Hi everyone! I have a real treat for you today, Micheal Pearcy is writing a novel, set in the Ophidian Wastes (my favorite!), the book will feature forces from the Twilight Kin, Ratkin, Ophidians, and others. It will be a story about a struggle between forces to gain control of an ancient artifact of great power that is hidden in the desert. It will include Vol’rikk, the character from the short story Unfettered that Pearcy wrote for the Uncharted Empires book, along with a number of other characters. The point of view will shift chapter to chapter to get the perspective of a number of different actors and their forces through the tale. I hope you enjoy this sneak preview, and thanks to Micheal for sending it into us! He hopes to submit it upon completion to Mantic for publication.
“You know what I can’t figure out about this place?” the bodyguard said as he threw yet another skull over his shoulder. “How come, in the middle of this unholy desert wasteland, there’s some temple that we have to find?” The abbey Sister behind the bodyguard stamped her cane against the dusty stone floor of the temple. The sound bounced around the high ceilinged chamber, as though a hundred other bodyguards were to be chastised at just that moment, in the shadowy corners far around them. The woman brushed a lock of hair from her face and scowled, attempting to conceal her growing discomfort with the piles of bones and rusted weapons that surrounded the pair.
“I have had just about enough of your complaints. The Abbess awaits our return with the artifact and we have dallied long enough under your insufferable grumbling.”
Her voice echoed softly off of the chamber walls, but from his perch in an alcove above the pair, the Scurrier could hear her clearly. The rat assassin had followed the pair for weeks from the Hegimony. They had crossed the Infant Sea and travelled until they had reached the arid sands of the Ophidian Wastes. Throughout the journey, the assassin had heard the bodyguard voicing his doubts, certain that the lost temple of the ancient Ahmunite people was nothing but a rumor. But, the bodyguard had often mused, he was willing to go on a wraith hunt in the desert for the substantial bag of coin the Abbess had provided for his services.
The Scurrier twitched his tail in annoyance. He had heard enough from the humans, and he relished the thought that they were nearing their goal. He drew a dirk from his belt, the blade blackened by smoke, and removed a small vial from a pouch at his hip. A dark liquid oozed to the side of the cylinder of dirty glass as the Scurrier held it up to the dim light from the Sister’s torch in the distance. Reaching into the vial with the tip of his tail, the Scurrier watched the pair of humans carefully, as he spread a thick glob of the liquid across the edge of its blade. This moment, he thought, would spread out forever. The pair would argue for eternity, and he would be waiting to pounce with greying whiskers.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind, then the bodyguard whooped in triumph. The Scurrier watched as he reached down into the dusty crater he had made in the carpet of bones that stretched to every wall of the chamber. With a grunting effort, the bodyguard wrenched back a large lever that he had found inset into the floor. The Scurrier held his breath in anticipation, eyes glittering as he watched; sconces around the room lit up in a spectral blue blaze, and the Scurrier shrunk deeper into the shadows of his perch to avoid being seen.
The light of the sconces raced along the walls toward the far end of the room, leading toward an altar near the far wall. With a grating, grinding sound of stone against stone, the altar split in two, opening to reveal a heavy-looking tome, richly bound and shackled to the dais.
The Scurrier licked his teeth; were he able to speak, he might have uttered his delight, but it was to prevent just such impulses that those of his order were muted as whelps. Instead, he reached into the satchel slung across his back and drew out a fat grey rat, an ordinary rodent to the eyes of humans. Bringing the rat up to his muzzle, the Scurrier whispered into its ear. No earthly sound was made, but thin wisps of arcane energy flowed from his mouth and into the ears of the rodent. Satisfied with his message, the Scurrier released the rat from his grasp. The rodent scurried away; it would find a swarmpack, the Scurrier thought, and the swarmpack would ensure that the message was delivered.
The Scurrier sidled along a ledge that stretched the length of the room, bringing itself closer to the bodyguard and the dais. Soon, it thought, watching the bodyguard approach the tome. Soon. The Scurrrier was nearly within striking distance.
“Oh, do hurry up, we have what we came for, let’s go already.” the Sister said, though she remained in the middle of the room, watching intently.
“Oh, for fucks sake” the bodyguard grumbled, only loud enough for the Scurrier to hear. “Don’t worry ma’am” he said, as he began wrestling with the chains around the book. The heavy metal chains groaned in protest as he worked to wrench the the book free from their stubborn grasp. “We’ll be out of here in no time without a scratch on your head.”
With a grating cry, the chains burst apart and the book flipped open on the dais. The bodyguard fell backwards, landing heavily in a pile of bones as a deafening wail pierced the silence of the cavernous room. The room was suddenly alive, as a brilliant cerulean light exploded from the pages; the wailing shriek echoed endlessly around every corner of the room, growing louder by the second. The Scurrier clutched his paws to its ears, trying in vain to block out the noise, and watched in horror as the floor of bones began to move.
The bodyguard and the Sister had noticed the movement as well; the bodyguard howled in terror, as bony fingers reached out from the pile of remains where he lay, grabbing and pulling at his armor and clothes. He struggled and writhed, attempting to free himself, breaking skeletal hands and arms. Each hand removed was replaced by two others, and he was soon dragged under a wave of chattering skulls, his screams drowned out by the wailing tome.
The Sister had drawn a glinting rapier from her cane, discarding the scabbard and wielding the torch in her off-hand. She gritted her teeth and growled defiance, her fear forgotten as she cut away the skeletal limbs that reached for her. The bones were rising up around her, forming skeletal warriors wielding rusted weapons that they had procured from their pile of ancient death. The Sister briefly cleared a circle around herself, cutting down skeletons with swift, expert swings of her weapons, but the skeleton wall was inexorable. The circle around her grew smaller and smaller, until the Scurrier could no longer see the swings of her sword, and the torch gutted out and died.
The Scurrier was rooted in place, watching the chaos unfold. He could see skeletal warriors reaching up from below, scratching at the walls and staring with empty cavernous eye sockets. He looked around the chamber and saw skeletons falling to the floor, clawing their way in from openings along the ceiling and falling in to join in the mayhem. In the unholy din that echoed around the chamber, the Scurrier had no way to hear the clatter of bones from above him. He realized a moment too late, and looked up as a group of skeletons fell around him, grabbing at the Scurrrier’s clothes and limbs as they came. In spite of his best efforts to brace and avoid their grasp, the falling bodies unbalanced the assassin, and he fell into the waiting embrace of the skeletons below.
The Scurrier gasped and fought in terror, eyes wild as he tried in vain to free himself. The wave of skeletal limbs tore at the rat assassin, dragging him down and tearing fur and flesh. The rat let out a silent scream of horror before it disappeared, buried beneath bone.
As the living joined the dead, the tome slammed shut and the wailing stopped. The room once again fell into darkness as the sconces gutted and died, and the shackles slithered across the tome, securing it in a warm embrace. The dais slid closed, and the lever slowly lowered to the floor, ending in a click that echoed off of the walls of the deathly silent temple.
High Summoner Neos stood on the edge of a plateau outside of his palace; Standing with his back to the baking palace walls, he looked out at the rolling dunes. Sand stretched to the horizon as far as Neos could see. The sun dipped low in the sky, bathing the landscape in rich amber. Neos spread the fingers of his hand toward the ground, reaching down and feeling pinpricks of electric power dance across his fingertips; the magic of the desert seemed almost charged by the sinking sun. He could feel the warmth spread up his hand and across his wrist, through his arm and into the center of his body. Something was coming. A drastic upheaval would shake Ophidia and the surrounding lands to their foundations. Neos could feel the inevitability of the impending cataclysm, As though raw material of the world was soon to be worked and forged into something new. The sands were whispering and the time of rebirth was upon them. Ophidia would be ready.
