tanadin: The silhouette of a dragon clinging to the silhouette of a tower against a night sky. The windows of the tower and the eyes of the dragon are lit up. (Default)
[personal profile] tanadin posting in [community profile] mindcracklove
In which Blame can't catch a break, and four people get murdered.

Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Monstrous-Residual-map-526465833
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yvK6D0XzgjhMNjblFFQaAeJ7JkzdidaLJux1S8qsSUA/edit#gid=1227692709

Chapter Thirty-Five

Kingdom of Traz’madar, Minecraftia. October 7, year 373. Time instance 483Z.

Nebris kicked at a rock as they walked, clearly in a bad mood with sore feet. “Remind me again why we couldn’t just take a dragon to Kalt’on?”

“They’d shoot us down.” Blame growled. “Dragonsbane-laced arrows or cannonshots. Kalt’on is very familiar with the abilities of the dragons, and with the specifics of dragonslaying. They were one of the primary culprits in the years of Dragondeath, before the dragons retreated to the mountains in the north.”

“How will we get over the border?” Doc asked, looking at Blame.

“We’ll get to that.” Blame mumbled. “We might be able to slip over it unnoticed.”

They fell silent, but everyone knew that Blame’s words were wishful thinking. They knew of how strict Kalt’on was when it came to their boundaries and laws- slipping over the border unseen was almost impossible.

Vechs took Aureylian’s hand, finding himself more worried about the Kalt’ons than the Hostiles. He felt her squeeze his hand a little, worried as well. He glanced at Blame, behind them, walking silently and clearly brooding.

Iirkolav noticed this, too and dropped back to walk silently beside the Skullblade. He said nothing, but Blame appreciated his presence, even if he didn’t show it.

~~~

It was just after dusk on the ninth when the desert came into sight. Blame had to stop and breathe for a minute or so before they could approach, clearly already being hit with the effects of bad memories.

They could see guards in a tower lighting their torches, clearly placed at the border. They could see other guard towers in the distance, and as they watched, one of the guards on the tower they were approaching shouted and pointed as he saw them. Four men in tan leather armor came rushing out of the tower. Their weapons were not drawn, but Blame visible tensed as they approached. Iirkolav put a hand on his shoulder.

“Halt! You approach the border of the mighty Kalt’onian Empire. What is your business?” demanded one of the guards as they stopped several yards away from the group.

The Mindcrackers looked at each other, frantically thinking of a way to explain.

“We have to get to the center of the desert.” Etho said smoothly after a short pause. “It’s important.”

The guard grunted. “Yeah, right. Get going and don’t come back.” He made a shooing motion at them.

“It’s imperative that we enter.” Doc told them.

The guards finally noticed him and stared.

Ignorant of both skettisren and machines that did not exist at this current time.

One of the guards reached for his sword instinctively, but he didn’t get far.

The motion set Blame off. He drew his own sword and shot forward, slicing the man’s head off. Before the other guards could react, he had driven his blade into a second guard’s chest.

He yanked it out and slashed open the third’s stomach as he moved to attack the Skullblade. The fourth guard only had time to take a half-step back before Blame beheaded him as well.

The Mindcrackers stared as Blame wiped the blood from his blade and sheathed it.

“We should get moving before the other towers notice anything.” he said flatly. He seemed unbothered by the fact that he had just murdered four people.

As they set out into the desert, Vechs glanced behind him several times at Blame. The Skullblade was walking stiffly, looking mostly down at the sand he stepped through as night fell.

And yet, he didn’t seem bothered by the guards he had killed. Vechs felt a little chilled. Blame had just killed four men with little to no effort and only seemed troubled by the fact that they were in the desert.

Vechs shuddered and squeezed Aureylian’s hand as he realized that they were nothing to the Skullblade. He didn’t understand why, but somehow he felt like Blame didn’t see them as quite human. He agreed the Kalt’on was a horrible place with horrible laws and generally bad people, but they were still human…

His brooding was interrupted by Kurt’s voice.

“So the only thing we know about where we’re going is that it’s in the middle of the desert?”

“Pretty much.”

Kurt sighed. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.” He switched places with Paul and paused for a moment to evaluate the just-appearing stars before waving for them to follow and beginning to walk.

They would travel at night and rest during the day, both to avoid getting lost and to try to get around the heat of the desert.

They had only been walking about five minutes when the first interruption came.

“Stop.” Iirkolav suddenly snapped. The group came to a halt and turned around to look.

Blame was several paces behind them, sitting in the sand with his head in his hands. Iirkolav tried to kneel beside him but only succeeded in falling over. He cursed colorfully as he sat up, then placed his mangled hand on Blame shoulder.

“Blame. You okay?”

Blame shook his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Desert.” he whispered quietly. “No. No no no no.” He shuddered, reaching to pull his black cloak around him. “No no no no no no no no no no no….” he mumbled over and over, shaking slightly.

“Blame.” Iirkolav squeezed his shoulder. “How can we help?”

“Get me out of here.” Blame gasped, shaking. “No no no no. What am…why…no. No no no no! I shouldn’t be here! Not again! Never again!”

Vechs wasn’t sure whether to approach or to stay back, so he didn’t move, still holding Aureylian’s hand tightly. He watched Paul step forward and sit on Blame’s other side.

“Do you want to go back to base?” the older man asked him.

“Yes.” Blame whimpered, making Vechs blink. He had never heard Blame make a sound anything like that before. After a pause, though, Blame shook his head. “No. No, I…I c-can’t. I have to stay. I have to help.”

Caught between terror of the memories and the sense of discipline and loyalty to friends.

“You can go back.” Iirkolav told him. “We won’t judge you.”

“I have to help.” Blame insisted, unwrapping the cloak from himself. “I have to.” With help from Paul, he got to his feet, followed by Iirkolav. “Sorry.” he whispered, motioning for them to continue.

As they walked on through the desert, Vechs decided that whatever Blame had in his past that had to do with this desert, he probably didn’t want to know.

It must have been too horrible to comprehend.

~~~

As the sun rose, the Mindcrackers set up camp. They had to share tents, but they were used to it. Vechs and Aureylian obviously shared one, as did Nebris and Etho. Skera and Paul also shared a tent. Iirkolav volunteered to share with Blame, the Skullblade offering no comment. Zisteau was secretly pleased to score a tent with Kurt, but due to the odd number of people in the group, Doc was in there as well. He silently seethed at this.

Blame hid in his sleeping bag the moment that he was able to do so, trying to compact his entire body into it so that he could hide. Unfortunately, after a couple of hours he had to uncurl and poke everything from his shoulders up out of the sleeping bag to avoid overheating. Despite being out of the sun, the desert was still hot.

The oppressive heat made him shiver, though- not from the temperature, but from the memories that it brought. He refused to look outside no matter what happened- the sight of the hot daytime desert stretched out before him would likely be too much.

He couldn’t sleep, nor did he try. He knew that he would receive nothing in return but terror. He fiddled with his cloak and tried to focus on anything, anything at all, other than the desert.

Ghosts of the past haunted his mind.

Iirkolav, who was not the deepest or most consistent sleeper himself, eventually sat up.

“Can’t sleep?”

Blame didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Iirkolav scooted over to sit beside the Ashenhorn.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Blame didn’t react. Iirkolav sighed softly.

After a few minutes, Blame spoke in a whisper.

“I fought in the War of the Shattered Sands.”

Iirkolav looked over at him, surprised. “You-“

“I was there, on the front lines.” Blame continued, voice barely audible. “I fought with the Variat forces, against the Kalt’on army. I don’t know how many of them I killed. How much sand I stained with their blood, how much blood was spilled by my own squad due to my lack of attention…” He began to shake again, and this time, Iirkolav put an arm around him to comfort him. It seemed to help, but not a lot.

“There was an explosion.” Blame made a quiet choking sound halfway through his sentence. “We went to investigate a building and it was a trap. It…it exploded, killing all of us. All of us except two. I…I was…I was hurt, very hurt, but I had to get him out. Had to get Varion out.”

Iirkolav pulled him a little closer, feeling the other man start to shake more violently. “We were almost there. He had lost a foot and was bleeding, bleeding all over the sand and all over me…he couldn’t last much longer, but we were almost there…I would be okay, just bleeding a little, just…” Blame took a deep breath before plowing on. “A spear. A Kalt’onian spear.” He put his hand on his left side. “It hit here…tore out or shredded most of my vitals… The only man in the fortifications came out and tried to get us both back to safety, but…” Blame shuddered, but, Iirkolav noticed, didn’t cry or get choked up at all.

Kalt’onian spear: a type of spear specifically designed to rip out as much flesh as possible.

“I..I told him to take Varion, take him and go. I wouldn’t survive the trip back, but he could, Varion could…he told me not to but I screamed for him to go…” Blame’s voice shook slightly. “I asked to be rolled over, though…I…I wanted to see the sky. It was dark, and I wanted…I wanted to see the stars one last time. To die at the same time of day that my clan did…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clearly fighting the urge to break down or slip into a panic attack.

“Then Guude came.” He opened his eyes. “Guude came in a bolt of red lightning…” As he spoke, he could remember the events, clearer than what he could see before him now, as if he was reliving it…

“You don’t have to die, you know.”

“I don’t have much of a choice.”

The man shook his head slightly. “You have a choice. You can choose immortal life, or you can choose to die.”

“What if I dislike both options?”

“You can always go back on your decision if you choose immortality. If you choose death, there is no going back.” The man held out his hand.

He could feel his life slipping away with his blood. If he waited much longer, he wouldn’t have the strength to lift his arm. As it was, his sight was already dimming.

He never knew what made him do it, but he grasped the man’s hand.

He was overcome with orange energy, healing him, strengthening him, invigorating him. When his vision cleared, he was standing, but he could not recall doing so.

“You’re a worldbuilder now- a temporary one, at least.” The man smiled. “Welcome to Mindcrack.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you choose to save me?”

The man tilted his head, thinking. “You were a life worth saving.” he said quietly. “Let’s get out of here and I can explain further.” He lifted his other hand- the one Blame wasn’t grasping- and a bolt of red lightning took them away, far away into the mountains of Traz’madar, where a clan of worldbuilders was awaiting…


When Blame stopped speaking, stopped reliving his flashback, Iirkolav moved and hugged him tightly.

“I had no idea.” he whispered softly. “I…” He was at a loss for words. “I don’t know if I could understand.”

“You understand better than most.” Blame let himself lean on the other man, suddenly feeling exhausted. “But never entirely…”

“What about Pak?”

“His father.” Blame mumbled. “Varion was his father… I knew the moment he walked into that mountain, the moment Guude brought him in. I knew…He didn’t know me, not entirely, but I told him…he didn’t come along because I asked him to. I couldn’t see a Varion lookalike, not here, not now.” Blame shuddered. “I’d be afraid he wouldn’t make it out alive…”

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 02:42 am (UTC)
jiminee: (Default)
From: [personal profile] jiminee
ANGST
But also bliirkolav yeeeeeeeeees /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/ /#/

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 02:52 am (UTC)
subliminalcircles: Drawn by me! (Default)
From: [personal profile] subliminalcircles
*stabs Iirkolav and runs*
NO ONE SINKS THE PAKTC SHIP

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 03:53 am (UTC)
thezombineer: (Default)
From: [personal profile] thezombineer
I knew it. I knew Pak was a decenant of Varion.

Also Skera x Paul confirmed?

And... So this war thing... It was basically the Crusades, yes?

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 04:00 am (UTC)
thezombineer: (Default)
From: [personal profile] thezombineer
But. But. But. Ships!

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 01:32 pm (UTC)
thezombineer: (Default)
From: [personal profile] thezombineer
...how would that be weird? Fathers are usually mentors. And are usually with the mentee's mother.

As for the hundred years old thing... They're the same age then!

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 07:30 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] ex_writeitinsharpie308
But Vechs is hundreds of years old and Aurey's like... 30? And that's not weird?

Date: Sunday, June 7th, 2015 01:32 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] ex_writeitinsharpie308
That's at least 40 years.
And the age difference between Blame and Iirkolav, then?

Date: Monday, June 8th, 2015 12:46 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] ex_writeitinsharpie308
Paul has the same prioraties (ish), then! They could bond over the bullheaded idjit that is Vechs Davion!

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 04:50 am (UTC)
tackytacs: (Default)
From: [personal profile] tackytacs
YOU'LL RUE THIS DAY. RUE IT.

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 04:52 am (UTC)
tackytacs: (Default)
From: [personal profile] tackytacs
#giveblameabreak

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 02:49 pm (UTC)
tdscott8: (Default)
From: [personal profile] tdscott8
*has now read 2 chapters of the Monstrous trilogy, this being one of them*

I like how what I got out of this, is that Doc's a 3rd wheel, and it's hilarious.

Date: Sunday, June 7th, 2015 01:08 pm (UTC)
tdscott8: (Default)
From: [personal profile] tdscott8
Of course I know he's not actually a 3rd wheel, but like, the lines where Zed got all upset cause he couldn't just share a room with Kurt was hilarious and probably my favorite part :3

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015 11:40 pm (UTC)
eclipse3: (Default)
From: [personal profile] eclipse3
Gosh I feel so bad for Blame!
G.C. (::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)

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