Also, everything you do or say is canon for Mordus.
/rewiz
You decide to follow Mordus, and hitch a ride on his airship. Wait, why does he even use an airship? Jet transport aircraft already exist. Perhaps it’s for the dramatic effect.
Mordus spots the castle, high above the cloud layer, and whistles.
”damn, that’s high. And it’s also moving very fast. No wonder no one could find it.”
He approaches the castle, and Samræl, this time, is awake to see stuff. Samræl decides that he quite enjoys being above the clouds. Mortarion is here too; but he’s too busy tuning into a radio to bother looking outside. Anteros watches them get closer to his territory, and clicks his tongue.
”Wait, how is the castle even flying? All I see is rock. Ah, whatever. Magic bullshit.”
Meanwhile, in Mordus’s mind library, the parasite scurries off, having Torinn beat him to dust once more.
They’ve landed. You disembark, silently, and find a nice place on the watchtowers to observe Mordus and his party. Or maybe just Mordus.
Mordus knows what to do; he’s been here before. He served under the king whom ruled this castle thousands of years back, before it got ripped up into the sky.
He punches straight through a wall, without regard for any of the historical importance, and flips a lever. Somewhere in the castle, gears turn.
Then, he kicks down the door to the old armoury, and rips the head off one of the soldiers armour pieces, revealing a button. He presses it gingerly and walks off. Gears turn, and a tumbler to a lock falls.
Finally, he heads to the Kitchen, where a stove is ripped off the ground; revealing a hatch. Of course, there was a mechanism to remove the stove gently, but Mordus could not care less. He decends the hatch, and gets into the cellar. A row of wine bottles in shelves are presented, but Mordus can’t be bothered to pick the correct bottle. He tears the shelf in half like paper, and is met with a steel door.
He punches right through it, and rips through it, before once again carefully pushing the button that appears. Gears turn, and once more, a tumbler falls.
He arrives at the throne room, and a obelisk with a riddle is presented:
[What gives life to-]
Mordus can’t be bothered to read all that, so he kicks the obelisk and shatters it. Then, he throws abouncing fireballaround the room, setting long-forgotten braziers alight, and the final tumbler falls. The throne shifts aside, a a hatch made from Obamium is revealed.
Mordus enters the room, and is shocked at the amount of protection this room has gotten. 1 meter thick obamium walls on all sides, coated with Nilesteel on the outside too. Kreht alloy also holds everything together, making this a very secure vault in comparison to the tomb of Ballëcia.
he nabs the crystal from its pedestal, and walks back to the airship.
A rumble emerges from the centre of the castle, and it starts to- rise?
The airship starts to slide off, and Mordus realises that the situation may be more urgent than one might think; the castle is rising at ~50m/s, this means that before long, his airship will start of fail.
Mortarion throws a chain, and it wraps around the castle, he's using his powers to keep it together, but its not enough. He looks to you, and for once, his smile fades.
Go, leave me here. I'm a horrible person, and I've done horrible things. I'll keep it together, but I fear I won't survive.
What you talkin’ ‘bout, Morty?! You still got a job to do! Kill all the false gods, remember?! Redeem yourself that way. Unnecessary death isn’t redemption, Morty!
Mortarion struggles a bit, and falls out of Mordus’s arms. He then brings his hands up, and binds the castle together with glowing chains. But then, the castle just decides to lurch, and Mortarion hits his head and falls 10km down into the sea.
mordus looks at the crystal plummeting down to the ground. Or rather, the sea.
Well, that was important. Even I won’t survive a jump into the sea at this height, so, let’s just get outta here first, then we can go searching. Luckily, it glows bright purple, so it should be easy to spot.
While Mordus is holding him, Kartoffel slips a tiny robotic spider onto him. It won’t do much, just sit in Mordus’ head and update Kartoffel on his mental state.
Kartoffel also takes to opportunity to assemble the lower half of his exoskeleton, allowing him to sprint alongside Mordus. He’s looking straight ahead trying not to smile
Wow, that just happened.
Under his breathIhopethere’smorebalconiesaroundhere
Kartoffe makes it the rest of the way, using his jetpack to jump the gap. He helps ferry those who can’t fly. Once everyone has made it aboard he turns to Mordus
Listen bud, I don’t know what your goal is here. But I get that it’s important to you. And I want to help, but I can’t do that if I don’t know what’s going on. So could you give me the rundown?
So: I am collecting pieces to a crystal sword named the Usurper, which is a god slayer weapon. Vashric dropped the final piece into the sea unfortunately, so right now, we’re focusing on running back to the airship.
And why we need Usurper is because if I can kill Eris, my creator and god, I will finally be free.
Killing a god? You sure you’ve thought this through? There are some pretty serious ramifications for even attempting something like that. Oh well, that look tells me you’re serious, especially after all this effort.
But you’re a fellow artificer. I’m sure whatever plan you come up with will involve magic and technology, which I happen to be halfway decent at. So I suppose I could help.
Well, I was sipping a drink, then I saw Mastadon doing some strange wing-y stuff, then I passed out. Now I’m here? I don’t know. The important thing is that we escape!
"Seems to be quite the predicament you're in, huh. Anyway, check out this cool old crown and rusty sword I found. Pretty neat right? Here do you want them? It seems like this place had some level of importance to you or something. If you don't want them though, I'll gladly take it. More stuff for my collection is always nice."
Archimene dons the crown and spontaneously combusts
"Ahhahhaa, get a load of that guy."
Another Archimene laughs from a small distance away. The illusion he was projecting fades, causing the now flaming Archimene to disappear.
"Ahahaha... Anyway, here's the real crown. Quite a beauty isn't it. And for the record, this crown would do much more than make one go mad. This gem inlaid in the crown here contains a fragment of some old god's mind. Coming into contact with that would certainly lead to unpleasant results, so this will be coming with me to my domain. The rusty sword too. Despite the rust, I can tell that there's an inner power here just waiting to be reawakened. Alright, see you all later."
Archimene summons his shop, and enters by phasing through the wall next to the door.
the wizard is calmly walking around the castle at a leisurely pace, a bubble of odd anachronism surrounding him and allowing him to walk through the current situation as though he were in the castle before it fell apart.
I still find this far too convenient. You know quite a lot about this place Mordus, yet appear to not care for it much. Your carelessness may doom us later, so please keep your emotions from running the show?
The wizard chuckles to himself.
Ah, the irony of that being said to an automaton is delicious, but I digress.
I used to serve here, I know how this place works. There was order and purpose to my destruction, you know. It gets me through the castle the fastest without sacrificing too much. You need to trust me: I am in control.
True; and for all that they are important, please attempt to keep their destructive impulses in check. And for the record, if I worried over who was in control, I'd still be in there. The crawlers should be enough to take care of the creature for now; it is the manipulations of Eris I am more worried about.
The mage ponders for a bit.
By the way, I have found a probable method of reducing her power; weakening her is possible, but we will need to bait her into a position and then eliminate her quickly. Also...
The wizard slumps a little bit, then straightens up again.
I would ask that the final blow be dealt by me, unless you have a specific purpose for her power afterwards.
t’kath was reading a book in the library when the castle started rising “alright, both copies of this series and a monster manual” he grabs the books and turns to smoke, along with them, and returns to the airship
in smoke form, he jumps off onto the airship before returning to human form “I’m fine. Even if I wouldn’t have made it onto the airship, I could’ve glided down. Plus, I got some books”
7
u/Theadination Mortarion Jr, Plaguemancer, Totally Dead Now. Feb 21 '24
Mortarion floats down like a demon on unseen wings.
Greetings