Isyra: The Last Outpost

(You can tell I'm lazy.)

"Please, I need your help. I want you to save my mother, she's all I have left in this world. I... I don't know how I can pay you, I'm not very well off; but I'll give you everything I own. And if that's not enough, I... I'll give myself to you. Willingly...."


She flushed again, cheeks a deep scarlet this time. She's basically offered her body to him, but her mothers life was worth it; it was worth anything he could think to do to her. He was rather surprised at the offer, to the point where he couldn't even get himself to answer. She looked up at him, she thought he was going to refuse her.


"If you want, I can... give you some of the... p-p-p-payment now..."


She was so very embarrassed as she pulled her hands away from his own. He was still a little too dumb struck by her offer to notice at first, but when she stood up and began to remove her dress that's when he snapped out of it and bolted upwards. She was just about to expose her breasts when he stopped her;


"N-n-no, that's not needed. I'll help you regardless of payment."


The half Elf looked at him, eyes filled with confusion as she clutched her dress to her body. She didn't expect him to stop her; she expected him to fully use her, to take advantage. Any other man would, but he didn't... was he that noble? Or maybe he wasn't attracted to women. Or perhaps he didn't find her to be that attractive?


"Sir...? Do you... think me not attractive?"


She asked softly and he was dumb struck again; it was something that was become a disturbingly common occurrence these days. Aeolus wondered if he had upset her by not taking the offer; perhaps her concept of self worth was damaged by his refusal to give into his carnal desire.


"Of course I do, I'd have to be a fool to not find you incredibly attractive."


"Then why do you refuse me...?"


Did she want him to take advantage of her?


"I swore I wouldn't take advantage of you. I'm a man of my word."


She felt a fool to even suspect that he would break his word. He was a apparently a man of honor and decency, and there she was trying to throw herself at him. She felt like crawling away and dying in a hole away from his sight. She looked down and for the first time streaks of tears began to roll down her small cheeks.


"I... I'm so sorry, Aeolus. I didn't think you were a decent man, I suspected that this was what you wanted all along. I've insulted you by not taking you for your word. I'm disgusted with myself, with the way I've acted toward you when all you wished to do was help me."


She wept softly, her emotions getting the better of her. So odd that it was this that brought her to tears, but perhaps she shed so many over her mother and past that she'd grown hard toward it. It was this that caused him to act, to move around the table and take her once more into his arm, to hold her close to him; much tighter than before. She gasped and trembled, but didn't tense up, she simply pressed herself against him, arms laying against his chest, dress held up by the simple fact that he was holding her so tightly.


"There's no need to cry, there's no need to feel this way. All your life the only man that was ever kind to you was your father when everybody else was cruel. And, to be honest... so many Human men are exactly like you thought, far too many for my liking. You had no way of knowing..."


"Why... why are you being so kind to me? I'm a stranger..."


"Like I said, I don't like it when people are mistreated, especially women. Nobody has the right to do this to you or your mother, nobody should feel this horrible, this sad, this helpless. I couldn't sleep at night knowing that this was happening and I just walked away. And, right now... you looked like you needed somebody to hold you close, to show you compassion."


She felt so very odd, it was like a fluttering in her chest. He was so kind and gentle, he showed her such compassion and mercy; why couldn't she have met somebody like him sooner? She looked up at him, her cheeks so red, she didn't want to let him go, she didn't want him to let her ago. She wanted to stay like this forever.


"Aeolus, if I said I wanted to leave here... and travel with you, what would you say?"


"If that's your wish, I'd take you with me. I'm sure that with enough time we could find a nice place for your to start a new life."


She shook her head and moved up onto her toes, her face coming closer to his own.


"No, I mean... what if I wanted to travel with you, remain with you for as long as you traveled... and beyond?"


His cheeks took a bit of color as he realized what she was saying. She swallowed hard and tried to think of what to say. He never expected this to happen.


"I... I don't even know your name..."


"My name is Iregia."


She spoke softly, her face coming ever closer to his own. He really did want to kiss her, and to tell her that she could come with him if she wanted... but he hardly even knew her. But then he wasn't even sure if she even meant it, or if she just wanted some sweet words to make her feel better. He had to give her an answer, and he knew to outside reject her would be the worst thing he could do.


"Iregia, if you wished to travel with me, to be with me, then I wouldn't... outright refuse you."


She smiled so very brightly at that. Her small arms moved up his body until her hands moved around, behind his neck and took a good, firm hold. Then she began to pull herself upwards, her face coming ever closer to his own... and, as she came ever closer, he began to lower his face toward her. They met in the middle, faces not even an inch apart, they could feel the others warm breath on their faces.


Finally, she took the plunge and kissed him on the lips, the mere fact that she did so sent a wave of shock and pleasure coursing through her body. She kissed him with sudden force, trying her best to keep him from pulling away, wanting to make the most of this, her first actual kiss in the whole of her life.

Joan smirked and issued a little giggle from the back of her throat as she tinkered with my spell pouch. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was up to, but it was probably something that’d cost me a pretty penny. I had a lot of valuable things in there.

I craned my neck and tried to look over her shoulder, but the woman was enormous. My short legs didn’t help matters.

“What are you doing?”

She paused for a moment, looking over her shoulder. Her clothing was worn and faded; I could see her mottled grey skin.

“Fleesh..”

“… excuse me?”

Her voice was guttered, rough and scratchy. It was difficult to understand her even after all the years I’d been with her. Joan had always been a curious friend of mine. The soul of a little girl trapped in the rotting body of an Orc. I wasn’t entirely certain if that was literal or not.

“Fleesh. Soffft. Ike ah lamm.”

Oh. Fleece.

“It’s the second pouch on the left. That’s the hand that looks like an L, dear. It has a picture of a star on it.”

She squealed, spooking a couple of crows that had perched above us in the dense forest. I guess she found it.

They settled back down a couple of heartbeats later. They always seemed to follow her. Were they just hungry, or did she have some connection to them that I wasn’t aware of? She always avoided the question.

“Come on, you’re going to break something..”

I implored to her while edging closer. She caught me in the corner of her eye like a tigress. One of her tree trunk arms lashed out and held me at bay.

“Noooooooooo!”

Her pudgy fingers were stained with red clay.

“Nnuuuut yit!”

I backed off, not about ready to cause the 600 pound little girl to have a temper tantrum. She frantically went back to whatever she was doing.

“Peen.”

“There’s a pin in the sewing pouch. It’s the one with the picture of a pin… on it.”

She giggled manically.

I could have sworn I heard a mewling noise, an injured animal or something.

“Joan, you’re not doing anything bad, are you?”

I edge closer again. I taught her not to “play” so rough with animals a long time ago. It was an undead habit. I wasn’t about to allow a relapse.

“Noooooooo!”

She looked over her shoulder at me again, her tennis ball sized eye was frantic and dilated.

It’s difficult to look menacing when you’re 45 pounds, dressed in a woman’s sorcerery robe. But I tried, stamping my feet and edging into her “threat” zone.

“Joan Ellis Mitchell. Show me what you’re doing. Right. Now.”

Something made a soft noise in front of her. Like a sheep.

“Kay!”

She spun around, nearly losing her balance. Her hands were stained red with clay and grime. She had cut her palm.

In her hands she held an expertly crafted sheep figurine. She had never shown any interest in art before. The fleece pattern was expertly etched into the clay.

It remained perfectly still until I drew closer to admire her handiwork. The tiny figurine shook its head and nudged toward me on its little legs. It issued a small plead for food.

Looking at her in amazement she simply grinned back with broken teeth.

“Hiz ‘am iz Goleb.”

“Golem?”

“Nooooooo! Gol-EB!”

I offered an uneasy smile as she gently placed him in a small sunny spot to dry. The animated sheep shook its head and settled on a warm rock. It grazed on grass that didn’t exist.

“Goleb it is then, sweetheart.”

Aceline was severely bleeding from her compromised exo-plating as she dashed for the surface. She never thought the sting of the brutal northern winter would feel so good and homely on her chapped and weather beaten face. But it did and she savored it the best she could as she clambered over shattered military-esq relics.

How many people had sought shelter in this literal dump, only to realize at the last possible second that their only hope was a horrible, dirty place? She wouldn’t be the last.

A rusty nail, embedded in some poor sod’s mutilated and moldy forehead ripped a gash in her smart-webbing. Most of what she had in the world spilled to the ground mixing with cigarette butts and rock hard lumps of feces. There were a couple of crunches as glass and over used reactive plastics shattered. Her last grenade rolled off into the inky darkness.

She didn’t bother to check if it was live or not.

Bending over for a mere split second she snatched up her light-blade and left the rest behind. A lot of it was climbing gear anyway. Hopefully she’d never have to use any of it ever again.

The white beyond the cavern was blinding. A fierce blizzard was about, whipping dry ice and nanodiamonds. Aceline turned, throwing her long platinum hair about. She caught the soft glint of red, blue and white metal in the darkness. She smelled the sickly sweet smell of high fructose corn syrup. The air from the darkness was humid and sticky, like the bottom of a dumpster on a hot summer day.

She was standing in the middle of two stark contrasts. There was a horrible metal on metal grind from the darkness as it began to advance. She never gotten a full look at it and despite her severe injuries, she was intensely curious. Which probably explained why she was attracted to such god forsaken hell holes.

She only managed to see bits and pieces of it as it mangled her hours ago, deeper in the caves. It had been the worst wake up call of her life.

It had long, aluminum claws and it belched ingots from between dingy buzz saw teeth. It was particularly interested in her mouth.

She was getting dizzy. A lot of the blood on her back was already starting to freeze from the cold blizzard wind. Her face was pale and sweaty.

It roared, spraying her with flat Mountain Dew spittle. Turning back toward the opening in the rockface, she broke into a full run.

The metal grinding increased in pace. It was a constant and steady thrumming that shook the cavern floor, sending nuts, bolts and old beer bottles rattling from beyond her field of vision. The walls and ceiling began to close in on her. A rain of condensed garbage water rained on her from above, only to freeze in her already filthy hair.

The opening wasn’t much larger than a windshield. She scrambled up a steep incline, her curiosity again replaced with terror.
Her lungs burned as she burst into the freezing light of day. She gasped and rolled in dry snow, still frantically trying to escape the horrible metal monster.

She could hear it. The behemoth was still giving pursuit. It had to be 30 feet tall, it’d never fit through the opening.

Scrambling up to her feet she ran away, embracing the freezing cold day.

There was a horrible sound of rock giving out behind her. What felt like a sheet of metal sent her sprawling into the snow again. Trying to regain some sort of balance, she turned over on her back.

Her last sight was an enormous mouth composed entirely of spent and crushed soda cans.

It was moments like this that Decima lived for. Her long life had brought her many heartaches and even more joys, but she lived for the all or nothing moments her line of work often brought her across. She’d spent weeks tracking it across the ruined city scape that sprawled across the barren plain. She often abandoned sleep entirely for the off chance at picking up just the right hint of wind or the faintest bit of its tell tale scent.

It smelled dusty and old. Like ancient papyrus and stale leather. There was always the smallest bit of a gritty talcum powder that hung in the air and stuck to the back of the throat just before it fed, the smashed remnants of objects too precious and unique to ever be replaced.

It quite literally was a relic of an age long since passed into dust.

She crawled on her belly putting further abuse on her antiqued breast plating. The sky was washed out and grey, hinting at rain. It must be so desperately hungry to risk destroying itself in a downpour. It had to be here, the path of destruction it left was unmistakable. She’d come across delicate cedar carvings ground into drift wood, remarkably well preserved masonry pitted with tiny meteor impacts, even a king’s tomb ground down to the sarcophagi feet. Each of her findings were more recent than the last.

Her technology may have been out of date and in-operational half of the time, but years of tracking its kind honed her senses. She could feel it in the air, a faint electricity. Or a magical aura thatpermeated the physical world. Something science couldn’t explain quite yet.

Hastily she tied her hair back into a pony tail and scrabbled through the remains of a toppled and sand blasted Romanesq column. Her line of sight was filled with debris and tumbleweed, but she could feel it. It was close. Her heart was pounding.

The city was well planned and even in its death she could easily navigate the grid of streets and alley ways. There were no street signs, but they wouldn’t have helped her anyway. Every where there were signs of the golem.

Just as she peeked her head above the cracked bust of a long forgotten war hero in what she believed to be the epicenter of the forgotten civilization, she heard it. A terribly loud cry that cut into her head like a scythe. She flinched instinctively.

Instantly Decima was in a maelstrom. Tiny pebbles and a fine powdery grime drove into her hardened flesh as a confined whirlwind roared over her. Wiping her eyes frantically she stumbled in a completely random direction. Not interested in the puny woman it happened upon, the construct continued its rapid escape from the city.

Decima wiped her eyes and managed to catch a glimpse of it before it disappeared behind a cathedral. Bipedal and roughly humanoid in shape, it had to be well over 20 feet tall. It’s limbs were constructed of a fierce confined windstorm and painted a dull tan by ground stone work and tiny shreds of paper. It blended in perfectly with its surroundings. The creature was surely native to this city, it was entirely made of local materials.

In what would past for its chest cavity, there was a promising glint of shiny metal. The dynamo that drove it. Her prize.

The fierce sound died just as suddenly as it started.

She gave pursuit not even bothering to spit the dry muck out of her mouth.

The sun had just disappeared completely from horizon as Joel hastily fiddled with his antique lantern, lighting the kerosene soaked wick with exquisite care not to spill any fuel. His father’s fields were over grown and parched, there was dried grass and bales of uncollected hay for as far as his eyes could see in the shadowy light cast by his lantern.

It was strange being home again. After all this time so much had changed in town. People used to look at him with happy, optimistic faces. But as he strolled through the deserted main street just hours before, he was met with only a couple of hollow stares. His town definitely remembered him, but it was as if he was a ghost barely in their realm of perception.

He gleaned from a couple of friends that were too poor to flee the drought that the wizard of the four winds had died just after he left. His tower had been found ruined by a fire that ground the granite walls into dust. They never found the body, but the old man claimed to be hundreds of years old. Everyone had assumed he simply burned in the fire, simply too old to escape the flames he had likely carelessly created.

Everyone had always been cautious of him and it seemed they were right in doing so. With his death he was told that the air became hot and brutal, an oppressive dusty thing that zapped the earth of life. It wasn’t long before the rains stopped completely. Grass withered, dried and ultimately died.

He had been gone little more than a year. The devastation wrought by this Wizard of the Winds was remarkable.

So lost was Joel in thought of the disaster that he did not notice the grass around him shivering in a nonexistent wind and coalescing around an especially large bundle of hay.

He had been told his parents had not been seen for several weeks. They were still young enough to maintain their family farm outside of town, but the disappearance was strange. Times had been especially rough recently and no one had the time to check on them. The walk was too far, the air too hot, and the chores at home too many

He suspected that his brash father had a falling out with his neighbors and they simply didn’t care that much. Joel had always been the white sheep of the family.

Secretly he hoped that was the case and nothing else had gone wrong. His grandfather had a weak heart when he died, his father likely did as well.

There was a faint grumbling from a bundle of hay, the iron strips that bound the tightly compacted grass together whined and snapped.

Joel spun around. His free hand instantly went to the bronze gladius he kept sheathed at his side.

“It’s Joel, dad. Stop messing around, I’m home!”

He swung the lantern out before him. Ghostly images materialized from just on the threshold of darkness. Bales of hay he had just past were shifting positions. The field around him seemed to be suddenly alive with movement and odd noises. The rustling of dry vegetation was pierced by the occasional loud CRRRAA-ACK of bindings giving out.

Turning, he began to sprint toward the farmhouse in the distance. The ancient structure was cold and quiet and not at all reassuring.

The field churned around him as if blasted by a tornado, but the air was still, heavy and incredibly hot. It was like being in an oven.

He ran until his lungs were burning and the sound around him grew into cacophony. Clearing the fields, face slicked with sweat he came to a sudden stop as the house suddenly materialized in front of him.

While the structure as a whole was left standing, the north facing wall had collapsed inward and was littered with hundreds of pounds of hay. His childhood home was in ruin.

There was a stale scent he recognized from his younger years. When he and his friends wandered through the halls of the ancient mausoleum in the hills. It was the smell of old death, an unattended and dry smell left to its own devices. It came from the interior of the ruined first floor. The lantern light played over smashed furniture and shredded books flecked with brown and red.

The ground shook behind him.

He turned slowly, gladius in one hand and lantern in the opposite.

Joel craned his neck upward not comprehending the sight before him.

He barely had enough time to gather his faculties before it swung its enormous arm.