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Post by Char-Vell on Mar 29, 2018 8:30:10 GMT -5
With that XP bonus, I can level up! I just hope that shout out doesn't earn me a visit from the entity in question.
If he does show up try to satisfy him with some decadent poutine, if that doesn't work---well, I don't really want to go there. I hope he can be placated with fudge rounds.
I wanted to through in some familiar Old Ones with some of my made-up nonsense.
I find it easy to churn out an esoteric incantation, but describing the interior of a mansion was difficult in the extreme.
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Post by zarono on Mar 29, 2018 9:07:07 GMT -5
If he does show up try to satisfy him with some decadent poutine, if that doesn't work---well, I don't really want to go there. I hope he can be placated with fudge rounds.
I wanted to through in some familiar Old Ones with some of my made-up nonsense.
I find it easy to churn out an esoteric incantation, but describing the interior of a mansion was difficult in the extreme.
I hope you got the big box of fudge rounds!
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Post by Char-Vell on Mar 29, 2018 21:07:30 GMT -5
The Final Incident
What occurred next was a veritable orgy of bloodletting. Foes beset us from all sides, swords and daggers seeking our vitals. Sigyn fought with total disregard for her own hide, relying on speed and agility to avoid the kiss of steel. I, with my shield and armor, sought to protect my unarmored companion as much as possible. I thrust and slashed, my sword flashing sparks upon the blades of my foemen, when it did not drink deep of their blood and feast on their brains and entrails. At my side I heard Sigyn babbling in the outlandish tongue of her people, and the sound of her broadsword shearing through flesh and bone. Zelome’s men sold their lives dearly. I felt the sting of their weapons when they slipped past my guard, but Ishtar ordained I should not receive my death wound that day.
At one point I was confronted by subprefect Edrio, whom I would not have recognized save for his uniform and distinctive sideboards, so distorted was his visage by fanaticism and intoxication. I thought to hail him, but he struck at me with such swiftness there was no time to parley. Edrio was no mean swordsman, and we crossed swords nearly a dozen times before I pricked his jugular and he fell, his lifeblood spraying out in a fine mist.
Abruptly, I found myself pressed by no foe. The floor about me was strewn with the ruined corpses of near a dozen men. Severed heads and limbs littered the floor and the blood ran in rivulets toward the pit. By the pit’s edge I saw Sigyn, drenched in blood and sweat, her eyes glassy and wild. Before her, on his knees, was dim-witted Ferk. He seemed to raise his hand to ask for quarter. I opened my mouth to exhort the barbarian giantess to spare him, but my protest died in my throat. Without hesitation she drove her sword through his open mouth so the point stood out a hand’s length from the back of his skull. She then put her foot to his chest and kicked Ferk’s body off the blade and into the pit. She turned toward me like a wolf at bay. By Ishtar! the look in her eyes! I thought her unfettered rage may turn upon me next. Verily, I knew then that there was more than one she-fiend in Yaramaj! She spoke to me in her own language, forgetting the speech of Zamora in her battle fury. I understood none of it, but from her gestures I gathered she wished me to open the cages and free the wretches therein. I hastened to obey. Sigyn ran toward the stairs. Later I learned what had transpired with her upon them.
Zelome and two of her henchmen had fled the area near the pit and climbed the stairs, thus, Sigyn followed them. The henchmen, twin brothers with the olive skin and ebon hair of Vendhyans, sought to blindside her as she rounded the spiral stairs, the first she ran through. His brother, screaming, swung a tulwar down upon her. In parrying his blow, Sigyn’s sword snapped in twain. The Vendhyan raised his curved blade for another blow, but she closed the distance with him and drove the jagged shard of her sword into his throat, savagely rending it. She tossed her dead foe aside and he tumbled down the stairs. Without challenge or preamble, Zelome leapt upon her, seeking to thrust her dagger into her heart. The two she-devils grappled upon the stone staircase, screaming foul oaths and obscenities. Zelome was no weakling, her muscles and resolve were hardened as of iron from a lifetime spent surviving, nay, thriving in the cruel, depraved depths of Zamora’s underworld. But she was no match for this savage from the frigid north. (I later read a treatise from one Nabonidus that speculated that these northmen were but recently risen from apedom, and thus closer to the raw savagery of the animal kingdom than we civilized folk. I think Sigyn of Asgard could be shown as proof of his theory.)
Zelome cursed and screamed manically as she tried to drive her blade into Sigyn’s vitals. But the barbarian held her wrist in an iron grip. With a sudden effort, Sigyn wrenched Zelome’s arm back at a possible angle, snapping and grinding the bones together as the “Queen of Yaramaj” wailed in fury and agony. Then, seizing her by the neck and crotch, Sigyn hoisted her high above her head and hurled the witch headfirst down the stairs. Zelome’s skull cracked with a sickening report, and her limp body rolled further down the stairs, around the spiral and out of sight. Sigyn paused for a moment. Trying to catch her breath. She was bleeding from a score of flesh wounds and the wound in her shoulder from Dealroy’s crossbow bolt had opened up again, and pained her greatly. But she was to have no rest, for the sounds of what now transpired by the pit had reached her ears.
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After Sigyn had disappeared up the stairs, I began to release the prisoners. All were secured by bolts unreachable by the occupants, but no locks. This was fortunate as my hands trembled so much I doubt I could have worked them. As they were freed I exhorted them to help release the others. I spoke with an elderly man, a scholar from Aquilonia. “Hurry, in Mitra‘s name!” he said, wringing my hands. “We must be quit of this place!” “And we shall, father.” I said, in an attempt to calm him, “as soon as we free these others.” “Then make haste!” he exclaimed, his eyes darting to the pit. “ It has drank much blood tonight, more than…AIEEEEE! It comes!” The old man cowered against the wall and I followed his gaze to the pit. There, a great, iron-grey dome appeared, and extruded out into the chamber. It was revealed to be a long, segmented cylinder. Thrusting out of the pit as tall as two men, nearly brushing the vaulted ceiling. Inexorably the thing unfolded, revealing row upon row of hairy segmented legs. Two great, serrated antennae and two coal black eyes surmounted its crown, and between and below these eyes pulsed a repellent sphincter-like maw. It resembled nothing so much as a colossal pillbug, grown and distorted to bloated monstrousness. The captives screamed and scrambled about, some fell to their knees in despair. The creature seemed to scan the room as though surveying its selection of victims. I was near unmanned by the horror of the thing, but I had spilled too much blood to take Yaramaj back from the forces of evil to lay down now. I turned to the old man. “I’ll distract it! As I fight, gather these others and flee this hellhole! Go!” The man nodded and sped off. I turned to face the horror crawled up from Arallu. Raising my shield and sword I charged the chitinous blasphemy. I contended with it for what seemed like an eternity, seeking to penetrate it’s scaly hide, but at length I was engulfed by a mass of hairy, grasping limbs, some I hacked away, but there where many. My shield and helm were stripped from me, and my sword arm restrained. I was lifted and drawn irresistibly toward that pulpy, dripping orifice. I knew may race was run, and I cursed defiantly at the monster as it opened it‘s maw wide to receive me.
But again, Ishtar did smile upon me, for at the last instant, a great boar-spear flew into the monster’s gaping orifice. It shuddered and I was dropped to the stones, my fall cushioned by a pile of entrails spilled by one of the henchmen. From the bottom of the stair Sigyn hailed me. “Run, dog! Upstairs while it’s distracted!” I ran as fast as my weakened legs would carry me, Sigyn at my heels. At one point I chanced a glance back. The thing sought to pursue us, but was too wide to fit the stairway, but such was its strength it broke and chipped away at the stone as it struggled. I felt it would eventually burrow its way out. At the top of the stairs I was perplexed to find one of the captives. A slight, sallow skinned man I later learned hailed from Khitai. At his feet was a wooden cask, from which ran a length of rope. Sigyn pushed me out of the way and went to his side. They exchanged word in a strange musical tongue, and the man worked flint and steel near the end of the rope. It came alive in a shower of sparks. Groaning, Sigyn hefted the cask overhead, “Flee!” she screamed. The Khitan seized me by the arm and rushed me out the front door. I glimpsed Sigyn hurling the cask down the stairs and turning to run after us.
We ran onto the lawn, the others we gathered there, milling about in confusion. The Khitan yelled at them, waving his arms to indicate they should lie down. There was a deafening report as of thunder and I was hurled to the ground face first. At length I rose to my feet and turned. The mansion stood no more. It had been smashed as though by the fist of some angry god, reduced to a pile of smoking timbers. Sigyn walked out of the cloud of dust and smoke raised by the destruction. She was unsteady on her feet, and in obvious pain, yet she still grinned broadly and laughed. “By Ymir! Would you look at that!” She seized the Khitan and lifted him bodily from were he lay, pointing to the ruins and gibbering to him in his language. Then she turned to me. “ Thank your gods that Xiao Tsung was here this day, and that the bitch Zelome had not disposed of his casket! Twas the Dragon-Breath of Khitai that stopped that great bug in the cellar!” She laughed heartily, then seizing Xiao Tsung by the head kissed him full on the lips. Releasing him, she turned to me again. “And you! Thou art a madman to charge such a beast alone! Aye, had I been a moment later, or had not found that boar-spear, you’d dwell in its bowels now. But it was brave of you Kostio! Bravery the like of which skalds sing of about the council fires! Come here!"
Never before or since have I been kissed with such primal savagery.
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Post by Char-Vell on Mar 30, 2018 7:52:55 GMT -5
Epilogue
There was an impromptu celebration by the liberated captives that night. The Bluebriar was taken over and many libations were consumed. (I was compelled to lock Madame Sapsut up at the prefect's office for her own protection.) As the sun rose, I observed Sigyn lounging on the mansion's back porch, which had remained largely intact. Taking a cask of beer and two tankards, I joined her. I proffered her a tankard of beer, which she accepted eagerly. I sat down beside her as she drank deeply. "That is exceptionally good beer, Kostio!" she said, wiping the foam from her lips. I took a deep draught myself, it was indeed delicious. "Yaramaj had some fine breweries before Zelome seized control here." I told her. "Perhaps with her passing, the brewers will return and start afresh." Sigyn nodded and sipped her beer in silence. "No sign of your horse?" I asked. "Nay," she said, "Nor any other. Perhaps they are corralled somewhere nearby, I will search after I've rested." "You’d better get those wounds seen to first." I told her. Her limbs were crisscrossed with cuts and lacerations, and her tiger skin tunic was rended and blood-soaked. She was dismissive. "Mere scratches. They look worse than they are." "Suit yourself." I told her.
After a space, I asked, "What was in that cask you threw at the monster?" She brightened, as though the subject was one of interest to her. "That was what the Khitans call huoyao, a fire potion. Xiao Tsung had a quantity of it when he was captured, and plotted to blow up his captors with it if he could free himself. Apparently that harpy Zelome was keeping those people there to feed them to that awful bug." I nodded. "Thu-Ateph has been wringing me for information; he thinks the thing was this Oni-MaLac’thoth, some fiend from 'the black gulfs between the stars', as he put it. He wants to dig it out." Sigyn snorted derisively. "He's welcome to, once I am leagues away."
We sat for some time in silence, when to my horror I realized I had unthinkingly placed my arm about Sigyn, and my hand was resting on the small of her back. Remembering her reaction to Bakabak's unwanted caresses, I steeled myself for savage retribution. To my relief, she seemed to pay no heed to the contact; in fact, she placed her hand on my knee and patted it with some small amount of affection.
Dawn broke over the mountains and a cloudless azure vault reared over Yaramaj. The air was cool and fresh. Sigyn quaffed the rest of her tankard and sighed contentedly. "It's going to be a fine day, Kostio." I was forced to agree. For the first time in many moons, it was truly going to be a fine day in Yaramaj.
The End
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Post by buxom9sorceress on Mar 31, 2018 19:38:15 GMT -5
Dear CHAR-V if i could publish new collections of short stories [ about conan, and others set in conans world ] then i would include 1 of your SIGYN tales in every book. Your new grim tales are so good and very high quality. You know what Howard fans want and you are now an expert at providing such great new tales. Your volcanic talent is hot. Rock on ! Many thanks
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Post by Char-Vell on Mar 31, 2018 23:29:58 GMT -5
That's some pretty high praise. Thanks!
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Post by zarono on Apr 1, 2018 8:41:38 GMT -5
Awesome ending to the tale CV, action packed and blood drenched with just the right touch of eldritch seasoning! The fight between Sygin and Zelome was superb, ferocity described with economy of words. I think would make REH smile upon it!
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Post by Char-Vell on Apr 1, 2018 10:28:40 GMT -5
Awesome ending to the tale CV, action packed and blood drenched with just the right touch of eldritch seasoning! The fight between Sygin and Zelome was superb, ferocity described with economy of words. I think would make REH smile upon it! I hope I wasn't TOO economical, I was eager to get to the "throw a bitch down some stair"part. As long as REH didn't box me over it that would be cool.
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Post by zarono on Apr 1, 2018 11:15:11 GMT -5
Awesome ending to the tale CV, action packed and blood drenched with just the right touch of eldritch seasoning! The fight between Sygin and Zelome was superb, ferocity described with economy of words. I think would make REH smile upon it! I hope I wasn't TOO economical, I was eager to get to the "throw a hitch down some stairs part". As long as REH didn't box me over it that would be cool. I would say it was paced perfectly! The fight was short, vicious, and ended decisively. You could always challenge REH to a beer drinking contest instead of a boxing match, he still might beat you but an alcohol induced sleep is always preferable to unconsciousness brought on by a brain rattling hook to the jaw:D
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Post by themirrorthief on Jun 14, 2021 5:56:41 GMT -5
good one here
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Post by Char-Vell on Jun 14, 2021 8:29:15 GMT -5
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! I hadn't thought about this story in awhile.
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