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Summer, 1331
The day rose hazy and warm, casting short, dull shadows over the ruins. Karlen and Liza were taking the last watch, and with the others seeming to sleep in, Glib decided to go for a walk.
Quickly throwing his helm atop his head, the ropemaker descended the creaky staircase leading down from the second floor to the rubble-filled floor, eventually working his way over to the main thoroughfare.
For about an hour Glib poked around the abandoned buildings, gingerly picking his way through ruins and kicking up debris, searching for anything interesting. There were strange twines of string, shattered pottery, fragments of stone icons, broken furniture and dead rats, but nothing worth salvaging.
Then on the edge of a building that was now little more than two walls, Glib spied something glinting in the morning sunlight.
“Hello, what’s this?”
It looked like a quartz lens, pink and polished despite being a little chipped along the edges and covered in the dirt of centuries.
That may be good for his collection.
Glib bent down to pick up the lens-just an arrow whizzed past where his head had been a second earlier.
“Um. People?” Glib called out as he ran back towards the campsite with more arrows flying by. “We have some guests who would like to play!”
***
“Who are those people?’ Logan asked as a storm of arrows and bolts flew at them, pinning the members of Logan’s Network to the floor of the second level. “How did they get so close without any of us noticing?”
“I think they’re Hunter-killers!” The Normad replied, blasting back at the attackers with his repeating crossbow. “Special assassination squads. Some of the best northern troops. A squad can take down a troll or-”
“Okay I get it!” Logan interrupted.
Enemy projectiles ricocheted off of the half collapsed wall the group was sheltering behind, kicking up splinters of wood and specks of mud. Lord de Trobliand, Sufjan and Logan gamely replied with their own arrows and bolts, while Liza occasionally chucked a dart at any opponent that came with range, Glib threw his stones with his sling, and Karlen and Dr. Moller sought protection as best as they could, piling up barricades of debris and packs around the openings of the room facing the abandoned main thoroughfare. Positioned here, the party could see and fire upon anyone trying to work their way up the abandoned street. Unfortunately there were a lot of Other Men trying to work their way up the street, and they were firing back.
“Keep those bastards pinned down!” Logan helpfully yelled as arrows flew uncomfortably close by their heads.
“Well, they’re doing a pretty good job of keeping us pinned down!” Glib replied.
Taking a breather in the back room, Liza suddenly glimpsed the glint of metal from the starway.
“They’re coming in from behind!” The Guester yelled, lobbing darts down to the first floor with her atlatl. “We’re surrounded!”
“Get back over here! It’s safer!” Lord De Trobliand called back. Liza began to rejoin the others when a hand suddenly broke out from the floor and grabbed her ankle, throwing her to the floor. With a growl a large Tassurian warrior clad in dark, shaded armor that blended into the broken ruins crawled up from the first floor with a kara in hand. The Guester attempted to free herself by kicking her assailant off, but the Other Man held firm and readied his haladie to strike. Just then Raptor descended upon the Tassurian, clawing at the Other Man’s eyes with his talons. Screaming, the warrior tried to fend off the hawk, which was just enough time for Liza to pull out her gladius and shove it through the Other Man’s throat.
The Guester frowned as she pulled out the blade, Raptor landing back upon her arm, then ran to the others.
Logan meanwhile had organized his party for a counterattack.
“De Trobliand! Sufjan! Give me some suppressive fire! Glib! Karlen! Dr. Moller! With me!”
Now abandoned, the second room quickly broke into chaos as a dozen Tassurian troops stormed up the stairway, firing as they climbed. However a surprisingly heavy storm of bolts and arrows met them through the other room, surprising the attackers and cutting two of them down before the rest managed to dive for shelter. The Forester’s hasty strikeforce then charged the remaining scattered attackers. As another Other Man hand broke out from the bottom of the floor the plague doctor simply leaned over and swung her sickles in a violent scissoring motion to sever it.
The closest Tassurian opponent to Logan responded faster than expected, but the Forester’s awlpike had a longer reach and the Forester had the advantage of position and quickly the Other Man fell with the polearm through his throat. However as he fell the Tassurian threw a kuani at Logan’s face- a last-gasp attempt at killing his opponent-but fortunately Glib intervened, quickly knocking the projectile aside with his kama.
Meanwhile, Karlen had the opposite issue of the humans, facing off against a warrior twice his height and armed with a falchion. The Other Man moved fast and frequently struck true, but the Duregaren was short and well armored, avoiding some blows and parrying others while he also received otherwise fatal cuts from the falchion blade that simply bounced off the hard and polished surface of his titanium armor. Immensely piqued by the exchange, Karlen roared and violently swung his hammer at the Other Man’s side. Though his opponent attempted to parry, the force of the blow shattered both the falchion and the cuirass armor, caving in the Tassurian’s ribs. Coughing up blood, the warrior crumpled to the ground.
The surviving members of the enemy party beat a hasty retreat down the stairs. Karlen laughed in triumph, and then suddenly toppled to the ground with a cry of pain, an arrow jutting out of his fibularis. While the clashes were continuing, another group of Other Men had climbed up from the open windows on the left side of the room, and one had fired some sort of wrist-projectile before the quintet charged into the fray.
Lord De Trobliand fired a volley back at the new attackers, hitting one right in the eye and sending the others diving to the ground as Liza and Dr. Moller quickly pulled the duregaren back to safety. Meanwhile, the repulsed Tassurian forces from the stairwell regrouped and again attempted to charge up to the second floor. Trapped by the new attacks, the Forester and ropemaker awkwardly sought shelter as well as they could behind a partially collapsed wall between the two rooms.
As the arrows and bolts zipped all around them, Logan turned to Glib.
“Don’t you have any of your magicks to help us?”
“I can’t think of any of them that will be useful in this situation.”
“What about that explosive black powder we used at Kern Canyon?”
The ropemaker stopped and looked at the Forester sternly.
“Logan, you do realize that that time you blew up Lord Fairfax’s supply camp you used up nearly half of all the brimstone that I had accumulated over eight years right?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Glib suddenly snapped his fingers. “But now that you reminded me, I do have something else.” The ropemaker fumbled through his pack, suddenly bringing a glass canister with some pallid, amorphous shape floating in some liquid. “The Demon’s Element!” He proudly exclaimed.
Logan didn’t even bother asking how it worked, simply turning to the others- who remained within eyesight- and gesturing over at Glib. Sufjan nodded- with a frown- and passed the message over to Liza, Karlen, Dr. Moller and Lord De Trobliand. Meanwhile, the ropemaker lowered some sort of complicated spectacles over his eyes, grabbed the canister, and raised it over his shoulder.
“If you want to keep your eyes, please cover them now!”
As Logan’s party ducked, the dwarf threw the bottle of Devil’s Element into the air at the Tassurian attackers coming up from the window.
Almost as an unconscious reaction someone fired at the bottle, shattering it with an arrow. Immediately the surroundings exploded into a blinding white light, completely casting out all darkness and even detail to leave only pure, unyielding luminescence. For a second, the unadulterated brilliance just glowed with the glory and fury of the sun, before finally the darkness and detail began to return to the world, and the Devil’s Element turned into a ball of fire, shaking the entire building and sending scalding beads raining down upon the Hunter-Killers.
Surprised and debilitated by the blinding light, the assassins desperately and vainly groped around, attempting to escape the magick bearing down upon them, but the Devil's Element seared straight through the second floor, through metal, through cloth, through flesh and through bone. Unearthly screams came from the position of the Hunter-Killers as innumerable flames erupted.
Logan saw the glow even with his head ducked under his arms with his eyes closed, but he recovered quickly to see Glib running to join the others, who were also woozily regaining their sight. Logan rushed back as well. There was no response from the enemy, who were either too busy screaming, too busy taking care of those screaming, or were too busy fleeing. Logan’s party took the opportunity to flee from the building staircase, Sufjan and Karlen leading the way out and Lord De Trobliand blazing away with his repeating crossbow to discourage pursuit.
There wasn’t any.
Also, the building was weaker than expected, for a few seconds after the group left, hairline cracks began to appear on the now smoking structure and suddenly a corner crumbled and then with a roar the entire building collapsed upon itself- and onto the Hunter Killers still inside.
Logan’s party looked at the crumbled ruins in shock.
“The hell did you throw?” Logan finally asked the dwarf as the party continued running back to Mera and the horses.
“Demon’s Element.” Came the response.
“What.”
“Urine concentrated in glass, then heated. A lot. Thought it would do something magical. It does. It shines like the sun, and burns like dragonfire.”
Logan gave the dwarf a look like he was insane. “You carry some absolutely horrific things Glib.”
Glib smiled and shook the necklaces on his neck.
“Why do you think I carry all these charms?”
The Dukes Of Stratosphear- My Love Explodes
Courtesty of
TheDinosaurMann!
The day rose hazy and warm, casting short, dull shadows over the ruins. Karlen and Liza were taking the last watch, and with the others seeming to sleep in, Glib decided to go for a walk.
Quickly throwing his helm atop his head, the ropemaker descended the creaky staircase leading down from the second floor to the rubble-filled floor, eventually working his way over to the main thoroughfare.
For about an hour Glib poked around the abandoned buildings, gingerly picking his way through ruins and kicking up debris, searching for anything interesting. There were strange twines of string, shattered pottery, fragments of stone icons, broken furniture and dead rats, but nothing worth salvaging.
Then on the edge of a building that was now little more than two walls, Glib spied something glinting in the morning sunlight.
“Hello, what’s this?”
It looked like a quartz lens, pink and polished despite being a little chipped along the edges and covered in the dirt of centuries.
That may be good for his collection.
Glib bent down to pick up the lens-just an arrow whizzed past where his head had been a second earlier.
“Um. People?” Glib called out as he ran back towards the campsite with more arrows flying by. “We have some guests who would like to play!”
***
“Who are those people?’ Logan asked as a storm of arrows and bolts flew at them, pinning the members of Logan’s Network to the floor of the second level. “How did they get so close without any of us noticing?”
“I think they’re Hunter-killers!” The Normad replied, blasting back at the attackers with his repeating crossbow. “Special assassination squads. Some of the best northern troops. A squad can take down a troll or-”
“Okay I get it!” Logan interrupted.
Enemy projectiles ricocheted off of the half collapsed wall the group was sheltering behind, kicking up splinters of wood and specks of mud. Lord de Trobliand, Sufjan and Logan gamely replied with their own arrows and bolts, while Liza occasionally chucked a dart at any opponent that came with range, Glib threw his stones with his sling, and Karlen and Dr. Moller sought protection as best as they could, piling up barricades of debris and packs around the openings of the room facing the abandoned main thoroughfare. Positioned here, the party could see and fire upon anyone trying to work their way up the abandoned street. Unfortunately there were a lot of Other Men trying to work their way up the street, and they were firing back.
“Keep those bastards pinned down!” Logan helpfully yelled as arrows flew uncomfortably close by their heads.
“Well, they’re doing a pretty good job of keeping us pinned down!” Glib replied.
Taking a breather in the back room, Liza suddenly glimpsed the glint of metal from the starway.
“They’re coming in from behind!” The Guester yelled, lobbing darts down to the first floor with her atlatl. “We’re surrounded!”
“Get back over here! It’s safer!” Lord De Trobliand called back. Liza began to rejoin the others when a hand suddenly broke out from the floor and grabbed her ankle, throwing her to the floor. With a growl a large Tassurian warrior clad in dark, shaded armor that blended into the broken ruins crawled up from the first floor with a kara in hand. The Guester attempted to free herself by kicking her assailant off, but the Other Man held firm and readied his haladie to strike. Just then Raptor descended upon the Tassurian, clawing at the Other Man’s eyes with his talons. Screaming, the warrior tried to fend off the hawk, which was just enough time for Liza to pull out her gladius and shove it through the Other Man’s throat.
The Guester frowned as she pulled out the blade, Raptor landing back upon her arm, then ran to the others.
Logan meanwhile had organized his party for a counterattack.
“De Trobliand! Sufjan! Give me some suppressive fire! Glib! Karlen! Dr. Moller! With me!”
Now abandoned, the second room quickly broke into chaos as a dozen Tassurian troops stormed up the stairway, firing as they climbed. However a surprisingly heavy storm of bolts and arrows met them through the other room, surprising the attackers and cutting two of them down before the rest managed to dive for shelter. The Forester’s hasty strikeforce then charged the remaining scattered attackers. As another Other Man hand broke out from the bottom of the floor the plague doctor simply leaned over and swung her sickles in a violent scissoring motion to sever it.
The closest Tassurian opponent to Logan responded faster than expected, but the Forester’s awlpike had a longer reach and the Forester had the advantage of position and quickly the Other Man fell with the polearm through his throat. However as he fell the Tassurian threw a kuani at Logan’s face- a last-gasp attempt at killing his opponent-but fortunately Glib intervened, quickly knocking the projectile aside with his kama.
Meanwhile, Karlen had the opposite issue of the humans, facing off against a warrior twice his height and armed with a falchion. The Other Man moved fast and frequently struck true, but the Duregaren was short and well armored, avoiding some blows and parrying others while he also received otherwise fatal cuts from the falchion blade that simply bounced off the hard and polished surface of his titanium armor. Immensely piqued by the exchange, Karlen roared and violently swung his hammer at the Other Man’s side. Though his opponent attempted to parry, the force of the blow shattered both the falchion and the cuirass armor, caving in the Tassurian’s ribs. Coughing up blood, the warrior crumpled to the ground.
The surviving members of the enemy party beat a hasty retreat down the stairs. Karlen laughed in triumph, and then suddenly toppled to the ground with a cry of pain, an arrow jutting out of his fibularis. While the clashes were continuing, another group of Other Men had climbed up from the open windows on the left side of the room, and one had fired some sort of wrist-projectile before the quintet charged into the fray.
Lord De Trobliand fired a volley back at the new attackers, hitting one right in the eye and sending the others diving to the ground as Liza and Dr. Moller quickly pulled the duregaren back to safety. Meanwhile, the repulsed Tassurian forces from the stairwell regrouped and again attempted to charge up to the second floor. Trapped by the new attacks, the Forester and ropemaker awkwardly sought shelter as well as they could behind a partially collapsed wall between the two rooms.
As the arrows and bolts zipped all around them, Logan turned to Glib.
“Don’t you have any of your magicks to help us?”
“I can’t think of any of them that will be useful in this situation.”
“What about that explosive black powder we used at Kern Canyon?”
The ropemaker stopped and looked at the Forester sternly.
“Logan, you do realize that that time you blew up Lord Fairfax’s supply camp you used up nearly half of all the brimstone that I had accumulated over eight years right?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Glib suddenly snapped his fingers. “But now that you reminded me, I do have something else.” The ropemaker fumbled through his pack, suddenly bringing a glass canister with some pallid, amorphous shape floating in some liquid. “The Demon’s Element!” He proudly exclaimed.
Logan didn’t even bother asking how it worked, simply turning to the others- who remained within eyesight- and gesturing over at Glib. Sufjan nodded- with a frown- and passed the message over to Liza, Karlen, Dr. Moller and Lord De Trobliand. Meanwhile, the ropemaker lowered some sort of complicated spectacles over his eyes, grabbed the canister, and raised it over his shoulder.
“If you want to keep your eyes, please cover them now!”
As Logan’s party ducked, the dwarf threw the bottle of Devil’s Element into the air at the Tassurian attackers coming up from the window.
Almost as an unconscious reaction someone fired at the bottle, shattering it with an arrow. Immediately the surroundings exploded into a blinding white light, completely casting out all darkness and even detail to leave only pure, unyielding luminescence. For a second, the unadulterated brilliance just glowed with the glory and fury of the sun, before finally the darkness and detail began to return to the world, and the Devil’s Element turned into a ball of fire, shaking the entire building and sending scalding beads raining down upon the Hunter-Killers.
Surprised and debilitated by the blinding light, the assassins desperately and vainly groped around, attempting to escape the magick bearing down upon them, but the Devil's Element seared straight through the second floor, through metal, through cloth, through flesh and through bone. Unearthly screams came from the position of the Hunter-Killers as innumerable flames erupted.
Logan saw the glow even with his head ducked under his arms with his eyes closed, but he recovered quickly to see Glib running to join the others, who were also woozily regaining their sight. Logan rushed back as well. There was no response from the enemy, who were either too busy screaming, too busy taking care of those screaming, or were too busy fleeing. Logan’s party took the opportunity to flee from the building staircase, Sufjan and Karlen leading the way out and Lord De Trobliand blazing away with his repeating crossbow to discourage pursuit.
There wasn’t any.
Also, the building was weaker than expected, for a few seconds after the group left, hairline cracks began to appear on the now smoking structure and suddenly a corner crumbled and then with a roar the entire building collapsed upon itself- and onto the Hunter Killers still inside.
Logan’s party looked at the crumbled ruins in shock.
“The hell did you throw?” Logan finally asked the dwarf as the party continued running back to Mera and the horses.
“Demon’s Element.” Came the response.
“What.”
“Urine concentrated in glass, then heated. A lot. Thought it would do something magical. It does. It shines like the sun, and burns like dragonfire.”
Logan gave the dwarf a look like he was insane. “You carry some absolutely horrific things Glib.”
Glib smiled and shook the necklaces on his neck.
“Why do you think I carry all these charms?”
The Dukes Of Stratosphear- My Love Explodes
Courtesty of
TheDinosaurMann!
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fantasy
Species Human
Size 1786 x 2063px
File Size 3.71 MB
In the original way (there's far more efficient methods now using bone ash, guano or phosphorite):
Working in Hamburg, Brand attempted to create the fabled philosopher's stone through the distillation of some salts by evaporating urine, and in the process produced a white material that glowed in the dark and burned brilliantly. It was named phosphorus mirabilis ("miraculous bearer of light").[49]
Working in Hamburg, Brand attempted to create the fabled philosopher's stone through the distillation of some salts by evaporating urine, and in the process produced a white material that glowed in the dark and burned brilliantly. It was named phosphorus mirabilis ("miraculous bearer of light").[49]
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