Saturday Super Stories - The Event 4 F

"I have pulled from The Knowledge tales from the Event that ravaged two universes.  I start at the beginning and will tell the important parts, and while there are many stories to be told, this will be quick."  Chief Archivist of the Catalogers.

“Many things have been culled from this universe, many lives lost, some heroically, some fruitlessly, but everything and everyone met has had an impact.  Some people and places are the same regardless of the world on which it lay, it spreads like an infection.”

“A smart man once said ‘There is more than one of everything.”

The Event 4 - Dopplegang’land F "The Conflict of Kings"
> “King Carp Versus Man’phibian” & "King Hrolf Versus Odin"

"I am the ruler of this ocean!!"  King Carp roared through the water across the chasm of the unrelenting tigress.  The monster that stood on the other side smiled back at him.  

"Perhaps you were once but not any longer, for I am Man'phibian and Iay claim to the three cities and with them I shall soon secure my place among the worlds true rulers, the Underguard."

"The who?"  King Carp paused in his assault and stared at the creature before him.

"You have heard of them of course, everyone has, one of their names is the Illuminati, or the Triumvirate.  They have their hands in everything and everyone.  They had their hands in your formation and in ours, the Horizon."

"Why are you telling me any of this?"

"Because you are the most useless of your group and I've already defeated you.  You take the aspects of the sea animals you wear, and I take the attributes of the creatures I have consumed.  I have exuded a cloud of paralytic enzymes into the water around us and you have been absorbing them this entire time."

"Ah that explains the taste in the water then."  King Carps hand lashed out and his spear appeared and flew into Man'phibians chest, puncturing his heart and lung, and burst forth from his back severing his spine.  Man'phibians eyes widened and then he was dead.  "I'm the King and I love being underestimated."

* * * * * * 

Hrolf pulled Skofnung from the ground where it had landed.  He stared hard at the man who called himself Odin and the beast he sat astride, its eight legs pawing at the ground furiously.  "I do not know why we must battle, but I will not lay down like a babe and just take the beating that you intend to deliver.  I am a King and these are my lands and your trespass will no longer stand."

Odin laughed at the King and pulled his glaive closer to his side, its tip pointed at Hrolf's heart. Ban’deth the Unrighteous Blade snickered within him, and he could feel the sword respond at its jest.  "We both wield weapons that drive us."

Hrolf looked to his sword and nodded.  "True but you have appeared before me from the thinnest of air and drew upon me and in my startled state I was disarmed.  Skofnung demands blood, and it tells me yours will be one it can feast upon for ages."

Sleipnir made a noise and stamped several of its feet on the ground.  Odin laughed again.  "You are alone and I am immortal, there is no chance of victory as long as I have my blade and my steed.  We are an army unto ourselves."  Hrolf's mouth split into a grin and jumped forward slamming a fist into the monstrous horses face and knocked it unconscious, it swayed for a moment before beginning to topple.

"As much as it pains me to have struck such a magnificent beat, I must be victorious!!"  His blade slashed forward and the glaive swung around and blocked the strike.  Odin rolled from his saddle and away from the horse before it had a chance to pin him beneath it.  Hrolf followed the man as he raced over the falling beast and came down with a flurry of attacks each blocked in turn by Odin's lengthy advantage.  Hrolf continued on and pressed the onslaught of attacks with more aggression and more anger fueled by his minor victory.  Odin continued to back peddle only able to defend against the mad king.

"Odin you claim I had no army, and this is true for those three took it from me, but you never said I had no friends," Hrolf's eyes flickered just for a moment behind Odin, "NOW!!"  Odin began to twist to defend against the rear attack as Skofnung sank underneath his chest plate and buried itself in his heart.

Ban'deth roared in displeasure and then began to cackle with laughter.

Skofnung drank deep of the immortals blood and hummed with content.

As the light in Odin's eyes began to fade as his life force was drained of him he saw only a goat munching on some grass.  It stopped chewing for a moment and seemed to wink at him.

TBC

Saturday Super Stories - Mythology 109 Part 3

My name is Mercedes Whitman and I'm a hero on a foreign world. I am the daughter of two heroes, and was trapped on this Earth during an Event that sealed the way back home forever. They call me Black Sapphire when I’m out patrolling, and these are my Blogs.

“Where am I?”  Wynn asked as the drugged tea wore off.

“Still inside the Hollow City darling,” the woman in white responded.  You are about to become the most important creature in the whole universe, it really is too bad that the Cascade was sealed so long ago or the sickness could spread into the multi-verse.”

“You’re crazy!”  Wynn managed to raise his voice as he began to take notice of the area he was being held captive in.  She smiled at him.

“I prefer to think of myself as uniquely enlightened.  The Hollow City isn’t reality its actuality, nestled inside the astral plane in the cleft created by the hollows of Love and Hate, and as they burn with the power of Sham’bala and Carcass I rest here, in the Hollow City waiting, biding my time until the host arrives and unlocks the Black Room.”  She turned to watch his eyes with her head cocked to the side, the look was unnerving.  “Everything you see in the Hollow City was once the city of Pompeii; I almost gained me freedom that day, but only managed to supplant an echo of the city on the face of the Black Room.”

“But you are alone here.”  She tsked at him and then pointed right at his heart. Wynn’s eyes widened slightly and she smiled in response.  “Fuck we walked right into this.”

“You are the perfect host for this universe you are immortal and will be able to contain the void.”

“I’m not an immortal but my father was it didn’t pass on to me.  I just age well, I might look like I am in my twenties, but I’m only 33.”  Her head straightened and she frowned.

“You are the host, this I know, but not the perfect host.”  She turned and the topic of discussion completely switched, “They were always focused on the numbers you see, three proctors, two brothers, and one king to watch over their prisons, the homes of the worst of the worst of all villainy.”  The woman in white spoke to Wynn quietly as the orrery spun overhead.

“There were four people watching the Dark City.”  He mumbled in return.

She smiled at him, “Only two that mattered, the oldest brothers, the other two were incidental, and only managed to hold back the dark for so long.  Already he stirs.”  Wynn frowned at her.  “Oh it’s not an immediate problem, he ate one of his two guardians and unless the other dies it will take him centuries to gain enough power to break free.”  She drew a long blade carved of the stone of the Hollow City and ran it lightly over his chest.  “Whereas I will be gaining my freedom eminently by tearing your heart from the chest cavity and eating it in front of you as the orrery predicts the next conjunction of dimensions and my window to slip free of my shackles and bring about the white once again.  I did try so very, very hard before to wipe this universe clean.”

Wynn laughed, “Didn’t take though…”

“BECAUSE THEY INTERFERED WITH THE GRAND DESIGN!”  She screamed as she plunged the blade into his chest and began to carve.

Mythology 109 - Part 3 “The Warrior Princess”

“My mother Penthesilea was an immortal warrior queen from another world, exiled to the Earth many eons ago by noble blood.  She had made the best of this new world and this new life, but the field of battle was something that she loved with all her heart and without that rush of fist against flesh or blade against blade she was lost in the wilderness of life.”  Amazona spoke to Hrolf after he finished his tale.

“So she raised her daughter to be the greatest warrior princess ever to walk the face of the Earth.  Penthesilea was disheartened by what was coming; she could feel that the Queen was coming for her, a gloom that overtook her normally cheerful personality.”

“It was within a day when the Queen arrived and the visit was late at night, Penthesilea did not go without a fight however and the struggle was brief and ended quietly, a small puncture wound in her abdomen was the only clue to her true fate,” Amazona sighed, “They say the curse took her and in a way it was a curse one that I will never fully understand.”

“Her daughter Daphne grew up and led her people to the best of her ability, they raided the lands of Earth without compare, until she met her king.  Their romance did not last long but ended splendidly,” she smiled at him then and took his hand in hers.  “Then came the Culling, the three immortals came and decimated my people leaving only a handful alive, those born on Earth and therefore low bloods, on her mothers homeworld the low bloods were charged with mining the mineral of the immortals, but on Earth there was no such task to be handled and so they were left alone.”

“I have heard only rumors of one of the killers in the America’s but every lead have come up short, some day I will find them and drive them into the ground.”

TBC in Mythology 109 Part 4

Saturday Super Stories - Mythology 109 Part 2

This tale was timed to be placed with a strip that has been cut until Chapter 3, so remember this tale in the future!!

My name is Mercedes Whitman and I'm a hero on a foreign world. I am the daughter of two heroes, and was trapped on this Earth during an Event that sealed the way back home forever. They call me Black Sapphire when I’m out patrolling, and these are my Blogs.

“When am I?”  Black Sapphire asked herself in the void that was her unconscious mind.  Her waking mind had been jumping back and forth between the present and her past training with Mr. Walters the former Dark Avenger when she had collapsed in the Hollow City, the third of the trinities holy places.

Sapphires eyes snapped open and she found herself staring at the wizened aged face of a filthy woman who smiled down at her.  “What?”  She explained before passing out once again.  Wynn sighed and took another sip from the tea he had be given to assist with the anxiety he had been feeling since they had arrived here as had been prophesied by his mystic tattoo’s.

“You were saying?”  Wynn prodded at his host.

“She is suffering from post traumatic temporal dysplasia, her body and mind are fighting one another and attempting to come to grips with the reality she now finds herself in.  She comes from another world as do you, together you are bound to one another as you rush towards your destiny.”

Wynn sighed again and took another sip.  “But we aren't from the same universe and why aren't I suffering from this affliction?”

“You are far more in tune with the universe than she is,” she rested a hand on Sapphire’s breast and it began to glow softly.  “She comes of fire and ice, a raging battle between two vastly different personality types and underneath those emotions lay endless movement, her bane and true source of power.  She is restless and seeks to cure a man than cannot be cured for the person he once was no longer exists and she troubles her as her mind and soul grow to understand the futility of her quest.”

Wynn set the glass down and looked up at the glass ceiling that filled the entirety of the shacks roof taking in the Orrery that filled the air above them in the center of the Hollow City.  He exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding in.  “That thing up there is a representation of this universe?”

She nodded.  “The two primes sit at the center of all, and the shadows and echoes of the other universes rotate around them, the walls grow thin in places and events and things bleed through.  Our world should not be, and Those Who Came Before should have left this universe dead as had been intended by the Man in White and his Black Room.”  Wynn’s head whipped around.

“You’re talking about the void, why is…how the conversation switched to…” Wynn’s eyes drooped and he fell into the table and knocked the tea over as he slammed into it and then the ground.

“Outworlders are always the same,” she muttered to herself as she straightened and began to change into her true self, “Always taking for granted that which always comes with a price never realizing the price is their soul.”  She leaned over and ripped open Wynn’s shirt and saw the prophecy written beneath, he lay on a table beneath multiple earths and his heart had been ripped from his chest by a woman in white in a black room.  She smiled at the truth written on his skin.

Mythology 109 - Part 2 “Legendary Journeys”

He slammed his flagon down on the table top and foam sloshed over the side and he wept.  “I had armies once, vast warriors and champions and OH MY BERSERKERS!!”  He wailed.

“You do realize I have no idea what you’re going on about right?”  She spoke slowly to the drunken Hrolf.

“There was a battle many years ago, we had been celebrating the deaths of the last of the dragon wings and then they showed up, those three!!”  He clenched a fist and thrust it upwards and lightning crackled outside as his mind drifted back to the battle.

*******

King Hrolf Kraki wielded Skofnung and twirled it around his palm and wrist and he walked towards the three invaders that had summoned him and his warriors.  A light rain had begun and the sky grew darker as his mood soured, the celebration had been stopped because of this interference.

“I do not know who you are, or why you have come to this place, but you have entered the kingdom of King Kraki and we are the defenders of this realm.”  The lead male thrust out a finger and lightning crackled behind him, illuminating the trio.  His words were lost in the crack of thunder.  The man next to him laughed and rested his hands on his hips, and a young woman seemed to float slightly behind the pair.

“I did not hear a word you said,” King Hrolf said.  The man once again thrust a finger out and screamed as a second bolt leapt from the heavens and interrupted his speech.  The King sighed and his warriors rushed forward, followed by his champions and the berserkers brought up the rear.  He urged his horse forward and bellowed commands and watched over the course of several hours as his people were slaughtered by the trio that would not die.

*******

Hrolf finished the tale and Amazona patted him on the back and paused in her consoling.  “Wait…three immortals?”

TBC in Mythology 109 Part 3

Team-Building 104 - Part 3H

Team Building 104 Part 3 H "Galaxy Quest: The Undiscovered Country"

Skofnung flew through the air and struck the first Harvester in the shoulder blade, it bit deep and blood fountained from the wound.   Spraying wildly and covering its allies nearby it roared.   Skofnung laughed.

"To me my blade!!"  King Hrolf Kraki shouted and the sword pulled itself free and flew back into his hand.

I AM PLEASED KING.  HE WAS DELICIOUS.  The King frowned at the sword.  How could he be so stricken with this cursed blade?  GIVE ME ANOTHER AND PERHAPS I WILL ALLOW YOU TO SHEATH ME.  It laughed again.

He surveyed the battlefield and watched the berserks and his champions fighting the alien threat.  The woman Amazona had arrived just after the initial onslaught had begun.  He had met her on a different battlefield some years before and they had grown close quickly.  But her duties to her people and his to the kingdom had pulled them apart, but she had returned to him.

WE'RE BEING SURROUNDED.  OH GOODIE!!  Skofnung pulled itself around and sliced and peeled the Harvesters as they advanced.

"Damn sword you will be the death of me one day."

SOONER THAN YOU THINK KING!  More blood erupted and the blade screamed with its mad laughter.

*********

"I am a King.  One of several hidden Kings of Denmark who rule and war with each other and live the cycles in solitude; forever reborn throughout the ages and alone in our curse."

"The tale of King Hrolf Kraki began ages ago. While of import this is not the tale we need to revisit. During one of the many battles between the kingdoms an occurrence ripped through the field.  A third party led by a princess filed from a tear in the ether and joined the conflict.  They sided with none save their own and won the day.  This princess took her spoils in the form of slaves.  King Hrolf was one of these slaves.  He allowed this because he was curious about the situation."

"One day during his enslavement the princess took notice of him.  She found him working in the fields and saw him lift a large stone and toss it aside casually.  She asked for his company later that evening, full with intent and promises of great rewards.  He nodded his agreement and arrived at the appropriate time.  She was dressed in a loose gown that shimmered in the moonlight and a glorious necklace emblazoned the ensemble."

He smiled at her.  She then noticed the sword strapped to his waist.  She frowned and barely moved as the blade leapt free and sliced through the air, she continued to dodge and pulled a knife from a scabbard hanging from the side of her bed. 

He smiled again.  The gown parted at the straps and flowed down her bronzed skin, coming to rest at her feet; her skin untouched by the blade.  The sword clattered to the ground.  The knife followed.

"What happened next is anyone's guess."  The old tale weaver stood as the warriors around him clapped and murmured to themselves.  "We all know that the following morning came and the princess and her people were gone.  The King and his champions were free."

A young warrior stood and clasped a hand across his chest.  "Old one what was the woman’s name?"

"She was called..."  The doors slammed open and the King came in.

"To arms!!"  He rallied.  "The gods damned goblin kin and trolls have allied again and come in from the South!"

"...But?" The young warriors question was unmet.  He sighed and pulled his blade.

((Pulled from http://www.northvegr.org/sagas%20annd%20epics/legendary%20heroic%20and%20imaginative%20sagas/old%20heithinn%20tales%20from%20the%20north/034.html))

TBC in Team Building 104 Part 3 - I