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Post by Tarkhan on Sept 2, 2022 19:40:57 GMT -5
A storm was brewing off in the distance, just outside the deep cavern that the Grey Keep called home, within the stone fortress city that was The Bleakfort. The cacophonous sounds of thunder shook the very earth as lightning streaked through the sky and touched down in the distance. A frozen gale of primordial whimsy and unabated fury had set the town on alert already. The massive chunks of hail that these unfortunate tundra storms brought with them, always meant damage to the buildings and people within the grand cities walls.
Of course those of the nobility whom lived within the cavern and the Grey keep had no such issues with what transgressed outside other then the drop in temperature and the noise, but a stoked fire and pleasant company usually abated all other qualms they felt. It was within the havoc of the storm, the tightening of the guard in case fires needed to be put out or people rescued from whatever damage may occur, that a lone man of impressive stature stood defiant and unbending as he pushed through the crowds, hood drawn and alias intact.
It was in the confusion of the masses that he hoped to one day save from the very same cruelty that they suffered unknowingly at the ends of those who thought themselves better then others by something as trivial as birthright, that he made his way ever deeper into the city and towards the Grey Keep itself and the great cavern gate. Seeking entrance into the cavern and thus the royal quarters although that was not his real goal. Everything starts with a plan or in his case a loose collection of beliefs that he hoped would be vindicated if he brought them into action, and so he trudged on, slipping through the scrambling guard by hiding amongst a group of wealthier citizens that were fleeing inside the gates, no doubt returning from business in the city proper.
His eyes were set on one goal, and that was manpower. He needed men if he wanted to succeed with his goals, and what better then those that were trampled on by the very system he sought to bring an end to? Those that were forgotten or abused and tossed aside, the downtrodden. The prison would be the first stop on this leg of the journey and it was one that he was happy to liberate. After all, some of his own tribe would be found inside the stone depths of the Grey Keeps prison as it were.
Most who were locked inside the harsh environment of the Bleakfort's gulag gave up hope, but same thrived there and regardless of who he could find and utilize, he was sure that what he went about here tonight would be the beginnings of his glorious revolution and what it was he hoped to accomplish. His goal absolute freedom and equality, gave him a purpose that allowed him to move with mental impunity to what it was that needed to be done in the name of it, and that was evident as he stalked the royal quarter, moving ever closer to his target.
The first real opposition he met whilst he trudged towards his destination, the looming black fortress at the far end of the cavern, out of view of the city proper as it was obscured by the majestic Grey Keep itself, was a lone guard that felt he absolutely needed to see some sort of identification from the hooded man. Giving no qualms about the life of the man before him, as he clearly served the system as it were, he didn't hesitate to raise his hands up as if he meant no harm but in doing so he also fired off bolts of electricity from either hands one after the other, piercing the mans armor with the first shot and his heart with the second.
Taking no care to hide the body or dawdle any longer he made his way ever closer to his goal at hand.....
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Post by Granth on Sept 2, 2022 20:30:39 GMT -5
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Granth could hear the sounds of his fellow convicts laboring down in the quarry before he even reached it. Even above the sound of the tundra storm, the very storm he and a dozen others like him were being forced to march through, Granth could hear the sounds of grueling toil. His hands ached at those sounds. He could feel the shockwaves of his pick or maul or whatever else they chose to make him use for hours on end coursing up his malnourished body just by hearing those sounds. They pierced the howling winds, the battering hail, and the sounds of the chains between his feet and the man in front of him shifting as they marched out from the yard of the prison and down into the quarry at its center.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The whole of the Bleakfort was huddling for safety in the mountain, Granth imagined, but there would be no such rest for his ilk. His fate was already sealed. His deeds earned him his lot, that's what the dwarves would say. It was what the moon elves said when they gave him the "mercy" of being sent to the Bleakfort's prison instead of executed in the Moon Glade. They told him to be grateful that he was even alive.
Clang. Clang. CLANG!
Granth turned to cast one last look back at the prison. The heavy clouds above blocked out most of the moonlight, but there was enough for him to look around, to assess the patrols around him. They were sparser due to the weather. If he could just break free, he'd-
A mailed fist slammed into Granth's side, the rings pinching and tearing his skin through his clothes. Granth doubled over in pain and nearly sent the man he was chained to tumbling down. He looked up and glared at his assailant.
"Stop dawdling, wretch!" growled the dwarven guard next to him, shoving Granth forward immediately after speaking. "Move your ass lest the next stone we give you is the one that marks your grave!"
Granth stared at the dwarf for a half-second more. He knew his red-bearded face. He silently swore he'd paint the rest of the stunted dog red, too.
The ex-bandit and the other prisoners were funneled into the quarter two by two. Its entrance had the pompous look of all dwarven construction, and the runes carved on the walls inside were equally arrogant. Granth couldn't read dwarven to save his life, but he'd heard the pontifications of the foreman on the matter more than once. Those runes appealed to the gods to forgive the prisoners for their sins, to cleanse their dirty souls of their past. It was through hard labor that the gods would grant such forgiveness, the foreman would say. Toil was a purifying element. A body would break as its spirit was made pure and whole again.
Frankly, Granth didn't give a damn what hogwash the dwarves used to justify their work. Most of the dwarves didn't seem to care, either. The prisoners were there to work until they died, and that was that.
Granth and the others were directed down one of the many winding paths in the underground quarry. It felt more like a mine, and was certainly as claustrophobic as one. Past the rough stone walls and the support beams the group went, down and down until they reached a dead end. There were no lights in the cave save the ones held by their taskmasters, those who carried lanterns so the prisoners from around the world would be wholly dependent on them to see what was happening. The dwarves and their dark vision had no such dependencies.
"Grab your tools," growled the same guard from earlier. "Get to work."
None of the prisoners needed instruction. They'd all slaved in the quarry long enough to know what had to be done.
Picks, sledges, wedges, and crowbars were hefted up one by one as the guards looked on. The prisoners, each bound to another by chains, moved in pairs to different sections of the wall. Each began to make their mark in the stone one by one. Granth took up a sledgehammer, his partner a wedge. His partner was a frail, dead-eyed halfling who wouldn't have been any use hefting up a tool anyway. He never spoke. The place had already broken him.
The halfling set the wedge into a groove in the stone. Granth hefted up his hammer, then slammed it hard against the metal wedge.
Clang.
Granth grunted, then pulled the hammer back. He struck again and again.
Clang. Clang. Clang!
Again, the hammer went up. Granth prepared to swing, imagining the wedge was the skull of the damned dwarf. He struck with more force than before.
CLANG!
The stone split. The halfling dropped the wedge in shock, but was unharmed, not that Granth would've cared if he had hurt the little man. He was already as good as dead. He couldn't have escaped if the walls tumbled down all around them and all the guards were stricken with heart attacks. Granth had no time for useless people like that.
I won't end up like him, Granth thought to himself as he brought the sledgehammer again. I'll survive. I'll escape, and I'll kill anyone that gets in my way.
CLANG!
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Post by Tarkhan on Sept 7, 2022 11:40:15 GMT -5
The storm raged on and began to shake the very cavern itself whenever a bolt of lightning struck topside. This was an omen of good fortune for his beginning endeavors and he knew it. There was no other explanation for what it was that it could be other then the very gods giving their blessings to him to seek out and enact his goals. His mind was set as he strode towards the black keep as it were and found much to his own surprise that it was unmanned. Was their really no fear that someone would approach the prison as it were? Or that the prisoners would escape the Gulag as it were down below in the depths of the mountain? This was the very execution of the status quo's mentality that he could no longer stand and had grown to abhor so much.
His path found him wandering down pathway after pathway, heading towards the clanging of picks, the shattering of stone. The object of his desires at the moment - Manpower. He himself had become so singularly focused on the task at hand that any form of humanity within him was shelved for the moment as he looked with taciturn gaze down the cavern halls towards his inevitable goal. Choosing to move not just under the guise of darkness, not the Dwarves were bothered by it, he began to use a technique long known to his tribe which allowed him to manipulate small particles around himself. Generally in ages old this would have hidden a raiding part with a squall of sand, or dirt when on the plains or desert, but in their exile that had trained themselves to move so much more then just earth with it, as they mastered the ability to move the very snow.
For him causing the dirt and rocks that literally encompassed his surroundings was Childs play now and thus he made them swirl violently around him in a ten foot area leaving a small ovoid hole so that he could see in front of himself, but others he was now enshrouded like a dirt devil, and perhaps the threat of such an earth elemental would be enough to scare any Dwarven Guard that happened upon him as he got closer and closer to the current work camp. The rhythmic hammering of rock and its discordant blows due to broken or untrained hands, his symphony as he guided himself ever closer.
He wasn't done with the subterfuge though as he also began to manipulate the very air around him to condense the water particles in the air, forming a cloud around him that obscured by the dirt and rocks that moved blindingly fast along his being and obscured him. It wasn't until he was at the edge of the large cavern onlooking the Dwarves and their captives that he decided to begin his quest as it were. Pushing the fog cloud out into the room as he increased the wind pressure around him, the room would begin to fill with fog, starting from the ground as it slowly began to rise towards the ceiling of the cavern, obscuring those within.
"The time of the Dragon is Nigh..... Those that cannot hear the song of the wind have no place here.", this was in it of itself a command word as the several tribesman of his began revolting at his call knowing that their people must have come for them somehow! Causing confusion to begin in the cavern and panic as nearly a dozen Tribesman began striking at their bindings and captors, all while the fog encompassed the space. The fast moving dirt and rocks around him cleared fog for himself as he moved through it allowing him some semblance of vision at least.
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Post by Granth on Sept 7, 2022 15:25:27 GMT -5
Granth heard the sounds of shouting... and fighting.
It wasn't easy to pick up over the clinks, clanks, and clangs of the prison crew working together, but it was there, coming from outside their little section of the quarry. He wouldn't have noticed, in fact, if not for one of the two guards posted outside their area stepping away to investigate the noise, or perhaps to fetch backup. Granth could only guess what he was up to. But he did know that left the red-bearded dwarf guarding the prisoners all by himself, and he did know if there was fighting somewhere in the quarry... he might just be able to make his escape.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
All around him, his fellow prisoners were working themselves dead, ignorant of the possibility nearby. Granth hefted his sledgehammer up again, as if to strike for the halfling's chisel... and then, instead, swung with all his might down at the chain that bound them both together.
CRACK!
The sound was distinct from all the others in the quarry. The workers stopped, surprised by the sudden shift in tone, the sound of metal breaking metal. The dwarf looked toward Granth with angry eyes, and he growled at the dark-haired human.
"Think about what you're doing, lad," the dwarf rumbled. "This doesn't end well for you."
Granth answered by spitting at him. The dwarf needed no further urging. He started striding forward, his battle axe in hand.
It was obvious who was at a disadvantage. Granth's weapon was too cumbersome. He thought on his feet; the sledgehammer he dropped, and he reached over and grabbed the halfling and his chisel instead. The weak, thin little fellow screeched in surprise, but he was too powerless to struggle. Granth hefted him up with both hands while clutching the chisel, then rushed toward the dwarf at the same time, throwing the halfling at him before he closed in.
The maneuver caught the dwarf by surprise. He fumbled and shoved the halfling off him, but that was all the time Granth needed. Granth was able to turn his chisel in with an icepick grip and jab it right into the dwarf's side. He twisted. The sound the dwarf made would have shocked a lesser man, but this was not Garth's first murder.
The violence that followed was quick and brutal. Up the chisel went, then down again, up and down and up and down. The dwarf's face was hardly recognizable, and was just as red as his beard. Granth stood up off the guard's chest and looked to the others.
"Well?" he snapped at them. "Are you going to join the fight or wait to die?"
The prisoners' chains were broken mere seconds afterwards. The halfling, however, did not rise from the floor, still in apathetic shock at everything. Nobody bothered to pick him up.
Granth grabbed the fallen dwarf's lantern before he raced off into the darkness, leading his companions toward the sound of the fighting. It wasn't the way out, necessarily, but Granth had a need for vengeance, not merely escape. His spirit was burning as much as his malnourished body. That fire could only be quenched with blood.
The sounds of combat only grew louder and louder as the group stumbled through the darkness with only a lantern to guide them. And it was not long before they found the source of the commotion: a full-on revolt with a great storm of dirt and dust in the center, with dwarves rushing in from other corridors in the quarry to put an end to it all at once.
Granth scowled. He raised his bloody fist and chisel into the air and shouted: "KILL THE HALF-PINT BASTARDS!"
That was all the encouragement the gang of desperate, bloodthirsty escapees behind him needed. One dozen crazed-looking fools armed with nothing but tools, chains, and bare hands rushed at armored dwarven guardsmen in a disorganized mob, running and leaping at their opponents as the bewildered dwarves suddenly found themselves facing an assault on two sides.
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Post by Tarkhan on Sept 9, 2022 10:58:36 GMT -5
The freeing of his tribe members and the beginning of his revolution was going well or so it seemed at least. His form still obscured by the magic he used allowed him to stride forward with ill intent and begin his wanton slaughtering of the guards who were most armored first using their metal armor to his own advantage, as he transformed their Iron plate into a sudden and definite coffin. Using the dust to allow him to clear fog as he went, he aimed for the heaviest in armor first and fired off bolts of lightning from his fingertips at them electrocuting them with out mercy. The water vapors that were condensed in the air and only mixed with the sweat upon their skin only aided him in enhancing the power of his spells.
He was growing tired however as the moment dragged on, the heavy spell use of his beginning to become draining on him, the gift of mana that swelled within him was dwindling now as he spent the reserves he had spent so long building with wanton abandon. Once he had used nearly the last of his reserves for now, he released one final gust of wind towards the largest bulk of the dwarfs surging into the room sending several to their feet or into the cavern walls, before the fog dispersed and the dirt and stones around him settled harmlessly on the ground.
Looking out into the cavern itself it was clear to him that the battle was going in their favor, if it was simply from the shock of the situation and clear lack of preparation for an event like this. The biggest benefit from his final expulsion of wind however showed him that the far left path out of this cavern must lead somewhere with fresh air, as some of the fog clouds traveled deeper down that path before dispersing. Choosing to capitalize on the newcomer and his fresh band of hopefuls as Tarkhan saw them he steadied himself.
Doing his best to not seem as if he was weakened in any sense he but on his bravest face and stood firm despite feeling exhausted to no end. The spectacle of using so many spells at once was a lot to handle in such a short time. Using a very small amount of the magic he had remaining as the now free man he had saved swarmed around him to surge onto the dwarven menace, he summoned his drake as the dragon tattoo upon his face glowed with a blue light. Temujin came into form upon Tarkhan's shoulder as he shouted to the masses, "The Dragon of the Plains has come to free you in your time of plight! Join me and ride the storm of our revolution as we take back that which the elite and society has taken from us. As we make our own path in the world towards true freedom!", his voice was a boom in it of itself as it left his impressive frame, his right fist raised high into the air as the men and women around him shouted in agreement and the exhilaration of the moment.
Not letting the moment fade he spoke further as he surged forward with the others, seemingly moving towards the left path himself to subconsciously begin to avert the masses towards that spot as well, "Follow me and break through their lines! We will know our deliverance and no mattock, maul or axe shall be it! The tyranny of the "just" ends today!", with what he hoped was as rousing of a speech he could muster, he forged on towards the left most chamber to seek out what he had hoped would be more then a hunch.
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Post by Granth on Sept 9, 2022 14:41:23 GMT -5
The man with the young drake sitting upon his shoulder gave a rousing speech. At least, it was rousing to those around Granth; they whooped and cheered over the corpses of their allies and enemies alike, then began moving to follow the Dragon of the Plains, whoever he was. Theirs was a desperate hope, a chance for freedom granted by a savior.
Granth saw things differently. He saw a man with incredible power, one that didn't give a damn for the laws of the land and clearly held a grudge against the nobility. Granth didn't see an escape. Granth saw opportunity.
The once-bandit took a place near the rear of the throng of prisoners, stopping only to grab a shield off of one of the dead dwarves nobody had bothered to grab yet. A chisel and a shield wasn't the most intuitive set of weapons, but Granth knew very well his chances of survival were better with a shield than without.
The prisoners moved down the tunnel, their way lit by a few lanterns looted off the dead dwarves. Down the path in the quarry went, winding and twisting. It was a route Granth had never known any of the workers to have been taken down. He didn't know why that was. He had a guess, though, because he could feel the air was different. It felt more like the outdoors. If it did lead outside, it would surely be well guarded. The dwarves wouldn't let the prisoners out that easily.
Granth was right, of course.
As soon as the front of the mob turned the corner, a quick volley of crossbow bolts shot forward, impaling the bravest fools and downing them in a bloody heap. Five men were felled without a fight. The mob stumbled over itself, and Granth was able to see over their heads and spy a group of dwarves behind a barricade, several with shields, axes, and spears ready, and five more perched above and behind them reloading their crossbows. A lieutenant shouted an order in the dwarven language over the heads of his guards, and one of the dwarves pulled a flask off his belt and hurled it into the crowd. Granth knew what it was and looked away.
BANG!
A flash filled the tunnel, and the prisoners shouted and screamed, clutching their eyes and covering their ears. The flash subsided, and Granth turned back, watching those in front crumbled over one another in a helpless pile. The dwarves behind the barricade wasted no time hurling throwing axes and firing another volley of bolts, slaying another half-dozen men in the chaos. Granth grimaced.
The bandit pushed his way through the mob and ran to the front, holding his shield up. He wasn't trained in such a tool, but he'd shot enough men holding shields to know how to use it. He held it forward and crouched on down, providing cover to those behind him, giving them a chance to recover. But still they weren't budging. They were too afraid. Their advantage of surprise had been lost.
Granth scowled, then turned his head toward the mob as quarrels slammed into his shield.
"Do you want to die digging rocks or do you want to die getting revenge?!" the bandit shouted at the top of his lungs.
Those words weren't very motivational, but they spurred just enough prisoners into throes of anger to get the mob moving forward again, first in a trickle and then in a wave. Granth stood up and rushed with them at the front, inwardly praying the wizard that set them free still had enough magic to let loose one last spell.
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Post by Tarkhan on Sept 17, 2022 21:14:14 GMT -5
As they pushed down the tunnel and towards their salvation it was all but secured until they came upon what waited them at the exit out into the tundra of the Frost Gale itself only to be met by a host of Dwarven guards who were in no way ready to let them just walk out of the prison as it were.
In life everything had a positive and a negative reaction and in this very moment it seemed that the actions that Tarkhan had taken only led to the subsequent death of many of the escapees. He narrowly voided being blinded by the flashbang that was used against them and the subsequent volley of weapons that came their way. The despair and fear that rocked through those that survived as they could hear their would be captors closing in from behind now, led him to feel the sting of defeat nipping at his heels for the first time in his adult life.
It was in this spiraling moment that the other man who seemed to be leading some of the escapees had snapped him out of it with his own attempt at a rousing speech. It wasn't that it moved him or had been personally rallying although for many of the others it seemed to be helping and making them dig in to at least go out swinging if anything. It wasn't until a group of them had begun to charge forward under Granth that he knew he had to use the last of his slowly recovering mana in the most tactful way. Summoning Temujin from the pet pocket he had kept him in he spoke softly to his drake, "We wait for the next volley and the two of us together will blow as strong of a wind we can okay? If we can do it... we might jus turn this around...".
Taking a deep breath he charged forward with the mob and began using the last of his mana to gather an intense gust within his gullet. Keeping his mouth closed and inhaling deeply with his nose he swirled and condensed his mana and the incoming air into a thick and powerful gust within himself as he waiting until the exact moment that the Guards released their next volley of fire including both explosive casks and more flashbangs he and Temujin, now on his shoulder leapt to the front of the pact and released a devastating gust of wind from their mouths, blowing the weapons and explosives' back at the group and breaking their lines and footing.
His mana now gone, he felt immediately woozy and dizzy as he attempted to surge forward and stumbled landing face first into the ground as escapees surged around him into the now reeling and broken Dwarven Guards.
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Post by Granth on Oct 4, 2022 12:29:46 GMT -5
The fighting was brutal. Even in seeming victory, there were going to be bodies on both sides.
The dwarven guards were vastly outnumbered, and as their second volley was broken by a sudden gust of air, the prisoners were spurred on by the very same wind at their backs. They fell upon their captors like an avalanche. Prisoners were slain with a first few axe swings and spear thrusts, but the sheer mass of bodies was too thick to stop, and the guards found themselves grappling with men hungry for vengeance. Shivs and improvised weapons rose up and fell as the horde swallowed the dwarven defenders.
Granth did his part. He and two other prisoners tangled with one of the dwarves; he used his shield to block and deflect while the others swung heavy tools at the dwarf's legs. The guardsman went down with a shout, then was silenced with repeated two-handed blows to the back of the head from Granth's shield. As his companions rushed forward to join the melee, Granth paused to survey the battle.
The fight was going in their favor, albeit not without cost, but Granth realized that the wizard was no longer fighting. He searched quickly and spied him lying on the ground with others rushing past him to join the fight. Cursing quietly, the dark-haired man wormed his way through the crowd back to the fallen mage. He didn't need to satiate his bloodlust any longer. There were more important tasks at hand.
The tall and leathery-skinned prisoner reached on down and grabbed Tarkhan by the forearm, then tried to heave him up to his feet and steady the mage. He was surprisingly strong despite how prison had thinned his frame.
"Going to need your silver tongue in a moment, mage," Granth whispered to the weary spellcaster. "The sheep need their shepherd."
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