Eberron Book One Stories
Metal Pain
They walked for days. How many had exactly passed none could be sure. This place held no night, no day. There was nothing to denote that any time passed except the rhythmic sound of their feet on the ground. Like some perverse mimic of a heartbeat, it was the only sound that kept them from completely going insane.
They were in the Mournland, the cursed land, the blasted place, the folly of mankind. Malach had led them here, but he wasn't sure why. The sleepless days of a warforged existence proved often times to be their greatest curse. Malach pondered the peace that sleep might bring, to not think, to not wonder, to simply pass temporarily from existence. The passing death, he learned to call it, the gift of being made flesh.
He had no such luxury, no such thing to make him forget his burden even for a moment. His existence was mechanical, methodical, predictable, and programmed. At least it should have been. He should have had no other worry but purpose. No other thought but order, no other strength but faith. Instead all of these were dashed and broken like the very land he now traversed. How fitting that when his world was most shattered, he should find himself in the place where even reality holds no sway.
Malach stopped and looked around him, he expected something new, but this place held nothing new for him. It was the same over and over again. Endless plains of crimson grass and grey dirt, diluted light with no sun, and an endless sky of pure nothing. The rhythmic marching stopped.
The other warforged he had led here said nothing. They never said anything anymore. They did not question him, did not ask why they were here, or what they should do, or anything. They simply followed him as if they had become more machine since entering this place.
He envied them for this. What a simple life that of an automaton. He desperately wanted to shut away everything that had changed for him, to be a simple mindless brute like his creators had intended. A war machine with no worries, no fears, no regrets, no…. the word crept into his mind and he shut it away.
That word, that one blasted word had ruined everything. It had caused weakness in him, gave him doubt. It plagued his mind and showed him no mercy, no peace. He battled it every day and every night, every moment of his blasted existence that kept him awake so that he should battle that one word.
He had run out of hope, he was running out of hope until that voice called out to him. Until that voice promised him freedom from that word. Malach closed his eyes; he knew that voice was always around. It waited for him; it watched him and wondered about him. The voice was divine to Malach, for it offered redemption at no price. It simply wanted to help him, and it waited. It waited patiently for Malach to reach out to finally decide…
"Are you ready to listen to me Malach of the Silverflame?"
He was ready, the voice had sensed it in him, something had changed and he wanted to be ready.
"You can't just simply want to be ready, you must be ready."
He was ready, Malach thought. How could he not be ready, how could he not want to be rid of all that made him weak.
"You ask how, yet you yourself knows what holds you back."
Riddles, and enigmas, words that say nothing, like everything else it taunted him, like so many other words it did nothing for him.
"I can do much Malch of the Silverflame, only if you let me. You know why you are weak."
He was weak because of that word.
"That alone does not make you weak, you are weak because you let yourself be weak. You cling on to that which you so hate."
Lies! Why would he want this? Why would he hold on to this which tore his very essence asunder.
"Because you want to."
No.
"Because you want to believe that maybe you are different."
No.
"Because you choose to exist like them!"
"BUT IT HURTS!" Malach cried out to the grey void. "It hurts. How can they live like this? How can they let themselves be so weak, let themselves be so vulnerable. I did not ask for this, I did not want this!"
Malach dropped to his knees, his hands grasping at the ground as if he could tear it out of himself. "I don't want this. I don't want to feel like this anymore."
"Like what, we cannot defeat what you cannot admit."
"I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to feel the pain anymore, knowing she is gone. Knowing I failed her."
"Why Malach!? Why lost child, why do you feel this way? Say it, once and for all."
"Because I love her!" He screamed out, and he continued to scream. A mechanical man who could not weep, whose face could not change, who had no other way to show grief but to scream. His body held no breath, his voice needed no lungs. So he screamed, and screamed. Anguish, suffering, pain, and love. Most of all love that drove the sadness in his metal heart.
"I can take it away from you. I can take it all away from you."
Please.
"I can bring you peace. I can bring you to a place where there is no pain, no suffering, no loss."
Please.
"Join me Malach."
Yes.
"Join me Malach and be freed of you burden."
Yes.
"Join me Malach, and never feel pain again."
Malach looked up at the source of the voice at it appeared in front of him. He saw the warforged, bathed in light in this world of grey. He saw the carving on its body, and felt his presence in his mind.
"Yes. I will join you."
The prophet smiled, and welcomed his newest disciple.
Dark Mother
Allister watched from his window with the spyglass as his 'guests' left the city in quite a hurry. The shadow of the great Ironroot Mountains seemed to stretch out after the small group as they fled from the city. He smirked at his reflection; he knew his time for revenge was approaching. He didn't see her reflection, but he felt her presence behind him.
"How badly did you wound them?" He asked, unable to hide his excitement. He really hoped she had killed at least one of them.
"I let them go easily; it's no fun when prey can't fight back." She whispered into his ear.
"What!?" he yelled as he turned to face her. "How could you!? They had to suffer, they had to know that they can't get away with what they did to ….." his words became gargled as he found himself hanging outside the window, only her hand on his neck keeping him from falling to his death.
"Do not forget who you address here worm." She said her voice controlled and cold, as if death itself had entered her body. "Do not forget who the master is and who the pet in this relationship is. You are alive because SHE wills it. You have power because SHE wants you to. You have your free will because for now, SHE finds you amusing."
She pulled him close to her face, baring her fangs. "Once your usefulness is over, you will be mine." She hurled him into the room, her supernatural strength launching him clear across the room.
He fell on the table, sliding across it and landed in the place he once sat, breaking the expensive chair with the force of his impact. He groaned as he looked and found her standing over him perched on the table like some great predator, eyeing its next meal.
He watched as she waited patiently for him to collect himself. The dizziness faded away, as he made himself sit up, he could feel the blood dripping from what must be a gash on his head, but he saw that her eyes never left his. Such self control from a creature such as her unnerved him.
He had heard and studied about vampires. He knew their bloodlust, their weaknesses, even the methods of creating one. He knew they were could be frighteningly cunning and powerful foes. They had weaknesses, sunlight, holy power, and their unquenchable bloodthirst. They were powerful, but not unbeatable.
This lot though, this lot was far more frightening than anything he had ever even dreamed of. Their confidence and arrogance seemed more than mere boasting. They feared nothing. They never went out in sunlight, but they showed no signs of fearing it. They feared no places of holy power, and they never seemed to feed. Even this great and powerful mistress they served they did not fear. No, it was more than just serving. They worshipped her. She was their goddess. He saw the fervor with which they followed her orders, and the devastating effect should they fail her.
He wiped the blood from his face and looked at her, trying his best to hide his fear. "What are you staring at?"
"A dead man."
His face paled. She did not laugh and he feared that he was about to meet his end right then and there.
"Don't piss yourself Allister, you're not dead yet. She has a job for you, it's time you use all of her gifts."
"What does she want?"
"Why don't you hear it in her own voice, so you know how important this is."
The room went dark and cold, he stared in horror as the look in her eyes changed. Their color morphed, and he stared into the brightest green eyes he had ever seen. They glowed with unholy energy, and he could feel her stare entering his body. He understood now, why they worshipped her, why they feared nothing. She was beautiful as she was terrible. She was a force that the world had wanted to forget but could not. She was death.
She smiled, and he thought how it could almost be warm, almost beautiful were he not terrified to the depths of his mortal being. Her voice spoke, but not from the lips, it wisped in the air like the echo of something long lost to the folds of time.
"Allister Dubois Deneith, at last." The voice was distant, but melodic, he couldn't help but wonder how darkly beautiful the voice must be when it sung, if it sung.
He wanted to move, to bow, to grovel, to show some signs of respect, but all he could do was stare at those eyes. "Mistr…..mistress, how may I be of help."
The voice laughed, and it he wept. Her understood why they worshipped her, he understood what she was. She was death, forever and deep. She was life, vibrant and beautiful. She was this and more, she was the moment between moments. She was a goddess.
"You are of no help Allister, but you may be of service."
"Anything mistress." He found himself whispering, speaking in hushed reverence.
"It is time your wayward house be purged of those who do not have its best interests in mind. Your enemies won't take long before they will move against you. You will lose more than just your mark this time. You will lose your power, you home, and all that you know as Deneith."
"Lose my mark mistress? But I have already…" Allsiter gasped as he felt the cold energy enter him and spread through his body. The pain came back as it did that day, as it did the horrible day when he wanted nothing more than to die. The day he gained shame, and ridicule and lost his place in the world. He cried out.
"Yes Allister, lose your mark."
He looked down and saw it, as if it was never gone. He saw it glow, green, like the eyes of his goddess.
"Head westward Allister. Head to the Rekkenmark and wipe out the non believers, ferret them out and slay them. Do not let their eyes see the light of day as their last sight, deny them all hope so that they know, they die for their betrayal of your house."
"I shall not fail you mistress!"
"Of course not Allister, it's an impossibility. You will die before you'll get the chance to."
Allister watched as the eyes before him flared green and a faint pattern washed over the body of his vampire watcher, the pattern recognizable, but he could not figure out why. Her eyes became dark again and she looked at Allister.
"Do you understand now Allister?"
"Yes."
"Good. Then let us make preparations. Rekkenmark is about to learn what it is exactly that goes bump in the night."
Allister's reborn dragonmark flared, and he smiled.
