SF0 / XTheMystic / Fight the Future

15 + 85 points

Fight the Future by Frostbeard, Jotun One

February 15th, 2008 2:40 PM

INSTRUCTIONS: Destroy a clock. Document.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

The foul rhythm of something beats deep beneath the earth. Those with sensitive minds and sensitive feet can feel the pounding of the drum, the beat of something stirring. Those of us who have battled fabled creatures, who contain the blood of the Jotun and Alfar, we are the ones awakened at night by the irritating pulse. We are the ones who risk being driven mad by elder things beneath the earth that will soon cause havoc and chaos. We are the ones who will risk life and sane thought to battle the foe, so that the Aesir may look favorably upon us. Thus, did the horrid expedition begin, with longing to destroy that which we could feel pulling at our souls. The time of men may be short indeed, but those men that are willing to preserve the well being make it that much longer. This was our quest.

Arming ourselves with Sword and Axe, Dagger and Lantern, strength and cunning, we set off into the night. We were able to find our way not only by the flickering yellow glow of the Lantern Sollux, given to Jotun One's father by his father, and his father before him, but also by the weight that hung like foul swamp moss on our cooling hearts. In this manner, we blazed trails through frozen forests and climbed the craggy legacies of the Time of Frost, when the world was covered in ice and men feared the breaking of the chain Gleipnir and the release of Fenrir upon the realm of mortals.

As the night gave way to day, the day to night and back again, we trudged along. Always vigilant, we looked for signs of the lair of the beast we had come to slay. Finally, on the fifth night, we came across a rocky grotto with boulders the size of giants strewn about the undisturbed snow. As we rounded a corner, bringing more of the stones into our sight, we spied a small fire up ahead, complete with a featureless shadow figure hunched and alone.

As we came closer, the being looked up and hopped about from one foot to the other, in apparent excitement. The man had a strange cloth masking his face, and he smoked a pipe from beneath it that smelled like a disturbing mix of wet iron, clover, and organ meat. He introduced himself as Helbindi, and said that he knew why we had come. The earth had begun to shift, he claimed, and that shifting was caused by the great beast below. He claimed that the stones about the area held a cave entrance, and at the bottom of the long passage into the earth, a monster stirred. He stated, in an excited whisper, that the cave entrance is normally blocked, but the the recent shifting had uncovered the passage. Our job, a foolish endeavor, was to destroy the beast lest it emerge and harrow the hearts and minds of lesser men.

After discussion of more trivial matters, we rested and found him gone the next morn. As we scanned about for the creature (for now i dare not call him man) and found no sign of his passage. We lifted Rimecleaver, the Ice-Axe and Split-tooth the dagger and began searching the hills for the entrance to the womb of the earth. As we progressed, i fashioned a spear of wood, knowing that it would be helpful in the tight confines of a stony crypt.

At the edge of night we finally found the cleft in the earth. Jotun lead the way with Sollux and Split-tooth. I followed with Rimecleaver and my spear. Into the dark we wended our way, around shaky crumbling rocks, through icy caverns, wet and slicked with dirt, our fingers stuck to our weapons. The darkness swallowed us for hours or days. As we descended the repeated thumping, an aggravating half-thought in the mind before, became audible. Like a sword sliding against anvil the metallic click repeated again and again. We pushed on and down.

The end of our journey is almost too horrible to tell. There was something down in the depths that should never be spoken of, however you must know, so we shall speak. Down in those lightless caves of frost and dreams there was a monster made of metal that could stir your mind into stew and crumble your heart. Down under the ice and rock we met this monster, and set upon it in battle. It came at us again and again, and repeatedly we opposed it. Flesh met metal met metal and wood.

It came upon us in haste and anger, and there were moments in which we thought we were soon to set sail for Valhalla. It shattered the Sword Brightblade. In the end, however, we bested the creature. We left it in pieces in the damp black and ascended to the realm of the sun, of trees, of sanity. We ascended in hope of a brighter future. We ascended in fear that the beast would return. Time heals all things, even time itself. We journeyed to a local village and played upon the vanities of the smith there to have a door fashioned of stout metal. We hefted the portal back to the strange grotto and sealed it upon the mouth of the fetid earth. There be emblazoned the cold steel with one of the Elder Futhark, Thurisaz, the Giant. The purging, cleansing fire Thurisaz provides may clean the sullied earth of the horrible beast. It may melt into the icy depths of the frost-laden creature.

Despite these efforts, a new generation will come, the sons of the sons of our sons....and they may again face the darkness....

- smaller

Jotun One, at the ready

Here he stalks with both Split-tooth, and Rimecleaver.

The hunched gait of the Jotun blood.

Ready, with Brightblade for whatever may lurk in the forest.

Steam

The great lungs produce steam from the very air.

The Lantern Sollux

Journey into the night

Setting up camp

Helbindi, the cave talker.

Here he speaks of the evil. It is clear that his solitude, and proximity to the beast have left him somewhat mad.

Describing the pliable tentacles of the beast.

Pleading

Here he is pleading for us to slay the beast. He does so partially to mock us, to suggest the impossibility of the task.

He lunges his hand forward to show us the way.

Lighting the pipe

Fashioning of the spear

Satan?

This evil beast has developed a cult of worship, and they refer to it as Satan. Their markings involve a plea to the creature and a star, to light its way from the darkness into the light.

Down in the depths

The Jotun-blooded one below the earth.

Frostbeard and spear

Moving in to inspect some movement in the dark, in the deep.

The bottom

Here, in a crevice in the earth, there is the creature!

Moving

It begins to move as we get prepared to maneuver into position.

Clear view

The first clear view of the creature, and a horrible sight it is. It has some sort of strange mind-controlling display through which it tried to convey the number associated with its worship cult, 6.

Scuttling

It moves back into the crevice

Moving in for the kill

Jotun packs into the tight corner to stab the beast with Split-tooth.

Lunge!

The dark creature flies through the air and Jotun kicks it away.

Recovery

The beast recovers and perches on a rock.

Hanging

It then hangs down with the leg-like tentacles on this stone surface.

Frostbeard attacks

Rimecleaver put to the test.

Escape

The fearsome thing dodges!

Prepare

Another slice

Down upon the entity

Evasion!

The disgusting thing leaps up into the air and lands on a stone ledge.

It glares at Frostbeard and tenses its limbs.

And leaps onto Frostbeard's face

The vile tentacles slip around the eyes and into the mouth. It begins sliding down the throat and Frostbeard claws it away and throws it to the ground.

Disarmed