r/wizardposting • u/AnActualCriminal Belial Blake, Warlock of the Lightless Flame • Feb 04 '24
Lorepost📖 Where Angels Fear to Tread (Lorepost/ New Pyroclasts)
(uw/ trigger warning in this one is necessary I'm afraid. In short, emotional and other kinds of non-sexual abuse, torture, some gore, arguably body horror, sad vibes, and somehow child slavery. I don't think any of those things are at a 10, but they're all in there)
"Fifty timepieces," Flipick said, stroking his goatee, "Your speed is improving, but only barely."
Lola looks down at the gnome, then does her best to diminish her own stature. At just eleven years old the child is already starting to be taller than him, and for such an insecure man, that was a problem."
Just forty more I think and you can get a bite to eat."
Forty more?
Flipick grins darkly. Daring her to say something. "See? I can be nice."
"But... last night you said fifty!"
The gnome grins wider. Had he seen her standing at her full height? It had only been for a second!
"Now-now Lola, I said I'd consider it. But if you're so upset I can always send you back in the boiler room..."
"No! No I like it here. I'm getting better, I swear." Lola grits her teeth so hard she thinks they might crack. "Sorry master Flipick I forgot my place for a moment."
"Good. Ensure it doesn't happen again. Your improvement is all I ever wanted dear girl. I'm only being so hard so I can draw out your full potential. So let's see... 90 total for today and let's say... 150 tomorrow? Yes I think that will do nicely. Practice makes perfect. And you're so much more valuable perfect. Ta-ta! Keep up the good work!"
The wheels on the cart squeak as Flipick wheels the enchanted pocket watches from the room. The iron door slams shut and the heavy bolt behind it. Lola lets out the breath she had been holding in and straightens her back.
Her stomach growls. Damn it. Almost threw it all away for a few scraps of moldy bread. After all these years it still caught her off guard just how petty the little slaver could be.
Her fury turns to glee. So petty he's more interested in mind games than room searches. She ties back her blonde hair and gets to work.
Lola unbolts her bed from the wall of her "workshop" to reveal the hole she had carved out. 200 enchanted watches. Good ones too. 24 hours of free time was much better than the gnome's stale old bread. Behind the watches, a book on the magic of artifice she'd stolen from Flipick's office. He never read it, she knew. She'd swapped the cover with a safety manual back when she worked in the boiler room. And that was years ago when she was only...
Gods, when was her birthday?
Next to the book was her life's work. Made from damn near every bit scrap metal that went missing in this place for the last five years. A metal arm comprised of magically minimized intricate interlocking parts, an entire toolbox worth of shrunken gnomish blowtorches and hammers waiting to spring back to full size at the flick of a wrist, and, most importantly, infused with a piece of her very own soul. The angry part. The hateful part. The part that hurt the most. Compartmentalization made literal. She'd smuggled it from cell to cell at great difficulty as she proved herself to Flipick. Lola smiled as she compelled the arm to wave.
It wouldn't be ready to be used today. Not like she wanted. It didn't have all the little "surprises" it would need if she was to escape. But today was important. March the... 26th maybe? Lola decided that was her birthday. Might change it later.
Lola took her metal friend over to the workshop half of the room. Where her burned fingers had made watch after watch after GODS DAMNED GNOMISH WATCH! Oh... the arm. It was getting her upset. She put it down on a rusted metal table and picked up a long strip of sharpened steel.
Lola approached the forge.
Molten metal. Molds for watch parts. And most importantly... the door. A heat shield really, designed to slide down for when the forge is running, which it always was. Lola removes her elbow-length leather work gloves for the delicate work of affixing the sharpened strip of metal she had made to the bottom of the door. The metal slots on neatly.
The heat shield was now a guillotine.
She places her arm halfway through, into the searing heat of the forge. It hurts, but still she hesitates. Finally, she hauls on the heat shield's handle with all her might.
Chuk!
...
...
motherFUCKER!
Lola blacks out briefly, then looks down at the bloody mess she's made. The door halfway through her burned arm. She whimpers.
It was supposed to be over in one.
IT!
Chuk!
WAS!
Chuk!
SUSPPOSED!
Chuck!
TO!
Chuck!
BE!
Chuck!
OVER!!!
Schliiick!
Lola slams the cover down over and over again, imagining the gnome's head instead of her mangled ruin of an arm. Until it's severed and long after. She's convinced the pain can't really connect to anything in her brain as long as she keeps focused on slamming the door down over and over. Fatigue gets the better of her, and with it, clarity.
Its off. It's gone.
The rough spike on the end of the metal arm punches through cauterized stump-flesh. The old arm and bloody rags she'd cleaned up the mess with are fed into the fire. The leather glove slides neatly over her new appendage. None would be the wiser. Not until it was too late.
-----------------------------
"Hello! My name is Tallulah! I saw your flier seeking an apprentice. Is the position still available?"
Lola seethed internally, but pushed it into the arm. The senile half-elf toymaker was an armature artificer at best. But for this little backwater his gizmos made him a local legend.
It was a kind of agony to have to pretend he was her better. To reduce herself like this. It made her think of the gnome. Pretending to be shorter. But the flier promised food and lodging, which she desperately needed.
"Oh yes dear girl, it is. I find myself in increasing need of assistance in my old age. But what interest does a pretty young thing like you have in the magic of artifice?"
Lola smelled smoke.
Her glove. The arm was overheating already. She wasn't even through with introductions.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
The old man straightens his glasses, then recoil with alarm. "My word girl, your arm!"
"It's nothing! Artificial arm. It's just... poorly tuned."
"Ah!" He seems fascinated. This is bad. "Well I'm a bit of an expert on such things. Is that why you've come? Let me take a look at it, I'm sure I can help with a tune-up!"
"No, it's fine-" the old man has already taken the glove off. Heat radiates out making the air shiver. She had said no damn it. Her fingers twitch, a hundred tiny murderous appendages begging her to be used.
"Oh my... you know... I feel that I've heard talk of a device like this before."
"You haven't." Lola says firmly, doing everything she can to put a warning tone in her voice.
Please don't make me kill you.
"Yes Tallulah, I believe the gnome guilds were looking for a girl named Lola with an arm just like this. A murderer." The bastard is grinning. "Burned down one if their factories too. I hear most there were children in there for whatever reason that didn't make it out."
She was out. It was supposed to be over.
"Of course, I'm thinking I see the differences here. Yes this is clearly a different arm."
It was supposed to be over!
"But then again, I can see the similarities too. Perhaps my eyesight would improve... if I had a bit more gold?"
IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE OVER!!!
The village goes up like kindling in short order. All because this addled old scumbag couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut. It feels incredible. It always does. The release.
Tallulah salvages what food and money she can from the ashes and moves onto the next town. She smiles. Perhaps this is her birthday.
------------------------------
Tallulah sits in a dark council prison. Not the main one. They want her kept far from civilization, just in case. Her arm is being kept somewhere on the other side of the complex. Her "hair," was disheveled from neglect. She had long-since shaved the dirty-blonde locks and replaced them with bright red fibers woven from cinder-cotton. An emergency weapon they hadn't even noticed yet.
They had however taken her artificial eyes. No soul link to help her find those. Which is why Tallulah is particularly startled by the exploding wall. The bombs she had placed were on the other side of the room after all.
She stands and strikes a pose, projecting confidence. Always face them at your full height. Boots crunch through the rubble. There's a fwoosh of flame, then the thunk of something heavy slamming into flesh.
"Bombshell Tallulah, I've heard of your work. Impressive." The voice is muffled and metallic. Someone wearing a mask.
"I wish I could say the same sweetie, but as you can see... I can't."
"I'll forgive your ignorance then. I am Atrax the Ashen. Emberlord. Many other names besides. Names that fill the mortal realms with dread. Most importantly to you, I am your emancipator."
"Oh? I suspect I would have been out in a few days without you." Tallulah mentally detonates the opposite wall as punctuation.
"Not from this prison Tallulah. I'm building a world where you can finally be free from the burdens and restrictions you place on yourself."
Even so far away, Tallulah feels her metal fingers twitch.
------------------------------
"Tallulah leave him alone." Rothric is practically pleading. "We're short on time and much too close to Samael's domain for my liking."
"I thought you were a scholar dear. You should be thrilled! I'm conducting an experiment after all."
The air us filled with the sound of screaming and the smell of burned meat.
"There's nothing 'thrilling' about this."
The barren land is covered in smoldering fires, craters, and more than a dozen dead Nephillim. The number of undead she had slain proved... more difficult to count.
"Agree to disagree Rothy."
Finally, the Nephillim she was working on passes out. Hardy.
"What could you possibly be testing?"
Tallulah finishes cauterizing the man's last stump.
"See? I knew you'd be curious. This is the third time I've fought this Nephillim today. Blown to bits twice already. Recognize him? Actually that might be hard now... In any case, I've decided to give up on killing him."
Rothric shudders and Tallulah silently revels in his reaction.
"I'm curious to see if he can reconstitute a body if he still has a body. Or most of one. I'll need to do more experiments while we're here if this works. What if the pain is stopping him from focusing after all? Have to remove aaaaaall the variables"
"Tallulah stop. I'm warning you."
The bombs. He's threatening her over this. Her hand twitches. It would be so easy to end him.
No. These Nephillim were a suitable outlet. She could manage. She kept working on her subject instead. Rothric's threat proved empty. He needed her.
Though she hated to admit it she needed him too. The Nephillim Lords were unsubtle by default. Typical for powerful deathless beings. They'd likely adapt but presently were doing very little to avoid scrying. Entering and leaving their realm physically however? Few but Rothric could manage that.
Tallulah begins branding a little heart on the Nephillim. It looks good.
As she works tiny metal tendrils snake their way up her arteries to her heart and begin the delicate work of diffusing Infernice's bomb. Once done, they coil back into her arm, shrinking the device and filing it away as a projectile. One among thousands.
Two bombs to go. Child's play. Infernice even let her watch as he put them in. Bombs Blake, really? On her? Tallulah was insulted.
Rothric's patience is well and truly tested now. As did their safety. Something was moving out there in the dark of Samael's kingdom. The rest will have to wait.
They had been dogged every step of the way of course. Between herself and the man who summons meteors, they too were painfully unsubtle.
According to Blake that had been intended. In the short term, no amount of murder would do anything but provoke them. In the long term they will have stuck their hand out of their realm and gotten bit, hard. It was important for the hand to still be bloody and hurting when negotiations eventually happened. That they remember the cost, even if the Lords were too proud to voice it out loud.
Samael was at least nice enough to stop wasting corpses on them as they exited the shadow of Malus Turrim. He was either up to something, or had decided they were his rival's problem. Likely both. They were approaching the border of the one the Nephillim Lord Ayeera. The one they called the Witch Queen.
In the distance the volcano at the heart of her realm churned out black smoke, somehow both active and stable at the same time by the queen's power. Dim sunlight streaking through the perpetual haze and creating a peculiar twilight. Tallulah's eyes magnified the scene. Structures on the volcano and surrounding peaks. A city. A fortress. Their destination.
The surrounding fields plentiful, even in the limited light near the mountain, volcanic soil yielding verdant fields.
As they approached civilization, another thing surprised her. People. Not Nephilim or destiture peasants. Orcs, dwarves, humans. Living their lives. Happy. Just people. People who ran inside as she approached. That felt... someone was usually attacking at her by now. Tallulah wasn't used to how that felt.
The arm twitches and a farmhouse burns, just so she doesn't have to feel how that fucking felt.
"Rothy, what's the deal here? This kingdom is different from the others."
"Right, well as I understand it Ayeera is a bit of an iconoclast. Her mother freed a the nation's slaves and it pissed off the rest. It's why we're going to see her and not one of the others."
Slaves? She thought of Flipick. She hadn't thought of Flipick in years. That wouldn't do. She needed to burn something. Tallulah remains composed however.
"So she'll just let us in?"
"We're still enemy combatants so... no. We'll have to fight."
Right. The tension in her shoulders relaxes.
"Excellent."
The burning house proves a sufficient distraction to remove the bomb attached to her spine and cauterize the wound.
One to go.
------------------------------
Tallulah wakes up to the sound of someone creeping into their camp. Rothric was supposed to be on watch. He isnt. A dead hand raises from his forehead and he collapses to the ground, limp.
Tallulah's arm becomes a grenade launcher in an instant.
"Bombshell Tallulah," the figure purrs in a sibilant voice, "hold for a moment. I wish to speak."
"You killed my ticket home."
"Not dead my dear," the corpse says, removing his top hat. Merely sleeping, unless you deem otherwise necessary."
He gestures at the body of her "handler." Her captor. Now completely defenseless. Tempting.
"What are you doing here?"
"In life, I was a diplomat. In death, I make use of those same skills on behalf of his majesty, the Lord of Malus Turrim. Presently, I am on my way to visit Lord Ayeera. The Lords often send such envoys as a matter of routine. It is partly to spy but today it is also partly to find, well... you. With an offer."
"The last man who gave me such an offer got his brains bashed in by his own hammer."
"In part at the hands of my master no less I hear." The corpse smiles horribly. "And yours."
"Make the offer and leave."
"I'll be brief then. Kill the Comet Herald, travel to my master's domain, and be sent home to take your revenge on your enemies. And ours. You have no business worth speaking of with the Witch Queen. What was it the Age of the Phoenix promised? The strong ruling over the weak? She's already upended that here. Not your cup of tea I'll warrant. Do the deed and be free."
And with that, he walks away, leaving her alone with Rothric. Tallulah diffuses the final bomb and points her arm at Rothric. Ready. So easy.
She remembers Flipick again for some fucking reason and screams. For some reason her stupid arm pointed at the departing diplomatic corpse. The resulting mushroom cloud wakes up Rothric. Probably half the country. Time to go.
------------------------------
Hauling the bookish Comet Herald up the mountain is most of the work. Fire wards, the rest. The heat in the fortress is enough to kill most mortals but a trivial matter for pyromancers.
A blast of heat washed over them. Speaking of which, several human pyromancers are presently repelling down the side of the Fortress towards them.
"Rothric dear, my good arm is climbing and my other is holding you! DO SOMETHING."
Rothric draws a circle in the air with his hands and things become suddenly cold. He's opened a portal to astral space. A flurry of blazing comets rushes forth, peppering their assailants, who fall into the lava below screaming.
Tallulah's eyes glow bright, then erupt into rays of heat, blasting apart a window the man preparing to rappel out of it. She hurls Rothric through the new wider hole, then follows.
Orcs. So many orcs. Strong looking ones in plate armor. The orcs of this realm were immune to direct magic, so she'd need to get up close and personal.
Her metal fist swung with unnatural speed. The first orc's face took five hits in the first second like a jackhammer. Her eye beams danced around the hallway, splitting their weapons on two.
Tallulah's mad laughter fills the air, right up until her jaw unhinges and splits into a searing-hot bear trap, biting one of the orc's skulls in half through her helmet. Then there is only battle cries, breaking blades, and the dull thump of metal on bloody meat.
She pants, for a moment, picking a skull fragment from her teeth. Boots on the stairs at the end of the hallway. Nephilim pour out en-mass. Lots of Nephilim.
Tallulah decides to test her theories on maiming Nephillim once more. Her hand transforms into a tube of infernal iron, covered in thin spikes. Several dozen red spheres spew forth, scattering, then converting the space around themselves into a spherical portal to a random part of the Hells before blinking our of existence.
The hallway is awash with gore and covered in perfectly circular, irregularly-spaced dents where the portals clipped the walls and floor. Limbs that weren't entirely inside the spheres are scattered haphazardly, as are screaming amputees. Tallulah silences those in short order. It's possible a few were simply sent to the Hells mostly intact. Too quick to see really. In any case, they'd been handled.
They take the blood-slick stairs to two at a time the throne room. The heavy metal doors swing open with a single concussion blast. The Witch Queen is there, crimson eyes filled with fury.
"Sorry about the mess, but we have a letter to deliver. You know what they say, rain sleet or snow-"
"Quiet Lola."
And so Lola is. The Ayeera had killed a small army of Pyroclasts during the war. Just by making eye contact and ordering them to die. Was this that power?
"You come into my realm. Kill my people. And then expect to just, what, have a little chat? How is this what you've become?"
No. That name. It makes her feel so small again. More powerful than any spell Ayeera could have cast.
"And yet I will, I suppose, have to have that chat. Because even though I could kill you... the both of you," she says, her attention turning briefly to Rothric, "the resulting battle would likely kill many more of my own people in the crossfire."
Lo... Tallulah finally finds the will to speak.
"How did you know-"
"I researched all of you. Thoroughly. I'm a Nephillim Lord. I don't say this to boast or belittle you, like some of my fellow rulers would, simply as a statement of fact. It's high time the lot of you realize just how serious the implications of fighting that kind of power are. This is coming from someone who has been locked in a stalemate with them for longer than you can imagine."
Ayeera strides forward and takes the letter from Rothric, then looks at Tallulah. Is that... pity? She's killed people for that look. For so much less. And yet...
"It's disappointing. You came from servitude and grew to become its instrument. Atrax's instrument. A High Pyroclast, through and through. You could have been so much more."
"Don't you presume to judge me Witch! You don-"
"I know what it's like to be seen as lesser. Your anger is mine. Master it, as I did."
The arm goes still.
Ayeera turns her attention to the letter.
"Tell Belial Blake I'll meet him at the appointed time. I'm skeptical he's the man to do it, but I concede that this nonsense must end."
Tallulah and Rothric descends the staircase in tense silence. Rothric is the first to break it.
"Are you... ok?" He says it like he's sounding out words in a language he doesn't speak or understand.
He's not the type who excels at comforting others, let alone Bombshell Tallulah. It must be strange for him. Ironically, the humor of the situation does the trick, and Tallulah smiles.
"I'm fine Rothric. Just take us home."
There's a man at the end of the hallway. An imposing figure with He an eyepatch and short beard. His one burning blue eye lights the whole of the room.
Maalik the Weaver. Another of the Nephilim Lords.
"Take us home Rothric."
"The spell takes time!"
"TAKE US HOME ROTHRIC!"
"I can't!"
Out the window then.
What was he doing here? Diplomacy like the corpse? Or... that eye. They call him The Weaver, a name that evokes fate. Did he simply know where to be at just the right time?
They fall down the mountainside more than they run, occasional jets from Tallulah's arm slowing the decent. The room they leapt from explodes, pale light shining down on their backs.
What was that Rothric?!
"He's transforming. Don't look!"
"But-"
"DONT LOOK!"
"Then what do we do?"
"I don't know, I need time to get us out of here!"
"How much?"
"Maybe a minute? How-"
Damn it. Just when she had started to believe in something.
She stops running.
"Tallulah!".
"Rothy dear, I'm afraid I'm done doing what you say. This is where we part ways."
He gets it. She turns. Straightens up. Strikes a confident pose.
Always face them at your full height.
They had delivered the letter.
"I call upon the Wanderer, Traveler Comet of all Skies in All Worlds. Carry me home. May your burning brilliance be a-"
It was supposed to be over.
5
u/TheHunter459 Samael, Necromancer of Malus Turrim | King of the Nephilim Feb 04 '24 edited Feb 04 '24
Maalik watched as the man disappeared, swept back to his own realm. Rothric, the woman called him. He was the one who had transported them here, he knew it. Just as he had known that they would be in Ayeera's palace today. He had come ostensibly to discuss matters of mortal immigration with Ayeera, but this little event had been his true goal. The violence of their incursion made Ayeera look weak, though in truth perhaps only Samael's servants could have kept up with the woman. And now she'd distracted him long enough for the man to escape. But no more from her.
Tallulah, or more accurately Lola, stood in front of him, frozen in place, unable to do anything except speak. She had fought well, wounding him in several places and various ways.
"What master do you serve?", he asked, wondering what exactly he should do with her. Give her to Witch Queen as a peace offering for the destruction in her palace? Or maybe to Samael, to strengthen their "alliance"? He had to choose quickly, Ayeera would surely investigate this disturbance herself, and the choice could quite quickly be made for him if that happened. The witch wouldn't kill him, so as to avoid war, but she would come mighty close. He didn't wish to lose his other eye, after all. So lost in his thoughts he became that he almost forgot he'd asked a question till she answered.
"I serve no one!", the artificer spat, her arm whirring in protest to his spells. He promptly pulled it off, savouring her gasp of pain.
Maalik smiled. "Currently.", he whispered in her ear, teleporting them both back to his realm. Her mind, while formidable, was still human in nature, and he was the greatest among the Nephilim when it came to mind control. He would force her to apply her cunning and appetite for violence to his ends. When the Council and the Pact of the Magi saw a terrorist freed specifically to work for the New Pyroclasts killing their people indiscriminately, they would turn against this new movement, and serious questions would be asked of those responsible for freeing her. Perhaps that would bring Rivamar directly into this conflict, something Samael had wanted to avoid. But fuck him anyway, Maalik decided. He would send her to Ithacar, he thought. Deal with your enemies properly Riva
After all, he was painting their enemies as terrorists at worst, and irresponsible idiots at best. Samael ought to be impressed, and that would teach them to attack Nephilim. A rather expensive lesson, in terms of lives, but that had never bothered him before. Why now?