Cath

Sup, its ya boi POOHEAD189

Congrats! Looking forward to seeing this brave new direction.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

The Glen soldier grabbed Mallory and chucked him across his hindquarters like the XO was a rolled up carpet. At that moment a shadow crossed the bridge, causing more of the Glen to look up. They were about to be crushed by a stone hand the size of a farmer's cart.

“Look out!”

Mallory and his ride leapt out from under the shadow in the nick of time. Another Glen wasn’t so fortunate. The thick stone arm crashed down onto the bridge, cutting Eva, Ibarra and a few Glen off from the bulk of the group.

Shirik’s Great Blue Balls Of Fire took a while to create, but their effect on the mimics was devastating. Each were frozen solid instantly, including the one wrapped around Eva. Fog and mist obscured their view immediately after blinding lights, causing disorientation among the Glen ranks in particular.

“Impressive sorcery, but now we’re as blind as the day we were born!” Silbermine bellowed into the mist. He’d moved to intercept the mimic rushing to finish Shirik before it essentially exploded.

“My Lord, let us move off this forsaken bridge!” One of Silbermine’s knights pleaded.

Eva’s mech suit hummed and whined, before tearing straight through the frozen mimic. Her windscreen was covered in frost.

“Phew - sounds like a plan to me!” She urged, just as another loud thump sounded out further along the bridge.

“What was that?”

The stone arm laid across the bridge twitched. Then again. Then it began scraping across the bridge, coming towards Ibarra and Eva. It was easily two metres high.

The other arm appeared through the mist, sweeping from the goal-end of the bridge towards Shirik, Silbermine and Mallory. It looked set to either crush them all between the arms, or push them all into the river.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Clara Anselm stood on the ridge surveying the Jotunheim’s crash trail. Nearby were two engineers from Mythadia and the Ascendency, heatedly debating over a series of thick paper diagrams.

Down below on the slope, a team of mages were slowly easing the snapped VTOL out of the earth. It hovered in the air like a miracle.

Anselm looked down at the tablet she was cradling. It was connected to the ship’s vitals, all comms channels and camera feeds from the various drones and helmet cams. One of those feeds was from directly under the VTOL; she zoomed in to inspect the damage.

She absent-mindedly itched her scalp. She hadn’t showered in two days - Her yellow hair was slicked back in a tight ponytail underneath the headset she wore.

“Easy…Easy!” She urged, watching the equipment wobbling in mid-air.

In the ear not cupped by the headset, the sturdy Dane could hear the regular crack of firearms; Ezra was running fire drills with the civilians to get them used to weapons. Many of the aliens had taken a great interest in this, edging closer until the mercenary had warned them off. So instead they had set up their own drill squares.

Anselm was jerked out of her focus by a squark of radio chatter. Eventually she made out Eva’s voice.

“Jotunheim, this is Eva! We’re under attack, requesting immediate assistance- woah!”

Anselm immediately turned away from the engineers and found Warden Esedel watching her from afar. That tall dragon lizard was creepy as hell.

“Eva this is Jotunheim. Say again, are you under attack? What's attacking you?”

There were lots of sounds coming through all jumbled together - it sounded like a struggle.

Then a priority alpha alert popped up on her display. [IMMINENT THREAT]

“Get this >crkkkkk< off my beautiful face!” Anselm heard gunfire in the background.

“Eva!”

Anselm tapped a few icons and got Eva’s suit cameras up. Some of the feeds were simply black and writhing. In others you could see clopping hooves and spears being jabbed at the suit.

“My god.”

She switched to all crew comms.

“Attention, I’ve received a priority alpha alert which means there could be an imminent threat to the ship and our lives. Bravo team is in trouble, so everyone needs to get back to the ship and set up a perimeter now!”

Anselm then got in touch with Wodan.

“Wodan, you already know this but Bravo team needs our help. I need you to ready a strike package on their location. Await target paint.”

She then switched back to Eva and Bravo team.

“Bravo team this is Jotunheim. Distress call received. What is your situation? If you’re under attack I need you to paint targets for Wodan to fire at, over!”

Up on top of the Jotunheim, the long thin cannon slowly oriented to point at Eva’s last known location. A red light flashed and a siren rang out.

---

The black sludge was corroding the very fabric of the barge, even while it was beached on the side of the river. The boat creaked and rocked unsteadily on the silty shore. Zey slipped over - her shoulder and ribs took the impact, winding her. Probably for the best, as the fall helped her avoid an arrow to the neck. Scrambling back onto all fours to avoid sliding into the black pool in the middle of the deck, Zey crawled along the gunwale to where Dr Lambert was firing her rifle. Arrows thwacked into the boat and whizzed over their heads.

“Jotunheim, come in! Over!” Zey violently cleared her throat, then spat onto the floor. She didn’t hear Nellara’s call over all the commotion, though evidently Vigdis had the same idea.

Breathing heavily, Zey grabbed her backpack from near Lambert's feet and eventually extracted a pistol. The back of her head was throbbing. She press checked, then peeked over the top. One of the beasts lay dead where she’d shot it, and the other was crawling along the floor. Dead soldiers littered the riverside.

“Someone finish that thing off, then shoot those archers!” Zey shouted, just as an arrow pierced the gunwale and stabbed her thigh above the right kneecap. The Captain grunted in pain, her faulty implant flooding her head with pain suppressors. A loud crash nearby caught her attention and Zey found Kareet lying prone with a giant arrow in the chest.

“Kolvar! Kolvar, where are you?”

Zey held the pistol at arm’s reach, aimed down the iron sight and pulled the trigger with one of the distant archers in view.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

“I’m not leaving you to die sir - get out of my way!” Eva replied to Mallory, then turned her suit’s translated loudspeaker on briefly for the benefit of the Glen traffic jam near the swamp-end of the bridge.

Eva’s voice soon continued on the crew’s shared comms channel.

“Jotunheim, this is Eva! We’re under attack, requesting immediate assistance- woah!”

A fifth mimic beast burst from the water and flew straight at Eva. Its body was morphed into something like a large net with eyes, teeth and limbs. She didn’t see it til too late. She only managed to turn partially toward it and pull back a punch before it wrapped around the mech. Servos whined as Eva tried to stabilise her suit’s footing with all the extra weight and momentum. Metallic *pung, pung, pung* noises rattled across the water as hidden barbs on the mimic’s body tried to puncture the cabin.

“Get this thing off me!”

Two of the closest Glen turned and promptly began stabbing the mass of black tendrils with their spears. The creature squealed and tried to grab the weapons off the knights.

Mallory’s first shots ripped straight through the fleshy tornado whipping towards Shirik and Silbermine. It howled and lost its deadly shape, collapsing onto the bridge. Evidently, bullets made more of an impact than cutting off its extremities. It turned and began skittering back towards Mallory; Silbermine pursued it, hacking away at it with his sabre.

Mallory’s quick thinking and second burst of shots stopped another creature from flanking the nobleglen. It splashed noisily back into the water with holes in its face.

A few more Glen soldiers had sorted themselves out now and filtered past Mallory to make a defensive wall. One more reached down, offering a hand to the Human. They seemed to understand he was hobbled.

“Get on my back!” The Glen would haul Mallory out of the shallow water running across the bridge if he chose to take up the offer.

-

The mimic trying to grab Itxaro recoiled when its arm was crushed to dust, but didn’t stop. They climbed up and peered over the top of the bridge. Seeing Itxaro had turned away and was shooting another of its kind, the mimic jumped up to engulf the Human.

Shirik’s icy spear flew from out of nowhere into its body. A cloud of steam blew in all directions and when it cleared, the mimic was frozen in place, still reaching out for Itxaro. Thick, sharp icicles jutted up around its feet.

The inferno mimic recoiled from the impact of each shot Itxaro fired into its back. One of the bullets missed and went through the breastplate of the Glen the mimic was fighting too, killing him instantly.

Gouts of flame burst out of the tendril creature’s eyes and mouth. It turned and clattered towards Itxaro, seriously wounded and very angry. It’d reach her in just a few seconds.

The corkscrew mimic finished murdering the Glen immediately in front of Shirik. It’d absentmindedly taken a spear off of another Glen that’d tried to stab it while the mimic tore its prey apart. Seeing Shirik upon raising its gruesome head, it threw the spear at the Iriad with its tendril like an atlatl. It then charged forward, meaning to grab the fiery tree and douse it in the river.

Meanwhile, the ground underneath everyone began to tremble. The bridge rippled and undulated suddenly, as if coming free of the riverbed. One of the Glen stumbled and fell into the water.

With the sound of a terrific scraping and splashing, Two broad stone shoulders emerged from the water. They were connected to either side of the bridge about one third of the way across, near where Mallory, Silbermine and Shirik stood.

Then appeared arms, and finally crude, roughly hewn hands. The right hand swung slowly, laboriously up into the air in an arc that could end with it crashing down onto XO’s head.

---

“We got one!” Zey whooped from the gunwale of the barge as her second magazine clicked empty. She glanced instinctively around to check her crew were alright. Richard the medical assistant was firing an assault rifle in single shot mode to her right, shouting and screaming the whole time. Dr Lambert was on her left, filming the whole thing. Zey moved over to her.

“Where is Vigdis!” She shouted over the din.

“Ran in back. I need a weapon!” Dr Lambert shouted back. Zey had forgotten she’d forbidden the scientist from having a firearm.

The Captain unslung her backpack and kicked it over to Lambert. She then gruffly put her rifle into the doctor’s hands.

“Ammo is in my pack. Keep hold of it for me, I'm going to look for her!”

Zey then promptly turned and stalked towards the other side of the ship, avoiding the mess of black tar coating the middle section.

In the end it was the rattle of darts rolling around the deck that gave Vigdis away. The Captain found her scrabbling round on the floor trying to get them back.

“Vigdis, what's going on back here? We need you in this fight!” Zey bellowed. She reached down to grab the engineer by the shirt and haul her up.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

The creatures were quick and chaotic in their movements. The tendrils on their bodies appeared to shift in different directions simultaneously, seeking targets. The one below Shirik grasped the ancient Iriad’s foot with one of these tendrils before it was engulfed in fire. A whirlwind of black flakes exploded in every direction. The force of the magic blast smashed it back into the water. A large bowl of steam blew outwards and for a brief second the riverbed below was visible. Then the water rushed back in.

Silbermine and his Glen were much heavier than Mallory, so they merely turned and shielded themselves from the massive blast. Upon opening his eyes, the Lord saw the tendril beast unfurling itself from the nook it’d been hiding in on the bridge. It began advancing towards Mallory.

Letting forth a belligerent snarl, Silbermine drew his sabre from a flank scabbard. By Human standards it bordered on obnoxiously large at over 1.5 metres with a slight curve towards the end.

“We fight together! Lets see your mettle, mage!”

Clopping unsteadily forward on the partially submerged bridge, Silbermine slashed at the creature’s tendrils from the opposite side to Mallory but the same side as Shirik.

Two sizeable tendril-tips came off and slapped onto the watery stone beneath. They immediately began disintegrating into the bridge in a flutter of black grit. At the same rate, the creature’s tendrils started to grow back.

The horrific thing screeched and turned quickly away from Mallory to face Silbermine and Shirik. Losing its quadrupedal shape, it formed something like a black fleshy tornado of fast-moving knives. Without delay it moved quickly towards the space between Shirik and Silbermine where it could slash them both.

“My Lord!” A soldier bellowed from behind Silbermine and Shirik (towards the goal-end of the bridge). He moved forward to assist, but a fourth creature leapt from the water in the form of one giant corkscrew. With pinpoint accuracy, it pierced the Glen soldier’s armour and knocked him to the floor. The corkscrew drilled through to flesh, spraying blood everywhere as the Glen honked in pain and fear. Tendrils unfurled from the back of the corkscrew to engulf the soldier.

Further forward on the bridge, the first creature that Shirik had dispatched crawled back out of the water and up the side of the bridge. It was wreathed in flames just like the Iriad that had cast the spell on it. It went to attack another of the Glen that was hemmed in on the bridge just next to Itxaro as Shirik’s meteor approached the Human.

“Mallory, can you move? I’m coming over there.” Eva called over comms. Her mech wasn’t particularly well suited to this ruined bridge but there was just enough space for her to try and barge past Glen soldiers towards the middle. However, many of the loyal knights had the same idea and were rushing to assist their leader.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Zey quickly realised the folly of her last order when she looked around and realised this black tar had risen to the surface of the entire river around them. There was no escape in the water.

“Belay that, spread out but stay in the boat! Round the edges!” She shouted, feeling a strange tug on various bits of her gear as some of the locals began raising the boat out of the water with magic. Zey pulled her comms unit closer but had to hold on tight to stop it floating away.

“Jotunheim, this is Zey. We’ve run into difficulty, I…uh… I'm not sure how to explain it. We’re nearly at the shore now.”

She signed off and scanned the tree line when a line of natives appeared. Squinting, Zey’s features hardened when she saw what they were doing.

“Archers on the riverbank, take cover!” She yelled, crouching behind the gunwale to fumble with her gun. It was moving all on its own, probably because of its metal content, so she wrapped the strap around her arm a couple of times to stabilise it. Then Zey poked over the top and fired on full auto.

Her magazine was bigger than usual, holding 45 bullets, but it was still empty in just a few seconds. The muzzle flash made it difficult to see if she’d hit anything, but the barrage coming from the Humans seemed to have the right effect. The strangers fell back into the tree line, and for a moment there were no targets.

Zey looked around - the boat was in chaos. The natives were much larger and made very juicy targets for the arrows; she could see some of them had been gravely wounded. “Everyone alright?” She asked her crew over comms.

“How could they know we were here?”

Zey tried to contact the Jotunheim, but couldn’t make a connection.

“Jotunheim come in - we’re under attack by unknown assailants. Requesting indirect fire, do you copy?”

A horn sounded. Zey swore, put the communicator back and looked at her weapon. The magazine had another full magazine taped to its side, so she swapped them clumsily over.

A loud, rhythmic thumping came towards them, and two huge creatures emerged. Yelling out, Zey didn’t even hesitate into shooting her second magazine at the one on the left.

“What are these things?!” She shouted, not even sure anyone could hear her over the racket.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Silbermine listened closely to everyone who spoke up, remaining calm despite the growing tension in the air.

“There are those who salivate at the chance to challenge a nobleglen. Not least the Lords of other Keraks along the northern border. These backwaters were not the place I envisaged for a duel, however.” Silbermine replied to Mallory.

Contrary to Shirik’s advice, the Glen soldiers had instinctively bunched closer together around their leader. They were natural herd creatures, and not even centuries of concerted effort to break this by the S’tor had succeeded. This evolutionary pressure had the unintended side effect of breeding Glen who were brave and belligerent on their own, which had a negative impact on the empire over time.

Silbermine brayed throatily as Itxaro stepped toward the destroyed bridge, pounding a gauntleted fist against his breastplate. His knights did the same, and it seemed to lift their spirit slightly.

“We press forward! Take your circle of smite with you, Shirik!” Silbermine called, as the rest of the group followed behind onto the bridge. Eva, in her hulking mech suit, brought up the rear.

The river in its current engorged form spanned about fifty metres. Going was slow, with many of the remaining uneven surfaces being regularly submerged underwater. The masonry was so damaged the travellers had to go one at a time.

Itxaro was close to the other side of the river and Eva was just about to start when Shirik’s demented laugh from earlier echoed around them. A deep, corrupted version of Shirik’s voice called out from everywhere at once.

\\”I haave seen the faaces of gods…”//

Two stooping trees on the far shore crackled. The boughs twisted and bent so all of the white flowers on them were facing the group.

“Shirik, is that you?” Silbermine bellowed over the noise of the rushing rapids.

\\”weep in your graaves…”//

For half a moment, it seemed that even the water became silent.

Then a sound halfway between a clock ticking much too fast and the wet tearing of sinews started. A black object larger than the Glen with four strong legs and innumerable tentacles sprung from the river. It leapt up towards Shirik, all its appendages aiming to grab the Iriad.

Two tendrils as thick as Itxaro’s arms sprung from the river around her and went to wrap around her legs.

A third creature, disguised as a large natural stone, shifted near Mallory’s feet. His vantage point sprouted tendrils and large jaws. Silbermine was in front of Mallory; he craned his neck to look around and brayed in anger.

“DEMONS ON THE BRIDGE!”

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Zey waved away Kareet’s confusion and made signals that to Humans would be quite clear the comment was made in jest. The Captain then listened closely to Nellara, leaning against the gunwale and enjoying the breeze/sun combination. She chuckled to herself when it became clear that the Castigator wouldn’t answer exactly how many more brigades existed. It was always going to be a long shot.

Zey spent her time stuck on this barge pacing, talking with her crew, learning about what to expect in Arcaeda from the locals, and radioing the Jotunheim. Signal rapidly deteriorated once they left Ertisdea, with the boat putting a large mountain range between them and the ship. She never heard the distress call from the other group.

She kept active as well, jumping on the spot and practising kickboxing techniques she’d learned years earlier. This attracted the interest of some of the natives. Zey eventually realised that may not be a good thing and stopped.

Zey was chatting to the Glen, J’eon, when things went quiet.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, what are those scars on your back?”

She was listening to J’eon’s reply, taking it all in, when glancing around she got weird vibes. Things were quiet, and the soldier Tekeri were looking at each other all funny. Without really meaning to, Zey looked at the river around the boat. There was no other traffic to speak of, where previously they’d been surrounded by a bustle of activity.

Accessing comms, Zey murmured a warning to all the Humans aboard.

“Guys, something has the natives spooked.”

She watched Kareet stalk down the centre of the barge, her eagle eyes scanning the forest on either side.

“Be ready for anything.”

The sound of flowing water changed suddenly to one of…mud? They stopped moving as fast, and the natives sprung into action. It was only after a couple of seconds that Zey realised the river had changed drastically in consistency and colour.

“What the fuck?”

In the time it took her to wrestle the AR out from the webbing of her pack, the bottom of the boat had sprung an alarming leak. Black tar-like liquid shlopped all over one of the soldiers and was rapidly expanding.

Kareet started screaming.

“Abandon ship!” Zey shouted, slinging her backpack and shooting her gun in the air. It had an integral suppressor, but was still surprisingly loud and brought back memories of the hangar bay in Norway.

“Where are the life rafts on this thing?” She shouted, to no one in particular.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Silbermine shook his great antlered head in distaste. If having this flaming Iriad as part of his retinue wasn’t such a resplendent prize, he’d have hewn it in two himself already. Alas, every potential King of Mythadia must know humility during the Running.

“You jest, traveller, but the turmoil of recent years is not to be taken lightly. Real things fall from the sky, and rifts open in the earth. Demons crawl up from the deep to terrorise innocent townsfolk more with every passing moon. Before I found you, I was travelling to meet with the Mendicant Seers at Falag Núr. They believe these recent terrors actually came with the advent magics. What they don’t know is why it is only now they are becoming so…active?”

For a moment, Silbermine’s features were animated and curious. He wasn’t a grizzled veteran at that moment, but a curious young buck who spent time with scholars in the drafty halls of Kerak Núr while his father slowly went insane.

Silbermine looked to Mallory and laughed heartily, smacking the Human encouragingly on the back.

“We play to our strengths - if any running is involved in the games, I will supply fast, fresh beasts of burden. Like those that the Warden and other S’tor rode in on perhaps? I think you will fit inside or on its back. You seem light, with good grip, no? I’m interested to hear more about what sorts of attributes you might possess, so I can build a team around you.”

---

As they ventured further into the wide, flat marshlands of Sudenúr, the drastically different fauna of Kanth-Amerek became apparent. Flying insects the size of sheep with deafeningly loud wings buzzed from pool to pool. Their long proboscis probed the water to suck up eggs stuck to the reeds. Things that looked halfway between a duck and a monitor lizard raced around on two legs after spiders the size of manhole covers. Far off in the distance towards the shoreline of Lake Núr some kind of long necked, long tailed dinosaur which looked several stories tall.

Some of the animals took an interest in the Glen and Humans, who must have looked strange to them in their armour and clothing. Silbermine’s Glen shooed them away with sticks by day and ringed their camps with flaming torches by night. The blackness was a cacophony of unfamiliar calls.

Progress was slow. Silbermine insisted on making large detours to recover and mark boxes of equipment that came up on the Humans’ scanners. He was interested to see what else had previously been inside the Humans’ ship.

At dusk on the fourth day of travel they made it to the northern bridge between Sudenúr and Mythadia. At least, what was left of it. The weathered stone arch had collapsed into the river, leaving a thin ridge of uneven grey stones poking out of the water. The river itself had burst its banks in the floods just before the Jotunheim landed. While it had receded greatly in the past few days, it was still high and flowed quickly around the ruined bridge. The marsh crowded in on either side of the thin path the group walked on their approach to the bridge. Light rain pattered into the pools of brown water.

“Hmm. There should be work to repair this.” Silbermine growled, staring across to the far bank.

“Where is everyone…”

“My lord.” One of Silbermine’s knights spoke up.

“It is strange that the marshes are quiet for the first time since we arrived. Don’t you think? Listen.”

The annoying buzzing and rustle in the undergrowth was utterly absent. There were no flying beasts in the sky.

“Hmmm.” Silbermine grumbled, rain running down his face.

“Perhaps we should set up camp, and depart at first light, when visibility is better.” Another knight offered.

“We’ll be much safer on the other side…What say you?” He turned to look at his travelling companions.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

“Thank you, Nellara…Again, for your hospitality.” Zey replied. Mulling over what the Castigator and Kareet had said. Was she picking up a note of discordance between the two Tekeri’s idea of safety?

“Nellara, that camp we passed before. How many more like that does the Ascendency command?”

She turned and smiled at Vigdis’ joke, a light breeze tugging at articles clipped to her backpack as she leant against the gunwale. Her mask hung around her neck.

“We could make a fortune! Will just need to find a way to lash fifty Tekeri to the roof. Kareet, do you like heights?”