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Post by Executus Gira on Feb 1, 2019 3:40:01 GMT
Far in the northern reaches of Lemuria, past the sprawling dunes and the expansive wolf woods, was an icy tundra, a world where the cold ruled. Dark clouds billowed overhead, casting an eternal gloom over the barren land. Small rays of light, wherever they be moonlight or sunlight, pierced through the clouds and rolled across the ground. This was a harsh landscape, where the temperature could fluctuate from just above freezing to negative sixty degrees Celsius at the drop of a hat.
Above the ground, a sole wyvern soared. It was a motley green color, and three horns sprawled from its head. It was not a resident of the tundra, but a visitor from warmer lands. Each wing gently beat as it scoured the ground in search of food. All it saw beneath it were iced over lakes, with small holes dotting them. It knew better than to investigate, especially as another wyvern, one not as experienced as it, flew in to the smell of flesh. The ice erupted when it came too close, and jagged jaws rose out of the lake and snatched the drake from the air, before receding back into the depths.
The other wyvern flew on, its eyes locked on a different place to check. The warmer regions of Lemuria were filled with food, but also with stiff competition from other creatures, some large enough to prey on the wyvern. As such, it had been forced into these frozen lands, but not without a plan. Ahead of it lay a walled city, one caked in ice itself. Where there were cities, there were humans, and where there were humans, there was food.
The great beast soared over the walls, and the silent railguns that acted as stone cold sentinels over this once mighty bastion of reality. The outer ring was barren, littered with the ruins and broken pieces of machines and a few bones left over. It snorted, and continued on, over the second wall. One of the railguns creaked, and ice cracked over it as it tried to turn to aim at the wyvern, but it was far too slow, and creaked to a stop only a few degrees shifted.
Here, in the inner ring, the wyvern finally descended. Its thick scales were the only thing keeping the cold away, but even that wouldn't last long. It had landed in a street, one littered with long frozen corpses. Buildings as far as it could see had been broken down and eaten away by the harsh winds, or something else. Gouge marks as large as the wyvern itself could be seen, but there was no scent to go with them, so the wyvern wasn't alarmed. It moved over to the first corpse it could, that of a mother huddled over her child, and let a hot blast of air billow from its lungs. The ice melted, and the flesh thawed within seconds, so the wyvern snatched up the softened body and consumed it whole.
It turned around. There was another body, one stuck against a broken screen in the side of a building. It flew up, and bit the body, before dragging it out. The body fell to the ground, and shattered into pieces. The wyvern landed, and repeated the process, this time with each of the pieces of the corpse. It was a banquet of flesh ripe for the taking, and with the weather being warmer here than usual, it had opened up an opportunity for this creature, who had seen the walled city before, but never had a chance to look around until now.
It moved through the street, before it came to an open space. One of the buildings had a hole in the side, just large enough for it to enter. The creature slowly made its way inside, and its claws dug into the wood floor. Its nose told it there was food in the room next to it, so it pushed its head against the door, and the door fell off its hinges. There, huddled against the wall, was another frozen corpse, this one of a one eyed humanoid, much larger than normal. The wyvern broke fully into the dining hall, and began to warm up the cyclop's corpse. Too large to fully swallow, it began to rip the corpse apart, tearing off large chunks of flesh and entire limbs and swallowing them whole.
It was a frozen world, a frozen feast in the making...
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 11, 2019 5:49:35 GMT
The wyvern's feast was all too perfect. Food, endless food untampered and untouched, perfectly preserved for it to consume. With the cyclops's body devoured fully, it was starting to slow down. It stomach was filled with flesh, and normally, that would be enough for it. But, there was always the future to plan about. In its normal hunting grounds, food was scarce and competition fierce. There was no guarantee a future meal would come easy if it returned now. Perhaps... some extra food to store for later would suffice.
It sniffed the air as it crawled out of the dining hall. There was another scent, one it hadn't noticed before. It seemed oddly similar to it, yet different as well. Perhaps, one of its kind frozen? That would make more than enough of a stored meal to last for weeks. The wyvern's head turned upward, toward the desk against the back of the lobby room. It moved forward, its sheer weight making the wooden floor beneath it groan and crack. It peered its head around the desk.
There, with her upper half sticking out of a chute in the wall, was a woman, frozen like the other corpses. The wyvern flicked the desk to the side with its head, which shattered upon impact with the wlal, and grabbed the frozen woman with its jaws. It began to move back, to fully pull its prey out, but as it backed up, the body never seemed to stop. Even more surprising, the lower half seemed reptilian, like a snake.
The wyvern fully backed out of the building, and with one final pull, the whole prize came out with it. The lower half of the woman, her serpentine half, was coiled around. No doubt a feeble attempt to stay warm, an attempt which failed. The wyvern leaned its head back, and let twin plumes of hot air blow from its nostrils around the frozen body. The ice began to melt, and the wyvern waited patiently.
A booming roar caught its attention far too late. It had been so preoccupied with feasting, it hadn't noticed that the city was not unoccupied of life, of creatures unlike anything it could comprehend. It had never noticed that its arrival had been noticed, and it had been stalked silently, stealthily, until the right moment to pounce.
Powerful jaws engulfed the wyvern's body and slammed down shut. Jagged fangs punched through the thick scales and spilled dark blood upon the snow. The wyvern screeched and howled in shock, and tried to fight back against its sudden attacker. Its claws dug into the muzzle of the assailant, and black flames licked at its face, yet they had no effect. Another crunch, and the wyvern went limp. A third crunch, and the upper half of its body fell to the ground.
Its assailant threw its head back, and swallowed the entire lower half of the wyvern down in one gulp. Its head was shaped like an eel with hundreds of fangs, and a powerful elongated neck stretching down a veinous purple hide... yet, there was no body attached to the neck. Twelve spidery limbs supported the neck and head off the ground, and five eyes locked onto the wyvern's upper half. The head bent low, and snatched up the corpse, and swallowed it as well. The head reared back up a full hundred feet into the air, then turned to resume its endless patrol. Blackish smoke drifted from beneath the neck and trailed behind the strange creature, though it was quick to fade away after several moments.
Far too small for the creature to notice, the serpentine woman's body continued to unthaw. Flesh was exposed to the air for the first time, and a freed hand twitched. Scales rippled, and the woman uncurled, breaking the last of the ice that was around her. Her eyes opened, and what she saw was an alien, frozen nightmare far removed from the city she had known for years.
"H-hello?!" She called out. She wrapped her arms around herself, and looked around. "C-Crigan? Yzazil? Minerva? Kyra?! Vesyka!? ANYONE?!"
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Post by Stage on Aug 11, 2019 6:33:56 GMT
The serpentine woman's cries for help went unanswered, but not unheard. Across the ruined street, within an adjacent building in a similar state of disrepair, its roof sagging and its walls tilted, dark eyes observed her. The owner of the eyes was small and pale, and her features, aside from a wild head of stray-like hair, were hidden by an thick, oversized navy vest held tight against her like a second skin. She had peeled it off the frigid corpse of a blonde woman clutching a broom.
The slim, hunched figure watched the snake woman not in hope or concern or even fear, but with something closer to predatory hunger.
She too was a stranger in this land, freshly arrived on a beam of light, but she was not looking for help. She was watching for enemies.
The wyvern and the giant that had devoured it were certainly enemies.
What of this woman?
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 11, 2019 6:57:02 GMT
The half reptile continued to look around. No one. No one she recognized was alive, not as far as she could see. It was nothing but frozen corpses, some still intact, others crushed and shattered into countless pieces. And it was so cold, so very cold...
She turned, and looked into the city. Her eyes lay upon the tallest building within the ruins, a tower that in her life had once reached the heavens themselves, but now most of its fearsome height had crumbled away. It was still tall, easily thirty stories in height, and dwarfing every other building she could see... but the fact it was in such a state of disrepair...
And around it, was curled a creature, one similar to the one that had eaten the wyvern. This one had a smaller, more elongated head with a lower jaw that seemed to bend upward, and charcoal grey skin. The smaller head and neck were attached to an actual body, which was supported on several spear like limbs. Eleven eyes looked around the desolate city, and the snake woman instinctively curled behind a frozen trash can.
What on earth had happened? What... What had happened? The last thing she remembered... Was the light and-
The ice behind her shattered, and she nearly jumped. The eel headed giant from before had come back around, and had crushed the trash bin she had been hiding behind. Her scream of shock, and her rapid backpedaling, caught its attention, and the beast snapped its jaws down at her. It was only her rapid slithering which made the jaws miss her by a foot and eat up ice and rock instead. She slithered as fast as she could, toward the innermost part of the city, while the beast behind her raised its head back up and turned to give chase.
"HEEEELP!" She screamed, for someone, anyone that might have been nearby...
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Post by Stage on Aug 11, 2019 7:50:23 GMT
Within the darkness of the other building, which seemed to formerly be a flower shop based on the fallen sign the serpent woman slithered past, bronzy eyes watched the chase. In particular, they were drawn to the smoke that poured from beneath the disembodied neck of the eel-like giant.
Smoke meant fire, and fire meant warmth.
The stranger was not so different from the snake woman. She too was suffering in the cold. That was why she had scavenged the blonde corpse for clothing. She had arrived in only the thinnest of clothes, and even the vest would not keep her alive for very long.
If the giant carried warmth with it, she needed it.
So she would join the chase.
Creeping out from the wilting building and scampering up a collapsed fire escape that slumped against a pile of rubble at a sharp angle, the stranger, quick and aggressive as a leopard, leapt after the land-striding eel. From beneath the vest she held over her thin frame, broad wings spread, their knobby digits as pale and clammy as her body, but their thick membranes black as night. Likewise, a naked, blunted tail unfolded from and flapped behind her.
Quietly, the stranger glided after the eel, aiming to land on the base of one of its spidery limbs. Unwilling to shed her protective cloak and reach out with her arms, she instead kicked forward her feet, which were long and crooked like those of a dog, her clawed toes seeking a hold in the venous flesh of the strange, hungry thing...
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 12, 2019 3:15:35 GMT
The woman's feet found purchase on one of the great beast's legs. If the abomination noticed it had an unwanted guest, it didn't show it, as its attention was fully on the snake woman.
The chase reached a large wall, quite a bit higher than the beast itself. The woman raced toward it, and to her relief, she saw salvation; the gate that led into the innermost circle had been shattered apart, leaving it open for her to move through. She willed herself, with one last burst of energy to leap through, and her frame raced through the gate.
And just in time. The beast's jaws snapped where she had been only a second later. Its forward momentum couldn't be stopped, and it crashed head first into the wall. The wall shuddered and buckled from the impact, and large cracks formed from where it had hit, yet it was clear the beast had taken the worst exchange . Black fluid like oil dripped from its forehead, and it teetered on its spindly legs, before it began to fall onto its side, its eyes glazing over...
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Post by Stage on Aug 12, 2019 22:54:36 GMT
Feeling her newly found, toasty warm roost began to crumple, the stranger gave a hiss of frustration and spread her wings, catching the air as it rushed past her. Like a leaf on a breeze, the strange newcomer hung in the air, waiting until the eel-like giant had fallen, shaking the dead city with its dead girth, before folding her wings and dropping down onto its flabby, lifeless carcass.
To the snake woman, it appeared as if the dying titan had birth one last evil: a gaunt, gray girl with a devilish tail and wings and a crown of unruly hair. The girl stood taunt like a wary animal and glared hatefully, accusing her silently of some crime.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 18, 2019 2:35:43 GMT
The snake woman could only stare in disbelief at the gaunt, demonic being that stared down at her. She felt her blood run cold, because the eyes that glared at her... they felt so familiar, so hateful, so terrifying.
"No, stay back! Please, stay back!" She screamed as she made her way deeper through the gate, into the innermost circle of the frozen city. Here, numerous frozen guards lay strewn around her, and the buildings within were few and aside from the great ruined tower in the middle, rather small. In her fear, she turned toward one, a three story structure that had the side of it broken open...
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Post by Stage on Aug 18, 2019 2:43:32 GMT
Wings slapping the air, the pale fiend hopped off the carcass and closer to the serpent woman. Her dark eyes drilled into the stranger.
She had not seen this chimaera before, but she knew Eon's work when she saw it. This was a genetic monster.
Just like her.
"What is your line and number?" the ghoulish girl asked haughtily, her voice weak, but striking in its hoarseness.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 18, 2019 2:54:40 GMT
The snake woman slid to a stop at the girl's voice. This wasn't some mindless abomination, but an actual person... or a spawn from that atrocity. She turned to face her, the fear on her face all too evident.
"l-line and number? I-I don't understand. I'm not s-some assembly line creation!" She stammered, before she felt something with her tail. She looked down, and saw the frozen corpses of two people to either side of her. One was a patch eyed man with a broken wrist, and the other was a man with a wide grin on his face and a fractured skull.
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Post by Stage on Aug 18, 2019 3:46:33 GMT
Scowling with an audible hiss, the gaunt figure stomped closer, her long nail clicking against the ground on the end of her long, bestial feet.
"Then what are you?" she growled. A cold fury entered her dark eyes. "Are you like Lycaon?"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 18, 2019 3:48:25 GMT
The snake woman shook her head. "I-I don't even know what a Lycaon is! I-I'm a half dragon! My mother was a dragon, and my f-father a human! I was raised by humans my whole life! W-what are you?!"
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Post by Stage on Aug 18, 2019 4:06:49 GMT
The girl's wings rustled menacingly, and her tail whipped the cold air. She hunched low like a hungry animal and crept closer to the woman.
"My name," she hissed, low and steadfast, "is Malicious!"
A shiver of potential energy ran through the stranger's body as she prepared to throw herself upon the half-dragon, but a sudden, frigid wind sucked the intent out of her. Breezing out sharply in a pained gasp, the girl wrapped herself in her wings.
"W... Where are we?" she asked instead, her tail cracking angrily.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 19, 2019 5:19:28 GMT
"A dead city..." The snake woman chattered. "Dead in many ways, but... I never expected to see it like this. This... This was Marlore, a city where nonhumans like me were hunted down and murdered out of paranoia and fear."
Even as she said it, the weight of her words buried the woman's conscious like an anvil.Was... Was Kyra safe? Alex? Vesyka? Arana? Or... was The Crane still alive somehow? Gods knew the one way to make this worse would be if somehow the old dictator barged in like a bat out of hell. "I'm Saipa. I... I used to work here, as a hotel cleric, helping those hunted down by the system."
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Post by Stage on Aug 20, 2019 0:50:08 GMT
"Why am I here?" Malicious rasped, shivering visibly through her wings. The tips of the long, pale digits were beginning to turn blue. "What happened? Humans hunting chimaeras?"
She did not know what a 'dragon' was, but being half humans was something she understood only Eon to be able to do. Had they finally released their living weapons for use by the military? And what had gone so wrong that they were now hunted?
More than that, the synthetic organism thought, curling her tail tight around her legs, how much time has passed? She only remembered falling asleep and waking to a light so potent it bored through her eyelids.
This frigid wasteland was what she had found after opening her eyes.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 20, 2019 1:02:39 GMT
"I.. i do not know." Saipa tried to explain. "I..."
She paused. She hadn't noticed it before, with her fear and confusion regarding the whole situation, but this girl, she was shivering slightly as well. Could it be she only wanted warmth as well?
"It's not safe to talk out here. It should be warmer in here, in the t-top floor if i'm correct..."
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Post by Stage on Aug 20, 2019 1:42:14 GMT
Rather than answering, the strange, unfriendly girl turned her dark eyes up and unfurled her wings. Though cold winds battered her, she beat back at them, rising into the air on her dark, broad wings. She ascended swiftly towards the second floor.
Though she did not thank Saipa, she also did not warn her about following.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 20, 2019 2:07:35 GMT
Saipa let out a sigh as the girl ascended upward. That... was too close for comfort. At least it seemed like she could be reasoned with...
The half dragon slithered into the building. She passed a set table with a frozen book on it, which from a brief glance, seemed to be names listed. A set of keys were on the wall, anda large wall of ice blocked her way from going deeper on the open floor. She tried to peer past it, but it was too thick, and in her current state, she had no way of breaking through.
The stairs to her side leading upward, however, were a different option. She turned and made her way up them. Each coil made the ground creak and groan underneath her weight, and more than once she thought she felt herself nearly slip. If this building was what she thought it was...
She made it to the second floor, a floor filled with more icicle structures and frozen bodies and lockers. Yet, her eyes drifted upward, to a hole in the ceiling, a rather messy hole at that, as if impromptuly made. She reared up as high as she could, and grabbed the lower concrete ledge. With her arms strained, she hauled herself into the top floor.
She looked around. It was still cold, but it felt slightly warmer to her. Around her were computer terminals and a frozen screen that hung from the ceiling. All of the computer screens were black, and some iced over. Several nameplates were scattered across the desks, names she assumed belonged to the people that had worked here up until the city had been frozen over. She leaned over to look at one of them, and read the name "Miles" from it.
"I'm not sure if I'm having it easier, or if Kyra had it easier when she did this." Saipa found herself muttering. Never had she expected to find herself here in the prison building willingly, but then again, the same could be said for a lot of things...
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Post by Stage on Aug 21, 2019 0:31:29 GMT
As Saipa investigated the room, foam from one of the now thoroughly degraded ceiling tiles showered the ground, and leathery wings rustled. Malicious was perched in the corner, her clawed toes dug into the creaking wall. She sat on her heels as if she weighed nothing, and, seeing how frightfully thin she was, Saipa could believe it. The naked tail of the strange, violent stranger hung below her, easily equal to her height in length, It twitched occasionally.
While the girl's dark eyes stood out on her pale face even in the dim of the unlit building, the shadows hid exactly where they were directed. Her corneas were huge and almost the same color as her pupils, with almost no white to them.
Even still, Saipa could feel them on her. The gaze was hot with anger yet cold with hatred. It seemed the girl still regarded her with suspicion, if not outright distrust.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 25, 2019 23:21:41 GMT
Saipa felt uneasy beneath Malicious's gaze, and not just because of the anger within her eyes. Only now could she see the state of the girl's body, and it shocked her. She looked so malnourished, so cold and so abused. The sympathy within her was rising against the fear she felt, but the conflict only lasted a moment.
She could help her. She would help her.
She cleared her throat. "Security protocols Orage, thermal temperatures increase requested." She said, her voice as low and scratchy as she could make it. If what she had been told was true...
"Thermal regulation commencing" a high pitched aetificial voice warbled. Frost covered vents opened, the ice that covered them shattering, and slowly, hot air began to blow into the room, even with the hole in the floor.
"Thank goodness at least this still works"Saipa sighed. "At least now, we won't be freezing solid."
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