Merlin 3:47 “Of Dungeons and Dragons”

Merlin 3:47 “Of Dungeons and Dragons”

A listless echo of insanity, the repetitive flashings of light and great summoning fear, a single ineffable memory and calming dream the dances of fingertips in golden sea of grains and touching faces whose whispers worthy gold and pictures never hold, the incisions dragging thru the heart. Pointed talon making gravel disturb in lines beneath hooked knuckles, and wretches claw, the captive and master, the dragon and disaster that are tall at the tunnel of vision, light in the darkness foraging thru darker confines of the heart.

Sino carves and Nick dies, desperate patience flashes fevers of war, callous gasping and curt awakenings, preterit divestiture each death bloodier and tempests of anger each rebirth stealing essence of magic and the moon, the more Nick dies immortal the more so has Sino a thirst. The candles flicker and shadows jar Nick’s memories of the moments between dead and daylight, a surly lot watch and drink spirited wines and sharpen knives, water for the wretched despoiler whose confusion matches anxiety and nervous jitters have caused him wipe blood against his own face. Sino concerned by blood and toil considers cleansing water to realize his own thirst, Nick buries himself in dark anger and meditation. Sino madly takes his heart and still the wanderer wakes, and again manna and magic drawn to him.

Sino: This is good, very good, can you die, and, how old are you?
Nick: I prefer not to say.

The vampires laugh.

Augustus: He can cut down four men or two blood drinkers at a time.
Sino: Can he now?
Augustus: Yeah, so don’t let him up none.
Sino: It is good to have a contentious fighter, more so to have someone vital to the battle. This thirst (drinks), you are the drought, I have seen, (drinks) seen from this mountain.

Ablution, a pitcher of water over his head, doth Sino pour onto himself, with bloody narrowest eye Nick spies, to coyly make fist and flex his wrist. Sino forfeits the foray to forage elsewhere, Nick is cleanly his skin color by fervency as his bonds are tightened and himself abandoned. In ten moments Nick’s amassed strength by the power induced to him breaks the wrist strapped and rolls silently from the table, one moment later he vanishes into the darkness of the catacombs. He passes cells the size of broom closets and windows to prisoners’ eyes, each blindfolded and sleeping or exhausted utmost. / Wiping the blood from his neck, he hears the screams of tortured prisoners.

- Merlin and Ana ride in a canoe, downstream at slow speed, no forest at the shores, a mountain behind them.

- Merlin: What do you think he’s doing?
- Ana: He’s probably drinking in a tavern with someone he’s about to loot. What do you think he’s doing?
- Merlin: He could be gambling in attempt to earn funds to buy you a cottage.
- Ana: That would be nice, also, he had better bring them to the next house we cross.
- Merlin: Because that’s where we’ll be?
- Ana: Absolutely, unless this baby births itself or jetties out a giant egg to carry.
- (subtle laughter)

Nick enters quick and unsure-footed into a room of prisoners, each tied to leaning crucifixes, beleaguered by agony they rest with tears of blood below each blindfold, Nick slowly lifts the rag to see one’s eyes. Heretofore Nick has woken his suspect, the anguished sound startles him.

Renoir: Not yet, do not lose me, there is still a fog of light that I can see.
Nick: Can you run?
Renoir: Who are you, …who, …who?
Nick: I am leaving.
Renoir: No, untie me, I will flee my own way.
Nick: Nothing finer than a blind distraction.

Nick cuts him free of bondage and lets him fall, to grab a second knife he turns, but behind his back Renoir stands upright and reapplies his own blindfold only to toss Nick over a table at the fireplace.

Renoir: You are not chimera nor criminal, tell me your name.
Guillaume (prisoner): He must be made to go beyond the flesh.

Nick sees that the blindfold is over eyes again.

Nick: I’m going to take a hot iron and thrash you.

Nick kicks the fire pokers over, but walks quietly toward the door. Renoir watches, turning his head that his face follows him, smiling he reaches for a knife to flip in the air and catch by handle only to throw at Nick. Missing he charges the eyeful intruder and they roll, that very knife becomes the cause of Renoir’s demise by manual migraine. As the two others scream, Nick runs by front of them and severs their vocals. Sino stands in the doorway to the chamber watching Nick catch his breath, giving to applause sardonically.

Sino: It is a hideous time in the nine worlds, in the hearts of many our belief and success have interchanged – weak minds punish themselves until they stray into the prisons of their neighbors only to complain, while slavers steal slaves from each other, they serve without purpose. We will replace that lack of determination, we will lead the way, taken from sensationalism and denials, with the awakening of duty. The strongest will survive, without each other, the weakest will not survive our ready purge, none below the new order will help them, …and we will hunt them. Is weakness something still sentimental morally in your distancing mortality?

Nick: The weakest fruit falls soonest, the weakest seed takes advantage of the opportunity making a weaker tree, and I see and agree with you, I have never known such a great source for doing so, nor do I know why you torture them, instead of killing them.
Sino: They are seeds of a new realm, of a new dawn, made to see where they must root, before the purge of the darkness.
Nick: I can leave having seen nothing, not that you could take my eyes, I’m already forgetting if such you’ve tried.
Sino: These prisoners suffer for… a more… different purpose. I often wonder their worth without the cause.
Nick: Which cause would, that, be?
Sino: How did you escape?

Sino drags his knife along the arm of the dead captives, approaching Nick as the vampires fill the doorway, staring and drinking from veins severely, urging the attending vampires to drink the blood.

Sino: I have a need for pets, you would not be pet. They, are pets, you would be a welcome ally against the nightfall. Stay for the oblivion, the wine and women aren’t far.
Nick: I leave, or you leave, that’s my final offer.
Sino: Yours is not the only form of immortality, memories are immortal, like the one in your keepsake locket from your vest. Take it to the dragon, it shall track and kill her, it is his humanity that binds him. Later, immortal son, we will visit where it ate her, it refuses to eat bones, ever the sight.

Nick grabs an iron pole and coats it with booze, using the fire for ignition he charges with flaming sword, they are seven and Sino not fighting, laughing and watching, they are six and Sino not fighting and smiling, they are five as Sino watches and angers, they are four and Sino attacks. They are wounded, burned, impaled, decapitated and thrown, Sino lives as Nick escapes.

Feet that leap between steps a gallop, blades that slice to slow foes in his wake that fall short behind him, and fireside room holds Sino using magic to heal as many as can mystic ability to heal in rage and pain, in echoes of wind, in the blood of vampires and the blind.

Sino: After him! Drink him dry! (kicks corpse that does not resurrect, forcefully)
Guillaume: Will that not make them too powerful?
Sino: …and draw their monarch.

Sino treads with heavy boots quickish from the room, leaving the prisoner bonded. The tributes are running to each cell, prepared for battle at each door. With murderers searching the martyrs, cursing, checking and guessing as Nick happens on the dragon nest. The fallen shackled imminent sacrifice waits to resume, the pain of mortality pains Nickolas with exasperations and currency, the dragon heavily steps thru dirt and dry bloodied rags then flips its tail and destroys a chair, the shattered pieces going everywhere the leg of the man with the locket. The dragon moves aside, tilting its head to have a second thought, toward the screaming the chain rattles the floor before stretching tight to the man’s neck, the dragon is loose and toying with prey, hammering its sharp claw into the fool. To thought it seems to Nick that the dragon may have just laughed. The door opens again, this time the man with the necklace laughs. He holds his hand and hangs the locket from his fingers as a parlor trick for children. It focuses the monster as would a child, as Nick takes the largest wooden splinter near him, the brushing sound of the ground interests the beast

The trainer puts the locket into the dragon’s mouth, it opens its arms and stands three times taller, winged breadth and breathing lungs enlarge, its ribs as silo rungs Nick charges, almost catching the tail when stopped. Three swings to kill the harbinger and fall and three steps to flee the brawl after the dragon, massive talons thunder and hammered-tail dragging under.

Sino: Then keep looking! Fools, he cannot fly, search the mountain!

Dragon crawls from darkness, affection between it and its master, a blindfolded minion stops Nick.

Renoir: She is better dead, I will find her in the darkness, you are better, in the darkness!
Nick: Damaged fiend!

Nick breaks Renoir’s neck and runs after the dragon again, faster beyond sound and breaths of oblivion, fast over ground thru the tyrants-vermillion, dashing toward the reptile corticiform. Nick runs thru the main entrance and sprints, to battle a dragon, to honor his oath and commitment, a true testament. Nick runs from the shadow tunnels to it, swinging knife-tip at near comers, a leaping step from an exsanguinated dead man’s chest to stab the dragon in the tail as it exits the cavern’s mouth.

Origins 03 – Distributed Systems Theory

Origins 03 – Distributed Systems Theory
Region: Quäoar
System: QTM44RS (“Katimorris”)
Habitable Proxies: 2-3-4/5 humanoid, 5-/5 fungoid + insectoid.
Inhabitable: 1-/5 heat danger – mining rated vessels only
(28705-312-09) 11:6:2:4
A glass panel console of symbols and metrics, fuel levels and settings with touch screen calibrations, two pilots, two soldiers, and the woman from the escaped desert planet now deep into the stars. The ship approaches a planet, the vessel begins entering atmo, shaking them by turbulence, and the crew shakes with the sway. Simon checks his arms for damage, a quick glance with his eyes and an almost habitual brushing with his fingertips over the tattoos on and beneath his skin. Eager to arrive she stands as another of windshakes moves the ship, putting a pressure and twist on her leg, causing her to cringe and audiate her pain as she curves her body to remove pressure from the wounded leg.
  “You’re hurt,” says Simon.
  “It’s why we’re here in the first place, get your hands off me,” says she.
  “I only worry for you.”
  “Well don’t, I can handle this.”
  “You know, you’re not as pretty when you lie.”
The ship’s momentum quickly slows as the propulsion vents face the ground, they stare at each other, the cabin jostles landing as he readies his firearm, and she grabs his jacket, pulling him to her so to kiss until the door opens. Pushing him as the door opens her other arm holds her pistol to the terrain before her head turns, two hands grasp. Simon exits with equal precaution followed by the other soldier who burdens a mini-cannon.
An atmosphere humid and bright, ravines steep and many, the trillions of rivers seen from space carve the mountain planet with many inclines and rolling peaks carved by the water. Each mountaintop a different jungle, each hillside built with bridge or agricultural steppe shallow despite lengthy stretches around summits. The strange farms decorated with trees with stringy grass-like foliage and innumerable lakes leave few commercial places to land a ship.
A mountaintop hollowed entrance, two conjoined sliding doors compiled of many welded pieces and some digital parts. Simon and the woman stand to the sides and the quiet man waits and aims at the door, they look to each other and the silent one tips his rifle, implying the door is mechanical, Simon notices.
  “Look, doors are on tracks, look for a comm-panel,” he states.
  “Be careful, don’t scan it, could have a trigger, look it over,” she replies.
  After poring over it he finds it first, “there it is,” he says and points.

  She presses an angled panel, it clicks, “Are you here?” she releases her hand and the button panel clicks only to wait a while and try again, it clicks, “Is anyone here?” she asks, it clicks.
  “I am glad to see you, I was about to sleep.”
  “Good, let me inside.”
  “I can’t.”
  “Why can’t you?”
  “That’s because I haven’t run a scan yet.”
The air becomes red as the scan emits a high tone then stops, the light and the tone stop and they wait. As Simon signals the cannoneer to open the gate, the doors open.
The interior is dark with clutter everywhere, not a single straight path leads from any two points, each wall full of shelves, each floor full of tables, and each area full of parts. Replacement pieces for many utilized things of many specialties without any organization to the mess, some useful some not.
  “All these android parts, he should build one to pick of the pieces,” says Simon.
  She cautions her partners, “He may already have, keep ready for anything, or you might be lying with this shit,” her hands clenching pistol he takes one hand down to hold a second gun.
They quickly turn toward a noise in the distance of a man rummaging thru rubbish.
  “There is no need for those here because you are in a safe place,” says the mannequin.
The area lights to reveal a better detail of the mess, pipes and wires and switches, the mannequin walks to them covered in pieces of panels and makings of motors from its face to feet, in closer examination is a man.
  The post human man turns and speaks, “Welcome, welcome, I’d be happy to help you today, just tell me why you’re here.”
  “We’ve come to meet a man about the parts,” she says.
  “As you can see I’m very much about parts, what do you need specifically, dear?” he replies.
  She answers, “We’re here to see, the multicore doctor.”
  In more serious tone than the last, “If that is true I should want to see you with my own eyes,” said the man as he turns and walks, “follow me, it isn’t far, move along,” he speaks with them behind.
Thru the clutter, they enter to a larger room far more clean than the entrance, a man with glasses and a band of grey hair around bald top, on a motion box that turns and rolls him to meet them. The man with the unrefined modifications walks to a wall and stands facing it.
  “Good to have you, good to have you, they told me you’d be coming, I’d’ve met you at the door myself, but the old legs haven’t finished charging and they needed a deep cycle refill after my promiscuities last night,” he continues, “oh don’t mind him, he does that sometimes.”
  The woman asks, “We were told you have a list for us.”
  “I do, I was told you’d be here sooner, sooner, much,” he wheels back to his lab table, “but I was told only to give it to six rebels, not three.”
  “The other three are the pilots….”
  The technician pulls a gun, “This entire lab is rigged to blow, the gunner locks with the cannon. Your partner who has an obvious trigger for me because of you has a reinforced frame because the implant channels he tried to hide with tattoos, but you, nothing on the scanner, where’s your tech, and what ship can land here so needs three pilots?”

  She lowers her pistol and lifts her pant leg, a hardened grey wound and a fresh leak of silver liquid, “I am the new tech!” only to raise her weapon again.
The technician lowers his weapon, tossing it on the table it slides closer to she than him, as they lower theirs somewhat.
  “We’ll get that examined for repair soon, I have your list,” he says leaning forward.
On the table a keypad and biometric scanner, an entry code, a genetics scan, an eye scan, the last of which he must lean excessively forward revealing that his body connects to a metal semisphere below his ribs. As he leans forward, so does the man, a door opens in the wall and he maneuvers to the hideaway and retrieves the file, giving to her.
  “Here is your list,” he said, a sigh of relief to rest again.
  “Excellent, what can you do about my leg?” she asked.
  “Nothing, I merely would like to look at it.”
  “Much of nothing to look at a wound, I need medical attention just like any normal wound.”
  “That I can do,” he touts, as the assistant begins to approach her, “I should like to sit, though, and make use of my time, relaxing. Please have a seat, put your leg up and… Fido will look at your leg.”
  She looks thru the files, “these are all public targets, commercial stations, where are the private owners, the well-to-do private doctors?” she asked.
  “Only the last two, the last page, this is a humble planet, most of them don’t need my help because they don’t use tech, it rains until midnight, after dawn the lungs of the lakes give a fog from the deep to the sunlight until it does it again, and they’re good with that.”
  Simon asks, “Are there anyone you think would have it?”
  The technician replies, “As you can see I don’t get out much. What is your name, son, by the way?”
  “My name is Simon. What about any vacation resorts?” Simon asked.
  “A few, I should say I don’t know much else, when the communique came I responded, I haven’t been much of an activist since the war, this is me helping,” he replied, then asks, “what is your name, bruiser?”
  Simon interjects, “He only has radio for now,” he pauses to listen to the signal, “but he’s implied he doesn’t trust you.”
The gunner takes a stern and makes it more certainly intimidating, making sure to draw focus by him his weapon.
  “This is polyformic coating to patch lacerations,” said the assistant, followed by the technician, “until your next refabrication.”
The woman going thru the pages taps her feet together legs crossed, the bionic man sprays foam into her wound causing a small amount of pain that heals and numbs simultaneously. She stands, making sure to be cautious when walking on the bad leg, to the technician.
  “This line here, I can’t read what you’ve wrote,” she said, only to put her gun against his head.
  “What will you do?” he asked.
  “The cyborg, how long has he been dead?”
  “What you mean? He’s not dead, he’s right there.”
  The cyborg, “Hello, please do not hurt him… he is innocent.”
  “I thought so, even after hearing it say it rather had seen us by its own eyes, then I noticed, whenever you turn or lean left, it does also, I’m guessing that scar buried in your neck,” she pushes his head with her gun to test her theory.
The stress of being at gunpoint when pushed, gives muscle tension and the cyborg leans left as she goads him with the barrel.
  “You two, search the premises, decommission them all,” she ordered.
  “You don’t need to do that; I gave you what you want.”
  “Drones, are not, allowed. You know that!”
The cyborg drone in the room tries to approach her at an almost quick pace only for her to shoot it in the head and point her gun at him again; the muzzle hot by laser burns him.
  “How long was he dead?”
  “I know it must seem crazy to make them and depend on them, but look at the benefits!”
  “How long was he dead?-!”
  “Maybe twenty-one and four, you don’t have to kill me, no one sees them, I live on a fucking mountain dammit, nobody sees them, don’t kill me.”
  “If they attack my men, I will kill you, disconnect and sacrifice them and we let you live.”
Immediately the remaining drones begin to wander, most in low light, tools to piece thru machinery, each with some form of wound covered in mechanizations or medically sealed grotesque. The soldiers critically damage the drones.
  “It is against the laws.”
  “They have no laws; they farm and shout at the sky.”
  “So you’ve described every man, it is against our laws.”
  Simon interrupts, “It’s done, crew has disarmed the door and are rummaging, but we’re overall ready for departure. Are you going to kill him?”
  “No, he lives,” she says pushing her gun into his head one last time as she walks from him, “for now.”
  “There is no Simulant law! You will fracture everything, we must use the drones!”
She lifts her weapon in hand just enough to shoot the drone once more on her way from the room. Her figure marked by the foam sealant on her knee and calf, the tattoos on her spine in the outer daylight as she passes beyond the doorframe. The pilots hurriedly carrying bundles of raw wiring, the gunman carrying the head of a cyborg smugly, and Simon watching the owner until they finish, he takes nothing but a final stare at the owner, already in salubrious exit.

/ch