Arcfire
Chapter 14
by E.E. Bowers
Aia had never personally driven a korth, but the elf-girl had managed a few horses in her past incarnation as a human. Being a human. A human. A stupid, worthless, pathetic, inept, micro-witted miserable excuse of a being that couldn’t even…
Well then! In any event, a korth is a much better choice of mount given how its six limbs of mobility and its redundant skeletal joints make for a much smoother ride than that of your own ride-beasts regardless of terrestrial species.
Asking the humans in the audience! What is one thing that your species love more than putting their genitals to use? Well, asking that question but wanting an answer that excludes eating. You and your animal urges, if you are not eating, and you are not making yet more attempts at procreating, then what are you doing?
Fighting, of course! Not just the usual two wallops to the head and calling it a day. Not just a matter of pouncing upon a human to trounce him or her into submission. No, when humans fight, it’s all about obliteration. Great big murderous bouts of mayhem! Humans dying by the dozen at the hands of other humans! Having yourselves a grand crimson-soaked time of things!
In truth, we enjoy a bit of the old ultra-violence ourselves. But unlike your miserably low-intelligence and therefore low-technology civilisation, we have the means of bringing ourselves back from oblivion. We are free to blast each other into composite subatomic particles, and yet…we still come back from the vasty deep. In said cases, we have all sorts of religious experiences, and we declare none of them valid. If we did? Why, we’d just be steeped in endless conflict and chaos enough to destroy the universe again, and we cannot have that!
Which makes human conflict just so very enjoyable to watch. You would advise from a safe distance. For us, any distance is safe. Do recall our ability to not be dead for overly long. Also, do recall how we are able to go where we please in this universe, when we please, and standing upon a dimensional threshold which renders us invisible to all of you ongoing biological failures.
Failures, such as the ones gathering hereabouts upon this soon-to-be blood-soaked plain. Well! It won’t be plain for long, will it? Not with all manner of human anatomy soon to decorate the surface!
At the least, you have sensibility enough to draw yourselves into two opposing sides. Your psyches are constantly in flux. It is a wonder you are able to form stable alliances long enough for the sake of murderous destruction.
To one side, we have the instigators of this bit of conflictual folly. That rabble which has been roused? By a certain slip of an elf? (Well, synthetic-bodied elf…with the brain of a human. But the distinction is far from what you want to believe regardless.) Yes-yes, they make for one side. Aia the skyborne princesse has with her any number of dozens of more-or-less armed townspeople. A massive mass of humans upon foot and upon korth, townspeople and (seemingly) professional combatants, a great many will have this as their last moment in this world!
Oh, and those hired brigands. This includes… Oh, his name again? Not that it matters, for he will be dead before this bit of folderol is done and done.
What’s that? We spoilt the fun for you? Oh, do be quiet! We did nothing of the sort! We did not mention the soon-to-be-deceased party by name. Not that it matters overly much. Most all of them are going to become chunks of inert biological matter soon enough. What do you expect? This is a pre-industrial, neo-feudalist fight! Up close and personal, just the way that you love it with all of your fantasies of endless inter-kingdom warfare and slavery!
Now, as for the other side, they truly need no introduction. No, they don’t. Don’t deserve it, either. Why bother with the names of those who all serve the same lord and therefore serve the same purpose? That of dying for their lord, of course. All of this time galloping about on six-legged steeds, rendering death upon the innocent just to keep them being downtrodden peasantry… Put it that way, you truly would be at home amongst them. And you will gladly die all of a sudden when your fantasy-fueled notions of fighting and with no training whatsoever bring you to oblivion.
Which leaves us to ask you the question you have not asked all of this time. If Lord Arse has such a professional military to serve his needs in the land, why have they not ever been seen doing what professional militaries are supposed to do? When not fighting actual wars? You have never actually seen them training! That goes because they do not! Simply relying upon their confidence and swagger to win the day. Such would explain why so very many of them have astoundingly stupid bits and bobs of juvenile decoration added to the little bits of armour they actually bother to wear. That, as well as decorations elsewhere.
Really? A belt buckle with the carved face of an arm-beast? Are you actually intent on drawing attention to your crotch?
In any event, on with the main event. With all of your so-called friends entranced by the region between your lower limbs, we have a war to watch unfold.
What’s that? You say this is merely a battle? No, we insist upon calling this a war. The battles previous to this had all been fought in pubs and homes and all the sorts of places that people talk out of earshot of korth riders. Those of you with fetishes for totalitarianism, you would like to think that informants will always give you accurate information regarding insurrection. But given how you are stupid enough to love for totalitarianism, you are also stupid enough to believe that informants are an effective bulwark against insurrection. Regardless of how many revolts, revolutions, and brutal beheadings there are of authoritarians, of kings, of dictators, so on and so forth, you still cling to the notion that such governance actually works. It does not, and this is the result.
With all the battles past having been lost by Lord Muck, his reputation matching the moniker, this is a final result. This is what happens when you have tyrants. People become angry. People take up arms. And then they follow the call of an elf-girl with a synthetic corpus. Happens more often than you would think, actually.
As to how the bloodletting began, no one would probably rightly remember. Oh bother, we should rather say that almost no one will remember. So goes because most all of these humans are going to be dead—and it is especially difficult for the dead to remember much of anything. Have you ever tried to interrogate a corpse? In any event, the event seems to have begun when the korth riders plunged headlong into the fray!
The korth riders, they were specifically created as a group for this! This… This defending of their lord and master! No matter the threat, regardless of how many of the enemy there shall be, the korth riders shall plunge full-speed into battle and war! Be it a thousand or ten-fold that, the korth riders will go forth into the fray and win the day! And so, being six hundred strong and each upon a six-legged steed, they were sure to win…!
…
Now, about that figure? Six hundred korth riders? Totalitarian government officials have a tendency to…ah, fudge the numbers. Politicians lying? Could you just imagine that? No need, for such is actually the case—and especially with regards to not-quite-democratic forms of governance. Feudalists, communists, capitalist oligarchs and the like, they are not beholden to the people. In fact, they are beholden to no one but themselves.
What was that blurb put forth by a pair of your ancient philosophers? This notion that there should be a chosen few people who rule all the masses? The question went, Who watches the watchers? Interesting how they sort of…glossed over an answer to that. No one watches the watchers, for they are the sort not beholden to anyone else.
Which ultimately means, they are grotesquely incompetent. They are never able to meet the most basic of standards. They are stupid, inbred, uneducated, incapable of receiving education, and the absolute worst of people. But still, you seem to keep worshipping them. You also keep re-electing them.and their more-than-equally inept children…and their children after that… Another of your more recent political philosophers stated something about people deserving the sort of government they have. That man was quite correct.
That said, such should rather easily explain what was to happen next. It should be less of a surprise. There is still something unexpected about the outcome because too many of you still expect Lord Miserable’s morons to win the day. Prepare to be disappointed.
…
Two thousand korth riders? So went the figure put forth by Lord Muck’s retainers. Royal court advisors. What have you. Perhaps…that number was more like…One thousand? No, no… Lower still. Six hundred? No? Lower still.
Why not speed things along…and move that decimal point one jot to the left. Which is to say, divided by ten…for those of you yet to bother paying any sort of attention to the maths teachers. The headmaster would not dare to dive head-long into your affairs again, you being chronically unable to learn anything with those noses of yours mere inches from your smartphones. Have you started to realise that half the answers given you by the internet regarding academia are wrong? And if we had anything to do with peppering deliberately incorrect information throughout the cheat-sheet internet websites, then we will still absolutely deny doing so. We will therefore continue to deny how we seem to know that half the answers are wrong.
Well! They are certainly as wrong as Lord Morkudum’s paltry collection of warriors. For all of their bluster and all of their raiment, they are—saying again—especially untrained. Not even house-trained. As hairy as they are in body and fur clothing, korth riders do not make especially good pets. Unless one inhabits a floating castle, that is. If they were trained in something other than…. Oh bother, if they were simply trained at all, they would not rush headlong into these affairs.
They would realise certain things that even the most inept eyes would perceive. Certain amongst the townspeople and peasantry are armed with crossbows. A great many. And since there are a great many peasantry, that makes for a great many bolts being unleashed in this very direction!
What was that mustachioed dictator’s declaration regarding amassed forces? No, not that mustachioed moron. The other totalitarian mustachioed moron! There just seem to be so many absolutist lunatic human overlords with the same style of facial hair, it just becomes so very bothersome to point out which one. We mentioned him before and his declaration regarding quality and quantity… Ah, there you have it!
In this case, the korth riders were riding so dangerously close together—practically shoulder to shoulder upon their six-legged mounts. Riding, driving, or even levitating at such close proximity—we warn you—is nothing that any instructor would advise that you do! If in one of those horridly primitive motorised monstrosities of yours, that could result in an accident. But as things stand—here and now—being so very close together meant that the first wave of korth riders absorbt all the incoming bolts.
And the leather-and-fur haberdashery they wore did nothing to stop that. They could have gone with metal armour. Or they could perhaps have not gone into battle at all! Not that it mattered overly much. Breastplates do nothing to stop bolts to the bonce. And as to how each and every rendered bolt struck them all in the foreheads, we had nothing to do with that. Nothing at all. Merely coincidence, that.
Mere probability, you see. This is an infinitely sized universe. Therefore, you have any number of infinite dice-rolls to have happen whatever your little, little imaginations in your tiny, tiny human intellects can come up with. Which is to also say, there are quite likely any number of worlds in this universe in which those korth riders—or similar man-beast combinations—are rushing head-first into a wave of crossbow bolts. Maybe in a great many of them, their heads are so very hard that such bolts fail to penetrate. And in more of the same, perhaps they were dressed in clown costumes at the bidding of their lord instead of fur-wear.
Now that first wave consists of korth-riders wearing cylindrical head ornamentation. Well! Some of you wished for unicorns. That’s all you’re getting in that regard.
Perhaps half of them had sense enough to reach up and feel what penetrated their skulls and brains dead-centre. When they bothered to remember that perhaps brains are important and that said organs were now penetrated, they also remembered to drop dead from their saddles. Meanwhile, the other half never quite used their frontal lobes often and were therefore rather used to having dead portions where their consciousness—their higher reasoning facilities—reside. Hah, as if there were such things among korth riders.
But that first wave of korth had quite enough of such nonsense and tossed their bolt-bedecked riders to their deaths beneath the thunderous stampede of hooves hereabouts.
…
As is usual, something else was happing elsewhere. There are battles throughout a world, yes. Battles throughout all the human worlds. Epees and pistolets and crossbows and bolt-guns and goodness knows what else. Again, infinite possibilities! More than a few of those human-infested planets even have humans who stopped resembling humans—now sporting an extra few limbs of the robotic variety. Why-ever not? The rest of them has been replaced. (Before you go about bad-mouthing their physical decisions, just remember that such worlds will not fall to the likes of our six-limbed insectoid friends. But yours will! Something to think about. In fact…
Let’s dive into your hypocrisy and look a bit around your planet. You and your infinitely bad decisions. Infinite, because a great many decisions—and a great many of them bad decisions—will have consequences for your species forever.
Leilaniana was plucking flowers from a growing field beyond the city. The city, where all the money lives. Not all the violence, mind. Hooligans come hereabouts to live as a temporary respite against the constant thugging and drugging. So much for your hippie-bred notions of peace through recreational chemistry! Plants are sources of poisons and murder, yes. But they can be so very pretty.
Meanwhile, two local…pharmaceutical warlords are having a raging battle with guns, guns, guns in the city... No, not just piddling little assault rifles. Those pathetic calibers barely able to penetrate half the flesh of a meat-beast. Speaking of penetration, we are talking about great big hulking murder-machines with barrels long enough to be the envy of every pornographic celebrity for the next century. And shotguns. We simply cannot have a right-proper mutual human bloodletting without a gunpowder-powered means of explosively propelled lead shot! Oh, just like…that!
That one’s head was simply obliterated when he stood up from behind an armoured vehicle to start blasting away with his two ruby-encrusted, platinum-plated hand-held scaled-down shotguns in pistol form. Yes, obliterated! Bits of brain and scalp and all manner of grey skull. (Littering the sidewalk with his brains and what-not! How very rude! And illegal at that! Surely worth a hefty fine. Not that it matters—not even grey matters, heh. Drug lords are simply rolling in funding.)
Now to call those hand-held monsters pistols would be like calling an Italian sports-car a shopping trolley. An insult to all parties involved. Not that it matters to their former owner, for he no longer had a head to spout disagreement! A few jolly dance-steps, and his corpus collapsed to join the rest of his bits on the sidewalk he so rudely littered previously.
Which left the rest of his scummy ne’er-do-well friends blasting away with whatever weapons they had. That, and the entire cases of ammunition they had dropped down and opened up on the sidewalk and asphalt besides. Unlike someone, they had sensibility enough to not raise their heads over the edges of the armoured vehicles. Did you hear that? Armoured vehicles. As in, perfectly good means of protecting one’s corpus from being penetrated. Always use protection!
But there are moments in which even protection is useless. Such is when it is not in use. Motorcycle helmets—derisively called brain buckets in some quarters—do no good when left upon store shelves. Just ask some of your so-callled celebrities. And vehicular armour does little if someone is standing up and out from its protection. Such vehicles are even more useless still if one is not standing far away when a rocket-propelled explosive is spiraling in one’s direction.
Those Soviets could do precious few things correctly. But when they do craft weaponry, what they lack in something called accuracy, they attempt to make up for in stopping power. That is, when they are actually capable of striking a target at farther than rock-throwing distance.
And Leilaniana was still busy picking flowers. Such a pretty, pretty girl of nineteen—her long summer dress clinging close to her trim dancer’s figure. Long dark hair fluttering in the wind—the same wind that carried the vague scent of…hrmph…gunpowder and…oh, smells like yet another armoured vehicle has gone up in a burst of soviet-crafted self-propelled explosive and onboard petrol. That must have explained the deep masculine thump of sound heard earlier.
Someone else was probably dead again. Leilaniana gave a sigh, then promptly went back to plucking flowers again. The plastic basket was quite nearly full. But still, it was certainly a more productive and also safer pastime than being in a two-way marksmanship competition.
An elderly figure also seemed to think so. Look over there, hunched over and also seemingly plucking away at innocent plant-matter. Not so innocent in broad perspective. Flowers are plant genitalia. No more innocent than the stooped figure bearing that basket.
Which is why Leilaniana had to put a stop to that bit of bolly nonsense. The young miss had fired her own cut-down carbine faster than you can say concealed weapon.
That elderly figure was not so elderly. And not so innocent. The wig was too askew and too badly doffed to hide the gang tattoos on the neck. A rather thick bullish neck at that. And had the in-mufti drug cartel hooligan been more practised at quick-drawing firearms from flower baskets, he would have had half a chance against Leilaniana—whom he thought he could cut down as easily as the plant matter being killed.
…
“The crystal bobbins-set calls for you, m’lord,” said one of the korth riders not joining the fun down on the ground.
Lord Morkudum was busy enjoying this latest game between his morons and the scoundrels of the town. The city. Whichever it so happened to be. Not that it mattered overly much, so long as the tribute kept coming. More problematic was how this bothersome uprising just may keep the before-mentioned from arriving. He may have to scourge the town entirely and wait for the population to grow back after this.
But the crystal-prophet calls for him. A prophet, yes. Lord Morkudum has exactly that at his disposal. What, did you think he would have anything in the way of a decent rulership by divine right…without divinity itself praising his rulership for-ever?
Your own politicians go about relying on such things as polls and statistics. Foolish, that. Just remember! What comes to pass when the pollsters are the issue of spoilt childhoods, and the statistics are completely compiled to be to your satisfaction? Oh, our services are quite accurate, they declare. According to our gathered and gleaned data, Arsenal is set to win yet again. Now, what was that bit about predicting the victory of a cigar salesman’s wife over an orange-haired individual in an American presidential election?
Exactly! Crystal prophets are a great deal more accurate than the so-called scientific shenanigans of the statisticians’ sort! How else do you think that the likes of the Morkudums have ruled for generations? Other than having a well-armed floating castle?
In which case, Lord Morkudum put aside his paper-wrapped serving of fried haddock and battered chips before standing up and striding off—leaving his retainers gathered ‘round the throne and staring apt at the far-sight crystals…which, in turn, were focused in on the battle happening here and now.
What’s that? You ask how fish and chips are possible on this world? And wrapt in newspaper, at that! There are neither potatoes nor haddock to harvest or net, respectively. It is nevertheless quite interesting what you can have grow-kilns concoct upon the most insane of whims. Why, from the vantage point of this world, the dish is an ancestral delicacy. That, along with biscuits…for all of you hefty-bellied yobs whose childhood sweet-tooth never really gave way!
Speaking of childhoods—misbegotten and otherwise—Lord Morkudum was still not one to disregard the declarations of the crystal-prophet. Yes, he could call to have nannies beheaded at a whim. And yes, he could use far-sight and tele-sight crystals to look in on the reproductive doings of the townspeople—be such travails paid or otherwise. (Interesting what a lord will do in a world without something resembling a world-wide computer network. Likely, exactly the sort of things done on your world!) But for all of his doings in rebellion against authority challenging his (pre-pubescent) authority, one thing that he would never…ever…not ever do?
Disregarding the crystal-prophet. May as well enjoy one last warm, comforting cup of hemlock tea. The alkaloids will simply do wonders for your lack of intellect—as well as improving the health of your species’ gene-pool at that! Just…be sure to consume it before partaking of reproduction, would you?
In any event, Lord Morkudum was off and behind the curtained place behind the throne. Then he was behind that curtained place behind the throne. And if the metal-framed frippery of metal-frames for bearing instruments and stage accoutrements have a strong resemblance to what would be found behind the curtain of an American school, then so be it. (Best watch those Americans. Some of them tend to grow orange tufts atop their bonces and win presidential elections.)
Best not to keep the crystal-prophet too far from a throne room. Better yet still, because the crystal-prophet’s crystalline mental-network was actually built into the infrastructure of this floating castle, it was better to have the central throne room near an access nexus for the before-mentioned. Otherwise, it would take the crystal-smiths a century to learn how to move it. Best to keep the situation being as situated as it is.
…
Which brings Lord Morkudum, dramatic cloak and all, striding into this chamber for consulting the crystal-prophet. Surely in the centuries and millennia of existence of humans upon this world, they would come up with a name for such a room. Not so, given how your species took how many millions of years to invent writing?
He stood before a vast glittering array of vertically arranged crystals set from chamber floor to ceiling. Being the most refined and the most powerful crystals of this world, they simply glittered with their own light. Looking into the depths of such things, a person could…perhaps…see things. Some have imagined seeing what their descendants would be doing. Others thought that they could see into other worlds. Even…worlds set in universes in which humans never came to be… (Oh, what joy!)
There was no normal way that a human could know that, for they would have to explore the entirety of those other planes of existence. Granted, not all universes are unlimited. Yours so happens to be and becoming more unlimited all the time—which means plenty of room for your asinine antics! (Given your recent geopolitical behaviour, your universe is going to need all the space it can garnish.) But, there are universes of limits. Some without. As to how those humans could know that those other universes have no humans, it was a sort of feeling or knowledge transmitted somehow. This, just as you will have nightmares at times and know the back-story behind the horror without being told.
Dreams made visual. Glimpses into other universes. Being able to see into the immediate futures of those close by. No one really, really knows how arrays which make up crystal-prophets do it.
Oh, all right. We will tell you—giving you something alongside as much as your pitiful little human minds can handle. Quantum computing? You are familiar with that, yes? Superpositioning? Entanglement? Tensor-field p-tau graviton inversions of light quarks? None of those phenomena sound overly familiar? Well then, what do you know? (Such a horrid business, this. May as well attempt explaining the finer points of macroeconomics to an irascible and slightly intoxicated three year old.) Well then! Suffice to say that a crystal-prophet goes about its metaphysical computing business by using forces that run cousin to those which bring starships from place to place.
Cousins, not immediate family. They are similar forces of making the local universe misbehave for the sake of getting from point alpha to point gamma whilst completely but temporarily ignoring the existence of point beta. Yes! Completely ignoring great big massive swaths of the time-space fabric! Being so very disrespectful to that much of existence is surely very insulting indeed! (We told you this would involve metaphysical misbehaviour.)
And Lord Morkudum was waiting all the time it took for (an attempt at) explanation of crystal-prophet doings. This lord is not a patient entity. This, though wealthy buffoonery of your planet tends to be so and exactly because they think they have all the tine in the universe to have anything they so desire.
Lord Morkudum tried to sound patient and polite—especially when the crystal-prophet could rather easily predict his doom and destruction. Perhaps…even a gruesome slow death in which all of his skin burnt off to expose his cracked and cooked but still-living meat. So in his best interest, Lord Morkudum said in the most polite manner possible…
“You jangling gathering of misbegotten crystalline frippery! You called for me! What is it that you wish to rant about?”
The most polite manner possible, we said. Indeed, that is putting things in as close to a milquetoast manner given his fiery mood. Even in the depths of calm, Lord Morkudum does not mind subtracting a few heads from the equation.
And now, glittering in synchronization with its words, the crystal-prophet began speaking in a gentle cascade of assorted voices all speaking in chorus. “You have been asked here to consider your fortune in matters before they are concluded.”
Each bevel-edged stretch of crystal in sight had taken on its part in the chorus. And if you imagine this was what a chorus from an Ancient Greek tragedy would sound like, then perhaps you have some reason.
To this beautiful and beatific cascade of sound, Lord Gertrude the Reigning Idiot of Stupid-Land… (Of course, that is still not his real name. But such is what he shall be called for the duration of this sentence.) To this cascade of sound and voice, Lord Idiot snapped with, “That is an overly broad statement! Would you care to be more specific, or would you prefer your various crystalline gut-bits strung onto bits of string to make windchimes?”
The crystal-prophet’s response was going to be as calm as ever. If you could see the fate of most any idiot, moron, or imbecile—and therefore also seeing that they shall die inevitably, such would be balm for rudeness ad infinitum. From the perspective of eternity here and the other eternities besides, there is plenty of patience to be had. And if being broken into bits in this universe just to be done with this insufferable twit, then perhaps a deliberately trollsome response would be in order?
Not…this time. Even if the crystal-prophet knew that his-her-its-their end was going to be soon, the crystal-prophet chose peace by giving a more-or-less specific answer.
“There is a skyfall princesse in the land. Such can be your wife for the remainder of your living days.”
Entire chambers full of women. Chambers more still full of tribute. Having political power enough to cause death and destruction at the mere hint of a whispered suggestion. Indeed, with all that he possesses, there are few things that pique the lord’s interest. All of those are all in good fun. So goes it when one is ruler and master of all the land of this one world. One has it all, one wants more, but then one’s interests just fall into quite select categories. Rarified, in fact—the minds of ruling aristocrats looking madly about not just for more things to acquire but extremely precious things at that. Such is why the ruling families of your planet—as idiotic as they are—will pay astounding sums for scraps of cloth with poorly rendered (sometimes deliberately) imagery upon it, misshapen chunks of marble, or even some crudely carved chunks of shiny rock dug up from the ground. Oh, but a skyfall princesse?
Well, then! Such a thing of beauty is worth more all of that. Not that the Morkudums have been ones to patronise the arts, with that verb having multiple connotations in tow. However, they do have wants. And there were very few things that anyone of the Morkudums could want more than a skyfall princesse.
Yet Lord Morkudum is just so very much like any bit of inbred aristocratic humanity. When there is something to want, such a want must be met and met at any cost. Crossing your one lone planet to acquire any of those crudely shaped bits of shiny, your aristocracy is of the same mood, of course. Lord Morkudum’s desire has been invoked and stoked, and it shall be met. So goes the id. What of the ego? The question goes, how and where?
“Tell me now, crystal-prophet. Tell me how,” insisted Lord Morkudum. When his brain-power summoned wits enough, he specified, “How do I acquire this skyfall princesse!”
Did he really have to ask that question? Evidently, yes. Lord Morkudum was unable to perform the mental gymnastics of putting two and two together, as the Americans say. Two-squared is a conundrum too far. Let us simplify and extrapolate for you… The crystal-prophet mentioned a skyfall princesse, yes? This is mentioned whilst there is a battle-war going on. (We can get away with that label, given how this one war will have just one battle. Only needs one battle to have the results. Trust us on this—especially given the outcome.)
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
And with us not wanting to plant thoughts in Lord Morkudum’s brain but with the crystal-prophet being there to do the mental manipulations for us, we have the following response. The before-mentioned polyvalent crystalline device declared… “To win the princesse, you must win the battle.”
Oh, just so obvious! We should cause a wrapt serving of fish and chips to appear over his head and simply have the contents drop down—grease and all—to emphasise the point. And perhaps such contents should be piping hot at that.
A point which would probably be lost due to his lordship’s rather dense sensibilities regardless. Not so lost was the most obvious of declarations made. Lord Morkudum smiled. And never mind if the crystal-prophet’s declaration has the sort of double meaning to be found in your otherwise irksome and semi-literate fairy tales.
“Most certainly. I can win this battle without trying overly much,” declared Lord Morkudum. “It will be over in a flash.”
We thought about having the crystal-prophet say something vaguely and subtly snarky just to spite his lordship and his over-inflated sense of self. But doing so, that would cause the before-mentioned to put pause on his next planned move. We shan’t stop Lord Morkudum on his way to causing more mayhem, death and destruction, and other alliterated aberrations. Goodness knows, you species needs all the misfortune it can get. Such will toughen you up somewhat prior to the presence of our giant six-legged hyper-intelligent friends.
Of course there was going to be that way in which Lord Morkudum was going to win this battle. Note the phrasing that we use, just as you should do the same for what was said by the crystal-prophet. Lord Morkudum shall win. In times past, in battles of humanity past and far away, when it is said that generals or kings win battles, you largely ignore how such aristocratic idiocy does not directly engage in combat. (Yes, we insist upon the term idiocy. Kings have put themselves directly into the fray, and kings have fallen to the swords and arrows of enemies—well-deserved deaths for fools who think themselves divine and immortal!)
What we are saying in so many words is, leaders do not win battles. Soldiers win battles. Soldiers on the front lines are the ones who wield the weapons, who kill the enemy or render him unable to fight. Just as masons build buildings, as cartwrights craft carts, as pavers pave roads, they are the ones who craft the crafts which make up crafting!
No, you infinitely stupid buffoons! The workers are the ones who perform the work. The workers are therefore the ones who do the deeds! A certain British Prime Minister no more won your second so-called World War than America’s General Washington—wooden dentures and all—took up a loaded musket and defeated the entirety of the great British army simply all by himself!
It remains an atrociously stupid act of human stupidity in which you declare that leaders do great deeds! Individuals acting in concert get things done and not the self-aggrandizing inbreds who claim all the fame from their lofty thrones! So why do you continue to credit kings and other aristocrats for great deeds of history being done! Will the idiocy of your species never, ever end!
Ahem! Well then! Let’s get on with bout of dastardly bastardry, shall we? Lord Morkudum strode off again. He is certainly doing a lot of striding recently—more so given the possibility of possessing a princesse. And because there are neither female heirs to the throne nor any other families of royalty upon this world, such could only be a skyfall princesse. Indeed, much as a tchul’ptuk will cavort with its toes inverted whilst in a female colony, you humans have a way of moving in attempting to seduce potential mates. Unlike the before-mentioned sexually dimorphous species, however, at least you survive the mating ritual with your digestive tract largely intact. More’s the pity. Such would do wonders for instilling something along the way of humility.
Now, some of you would wonder why Lord Morkudum would need to stride some more—given the assessment of the situation. Those some of you have correctly assessed that…yes, there is a rather instant means of winning that battle down on the ground and hence winning the war. Why-ever not, given the prize to be had!
But at the same time, such a means was not to be had in the very same room as the crystal-prophet. That some among you have also correctly assessed the reasoning behind this design, this layout. There is the notion that artificial intelligences—crystal-prophets or not—should not be trusted with decisions regarding destruction. Crystal-prophets are considered there to advise and were crafted as such. Crystal-prophets are not there to control the direct means of destruction.
So goes because crystal-prophets just may actually make reasonably correct decisions and actually go forward with them directly! We cannot have that, can we? And if the correct decision would be that of razing the city and self-detonating the crystal power-core lattices of the floating castle, then so be it. Such would bring an instant end to that elf-girl’s quest straight-away without her even trying, thus resulting in her being sent back to Earth immediately.
Instant victory! Where would be the fun in that? You don’t play games just to be given silly little baubles representing victory at the outset, do you? That said, we understand each other perfectly—with us having a more perfect understanding still.
But…since when is Lord Morkudum ever about fun? Not fun for the likes of the underlings, that’s for certain. Your species has a saying… Oh bother, your species says a lot of things. And by sheer power of probability alone—we assure you—some of it actually makes some trace-bits of sense! This, much as the occasional invertebrate will show some traces of reasoning! Now, one of those sayings is, The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor. Lord Morkudum is really past much of overly enjoying anything other than killing, but enjoyment is there nevertheless. This, just as he is going to instantly kill most every single last mother-bred fork-bearer in the field of operations down there. Not that Lord Morkudum actually understood concepts or phrasings such as field of operations or fire for effect, but he nevertheless used those things regardless—much as those before-mentioned other species will craft nests without knowing the word nest.
So there you have it. Lord Morkudum activated the…ah, defensive weaponry of the floating castle. (Defensive weaponry, it sounded so much more polite that way when the sky-borne created this thing. Can’t trust their human offspring with offensive weaponry, can we? Might blow up a planet or two accidentally on purpose.) Among such weaponry would be the floating castle’s kill-o-blasterer.
Yes, kill-o-blasterer weaponry. Powered by an irresponsible tonnage of energy crystals that summon energy from the very same force which created this damned universe. With such power, it was easy as orange tarts to obliterate most every living thing down there. Boom-bip, there goes dear little Annika’s little revolt! Oh, Aia! Her name was Aia! Oh well…
And now you want details. There you go again, thinking that it matters overly much that there be actual details as to Alisa’s defeat. Of course, defeat. What could you have possibly expected otherwise? A smattering of peasants culturally stuck in a pre-industrial feudal-era society…going up against an honest-to-goodness converted starship! We are talking real-live Trek Wars technology, mates! And don’t you forget it!
We are so very inclined to say, you shan’t have those details. Just be glad that her little peasant uprising has been stomped flat with all the due speed of an orphan’s dreams of living beyond a hovel. We are nevertheless a somewhat kinder species than you ever will be. That said, you shall have your smattering of details. But, because the defeat happened in the past, we shall have to transport you to there and then.
…
And the first multicellular traces of gleeptarians oozed out of the carbon-lithium swamps more or less one billion years after… Just joking.
Aia was upon her high-korth, galloping along. No, no. We should rather say that Aia’s korth was galloping along, not the elf-girl of the synthetic corpus. But since Aia was the one commanding the galloping and with her atop the doomed ride-beast, then they are both partaking of the act. With such luxury features as six-legged means of mobility and the finest multi-joint leg-framework crafted by the best of engineers, you will never find such luxury outside of a five-star hotel. So speak with your friendly luxury korth dealer today about owning such a fine, fine piece of transportation.
And with such a luxuriously smooth ride, Aia was quite easily able to heft that legendary energy-bow weapon. Those horrible energies amassed along the leading edge of the bow’s body as Aia drew back the poly-conductive cording.
And just like that, thirteen of Lord Morkudum’s not-so-finest ceased to exist on the material plane. We quite thoroughly mean that. Unlike your pitiful plasma weapons, the blast of the Arcfire simply sear things apart at even the subatomic level. Which is to say, not even atoms left of them.
As for the rest of the korth riders? Well, they quite handily crossed that line from bravery to stupidity quite some time ago!
Perhaps, present company should be included in that remark. Look around at the peasantry. Hell! Look at everyone involved in this venture. They would have been wiser to go about things with subterfuge, espionage, and ultimately…sabotage. How can you defeat a floating castle by force of arms alone? Is that at all possible, especially given how your main forces have little else but hand weapons amongst them?
But alas, we speak of hot-blooded youngsters—of Jakk and…ah, whatever her name is again. Elf-girl. And when speaking of youngsters, their idea of a good time is usually something dangerous and stupid with varying proportions of one or the other. Oh, look! Is that a skyscraper? We should strap swaths of cloth to our backs and leap from the roof for a moment of rapt lunatic pleasure! Or perhaps… There is this wonderful sort of two-wheeled vehicle that goes irresponsibly fast! We should ride those motorised death-traps at several hundred kilometres per hour through morning roadway circulation! Worse still… Whilst we are thoroughly soused on endless pints!
There is some sort of thrill to be had in such absolutely idiotic behaviours. Such actions are thrilling, some kind of sick pleasure with those blobs of think-meat you have. Your neuropsychologists say, it is because the judgement centers of your pitiful brains are not fully formed. A miserable excuse, that. There are a great many amongst you with fully formed brains—or as fully formed as they will ever be. And yet, the antics continue! A glance at the number of middle-aged sorts riding about on motorcycles or seeking tawdry temporary relationships will tell you that. Moreover still, note how few of them are elderly—and it is exactly because they do not live long enough to become so!
Thrills, such as having an elf-girl of synthetic corpus firing her legendary weapon at the enemy again. That, and being fired at! Nothing quite like losing a third of your comrades-in-arms to weapons of metaphysical mass destruction to get the juices flowing, eh? Fiends of dopamine, you!
Which is to also say, those roused rabble accompanying Aia and what’s-his-name were doing little to nothing, tactically speaking…
But such is saying too little of them! A battle is most always tilted in one’s favour if one is not alone! Think of it. Even if one’s comrades-in-arms are less strong in the ways of arms, they serve some sort of purpose. That being…? That of distraction, of course! The more of your company that you so happen to possess, all the more targets for the enemy! And should you happen to be amongst said targets, should you also be a synthetic-bodied elf-girl armed with weaponry from millennia beyond your time period, then all the better. Like…so.
Whilst the decoys were doing as best as decoys could, Aia pulled back on the metaphysically infused cordage of the Arcfire. Those horrible energies accumulated. Then Aia let loose with yet another blast.
Yet again, it was brighter than daylight for a moment. And also yet again, another third of Lord Morkudum’s fielded fiends were rendered first into molecules, then atoms, then subatomic particles, and then said subatomic particles became even more composite particles still.
A clean way to go, you know. No fuss because there is no dust. There will be no churn in the urn… Would you like more? Very well, then! Rendered by the light of spite, nothing remained in the slight. And that is all you shall have for now!
Which still leaves Lord Morkudum’s batallion… Erm, company… No-no, now they are less than a platoon’s worth. Certainly running out of thirds, it can be said. And that was only with Aia having fired the Arcfire twice. (Fired, unleashed… Oh, shooting! Interesting how most every other class of weaponry has a different class of verbs in usage. You humans and your overly elaborate languages.)
Oh, right… We did say something about Lord Morkudum’s moronic marauders winning this battle-war. Even if they were to all die, their side would nevertheless win. Let’s get on with it, then.
Given all of the antics happening here on the ground, the humans hereabouts did not notice it at first. What? Notice what? Why, the bright white lentil-shaped accumulations upon the floating castle, of course? All of this miscellaneous activity involving blazing white-hot metaphysical death and all happening with Aia’s weaponry, it was somewhat difficult for the humans to expect her to be upstaged. A man-portable weapon of mass destruction… Erm, elf-portable in this case. Rather difficult to out-do that in the estimation of this planet’s dwellers. And such weaponry having de-facto unlimited rounds at that! De-facto, given how nothing amongst you is eternal…beside galactic records of your idiocy, of course!
Oh, but there shall be something to do exactly that. Upstage the elf-girl, of course. No-one wins forever. That much is certain.
Only when the bright whiteness of those lentil-shaped accumulations became brutally bright—even from up high and far away—did people actually come to pay attention. Paying more attention than you do in regards to maths. That much is certain. Interesting how life-threatening affairs can sharpen human perceptions.
“Up high!” shouted Jakk, pointing much like the idiot he is. A very, very lucky idiot—given his recent affairs given how he became party to the elfin skyfall princesse.
In fact? Just so very many of your fairy tales speak of lucky idiots. A lucky idiot trading a four-legged meat-beast for a pouch of magical beans. Another lucky idiot wandering the forest before freeloading off the labour of seven dwarves. We won’t bother with mentioning details regarding a pair of idiot-siblings who had the gall to burn an elderly woman alive in her own oven! This, after the before-mentioned senior citizen was kind enough to grant them shelter!
The woman was going to eat the children, you say? You humans and your silly small-minded human mores! What’s the harm in a little bit of cannibalism? Why, happens every time you chew your fingernails. Keep that up, and you’ll follow through with the rest of a human body in no time!
But there won’t be enough of Jakk to eat after this little bout of…ah, energetic enthusiasm! Unlike his fortunate teacher and proxy father-figure, Jakk was not going to leave behind a pile of ash. To put in an urn. To put in the wall of crystal-smith masters. To admire for a moment before going about one’s business.
You seem to think us overly sure as to what shall happen to Jakk. That, and the whole lot of these would-be adventurers. We are certainly sure. In fact, we are surely sure. We have time-travel capabilities, remember? Such was mastered aeons ago, and you should also recall our trans-dimensional capabilities. Using the latter currently. Why, how else are we able to keep you from the oncoming bit of blazing death?
“The dragon’s wrath of the floating castle! Oh, the legends are true!” whined one of the townspeople. “We are doomed!” Interesting how someone will mention dragons even in a world without them.
But in any event? Right you are, friend! You are just so very, very doomed. Don’t think that whingeing will do anything to assuage affairs! In fact, none of your ilk shall be spared.
Lord Morkudum’s korth riders may be morons. No, worse than that. They may be idiots. They may be pathetically inept at most anything even vaguely intellectual. Worse yet, they are humans. But even they realise that the upper hand is at hand. Especially when that hand has commanded the very weaponry to bring about the destruction of the opposing force.
Given that they too were also going to become vapour did nothing to deter their feeling of impending victory. No, it mattered not what was going to happen to them—not that they actually understood that. Not quite being able to plan beyond tomorrow, the korth riders are also quite unable to plan beyond the next hour. Unable to see three moves ahead? Hell, man! They cannot even see beyond instances in the first-qualifying plural! And feel free to keep muttering amongst yourselves in trying to understand that phrasing. Or just skip to the next juicy bit of mass murder.
In any event, he began blasting. By he, we mean the will of Lord Morkudum and his floating means of protection from a rather unruly populace. Because he lives in a castle or fortress of any sort, your Machiavelli would have had choice words for him—especially given his impending death. (Oh there we go again! Simply spoiling things for you. Well? Such will not be the only or worst of hardships that your species will suffer.)
He lives in a floating fortress of doom and destruction. He uses harsh, cruel, and vastly lethal means of maintaining his power. In short, he is the very incarnation of fascist families who control three-fourths of your planet’s population. Humanity and fascism are largely inevitable, given your level of stupidity. But at the least? He is getting away with it! Short-term victories! Short-term benefits versus long-term tragedy! Another human inevitability!
Speaking of which, one of those lentil-shaped accumulations of energies at the floating castle simply snapped apart. But it was so high up and far away that the shockwave of sound did not reach the ground immediately. The murderous massive streak of ultra-heated particles was here first.
Which did away with a third of Lord Morkudum’s miserably moronic marauders. For those who managed to pay attention to maths and remembered that the other two-thirds were rendered dead, that leaves…? Yes, there are now no more thirds of those morons to oppose the peasantry and their silly little act of rebellion. Which means…zero!
Terms such as collateral damage or fratricide would not translate well for Lord Morkudum. No, not because there are no equivalents in the local language. More like, because such terms are both multisyllabic and broadly abstract in scope, the lord would not have developed brains enough to comprehend. Besides, recall the policy of those who cause aches to Lord Morkudum’s head. Such people will lose theirs. Oh, and now came the shockwave of sound.
Between the blast of light and radiating heat, along with the transformation of the lord’s forces into composite subatomic particles, and then that blast of sound… Suffice to say that there was too much happening all at once for the peasantry to have access to all of their senses immediately. Shocked and shaken, they were. So much so, they did not immediately notice that half of their own forces were now gone.
What? Do you still not comprehend? Must we restate the fact yet again? Where half the peasantry had been—along with their silly little mounts and all of their frippery—there was now a wide swath of molten landscape. (High silica content, after all. These are the plains.) Those within the reach of that particular swath (particular in the atomic physics sense, not the rhetorical sense) were no longer present in the material sense. And since you humans have a hard time of things when your physical bodies are rendered dissolute into the local atmosphere? Such means that, yes, half the peasantry is dead!
Dead! Dead! Dead! More dead than half the hope of having your human politicians being something other than ninety-year-old ninnies with dementia enough to drive everyone else insane! More dead than the dinosaurs which they were said to be rhetorically! More dead than…!
Oh, why bother? It’s not like the deceased are in a position to weep for their fate. There is still the matter of everyone else hereabouts shaking themselves into a semblance of consciousness. This, as so they can get around to the business of figuring out what to do next. And while they were getting around to the act of contemplation, Lord Morkudum’s floating castle had another turn of things.
It is maths time, yet again! If one blast of Lord Morkudum’s Kill-o-Blaster™ can do away with half of a rather upset peasantry, then what shall come to pass…with another pass of the same? Whilst you go about figuring with your fingers and muttering figures aloud, the largely inevitable will come to pass.
Oh, we’ll tell you what comes to pass… But, we had already done so. Not terribly long ago. Did we not tell you that these humans are going to all die? All of them! All of them upon this deadly field of combat! It is war! It is feudal war, in which you intellectually sub-par simpletons insist upon sending living members of your own species off to die! It would make gobs of sense to simply send robots to have the killing done. But, ’tis too late for your asinine, closet-fascist, psychopathic ethicists to speak to the contrary! Too late for this lot and too late by far! Such is for certain. Sending robots, that could mean all of your sons and daughters are coming back from battle. But no, those cold-blooded murderous idiots in their (pseudo) intellectual ivory tower think it best that humans die in war! Meanwhile, those very same buffoons will send their own children to chain themselves to trees in some hackneyed effort at environmentalism…whilst their wealthy parents zip about in private jets between their various million-dollar manses upon each earthly continent. And here comes a great huge ultra-heated mass of something rather speedy!
Not quite speedy enough, it seems. That young idiot once beholden to the somewhat less-idiotic Master Fromm? He has time enough to turn his head to look upon his lady-love. The look on his face… Oh, how so very mawkish! Like ginger-nut biscuits left upon a plate during a rather overcast day, simply soaking up the humidity and becoming too soft to have that satisfying crunch. In so many words? Simply die already, you sentimental piece of humanity!
Smiling… And Jakk is smiling! (Perhaps on a subconscious level, he realises that his human life has come to an end. If we were in the horrible state of being humans, we would be all too happy to have an end to our miserable existence as well! And if there is your Hell? All the better insofar as we need not be a member of your species!)
And… Of course. Of course! They must always have some last words. He opened his mouth—that orifice which doubles for food intake as well as aerial communication.
Last words! Not on our watch, you don’t! Maybe we did something to the quantum qualities of the subatomic particles and anti-particles cutting along the battlefield. Maybe we steered them even faster. And then, what’s-his-name’s material existence was over in a flash! Quite literally, we should say. Oh, and the elf-girl of the synthetic corpus was blasted too.
…
Meanwhile? On to more important matters! And more important amongst them? What were you thinking? (Ah, trick question! You are human. Thinking is a rarity of a pastime for the likes of you.) What is the matter? Why, these biscuits, you dolts! These biscuits are an alimentary atrocity! If there were any more crimes against nature which we could hold against you, this would be capital amongst!
Not terribly difficult, really. In hindsight. How very difficult could it have been to have yourself a proper cover-dish with an absorption material in its vicinity? For a product that seemingly has no feasible expiration date whilst it is safely ensconced in its foil wrap, it has become something else! It is no longer a set of ginger-flavoured biscuits proper! These…! These…morsels of malfeasance! They are not fit for consumption by any species but your own! Even so, even we would deign having such occur!
That said…? Our patience is at an end! Do all assembled a favour! Do go to the door and… But before doing so, coat yourself in a rather flammable fluid! It will greatly facilitate matters when the dragon burns you to a crisp before you become nothing!
But alas, there are no dragons. We could have the before-mentioned appear in your particular universe and in your particular world. But such would only fuel the foolishness amongst your species…so to speak. And did you forget already our rule regarding paragraphs in which every single last sentence ends in an exclamation!
Biscuits… Soggy, soggy biscuits… Good for absolutely nothing now. Given their overly high sugar content, they are certainly not a nutritional boon. What fun is there in the consumption of biscuits deprived of their crisp?
Be that as it may, we are a more-or-less merciful species. We are altogether more forgiving than the likes of Xorch—whose honorific more or less translates into Flayer of Worlds. Again, going with proximity. Translation is still a tricky business when trying to pass on meanings to you humans. One misinterpreted syllable, and his title would be mal-traducted into Snuggles the Mighty.
Do you understand that? Do you know what Flayer of Worlds could possibly mean? The biosphere of your world rests upon a thin crust over molten lava. Thin crusts? What else has a thin crust? Pizza! Yes! And such is how Xorch shall deal with your planet should you even begin to leave crisps out unattended, denuded, and therefore…vulnerable to damp! All the amassed armies of your world would last but a femtosecond before his wrath! So, think of it! Oh, and Annika survived.
Yes, Annika. Not Aia. Aia does not deserve to live. Or we are joking yet again. You are just so very gullible, your species. All the more inclined to purchase polished bits of rock from the ground, and never mind the possibility that such polished bits could very well be fossilised dinosaur leavings.
…
Aia came to awaken…eventually. It was still daylight, if that matters overly much. It does, actually. It is all the more better to gaze upon her unduly exposed anatomy. Of course! And this time, her lack of clothing is of no fault of the fellows. (No fault other than choosing inaction, that is.) Since when does anything in the way of merely material garmentry or raiment survive the ultra-searing blasting blast of a Kill-o-Blaster™? The weaponry has rendered the whole of Aia’s adventuring party into subatomic particles—the likes of which have all long since parted ways!
Oh, look! There go the remaining bits of quarks and gluons which had once been Jakk! Flittering away to be absorbed by the orbits of nearby atoms! Good-bye! Good-bye! Enjoy what remains of eternity in this universe! And be glad that you need not deal with the likes of your fellow humans—former or otherwise—ever again!
Which is to also say, it was all coming back to Aia. The carousing about the pub. The cheering of the crowd as an elf-girl two years short of American-legal drinking age was present nevertheless. (Nothing quite like having one’s homeland become a fallout-contaminated wasteland to drive one to the seductive caress of liquid oblivion.) But such memories were those of her former life, her former existence on Earth, that planet named after dirt. And such memories were in turn conflated with the more recent bit of drinking-establishment antics—the likes of which have led to the moment which in turn led to this moment.
It took an effort for her to move her rather nicely crafted legs, bared as they were to hips. And for those of you who adore such things, her feet were also on display. ‘Tis all too likely that is where your focus happens to be. Never mind how her shredded and holed garmentry was only just so very viable enough to strategically cover those external bits usually affiliated with reproduction but more often used for amusement.
Of course, that! Did you think that a crystal-smith’s female garment would fail to do its very best to cover the modesty of the female body? We shan’t have those inappropriate moments befitting the sort of printed rubbish your mothers so very much enjoy reading! No slipping cloth from heaving bosoms at this time! No and no! Her garmentry—as compromised as it was—did not slip from her synthetic corpus.
This would potentially imply that had Jhort bothered to wear such a thing, he would not have need for vasi baths for the rest of his body. But as things stand? Well! He won’t have need for vasi, ever again! Not now and not ever! Death, the ultimate cure-all for human ailments!
Which nevertheless leaves the living. Barely so. Aia’s synthetic corpus was designed to be tough but not invincible, you recall. It was with just this side of viability, combined with the fact that the skyborne had dialed down the yield of the Kill-o-Blaster™ beams to prevent complete destruction of one of their own. Oh, and also keeping the energy-based yammering low enough as so the fool upon the throne does not blow apart their planet.
Which means that everyone else is dead. Jhort and his merry band of troublemakers-for-hire were now permanently out of business. The pub-keeper, ditto for the likes of him. All the pub-dwellers. Most all the able-bodied commerce-people of the town square. And with vasi doing what it does, that would mean all of them.
And Jakk. Jakk was…gone. Nary a visible trace of the lad. Not anymore. (Good-bye! Good-bye!) He was gone faster than your hopes of becoming the President of America. And everyone else! But… If that was so, then what was that sound of korth hooves? A rescue party from the town reserves?
No, not at all likely. Not from those quarters. The chance of yet more townspeople turning out for this fiasco were rather low. The probability of townspeople coming to Aia’s aid now were similar to that of a politician passing an exam without cheating. As in, close to zero. In fact, given our lofty and pervasive understanding of affairs, we would actually say, actually zero. By the way, we said pervasive, not perverted. Meanwhile, you are the ones trying to shift your head about to try and see around the scraps and flaps of Aia’s tattered garmentry.
And then, there are those who were doing the same. And now, they were bickering like morons trapped in the bodies of idiots. Makes sense, given how the ravages of time and stupidity both could not act fast enough to affect their physical appearances—to match their state of mind.
Hah, what mind? They walk. They talk. But they are utterly without intellect. We would like to use an old American saying on the matter. To wit (so to speak), The lights are on, but no one is home. We wish that were the case. Worse still is when there are idiots having run of the household.
“I saw her first!” declared one of Lord Morkudum’s morons. “By all rights, I shall bear her away to Lord Morkudum! And have my hands all over her in doing so!”
“No! I saw her first!” shouted another one of the same. The force of his argument seemed to be based upon the loudness of his voice!
“No! I!” shouted that other moron. “I shall foist her upon a shoulder and be in full contact with her exquisite anatomy! And a hand upon her thighs!”
Well then…! Do you see what happens when intellect is lacking? Tact and subtlety seem to follow suite. Certain of that commentary just may go toward Americans, what!
The first moron lined up here opened his mouth to shout more of the same. More moronics, then. But it was not to be, for he suddenly found it rather difficult to speak. And for whatever reason, the ground seemed to be rushing up toward him! Who could possibly have power enough to foist the entirety of this planet to have it strike him in the face? But before he could consider anything in the way of a reasonable answer (as if there was one), he had fallen into unconsciousness. Ten minutes from now, he will be biologically dead. As will his partner in argumentative crimes.
Because it was just a matter of perception. It was not the planet that had come up to greet him face-first. It was his face going down to do exactly that. And for those who have not guessed by now, along with the rest of his cranium. We are saying that the entirety of his useless neck-cap was off his neck and now on the ground.
For those still lacking in understanding this scenario, he has been decapitated! His bonce has been bounced off! His noggin has been displaced and set apart from the rest of his corpus! Those Americans speak of separation of church and state? Well then, there has been a separation of head and body! And if comprehension is further lacking still, then there must certainly be a great many toddlers who shall render the results in crayon.
Plenty of inspirational material, given all the virtual-combat games they play regardless of PEGI rating. Nothing quite like various bouts of amateur-hour weapon-based thoracic surgery to develop that youthful hand-eye coordination! Children simply hate dissecting animals, and animal anatomy is not quite human anatomy. So why not allow little Nigel to go about disemboweling his various virtual enemies as so he may inspect the variety and types of insides? The lad certainly a bright future in programming surgical robots, what with all of that time he goes about virtually making his virtual enemy’s insides on the outside…
What’s that? Do you actually believe that the humans of Aia’s time period are allowed to go about groping inside the likes of the human corpus? You and your shaky, sloppy, barely-evolved meat-hands? All of those hundreds of hours of golf swings and swigs of miserably overpriced sherry certainly do horrors to your fine motor functions. What’s that statistic? Thirty-three percent more surgical errors by surgeons who do not play virtual games?
Have virtual combat instead of actual combat? Such was possible… Lord Morkudum could have just as easily have summoned a sconce’s worth of crystal-smiths to craft devices for exactly that. After all, the meta-nano-quanto qualities of those omni-present and omni-useful crystals can do so very much—and so much more than the mere silicon contraptions of your time and place.
Nearly a hundred years of the same old doped silicon microchip antics! Those corporate idiots of yours must have reasons for keeping your computing technology restricted so very much, and all of those reasons are for…? Yes, easy profits! Keep selling you the self-same technology that your great-great grandparents used back in their days of hey, but just make it ever-so-slightly faster as so you think there is technological progress being made! Your computing technology has gone nowhere for nearly a century, and you just keep accepting the situation—probably because your corporate overlords have you enslaved to those tiny, tiny pocket-portable devices. Twin rules of contemporary monopolistic capitalism, keep ’em buying, and keep ’em stupid. This way, they can keep working for miserable wages whilst hovering with delight over smartphones.
Lord Morkudum’s world—and it is his world—does not have smartphones. Therefore, there goes that means of brainwashing the sheep-like masses. (You herds of mutton!) But he does have quite an extraordinary floating castle with which to blaze out rebellions from time to time. That, and his korth riders to show the flag every so often.
His world. This world is his, just as it has belonged to every Morkudum prior. All things and all people in it are of his. All people, including this oh-so-lovely little thing.
Lord Morkudum knelt down. “You belong to me, m’lady. Do not dare to think otherwise.” And with that Morkudum-traditional proposal, he reached for her waist as so he could foist her over a shoulder like just so much a bit of precious loot.
He stood. He began his triumphant stride toward his korth. He was of course surrounded by his korth riders—them and their seemingly endless number. But they are just so much background. Or more perhaps…an audience. Not only was Lord Morkudum triumphant upon this rased and still-smoking battlefield, he was also bearing away one of the most precious things of all—a skyborne princesse. (Or skyfall princesse. Or something of the sort. People will get around to solidifying their terminology thereof eventually. Just…not whilst we are visiting.) There is nothing so mighty and manly a stride as a world-dominating warlord dominating ever-more still and bearing it all with a great deal of misogynist in tow!
Or is that truly so? Why doth thou protest so much? We have read the whole of your…ahem, romance novels. (Even with our abilities spanning time, space, and multiple dimensions, you produced just so very much for us to wend through.) For all of your feminists’ so-called hatred for masculinity, too many of your species’ females do love the flex of a mighty chest. The heft of mighty arms. The heights of his castle and his fortune. And then, the dominance of a well-flexed beefcake! The sweating, thrusting dominance of… Well them!
And so, Lord Morkudum just took Aia away from the battlefield. Yes, and in doing so, he had actually not been able to prise out the other most precious thing here. Covered with blasted grit as it was, the weapon of the fallen princesse, her ultimate weapon… Just simply…walking away from exactly that because he could not have noticed it. Not with Aia being so very distracting in that…ahem…greatly compromised bit of garmentry of hers. Or should we say, bits? (Well near ninety-one percent of the elf-girl’s flesh is visible at this point, and all you obsess over is seeing that last nine percent!) What we are saying in so many words is…
Why, it would be a splendid idea if he were to turn himself right ’round. Then, he should pick up the Arcfire. Not only will he have Aia, he will also have yet another ultimate weapon. And so with us certainly not breaking the rules and also certainly not planting notions directly into his miserably limited human mind…
“Why, it would be a splendid idea if I were to turn myself right ’round. Then, pick up the Arcfire!” said Lord Morkudum aloud to no one in particular. Or perhaps, to an unseen audience hailing from universes and dimensions beyond.