this planned from the beginning didn’t you?”

The woman just nodded.

The machine nodded as well, gave the woman one last smile, then walked out of the shack, turned west and didn’t look back.

[Witchblade]

The tavern was just like every other tavern. It was a large inviting structure on the outside made from wood and stone. As this was a small and most likely poorer village the windows were small. Glass is a luxury and this tavern had just enough money to afford a little of it. Nothing more. The letters carved into the wooden plaque above the doorway were unintelligible to her. She may be able to understand Izvilvin when he spoke Drow to her, but that was only because she could look into his mind. Reading Drow was something completely different, something she had no motivation to learn.

Pushing the door open, Witch stepped into the surprisingly well-lit tavern. It wasn’t seedy like the ones she frequently visited in Radasanth when she wanted work. No, it was comfortable. There were lanterns placed upon each table, but only half of them were lit as the small windows were allowing the last of the sun’s rays into the room. Wooden floors stained by years of food and liquid greeted her steps as she moved throughout the room. The halfling wanted nothing to do with conversing with any of the Drow in the establishment. So, she went to a small booth tucked in one of the corners. There, she slipped her rucksack from her shoulders and set it down on the bench, which she quickly slid into after. Daegun, her pet and the only reason she was here, jumped up onto the bench opposite her and then onto the table. Some of the other customers in the room were glancing towards her and her familiar with some interest but she paid them no mind.

Not long after she had seated herself, a male Drow came over to her. His skin was grey in colour as opposed to Izvilvin’s black and his hair was more silvery than white.

“What can I get ya?”

Surprisingly the man spoke Tradespeak, something not extremely common in these out of the way villages. Perhaps they received more travellers through here than she thought.

“A bowl with water and a platter with whatever kind of meats you have. But make sure they’re raw.”

“R-raw miss?”

“Aye, raw.”

He gave her a questing eye and then turned his attention to the dragon that was lying down at the table. His head was perked up off his paws and he was sniffing the air in the direction of the Drow, perhaps smelling something familiar. Maybe to Daegun, this Drow had a similar scent to Izvilvin. Witch herself could smell the different right away. There would be no chance of her ever mistaking her friend for someone else, even of his own kind.

Friend? Since when have you had friends?

The Drow nodded his head and quickly left her just as a grimace took over her face at the reappearance of The Malice.

Rather comical in a way. For someone who has never thought herself necessary of friends you sure do look upon this Drow rather fondly. I thought friends were dead weight to you? An emotional attachment that just weakened a person and made them vulnerable. Have you grown soft?

She was doing her best to ignore the words filling her mind. Yet she couldn’t help the involuntary action of her hands curling into tight fists that made her knuckles turn a paler colour than her already deathly pale skin. The Malice was trying to goad her and make her unstable. She wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of seeing her emotionally out of control.

Heheheh, I’m not upsetting you, am I? Or perhaps I have touched upon a subject you would best like left alone?

Almost growling audibly, the halfling used her mental capabilities to shove The Malice into a dark corner of her mind where it wouldn’t be able to get free from for at least a few hours. A short reprieve. But it had a short attention span and if she were lucky would forget about this whole thing.

Daegun, had been curiously watching her the whole time as if somehow knowing of the internal struggle that waged within her. She knew he was smart, she just didn’t know how smart. Oh, how she wished he would hurry up and grow bigger.

The server suddenly appeared beside her table once again with a tray in his hand. From it he laid down a bowl filled with water and a platter of meats. The smell of it alone made her stomach churn, but she suppressed it. From her quick glance at it, it was filled with native animals to this region, none of which she knew or could recognize. Especially cut up and arranged in such a way. Daegun immediately went for the water and instead of just drinking it, he shoved half of his face below the surface.

“That is a mighty unique familiar you have there. You are quite lucky.”

She nodded her head as she watched her dragon nearly drown himself. The server, taking her lack of response as meaning she didn’t want to talk, quickly turned and walked away. Once Daegun was finished eating, she wouldn’t have to worry about him for the next two or three days and could continue on with her journey.

[Koran]

So, what do you suppose the purpose of that was?

Huh? Oh, that? Ummm, I've no idea.

Having given up walking within the first mile, the machine beat his wings at the air, maintaining a some what careful altitude of about a thousand feet. He scanned the ground below him, searching for the tell tale signs of civilization and his ticket out of this strange land. He squinted for a moment at something that flickered in the distance but shook it off as nothing.

What do you think?

Well, she certainly had an effective way of calming you down.

The machine laughed, shaking his head.

Pinning me to the ground and threatening to control me with her magic? I think any man would calm down.

But you're no man.

Then explain how she could control me with her magic?

She couldn't, only the objects around you.

What do you mean?

You recall when she said all things created by this mother creature of hers, had magic in them?

Yes.

Were you created by this 'mother?'

No.

Then it's simple. By careful manipulation of the objects around you, she made it seem like she was controlling you.

That‘s true. I did try to rob her. What motive would she have to tell the truth?

None. So you can stop worrying about it and find this stupid town she says is near here.

I wasn‘t worrying about it.

Truth be told, he had been worrying about it. If what she had said had been true then it would have set him squarely back at square one in the quest to find out what he was made for. Sure he knew that he was some kind of killing machine, this much was obvious by his strange abilities and tactical way of thinking. But what was his true purpose? Surely he wasn’t built for just killing, he was too complex for that. For his entire existence since his escape from that science facility he had pondered that reason, almost like when a human ponders their own existence.

Why am I here? What is my purpose in life?

He didn’t know, or was it that he didn’t want to know? What if his purpose in life really was to kill and nothing else? What if, instead of pursuing his strange dream to become more like a human, he was instead running from the truth about himself? What if the truth caught up? The machines vision clouded and suddenly, he found himself in a completely different world.


He was standing on the edge of a plateau, gazing out across a wide expanse of rocky mountains and jagged valleys. The massive ball of molten fire silhouetting his figure against the waning evening, cast the sky in varying hues of orange and red, gave the landscape an almost fire like glow. Clouds, thin wisps that were constantly shifting and changing in the high winds, dotted the sky, further reflecting the orange and red light from the setting sun. He shifted his eyes down, to the dry and cracked earth beneath his feet, and leaned forward a little toward the edge.

The plateau ended in a jagged cliff face, the drop some seven hundred feet or so, the ground below filled with jagged boulders and deep crevices. He inched a little closer to the edge, letting the actual cliff face come into view, and noticed that it too was filled with jagged outcroppings and deep crevices. He leaned back and looked out at the landscape again.

“I don‘t get it, no wind?”

There was not a single sign of erosion on any rock face. Everything was all hard corners, jagged edges and pointy tips. He looked up at the sky and its constantly shifting clouds. There was wind up there for sure, so why was there no wind down here? He shook his head and started to turn around.

A mechanical whir was the only warning he got before he abruptly found himself staring down the business end of a menacing looking gun. He gulped, his body paralyzed with fear, and let his eyes travel up the barrel to the face of the person holding the weapon. His eyes met the eyes of the person holding the weapon and his heart skipped a beat.

The eyes, were black.

“Vincent K. Seether,” the person said in an all to familiar voice. “Your services are no longer required. By order of High Command, I am ordered to terminate you.”

He was stunned. He, was under orders to be, terminated? This made absolutely no sense at all. Why would he be terminated?

“Sir, I beg of you, why - “ The gun cock snapped and a 6.72 mm projectile traveling at hypersonic speeds, exploded from the barrel and hit him square between the eyes.

~~

Wiping the blood from the end of its barrel, code name Koran V. Seether, after his creator Vincent K. Seether, turned from the still falling corpse of the man he had been sent to kill, and opened its HUD log.. Its eyes flashed as it pulled up the list it had been given by High Command and silently deleted one name off it.

There were still seven thousand four hundred and forty-seven names left. The lights faded from its eyes and it turned its gaze to a group of huddling men dressed in white trench coats or blue coveralls. Each man was blinded with a HVI (Herring Vision Inhibitor) and stone deaf from a JHSI (Jenesen-Hemming Sound Inhibitor). None of them knew where they were, or what had just happened.

Shouldering its weapon, code name Koran V. Seether grabbed the nearest man and pushed him into position next to the first man it had killed. Deactivating the mans HVI and JHSI, it let him gaze out at the last beautiful sight he would ever see, before raising its weapon to the mans back.

“Jonathan S. Herring,” it said in a cold, emotionless voice. “Your services are no longer required. By order of High Command, I am ordered to terminate you.”

The man turned then, shock evident in his eyes and on his face. “What is the meaning of - “ The gun cock clicked and a 6.72 mm projectile traveling at hypersonic speeds took him clean between the eyes.

~~

Twenty minutes later, and six more dead men, the machine cleaned out the inside of its gun barrel and shouldered his weapon. It then lifted a small communicator to its lips and spoke softly into it. Moments later a small shuttle hovered up to the edge of the plateau and deposited eight more blind and deaf men. Code name Koran V. Seether pulled up its list, selected the eight names and then walked over to them. After it had finally herded them into position near the center of the plateau, it selected one and moved him toward the edge.

It repeated its lines, lifted its gun and shot the man clean between the eyes. Seven thousand four hundred and thirty-nine. It pulled the next man in line and -

Hey!

The voice seemed to come from no where and the machine looked around. There was no one save itself and the seven men it was about to kill. It let its eyes wander one last time before it readied himself to push the button to kill this man.

Hey god dammit!

The machine turned around completely this time, sweeping its gaze across the plateau, searching for the person who had spoken. The plateau was empty. The six men not on the executioners line, shifted and jostling with one another, still trying to figure out where they had been taken. The machine lowered its weapon, glared at the six shifting men and turned back to the other one, just in time to see a great tree fill his vision.


Hey, dammit! Wake up!

Huh? A large pine tree filled the machines vision and he cried out, twisting to his right to avoid it. Pine needles scrapped against the leather of his wings as he twisted, telling him exactly how close he had been to crashing into that tree.

Luckily for him, he had twisted into a valley, and not into the ticker part of the forest, and was able to level himself out without having to many scraps and other wounds. He shook his head, trying to clear up the remnants of that strange dream, and squinted at the ground.

Where are we?

We flew over that town a few minutes ago. It‘s about four miles back.

Oh. Why didn‘t you tell me?

I did, you just didn‘t hear me.

Oh, okay. I guess I‘ll just turn around.

That would be an excellent idea.

*~*

The town was an average looking thing, except that it was filled with mostly Drow and very few varieties of the other species. Having landed and walked in the remaining half mile or so, the machine still couldn’t shake the feel that, as he walked into the town, he was suddenly the center of attention. He had shifted back to his original form, so he really shouldn’t have caught too much attention.

It might have to do with the fact that you‘re a human, in a Drow town?

I don‘t know. I‘m feeling mighty uncomfortable though.

There‘s a tavern right there. Perhaps we can get our information there and then leave this place.

Aye, that sounds like a good idea to me.

Hurrying over to the tavern, the machine gazed at all the Drow seemingly staring at him, and then ducked into the medium sized building. The common room was filled with mostly Drow, but he could see that a few other races were present. He paid them little heed however, instead hurrying up to the counter.

“A map,” he said quietly. “If you have one, I’d like to see a map.”

The Drow behind the counter looked up from the glass he was cleaning and blinked at the machine, looking as he was trying to understand what the machine had just said. Then, in one fluid motion, he put down the glass, nodded and then disappeared into a back room. The machine heaved a sigh of relief.

Well, that parts over will. Now all we‘ve to do is find out where we are.

And that‘s just the easy part.

Shut up.

[Witchblade]

The darker it got outside, the more Drow filtered into the Tavern. She didn’t need the windows to let her know the sun had set and darkness was upon the town. She could feel it. After a while, she’d stopped paying attention to the faces that came walking in. They were of no concern to her. She would only be here for a bit longer, then she’d pay and leave. Just long enough to rest tired muscles and allow for Daegun to eat. In fact, the little dragon had already finished eating about an hour ago. He was now rather content to lay on the table and watch the new faces as they rolled into the tavern. As long as he stayed close to her, she didn’t mind. But there were too many people in here for her to feel comfortable letting him wander around. He was, after all, her only company on the long journey that was her life. And as much as she hated to admit it, she would be lonely without him.

Also, before she left she needed to remind herself to ask for some proper directions. Normally, Witch had no problem wandering around until she came upon the place she was seeking. However, Megan appeared to want to get this over and done with as quick as possible so the halfling didn’t have much of a choice. It was either that or have more bandits drop down out of the sky and attack her. And she really wasn’t too fond of that occurring. It was fun to kill them and all, but they could never really fight back. They were just bandits. They relied on fear more than anything to get what they wanted. If the average human ever decided to stick up to them, they’d realize just how weak and foolish they were. But humans were stupid, she wouldn’t expect anything less from them.

“Is there anything else I can get you?”

She glanced to her Drow server from the corner of her eyes. Witch still couldn’t get used to hearing Tradespeak come out of his mouth. It just didn’t sit well in her gut. She would much rather prefer it if he spoke the guttural language of the Drow and she had to translate it using her telepathy. That’s what she did with Izvilvin anyway.

“No, I’m fine…”

Her eyes left him and returned to Daegun. He was laying down on the wooden table, his head resting on his front paws and his eyes scanning the room. Even though he looked half asleep she knew he was rather alert. He was just watching, for what she didn’t know. But he did enjoy observing other races, or really any race. Whenever something new came to him, he just wanted to play with it, touch it, pounce on it and see what happens. That wasn’t a bad thing sometimes, but it had also gotten him into a lot of trouble on a few occasions.

“You’ve been here for a little while now.”

She had? She hadn’t even noticed. Was this the part where he asked her to leave if she wasn’t going to order something?

“Just resting my legs before I continue on my journey…” Why was she being so talkative to him?

“You’re journey?” Great, now it looked as if she’d even interested him. “Where are you going?”

“Kachuk…”

He grew silent. Drow and Dwarves were not the best of company in the same land, so it didn’t surprise her he had nothing to say about her little journey.

“What are you doing at Kachuk?”

“I’m retrieving something from the mountain…” Perhaps now would be the best time. “Actually, I was hoping for some proper directions there…”

“Oh…well…” He cut himself off and his face changed into something thoughtful. He was actually going to help her. What a surprise. “I suppose you would just continue heading north east once you leave town. It would take another day’s journey to get there, but you can’t miss it. I mean, they’re mountains.” He smiled at her, but she didn’t know why.

“Okay…umm, thanks.” That was a word that seldom left her mouth.

While she had been talking to the Drow, Daegun had found something much more interesting to occupy his attention with. A familiar smell that had walked into the tavern. Nothing he had seen before, but something he had smelled on his master as he’d woken up today. It was coming from the large looking human at the counter of the bar, but he didn’t really smell human. He smelt…strange. Glancing to his master from the corner of his eyes, the dragon quickly leapt down from the table, hoping she wouldn’t notice him leave. His small paws quickly carried him across the room and quick reflexes kept him from being stepped on a number of different times. Being little had its downfall, but he liked being this size.

Once he reached the counter, Daegun planted his front paws on the legs of the human thing in front of him and gave a gentle push, hoping to get it’s attention.

[Koran]

That Drow is sure taking his sweet time getting that map.

Maybe he's have language barrier difficulties?

Ha ha.

Fearing to take a seat, as much as he wanted to, the machine opted to lean forward onto the counters surface. It wasn't very comfortable, but aside from trying and most likely breaking every chair in this place, it was his only option. After a moment he leaned even further forward and began toying with a small glass shot glass, spinning it slowly in a circle with an index finger. He sighed heavily and was just about to straighten when something touched his leg and then pushed.

"Mmmm?" Moving only his head, the machine twisted to look down at the leg that moved. Fully expecting to see a small child there, probably begging for attention or something, the machine was not at all prepared for what he found.

Is... is that a dragon?!

Certainly looks like it.

"Hmmm," the machine hummed as it pushed itself into a standing position. Dragons were naturally smart creatures and this one, certainly smaller by a vast degree, was no exception. For the moment Koran straightened, it dropped its front paws from his leg and sat looking up at him, its head tilted slightly to the side, pitch black eyes wide and watching. Koran in turn, stared back, his own head tilted slightly.

Well, are you just going to stand there and stare? Say hi, at least.

Crossing his arms in front of his waist, the machine knelt down onto one of his heels and brought himself down to the eye level of the dragon. Instantaneously the dragon rushed forward, not with intent to attack, but with every intent to sniff out every scent possible on the machines body. Koran was quickly overwhelmed by this sudden sniff attack and began chuckling as he tried, in vain, to push the dragon back. If anything, every time Koran pushed, the dragon would push back, and twice as hard as before. After the second push, the machine was unable to maintain his balance and fell heavily onto his backside. The dragon, taking advantage of his momentary weakness, rushing into the stand on one of his legs, sniffing furiously at his face and head. Koran was laughing now and instead of simply trying to push the dragon away, he started toying with it. It understood in an instant, and for the most part, seemed to agree and began playing back. There was of course the standard tendency to want to bite, but other than that, the dragon seemed more than happy to wrestle for a bit.

They did this for maybe two minutes, the machine exchanging some quick, not so hard, but not so soft either, blows with the dragon while trying to pin it to the ground. The dragon in turn, tried to fend off or otherwise dodge the blows, while still trying to keep its feet and then get itself in close to the machines neck for the ‘killing’ blow. It was a rather fun game and in the process the machine learned that dragons were indeed very, very smart creatures. He could only come at the dragon from any one direction only one time, before the dragon figured out how to best counter and evade the attack. In just those short two minutes, Koran counted that he would have ‘died’ at least six times, while he would have only been able to pin the dragon twice, effectively. In the end, the machine was thankful when the Drow finally reappeared with his requested map.

“Well,” he said to the dragon. “That was fun.” He reached forward to pat its head but it quickly ducked away from the hand and moved to bite it, stopping just in time to nudge it instead. “Ahhahaha, very good. You’ve learned young one. Just remember that when you come across something that’s quite a bit bigger than you, and I’d bet you give a good run.” Chuckling to himself, the machine patted the dragon on the side, thankfully this time it understood and didn’t try to move, and stood to address the Drow.

“Thank you,” he said as he reached out to take the map from the Drow. “Will it be all right if I unroll it here on this table?” The Drow glanced at the table the machine had been indicating, shrugged and then nodded. At that point, the machine might as well not have existed because the Drow busied himself with cleaning his glasses once more.

“All right,” the machine said, not really caring if anyone paid him any more attention, as he made his way toward the table. Once again mindful of not taking a seat, he was just about to unroll the map when something buzzed in the back of his head.

"I thought I already told you. You're in Alerar."

His hands froze and for a moment, so did his own thoughts.

Lookie lookie, you're gonna get a cookie.

After a moment of silence, inside and out thankfully, he regained control of himself and looked up.

Screwed.

[Witchblade]

She had been a little surprised to see the cyborg once again. Their encounter in the plains and their subsequent battle together was the last time she thought she’d ever see his face again. The fates that ruled this world seemed to dictate otherwise. Witch couldn’t help but wonder if Megan had anything to do with this, or if it was all just a game of chance. The true answer to that didn’t bother her either way. He was here. Whether or not Megan put him here or his own creator did, had little to no bearing on her following actions.

While her Drow server had continued to discuss random and meaningless things with her, it hadn’t taken the halfling long to notice Daegun was gone. She didn’t want him to wander around in this place very much, as the room was quickly filling with those tired and rowdy from a long days work. She didn’t want to take the chance of someone getting a rather smart idea in their head to take him as their own. He’d most likely fight back himself and probably wouldn’t go with them, but still, it would cause a commotion. And she’d probably have to kill the idiot that had tried such a thing. So when her eyes had found him at the feet of a rather familiar figure, she couldn’t help the quick look of surprise to pass across her face. It hadn’t lasted long before it had been replaced by her regular, stoic and emotionless look though.

For a while she’d continued to listen to the Drow as he prattled on and on about some random shit dealing with Alerar she couldn’t care less about. All the while her eyes were in Daegun. Watching him and the machine as they played a game of cat and mouse. Truly, if her dragon had wanted to he could have killed the man numerous times by the time the game was up. Then again, could a machine really perish from the same wounds as a living creature? It would be an interesting question to have answered, but right now she didn’t feel up to it.

After he’d taken the map from the bartender and walked over to one of the tables, she decided to approach him. With the game over, Daegun had once again returned to her side. As she stood, he climbed up to her shoulder where he sat, with his front paws resting on the side of her head. It was his favourite position, albeit a bit of an odd one but she didn’t mind too much. Once she was standing by his side, she made her comment about already telling him where she was. Was he daft or had he just not heard her? The look on his face was rather priceless though, especially the way his entire body froze. It was almost as if he wasn’t happy to see her. How saddening.

A smirk was tugging at her lips by the time he finally forced himself to look up at her.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were stalking me.” Took him long enough to find his voice and his smart-ass comments.

The halfling crossed her arms under her chest, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say my baby dragon had you bested multiple times in that little game of yours.” His words didn’t bother he too much, after all she was known to throw a few sarcastic comments around herself. If it had come from a human he could have kissed his face goodbye though. She looked down at the map he had spread across the table. “This is just a map of Alerar though, it’s not going to help you very much…” She didn’t know why she was being so social able with him or even why she was helping him. Perhaps it was just her curiosity about just what he was.

She was horrible at looking at maps. They always hurt more than helped her, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. “I do believe Corone is North East of here, you said you were going there, right?”

Even glancing over the map herself she couldn’t even make out her own destination. She would think it would be easy to spot as it was a range of mountains, but then again the Drow and Dwarves didn’t get along. Perhaps Kachuk was not on the map then.

[Koran]

Burned out, and I didn't even get to see the flames.

Sighing, and straightening himself from his leaning position, the machine stared quietly down at the map. His eyes roved over the lines, the names scribbled in a language he couldn't even begin to comprehend, memorizing them in what little time he had left.

North East. He glanced up to the windows. They were black with the night. If only I had a compass. His eyes returned to the map and for a moment he was silent. Then he spoke.

"That's a nice dragon you've got there. He'll make a fine companion, not that he doesn't look it now." His smile was small, almost unseen on his lips and he bent to roll up the map as he spoke. Smooth. After rolling it back to its original state the machine turned his back to the woman, probably not the smartest thing in the world to do, and handed the parchment to the bartender. Who in turn, handed one back.

What's this? Giving the bartender a questioning look, which was answered with a slight shrug, the machine slowly unrolled the new parchment and glanced at the first few inches. There was nothing written on it.

Giving the bartender a second look, the machine opened the parchment a little further. Again, nothing. Okay, what the hell? After giving the bartender a more serious, if not slightly angry look, and then unrolled the parchment all the way. A blank surface was all he saw.

“All right, what’s the big idea here?” He said angrily, dropping the parchment to the ground and advancing on the bartender. The man, having been through this sort of thing many times before, calmly looked back at the machine and shrugged. The machine began to growl angrily and was just about to reach over the counter and take a hold of the man, when something tugged at his shirt.

“Sir, sir! Your parchment, look!”

“Eh?” Turning, and finding that a little boy was tugging at his shirt, the machine glanced down at his discarded parchment and blinked. Words, four whole lines, were written in the center of the page. “What the?” Forgetting about the bartender the machine walked back to the parchment and bent to retrieve it. It had fallen into a puddle of water, having soaked the entire thing in seconds, and the instant the machine removed it from the water, the words disappeared. “Wait a minute,” the machine said as he straightened. Glancing around the room, the machine spotted a lamp with an intensifying mirror installed and made his way toward it. Twisting it so that he could hold the parchment up to the intensified light, the machine read as the words once again appeared before his eyes.

Do not fear these words, as they are only such. Heed them however, as you would heed the advice of your betters. To Kachuk you must fly, with all haste, with no delay. Answers you seek, these you will have, should you take heed my cry!

He sat, silently staring at the parchment, slowly rereading the words written on its surface a second time. Kachuk? That makes no sense.

No sense?! This whole thing makes no sense!

The machine slowly shook his head.

No, you wouldn‘t understand.

Understand?! What the heck is there to understand?! It‘s a freaking parchment, apparently addressed to you! And it‘s spitting garbled junk all over the place, like it‘s expecting you to listen!

The machine chuckled, shaking his head slowly back and forth again.

You weren‘t awake when it happened.

That is apparent. Now, what the hell could possibly be in Kachuk that we would have any reason to be getting?

I‘ve no idea, but it says here that I‘ll get the answers to my questions - your - questions, if I go. So, I see no reason not to go. I mean, what exactly to we having going for us in Corone?

Peace, quiet. Just to name a few.

I‘ve never heard of a civil war being quiet.

Touche.

Straightening from his leaning position the machine carefully rolls the parchment back into its original state and lets his eyes wander across the room.

“Does anyone know the way to Kachuk?”

[Witchblade]

And here she thought she had anger management issues. The machine was losing his head and his calm demeanour over a simple map. It was just a map, well in this case a blank piece of parchment. If it pissed him off that much, he should just kill the bartender, or at least give him the stupid parchment back. Honestly, some people just did not know how to control their emotions. She could say that for herself occasionally, but at least she wasn’t the one about the beat the bartender to death over a piece of blank paper.

Right as he was about to turn the bartender’s face into a pile of smashed and broken bones, a little boy tugged at his shirt and pointed back to the parchment. Curious herself, Witch found her own eyes trailing to the parchment now lying in a pile of something on the floor and rather soaked. It could have been water, but considering they were in a tavern, it was more likely that it was ale or some other substance that the Drow drank to muddle their minds and dull their senses. Why any race would want to do that to themselves she didn’t know. She had noticed that humans tended to act rather differently when intoxicated. But that was neither here nor there and she wasn’t about to get into an analysis on how humans acted when drunk. Not when she had better things to do with her time.

“Yeah, like get out of here and move on to Kachuk.”

She couldn’t exactly refute that point. The halfling did need to get a move on. The sun was down and the moon was high in the sky. She could feel the night. She didn’t need to see it. This was the time when she enjoyed travelling the most. There was no need of the sun blinding her eyes or burning her skin, not to mention the night was peaceful. Many races and creatures were afraid of it, but that was only because they couldn’t see what the night held. She could. She could see in the dark just as easily as any human in the day, better perhaps for human eyes were rather weak.

Turning from the machine, who was busy studying the parchment and looking rather confused at whatever he found written upon it. Witch was just about to leave the establishment when she heard his voice boom and echo throughout the wooden structure. He wanted to know the way to Kachuk? What business did he have there? When she’d first met him, he’d just been trying to leave this region, why did he now want to stay and why exactly was he now heading in the exact same direction she was? This had to be more than just a coincidence. As much as she would like to believe that, she had a different view of the world now thanks to a certain old man. Sometimes she thought it would just be much better if he’d never imparted his great knowledge upon her. At least then she could continue to live in Althanas blissfully ignorant of how it came to be.

“I travel to Kachuk…”

He looked to her the moment the words entered his head, his face surprised. She was rather certain he would gladly pick any other person in this room to travel with other than her, but he didn’t exactly have a choice in this matter. There was a person behind him that controlled him and made him do these things. He didn’t even think for himself or act for himself, not like she did. Perhaps in that way she was lucky and glad for this knowledge of hers.

The tavern was beginning to grow too crowded for her. The noise was piercing through her ears and causing a slightly pound that beat in tempo with her heart to begin in the back of her skull. She needed to get out of here. She needed to breathe from fresh air, not air that smelled of Drow, smoke, sweat and ale. Turning from the table and the machine, Witch moved through the crowd like a phantom. Slipping out the door, she took in a deep breath of clean air as it blasted against her face and clothes. Goosebumps broke out along her arms and the exposed portion of her chest as the cool night wind caressed her like a lover she had missed for far too long. High above her, the sky was filled with stars. They were different than the ones she was used to seeing in Concordia, but nonetheless they were stars and she welcomed their sight. Now all she had to do was wait and see if the machine was going to come out after her or if he was going to find another way.

[Koran]

Did -

Yes.

And -

If you really need to.

But -

What?

I -

Just go!

Suddenly becoming aware of how crowded the common room was, the machine fought to keep himself from the dismal depths of panic and sought an escape. It was difficult to find one, almost all the persons in the room were of equal or greater height then him, so he was almost forced to stand on his toes. More than a few times he received some not so friendly looks, and once he was even pushed. He paid these people little to no attention, as acknowledging them would only fan the flames. A difficult task, as most seemed to beg to be punched and the machine, in his current mood, probably wouldn't have hesitated.

You have a strange out look on life.

Oh yeah? He dodged around an already drunk man, careful to not spill any of the fellows jolly drink. And how do you figure?

No figuring, just an observation. You seem to promote danger around yourself and seem to beg for violence, that's all.

Oh, I see.

Watch it.

Huh. . .?

Hissing in surprise as a bar maid nearly ran him down with a plate full of food and ale, the machine spun to avoid her and consequently exited the tavern in a not so graceful manner. "Holy hell," he wheezed, jerking to stop, just short of falling onto his face. "Who'd've thought it would fill up so fast?"

The answer to his question, a rhetorical one at that, wasn’t quite as he expected.

"For an emotionless creature, you panic quickly."

The machine jumped at the sound of the voice inside his head. Instantly regretting the action, as it only reinforced with had already been said, but he still couldn’t help but mutter a subtle ’Shit.’

“You,” he said with a forced joyful tone and smile. “Are a sneaky one.” His finger shook in the womans general direction and for a moment he thought he saw a smile form on her lips. It instantly caused him to stop, because if ever there was a smile that promised pain, suffering and death beyond all imagination, that smile was certainly one. Her head tilted slightly to the side and a voice once again manifested inside his mind.

”If you‘re quite finished dicking around, you can decide whether or not you really want to go to Kachuk.”

Woah. Even meaner than I imagined.

Can it. “Uhhh, well, first off, would you prefer I speak or just think?”

The smile disappeared and the machine suddenly felt cold inside. “Uhhh, heh. Okay, stupid question. I'll just speak.”

The smile came back, half of it. The machine smiled back, half-heartedly and more than a little shyly. He ran a hand through his hair and puffed his cheeks out in exasperation. “Uhhh, heh. Well, umm, I really see no reason for us not to travel together. Unless of course that is you have a problem with that, becuase you know, I really wouldn't have any qualms if you said no or anything. I just, well, umm, would you know, kind of appreciate some instructions if that is the case."

Smooth.

Will you just shut up?!

He knew her patience was wearing thin. He could see it on her pale face. The skin was drawing tighter as her mouth fell further into a frown. Personally, he thought that she seemed the kind of person to have thin patience, as well as a short fuse. Hey, I know a guy like that! But seriously, what were you expecting?

I - I‘m not sure come to think of it.

Well?

Heh, right.

Sighing, squaring his shoulders and then taking a deep breath, the machine turned to face the woman. “Right, another stupid question. You offered after all, why wouldn't you be at least a little willing. If you lead, I will follow.”

Silence. A very, long, dreadful silence. And then. . .

”Try to keep up. I don‘t stop, for anything."

Ummm.

Before the severity of her words could set in however, something stirred on her shoulder and a few moments later materialized into the dragon that the machine had been playing with only minutes earlier. She gave it a passing glance, it gave her none, and then returned her attention back to the machine. ”He‘s fed for the month. Now, let's move. I grow weary of this infestation.” And then, she was simply gone.

Buh?! Where the hell?

Straight you moron, she still is part mortal.

That doesn't even make any sense, the machine thought back as it squinted into the darkness. It certainly didn’t help at all that he was still standing near the light from the tavern, but despite his squinting he still couldn’t see anything.

Are you sure? At that very instant something seemed, or it certainly felt as thought something had taken a hold on his neck. Words materialized in his mind and he knew in an instant that they were angry.

”I SAID MOVE!”

“Bwah!” The machine yelped as whatever it was that was around his neck tightened violently, slackening only when he took a step foward. “All right, all right! I’m coming! Sheesh!” Three steps into his being forced forward, he found himself standing right beside the woman, who was staring murder at him, her mouth drawn down into a very nasty frown. “Heh,” the machine chuckled, while rubbing his neck. “Pre-journey jitters?”

A low growl was all the answer he got from her, before she turned and stalked away into the night. The machine was only an instant behind this time, not wishing to go through the same telepathic punch a second time and as he walked to catch up to her, he silently wondered exactly he was he had just gotten himself into.

Not going to fly?

I think I'll walk for a bit.

Whipped.

[Witchblade]

Travelling with the machine wasn’t so bad. He most kept to himself and kept his big mouth shut. Not to mention unlike humans and many other races he did not appear to need rest as often. In fact, they had travelled through the night without incident or him asking her even once if they could take a break. It was now somewhere around the time of noon and still he had not asked. She was impressed. Most creatures could not keep up with the pace that she set, but this cyborg appeared to have no problem keeping pace with her. And since they had begun their journey, that little bitch Megan had not once reared her ugly head and told her to get a move on things. It had Witch wonder.

In fact she had been thinking for quite a while now if Koran was indeed just a pawn of Megan or if he was under the control of someone else, his own creator. She wasn’t sure if the answer truly mattered, yet she couldn’t help but think about such things. Ever since she had gained her knowledge on the way Althanas really worked, she looked at things in a whole new way. Were each of those people at the bar last night been controlled by Megan, had they just been words on a piece of paper or were they controlled individually? If they were to be given true thought, what would they do with it? What was she doing with it? Nothing, that’s what.

She had been freed from the controls of her creator only to find herself doing exactly what the human wanted. Before she’d had no choice because she thought it was her own actions she was following, but now she was dictated and threatened into doing what the woman wanted. This whole quest was to acquire some item from the damn Dwarves. Witch didn’t even know what it was for Megan hadn’t even told her. She’d just threatened to make her life hell if she didn’t go get the damn thing and as already proven she could do just that. So she’d agreed and found herself in Alerar with a damn cyborg that had some major personality issues following closely on her tail.

Speaking of the cyborg.

Witch turned her head slightly and glanced behind her. The machine was walking barely a foot behind her and slightly to her right. His head was turned to the side and his eyes were trained on something in the distance.

Hmm…

Hmm, what?

I don’t know…

Turning back to the road ahead of her, or really the field. There wasn’t any kind of road. Witch tended to walk her own path and cut through nature taking the road less walked than the one trampled upon. Besides, it was probably going to shave a large amount of time to just cut across the land than take some winding back road that led who knows where. The Kachuk Mountains were already in view and only growing bigger with every minute that passed her by. Truly, their monstrous structure was already looming in the sky and taking up most of the view ahead of her.

“We should reach the base of the mountain by the end of today barring any unforeseen circumstances…” She spoke to the machine without turning around to him.



((If you want something to happen, some conversation or what not, do it now. Otherwise, just advance through the day until they get to the base of the mountain. If nothing important is going to happen we might as well skip it.))

[Koran]

The machine grunted.

In addition to being a skilled and ruthless fighter, this woman was also a marathon walker. Only pausing to analyze a different path, they had traveled all through the night and most of the morning. His feet were beginning to hurt, soon he would either have to rest or else begin flying. Resting was out of the option he was sure. Based on how this woman walked, she was in a hurry.

But what was she hurrying toward?

The question echoed in his mind, even as others bounced between one electrical circuit and another.

What was the deal with that old woman? Why had he received that strange note? Why had he even listened to that note?

His eyes drifted to his right and something glinted in the distance. Squinting, the machine stared at the reflection. What in the world? The reflection glinted a few more times and then disappeared. The machine blinked. Well, that was strange.

Something tickled the back of his mind and words formed inside his head. “We should reach the base of the mountain by the end of today barring any unforeseen circumstances…”

He coughed, stumbled and barely caught himself with an outstretched hand on a large rock. He only paused for a half second, before continuing on, but as he looked up he saw the woman turned back around. She had seen him fall. He shook his head, trying to clear the remnants of the words from his thoughts.

By the end of the day? I can't continue on like this.

Hurrying to catch up with the woman, she had continued on without waiting, he carefully tapped her shoulder.

"End of the day? I'm not so sure that would be the smartest thing." He shook his head and pointed toward where he had seen the flash. "I wouldn't put any money on it, but I think we might have someone following us. I've been noticing flashing in that direction all morning but haven't taken the time to really notice until just now." He stepped around a large rock the woman had simply just gone up and over, Shit, she's spry. Hurrying to catch up with her again, he continued to speak. "I can fly." Almost immediately he regretted saying that. Of course she knew he could fly, she had met him when he was flying around, lost like an idiot. He grit his teeth and continued. "I can get us there in about two hours, unless you don't much feel like flying." He carefully didn't say why he wanted to fly. Three tons of near dead weight, were taking its toll on his feet and footwear. He'd have to buy a new pair of boots in Kachuck.

He danced around another rock that the woman simply scrambled over, and fell in beside her. "So, what do you say?" His smile showed teeth but the woman simply continued walking, ignoring him completely. His shoulders drooped and for a moment, continued to walk beside the woman before he slowly began to drop back behind her.

They continued walking for a distance until, abruptly, the woman stopped. Had Koran not been paying attention at that very moment, he might have run her over. "Hey, what the!?" Stumbling quickly to the right of her, he narrowly avoided bumping her. "What's the deal?" He asked as he finally stopped himself, just to the front and right of her. "Why are we stopping?" The question found deaf ears. Instead, the woman stared up at the sky, as if studying it and after a moment, Koran did too. "What? Do you see something?" Moving to stand beside the woman, the machine studied the sky. He saw only blue sky and some clouds. Something moved in the corner of his eye and he looked left just in time to see the woman dof her cloak and pack. What the? Even as he watched, the woman placed her cloak and pack on the ground in front of her, looked back up at the sky and then closed her eyes. Now, what in the hell?

The sound of tearing flesh was the only warning he had before something exploded out from the womans back. He would later recall the feeling of being hit by those wings, as comparable to being hit by a slow rolling bus, down hill with no brakes and in neutral. His body, despite weighing as much as it did, was thrown sideways with such force, that the rock that happened to stop his sideways flight, cracked clean in two.

A short time later, he couldn't honestly say how long, he was dusting himself off and glaring daggers at the smiling form of the woman. Standing there, her mouth sewn shut, her skin a pale white and her still slightly bloody wings out stretched behind him, he suddenly realized how devilish she really was. Appearances were only skin deep they said, but hers, he was sure, bit to the bone.

Who ever heard of blue blood?

Who ever heard of 'green' blood?

He sighed. Sometimes, that voice.

Straightening, and cracking his back in the process, the machine shook his head. "All right, so you can fly. You know where to go, and now that I won't have to carry you, you may lead."

The smile disappeared and with a great snap of her wings, the woman lifted into the air, circled once and then glided away toward the rising summits of Kachuk. For a moment the machine only watched, before shaking his head and closing his eyes. Moments later he joined her in the sky and they flew in silence toward the summits.

*~*

A few hours later, closer on toward dusk, six shadowy figures appeared next to the great split rock. One crouched down, examining the earth and the foot prints embedded into them. It glanced up in the direction they had been facing and, after a moment of silence, rose to its feet and pointed.

"They flew on from here, but their destination remains the same. We make for Kachuk."

Then, as silently as they appeared, they were gone. Leaving behind them no trace of their arrival.

[Witchblade]

Being followed was of no consequence to the halfling. The prey was playing the role of the hunter, and she would allow them to think that until they approached her. Then the tables would be turned and they would wish they never began such a foolish quest to follow her. Taking to the sky was a good way to lose them and cover a large amount of ground in the same process, but Witch didn’t enjoy calling forth her wings. They ripped through flesh and reformed bone, tendons and muscles. To the untrained eye it seemed as if they appeared from nowhere, but to her it was a painful experience that she felt every second of. Without her healing abilities it would be a dangerous and life-threatening experience for she would surely bleed to death after having them rip through her back. However it took no more than an hour to heal the wounds left in her shoulder blades.

As the machine had guessed it only took them a few hours to reach the Kachuk Mountains. Their monstrous rocky forms looming into the sky and blocking out the last of the sun as it set somewhere behind them. Snow capped tops added a pristine feeling to the grey that made up the rest of them, their surface too harsh to support much of any life passed the midway point up to their peak. A testimony to nature and just what it could do over the centuries.

The flight had shortened their journey greatly and Witch had the feeling that would greatly please that little bitch, Megan and in the long run her as well. Once she was finished collecting this item she didn’t want to hear from her creator for at least a year or two. Time where she could enjoy what she could of her life and not have to run little errands for the human. Curiosity warred within her though and she couldn’t help but wonder what exactly the item was. It must be something important, something that could potentially help her in some way for her to force her to go on such a journey to acquire it.

Turning sharply, the halfling began to descend towards the ground a few thousand feet below them. Her eyes cut through the growing twilight as if it were day, not that she needed to. The ground below them was mostly open field; a blind human could land safely enough. Daegun followed quickly on her tail, the tiny dragon trying his best to keep up with her, which didn’t seem too hard for him. The sky was like a second home to his kind after all and she was rather certain he greatly enjoyed the few hours spent in the air tonight. After all, it was rare for her to fly and as such he didn’t do much of it either, never straying far from her side. The content and happy expression on his face said it all though. Perhaps she would spread her wings more often for him if it pleased him so.

The machine was a little slower, but eventually he touched down on the ground near to where she was. She wasn’t entirely used to someone who could change their form and as such did not appreciate it when he did. Thankfully she had other senses that humans could not rely upon to tell identity and one that rarely if ever changed was a person’s unique scent. Machine or not he still had one. So no matter what form he took in front of her he would always smell the same.

“We’ll camp here for the night. The dwarves would better receive us in the morning than in the growing night.”

She did not need rest and Daegun could always sleep in her rucksack, however she was certain the machine might need to recover from the bout of walking she put him through today. Still, what she said was correct. Any race more easily welcomed those that visited their home during the light hours than those at night. And since she wanted something from the Dwarves it would be easy to assume she needed to stay on her best with them, if that was at all possible. She didn’t really know much about the Dwarves and couldn’t remember the last one she’d met, if ever so this was going to be an interesting situation.

Her wings disappeared from her back. The flesh and bone they were made of simply rotted and fell away in the matter of ten or so seconds leaving not a trace that they had ever been there. This was exactly why she wore a shirt with such an open back, otherwise she’d be forced to by new clothes rather often and that required talking to people, talking to humans and going into town.

Tossing her pack onto the ground, the halfling turned and began wandering away from the machine. She needed to find some firewood and in a place that looked like a giant field it was not going to be easy. Half an hour or so later she wandered back to where she’d left the machine with an armful of dry wood. Daegun was also carrying some, of course that some amounted to a single piece that he held in his mouth while he ran beside her. Letting them fall from her arms into a pile, Witch cleared off a small area and threw some of the branches into there. Holding her right hand out, she excited the ions just above her palm until they burst into a sphere of blue flames that licked upwards. Setting it against some of the sticks, she allowed them to catch then closed her hand around the flame, extinguishing it.

Stepping back, the halfling found a rather large rock about five or more feet away from the fire and sat down, leaning against it. She would have preferred a tree but in this place that might be asking too much. Daegun laid down directly next to the fire, absorbing the heat of the flames through his protective scales. He would probably fall asleep relatively soon.

[Koran]

Taking a seat next to the fire, the machine silently went over the days events in his head. First was the ever present first meeting with the strange woman, alone as they had been, in that vast field only to be suddenly set upon by a roving band of thieves and cut throats. He had as of yet been unable to figure out exactly where those men had come from. Having circled the woman at least twice from the air he had failed to spot them. It was almost as if they had appeared out of thin air, like magic.

A small smirk creased his face and he chuckled, poking at the fire with a long slender stick. His eyes shifted toward the now seated woman and her small dragon. The smirk faded from his lips and he once again returned his attention to the dancing flames.

Then there was, of course, perhaps the most important event of the day, and possibly the one that had led him to this time and place. His strange run in with that little old woman. His mind was still a mass of jumbled thoughts and questions and statements over that encounter, as he was yet unable to cope with the fact that he had been beaten, and beaten so handily.

Again his shook his head and chuckled, resolving once again in his mind that it was better to laugh at his troubles and mistakes, than to dwell on them and let them consume him. His stick reached out and poked the glowing embers of the fire. There was a loud snap as one of the branches popped from its expanding sap, sending a shower of sparks skyward before collapsing with a crunch into the center of the flames. The machine waited a few moments before poking the fire again but nothing happened.

Then his mind wandered to the bar, where he was consequently reunited with perhaps the one person he had thought he'd never see again. Or care to see again rather. Not that he was saying the woman was bad company, just that she didn't seem the 'dynamic-duo' type of person. Or a group type person at that. She just happened to give off a very negative aura, and one that the machine felt himself strangely drawn toward.

He shook his head and let a shiver twist his shoulders a little while the thought ran itself aground in his mind. He then did his best to ignore it, regardless of how much it pulsed and beckoned at the back of his mind. His eyes blurred and his mind once again resumed its wandering.

Once inside that bar, with the woman he hadn't thought to meet, he had met a dragon. It was strange that the dragon should take a liking to him, as he clearly wasn't its master, or a friend of its master and all things considered, should have probably been considered a threat. Yet, with all the strangeness that was the world, the dragon had found a small liking in the machine, enough to allow it the patience to play with the machine for a short period of time. This brought a smile to the machines face, remembering the small creatures chirps and growls as it dodged his playful punches and carefree slaps. His eyes shifted to the now sleeping form of the dragon and he couldn't help but chuckle.

Of course, it was at about that time during the day that the message had arrived. At perhaps the most inopportune of times, and under the most inopportune of circumstances but, what was he to do with fate? Or the mad inklings of some strange old sorcerer woman? He lifted his head skyward and sighed.

Nothing really. Nothing at all.

He closed his eyes and chuckled, a smile closing his mouth and creasing his face as he did so. He let his head drop down to a more level position and then shook it slowly to one side, inhaling deeply and chuckling a bit more heavily.

Not a damn thing, that's what.

His chuckling broke into a shallow laugh and he couldn't help himself when he threw his stick into the fire as hard as he could. His smile turned sour and his laughing became a weeping noise, his body shaking visibly because of it. He lifted a hand to his face, concealing it behind its palm and after a moment, fell back into silence.

He remained as such for a full minute, listening to the sounds of the night, the crackle of the fire, the steady breathing of his female and dragon companions, before letting his hand drop to his side.

"Fuck," he whispered to no one in particular while searching for another fire poking stick. He found one, shorter than the first, but a little thicker as well, and resumed his steady prodding of the flames.

Having composed himself visibly for the moment, mentally he was still a little distraught, the machine lifted his gaze to the woman and put on a small smile.

"So," he said cheerfully. "You really think the dwarves will greet us generously with the sun just above the horizon? My personal opinion says they'll regard us as foe no matter the lighting conditions. Not to trusting a people, or so I've heard." He tossed his fire poker down to the ground beside him and scooted himself back to lean against a medium sized rock. After making himself a little more comfortable, his arms drawn across his chest and his boots crossed heel to toe, the machine returned his gaze to the woman.

"What is it that you hope to find there anyway?" He paused deliberately for a moment, before adding, "If you don't mind me asking that is." He knew she already knew his reasons, or at least, understood his reasons. He was still unsure as to what his reasons were exactly, other than some note, from a sorcerer woman whom had beaten him with her hands down, had told him too. He was pretty sure that it probably wasn't even his place to ask the woman that but still, it was kind of boring not doing anything and with him not needing any sleep, he was sure it would be a very long night if it was filled with only silence.

[Witchblade]

The hysterical laughing of the machine brought Witch out of her distant thoughts and back to reality. It looked like her new companion was starting to lose his mind and she wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Then again, could a cyborg have a mind to lose in the first place? The bubble of laughter coming from him was suggesting he could, but then again that could be something else entirely that she just didn’t understand. She didn’t say anything though. She just watched him as the laughter slowly died and he raised a hand to shield his face from something. Was it from her? If so, it was a little late for that, as she’d seen his ugly visage.

After only a few moments, he left his hand drop down to his lap with a single word. Fuck. It was as if he were having some kind of internal conflict within his mind and though she was a curious creature; Witch was not fond of riffling through people’s head, especially if they were going a little on the insane side. So she stayed out of it. She just turned her eyes back towards the fire and the sleeping form of her dragon in front of it and was content to ignore what had just happened. But then the cyborg spoke to her, asking her questions she possessed no answer to.

“Dwarves are dwarves. They’re a race I would rather stay away from. Even from here I can smell their stench, but unfortunately I am driven to them. Whether or not they will open their arms and miraculously let us in, is an answer I cannot give you. I understand not how their mind works and have never interacted with them before, except for a small time in Fallien.”

The halfling had certain just said a mouthful to Koran without having actually spoken. Who knows why she’d even bothered to answer his question. Perhaps she was growing more tolerant of the cyborg and his odd behaviours. In the end it didn’t even matter. His question still stood though. Would the dwarves truly just let her in without any problems? Perhaps if she dropped his name they would. After all, they had fought side-by-side in a bloody civil war that neither of them should have had any part in.

As for his second question, Witch had no idea how to answer it. She didn’t even know what she had come for. That little bitch of a creator hadn’t told her what it was. Just that it was an item the dwarves were in possession of, one that any who came for could freely take as long as they had the strength to. She wasn’t entirely certain what that meant, but she was beginning to think there was kind of trial she had to go through in order to obtain it.

“It’s none of your concern what I want from there.”

She may have actually given him the answer if she knew it. But seeing as she didn’t, she played it cold instead and brushed him off.

“Why don’t you get some sleep?”

He’ll need it in order for what lay ahead tomorrow, not that she really even knew what did lay ahead tomorrow. The quickest way up the mountain would be to fly again and she had no qualms against that. Walking across flat fields was one thing, but scaling a mountain was completely different. Plus, she didn’t even know where the entrance to the Dwarves cave was. They could even be at the base of the mountain for all she knew, somewhere in the middle or even more towards the top, though that was a little unlikely. After all, the dwarves had to leave their caves too. She guessed they would be along the middle somewhere for both defensive purposes and easy access for them to come and go as they pleased.

[Koran]

The machine quirked a small smile and tilted his head back to stare up at the starry sky above. With his mouth slightly ajar and his eyes slightly closed, he guessed that it would appear as if he were asleep. After a moment however, he quietly abandoned the posture and returned to his previous one of staring into the crackling fire. After a few moments more, his gaze returned to the woman.

"I don't sleep. Never have, never will. Should this body die even, I will never sleep. Just have a period of undocumented activity." He leaned forward to grasp a hold of his poker and then jammed it into the fire. "Near eight thousand years of existence and not a single moments rest." The fire roared with a loud crack as another branch exploded, sending a multitude of sparks into the air that caused Koran to flinch. He let the poker drop beside his leg with a sigh and leaned back against his rock. After a moment of silence he slowly let his eyes slide shut in the semblance of rest.

Hours passed without a sound. The fire had long since died to faintly glowing embers and flickering mini-flames. The moonless sky, glowing faint white from the countless stars and space dust that filled it, cast an eerie landscape, casting shadows and shapes that would normally be seen as not noteworthy, into something to be taken more along the lines of sinister and evil. The machine lay in the exact position he had when he first closed his eyes and as he lay there, he once again began mulling over the events of the previous few days. As it was however, fate intervened right about the time he found himself recalling the exact sequence of events leading up to his being pinned beneath that plank of wood in the forest.

The dragon, sneezed.

At first Koran thought that the boulder he had been leaning against had just exploded and he leapt to his feet with a yelp, fists balled and head swinging. It took him a moment to realize that his boulder had in fact not been what had exploded, but was instead the now stretched out and yawning form of the womans baby dragon. The creature finished stretching and then looked up at him with hazy and tired eyes, before smacking its lips together and curling itself back into a tiny ball near the remains of the fire.

Remains, of the fire.

Koran blinked and then glanced in the direction of the scattered embers and smoldering pieces of wood. Already he could see the dry grass smoking.

"Shit," he mumbled as he scrambled to stamp out the sudden horde of tiny fires. Except, every time he seemed to tamp out one, three more sprang up to replace the first. In short order the machine was leaping about, cursing and yelling, stomping and slapping the ground with his hands, feet, knees or whatever else he could find to smack the damned things. It took him a while but after what seemed to him to be a life time of jumping and yelling, the fires were finally out. The ground around him with quite flattened and burnt, but at least there wasn't any great prairie fire.

It was just at that moment that he caught a glimpse of the sun peaking out from above the eastern horizon.

"Time to go," was all he said before throwing down his 'fire-beating' stick and moving toward the still smoldering fire pit. He quickly kicked a mound of dirt over the top of the pit and then jumped up and down on top of it until it was a good two feet under. That ought to keep it under control, he thought as he stepped out of his newly created hole. The sun had only risen maybe an inch on the horizon and the woman was already packed and ready to move.

The machine only nodded and then turned away, just as the sound of tearing flesh filled the air. Moments later, the woman lifted off into the air. Seconds later the machine changed his own appearance and joined her in flight. Shortly, they would be upon the dwarven city of Kachuck and from there, she could find what she was looking for and he could find out exactly what it was that old woman meant to show him.

[Witchblade]

Witch couldn’t help but understand the cyborg’s lack of rest. Her years were not as great for she could barely remember much of anything passed the last ten, but in all that time she could not recall this great rest that many people took for granted. Humans required sleep every night and therefore they barely ever thought about it. But to never require sleep and to never have that kind of rest where your mind is nearly shut down is something Witch has never had. There have been times of unconsciousness, but she never enjoyed the feeling of coming around after it, as most of those were involuntarily spent in that state. It always made her feel vulnerable.

The night wore on and Witch remained silent through it. Conversation was not her forte and she didn’t feel like talking at the moment. Instead she listened to what went on around her like she always did. Every time the grass rustled with the wind or that tiny, furred creature moving through it. It was peaceful and calming, as close to rest she could ever find on this world. That was until her dragon sneezed and scattered bits of the fire all over the place. It was quite loud, though Witch was used to it, but the cyborg seemed extremely surprised by it. He even jumped up from where he’d been sitting as if expecting a sudden war to break out. He did seem a little worried about the embers though and proceeded to run around stamping on the ground making all kinds of noise until the sun literally rose over the horizon. At that point in time he took the liberally to squash their fire straight down into the earth. Witch couldn’t help but wonder at just how much he weighed, not really sure she wanted to find out.

Grabbing a hold of the straps of her rucksack, the halfling slowly stood up, her muscles protesting from not having been used for hours on end. The rest had probably helped her and the cyborg as well, but she sometimes hated that feeling in her system as unused muscled yelled for having to move now. Taking a deep breath, she called forth her wings again, barely flinching as they tore through the flesh on her back and reformed bone and sinew.

Taking a second to become used to it once more, the halfling beat her wings sending droplets of her dark blue blood flying off in all direction before she took to the sky. This early in the morning the wind was still cool from the night as the sun had yet to warm anything. It felt lovely against her skin, causing small shivers to ravage her. Her eyes were trained on the ground below her, quickly becoming smaller and smaller the more she used the air currents to rise. Even though the mountain was less than a few minutes flight from where they had rested, she couldn’t help but climb this high into the sky. It made her feel so free. The cyborg was at her side within moments and her dragon was trailing a little behind. His wings were much smaller and not as powerful as hers, so they had to beat twice as hard just to attempt keeping up. Even from this height though, the mountain was still taller than them. The monstrous range of grey rock reaching towards the heaven’s and what Gods these people believed in, as their pristine and snow covered caps brightly gleamed in the light of the sun.

Straightening her wings, the halfling began to head towards the mountain knowing that this debacle was soon going to be over and that bitch of a creator she had would be leaving her alone again for a time. But how long would it be this time until she wanted something else from her? The thought disturbed her, but Witch pressed forward anyway. She just wanted this over with.

Noticing a notch in the mountain where the rough, jagged stone was carved away into some smoother and more defined, the halfling tipped one of her wings and began descending down towards it. The closer she got the more detail she could see. The carved pillars standing against the side of the mountain along with the freestanding ones, looking almost like the remains of some ancient city that had long ago collapsed. There was even a small plateau that the pillars lined, almost welcoming any one to the doors that rested upon the end. They were a testament to dwarven engineering, large and tall by any standard and carved straight out of the mountain itself.

Touching down on the stone plateau, the halfling was almost swept off to the side by an extremely strong wind that seemed to just surround the mountain. Even Daegun had a hard time landing, his tiny little body being blown to the right and almost out of reach from the plateau. She merely chuckled and watched as he fought against it and eventually made his way to the rock face, quickly running over to her shivering and clinging to her leg. Reaching down she picked him up and held him with one of her arms as she began heading towards the doors. There was some kind of language carved into the border of the door, leading all the way around it. But whatever it said was lost to her. Reaching up, she banged on the stone door with the side of her fist and arm, wondering if she truly made enough sound for whomever was on the other side to hear her.

[Koran]

The windy plateau just beyond the entrance of the dwarven city proved to be more of a nuisance than hindrance for the machine, although it very nearly did knock him off his feet just after he landed. After he had set himself against the wind and pushed however, it felt more like walking with a slight lean on a normal sunny day than walking uphill, against a raging down hill torrent of wind. He reached the massive carved and guilded doors just after the woman reached up to set the heavy knocker hard against its rough surface. The echo that resonated just on the other side of those doors could not be heard from their side, but the machine could very well imagine it.

More akin to an explosion than a simple knock. As it probably needed to be. Dwarves, the machine had noticed after only a few random encounters, absolutely loved to compensate for their apparent lack in height by making everything massive and cavernous. He had only seen the city of Kachuck once, and that a very long time ago when he was still getting used to this strange place and its even stranger mix of culture, and he had been beside himself with awe at both its size, and straight forward complexity.

That was another thing he had noticed. The dwarves were perhaps the only people he knew that took the term 'simple' to a whole new level of complexity. Everything they did was exact, straight and with a definite purpose other than beauty, but even then, they created stunning architecture and exquisite pieces of 'art.'

He had seen it once, memorized it and now, as he was standing on the brink of entering the great city, he knew that he was going to once again be captivated by it. There was a loud, heavy clang just on the other side of the door, followed by a shrill hiss and then another clang. Then, the rightmost door slowly swung outward, the great mechanical inner workings of the door now becoming visible as a single dwarf stepped out to regard the two travelers.

"What be your business here?" The dwarf asked with a heavy accent, his R's rolling quite heavily. The machine had always like the dwarfs accents, they amused him to no end. The dwarves eyes widened momentarily and the machine knew that the woman had answered the question in her silent, yet informative way and after a moment, the dwarf disappeared back inside the massive door.

We've been here before.

The machine started, again surprised by his inner voices sudden reappearance after being silent for so long. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head a little to clear his head.

Yes, we have. But that was a long time ago.

Not quite as long as you might think.

The machine was just about to question the voice when the massive door swung even further open, and the dwarf appeared a second time. "Well, if you're coming in, best get too it. You're letting in a draft."

You can still turn back.

Quiet, the machine replied harshly, following silently behind the woman as the three of them entered into the massive dwarven fortress city of Kachuck. The massive doors swung shut with a loud click and the windswept plateau was once more a barren, treacherous and inhospitable place.

[Witchblade]

He was being quite hospitable…for a dwarf. After all she’d heard of them she would have expected to be shut out at the door and turned away like some kind of beggar. At least she didn’t have to drop a certain somebody’s name and mention a little incident in which she’d helped save quite a few tiny little dwarf asses. Any dwarf would not take very kindly to having their pride wounded in such a way and she could have only imagined them responding in two ways, either forcefully nice, or very hostile. Neither was very appealing, though one would get her what she wanted and the other left her on the side of a very windy mountain.

“Whut, do ye two want?” He respond was a rough grunt that echoed off the dark stonewalls.

Despite the fact that they were now within the actual mountain of Kachuck, her eyes had to adjust little to the light. It was not because of her good night vision either; it was because a myriad of torches hung from the walls casting a gentle glow throughout the entire place. They also helped to keep a little warmth within the halls, not that Witch paid much attention to the change in temperature. She was just glad the wind was behind her and she would not have to go back out there for at least a little while.

Beyond the long stretching hallway with its tall ceiling and smooth walls, the halfling could see nothing else. No tall and immense structures whose engineering feat would baffle the mind. Nothing, just a hallway that seemed to stretch on for quite on for quite a distance.

“I’ve come seeking a specific item that was left here by one Dan Lagh’ratham.” The halfling kept the telekinetic link open with the machine as well so he could hear what she was saying to the dwarf.

The dwarf regarded her for a few seconds without saying a word. Whether it was because of the way she spoke to him, in his mind instead of aloud, or if it was because of the item she sought. Something she was still unclear of herself and that had only been vaguely described to her in the initial message from her creator that had started it all.

Snorting the dwarf began heading towards the doors once more and Witch got the sinking feeling he was about to kick the two of them out. She didn’t want to have to kill him in order to obtain this item. After all, she didn’t know where it was and she was in a mountain surrounded by quite a few more thousand of him and only one of her. Regardless of that fact, her creator had sent her here to acquire something and she would make the halfling’s life a living nightmare if she didn’t get it. She didn’t much like the thought of living even worse than she already did, so with the subtlest of moves she wrapped her fingers around the worn leather of one of her daggers.

“The Rut Slayer is embed’d in the side of the muntain.” The dwarf said as he reached for abnormally large rings attached low to the two massive doors.

The Rut Slayer? He must mean Rot Slayer. She didn’t really know if that was it’s actual name or not, but Rut Slayer just didn’t make much sense in her mind. With a great tug and pull the dwarf was actually able to open the doors once more and natural sunlight flooded the passage, burning her sensitive eyes for just a moment. Not exactly happy about having to go back out there, the halfling nonetheless followed the dwarf out the open doors, which he quickly closed behind him. Mentally she wondered exactly how he was going to get back in if he was the one guarding the door and he just closed it behind himself. It was not her problem though.

His small body that only came to roughly her hip was surprisingly not swept from the face of the plateau. Instead he walked upon it with experience, as if he had done so a hundred times before. Which he probably had. His long red beard and hair was still whipped around his face, which she could only imagine was annoying him, after all her long hair was doing the same thing and her hood wouldn’t even bother staying up. Following the dwarf off to the left, the halfling quickly spotted a small but worn path along the side of the mountain that could not allow man or dwarf to travel along side by side.




((Just have them walk for a bit along the path, after a few minutes the wind will die down a little and they’ll reach another smaller plateau where the sword will be embedded into the ground. It’s quite a massive blade, six feet in length and about a foot wide. It’ll be half embedded into the stone.))

[Koran]

Ha!

The machine, having quite thoroughly lost himself in the short time it took the three of them to enter into the city, jerked his head up in surprise at the sudden, and quite loud, laugh from his inner most tormentor. He blinked and shook his head slightly at the abrupt noise, then looked around. He was in a long hall of sorts, lined with hundreds of torches. He blinked again as memories of this place finally set in and he reached up to rub his face from his brows down to his chin.

That's right, an almost ridiculously long walk through a very boring hall before finally reaching another set of doors.

It's not the long walk that should be worrying you.

The machine grunted and shook himself, trying to get rid of the final inklings of cold that still clung to his body.

What do you mean by that?

You're being left behind.

"Huh?" The questioning grunt came aloud as the machine took another glance around him, finding that he really was alone. He stopped, blinked and then turned back to face the large doors he had just come through. They were open and he could just see the feet of the dwarf and woman exiting them as they slowly began to swing shut. "Shit!"

Sprinting toward the doors with a speed that an olympic racer would have envied, the machine just barely managed to squeeze his way free of the hall before the massive doors slammed shut in his face, or perhaps on it. Once free of the doors though, the machine found that perhaps it would have been better if he had missed clearing the doors as he was instantaneously blasted with the icy winds and frigid temperatures of the plateau he had just left. Inhaling sharply, fighting to keep himself upright and on firm ground, the machine looked around for the other two who had exited just ahead of him.

They were only a short distance off, walking toward what looked like a well marked, but rarely used path that wound around the windy face of the mountain. Shivering in the cold and feeling perhaps a little stupid for not catching the probably very obvious cues that they were once again going outside, the machine hurried after them and fell in silently behind the woman.

It was a quiet walk, at least, it was for the last bit before they reached the second plateau. It had still been quite windy when they first started out, but after a few minutes or so the frozen gusts of air finally abated, giving the travelers a moments respite and surprisingly, a bit of warmth. It was amazing how much colder the air it was while the wind was blowing. A thought tickled the back of the machines mind when he realized this but the thought quickly fled when they finally reached their destination.

It was smaller than the first and perhaps rightly so, as it offered no natural entrance from the rolling plains far below and was perched on a very perilous slope riddled with jagged rocks and deep crevices. There was just enough room though for the object it did contain, in addition to perhaps a small party of six or seven. More than enough for the three of them, but it still had a crowded feeling too it. This was in no small part due to the massive sword that lay embedded into the dark stone of the mountain top and when they finally came into view of the blade and its resting place, the machine found himself taken aback and awe struck.

It wasn't so much the massive size of the blade that struck him, it was more of how far up the blade the ground came. Surely a blade of that width must be at least seven feet long, at the least, and here it was, driven to nearly three feet of its hilt. It must have taken someone of immense strength and will to have driven it so deep.

Perhaps they wished no one else to have it?

The thought brought forth a shiver to the machines spine and he found himself suddenly, unnaturally cold. He looked to the dwarf, who was all eyes for the woman and the sword, and decided that he wasn't quite needed for this part and took his leave to walk back up the path a small distance. He wasn't here for the sword, and he was fairly certain now that that was what the woman was after, so his part in this charade was rapidly coming to a close. Besides, the view from this side of the mountain was quite spectacular, and off in the distance, the machine could see the beginnings of a grand thunder storm. The large black clouds slowly rolling across the jagged peaks, distinct white bursts occasionally flashing from within their depths.

One of natures more powerful vises.

Shut it, for once, just shut it.

*~~*

Far below, near the base of the great dwarven mountains, a small party of six men pause and lift their heads skyward.

"It will rain soon Vik," one of the party says, his amber yellow eyes squinting toward the boiling black clouds. His clothing is outlandish in appearance, all one color and seemingly made from all of one type of material that glistened when it caught the light at just the right angle. He turns his head slightly to regard the one he had spoken to, a medium built man dressed in the same clothing as he, the only difference being his rank patch sewn into his left shoulder.

Vik, the leader of the small group, turns his head to look at the one who had spoken, a small smile creasing his lips even as he dips his head in acknowledgment. "Thank you James, but next time you have something obvious to say, be sure and check to see if my eyes are closed or not." His smile widens a little as the other four members of the group chuckle lightly for a moment.

James, the one who had spoken, turns his head away angrily, his face growing red with rage, and embarrassment. "Just thought I'd point it out, sir."

"Point taken," Vik says without humor before turning to regard the other four members. "Any other points to be made out?" The four are silent, their faces blank as they stare either up the mountain, or into the eyes of their leader. "Good," Vik says as he too, returns his gaze to the mountain. "Now, our target is just now making the ridge and will soon be in that deep, subterranean dwelling we mapped out earlier in the month. If we hurry, we might be able to catch him just before he gets in. Now, move out!"

Without hand gesture or a tilting of his head, Vik and his team begin the long and perilous ascent up the jagged mountain face.

[Witchblade]

Witchblade couldn’t believe the size of the sword. Though she couldn’t see the entire length of it, the width alone attested to the fact that it must easily be taller than she was. It was going to be massive! She couldn’t tell what it was made of, but even the lightest of materials would probably make it somewhere in the vicinity of three-hundred pounds. Though Witch had never met Dan Lagh’ratham before, she now found herself acquiring a bit of respect towards the man. Human or otherwise. Just being able to wield such a weapon was a feat all on it’s own let alone embed it within the side of the mountain. He must have an amazing amount of strength hidden within him, strength she probably could not match on her best day.

Just how did her creator expect her to lift this weapon let alone free it from it’s rocky grave? The halfling was strong but there was doubt lingering in the back of her mind that she would be able to do this. She’d never properly tested her strength, but knew she could lift a rather heavy human with some ease. Still that gave her somewhere around two hundred pounds, which left her a little on the short side if her estimation of three hundred was even right. Knowing her luck it was probably much more than that.

“This is the weapon left by Dan Lagh’ratham?”

“Aye, ‘tis the Rut Slayer.”

Of course, the dwarf couldn’t be making a mistake. This had to be the item that she’d been sent her to acquire. It couldn’t have been some mystical piece of crap that would give her abnormal strength, or perhaps a new shiny dagger. No, it had to be a massive sword that she was going to have to cart around everywhere and most likely feel the constant burden of. It was going to slow her down and Witch relied upon her speed in battle heavily.

Ignoring the look the dwarf was giving her, Witch moved towards the sword. Walking a quick circle around the thing as if she was stalking it, she reached out and ran her fingers across the blade, the hilt and the handle. Despite being exposed to the elements for who knows how long the blade was still sharp. There were chips and dents upon the metal, and if her eyes didn’t deceive her a few tiny hairline cracks as well that most human eyes wouldn’t be able to notice. Her fingers did the job of feeling them though, all the imperfections from years of use. But even still, the blade was in good condition. This Dan must have favoured the weapon in weapon and taken good care of it. She’d still have to take it into a smithy for repairs and a harness or sheath of some kind, as there appeared to be none.

Wrapping her hand around the handle, the halfling heard the dwarf behind her snort and glanced towards him.

“You’re gonna need a loot o’ luck ta remove tha’ from the grond.” Beneath the mess of his beard, the halfling could see a smirk forming that she wanted to rip off. “I’ve seen a few o’ yous come and go tryin’ ta remove tha’ sword and none were able ta. And yet you think you can do it” He snorted again and folded his short arms across his chest as if waiting to see her failure.

Growling, the halfling suppressed the urge to shut his mouth permanently by tightening her grip upon the worn leather covering the cool metal. It wasn’t satisfying enough for her though. She couldn’t help but wish it were his skull she was crushing. She’d have to show him she was the kind of person to be underestimated by pulling this sword free. Giving it a bit of a test, the halfling tensed the muscles in her arm and gave it a bit of a tug. Nothing happened. She hadn’t really expected anything to, but still it would have been nice.

Pushing thoughts of the dwarf and his smug expression aside, Witch concentrated on the matter at hand. Looking over at Daegun, who had resumed his favoured position upon her shoulder, she watched as he jumped down and began his own inspection of the sword. With him out of the way, she shrugged out of her rucksack, allowing it to land upon the rocks with a bit of a thud. Wrapping both her hands around the handle, the halfling took a deep breath and tried once more. Muscles tensed and protested and her hands slipped upon the leather covering, but still it didn’t budge. Adjusting the position of her feet, she tried once more but found the result the same.

[Koran]

A heavy thump brought the machines attention away from the ever mounting violence that was nature and back again on the massive embedded-into-stone sword that was the sole reason they had ventured out to this part of the mountain. Only, it wasn't quite just an embedded-into-stone sword as it had been a few moments earlier. Now it was a embedded-into-stone sword that needed to un-embed itself from that stone, and assume its perhaps not so rightful place in the hands of the woman who was at that point, so desperately trying to make it so. Except, desperate woman and embedded-into-stone sword weren't being the best of pals and cooperating. Which made for a long series of failures in the attempt to un-embed it and it had all now slipped to a point where the three of them were left to stare at still embedded-into-stone sword and wonder, how in the hell were they going to get it out?

By they, you would be referring the them, right?

Apparently, the voice inside his head hadn't heeded his warnings and decided that now was not the best time to shut it. This caused the machine to sigh and he did, but not before rubbing his temples and closing his eyes in a moment of pure frustration.

I only came here because the letter looked, sounded and felt as though it was important. I didn't come here to wrestle with a blade the size of my body, and then some. Got that?

He knew he was being a little harsh with the voice but then again, why shouldn't he? The damned thing hadn't done anything to help him these last few days, hadn't done much at all really since its first 'awakening' into his consciousness, so in the end, the thought of being a little less harsh to it came and went as quickly as a spark from a fire floating through the air. All the same, the voice still felt as though it should at least get its two cents in before once again retreating to whatever place it retreated too in the back of his mind.

Just wondering, that's all. Still, you gonna help or just stand here rubbing your temples as though you were secretly harboring the thoughts of killing these two while their backs were turned?

Then, with a mad cackling sort of laughter, the voice fled and the machine could no longer feel its presence in his head. He shook himself and in the end caused his entire body to fall into a mass of shivering, but after a few moments he was able to control his rapid bodily movements and advance toward the two other occupants of the small plateau.

The dwarf was standing a few feet off from the woman, a small smug smile on his face, his arms crossed and his left foot tapping some tune the machine probably didn't know. The woman was studying the sword with a sort of murderous intent, as if she could some how will the damned thing out of the ground if she presented a more threatening appearance. The small dragon, as is the will of small things and babies, was intent on the sword as well, but with a more curious and exploratory nature. The machine spared them all no second glances as he moved to stand a few feet to the left of the dwarf and about double that away from the woman and her sword. Then he too crossed his arms but failed to find something to smile about, or tap his foot too.

A few minutes later, and a few more failed attempts to wrestle the embedded-into-stone sword free of its stony prison, the machine had found that he had enough. He coughed, loud enough to be heard but soft enough so that it was clear this was meant to get the attention of those around him and then walked forward a few steps.

"Perhaps you should try wiggling it, to loosen the stones grip on the deepest portions of the blade. It would certainly yield more results than simply, pulling, on the damned thing." His smile was almost mocking, almost but it was still sound advice. When something was buried deep into the ground, especially stone, it was best to constantly wiggle it, bang it or other wise just move it and then pull it. "If you would like, I could help you. I'll wiggle the blade, while you pull." He paused for a moment, his hand half extended toward the woman, the smile becoming more genuine on his face instead of mocking.

So much for that.

Shut it.

*~~*

Behind and above him the ever present black rolling thunder heads shifted ever closer toward the mountain and the three people on it.

And perhaps half-way up the mountain, the group of six men cast their eyes skyward, tracking the storm as they redoubled their efforts to reach the summit before time ran out.

[Witchblade]

He was mocking her. She couldn’t believe he actually had the guts to do something like that, but he was and he was smiling about the whole thing like it was some kind of joke to him. Like she was some kind of joke to him. Like this whole thing was some kind of joke to him. He may not understand the repercussions that would befall her if she didn’t get this fucking sword but she certainly did and there was no way she would willingly inflict that upon herself.
Letting go of the handle, the halfling kept her anger in check as much as she could, considering the circumstances. Grabbing a small metallic rod from her belt, she twisted one of the loops and allowed the inner part of it to fold down a few inches before stopping it. Placing it on the ground right against the edge of where the blade was embedded in the stone, she took a step back and used her telekinesis to keep it in place.

“I don’t need or want your help, you pathetic piece of metal.”

Growling, she spun her body around a bit and used the momentum to help force her foot down on top of the end of the rod. A quarter of the mythril body of the rod sunk into the stone. Apparently it was much easier to grind things into stone than it was to remove them. Smirking, she backed up and proceeded to do the same thing once ore, this time putting a little more weight and power into her downward strike upon her staff. The stone around the blade cracked a little, loosening as the staff was thrust another few inches into the rock.

Reaching for the handle of The Rot Slayer once more, the halfling wrapped the fingers of both her hands around it and once again tried to pry the weapon from the ground. She felt it shift and give a little but the weight surprised her more than anything. The muscles in her arms strained and she could feel the muscles along her upper back pull and pinch as she tried to lift more than she was capable of. She could even feel the pull in her abs. Just how much could this thing possibly weigh and who in their right mind could wield something so powerful? She didn’t give up though. Taking a few deep breaths she tried once again, and like before she felt the blade shift and grind against hard rock but was unable to lift it. The rock around it was slightly loose now, but it would still take a strength apparently greater than hers to remove it and even hold onto it.

Just as she was about to release the blade once more, she felt the oddest sensation from within her. It was like a tickling; warm sensation that started in her stomach and quickly began working it’s way throughout her body. Once it reached her shoulders it exploded throughout her body and the halfling found herself pulling the sword from the stone. Surprised by the sudden change in events, she lost her balance and the sword fell back in a bit, but she quickly regained herself. Adjusting her position, Witch freed the blade from the side of the mountain and stood holding it with an extremely astonished expression upon her face. It wasn’t just for the fact that the blade was around six feet long either, it was the fact that she was actually able to remove the damn thing!

Holy shit…

Had her creator done something to her, or had it merely been her own doing? Clearly her strength had grown, but the fact that it had done so while she was on a mission to acquire something she didn’t even want made her question whether or not Megan had something to do with it.

[Witchblade]

The sword felt weird in her hands, like something foreign that she didn’t quite know what to do with. Which was true, Witch was a melee fighter and had long ago abandoned the use of swords for daggers and other weapons that got her in closer to her enemies. Besides, a dagger could sometimes reach much farther than a sword and almost all warriors knew this. Still, it wasn’t exactly uncomfortable to have the blade resting within her grip. There was just something about it that felt off to her, perhaps in time she would get used to it or perhaps she never would. She could easily see this sword becoming more of a burden than a help and if that were the case, she would have to get rid of it, no matter the consequences that her little creator may throw at her. A weapon was only as good as the purpose it served and if in the end this served none, she could do nothing but get rid of it.

Resting the blade upon the rock, Witch kneeled down and pulled her staff from the ground. With The Rot Slayer removed, leaving a large scar within the stone, it was more than easy to pull the mythril rod from the ground and place it back upon her belt. Then she stood back up and picked her new sword from the ground. Turning to the cyborg, the halfling smirked and then spread her wings out behind her.

“Thanks for the help.” The sardonic smirk on her face could make anyone question just what kind of help they had just given her.

Before he could say another word though, she moved to the edge of the plateau and the wind caught her leathery wings. With barely an effort she began gliding high into the stormy sky, leaving the dwarf and the cyborg to do as they pleased. She was done with Alerar and all that it offered. It was time to head back to Corone, but first, she needed to get herself to a bazaar and find a harness to hold this sword on her back.



SPOIL:

The Rot Slayer – A six foot long sword originally belonging to Dan Lagh’ratham before coming into possession by Witchblade. She freed it from the mountains of Kachuk under strict orders from her creator, Megan. The blade weighs five hundred pounds and was originally made from Delhar, though the sword was upgraded later on by the original owner to Titanium. It’s a single edged blade with a hook in the metal shaping towards the handle.

Strength – The exact amount that Witchblade’s strength has gone up will be decided upon in the level up.

[Call me J]

Well I don’t really have many comments besides those already included in the judging. This was a basic retrieval quest that could have benefitted from more communication between the players.

Total Score- 55

• STORY ~ 13/30

Continuity (5) ~ I don’t really feel like I got a good sense of the relationship between Dan and Witchblade, which I felt was problematic, given that the purpose of this thread was to retrieve the Rotslayer. In general, I don’t have that many issues, but this was a glaring omission.

Setting (5) ~ The more interesting uses of setting were through NPCs.

Pacing (3) ~ I feel that there was no real sense of coherence to this story. It seemed at first it was about the relationship between Megan and Witchblade, but that wasn’t really addressed much after the bandits, until the last post, where Megan came in like a deus ex machina to give Witchy more strength. In general, it felt like this thread was just too big and blocky for the story you had in mind. When I start reading a quest that is close to 40 posts, I expect a story that carries itself that long. This did not do that.

• CHARACTER ~ 18/30

Dialogue (6) ~ The dialogue here was mostly good, but it seems like both of you to an extent, though Koran more, consider dialogue to be exclusively a humor device. While dialogue can be great for humor, I would like to see you do more with it.

Action (5) ~ There was nothing in here that jumped out to me as creative, though there wasn’t anything that I really needed to object to either.

Persona (7) ~ Koran: The internal monologues tended to provide me a good sense of persona even though I’m not certain if this was your intention behind them. Witch: You did a good job here, I really liked the way that you made sure even the NPCs that had motivations had logical ones.

• WRITING STYLE ~ 19/30

Mechanics (8) ~ Witchblade, you confused sadism and masochism in this thread. If “Megan” wants to hurt Witchblade, that would make her a sadist, because she wants to hurt someone else. If she was a masochist, she would sew her own mouth shut. This isn’t a huge issue, I just wanted to bring it to your attention.

Technique (6) ~ I’m not sure how I feel about the breaking of the fourth wall here. On one hand, I like it because it’s very unique to Althanas and provides Witchblade with someone she can actually talk to, but at the same time, I’m not sure if breaking the fourth wall is worth it just for a few jokes. I’m coming from the perspective that the fourth wall should only be broken when it’s a metaphor for something, so maybe this is just me being a fuddy-duddy, but I wanted to get it off my chest regardless.
Koran, you could really help your writing by making better choices with your metaphors. I know your character is from some futuristic setting, but even so, what you do doesn’t add color or flavor, and instead detracts from the current story. If the story had something to do with Koran’s origins, it would have made more sense.

Clarity (5) ~ The only reason this score is low is because of a lack of brevity. Your posts aren’t confusing in the sense of I can’t figure out what is going on, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out what is important. This was much more problematic for Koran than Witchblade.

• Wild Card (5) ~ This really read like a simple quest that you eventually reached a point where you weren’t sure how to end it. I like the fact that Witchy is getting a weapon that used to belong to Dan, but I feel this could have been executed better.

Spoils
Witchblade receives 3140 EXP, 347 GP and her spoils. However, the Rotslayer should be considered to be made of “old titanium” the way titanium was listed in the materials description when Dan bought it. Old titanium is less strong than mythril and less fire resistant, but also, less brittle and much better for swords.

Koran receives 1901 EXP and 314 GP

[Witchblade]

EXP and GP added!

Koran is level 3!