Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy

Crisis Rocan Wed Aug 21, 2019 3:31 am

AH CRAP! That's freaking cold, I think I just walked into blizzard straight out of a volcano. Little fuzzy on that detail something about the rapid change in temperature throwing me off. Oh well I guess it's for the best that I'm confused about it. Let's see last thing I remember, wasn't Toefor crafting some bastard versions of my old gear with the summoning seal. I think he half-assed them on purpose. That's not really like him to leave something imperfect and half complete. Well I suppose it would be unpredictable if this world had such a valuable magic at their disposal. Crafty fucking Dwarf always half a mile ahead of nearly everyone.

Anyway he was busy making deals with devils of this world when I stepped out, of course I was planning on side stepping through time, but it's not like I really try to guide my path either. Too many life times of random paths and travels to change now. So I was once again in a frozen waste... land?

Ok not so frozen wasteland, more too far from the nearest place to make a difference in my circumstances while feeling like a a side of beef in a meat locker. Yeah that just put some twisted images in my head... Yo Adrian I'm beating meat with Micky... oh god that's gross. So little to my surprise winter wonderland cold, unpleasant and and a lot of fucking snowflakes hitting me in the face. The gag you and take your breathe away kind of snow fall. Not fun, no not really.

Eventually I found myself a few miles out from a strange castle like building of course I'm picturing it all in springtime in a warmer climate because frankly it's too damn cold for my liking at the moment.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Asmirn10

I was feeling earth nostalgic, and my clothes were representing quite nicely but something felt off something I couldn't place as I aimed for the castle like building and it's frozen lake surrounding it. That's when I heard a voice coming up from behind me, turning to answer I realized what was off

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Crisis15

"Hey Kid, you lost or something?"

Shit I shrunk or lost my normal look and appeal... God dammit I've become a young punk teenager all over again. I didn't even die this time what the hell. I was not happy as I looked upon the approaching person, it wasn't written all over my face or anything but when in Rome!

Clearly I'm out for a pleasant stroll in a blizzard. Where the hell am I?

"Well kid you're in the lands belonging to the Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy. I suppose if you're all the way out here you must be heading to the academy to apply, climb in and I'll give you a ride the rest of the way."

Crisis Rocan Wed Aug 21, 2019 8:14 pm

The ride was bumpy as hell, I should have just walked but the blizzard was more annoying than the roughshod bump and bop of a ride. It seemed like this was the main road to the Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy. Although there was something familiar about the castle looming ahead as we approached. The main facility was directly ahead a small castle with an open courtyard in the center, surrounded by a lake, which itself was encircled by the main road which branched off to different facilities for the academy.

Apparently the old bitch giving me a ride was some kind of master gunslinger or some such, to be honest I wasn't really listening as we approached. I was just enjoying the relief of being out of the unexpected cold weather I found myself in while trying to place the castle I was looking at in with my memories. So frankly I wasn't really paying attention to everything she was saying. There was a large chunk of useless history she spieled off too.

The road was more than wide enough to accommodate three or four like vehicles with a small island check point before the gates of the castle. Nostalgic was the word for it, although in my memories there was no check point. It must have been hundreds of years ago from this point in time. I was older then, well in appearance at least. I want to say there was a war at the time, something about the bloodiest winter in the history of the North. I had ended up in this frozen wasteland nearly dead. You could say I was just one more body on the battlefield. Guns were a relatively new kind of weapon here at the time, more specifically mass produced guns for the average man and the casualties were high on both sides. It was a bloodbath, the snow and ice was more red than white, and the wounded were gathered regardless of whose side they were on. It reminded me of the wholesale slaughter of the wars back on earth when people lined up and just shot each other with no thought for self preservation or anything else along those lines.

Everything was overlaying, the past and the present all at once, her brief history lesson and what I recalled, they were playing out at the same time in tandem before my eyes. I could see it all the blood and the blizzard mixing. The fallout of a brutal fight I had stepped into becoming just one of the unaligned victims of the war.

Crisis Rocan Fri Aug 23, 2019 4:42 am

I'll admit there is little to say in the way of differences from what I remember from when I was younger, and ironically much taller and older looking in regards to the fortress that made was home to Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy. Frankly the place was the same, spartan in decoration and spartan in anything that wasn't necessary. I did for a time try to make it more home-like but those were tense days and it was more for the people who lived here than my own sense of comfort.

The first time I was carried in along with bodies of the other victims of the then on going war I had stepped into from some planet that was stuck in an infinite time loop of Earth's wild west period. So when I showed up in the frozen North looking like the Man with No Name.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Crisis16

I was clearly not from their enemy camp, and even more so not from their's either. It was kind of the same for the how I was arriving now. All that shirtless sleeves chain linked to the shirt, and skull print pattern shirt was screaming otherworldly again, at least this time I could pass it off as a foreign trend of some sort. Unlike the last time, the whole Clint Eastwood spaghetti western look was not a style of this world at the time. Our vehicle came to a halt in the courtyard of the fortress, and my gracious but talkative host offered me the door, before wrapping her head and body tightly in a bundle of cloth like a hood her short chin length pink hair disappearing completely into her wrap. I figured she had her reasons for doing so, the fortress was always good at keeping a better temperature inside than out even with it's open air atmosphere. She told me to wait in the courtyard as she walked off alone to the far side of the Fortress. I lost sight of her as she entered a doorway, but soon enough I was greeted by a rowdy short haired long haired girl no older than I looked, younger if I had to guess.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Gunsli10

"The academy's Master Gunslinger says I am to escort you around until tomorrow when you will be able to enroll properly. Seems there is a bit of a commotion going on at the gate, follow me."

I nodded more lost in thought than anything else as I mechanically followed her around though it seemed she was only intent on dumping me off at a single room which I was invited to use for the night. She left as abruptly as she had brought me to the room, locking it behind her for some reason saying only that it was only until morning when my enrollment could proceed properly, then leaving without so much as an apology. Well I wasn't really interested in exploring, I knew this fortress all too well.

Crisis Rocan Tue Aug 27, 2019 2:31 am

I was given time to think ample time at that. First of all I wasn't really put out about being locked in, it'd only take a moment to force my way out if I had been so inclined to do so. But frankly I was more interested in my trip down memory lane. It's not like it was actually seven hundred years ago for me give or take an odd decade or two, but that was when I was last here. I think the date was something like 1567, so the war had been going on for nearly a decade when I first showed up looking like Clint Eastwood, only full of holes like Swiss cheese. I'm generally a quick healer faster if I feel like pushing myself to recover, but in those days I was still a bit tired from the last planet I had been.

Let's just say if I never step foot in another desert it'll be too soon... oh wait dammit. I just had a mental convergence thing. Oh right, short story about that, I exist all over the place, and time, and space, so it's entirely possible for me to run into myself and myself and myself and myself. Quite honestly it's entirely possible to interact with an infinite number of myself... myselves..? at any one point in time and space and reality. Anyway I call it a convergence but it's more like two distinct roads, overlapping upon each other for a short time. In this case the memories of my past self are converging with me here and now from a much further point ahead in time. So my comment about deserts is in a sense pointless as my other self was just in one, and those are his memories surfacing to the front of my mind, and I most likely my future memories to his. It does make for some interesting experiences at times mind you. But I am well and good with dealing with it, it's second nature to sort out the new and old and straighten them into a basic order of when they occur in my memories.

But I digress, back to the winter wonderland. I was left with much time to think and no real desire to be free of the small room, in fact I was starting to consider quote unquote learning to be a Gunslinger. Well to be perfectly honest it would be like taking an ass backwards trip down memory lane. But sometimes it's good for the soul to relive your own history.

The first time I was here I was carried in... well carted like a sack of grain, one that had a dozen holes spilling the hard grown crop all over the damn place. Anyway, I slipped into a peaceful sleep for a while, giving their battlefield medics just one more hopeless case to try and patch up. I should go back a bit and explain a few things a bit clearer first.

The year as I said was about 1567, guns were relatively new to this world at the time for most of the world, so there were a few historical events that should be mentioned leading up to this war. The first and foremost involved the ascension of a certain mortal to godhood and the gifting of power to his people, to every single member of his race that was born within his domain. Second is that guns were used in an attempt to end this man's life. Though I was never certain of the facts involved it was claimed by his enemies that they killed him, using guns. Third the individuals known as the Forerunners were actively involved in the cause and the effect of the war that was being waged, indirectly if not directly the cause behind it. Fourth point to note, the location of Asmirnov, was a mere colony and not an actual part of the domain, so it's citizens though technically of the War God's people were not included in receiving the gifts imparted when he ascended. Therefore they seemed to be ripe for the picking and easy prey. The fifth detail is that at this time in history there was no Izhevesk either, it was mostly untamed wilds in the northern lands. Nomadic tribes, wild animals on one end and a unspecified quantity of vampires and their ilk on the other. So the colony when assaulted had no other option than too hole up and dig in stubbornly deep.

For now those points will do to set things in their proper places. Adding in only that some of the War God's other people arrived, those born within the confines of his former domain that is. Had they not been there things would have been much different for all of Galiavan even before I arrived. I wasn't there to help, or to save them, or even to fight for them. I was just passing through from some other place and time, one that was an awfully lot like a bad spaghetti western, and the reason I had ended up wearing a stereotypical cowboy outfit. I did take a few liberties with it at one point after establishing that I wasn't from either side of the war. To turn the poncho into more of a long coat, until I was able to redress the issue and take one off of an enemy solider of this isolated group of people.

Just a bit more to set the stage for this time frame I was thinking back to. They had managed to survive within the fortress at the center of the lake known in the present as Asmirnov, and hold their enemy at bay for almost a decade, even before they started taking the weapons off their dead enemies and building up their own stockpile of firearms, and the like. They had a very easy and defensible location, once they had solved there food supply problems that was. Things that had worked out even before my arrival.

I'll be honest I was being lazy and all I wanted to do when I first arrived was sleep, which was fine by their healers and leaders alike. They didn't know what to do with me other than heal my wounds and lock me up alone until they could make heads or tails of who I was and if I was friend or foe. I was fine with that I was tired, really tired, so I slept for quite some time.

Crisis Rocan Tue Aug 27, 2019 6:24 pm

I'll tell you what finally woke me up a twenty-one gun fucking salute. Apparently the lull between battles was just long enough for a cat nap and a good round of healing or fifteen or so. I felt the whole god damn castle rocked on it's foundation. Now normally I could sleep like the dead, and frankly I've slept dead a few times so I'm a bit of an expert on the topic, but being woken from a nice deep restful sleep by the pounding of earthshaking gun fire. Not so nice. I had a pounding in my ears it wasn't a headache but it sure felt like I was being put under pressure and I don't mean the Queen and David Bowie song either.

Well I didn't stay bedridden long once I stepped outside into the winter weather. The snow was falling and the battlements were knee deep as the defenders of the fort tried valiantly to pick off their enemies, who were outside of the range of their guns. What's more was that fucking pounding racket hammering inconsistently on the walls of the fort the thing that woke me in earnest. BOOM... BOOM... fucking cannonballs. They were trying to batter the fortress walls from a nearby overlook with canons. The same I had arrived on in the future. Anyway for the time being I'm going to focus on the here and now, of the past that I'm reflecting upon so as to keep things easier to understand in context, rather than the back and forth of present and past. So from the point of view from then cause I'm lazy in my self narrations.

I'm tired as hell, grumpy as fuck and the god damn big bad wolf is knock, knock, knocking without getting the damn clue. No body wants to answer the door, and if he keeps it up which he will it's going to be him knocking on heaven's door rather than huffing and puffing... oh hell go blow yourselves up. This isn't even my war this time. Just what did I walk into anyway, it's like a bad movie plot with a western story set in the arctic, if somebody called Bowie or Crockett show up I'm fucking leaving a trail of dead bodies too if I must. I don't do lost causes in fucking Siberian weather. Screw that I'd rather be on a tropical... resort in a city parking lot. Fuck exotic climates. I'll settle for concrete palisades and public transit for a few centuries thank you very fucking much.

Anyway the way I see it this fortress is run down and barely functional as a refuge and it's starting to reek of the Alamo, and I don't fancy being the only man alive when this ends. So I'm taking stock of the situation as no one seems to be paying me any attention whatsoever. I guess in war some people just don't understand the value of keeping an eye on their enemies and unknowns in their midst. In fact I wasn't the only one starting to move about. It seems a few of the other wounded weren't so wounded that they couldn't begin to move freely from their beds and do things as well. I had a feeling this was a trap I had walked into.

As I mentioned before they took prisoners despite their shit situation, all wounded were brought in to be treated regardless of which side they were on. Everybody was dumped into their makeshift infirmary, more exactly the center of the courtyard easy to watch from the ramparts or and single point along the walls on the inside of the fortress. That would be the case if the cannonballs weren't drawing all their attention away from the wounded inside their gates. I face the gate and frankly I just want the pounding to stop but let's be real for a moment, there is only one way that's going to happen without having to die a few times... guess this means I'm going to have to go out and negotiate some peace and fucking quiet. Well first things first though, some of these not so wounded getting up have been busy butchering the wounded who are unable to protect themselves from their enemies in their midst. Silently and efficiently they lurked from one wounded man to the next, quickly finishing them off.

At this point I was just looking around from where I was half propped up to observe the situation. I wasn't looking through opened eyes, but rather I was observing the world from my senses alone. There is no difference when I do this, only I don't have need of my eyes. It's much like being omnipotent, in a way I can be, but it requires more effort than I care to exert. But for little things like checking my surroundings without moving around it's almost no effort at all. In the middle of this my internal sound track was kicking out some weird cover song and the music was urging me to strike first, strike fast, although I was trying not to laugh my ass off when I realized just what song was getting a metal remix as I laid still counting the enemies around me.

I could feel the song pulling at me urging me to move to the music, but I waited until my victim stood over me knife in hand thinking he had yet another easy victim to kill off. As the knife sunk into my chest I thought about seriously drifting away and leaving this world behind, I do that often in all honesty. I often feel like Galiavan is just a bad graveyard for respawning elsewhere in life. You know there is a whole lot of pain in being stabbed through the heart, hell just being stabbed in general is bad enough to make you want to rip someone's heart clean out of there chest. I thought about that too but I was enjoying the irony of the music, my internal sound track chose a very interesting pick to say the least.

Beat, beat, beat, my heart was pumping and blood splattered straight into the face of my would be killer. Ok I laughed at that, for the record it was far too overdue for someone else to get a mouthful of blood and guts on this rock. Which only scared the shit out of my attacker, but like him I refused to let him shriek from being attacked. While he had a hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming out as all their other victims had I shoved my fist straight into his mouth. For the record it's a little hard to scream when you're choking on a fist, but there is one problem with that, so many people gag and throw up when they choke on something as big as a fist. Well so much for keeping him quiet, he stumbled back gagging and choking until he threw up rather loudly. Well the cats out of the bag, now it's time to square dance a mud hole into this group of assassin castle-stormers.

It was one of those moments where I moved from inactive to a blur in very little time at all. I'll be blunt they didn't last long while shocked at the sight of a moving corpse or rather active resistance from a wounded nearly dead victim. Before the shock had time to wear off I'd laid waste to the entire group of assassins. I was still feeling the song as I walked toward the closed off gate. Those cannons had to stop, otherwise I wasn't going to be able to feel good and relax.

I wasn't really in the mood to drag this whole fight thing out, in fact I was looking to end it and get some more sleep quickly. Walking toward the gate I was debating the quickest way to finish this and get some more shut eye. Prying a metal bar from the gate I twirled it around for a moment to find where it balanced and how. With quick precision I let my own blade form in my left hand slicing through the chain keeping the portcullis in place, like swinging a blade through the air the chain split in half raising the gate for me to walk out and down the pathway across the lake. The whole time I was focusing on the makeshift spear in my hand, I was planning on breaking this siege at least for the time being. I was beginning to hear a new song starting up as I raised the staff like rod in my hand reaching back as far as I could I let it fly as it reached its peek the next song began to play. The spear tilted toward earth and erupted with the music

Right with the words my spear split into multiple rods of equal size and shape raining down hell as spears embedded themselves into man and cannon alike. Bursting like fireworks the spears bolted to the ground in a deadly rain of death and destruction. No one survived the onslaught unscathed as I walked the distance to the overlook. I stood above the last man alive someone that seemed out of place on this battlefield. His long coat was unmarred by the three shafts buried into his legs and hand. As the other song faded, one more popped up as I stood over him removing his coat to replace my ugly ass modified poncho. I lifted his gun and the arrogant smuck started screaming insults and threats at me, some nonsense about being weaker and inferior or some such shit. I turned to just walk away but the bastard shot me in the back. I turned around eyeing him with murderous intent, that was a straw to break the camels back. And to be honest I had been shot one too many times of late to let this one slide.

Walking back up to him I kicked his gun out of his hand glaring at him. I retrieved it shrugging, the thing looked like a cheap Colt Peacemaker. It wasn't but it looked a lot like one. The man before me was still sputtering his insults and death threats not to forget his superiority. Slowly I aimed the gun straight at his head, channeling my Essence into it, I'd done it before long ago. Only this time I kept the amount to the barest quantity possible. The song playing now matched up just enough with my mood so I let out a smart ass one-liner that was in the chorus of the song. I told him out right while flipping him off with my other hand.

"You're number one with a bullet."

Than I just tuned and walked away with my new coat slung over my shoulder, and more blood running down my body from the latest bullet hole.

Crisis Rocan Fri Sep 06, 2019 1:13 am

Why yes I'm a Virgo, who enjoys long naps and unintentionally deliberate genocide. Roguishly chaotic with a gentle side, but always first and foremost not interested in being proactive...

Yup probably won't be using that for a dating site self description. Anyway I left the corpse behind me as I made my way back toward the fortress, and let's be honest after that fancy display of Fireworks there really wasn't much need for followup gun fire, and plans to steal out and break the siege in the dead of night. Apparently that has been their MO for dealing with siege tactics over the last decade give or take. But more on that later, first there was the wonderful clamor of excited and scared siege... eeessssss... besieged colonist to convince that I was not an enemy or a threat. Well not to them so long as they stopped pointed their sad assortment of battlefield spoils at me with terrified glares.

I'll be honest it's gratifying to have mortals cower in fear once in a while, but I was feeling a bit light headed being the lazy cosmic being that I am, I was bleeding out and still standing there like a pillar of living terror as the forces from within came without to... well shit I don't really know what they had planned, I passed out, somewhere on the brink of escaping Galiavan and you know possibly ending up in the Twilight Zone or something. Sadly when I came to it was still below zero and I was dressed for recovery from surgery, meaning basically nothing at all although the fire in the small chamber I was in was giving off a nice pleasant buzzing heat wave between back-drafts of blizzard cold drafts. Yeah I was still in the winter wonderland of primitive guns and castles.

Things were starting to feel like a bad rendition of Damsels and Dementia. It was then that I caught sight of something odd. Among the fools entrenched in their fortress defending their pitifully bleak and for some reason or another important colony I caught sight of an old man wondering around here and there as I lay recovering... fine as I was being lazy not wanting to get involved in this war. The guy was awfully familiar to me, I'd know him anywhere, which is to say that I stopped day dreaming about the past and started living in the present again.

So I'm locked in for the night in the present day Gunslinger Academy of Asmirnov awaiting the morning and you know freedom from a small cell like room in one of the towers that was really good for reliving the past in. Roll call, muster, sign your life away... that's what was coming next. Frankly I didn't think I was volunteering, but rather being volunteered for this new life of living slavery. They paraded me out to the center of the fortress and I'll tell you what that was deja fucking vu too, but more on that later. The place was quite crowded to be honest far more people gathered here now than back then and that's where I caught a glimpse of it, I mean sure it could have just been a coincidence but I noted a lean old man hunkered down in the background minding his own business like no one even knew he existed. Mind on the moment though I was being paraded about into line with a whole procession of new hopeful recruits... again when the hell did I sign up for this again!

Crisis Rocan Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:25 pm

Parade rest a term I'm sure is well over used in this frozen wasteland of muscles, gunpowder and mystical bullshit arts of gun play and sorcery. To the left and to the right are a few rows of fresh blood fools looking to be mustered into the gunslingers, and all I can think of is that creepy old fuck in the cloak slinking around in the background of this place. And more to the point how I know that son of bitch who couldn't win a hand of cards without cheating to save his sad excuse for a life. If I didn't like the sneaky bastard half as much as I did I'd walk right up to him and call him out, but this isn't like the days when I first ran across him here, back then.

A week after the battle in which I basically invented the skill which would later be used with bullets by gunslingers everywhere, "fireworks" I was sitting out in the middle of the lake on a small boat the ice had melted enough to enjoy the water for something other than winter sports. Mostly I was just trying to ignore the fools in there doomed plight and endeavors to protect their home and yaddy yaddy ya. I just wanted to be left alone, but their pleas and cries had caught the attention of someone I hadn't a desire to deal with. One I hadn't seen in many lifetimes and infinitely more side trips through different worlds.

So there I was minding my own business when he showed up all pomp and splendor trying to play up to the masses who had summoned him. Though they were the children of Scardia, they had prayed to a different God for their fortune and victory to every and any God who would listen. Begging and crying out for years to survive to be lucky enough to make it through the devastation and war which had them besieged. And a new God took up their cause, deciding to champion it in his own misbegotten way. A God which stood upon the castle walls looking down on me from behind. I could feel his eyes upon me, and part of me laughed as he stood in thought before approaching me. I could almost see the light in his eyes as he pondered schemes and plots to use to try and trick me into serving his cause, this lost cause of a war. I could see his mind working out plan upon plan, hoping his own luck would be enough to swing me to his course. I shrugged as I laid back in the boat, he would come, there was no doubt about that, he needed a champion for these people, and nothing short of a miracle would save them. A miracle like the one that had spared these people once already in their hour of desperation and inevitable doom.

The trick of it is he made an overly elegant display of his Godhood as he walked down the side of the castle from it's highest point. Slowly deliberately he strode down the wall coming to the ground drawing the attention of all those within sight of his glorious approach, well that's what he wanted to believe anyway. Personally I think he is a pompous ass without a lick of sense in his head, most of the time. I knew him, but the simple truth was he had no idea who I was or that we were well acquainted from a few unpleasant twist of my fate.

Yup in my head played his personalized theme song, and I was laughing my ass off about it as I heard the lyrics upon his approach. Long was our history and longer was the wait for him to prance his way across the grounds to the lakes edge. Of course by this time he had quite the audience building from his waltzing Matilda act down the side of the castle and now he was aiming for another iconic moment. Walking on water Jesus man this guy is always trying way too hard to show off when mortals are involved. I didn't even bat an eyelash at him as he stood over the boat staring down, not exactly gloating, not exactly looking like a god. I kept my face blank as he started to speak loud enough for those gathering on the shores edge to hear his pointed and precise words.

Mortal, I come to grant you a reward for your brave deeds, in assisting these unfortunate souls. A boon for your continued service in defending these mortals fated to die otherwise. As a God I have within my powers the ability to bless you with profound luck and fortune in all that you do. A gift I would not grant lightly to any other, for you have proven yourself worth a hundred men. A blessing worthy of one strong enough to defeat the Gailden Musketeers. Never before has a single mortal waged such proficient war against so many skilled and superior warriors.

I'm pretty sure sure I tuned him out about half way through his speech, it was too forced to be natural, and to me it sounded a lot like blowing smoke up a hippo's ass. Blah blah, be a hero for these people, blah blah, I'm a god, blah mortal mortal blah blah. Honestly I had no interest in a word he said, but he was starting to piss me off being all cocky and shit about his Godhood and how he could do this and do that for me... not one word about who he was or anything else, just save these people and I'll bless you mortal... blah blah freaking shut the hell up you pandering jackass. Seriously I was almost ready to punch him square in the face, but I figured that would only go so far, I needed to clip his ego right back down to size. So I hit him where it counts. Saying his name just loud enough for those watching to hear it and nothing else.

You looked better when you were a woman in a dress Corvaeus!

He dropped like a fucking anvil into the water making a splash that could be seen inside the castle walls. Spoiler alert, he doesn't like being reminded of that time of his life.

Dyn Dreyrbyn Srey Sun Nov 17, 2019 6:33 am

The woman walked through the blizzard to the castle walls, arm in front of her face as her fur lined parka and hood flapped against her skull. Her cool blue eyes gleamed through the flowing snow while she approached. Her reason for her arrival was due to her late grandfather, who had sent her a letter dated to today, that dictated that she should bring Cistaceae, her little Frost Flower, to the Gunslinger Academy of the North... that she should seek the unique blade's creator there. She didn't know why, for the magic blade was working as fine as it had since she inherited it, and presumably to those before her throughout the generations. It didn't need to repair it, nor did she think it needed tempering...which would be odd given how the blade works. Yet, to honor her Grandfather's wishes, made the trek out through the frosty vast whiteness, to the Gunslinger Academy to meet with the Cistaceae's creator. Not like that is possible, they'd be pushing centuries old or they'd be long dead... then there are the Gunslingers who may not want to provide me access into the castle, who will send me away... I only hope my grandfather's letter will be enough proof to let me in... The woman thought, her eyes falling upon the entrance to the Academy, and she slowly pushed forwards to make her presence known.

Crisis Rocan Tue Nov 19, 2019 1:26 am

To here

Crisis Rocan Thu Dec 12, 2019 12:45 am

Ice and blow the weather just sucks ass here, and when you look at all the desperate people gathered in this rundown castle, what could I do. Turn and walk away No chance they needed someone or they would all die out in the course of time.

I hate feeling obligated to aiding lost causes, but I just can’t walk away, and by all the Gods of all the worlds I’ve been to, I don’t know why I still do it. I shrugged there was now leaving them like they were. But on the other hand I was enjoying Corvaeus taking a frozen dip in shock that his name and face were so easily known by someone here. From all my encounters with him I have found like many of his siblings their egos are one of their weakest points, and his above all others is very fragile.

Kicking him in the face is a good way to bruise his ego, but making his little games of cloak and god fall apart, are like hitting someone with the London Bridge after last call. But on a more serious note I was going to accept his offer, of course he’d back out of paying up so I knew I’d have to think out a way to trick him into keeping his word in some way shape or form. He would try to get the best of me, it was kind of a game between us one which he always failed to win. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun to play against him, to be fair he was a rather quick study and gifted with games and mental challenges. A good opponent to keep some of my skills sharp with, and apt pupil all the same. Though I generally avoid shattering his ego by calling him a pupil, these modern Gods can be so sensitive. And the other ones let’s not go there.

He gave me time to consider his very open and not very descriptive offer, he really should know better than that by now. Then again he could just be trying to compose himself, after all that was rather embarrassing for him. He didn’t even need to ask me to do this, but since he already offered a Godly reward, I’ll have to consider just what he’ll have to pay up this time.

On the other hand it gave me time to think about the weather, about the rain, about the situation I had observed since blowing in here. About how hopeless they were if left unaided. Sometimes you just had to do the right thing, at least what seemed like the right thing, all things being subjective as they are.

As it stood I knew only a few things at this point. They were fucked, point black fucked without help. Surrounded, outnumbered, out gunned, and out classed in pretty much every way possible. The only thing that was miraculously keeping them safe and alive were the sturdy walls of this castle, which would have not lasted the battle the other day. Most of the people here were just settlers and colonists no skill in combat and only a passable ability to point a gun and not blow their own hand off with it. It’s beyond me how they managed to survive so long with no actual combatants to aid them. Well none left alive that is. They were in sore need of an actual leader and of the few who could point a gun and not blind themselves with it, only one or two actual stood out as useful. Half the people here were children barely old enough to play with themselves let alone be of use in a fight and time as I understood it was not in their favor.

So shit to work with, shit to use, and the need to build them from the ground up. I could handle myself, exterminating pest was an unfortunate bad habit of mine. But training and teaching people to live and survive on their own, that never ends well. My record in that area is rather lopsided in favor of failure, being what I am, people tend to rely too heavily on what I can do and not on themselves. I’ll have to keep that in mind as I go forward here. Can’t leave them, and can’t let them down. I can only hope they live and learn, or take this opportunity to leave.

Corevaeus returned from his freezing cold bath, and settled into the boat before me, our history notwithstanding, he shrugged with a wicked grin. Both happy and loath to see me again. He asked the obvious question, how was I not trapped on Shi no Shima, still. To which I replied by kicking him back into the water. You see…. That’s a tale for another time.

But the cat came back wet and half drowned, sputtering apologies, which I shrugged off, not wanting to rehash old betrayals when the present ones were to be avoided. I called him out on his promise of a reward for helping, telling him point blank that I would think about while I saved these people. He told me, they weren’t his people, but he was starting to take a shine to them. By which I gathered and said that he was just hedging his bets as the people hadn’t stopped mumbling about their enemies God being here, and not too softly at that. Shock, and awe mixed together in their words only half concealed on the edges of the lake near the castle at its center.

Gailden Mousketeers were the primary force involved in this campaign of expansion. After a decade of holding out they had a number of details about their enemies, but most were held in secret by a handful of… shall we say the next worst thing to officers around here and people in charge. They shared many bits of information with me after Corevseus’s departure from the lands. Which in itself was a tension reliever for these people, he was the God of their enemy.
And now that I think about it I should have asked him about the officer that I took my new coat from, something about that bloke was not standard issue, nor his side arm… or should I say my new side arm.

Setec Astronomy, betcha can’t name the movie that comes from! Anyway, I had too many unanswered questions only adding to the list as I gained more information. Gailden Musketeers, invading, expanding their domain starting here in the north against what amounts to the weakest Scardian outpost in the world. Scardian’s without their trademark powers gifted them by their former leader recently turned War God. Which was a puzzle and a half in and of itself, as I understood it all Scardian’s and those born within its boundaries were granted these abilities. Apparently the colony wasn’t technically a part of Scardia when he become a War God. No big deal, but it would have made for better soldiers. Oh well I’ll just have to make do with what’s here.

No one here was really trained in war, combat, arms or anything useful they were farmers and small town businessmen, barbers and cooks, more fit for the support roles than combat. Of the handful who seemed capable of adapting only one or two truly wanted to rise up and be a soldier, fighting. I couldn’t blame any of them, war isn’t for the unwilling. But I had to turn some of them… hell most of them to the task for the time being, until I could find a way to get them out of here to safety or the unthinkable happens reinforcements arrive.

They made a habit of raiding by night and collecting weapons and munitions after each conflict, but they tended to lose more people than gain weapons over the years of fighting. It wasn’t a bad strategy, just not well planned. So they maintained a small stock of weapons, which they added to infrequently when the Mousketeers let down their guard.. They stayed mostly inside the castle walls, having converted a section of the courtyard into a farm, which due to their small numbers was enough to keep them feed, though they did raid food from time to time as well to increase their stock piles, water wasn’t an issue, let alone one they would have to worry about even if the lake waters were poisoned, which I was told had been done twice in the past already. Which is why they collected freshly fallen snow for their water, seeing as nature provided an abundance of it for their use.

I can’t help but laugh, Corevaeus is getting a second theme song if he irritates me too much this day. Speaking of dripping wet one, he crawled out of the water on the sly and looked carefully at my a slight grin crossing my lips as I waved him on to take his seat again. It wasn’t all betrayal and hate between us, most of it from what I’ve seen and heard since is plagiarism, but what the hell it’s a different world. Bygones and burnt bridges or water under the assholes coat or some such metaphor I don’t want to get right just yet. He was wet behind the ears, compared to me and that was that. I told him what I expected from him, and he just grinned and nodded. He owed me for what was going to happen here and of course the name dropping fee. Which would go even further to hedging his bets in this war.

What can I say sometimes you just have to do things. Despite me urge to drown Corevaeus a few more times I needed to straighten out the finer points with him and gather some information from him. Or as much as I could get out of him. Let’s be honest there would be no point in fighting to win if no one survives… oh the horrible twisted irony of it.

Crisis Rocan Thu Dec 12, 2019 12:46 am

I’ve lived in winter climates, I’ve… had some fun butt ass naked as well in a few snow banks on occasion. You know, heat of the moment and all that, but I wasn’t really growing all too fond of the weather here. And I had a bad feeling about just how long I would be staying in Santa’s little shit shack. So I pulled some strings and by that I mean blackmailed Corevaeus into putting on a public display of affection for the local nut jobs who’re unwilling to abandon their homes.

Corevaeus was almost majestic in his display of power. Now the weather isn’t exactly the specialty of the Luck God but necessity is the mother of invention, and Coervaeus is one ugly mother… on his best day. But he did his best for the sake of kissing ass, now that is Corevaeus true Godly power. All joking aside the man was a showman to his core, and when he makes a scene he makes a scene.

After regaining some of his lost prowess, the God stood once more upon the castle’s peak proclaiming loudly that he heard their prayers, and took pity on them. That he would favor them with a champion and a blessing. That even in the worst of days, the coldest of winter nights, their home, this strong castle would always remain bathed in the warmth of his favor.

I’ll admit it was a bit on the flamboyant side for speeches, but the idea was simple enough, and the effects were not so immediate that the people took notice. In the days to come they would realize his words held a double meaning, as the lands from the very edge of the castle walls including all that was contained within had begun to warm throughout. It was a miracle for the people of the castle, one that they could not ignore. Although favoring a new God with their prayers and worship was not their intention, he had earned a place in their hearts for favoring them with a response. Time would add more than just a grateful respect, for him. But in this moment the people were simply grateful that a War God had answered their desperate prayers of the last decade.

I was indifferent about the whole topic but at least it is a start and a way to motivate those few who I marked out as potential fighters. A sparse dozen were fit to learn real combat skills, and mostly those were hand to hand, but they were all capable enough with a gun in hand. These twelve had been the leaders so far, the ones who lead up until this point. Each was glad to hand over the reins of this war to a more capable leader. And since a War God proclaimed me as his champion the choice was unanimous. I’m still bitter about that frankly.

My actions had bought a reprieve from battle so I gave instructions to the twelve to begin training both themselves and those who wished to fight. A number I heard increased after Corevaeus’s proclamation, and blessing. The grounds inside the castle remained a pleasant temperature if not comfortable so long as the winds weren’t blowing. You’d be surprised just how much a little heat can lift the spirits of the damned. I was and pleasantly at that.

Recon. That was my goal when I left the castle. All around the castle within walking distance were destroyed winter farms and small villages, dotting everything that was the northern Scardian colony. Some were very close, close enough to be of use were the castle not under constant threat, further out in all directions from the castle were more farmsteads and small communities that had been wiped out of existence. It would be work which I doubted I had time to accomplish before more Musketeers would come. Beyond the wall of broken homes…

Yup there goes the internal sound track all over again flipping on an ironically named song. These were the broken homes of the people I had given my word to protect and defend, to fight for until this war came to an end. I could see this place as it would be in the future, many generations from now, a place where people came to train and live, and learn the lifestyle of the area. But in the here and now it was ice and dust, snowflakes and destruction all rolled into a snow-covered ghost town.

I needed to move the battlefield away from the castle and this ghost town would make a very nice wall to put my back against and defend those who had desperately placed their trust in a stranger that was stronger than they were. I was going to put this ghost town back into working order, or at least some semblance of an outlying defensive structure. That required time, time I didn’t really have to spare just yet. I pushed further out to the East the lands were mostly barren and uninhabited by civilized people, a few scattered settlers ho avoided all the conflicts of the war so far. They seemed interested in trade and safety if it could be provided, but until they could be guaranteed they were not reliable allies, but hey neither wanted to be enemies as they would have to deal with whichever side came out victorious. The South was much the same until the cost and so there would be little threat from that quarter, and the north.

Well let me just say that in the north resided a population of the far more dangerous variety. But they seemed content to watch for the most part without being seen. They would not be allies even if they had agreed to it, their help would come at a price far too high. And a body count equally so. Which left the west, to which I traveled last as I had a fair guess it would be the direction from which they came. After all the other directions were without a doubt not the source of the Mousketeers.

A part of me knew this to be the future home of Izhevesk, something akin to Russia from the Earth of my Ripper and Greco-Roman days, among other time periods. The accents were a bit on the thick side, for many of the people here, and the invaders weren’t too different after ten years or so of warfare and bloodshed. Let me expand on this for a bit. I slipped into their camp. Calling it a camp is a bit of an unfair description, as they had erracted a full blown city some miles away. A distance I’m sure they believed was just as much for their protection as anything else. It was a slightly warmer area closer to the ocean and a better location for provisioning an army than the castle of Asmirnov which I was honor bound to defend.

I’ll be honest, I thought about leveling the city as I approached, wiping from the face of the planet but I could feel the lives of the people young and old alike teeming even before laying eyes upon their city walls. I crossed the winter plains well beyond the city, seeking their port town first. I saw nothing hinting at other troops being sent out so I had time to pursue the knowledge of my enemies for a time. Southwest of the main city was a port town and a well cleared trail, almost a road with a high degree of maintenance and care given to it. This I steered clear of to avoid my presence being noted by the local invaders. Making my way to the docks of the port and mixing in with a trading vessels crew which had come into the harbor as I approached. Though I don’t often do it, I forced my body to shift form and shape. Drifting across the air currents to the rigging of the vessel, seamlessly blending into the ships accompaniment, only leaving the impression of having been a part of the crew in their minds to avoid questions and hassle.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Crisis22

I was once again the physical brute I had lived as committing acts of aggression and piracy across the seas of another world. The pirate Hakaan, who had traveled in search of that which had been stolen from him, and his life shattered once again. The very same Hakaan I had been when I found my way onto the very distant islands of Galiavan for the first of many times. A name I thought to abandon after having succeeded in regaining after a fashion what had been stolen for a lifetime.

Hakaan the sailor, Hakaan the pirate, Hakaan the unconquerable strode down the gangway along with the rest of the crew no one the wiser for his deception least of all the crew that went before and after on his descent. I was just another sailor taking a port call, and giving the harbor port the thrice over. Standard fair as far as ports go and I’d seen my fair share over the lifetimes I’d lived. Hawkers lined the docks and streets leading into town, while more established shops were setup with out of the weather buildings to make for more comfortable shopping, selling, and trading conditions followed. This was the business district, or at least the trade district for the port.

At this point a winter storm hit leaving the harbor frozen over, water, ships and all. Some crews and ships had tanken heavy hits in the storm that came that night. The harbor was frozen solid ships, people water a like, this was worse than being becalmed. There wouldn’t be anyone leaving via the ocean for a good long while, nor would there be any fresh troops for the foreseeable future. I had a good feeling about this natural disaster

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Mouske10

Fortune was favoring me… there ain’t no way in hell frozen over fucked on the side of an out of control roller coaster free falling into a concrete parking lot that I’m giving any credit to Corevaeus for this coincidence

Crisis Rocan Fri Dec 13, 2019 1:42 am

Mark my words sightseeing in enemy territory sucks ass. Major blizzardy snowjob, blowstorm, ass...

Yeah that didn’t come out right. Fuck it, what difference does it make. So I was Hakaan myself around the port town seeing what I could find out about the lay of the land and enemy forces so on and so suck. What I’m working a bad metaphor phase right now, so if you don’t like it find a glow stick and glowfuck yourself… nope that sounds all shiny and freaky too…

And anyone who tries that might need therapy or a dark room to see how it turns… out.

Bad metaphors and sick glow stick jokes aside the port harbor was basic in nature to all ports everywhere. As I mentioned before you had the wharf district with the docks and immediate shop stalls just off the wharfs of the harbor. Further in you found proper store fronts all brick and mortar like, set up for the more respectable kinds of business and the larger scale commerce that poured into the port on a regular basis. At least when the ocean and harbor weren’t frozen over. Somewhere between this district and the upper district both business and residential was where I found myself for a time.

To begin with the whole harbor town was in an uproar what with the harbor and ships freezing over, something I think might have been a backlash from Corevaeus’s tampering with the temperature of the castle. Maybe, maybe not, who knows. I was counting it in my favor, it cut off reinforcements and escape for my enemies, that’s a win in my book today. There really wasn’t much else to consider in the harbor town, save that it held a good amount of the local mouseketeers in reserve. A standing company of three to four thousand men at arms, gunmen mostly, and from what I could tell, they weren’t bad marksmen or unseasoned soldiers. Not a good sign by any means, but having them stationed here meant they were the reserve force and with this weather probably the only reinforcements the main city would have for a good long while. Oceans don’t freeze over easily, and thawing them out was an even longer process. It was time I could use to my advantage regardless of the outcome of the rest of this recon mission.

The main city was a fortified town, walls on all four sides and a fair amount of open farmland on the inside of the walls. They were siege ready the port town wasn’t as big of a supply depot as I had hoped it would be. But they would take a heavy hit, and having to help support the port during this natural disaster was another boon. It would give me time to organize and maybe with a little luck and some other underhanded shit buy those people enough time to fortify their home better.

We would need building materials to use, that meant trees and probably solid rocks. But I had a feeling the rocks would be few and far between. I needed to do a better survey of the ghost towns that remained and the lay of the land between them for materials and other resources, once I finished with the city. The numbers were about six or seven thousand strong in the city, giving a rough total of ten thousand. Numbers that should have been able to easily crush the castle yet for some reason they had not simply overwhelmed them from the start. I wondered why, it seemed the obvious approach, and for some reason they hadn’t used it yet. It was a question I already had the answer too but it was escaping me while I surveyed the city and the Mouseketeers. On the one hand it looked like a cage to keep them in on the other it was a cage to keep others out.

I bottled my rage for the time being, War was something I did, to me it was Natural…

On the way back to the castle I came upon a sight had not expected to see, a blue haired girl fangs deep in the throat of a horse and rider heading toward the castle. Blood everywhere, death fresh in the air. She fed and fed without thought a girl so young, and yet so cold, blood pierced eyes and an endless hunger for the blood of the living on the brink of death. A vampire girl, a blooming flower in the frozen north, who seemed a pale shadow of the life she could have had.

The messenger stirred a blade in his hand thrusting in desperation trying to save his life from the hungry jaws of death which embraced him. Piercing a shriek rang out from the girl as I came near, his blade tearing through her cheek and mouth striking out through her throat on the opposite side of where it had entered. Pain flared in her life as she shrieked a blood curdling scream. I didn’t think I simply reacted snapping his neck without a second thought.

My internal sound track had begun playing Natural on repeat on and off as I began to wage war against the Musketeers. A heart of stone, I broke his neck twice in both directions for good measure and tossed him aside before he could bear his weight onto the bayonet in the girls face and throat. He was my enemy and mercy was not for my enemies. His body crumpled without life when it landed as though a beast of great strength had man-handled him. I suppose you could say one had, and with the Vampire population in the northern woods an obvious conclusion would be drawn… an obvious conclusion indeed.

The girl was a different matter altogether, calming her was not so easy, and removing the bayonet less so as she was scared, hurt, and enraged all at once. But you could say I have a natural way with Vampires, and their kind. She soon enough allowed me to tend to her wound and treat her, she wasn’t much of a talker, but I decided to dub her my little Shadow Lily, for the time being as I escorted her home. I had plans forming in my head, but I needed to remove this child from the battlefield before going to war for real. It was no place for her or her kind, I knew the outcome of the Vampires getting involved in a war and it was not an entirely pleasant or welcomed thought.

With my little Shadow Lily safely off the frontlines and on her way back to her people. I had to move quickly. The messenger needed to be left where he was, that was as good of a warning as I could have done myself to send the Mouseketeers back into their walled city with their tails cowering between their legs. I needed to buy more time, a lot more time. I returned to the castle gathering those who could fight and arming them, to guard those who just plained sucked ass at warfare.

Now before I get along any further I have to say the guns of this era blow major floppy donkey… well you get the picture, and if you don’t just try I dare you to picture the next word that comes to mind in that phrase…

Go ahead take a moment, I’ve got the time for it…

The weapons were a mismatch of everything that had been gathered and collected and used and abused by the Musketeers and the defenders my sad collection of Russia like people, let’s just call them Ivanete’s, in fact I started to on a regular basis, they didn’t seem to mind. Of course none of them got the joke, so it was only natural for them to not object to the nickname. The weapons were horrible at best and barely functional for the standards I had regarding firearms. I spent a good amount of time picking through the arsenal and sorting or the good from the bad from the what the fuck were they thinking when they designed this piece of shit guns. Anything that was useless became scrap, I made them even more functionally useless and instructed my limited number of fighters to do the same when they brought in new weapons going forward. They kept and stocked the good guns, and the rest were set aside for my personal inspection and decision on their fate. Ammo on the other had was kept, good bad, useless or useful with the guns I chose to keep, we kept it all, stored safely in the castle dungeon. I had plans for the gunpowder and shell casing of the useless ammo we had plenty of, in fact the good weapons and ammo did not amount to nearly as much as we would need, and they had a great need for practise.

It was war, but we couldn’t afford to waste anything, neither time and practise nor ammo for quality weapons. On the bright side we had plenty shit ammo to spare, and a few guns that were just that much on the side of shit I wouldn’t allow them to be used during our war time. Good for practise but not actual combat, a stroke of luck, but a very unfortunate one. Practise would be the only way to make up for those weapons and that was exactly what they were going to be used for. It would also serve well as a test to see which of the fighters were best suited for guns and which were not.

I took every abled body and brought them to the ghost town to the west. I gave them my instructions dig a trench deep enough a man could not climb out on his own, and wide enough a man would fail to jump across it. Then I told them to make it as long as the next town over to their farthest edges. Days, perhaps weeks or months would be required to finish and I knew exactly what I was going to have to do to buy that much time and more. Before I set about this task took the remained of the Ivanete’s good strong folk with a fw pack horses and put them to work cutting down trees from the edge of the northern forest. Instructing them very clearly not to enter the forest but to only removes trees from the edge never going more than a single tree deep within at a time. With the Ivanete’s hard at work I set off for the walled city of the Mouseketeers, I had one last card to play as I waited for them to find their missing messenger.

They found him, and raced back almost leaving his mutilated corpse behind. The closed their gates, locked their doors and shut out their allies and comrades of the harbor port. They were fucking errifed of the vampire threat which might swoop down upon them… and I heard this playing on my internal sound track

I was feeling dark as night and they had a war coming they couldn’t win no matter how “superior” their numbers were.

Creeping through the darkness hoping over their city fortifications like only a Vampire could I stalked their streets for two weeks straight, dragging soldiers from their homes, leaving them strung up and dead, blood dripping from major arteries smeared on walls and trails of blood from their bodies being dragged through the streets in the middle of the night. Their screams echoing throughout the otherwise eerily quiet city.

I preyed upon them and their fear of a war with the Vampires, for nearly a month, always leaving to check up on the work of my Ivanete’s and keep them encouraged and on task. Fear is a weapon that can be used to great effect, but must not be over used, because their comes a point when people stop being afraid and act out of desperation instead. I gave them some nights off and others I double my efforts making them always leery of the numbers and other unknowns of their most fear advisory. My final strike was the head of their encampment, and I did it in the most Earthly traditional of vampire fashions… I Vlad the Impaler’ed his ass on a fucking pike at the top of their battlements well out of reach of their tallest ladder. I wanted them in panic and fear even after I walked away to finish my fortification for the war.

Crisis Rocan Thu Dec 19, 2019 12:47 am

They had plenty of time to dig the trench and more, my instructions had changed over time, the dirt became a wall several yards back away from the trench in order to accommodate a garden of my own design. A wall which we stood upon as the most daring of the Musketeers had ventured out boldly to strike and end their Northern campaign as quickly as possible. And be done with the vampire horde and it’s nighttime hunting, two enemies were too much to contend with. So they set out for the easier target to exterminate them with extreme prejudice but what they found was not what they had expected.

My internal sound track was blaring a nice little bit of irony. For the scene playing out before the most capable of my fighters, the gunmen to be exact.
we fired away with impunity at the Musketeers as they retreated from the sight of us upon our wall, behind our garden and nearly impassable trench.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Asmirn12

Crisis Rocan Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:13 pm

It should go without saying but the Musketeers, were keeping their distance for the time being. Patrols came but a little bit of gun fire was enough to discourage any further advance or attempts to advance on the castle for a while. They were in fear of the “Vampires”, a rather inspired bit of work on my part if I do say so myself… and I am of course. But I needed to accomplish more than just a makeshift wall of dirt rocks and ice, lumber became the next big thing. We had already begun the work but there were still three more sides to the area surrounding the castle and the former towns and villages weren’t enough on their own. Rebuilding began, but not the towns in the general sense. They became the foundation for the walls cornerstones and foundation to build off of without having to remove too much, or letting any of the materials go to waste. Slowly the Ivanete’s built a wall higher and more effective than the front porch as it were which had its garden to keep the Mouseketeers at bay while they worked. To the South and west of the castle the work started, and progressed to give a better barrier, while day and night the Ivanete’s alternated between work sleep and training. Their war was far from over, anyone with experience could tell you that.

While we labored away to improve the local defensive line and skills of the Ivanete’s in both war and construction, the Mouseketeers were busy as well. I made trips to keep tabs on them, and continue harassing them by night to encourage their Vampire phobia. But still they progressed once the harbor thawed. They sent word back to their homeland and had word return, to hold their current position. New leadership and more troops were being rallied for the fight in the North.

1568 The news of reinforcements reaches the Gailden Musketeers stationed in the fortress city. But mother nature went on her period for two years and kept the harbor frozen over. Scardian envoy arrives coming from the south of the Castle of the Ivanete’s escorted by Fortasian forces, who would later become the modern day Fenirans. This aid is not nearly enough to make a big impact on the colony, but it is significant in more ways than one. The Southern wall is made with a gate and moat system to allow future envoys and reinforcements into the area of the colony. Heavily reinforced to ensure breaching is not likely to happen. Each of the three drawbridges of the gate were built in such a way as to be lowered from the inside of the walls, only. First the moat around the main wall to prevent the scaling of the walls followed by a tunnel again surrounded by moats too deep to climb out of. Gate drawbridge, lowered from inside of the tunnel over a deep moat, followed by a second small island inside the gate tunnel, wide enough to let two small vehicles pass in close proximity to one another only. Followed by a third drawbridge lowered from the mainland and the exit to the gate tunnel. The walls of the tunnel go to the bottom of the moat to prevent circumventing the gateway tunnel, while maintaining the moat defense on both sides of the great wall.

Upon completion of the gate tunnel of the Southern wall in 1569 the rest of the basic structure of the wall was hurried along. More importantly this created a trade route and influx of new blood for the Colony. Leaving the colony was out of the question, Scardia wished to maintain its presence and leaving was to be considered treason. So aid was sent during the time of the construction primarily food and resources to help maintain the colony and improve its condition. A small contingent of soldiers of varying skills were sent to fortify the Colony and help it survive the meager Galiden invasion. As it had survived for 11 years without mainland Scardia to rely on it was deemed unnecessary to send a greater amount of aid at this time.

Needless to say I pissed on that message sent to the long dead leader of the Colony whose name wasn’t even worth mentioning in the message to the Colonist. Fucking diplomats. Well send a patrol and some snickers, hang tough kiddos. Great message, no wonder the Ivanete’s were on the shit end of this fight when I blow into town.

Oh but wait there’s more and it gets good. You see the Scardian Empire... All hail Emperor Palpatine decided to sent a new leader of the pack, with; and I quote from the piss soaked message full diplomatic authority and privileges to act in Scardia’s best interest. In case that wasn’t clear it means my status as de facto ass kicker and all round general keeper of the people’s lives was no longer a fact, but an “umm nope, the Scardia military will handle that from here on out” kind of thing. I let that slide, these guys were fresh off the boat and new to the fuckery of the Colony and its long ass drawn out war. Hey besides it wasn’t my problem to begin with. Fuck it let them fight the Mouseketeers I have.. I have.. Shit I have nothing to do really so it’s all theirs I’m going to catch up on my sleep, some. Of course they halted all construction on the wall calling it an unnecessary waste of time, and focused instead on arresting me and preparing to hang me as a peace offering to buy more time against the Gailden Musketeers… Apparently head military mutt didn’t approve of my methods… or for that matter my garden of piked Mouseketeers. Everyone's a critic!

So under house arrest I took a nap, turns out I sleep a lot when people want to kill me for doing a good job. You know how you can tell who’s guilty in jail… well it’s not the guy sleeping he’s fucking tired as hell dumb ass.

Anyway the way I see it I was on a temporary vacation from the war, there was no way I would be out of action for long. The Musketeers were hell bent on taking the Colony for some reason, and these green ass soldiers were in for a rude awakening. My tactic were brutal but they made the message clear come at us and die, horribly and be used as a warning against further aggression. Two and a half years of almost peace with only minor skirmishes with the enemy. And now I could see bad things happening all over again, these people weren’t thinking of keeping the advantage they wanted to talk them down and buy time for the motherland to solve the situation. And yet it was crystal clear to everyone who lived here that was never going to happen for some reason they wanted this colony and were not going to give it up no matter the cost. It was a fine wine of hate and desire slow aged over greed and tenacity, bad combo. Hell it wasn’t even on the dollar menu of craven bastard delights.

So where was I oh right asleep, but as the movie title went, while you were sleeping things happened. Like the new military command slash dictator to the colony got her ass beat by the Musketeers, and was sent running back over my fortifications while my Ivanete’s protected her and her soldiers asses. Don’t get me wrong, she had a great idea… not! Offer me up as a sacrifice for a temporary peace.. Which we already had in spades thanks to my garden.

Let’s set this movie into motion shall we, or is a talkie I’m not sure give me a minute to sound it out with a beat… Ok here’s some irony.

She really was asking for it. First she executive ordered my ass out of action, ok not my war anyway and I didn’t mind the short break… It was going to be short. Second she ordered my arrest, bad move the colonists depended on my leadership and battle prowess. Third she didn’t even look at the status quo before making her decisions. Just comes in throwing her political weight around as the representative of Scardia. Point in her favor proactive, not too bright but then again when is management bright and intelligent from the start. Maybe it was just a woman in power thing I don’t know, I try to steer clear of politics and the whole equality thing. Fact is you either are or you aren’t and one hundred times out of ninety-nine somebody is pushing the issue to be treated special, not equal. So Gun-ho Barbie was only half unexpected once things started moving to her broken ass beat.

Where was I Third throwing her weight around. A try hard attitude with military muscle behind her. This chick was a sword toting lunatic. Skin tight armor that was a bit too advanced from what I’d seen of their enemies to even be wearing, and they were on the hi-tech side of this war. It was a sleeveless number as well, someone had spent a pretty penny to get armor that thin and flexible in this time period and I know Toefor didn’t make it, there was something not quite right about it. To be honest the main piece was more of a one piece swimsuit then actual armor. But it had a certain kind of strength to it, her legs and left arm were covered in more traditional styled armor. Almost like gauntlets designed for flexibility and movement The armor had many gaps, but the main parts were black plate armor with red styled designs all over them. It screamed I’m a woman but I need to be fashionable and functional, not a walking can of beans.

Her swords were every bit as much of a beast as was her attitude, especially toward me.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Gunsli11

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Gunsli12

They had names I’m sure, I liked to call them too and fro, a bit of overcompensating on her part I’m certain for the fact that her dick wasn’t big enough to make her a man. And no as far as I could tell she was all woman, thus the extreme penis envy and overcompensation with to monster swords that could easily have been toothpicks for giants. I had a feeling she had tried to wield them both at the same time., to prove just how deserving she was of her position and power. Like I said penis envy, lots of penis envy, which probably goes a long way to explain why she was such a swinging dick with her authority and god complex regarding being in charge of this backwater colony now.

So she locked me up, took charge and demanded we try to reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The “conflict” that a half years of tension and preparation. All put on hold because of this power hungry ass hat. Well she was cute, and I don’t often have a problem with taking orders from a cute woman from time to time. She sent her own Scardian troops to negotiate with the fortress city and the Gailden Musketeers. Probably the only reason they came back alive to be honest was that then went in force. Now sure four dozen soldiers doesn’t amount to much when your enemy has two full cities of soldiers and civies, but when you didn’t know they existed it had strategic value. The Ivanete’s knew I could escape at any time, they had seen enough of my battlefield exploits to realize I was letting madam stick up her ass play the powerful leader for a reason. If they knew what I had in mind; I don’t think they would have followed her orders so willingly. Plus it’s hard to not feel a certain bit of nationalism when your homeland sends reinforcements and new leadership. You just… should never get between a patriot and their country unless absolutely necessary. So I chose to let this farce play out for all it was worth.

It was mostly bullshit and bravado on her part as I was pretty certain Scardia had no intention of sending any more forces to the colony unless it became an absolute need to situation. She had fifty men at arms at her disposal including herself and her second-in-command. And the Gailden Musketeers were fighting with them worldwide from what I had learned from the Ivanete’s of the colony.

Picture this fifty Scardia regulars march up on your doorstep, a bit disgruntled because they had to waltz through my garden of piked Mousketeers first. Unexpectedly you now have proper soldiers staring at your fortress walks demanding a meeting with your fortress cities leader. How do you respond? Gun fire and wholesale slaughter of the smaller force? No, no can’t do that, there might be more repercussions from the colonist leader, who has you pinned inside your city walls by day, and vampire fear by night. So maybe you tell them to go fornicate themselves and ignore any actions they might take in response? No that’s not a good response either. So let me tell you exactly what I saw coming…

First of all blitzarella was going to announce that she was in charge and the man responsible for the atrocities was under house arrest. Under restraint and confinement, so there would be no further aggression or acts of butchery going forward. Second, she was going to make a peace offering, most likely which would include my untimely and ironically pointless murder… so much for no further actions of aggression or butchery. Third she would propose a permanent ceasefire.

Now all three of these conditions the Mouseketeers would agree to after all they would be in their favor and they would have no true intention of following numbers two or three when the situation turned to their favor, more specifically my inevitable peace offering of a death. At which point She would have her unit destroyed to a man because the Gailden Musketeers were hell bent on taking the Colony; lie, cheat, steal, by any means necessary they were going to take the land. She was in for a rude awakening, and frankly it was them or me doing the killing of her and her men…. Frankly I could use what was left over, if any of them survived. Her escort of Fortasians left her at the gates of our wall, and left in a slightly shocked silence, last time they came through there was no wall. Does that tell you how well they keep tabs on the colony, both Scardia and her allies? Pretty sad really. Insert ironic internal soundtrack, track change.

She was headstrong and it was going to bite her hard. Follow up agreeing, they arranged for my public execution… so whips and chains and silly little girls playing war games. I couldn’t help but wonder as they marched me along whether or not this would knock off one of my top ten… See the troglodyte history and demise for further details, I’m not thinking about those if I can avoid it, that never goes well. But feel free to reminisce real quick before I suffer a fate far from being short of spot on that list.

I was standing on my porch overlooking the garden of Mouseketeer sickles… What my humor isn’t black, you racist bastards, when I got to see the whole garrison march out to meet the Scardian platoon. Yeah cause that does reek of bullshit and massacre on the drop of a broken neck… mine. Can she really be tis fucking dumb! Wait for it!

I gave here one last chance though before the garrison of Gailden Mousketeers came into range of hearing my words to her. I gave her a simple offer, let me go and I would settle this without her losing face, or losing her men. She seemed to think I was just desperate for a chance to flee. Chains, ball and, you know the whole ninety pound pack of shackles and bolts and balls to go. Oh yeah I was carrying ever spare chain they could find. Apparently she realized halfway through confinement of me that I was a lot stronger than she had assumed was humanly possible. Mores the shame on her for being willfully ignorant of what she couldn’t know.

Anyways as I was high stepping it to the dragging iron of my chains, I shook off the approach of a number of my Ivanete’s who didn’t wish to see my death, and would have fought the Scardian’s after all I had done for them if I hadn’t. Like I said I was looking ahead beyond this near classic blunder, which I’m sure ranks right up there under getting into a bet with Sicilians when death is on the line. Just a little less known then that I’m sure. I dropped my chains when I reached the earthen mound of my porch and the garden of my front yard, after all I had to show some defiance, or they wouldn’t believe this farce was genuine, frankly I didn’t want to do it, but she had my balls in a vice so to speak. I mean come on if I didn’t let her do it she would be a royal bitch and a titanic sized thorn in my ass every step of the way…

So I’m letting her fail miserably for being an idiot. Well to be fair I did give her that final warning about letting me handle it, but I knew her ego was bigger than her penis… envy. I had time, she had time and the garrison was marching toward us in time… but is it a garish garrison… no probably not.

Lights, camera, why is there a gallows made out of my pretty Mouseketeers pikes, without their Mouseketeers on them. She’s going to hang me, well it could be worse, she could have offered to sex me to death, god knows how long that would have taken her to kill me with her pleasure. Yeah I think it’s been too long, a couple of years of bloodshed, and not a single bedshed shackup moment in the mix… too long!

Done... Done… Done... done done… done… Imperial march much. Oh boy this is starting to go the way of Star Wars, from fade to worse… What? JJ Abrams blow it, and I mean like Hiroshima and Nagasaki meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy kind of blow it. But I digress, noose no noose is good noose…. So I have no good noose..

HEY ABOTTT!

I really hate that guy...

Talk about gallows humor, well at least I’ll be well hung for first time since I got here. I’m sorry that was in bad taste, I should have said, she’ll make well hung even if it kills me. Yup I’m pretty much down to dick and fart jokes at this point to keep from facing the long march to the top. Oh, by the by; I don’t think they know about the whole thirteen steps to the top thing, after all they wanted to make sure my neck snapped clean in one bounce. And I’m pretty sure they ruined my trench with the bodies they removed from my pike garden to make a nice neat little path for the enemy to march over the Ivanete’s hard work of a wall. Stupid girl, she made a bridge for them to cross over an invade our land. I mean sure it’s ironical that it’s a bridge of their own people’s corpses but still Stupid girl.

Why do I find myself in situations like this all the time. Here I stand head in hand… ok bad lyrics to use. But seriously I’m standing here looking out over the enemy and the idiots in charge now of the allies I had saved and nurtured into a decent if not competent fighting force and it could all go to shit if I was just one of them

I glance at her one last time as she stood behind me now on the gallows, preparing to babble out some bullshit about peace and my death paving the way for it. I gave her a look and spoke crystal clearly for her lone to her… “Are you really that fucking stupid, their going tooooooooo ahhhhh.” SNAP… Well you can really say anything after your neck breaks and you die instantaneously. Well that’s what it was supposed to look like, in fact that’s exactly what it felt like. Yes I’ve done that before, see previously mentioned list cliff notes version in which I say those are the ones I hate the most, not the only ways I’ve died. BUT…. as with all things poetic and ironic that’s not how history and Commandant Crouch are going to recall this event.

Well that went according to plan…

Yup…

Yup…

Planned on dying at least once to save her sorry ass. I’d bang my head against something out of frustration but I”M HANGING FROM A NOOSE WITH A FUCKING BROKEN NECK…

It could take a few minutes to get down and find a nice solid wall to bash my head against. Stupid girl. Thank god I can plan my own death into a battle plan…

Yeah that’s just terrible and fucking wrong on so many levels. The Duke would never put up with shit like this, but that’s a different kind of True Grit as opposed to the one that I was showing now. Later after the fallout of this fiasco she would take my joke about showing True Grit and use it as a name for the ability I had used… Gunslinger skill True Grit…. Use your own bad announcers voice when saying that. Carry on, carry on I’ll wait.

Done yet.... Alright another three and a half minutes to use your announcers voice and laugh about it.

I’ll wait I’m patient, and frankly it does take a little time for the body to heal when I’m not pushing it to heal in a heartbeats worth of time. But of course I really didn’t have a plan b, nor could I afford a different approach she would never accept my way of doing things without first losing just about everything, starting with control of this situation. The loss of her world, was the only way I could see her letting go of her giant massive…. No I’m not going to say the obvious dick joke here, see I let you do that for me.

By the time I opened my eyes everything had gone to shit for the Scardians. Outnumbered easily twenty or thirty to one not counting the guns and rate of fire, or the trench coat wearing lunatic leading the group with near perfect aim and accuracy cutting down her men systematically first by injuries shooting through there numbers to limits their movements. Than aiming for the ones that could still move who had managed to survive the first wave of the assault unscyathed. These were not foot soldiers rather well trained marksmen following a very strict battle plan. Systematic destruction of an enemy force with cruel efficient suppression fire. Magic, super strength, and the Stay-Puft Marshmallowman wasn’t going to be enough to save their asses here. But if she was going to change, to grow, to become stronger and smarter she had to lose her and lose badly everything including her pride and faith in her own strength. But in her favor that was not going to be a quick end.

She had moved with good reflex as her men were being bombarded by gun fire, her two swords flashed into her hands. Diving from the top of the gallows her blades would have meant death from above, had there been an opponent before her descent. Yet she hit the ground running driving the gun fire toward her, and her swords cut through the gunfire blocking bullets left, right, and center as though she could see the direction the bullets had been coming from

Crisis Rocan Mon Feb 03, 2020 11:52 pm

Wait, wait, wait a minute, let’s rewind for a moment… AHH FUCK SNAP! Yup that’s going to take a little while to get over, broken necks are a little hard to just come together over and move on from. I could be a bit here hanging with a broken neck and death sight. I’ll be honest it sucks, outright black hole sucks, and I speak from experience on that topic.

Regardless; it’s during moments like these teetering between this life and the next as it were that my clarity increases. I was familiar with the Gunslingers, what they would become in the future, and some of their so called special skills. The traits by which they earned their reputation, and rewards. So while I watched her rampage toward the enemy trying to be a human shield I noticed how she was almost able to perceive the bullets being shot at her, how if she would just slow down and think a little she would be able to reach the Gunslinger skill Dead Eye. Although I wondered how some of those skills earned their remarkable odd names I found this one to be worth the time to study in its infancy. If she survived I would make use of her and develop the ability in those of the Ivantete’s who could learn it. Frankly Dead Eye was a valuable skill to try and pass on to these folk.

So it’s approximately mid winter in the Year of our War 1570. Of course it’s always winter here give or take a warm spell, but still nuts like turtle cold… Shelled said with exaggerated exasperation at having to explain the bad English humour like pun of a joke. What I bat-shit… not crazy, explosive like gunpowder. Ok fair enough you need more than processed bat shit to make gunpowder, still the point is valid… whatever it was supposed to be.

So broken neck, kind of dead, in the middle of healing it, watching Madam Dictator fight for her life trying to save as many of her men as possible. Swinging her swords around like human shields, human sized shields I mean. Hey they’re big enough to play the part though. I could see a lot of redeeming qualities watch her through my true sight.

My true sight. It’s something like omnipotence, being able to observe the world in its entirety without a filter. Picture if you can, standing in the middle of a battlefield and seeing ever person on it. Seeing how they move, the ways in which they dance around one another trying to fight and kill, seeing the chinks in their armor, the bloodstains and smears on every inch of metal and clothes. Than imagine seeing the rise and fall of every living beings lungs through the movement of their skin and apparel being able to count every breath and every space in between for each. Imagine that; and you will have seen the sight I have often enough granted until a select few in times of great need, but that is only the beginning of what I can perceive when I look this way upon existence.

Ok I know I’m an asshole, but my internal soundtrack has a mind of its own, and an attitude twice as contrary as my mine. Cause this is what was blaring in my head while I was dandling by my fractured spinal column.

Right cynical much. Me thinketh it protesteth in odd frightening fucking ways. Despite my ironic soundtrack humming in my head, talking about love, but truly playing for the hanging I was doing, I was observing the wars latest front. She wasn’t pressing any kind of advantage, she had all she could do to keep herself from being hit while trying to cover her men’s retreat back across the graveyard bridge and up the incline of my porch mound. And that wasn’t going so well either fifty minus injured and dead versus the entire garrison, and going uphill was a death sentence for her men if they tried. She was stuck, truly corned but not ready to give up yet. She still had fight in her loins…

What a terrible rapist sounding statement that is! Seriously bad vibes from loin statements not about the pork kind. But as long as she has fight in her, she won’t stop or feel her own true powerlessness. She won’t grow as a leader or a person. Frankly I knew she needed to grow, clearly she was capable or they wouldn’t have put her in charge but these people clearly didn’t understand how to groom leaders or us talent properly.

She would have to unlearn a lot of what she knew to be right and wrong. So brutal but necessary if she wished to grow. And this was lesson one, you are not all powerful and there are situations which you cannot handle without help. Darth Vader is a pansy who needs help, plain and simple. Bad ass or not, you can’t do it all on your own all of the time. Cold like a corpse was how this had to be handled… like my hanging broken necky corpse.

See clean segue back to my noose of a problem. My eyes were rolling in my head, but that wasn’t death throes, I was trying to get a better view with my own eyes. Despite my true sight being able to see the world in the most basic and primal of ways, there was a certain satisfaction in seeing with one's own eyes. And what I saw was the slow breaking of a proud general, losing everything she held as irrefutable. Dadant dadant… JAWS!

Ok moving on, or rather standing still not being able to retreat any further and not being able to advance to attack the enemy before her, she had one choice, stand and weather the storm. The hailstorm of gun fire had slowed, the shots were no longer at will and semi random, rather particular and chosen for the exposed advantageous shots, and of course to keep them penned in with their backs to a hill they can’t risk to climb or the remainder of my horrid garden of piked Mouseketeers. Nope not yet, still not desperate and willing to concede her loss, or the need for help to salvage this fight… but on a good note, I can wiggle my toes now.

Sadly for her, and for myself there was no plan B. It had to happen this way or she would never accept help and everyone would die here this colony would cease to exist in short order.

I closed my eyes and let the wind which blew sway my limp body for a while, as I listened to the fear creep into her men at first, and then slowly the realization that she would die here and now without doing anything but leading her men to their deaths set in. Of course her stubborn mulishness kicked in trying to quiet that logical conclusion and she ordered her men to squeeze in as close as possible as she prepared to do the impossible. And when I say something is impossible I don’t mean unlikely or untried. I mean gods couldn’t change this situation you’re fucked impossible give up move on or die in futility trying to change it.

I’ll give her that much she bolted forward taking to the grave bridge, meeting the advancing Musketeers as they fired on her time and time again, using an almost British like line formation for firing their god awful antique guns… top of the line here by the by but old as shit compared to some of the worlds I’d passed through, lived and died on, so on and so forth. Those blades larger than her own body in length, and width when paired together were a force to be reckoned with. Pure brute force, something I was familiar with being the unstoppable force I could choose to be. She was humanly impressive, and I don’t think that even took into consideration her Scardian heritage which was only a recent addition to the Scardian people.

When Scar’d became a Wargod in 1557, two things of note happened, number one The Gailden Mouseketeers, more specifically the secret organization which ran the country from the shadows, the Forerunners, took the opportunity to claim they had killed Scar’d with their cough newly made guns. Talk about a bs advertising campaign. And as a direct result of his ascension the Scardian people gained what would become commonly known as Scardian Traits years to come yet in the future. But this wasn’t some overnight success story these were powers his people had no idea about, or even how to handle or what to do about them. Just imagine waking up randomly one day as a weird cocktail of wolverine, with an iceman flavored healing factor and the hulks strength, with just a touch of Quicksilver. And for you DC fans out there, imagine a bastard cocktail of The flash on drugs downers, Martian Manhunter with killer frost flavored healing power, and the Boy Blunders aerial flexibility, I mean Boy Wonders agility…

…

…

…

And for you Dark Horse Comic fans, what isn’t everybody. It’s pretty much Hellboy with a Katara ice bending slurpy healing factor mixed in. And for you fans of other comic book companies go google your own mixed slush combos up yourselves. I’m too lazy to do it.

So superhero cocktails, Scardian people. You wake up to being faster, stronger, icicle healing powers, and a jacked up ability to do back flips and one handed cartwheels off of a cliff. That takes some time getting used to. I can only imagine how that went. Go to bed one night wake up the next morning tripping over your feet smashing through your house walls, ripping your front door of its hinges and crushing your favorite sippy coffee mug with that first morning brew which you drank flaming hot, all over yourself. Yeah I can imagine those first few years were a lot of reconstruction and adaption. Probably even a lot of accidental deaths too. I mean it’s not like falling off a log you don’t just get it right the first time every time. I can see the repair bills now piling up to the top of the tallest rubble heap while they did probably knock down a lot of buildings before getting a grip on their newly inherited powers. But you don’t see that in the history books now do you, after all who would want to admit fucking your own county up while trying to learn to be super people. Yeah that must have been a dark time, and quickly overlooked by them.

Oh my god super powered people losing their shit tearing the country apart… oh it’s just Wednesday, market day. Seriously though they were still in an adjustment period learning about their new… new ish abilities a decade later, so even the Scardian soldier here fighting weren’t the best at what they could do. It was like watching baby Superman lift a car off old Papa Kent, and nobody knowing how or what to do about it. Just smile and nod and don’t think.

Ten years and their crack commandos were only still in the beginning phases of tapping into their abilities. Yup puppies with a new bone they don’t even know what to do with. You know, the more I thought about it the more something felt off about this group, these soldiers for all their training and experience something felt off. Not just because Madam Bulldog was in charge but because they seemed to lack a certain standard you would find in the main body of a military. I wasn’t certain of it but there was an inkling of the lack of training to them, but even so their numbers albeit small boasted at least a dozen mages still capable of standing and a fair shake more who were able to tap into their natural abilities with a certain degree of usefulness. And yet they lack the drive or desire to use what they had. Either that or her commands were law they feared to disobey. Somehow I think it was more the latter than the former as some of them looked as if they wanted to disobey her and join her on the grave of a bridge… bridge of a grave.

Rubber neck, yes I’d like to rub my neck but at the moment it wasn’t in my plan to move any more than necessary. She was still standing and going forward step by step driving ever so slowly toward the far larger and superior force. Yup that wasn’t a good move.

Now this is where things pick up, she was in charge for a reason; of this group of soldiers. With a flick of her wrist...

Oh yes, hello irony and instigating internal soundtrack. What can I say it’s spot on it spitfire havoc situations, and well pretty much all situations. With a flick of her wrist one of her blades buried into the front ranks of the Mousketeers and they could only stagger, they were in her sights. She’s the blade, and their just paper…

Like the song says she was cutting through the front rank having engaged her Scardian blood traits. She led because she was in control of her speed and agility at the very least from my vantage point. She was fast causing the Musketeers to shift their lines and adjust to a more direct approach of warfare. Meaning hand to gunn combat. What you didn’t think they were going to play fair just because someone closed in on them did you. They’re not dumb, well they are dumb but not that kind of dumb, I mean they did suddenly become afraid of vampires for some strange me reason.

Anyway… She was like a wildfire tearing through any clown foolish enough to step within the reach of her bloodthirsty blades, of which she had reacquired the second which had been her opener in this full frontal assault. You could almost say she was creating her own version of Full Metal Panic with the Mouseketeers ranks. Her moves were cold blooded and cut-throat without thought or calculation, more reaction than action, undisciplined, unrefined, untrained. Natural instinct and god like speed and reflexes. She was ball lightning, all extremes without focus. Instinct driving her motions, twist and turns, counters and feints and strikes all from a pure instinctual talent. Not unlike my own Art of War really, rather interesting to say the least. Well ‘d like to say to her, that You’d be surprised what you can live through, but frankly I was still just hanging around playing dead at the moment and she was only just starting to lose.

The first shot grazed her inner thigh a nick nothing more, but anyone would lose their balance with the right nick. Being the instinctual type, she failed to notice the need to adjust, her steps her movements and most of all her sense of the battle. But she failed here, this was her first weakness. The second hit was to her knee, well placed and timed to perfection, a number of the garrison were not normal Musketeers. Much like the one I had first shot, the one who contributed my coat and main gun to my wardrobe, might have to take the ones here as spares, considering how gunshots make holes that these folk can’t fix. Probably a good idea.

She faltered for the first time, her wounded knee giving out completely as two more shots pierced through her cutting clean holes through her shoulders. The blades in her hands suddenly burying into the ground now being all that held her up. It was time, time for me to act. So I broke the silence asking the question none would have expected to be spoken let alone from the dead man with the broken neck. My eyes snapped open and the words resounded across the area. “Are you ready to accept my help, are you ready to do things my way? Do you see why things had to be done this way?”

Her response was not so much words as it was silence, a silence that echoed across the battlefield. The Mouseketeers as well stopped dead, after all when the dead speak fear spreads. She turned her head staring in disbelief at the sound of my voice, something in her was breaking, that spark of dominance and self-assurance was a step from breaking completely her eyes were spinning as she nodded falling into her gigantic swords only able to watch what happened next.

Give a little whistle, and always let your conscience be your guide. Or in this case, let your training be your guide. I whistled a piercing sound which rang far louder than the silence I had caused before it. I glared at the noose around my neck, I should have been angry with her, this was after all her idea. But as much as instinct is my guide, I’m not as foolish as I could be. She was too valuable to let die, or kill off out of revenge. Besides there are worse things than death, and you’d be surprised what you can live through, and so will she.

Someone got the right idea and shot at me, of course I let the bullet reach me I let it strike me in the neck, piercing through my neck but more importantly the noose on both sides of my neck. It was purely shock value, there had been no need of taking the hit, or even having the bullet shot at me, but in the end, sometimes you can only show true grit if you do what isn’t possible first. Blood gushing out the gaping holes in my neck I dropped to the ground between the empty pikes of my garden, gracefully avoiding impaling myself on them. I lifted one pike free giving it a good deliberate swing to test its balance and heft as I walked free of the pike, toward the dyke, jumping it in the silence of my miraculous defying of death.

Shots were fired but they were now fired at me, directed at the impossible man. Trying to kill the one who should be dead. It was a good warm up to take on the long range attacks and get accustomed to the pikes awkward balance.

Crisis Rocan Wed Feb 05, 2020 10:18 pm

You know I probably should have made these pikes… should have had them made better. Bullets don’t bounce off them very well, and after a few well placed shots they tend to split. I didn’t really want to deal with weapons splitting in my hand and frankly I was going for the shock value of surviving against impossible odds. Not so much because I was into showing off but because it was natural for me to finish what I set my mind to, half dead, crippled or broken, I don’t like to leave things unfinished. I could recover or pass on after the job was finished.

No wait scratch that can’t pass on yet cause the job is far from over. Something tells me even if I finished off the entire garrison right here and now, it would only be a short respite from the war that has waged more than a decade already, which I have spent a couple of years trying to turn the tables a complete one-eighty. On that night it was time to stop taking practice swings and shift into gear… so there I go alright, oh yeah.

I wove my way out of the pike garden, leaping across the trench of pikes and Musketeer corpses with ease. Sticking the landing with a perfect ten I tilted forward to joust my way into the heart of this army of dorkness… I mean Dumbasses… forget it, alright…

Oh yeah, I took the fight straight to them, as she was back stepping toward the grave bridge to narrow out the numbers able to get at her, and frankly she was being overwhelmed, after all she did ask for my help, otherwise I wouldn’t have budged from my tighty ropey… damn I really have to stop with bad witless phrases like that. Just probably not anytime soon. Pike one, pike two, oops I buried my pike straight up a uppity Musketeer, well so much for that pike. Pike… pike… pike

Sorry the words are echoing as I trip inside a vertical moment in time, straight up and offbeat forever in a moment. I could hear something slinking into my internal sound track that shouldn’t have been there. Something present and out of place since I hadn’t been back there in sometime. But the numbers were ever present and the truth could not be denied, at first I thought it was something old and classic, but the moment it began I could tell this was like a New Year’s Resolution bucket list kind of thing.

But what was more, was the intense feelings I could see and hear building inside of me. Frankly I was feeling Save Yourself but hearing new Stabbing Westward come out of oblivion was a shock to the system. I blanked out, no doubt and no shit for that matter as the pike left my hand, and I picked up the first gun within reach.

How did you get so cold?
How did you get so cold?
I can see in your eyes
There's nothing inside
How did you get so cold, so cold?

Staring at the depths of sorrow and rage my mind twisted inside itself around the bends of broke time. It’s strange when you see inside your own eyes, staring at yourself from somewhere else. The world blurred into an out of focus view, but my eyes were blank empty as I saw time flipped on its ass for the moment craving my thoughts around the center. Maybe it was the blood loss from the damn hole throw my neck, or maybe I was just losing touch in the moment,

How did you get so cold?
How did you get so cold?
I can see in your eyes
There's nothing inside
How did you get so cold, so cold?

Call me callus but I just can’t find a reason to care most days…

I mean fucking killed them all!

Carry that weight around with you for an eternity and see how it burdens your soul.

How did you get so cold?
How did you get so cold?
I can see in your eyes
There's nothing inside
How did you get so cold, so cold?

Kind of a pointless question to ask when you can see the blood splattering all over yourself, and the death of the ones you loved to the depths of your being, the burden, the cross of destroying what you fought to live for. It’s more of a what happens in the blinking of the eyes, between the gunshots really.

How did you get so cold?
How did you get so cold?
I can see in your eyes
There's nothing inside
How did you get so cold, so cold?

You could say it’s a cop out on detailing the battle as I fought it, driving off the garrison, but in all honest truth I lost track of the fight, I only know how it was recapped to me by my Ivanete’s who responded to my summons. You recall that whistling before I shot through the throat. Side note, it’s not exactly easy to whistle with Lincoln Tunnel for bullets passing through your neck and voice box. Just saying, glad I did that before playing bulls-eye with my windpipes.

How did you get so cold?
How did you get so cold?
I can see in your eyes
There's nothing inside
How did you get so cold, so cold?

Feelings can drown the moment the eyesight, the ability to focus on the here and now, but I can function like that without thought or conscious control. It’s like being a god… ok just really fucking awesome, and aware while being unaware. Hell I’m feeling a little stabby stabby right now thanks to their new track so let’s maul this over while I try to convince my internal soundtrack to kick up an encore . And why not I mean one good cold turn deserves another, as I sidestepped backward into a triple twist shootout maneuver laying waste to the Mouseketeers closest to the bullets I was shooting off.

And of course this is really a perfect follow up to the question how did you get so cold. Where I am alone, except for my RAGE!

MY RAGE, my darkest days, MY RAGE!

Sometimes you just let it blind… let it overflow and blur your vision to avoid the works of mayhem and destruction, not because the soul can’t bear the sting, but because you just want to be blind to everything.

The more I feel
The more I die
Nothing to give
Nothing inside
Everything I touch I break
Everything I touch I break
Everything I touch I break

I scratch and tear
Until it bleeds
I do not want
I only need
I only need
I only need

Everything I touch I break
Everything I touch I break
Everything I touch I break
Everything I touch I break
Everything I touch I break
Everything I touch I break

Yeah it’s a stabby stabby moment, while the Ivanetes come from the westward point of the fight to mount my fairest little dirt and death porch, laying down suppressing fire. Like I said I signaled them before playing host to a sharpshooter's bullet hole in my prestretched neck. Add in my close range assault with their own weapons, which I rapidly switched out or reloaded as the need and opportunity came, and you get a cocktail of oh shit fuck me sound the retreat.. You know being sounded and the garrison being pulled back fasted than they close and lock their doors and windows at night. Which meant it was just about time for me to give’em a fuck you and salute to keep’em wondering what nightmare would befall them next. Honestly I don’t remember what it was, but gravity and blood loss got the best of me halfway through my brilliant I don’t know what I did…

So nighty night time for the old man was fast in coming, once the Mouseketeers were in full retreat that was. Fast forward a bit and we find myself lying in the old room in the tower, and the bitch was right there next to me. Apparently my little cell/room was now an acting infirmary for the officers of the castle town, Ivanete’s colony center base of operations pick a fucking title already you narrating twit. Oh wait, that's me. To be fair she looked decent for a change, civil even laying there all naked and beat to shit, bloody and bruised. Peaked, flushed, kind of nice being all quiet and shut the hell up for the time being. But I suppose since she’s sharing my little dwelling she’s being respected and carried for as if she were still in charge, or at least as though she is holding an equal position as my own here. Food for thought, makes me wonder if she’ll come to the same conclusion as I have, that we still have two parties in camp and two leaders. Just one more problem to overcome and figure out a resolution to. She looked like shit to be honest, I’m sure I was no better to look at, but I knew I would heal as soon as I felt up to it. I was not on death's door despite what the medical professionals opinions were. And she was far worse for wear than I, but I wasn’t ignorant of how to fix the problems. Her units medics came in most often, while the colony’s doctor not so much, having seen my own recovers before he wasn’t interested in my situation, but to monitor hers as well.

These people just didn’t know what they were truly capable of yet. You know after twelve years you’d think a large majority of their population would have discovered their now innate ability to heal in the frozen and wet element, but no these guys just write off odd happenings like that. On one of the colony’s doctor’s visits I told him what to do in order to speed her recovery, needless to say I was given a look of “what kind of a fucking moron are you.” To be fair I expected that, but what can I say they were having less luck than they had counted on in healing her, they were almost desperate enough to try it… only almost. The Doc was halfheartedly arguing in favor of my method to heal her, but of course practicality and reason won out, and so did the Scardian’s superior knowledge in medicine. Dammit I wanted to sleep a little longer. Oh well no rest for the weary, the wicked, or me! By the by; I’m getting lazy monologuing here, I’ll let the other narrator take over for a bit. What you thought I did both styles, you’re nuts if you think so.

Crisis Rocan bleed with every movement he made, the hole through his throat had yet to seal shut, forget healing, a number of other bullet holes riddled his beat to shit masculine form as he teetered to his feet in the middle of the night. Not that he had waited for the night to fall, it was just happenstance that this was the time of day that he rose to his feet, in order to save the life of the woman commander of the Scardian Squad sent to take charge of the colony if the situation demanded it. She seemed to have thought it did, and that outcome was her knocking on death’s door and the man she found in charge when she arrived who she had imprisoned and sentenced to death as a peace offering stood over her, the only one who could save her life. For death was his oldest and truest friend, a friend that could not best him, only follow in his wake forevermore.

Taking one tentative step he stumbled slamming into the wall of the small humble room before righting himself and regaining some of his former balance and physical strength. They had both been laid up for far too long, his muscles were worse off than his wounds, from the lack of use and blood. She didn’t have much time left if he stayed respectfully out of the doctoring. And respectful was the furthest thing from what he intended, butt ass naked as she was, and himself not so far from it, having a few bandages to cover his gaping holes…

Yes the one in his throat and the ones across his body ergo the not so far from it line in his favor for non-decency. He shrugged as he moved to her almost dead body, one hand for hers and her arm, one hand straight into the gap between her legs to heft her up across his shoulders. There would be no delicacy in handling her, and not the least bit because of how she had treated him, rather because there just wasn’t time.

“Ugh”

She grunted out a breath almost in worded fashion as her breast slammed none to gently into his shoulder, he almost smiled as he kicked the rooms door open breaking it’s hinges with the uncontrolled force he mustered in doing so. That brought them running, and not just to check on the guard who caught the door square in the face as it flew open with extreme prejudice.

Oops.

Such a nonchalant apology to an unconscious guard, but that’s our almost hero, almost the exact opposite, but in either case his apology was just badly timed comedy for the readers at home. Thump, slump, and oops as he continues on out of the tower on the wall of the colony’s castle There was a basic element out there and he went straight out on top of the walls, a commotion arose of course. Not the least of which were the trio of medics and doctor who came running, shouting, and in general making all kinds of a fuss as they followed the trail both ways first to the room then out onto the outer walls. He turned of course still carrying her across his shoulders, as the three approached, the Doc stopped when he saw he was doing what and stood back to watch what would happen while the two medics rushed forward in an atypical response to a pair of patients doing irrational things.

“Stop.”

“You shouldn’t be out here.”

“You need to come back inside where it’s warm.”

“Hey asshole get your hands off our commander and go back inside…

I said put her down!”

Ok!

You know you saw his response coming, he looked off into the distance than back at the two medics. Winking with a wicked grin he slung her off his shoulders straight over the side of the castle wall letting her free fall into the moat below. A nice large splash accompanied her sudden encounter with the freezing waters of the northern ice cap.

Hmp I give it six point three and two fifteenths.

The two medics rushed further forward almost falling over the edge of the castle walls literally following their leader over the edge. Ironic to say the least they looked on helplessly then they turned on the one responsible for it.

“What have you done?”

“You’ve killed our commander.”

Nope!

Such a simple statement and a confident answer which disarmed the two medics but not from their panic and fear at what they had perceived his actions to be.

“Guards quickly we must save the commander before it’s too late.”

A bit on the dramatic side their response certainly was, but the Scardian soldiers on guard moved into action. And the Doctor, while he stood wide-eyed but otherwise silent to the proceedings. He had seen enough of Crisis’s oddly proficient and effect behavior to just wait and see the outcome, no matter what his learning told him to the contrary.

The Scardian medics turned their wraith onto Crisis, after sending the guards to fetch their fallen… free fallen commanding officer. Crisis just turned and brushed passed them on his way back to his cell, room, habitation, take your pick it was for the time being all of the aforementioned name variations.

I’m going back to bed, make sure she stays cold, and wet, preferably both, ice and snow would be best otherwise she won’t live through the night. And don’t bother arguing with me, you’ll see for yourselves when she’s been fetched out of the moat. Cold and wet no ifs, ands or buts!

And true to his word he returned to his room to sleep. After some time the Scardian commander was returned to his room as well, this time she was kept exposed to the cold winds which howled throughout the upper sections of the castle walls, though no snow hit the ground on the inside and the air was warmer there as well, the upper reaches were not so fortunate to carry the same strength of Coreveaus’s blessing of heat and warm. It was cold, not freezing but enough to harden even the warmest of breast to the outsides northern chill. And so for a time of recovery they remained this way. Crisis wrapped in his own mind trying to relax, and the Scardian’s female commanding officer’s naked body uncovered and exposed to the northern winds so her Scardian heritage could save her life where modern medicine alone had failed.

Crisis Rocan Tue Mar 10, 2020 3:38 am

That’s right I threw a hot bitchy gunho chick off the top of a castle wall into ice cold moat water so she’d get better. Ok not exactly standard first aid, but these Scardians aren’t standard cases, in fact they the units medics and the local Doc were all skeptical about my actions but her heightened healing and the rate at which she improved between free fall and retrieval shook their beliefs enough for my advice to be followed. Which brings me back to buck naked and thankfully unconscious side of general bitch’r us. Just out of reach too.

I slept, she slept, she healed, I milked the time I had to rest without going out to fight this war again. Staring at her dark strawberry blonde hair nicely cut short just passed her ears, all mangled from blood and death and freezing water. What even a crotchety bitch can be cute when they're asleep. Eventually she wakes, but more importantly the small contingent of reinforcements to the Musketeers retreats back after the bloody debacle at my failed execution taking with them the first murmur of a War God’s potential presence on the side of the Colonist. A report is sent from the harbor town, Kules Harbor south of the Musketeers fortress city along the frozen river on foot to the mouth of the inlet which filled the lake at Kules Harbor.

If you start to the west of the lake castle of the Colonist where I am you will come to the fortress city where the musketeers are located, traveling south you come to Kules Harbor town, located on the edge of a natural lake, the tributary river of which continues on passed Kules until it deposits itself over the glacier bluffs into Domescadia. While going east brings you to a man made river leading to the gates of my domain and the double moat surrounded walls that were still as of 1570 under construction all around the area. Going further East brings one to the ocean where the Musketeers courier finally came to a small outpost and transfer station mostly neutral. Think of it as a way station for all ships coming and going into the region, held not by one of the world powers but a smaller neutral force of blonde haired blue eyed elven folk. They lived in the nearby forest to the south Minktail these wood elves kept to themselves for the most part, but a few had taken up the practice of sailing and guiding through their lands those who wished to reach a more shall we say suitable port town if they had no means of their own to reach said civilized harbor, further to the south on the edge of their forest.

I bring all of this up because the Musketeer’s courier traveled this route to the harbor of the Minktail Forest, but more importantly this harbor town to the unfrozen south was soon to begin playing a bigger part in the years of the war to come. For the next two years the Musketeers remain unseen by the Colonist keeping to their harbor and fortress city training building biding their time. I likewise take my walks to see what they are up to, better to stay a step ahead of the enemy than let them catch the Colonist off guard. I’ll get back to the Colonist’s two years in a moment. The news from outside was more relevant to this at the time.

First the Fortasians retreated from their alliance with Scardia with the coming of Spring in 1571, this betrayal inevitably cuts off the Colonist from further reinforcements and aid. Scardia itself was in an all out war with Gailden, adding this to the Fortasians withdrawal of support, the Colonists were on their own Scardia had no time for such a small and remote outpost in a frozen wasteland. That and their eyes were elsewhere unable to blink let alone see the dire needs of the smallest part of their kingdom. Complications, upon complications. More so the Gailden Musketeers courier, reached their home port and did in fact succeed in gaining better reinforcements than those which had previously been sent. Proper reinforcements!

The men in black… trench coats to be more specific, Forerunners, a name we still had not been made privy to, but nonetheless they were sending a unit to replace their lost comrades in the north, who had died in battle. Died in a battle in which they should not have lost, let alone been killed in. This called for a more drastic and definitive reaction than the Scardian one. Five Forerunners leaders each of the Musketeers were being called in and time was required to gather them from the different front lines upon which they had been deployed.

Two years, well more like a year and a half give or take who really keeps track when your neck deep in crazy bitch and her band of broken discipline cases. Funny thing this whole mission to the north and take over of the colony was both an actually sanctioned mission, and apparently a disciplinary action for the whole fifty man unit. Wonderful right. Not quite yet, still getting things straightened out first. Ok while that lovely music fills my head let’s finish off the lay of the land in the frostbitten ball countryside…

Well not mine, the cold doesn’t affect me until oops they shattered cold temperatures are reached. And let’s not even consider that option, it’s just not a pleasant thought EVER! Ahem back to the layout and building progress report. It goes on, and the Colonist finish all but the northern walls of the moat fortifications to the old cities and towns surrounding the castle and lake. Even the western wall was taking proper shape, but it was still a weakness in the defense one which I figured was necessary in order to end the war in the long run. See the way I looked at it; if we made the perfect defensive border right away, and blocked out our enemies, the war would escalate in the worst possible way, the figurative nuclear options so to speak. Which would mean dead colonists everywhere, and a one man army fighting a pointless war. On the other hand if they had a deliberate weak spot to attempt and succeed at invading we’d have a better chance of controlling the flow of warfare as a whole.

Strategic weaknesses. I was playing the game in my own way, not too close to the vest but with the full knowledge that the ones who had formerly owned my gun and coat and hat, were not the type to hold back a nuclear option when it was the cleanest method to finality. I was keeping them with options, with hope of true success especially moving forward. This was the Colonists fight not mine, and the Scardian troops, not mine, and they would have to fight forward as much as possible, but I would shift the tides again and again as needed. I knew the Mousketeers were not supposed to win according to the history of the future I had been to and from time and again. So on track and forward even if it kills them.

Corruption in our dreams the salesmen of our blood!

Yeah that’s me, sadly I know what I must do. They have to do it, not me, this war has to be fought by them, with my help, despite my help, the Mouseketeers need to lose and lose against the Colony forces and I have one thing to do, keep them winning, but not let them get wiped out. The trenchcoat clowns are a whole different story. The one I fought in the beginning and those coming… they don’t feel right, as if they’re Transformers... more than meets the eye.

I know I will have to keep my eyes out for them, to face them and eliminate them if these people are going to survive. No matter how many come or how long it takes to break their will I have a feeling I’m going to be stuck here until that happens. Their blood is on my hands already, I can feel the chaos swirling all around time is, time is, well it’s abstract more than usual at this moment. I can’t leave, not until this war ends, one way or another. How many will I have to sacrifice to get things where history becomes reality here and now.

So there she was, madam kill’em all, I mean kill me all for greater good… yeah fuck the greater good. How many have been butchered and sacrificed for the greater good? I mean every time I hear the phrase it’s for the greater good; I want to curb stomp the dumb fucker muttering it. There is no such thing as the greater good, it’s just a piss poor excuse for doing something dumb that will probably get people killed who could have lived long prosperous… well longer lives.

I really just didn’t want to do it, so I was wasting time, only pointing out small things like the wall and moat defense and such. Detailing the work and letting the locals carry it out to keep them occupied while she recovered. To be honest she took longer than I expected to recover fully. Scardians! Unreliable to be on someone else’s timetable. Frankly it was a good enough excuse to dawdle and check her out while she slept, I mean recover from my near death injuries and near fatal wounds. Ahem nice ass...sets!

1571 Summer, she’s been on her feet and barking like a ruddy seal, but only her men are jumping and those not so fast as before. The Colonists know the score far better than the twenty-seven men at arms under her command. Foolishly she plans and attempts a raid on the Musketeers, by going north through the forest border and around undetected by the Musketeer sentries. Did I forget to mention how foolish that idea is. I won’t get into details, but twenty-seven dropped to twelve including her rather quickly and I was forced to give up something in return for their lives from our silent neighbors to the north. She stops trying to be in charge and giving orders after this. Before I return from the vampire nation to our north, she yields to the leadership of the colony, to my leadership. But that I would only learn of after my extended vacation among the local vampire population.

Crisis Rocan Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:14 pm

The next four years 1571 to 1575 suck ass.

Our northern neighbors kick things off with madam thinks she’s in charge trying to raid around the walls of our lands through the forest to the north. Mind now that this has been commonly explained and pointed out as an off limits area, to everyone excluding my skillful and talented and unbeknownst to them undying ass. Butt were not talking about something out of my eyesight at the moment. Instead the ironclad commander sank, wiping out most of what remained of her unit of stout defenders of the colony. Scardians, what good are they when they don’t even know their own strengths?

I’m sure one of these days I’ll get around to further educating the handful of dumbasses that are left in their recently bequeathed powers. From the late mortal presumed dead leader of their people, believed alone by Scardians to have become a Wargod, which he had. Of course they still barely know they have powers beyond mundane magics if they had the pre-ascension that is.

So back to the northern neighbors, vamps in seclusion who we have an agreement with; to stay out of the woods and they leave us alone. Everyone else is fair game. So when I found out she had taken the bulk of her men to raid the Mouseketeers from the northern woods, I had to go and save them. Come on I already have enough to do with raising the northern folk into umm something that might survive after the war. I mean I did give my word, I think I gave my word anyway might have agred to Coreveuos’s request to build up his new followers, or would be followers or some such crap like that. Would turning Scardia’s people into worshippers of Corvey irk him I wonder?

So short story, ignoring long story passed over, I save what the vamps didn’t dine on of her and her men being forced to strike up an utterly, terribly unspeakable bargain…

1572!

Color me impressed, the broad can do more than swing a sword or two! Let’s be honest, besides checking her out while she recovered before, I mean watching over her as she recovered butt ass and pretty in the cold from her previous idiocy, I had little reason to look for quality in her besides looks that she’d use to kill. Her swordplay had already proven to be of substantial merit if I’m being honest, yet swords would be of little use in the war raging against the colony. Briefly first the fallout from her misadventures in vampire land had two major effects, first and foremost her men were now done to the two medic type guys who didn’t go with her and five of her men who survived long enough to be rescued with her.

And secondly she became docile, broken, little more than an obedient soldier taking every order given to her by her commanding officer without question or even a moment's second thought. She’s like a lifeless doll just going through the motions of life without being alive. So I decided I’d break her to try and fix her. I know reverse psychology and all, practically bad form, but when have I ever proclaimed using good form was my way, or anything was my way. Frankly her mood was killing my buzz and my internal soundtrack was broken because of her. This chick would walk right into the vampire’s home stripe down, slit her wrist, and wait for them to suck her dry if I told her to right now. It’s horrible, I mean the whole obedient sex slave idea is really hot and all but not if she’sdead inside, it kind of kills, and I know all about things being killed.

So first I took her swords and all she did was drop them and wait for her next orders, I was hoping for a reaction but she was pretty and pretty much brain dead not any fun by the by, but we work with what we have. I selected a halfway decent pair of guns and put her to work learning an entirely new form of fighting, based loosely on the laughable fictional skill of gun fu and gun kata. But with a more practical application for real warfare. Her sword skill was considerable to say the least and adapting it into a functional gunplay martial arts was going to be trying on my own. I could use her willingness to comply to try anything, I don’t mean slip and slide floor play, even if it was a pleasant thought to consider between strikes and shots. Well imaginary shots, we can’t really afford to waste bullets despite the good fortune we have in stockpile currently. Best to save them for range time rather than developmental martial arts. Now gun kata has a whole list of basic forms that in their fictional use are meant to give the perfect preemptive counter positions for returning fire and shooting first with the most effective angles and least possible risk. Mostly utter bullshit but I’m willing to work with it.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Gunkat10

And she’s willing to do everything and anything I say without even hesitating to think about it. Form then function that’s the idea here, first train her to respond without thinking, not even the momentary hesitation between mind and body response. She’s raw in so many ways right now, but first work the body to respond the desired way, then try to fix her broken mind. I could just take her into a nice cozy room, but no she’s all ok willing to do everything without any soul or life to her, it’s really killing my mood for short haired beauty. Well back to making her sweat and shake with tension of the non hot and sexy kind, so boring for my ruined sex life in this frigid wasteland.

The truth is, even without her mind and soul being whole, she’s the first real potential candidate to learn advanced gunplay I’ve run across, throw in her Scardian abilities and she could go far, might even be able to make a decent leader out of her if she pulls her head out of her self pity and self loathing ass long enough to heal her mental wounds. But one battle at a time and she’s a whole mess of battles to fight.

I can picture her smiling but sadly there’s no reason, nothing behind her eyes, but failure and the obedience to orders.

This martial arts gunplay that I began instructing her in, her and the other five remaining combatants of her unit. I know how foolish it seems to use such a silly fictional concept as it was created to be, but there is potential to make it something beyond imagining with these kinds of people as the foundation for it. You see in essence the gun kata was supposed to be this ultimate strike and counter strike technique for gunplay. A series of positions so well organized and planned out that you minimize the risk of being shot, while maximizing the accuracy, speed and overall proficiency of your own shooting to near godlike perfection. LIke I said utter fictional crap, but…..

With Scardians as a root I could use it to create something a bit more functional and real. I mean they have this unnatural advantage in speed and strength thanks to Scar’d’s ascension to tap into, and clearly very few Scardians even have the slightest clue as to what they are capable of. See being a time hopping crazy has it’s fringe benefits after all, it’s not like I’m trying to start a whole crazy gun slinging association or anything, just giving some colonials a real chance at surviving against a tyrannical threat to their people. Afterall doesn’t everybody deserve a chance at life liberity and the pursuit of something that makes them stupid crazy. Not to be mistaken with crazystupid which just needs to be bitch slapped out of existence..

So the first thing to do was load these kiddies up with new guns. Sadly the best we had to offer were remodeled versions of the Mousketeers single shot revolvers. Mostly because I hadn’t bothered to improve the quality and spend time teaching the basics of gun manufacturing to our local gunsmiths, who were more warehouse keepers then gun makers, doing their best to just keep the good ones in stock and the crap ones in the repurpose piles. I mean having to test ever gun and double check their separating takes time, and teaching them to make better guns just isn’t necessary right now, we have a good stock from the field attempts at subjugation and massacre to hold us over for a good long while, once I get the lady Hitler and her unit up to par, and the handful of locals who have any kind of aptitude as well. Well a sound body helps to make a sound mind, but I’m not picky, zombie slutt could be…

No sadly it would kill the moment entirely. For the next two years it’s all just martial arts gunplay and taking range practice on the Mouseketeer partols. They’ve been quiet, too quiet but the weather did it’s number on them blocking them inside the pair of cities they control, the port and the fortress both were cut off and the trip down the frozen river was just too dangerous for them to risk the loss of manpower and supplies on. But partols of their enemy’s ever improving stronghold were mandatory, probing for weaknesses, for ways to break through the steadily improving wall. Partols that usually ended in bullet holes and fleeing for their lives. Marked improvement after two steady years of training they can shoot straight and hit their marks, but that’s where the real challenge begins, while the colonists were working on the walls and fortifying the borders, the dozen or so trainees were showing just how sad they were for skills beyond normal. Thus the gun fu kata crap.

Black powder and gunka fu; not exactly what I would call a pair of matched items. It’s like a broken set of mismatched yoga pants on an elephant, not a pretty sight. Frankly it’s messy and unsightly and outright tragic to watch. I’ll be honest I’m cheating, I’m not even using gunpowder to fire my bullets, and well my bullets are not standard either, tricks of me trade laddie tricks of the trade.

Oh there we go, there’s my internal sound track, now what are you up to old friend, foreshadowing something perhaps, or just teasing her guns. Either way it’s as good a point as any to bring up the specifics of the corps guns. Black powder, gunpowder whatever you want to call it, it’s not exactly in great supply here, in fact ours needs to be constantly seen to and added to from the Mousketeers stores. Which is why even from the first I set the corp to shooting down partols and scavenging the supplies of the dead, well that and the fact that any supplies we take from them is less they have to use against us. And the thaw is fast approaching the river is thawing by the day creeping further north as time passes, it won’t be too long now before the war resumes with reinforcements for both sides I can only hope that is. It’s been months since anyone came from the colonists allies neither the Scardian homeland or the Fortasians have been heard from for some time now.

We’re basically inside a wall built like the great wall of China meant to keep everything on the other side, accept the allure of the northern side where the forest of the vampires makes for the most bizarre and unnatural natural barrier. Occasionally a patrol makes it through the forest, they seem to realize it’s the only way in but they mostly never make it out into the colony's lands. Those who do, get to give the corp their best practice. A few are fond of rifles but everyone carries at least one basic handgun for close quarters, my zealot android suffering terminal self pity I’ve given two modified guns to. They’re almost as useful as my own which I took from the officer in charge day one. Eventually I’ll have to sit down with the smiths and teach them about rifling and making ammo aerodynamically improved for accuracy. We need whatever edge we can get, and those two things alone will give is the biggest edge in the arms race. But it’s too early for that, first they need to be able to make guns properly, not bastard versions of ideas that will never work, especially with this black powder tech level.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Gunsli13

She’s got a nice double barrel, it’s heavy, designed to be beaten to hell and back. I designed it for fighting as much as shooting, the powder is contained inside sealed in so she can actually fight with the guns close range if need be, and the second shot is all about efficient use of the gun. While most will only have one shot she’s got an edge and with where her head is at she’ll need it to stay alive. Frankly the pair of guns are more like brutal metal clubs for self defense and most effective ones at that. She never takes them off, even when everything else is striped away, she keeps her guns on. The rest of the corp colonial and soldier alik have taken to doing much the same, though I think she's the only one to sleep with hers on. When she sleeps that is, and that she only does if I sit down and make her do it. She’s like an untrained pup needing a baby having to be walked through everything hand and foot. Although once she knows what’s expected of her she seems to do things automatically, except sleep, eat and enjoy herself, the last of which she refuses to do no matter what instruction I give her. I might actually have to insist on having sex with her to break through to her about life… Honestly I keep looking for other methods to get through to her, but the longer I put it off the more apparent it becomes, she won’t live on her own, or by her own means.

1575 It’s far more obvious that the members of the Riflemen’s Corp as they’ve taken to calling themselves in honor of my own skills with guns, especially my knack for using rifles as dangerously in close quarters as handguns, were all good choices. Now the real reason I chose them, each and everyone of them is because I could sense certain abilities that they have, skills which would be beneficial to the cause, and to gunmen. Most of them have a kind of sight, an acute sense of things, while one or too are more deft of hand able to quickly reload their weapons beyond what a Scardian should be able to do. And the little crack brained Missy she clearly had a good eye for deep reading, but her head used to be so far up her ass she couldn’t see a lake if she was drowning in it. She had more too; skills that were there from her training as a swordsmen, and her scardian heritage like the rest, but she was built for warring and fighting. But she was broken

What the hell is this shit…. Screw it, it fits, let it play on.

Crisis Rocan Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:14 am

Blood sweat and almost fucked in the rear, it’s mid 1575, and shit just got real… ok bad segway but seriously I was out with the titan of broken dreams, she was brain dead right down to her seams. We were running a quick recon to see just how thawed the river had gotten when we ran smack into or Fortasian allies. Marching north in mass reinforcements finally. She even smiled at the sight of so many Fortasians marching to war it seemed like there would be brak through, hello her name is human, she lives…..

FUCK ME!

FUCK ME WITH THE TITANIC!

TWICE…

Just for good measure.

Dammit, no really dammit it all to seven hells in sixteen candles of blunders upon blunders, I should have seen it coming. Guns pointed at my head I’m going to die a fucking pincushion. Okay swiss cheese but still wholier than thou. They sold us out fucking Fortisains sold us out to the Mousketeers. I’d recognize that jacket anywhere, hell I’m sporting one, well a better version of theirs anyway, I mean I couldn’t exactly wear the standard garb… age! Not the point, stop distracting me with clothes, what do you take my for a fashion deprived chick with a small budget and a world class style fetish.

Guns head focus… should hve said FUCK US! Anyway so it turns out the Gailden Mouseketeers bought the Fortasians service and screwed us hard. Thank god I like to do recon in case something goes to shit or to avoid avoidable situations… ugh. Yeah there’s no pretending this was a happy accident. Blankazilla is just standing there dumbfounded and lost once again, and my internal sound track is clearly doing a her thingy list right now cause this is so not my choice for the moment.

So we’re disarmed, I mean… come on here outnumbered, outgunned, and out fucked. Somebody’s getting shot in the fucking head for this, twice! Seriously these guys keep pulling all kinds of cheapshots out every time I turn around, they bought the Fortasians clearly. Spoiler alert they traded in technology the shiny magically crystal kind and weapons of course. My guess, they planned on marrying the two at some point to improve the efficiency of guns drastically. If nothing else magic crystals would make for an interesting resource to work with, but I’m… you know… just staring down the barrel of a …. Peashooter with a single shot.

So for about 3.5 seconds she had some life in her, and now she’s back to being broken, worse than ever. I think she sees this as the end of the line for us. She really doesn’t understand me too well yet, I don’t like losing, and I really don’t like being outnumbered and surrounded. It gives me all kinds of bad flashbacks of painful deaths and it’s starting to make my trigger finger itchy. And that black coated mother fucker is starting to eye my gun like he knows it. Like it’s some kind of show piece passed back and forth between the most deserving of his comrades. Well whatever, I’m too irritated at the double cross to care much about allies and enemies at the moment, I just want to shoot the smug bastard right between his beedy fucking eyes.

Sorry I tuned him out, but everything I missed was a bad monolog about how they had brought the Gailden Mouseketeers together with the Fortasians to make the ultimate alliance yada yada yada. Ok I paraphrased he was msug and it was really getting on my nerves, calling me the dumb shit in charge of the hillbilly fraturnity. Ok I’m ad libbing for him, he was boring and monotone, it’s terrible… This guy could stop paint from drying, he’s so terrible. Look, a cheap suit and a corny accent ,something islander...ish...y. Anything but that.

You can’t blame my overactive mind from trying to fill in the voidspace he was creating with

Shoot me, just fucking shot, put me out of my misery I don’t want to hear his voice anymore. I don’t care about how great they are, and how easy it was to bring this alliance about. God complex much? If he even suggests I give up and let them waltz in I’m going to show them bloody hell on earth, even if I’m the only body going north after this. He did it he fucking said it.

It was reflex more than anything else. My gun was too far away, and his men just happened to have a gun each. Blame me, love me, hate me, don’t give a shit about me, it’s all the same to me in the end, his voice is pissing me off, and gloating like he’s already won. Time for shock and awe.

Slipping their guns from their respective holsters I roll backwards shooting off both guns in tandem lunging forward for my gun, then I turn grabbing up my broken doll and run like a nuke is going to blow up behind me any second.

Details, well I know what happened next, but the shock was enough to leave our enemies stunned in awe long enough to get away. What they saw was another terror of the Colony moment, the Fortasians were given a thing of fear like the hanged man and the pike garden the Mousketeers were gifted.

I’m sorry hold on, this song is just too ironically and interestingly enough ass backwardly fitting to what just happened, damn you internal sound track damn you twisted fucker that you are.

Ok I’m ready now the shock was less my trick, then the skills I was showing off, twisted tricks of the trade, she witnessed no doubt, but stupor and sullen heartbreak kept her silent as my two shoots went as wide as a football field from the black coated prick with the monotone yapper. As they shot wide, two rifle stocks on opposite sides of the Mouseketeers black coated commander shattered, wood and metal shrapnel blasting into the faces of the men at arms holding them trained upon me. A mere split second later as the bullets fly that is to more guns go spinning out of control with their respective holders screaming in pain as their trigger fingers were torn free by simultaneously hits ricocheting once again. My backward umble was carefully executed to dodge their leader's shots as he drew gun after gun trying to shoot me as I predicted his bullets' paths. Then silence except for the sheer wicked squishing sound of two bullets ripping through the back of his skull exploding out of his eyes, before dropping like a ton of bricks.

Fuck him and I’m out…

Oh yeah before I forget I told you I’d shoot that fucker in the eyes… well you know between, through, potato, potato!

Crisis Rocan Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:47 pm

A Forerunner named Jorge…

“My name is Whore HEY…. dammit it’s Jorge, Specialist Jorge who wrote this garbage. Let me start by saying, this is a crystalline core record being installed into one of our primary AI units for safe keeping. A failsafe in case the worst happens and our society suffers the unthinkable. Honestly I don’t see the reason for this. We have progressed as a civilization to the point where we are able to harness the energy all around us to control and manipulate our technologies. Even the simplest of actions like opening a door require this energy, once we needed to use devices and our technology to activate even doors, but that was generations ago.

In this day and age we are able to control these energies with our own will and thoughts. In fact it is more of a reaction than intentional effort. For the most part we are focusing on improving our energy technologies. We have created a number of power cells to harness this energy to help instruct our young in the process and methods we use almost without thought on a daily basis. Within this crystalline core are all the fundamentals of our technological advances with Energy Integration Engines, or Spirit Regulators. Which are the central components for all of our technology, they run everything with just a little bit of unconscious effort on our part we can do what primitive cultures would call miracles.

Content update my name is Jorge, Specialist Jorge, it’s come to the attention of our Board of Planetary Extradition Nobles, yes the lower caste than me with infinite spare time on their hands Nobles, that our impending doom is inevitable. Now going off script, drilling into the cores to link them together to create a faster supply of natural energies was a really bad idea. Just saying, probably not our smartest move.

In light of this tragic event and world ending news, The Royals have announced two very important things, first and foremost, we have new Royals, the addition to the Royal Caste those who are above only us Specialists would like everyone to welcome. Prince Valour, and Princess…. (static), and secondly we’re evacuating the planet permanently, as it’s no longer going to be...

In the future. Now this sad and joyous news will mark the first of many days to come with celebrations and preparations for the great migration. All Lower Rank Caste members are encouraged to participate as participation will be required in order to make preparations for the great migration.

The last ship has launched, sadly only the Ship of the Royalty caste has made the journey into the deep dark reaches of space, we have lost contact with all of the other ships the last one accounted for was Princess Himeki, the King’s Older sister.

Many years of space travel have taken their toll on our people. Today marks a tragic occasion, we as the Forerunners of our advanced civilization have lost our most beloved Queen. Tragically airlock 99 is no longer functional, as the Queen sacrificed herself to protect (STATIC)…

*cough* bullshit *cough*

It has been two years since the last log update and sadly the King has ordered my demotion from Specialist, he did not appreciate the accurate naturel of this log.

Year umm not 5, the twins are learning to use our technology and it has come to the King’s attention that my log and this Crystalline core are one in the same and I am sadly the only Specialist on board who can properly use it at this time. Sadly this means I have been temporarily promoted to Royal Guard, not as Royal GUard of his highness of the twins, not even as a basic simple plebeian footsoldier, not even…

The Royal Flushing Guard… but a tutor.

But it’s still not a Specialist. It's the highest I can get short of banging (STATIC) when she comes of marriageable age. On that note, Prince Valour is not the most adept student, (STATIC) on the other is exceptionally skilled, in every way possible, that I am allowed to tutored her in. … she’s 9 now!!!!? More or less

After thinking things over I have come to the conclusion I really shouldn’t be keeping this log, I keep mentioning things I shouldn’t. I should for my own protection kill myself like the queen did. I mean yeah see should not have said that. On the brightside the King is half deaf, so he can’t see this. On the not so brightside a number of citizens have displayed horrific symptoms. INcluding but not limited passing out being unable to open their bathroom door, thank god we have a Royal Flushing Guard, where was I oh yes sudden and spontaneous loss of life. Wait, people are dying, why didn’t anyone tell me this.

….wait what?

Didn’t you hear the princess (STATIC) just fel…

It’s new technology, we had no choice but to test it out on (STATIC). She has been placed in a cryostasis chamber to preserve her life. Hopefully this journey is almost at an end and we can focus our efforts on saving her life.

I have no one to tutor Princess Valour can’t even wipe his own ass without three Royal Flushing Guards, so glad I didn’t get that position now. But the real issue is space dementia, well that’s what I’m calling it, I’m not the Royal doctor but who says I can’t make up my own disease dammit. The King has lost his shit, (STATIC) has been scrubbed from all official records, the name (STATIC) alone puts him into a fit of rage and anger. Hench why I am saying (STATIC) so many times in order to give the old bastards a big (STATIC) sorry just wanted to use the scrubber tech again.

(STATIC) (STATIC) (STATIC) He’s has proclaimed (STATIC) to have murder the late Queen which is coplete bullshit. In his grief and rage has lost his mind. And the people must be protected from this new truth as well.

Prince Valour has been up my ass all hours of the day and night, ever since his sister (STATIC) was demoted to kill on sight. Which really wouldn't take much effort to fulfill if he could walk on his own, but sadly the King is mostly bedridden and unable to use even his bathroom door most days. It’s a shitty job but somebody has to do it.. Just not me!

Despite the King’s increasingly worsening condition he thrives being the top member of all caste. Our journey is not coming to an end anytime soon, nearly a hundred years have passed since the beginning, many citizens are having difficulties like the King from time to time with using our technologies, we need to find a planet, any planet will do.

But the King insists on continuing the journey until his Queen returns to him. The Royal Helmsman has just informed me that our course was corrected well over ninety yers ago by the King shortly after the tragic suicide of the Queen. With orders not to enter unless necessary. Prince Valour has found out that we are going nowhere really fast.

The King has ordered the execution of a meddling good for nothing brat on sight. The Prince had foolishly spoken with his father about our current course and his reasons for keeping us in space. This will not end well, tomorrow he is to be executed via airlock 98.

So apparently our thirty year voyage was never going to end in thirty years even without King’s misdirections. Somebody doesn’t know the distance between point A and point B very well. I’m not trying to ignore the execution, it was just anti-climatic. The short version is airlock 98 wasn’t working and the crowds were blocking 97 and so on waiting to see the execution's conclusion. He offered death by exile or execution both options airlock 99

I thought that didn’t work..

Who’s telling this story, gees, anyway it all turned bad when the mob I mean the lower caste rose up in defense of their beloved Prince. And the KIng found his Queen at last, or so I like to say to give this tragic debauchery a satisfying end. And also why 99 is (STATIC) too.

Having now inherited the mantle job and role of King, Valour set about getting us back on course, some 98 years later we found our new planet. We shall call it Gorkin… ok fine we won’t bother with a name for the time being, we have more important things to do.

(STATIC) remains in cryostasis until we can be certain of her safety. The local life seems to be lizard type humanoids with primitive weapons, our firelances and spirit blades are more than enough to send this primal beast back to whatever holes in the ground they come from, although we did lose a few people at times.

Entry log (STTSTAIAIATTIC) scrubbers no longer work many years have passed, in fact life has flourish on this planet long long ago, and they have begun recording history, unlike our own people who have begun to lose their abilities to control EIE or Spirit Regulators, these individuals have all been demoted into the Lower caste with few exceptions.

Current date on the planet 1299, we are experiencing difficulties with the Spirit Regulators power sources. We will fix this issue and continue looking into the date that (STATIC) can come out of cryostasis. King Valour seems reluctant to go forward with waking his sister.

1307 the impossible has happened, one of our power sources has stopped working. Our Source Specialists have no idea as to why this has happened, but they believe it will not be the only power source to die. Many of our older generations such as myself are dying off as well this means if we are to survive the younger generations must relearn the fundamentals and basics of Spirit Regulators and how they were initially used. Thankfully all of that information is stored in this Crystalline Core. Only I don’t know exactly how to access that information. Our knowledge is limited at this point in time with how the Spirit Regulators actually work with our energies. And many of these younger Generations were never taught to channel the energies for themselves, having been raised in the golden age where our Spirit Regulators worked flawlessly with the power sources so we did not have to rely on our own ability to gather said energies.

1330 ish, we have begun making primitive firearms in order to supplement our armaments with the dwindling supply of functioning power sources and the even rarer ability of our people to use energy naturally. Rifles basic crude inaccurate rifles. We need to work on this... alot!

Our firearms, rifles that is, have improved significantly. We have begun to require resources and supplies from outside of our domain and our biggest threats are demons as we have come to describe them. In response to all of these we have begun sending the Forerunners of our Civilization out into the world at large in order to resolve these issues. We have been given a moniker by some of the local inhabitants as Musketeers due to the design and nature of our rifles. As we expanded outward and due to our home being over run with demons we took to calling our main body of Musketeers as the Gailden Musketeer as a mercenary force that protects the continent and it’s citizens for a fee of course.

We have made an alliance to fight these demon bastards with a member of the Hazorian Church by the name of Count Despar. He is exceptional in his ability to hunt and kill demons, among other things.

I’ve installed the Crystalline Core into an AI with the visual profile of King Valour for safe keeping, as I was led to believe when this log began the core will activate automatically should our technology that it is incorporated in shutdown when a member of the Forerunners of our Civilization is present. I hope this day never comes.

There is war world wide and we are winning. I’ve been assigned to an outpost in the frozen north in preparation for this I have established a remote recording device to continue my log while the Crystalline core remains beneath the old Count Despar Manor I’ll be able to update regularly.

Apparently my updates have now made it through as I had hoped, but I will continue on anyway, after all these millenia what else can I do. Today we take the Scardian colony that has been a thorn in our sides for years now. Maybe I’ll update on the battlefield, this should be routine, as I am the only Forerunner present at this time.

Battlefield update My name is Royal Guard Jorge, and I am preparing my approach to the Scardian colony main encampment now. It is a castle I have left my aide de camp Noble Chesluk back at the fortress to prepare news of our certain victory without delay. They are pathetic and their firearms are as accurate as a Lower Caster’s chance of becoming Royalty these days. That is to say almost non-existent...wait what hell..

Someone is coming out the main gate, I believe our infiltration unit has succeeded in opening the main gates..

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhh (STATIC) I’ve failed you!

I will not die to a weak pathetic inferior species, You will never win against me pathetic caveman!

BANG!

YOu will die, hey stop that that’s my gun you savage beast. YOu can’t harm me. I'm superior to you in every way. I’m a Royal Guard of the Forerunners you can’t possibly kill me!

You’re number one with a bullet!

(STSTSTATTATTATATTICITCICTITCIC)

Crisis Rocan Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:06 am

Apparently the outer moat has a current since it connects to the river, either that or my luck was getting pretty bad of late. And it’s a long goddamn walk back from the ocean. I was starting to have frozen moments, whispers in my head instead of my normal internal soundtrack. My own rendition of Do you want to kill a snowman, was blaring in my walking in a winter wonderland hike.

Half back step I get the shell shocked femme fatale back and tucked in all nice and neat in our wonderful opened room cell. I took a quick walk about the border nd slipped off the fucking parapets into the freezing fucking moat. Whisked away to the ocean in short order afterwards.

Soaked, freezing, and really pissed off about them damn Fortasians, trudge, trudge, trudge. Needless to say by the time I got near enough to be a short, day’s walk back my peoples were under pressure once again.

Good show anyways, a day's walk out and Musketeers and Fortasians everywhere between me and the colony. I was still too cold for a fight and too wet for a fight, so I went around them, and around them and around them to no success to the point where I was considering the forest and the risk of being chased around and side tracked by sex crazed she devils with overbite from hell. OH fuck it guess I’ve got no choice but to fight my way through, and this is siege prep. Oh look and me with nothing but a single shot revolver, ok it’s a slightly advanced version of a revolver and I did retool the inside of the barrel so it has rifling, every little bit counts you know.

It was the dead of night and like the lyrics of those songs I once wrote go, it’s only in the dark that you’re truly alone. I was uncomfortable so I shed my layers of wet clothes and snowdrift style and focused on a new outfit, something more suitable for what I was about to do. I checked my gun empty like always, flicked my pinky off my right thumb a small flame sparking to life off it’s tip as I pulled a special cigar out of my new coat’s pocket. Lighting the cigar flicking my wrist to put out the pinky flame snagging the cigar in my right hand as I let it go with my left hand to adjust my fedora to the perfect angle . The lone flame catching the attention of those soon to be helpless Musketeers and Fortasians forces I was standing before in the dark just outside the range of their en mass camp. Pitch black all around but the light of my pinky flickering off my eyes and face for the moments in which I lit my special cigar.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Crisis28

Then it was time to begin as the perfect mesh of cut anime and music began to play on my internal sound track in amv format.

Spinning the gun I charged at my foes in the sudden clatter and rising alarm in warning of a night raid. No ammo on hand so I snag a pebble off the ground and load it, for how I use the gun it’s basically the same thing as a bullet. Lock it, load it, shoot and go with. I tend to channel what most would call spiritual energy, but at the same time it could just be as simple as channeling the flow of air pressure to move the bullets. Dealers choice really. Bullets hailed all around and I was forced to play the dead eye game of bullet time styled dodging, but ever the opportunist I was grabbing bullets out of the air to use as return fire. And the night went on camp by camp breaking the siege from one side of the colony to the other through the night and following day, into the next night.

In the midst of this battle I began rotating my shots from normal bullets snagged out of the air to elemental based shots of fire and earth, wind, lightning, water, and so on and so forth each shot becoming more than what the bullet it started as could have produced. Little flames of fire searing cross ie, small impacts of wind slamming men to the ground, splashes of water being whipped into their faces namely eyes and noses. Lightning bolt no bigger then AAA batteries zapping those soaked with water shot and weather wet alike. Hand fulls of rock and pebbles slamming into ribs and faces, mud from water and earth combo getting into every orifice on the face causing men to choke and stop to clear their faces and eyes of mud. Both day and night this happened as I progressed through the at first unaware then more and more alert until the forces remaining came to me lead by a man in a black long coat like my own.

Clearly another high ranking member of these people.

We fought in and out of the battlefield; me taking shots at his men and allies all the while dodging shots and only a few hundred times getting shot myself. The fucking mountains I tell you just keep getting steeper with every step. Half the damn day we fought clean into the night, he was skilled no doubt about it. I could see him dodging my shots like he was reading them in slow motion. He was being an outright pain in the ass so I decided to get up close and personal while using my gun to clear the battlefield. Scooping up a standard side arm of a sword I closed the gap slowly taking shots I could have avoided if I wanted to keep my distance.

But now the only way to close the gap with him would be to go straight at it dodging only the fatal and crippling shots. Barely holding on, one misstep away from dying at a very inopportune time. Dodging in and out of his shots by nicks and scrapes of bullets no longer bothers to even fire at him but laying the shots one after another what appears blindly at enemies I know are in my line of fire. Slicing into some of his shots as I charge his head on. Slowly the sun peaks above the horizon as we clash in close range. That’s it, the top of the mountain and I get off a shot on him. He dodges and grins despite the fresh blood from my shot which he knew wasn’t fatal, he sees his chance for victory now Slamming into me knocking my gun free and taking just an extra moment to pin my sword arm to the ground standing one foot planted on my wrist he stares down. He gives me one last breath as he says “you were a tough man to kill but today the terror of the north dies by the hand of.. Gahahh…” Two separate fragments of bullets burst out of the from and back of his chest the rest of the fragments burying into his internal organs. And his body falls knees first into my face and chest as the last of his troops sound the retreat and my own finally arrived. I was alive and laughing on the inside, I was going to say something witty about how dead men may not tell tales but they sure are fucking heavy but I was suffering badly from corpse cock in mouth syndrome, and this guys wasn’t tiny either, so I kept my mouth shut like I proper smart ass in a compromising situation. After the troops cleared the battlefield and relieved my face of it’s most unwelcome burden I took a moment to survey the battlefield with the sun rising behind me.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Cc75f86fcec3e6f1499c803f0bc82ab61cb271b7_full

Crisis Rocan Wed Dec 16, 2020 12:22 am

It all gets rather repetitive at this point. No reason to get pissed off and mad about it, but that’s the way of war. Fight die, fight live, fight to kill another day. Same cycle, different world. The colonists were a rowdy bunch, by that there was a deeper root to this conflict. Forerunners!

Right pain in the ass world domineering aliens. That’s why I back stepped in the story telling a little while ago. They’re important to this whole time period in Galiavan’s history. At the time though I was definitely getting pissed off and mad about it. I mean here I was sticking it out in the cold frontier capital of the Scardian Northern Front, and these damn Forerunners were practically on a crash course for near total world control. I mean except for the fact that they were having a huge issue with a pissant colony, they might have been more successful.

Needless to say I’m awesome and very fucking lazy!

Anyway, my last fight was a turning point in the war, because it was about to become a full scale war. Word of yet another Forerunner’s defeat in the north did not go over too well with the man at the top of the shit show that was the Forerunners. 1575 a major turning point in the war with the Fortasians being bought off by the Musketeers, or rather the Forerunners trading gun tech and an alliance for the Fortasians Fire crystals. A match made in madness, with the Fire crystals being a new tech starting point for the Forerunners they begin developing improvements on their personal weapons using the Fire crystals, simple but crucial improvements allowing for more powerful ammo and improved trigger mechanics and other drastic yet mostly unnoticable changes to the Forerunners firearms. Including being mostly waterproof baring water being dumped down the barrel of the guns

For the next five years Fortasian gunsmiths worked tirelessly to improve Galiavan’s firearms. They succeed in developing cartridge styled ammo and loadable guns in limited numbers used primarily by the Forerunner’s the Msuketeer’s long coated officers. My hands being tied and ending up like swiss cheese, baby swiss that is on more than one occasion leaves me no choice but to train my most skilled gunmen to higher levels of skill. The she-devil fo the Scardian forces is my best pupil when she isn’t drone stupid and brain dead from seeing everything see believed in betrayed and destroyed time and time again during the war. Most of the men who came with her have died in the five years since the betrayal, those that are left have all been broken left, incapable of fighting.

But some of the colonists have improved and a few have matured into combatants since the betrayal. It’s a cycle like all things in war. We’ve managed to maintain our border; the wall and moats are the best line of defense we have. Next to our sex crazied neighbors with bloody fucking appetites. So it becomes a massive bloodbath on both sides from time to time. For the colonists a bloodbath meant a few maybe a dozen or so, for the Musketeers dozens to hundreds of dead. This in part was due to the Fortasan and Musketeer alliance which increased their forces and encouraged a large-scale invasion attempt by their combined forces. Thank god for big fucking walls and a ridicules moat encompassing the place.

This goes on and on for another 5 years, in about 1584 on the ass end and the beginning of 1585 we not only repel their forces with gusto, we do it with their own weapons but improved versions. Apparently the Forerunners weren’t too keen on improving their foot soldiers' weapons to a level remotely near their own. I on the other hand am just lazy but seeing as numbers were clearly against us, I might have encouraged full blown rifling on all weapons and maybe just maybe adjusted the paper cartridges a smidgen to work better. Just saying numbers are not in our favor. The first true improvements start to be seen on the battlefield.

Fortasian Fire Crystal Enhanced Guns are a pain in the ass with their reliability actually existing, it makes it hard to take to the field as things stand. I’m forced to rethink my strategy and further develop the skills of my elite shooters. By 1590 even the regular foot soldiers were carrying fire crystal enhanced guns. Stalemate or not!

Again I can’t say enough how glad I am that I fortified this place in the beginning. We’d be overrun if I was insane I mean brilliant. So I recon the enemy once again, this time finding myself running into the Galiavan Eskimo population located further west of the colony and north. The Oma…

How do you have a three way… symbiotic relationship. Eskimo types, seals and polar bears oh my. So that’s Toto The lion and the tinman? Anyway, I ran into these distant cousins to the prehistoric sea elves in a strange city of ice. Majestic really but the short story is those ears…

Oh sorry having some twin flashbacks here give me a minute to reflect.

…

Oh yeah this is shit, good luck was on my side though and by hook or crook or the good old long shaft skills and talent I managed to wrangle. Oma ha hooooooo!!!!!!! Ok just a little excitable they are I swear. Short version the Oma haaaa rescue forces were a damn near unstoppable freight train of polar bears seals and eskimo types raging across the Musketeers lines from back to front joining our cause. A few were actually highly skilled marksmen too, when put to the test. Stalemate in spades thanks to their help.

1597 The Fortasains start to withdraw and their numbers steadily decrease over the next three years mysteriously. Of course that mystery turns out to be a certain man laying claim to a small stripe of land, a little hill really to use for his own. Just staking claim to an unused piece of land to settle down on. Turns out he was as much of a pain in an ass as the terror of the north the rifleman ... yeah me.

1600 The Fortasians make a complete withdrawal from the war effort in order to deal with Von Sturm, the nuisance ruining their tranquil homeland. Things get slightly lopsided and the Musketeers are forced to withdraw for the time being to regroup and strategize. In the middle of this tactical retreat a number of Musketeers defect, joining the colonists. At first this is taken much like a Trojan Horse and they are held prisoner for the time being. Again this is shit. I finally get more skilled marksmans and I have to lock them up until we can prove their intentions are pure. My luck at it’s finest.

1617 A Forerunner tactician arrives turning our fight bloody once against. Sir Ten Nick turns the tide of battle from one sided attrition to a more equal footed battle. Despite one of their leading tacticians being present on the battlefield the legend of the rifleman of the colony grows and during the struggles a number of Forerunners defect much as the Fortasian and Musketeers troops had when the Fortasians withdrew from the conflict. My legacy at the time was one unrealistic prowess inspiring both sides of the field of battle including a grudging respect from Sir Ten Nick at every exchange.

1624 King Valor arrives to settle things quickly and decisively at the northern conflict. The leader of the Forerunners and their known counterpart the Gailden Musketeers. I meet him modified double barreled Fortasain musket face first. Bastard shot me in the face with both barrels. What a dick! So I do what any good man does when shot in the face with two loaded barrels at near point blank range… I drop dead. Of course I’m not a man to stay down half a head blown off or not, but I give him a moment to organize his troops and hoist my corpse up for everyone to see. It’s a long dull year for me, I feel like the scarecrow having a pole stuck up my back all the time. Despite my apparent demise the colonist hold out with their eskimo allies and defectors.

1626 King valor starts to get suspicious of a spy giving his battle plans away; the crafty bastard. He sets a trap without telling anyone and I have to come down off my high horse to stop his ambush. Needless to say I let the cat out of the bag that I was far from dead just hanging around as a warning to the colonist about what awaited them if they kept fighting, resisting him. So sue me I was tired and bored I mean you fight a war for some 50 fucking years without breaks and you tell me how you hold up when things get slow way to often. And before you get all well you could have ended it sooner, just think about how meaningless it would be if I did that instead of letting mortals strive for their own ends.

It’s at this point that King Valor starts to lose his shit, and I say that mostly metaphorically as he focuses all of his efforts on killing me, or as he put it. “Corveaus you double crossing backstabbing crosser dressing son of a bitch, I’ll kill you dead bastard.” To which I laughed and replied cause I like ruining Corveaus’s image “I’m undeadable” All the while seeing this image in my head at the thought of Corveaus’s misfortunes.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy 2736167000000578-0-image-a-9_1428001342672

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy 2736167000000578-0-image-a-9_1428001342672

Hey it’s not my fault he can be gullible at times. Anyway Young old King Valor set off on a kill me mission for the remainder of the war. That’s like 56 years of waking and sleeping with a headhunter outside your door day and night. Could have been worse; I suppose he could have been a cute woman.

1656 News comes from the main Forerunner forces all across the globe, they are being beaten back on all fronts without Sir Ten Nick and King Valor on the front lines. Their war with Scardia effectively came to a halt within a few more years. Save the battle raging on the northern front at the colony. Being deemed the most important engagement of the war, all their efforts were being shifted to the battle against the rifleman, allegedly the Wargod Corevaeus. History considers the war officially over on all but the Northern front by 1659.

1677 Desperation grips the frontlines and desertions are much larger now. Regular soldiers are abandoning the fight on a regular basis as King Valor zeroes in on the rifleman along with Sir Ten Nick and the last of the Forerunners in the north in the war, at this point in history one could even say that it is the beginning of the Forerunners last stand. In response to the dwindling numbers I regulate my forces to the rifleman’s apprentices only, letting the colonists have a long overdue break from the war. It’s skirmishes going forward between the “musketeers” the Forerunners and the rifleman’s marksman.

178 He shoots me in the fucking face again. And it burns. Lights me up like a fucking six story bonfire.

That twisted firestarter used the Fire Crystals as ammo, I’m not sure if that was brilliant, desparate, or just fucking twisted. Needless I was now playing dodging the burn your faceoff hot potato with his ammo. I start insisting my men keep back as much as possible. Their numbers slowly thin out over the next few years until 1681. It becomes day in day out battling between King Valor and myself almost exclusively at this point. He is relentless in his attempts to have vengeance upon Corveaus I’m in no mood to correct his mistake. It’s too funny that Corvy is getting blamed for this. Months of fighting bullets, blood, and damn near every technique that will one day be incorporated into the resulting Gunslingers’ Association is put on display between us over and over again as we fight until being weary King Valor withdraws and rests and then we repeat over and over again. It seems to be a stalemate with no end in sight I have to break his spirit. There is no other way to end this. He has lived a long time and does not know failure and defeat like mortals do…

1682 The last day of the Century of Blood, sure it was like 130 years or so but Century of Blood is so fitting and awesome of a name I can’t argue with history. After countless battles months of fighting against a raging lunatic with dna locked gear which I gladly picked up and used without any issue at all spirit blades and fire lances the last of their stocks brought out and used against me and in turn used powerless against them as they were apparently designed to be used. And it came down to the final moment; me with that trusty rusty revolver I picked up about a hundred years before when they disturbed my sleep. And King Valor with his fire crystal ammo filled gun and his silver whip with blue flame exploding tip, a thing that seemed to like snapping off explosions on my crouch every other crack. All I had was one shot in the gun, one chance to end this once and for all, before just brutally beating him into submission once and for all. So like every good hero in a western I do something completely fucking retarded.

Wait for it...

Wait for it…

I challenge him to a duel, one shot verses you know his overpowered fire crystal bullshit ammo shot. Needless to say we start back to back I give him all the credit and respect he can muster for me. We pace off slowly the traditional ten paces, the whole time I run a million scenarios as to how to end this in one shot, and I draw a complete blank remembering only the feeling of the day I saw it all end, my life, my world; that which came before all of this… this existence. I channeled the power, the feeling, the flow of the big bang as it were through my body into a single point filling the bullet with all that life could give to a mortal life. I imbued the most dangerous force known to mortal kind into the single shot I had. Time slowed as we turned as his bullet burned out of his gun, flaming to life toward me, I raised my revolver and aimed not at him but straight into his bullet. This shot was life and death rolled into one, it was the end of an era and the beginning of another legacy altogether. As it flew through the air it pierced his shot in twain and veered off to the side ever so slightly plowing straight through King Valor’s skull. In a moment the sound came crashing in as blood spurted out of the empty hole where Valor once had an eyeball ripping through his cheek and clipping a chunk of his right ear off as it exited his head. For only a moment more he stood as the life left his body. Grinning he spoke “That was the only fight worth dying for.”

He fell Sir Ten Nick faltered and I walked across the field of battle laying a hand upon his destroyed face. Whispering into his dead severed ear before walking away back to the Colony to celebrate our victory.

You’ve lived a long time living a valorous life, but you have ravaged this world and brought countless troubles to it as well. I think that death is a mercy King Valor, and you do not deserve that particular mercy. So I will curse you from this day forth to live and atone of your own free will, but until you are willing to be a better man you will have an insatiable desire to fight and slay goblins wherever you find them acting as you have throughout your lifetime. When you rise again, you will be a slayer of goblins until you repent and chose to be a better man!

Crisis Rocan Fri Dec 18, 2020 1:12 am

Yeah that about sums this mess up. I’m staring at the walls in the modern day Asmirnov Gunslinger Association Academy waiting for the night to pass and the next day to begin. And while I recall the end of days for the Forerunners and the Century of Blood I have to recollect the outcome, the fallout of that messy business as well.

First of all and obviously the Forerunners pretty much crumbled into dust afterwards, with their leaders and the majority of their members quote unquote dead after the Century of Blood they just faded away into obscurity. For the most part that is. Some of them stayed on with the colony as did musketeers and a portion of their northern city and fort. In the end, those who remained formed a small nation name Ishvesk. The Oma who had allied with the colonists were run off and hunted into obscurity being pushed further north on the ice caps. After this trail of tears for the Oma the Vampires decided things were getting boring and the free meals from the war time clean up had run dry. So they moved on too minus being chased off like the Oma.

Sir Ten Nick the scholar Foreruuner and primary tactician eventually found himself guiding a man who would one day go by the name Rufus Alexander Tenik, to a partnership with another man by the name of Chesluk from an offshoot branch of the Forerunners.

King Valor the first Slayer of Goblins wander in hunt of Goblins for a time, then makes a pilgrimage to scardia where he becomes the first patriarch of the Valor family line. Eventually settling down in death in the year 2629, ending up as a light snack for... well let’s not go there I’m legally bound in three different worlds from talking about that particular individual as a certai… ahem. Sorry her lawyers are threatening me with legal ramifications… Ram a something or another …

Anyway moving right along to settling down in death. I spend a few year smore helping to establish the foundation of the Gunslinger Association, or rather my number one apprentice does, as they drop the name rifleman and settle upon The Gunslinger for my name and title as I managed to annoy the hell out of her by withholding my name for almost a hundred and twenty years. That could explain why things ended the way they did between us, or you know it might have just been because she was a bit crazy.

The GSA basically started off with the same rules and laws that are in the present. Including the most heavily enforced rule which my apprentice made when she took on the role of head gunslinger. No fraternization between members.

Code of the Gunslinger, originally the Laws of the Rifleman

Laws
Once a Gunslinger always a Gunslinger until death
Always neutral
Gunslinger techniques remain with the Gunslingers only; no outsiders, only those who swear to service are allowed to learn them
Master’s word is law
Gunslinger’s are family
Never attack the innocent
Never lose, and never stop fighting until you die

In short order a few years time the GSA moves about the globe for a while until settling on Danton City as it’s official home and birthplace, though it’s roots were in the Century of Blood in what would one day be Asmirnov.

Tradition
The Final Resolution, an idea inspired by the end duel of the Century of Blood between two master gunmen, in which ultimately a solution is found through a single shot duel. When no solution can be found between GSA members, this is the final resolution to disputes.

And then there was her.

Overlooking Asmirnov Gunslinger Academy Gunsli14

We had a thing for a time, a good hundred years or so you know nothing too long. ANd one night it ended badly, I think she got jealous or pissed. I'm not really sure which short story long I was laid to rest shortly there after and she buried me with my guns on.

Which again I reiterate she made a no fraternization rule after she lost her shit and killed me. I mean come on she gets all fired up, bad choice of words I’ll admit, lays into me for hours that tops off a great night of fun with a one shot to the back of the head, with my own damn gun no less. Apparently I died of natural causes and was buried shortly thereafter.

But somebody decided to go grave robbing for the GSA, since my gear seemed to be amazingly awesome. Cough cough sure it was. In the end when she dug up my grave to retrieve my things all she found was my gun, bracers, coat and hat. And not a trace of a body, a legend started afterwards from the witnesses that I had mysteriously disappeared just as mysteriously as I had arrived in the beginning and not in fact died. Perhaps still wondering the world to this day.

In truth I woke up inside some weird fucking liquid with a semi transparent panel on the machine I found myself inside of. I was just starting to get an idea of where I was when I made a hasty exit, via Mako Reactor styled explosion art… I exited like a real pro…

Crisis Graffiti ala 2639.

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