CHAPTER 1 – MACHINATIONS
Mist, the color of blood, drifted in the low-lit cavern. Silence held its breath for but a moment before a shifting of metal against rock broke its dry-throated heave into a whisper.
Upon a throne carved of stone, and skulls of the long-dead, sat a beast of epic proportions, a Minotaur of Blood and Fury, eyes glazed with dark crimson, full plate, nebulous as obsidian, spikes upon its pauldrons, gauntlets, knees, and fists, created the breaking of echoes as it shifted once more, impatient, frustrated at the prostrate form below its unmoving anvil.
The only illumination permeating the horror noir were sporadic torches in sanguineous hue. They cast their judgment in stark hammers, no grays, just black and white truths of guilt sliding small blades into the will of the Goddess who showed obeisance to the creature who could crush her everything in the time it took to count sheep to sleep.
The demonic bull lifted a hand to caress the shaft of the ashen great-axe leaning against his macabre seat. The weapon sent off an aura of death in utter finality, of rage eternal in its hunger. He sighed in a way that said it was a forever reaction to the sprawled sister who shed her close held arrogance before him. His eyes took in the spider limbs that slid out of shoulders, framing a perfect female form of the wicked and cruel beauty he knew she held pressed against ground. Words tumbled out of his mouth like two mountains grinding against the corpses of inevitability. The harsh sounds of war and tombs in every syllable.
“Please do stand Anansai and drop the humility and slavish pose you are attempting to convey. It is bad acting at its best and insulting at its bottom feeding worst. We both know the lie for what it is.”
She stood in a languid motion of sinuosity, her crystal white eyes a contrast to her charcoal colored flesh, long dark tresses layering against her shoulders and dark wispy robes that caressed her long willowy frame. She smiled showing a spider’s fangs. A sibilant whisper of oily sound slithered from her lips.
“As you say Prime.”
He sighed once more as if anticipating a long chain of such actions when dealing with the youngest and most irritating of his siblings, almost as much as her twin, Dusk, in the eons previous when they were not on opposite divides. Both, from birth, had grated against the second Eldest’s nerves anytime he was forced to interact with them. And now after over twenty thousand years of dealing with Anansai’s arrogant and undisciplined nature he had lost any minutia of patience that still existed.
“Once again, your impatience and over weening arrogance has left you with empty hands and a sign that says idiocy resides here.”
Her white orbs lit up in anger and her lips moved to retort when his rumbling tectonics of rumbling earth shut her half-breath.
“Your lack of self control and impetuous nature has seen you not only making a deal with your twin but the Divine Favors granted have not only been squandered in abysmal failure but to attempt to kill one individual of a new race barely out of their infant steps when they could have been utilized in the overall war effort which by itself is unforgivable but in my eyes, the most incongruous and criminal of your decisions, all of it without my consultation or permission.”
His hand gripped the now smoking great-axe in iron. The palpable hunger of the weapon now an actual live and sentient predator in its own right, its intent anticipatory in its prey.
“What should I do with such a fallible lack of discipline? I am the God of Blood and Fury yet I know when it is time for such and when to have actual strategy and restraint. Something you have never seemed to grasp little sister.” His sharp carnivorous teeth echoed out their grinding displeasure.
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“Speak your absolutions and lies Anansai, being the Goddess of such. I am sure they will be convincing, empty hollow excuses for your abject failure in all these regards and machinations.”
Her eyes had gone from meticulous cunning to rage at the insults to a slight trepidation of fear as she finally registered the barely restrained violence in the God of Blood and Fury, the most feared warrior on either side of the divide. A man who even the vaunted battle prowess of Helia, the Golden Bitch, thought twice about before crossing edges. She bowed her head, this time in true contrition if not more inspired by self preservation then any true apologetic motive or obedience.
“I believe the murderous child is getting help from the System itself in which even I, a Goddess am left helpless to overcome. It is the only way he could of found victory against my traps and deceptions and machinations as you so title them. There is no other explanation that a child, an infant, could of found success against my will. Though I can not see his Character Sheet due to the restrictions we are under within said system I would guess he has multiple titles, no doubt unearned, and his interaction with the System is baffling beyond all reason. She has never once, since the beginning of this prison shown anything but strict neutrality and a machine like precision in its application. Never fear though Prime, he shall fall once he enters my realm. My children and the green fodder I am forced to utilize shall make it so.”
A bellowing laughter bounced across the walls, one with disdain as its leading refrain. It cut off as quickly as it was engendered. Then eyes blazed and caused the Goddess of Lies and Deceit, the Queen of Spiders to take a step back.
“You are a pathetic, sad representation of Divinity little sister. Always within your long existence has it been your impulsiveness and lack of tactical knowledge that precipitates your downfall, only trumped by an utter lack of self awareness or truth which leads inevitably to you never learning and repeating the aforementioned over and over again.” He leans forward upon his throne, hand shifting its grip upon the shaft of Devastation, and grins a feral, menacing invasion bereft of any humor but overflowing with threat and intent.
“We have lost, as you are well aware, three cities in the Dark Woods, the Blood Elves doing nothing but retreating while the rest of our forces are being tied up with the surprise push over the Sea of Storms into the Sorrow Hills. The only reinforcement we have been able to give to Meridian is the almost useless kobolds from the Swamp.” His eyes simmered. “We could of used those Divine Favors to take back what was lost instead of you wasting them on one human whose race hasn’t even entered the game yet.”
She started to speak but once again, silence reverberated to her cutting sound as Taranis continued.
“Your imbecilic decision making will end now. I am posting a battalion of my Orcs under Sharaz in your Capitol. He will make sure this human is ended and without his leadership, once their Sanctuary ends, we will pull a multi pronged thrust into Moonhaven that will force the others to pull off the other two fronts to protect the new nation. In the meantime you will send three battalions of your spiders and goblins to the Forest and help Meridian toe the line.”
Her eyes sprayed defiance, jetted every part of her taut frame into preparing an explosion of curses and refusal but one look at the Second oldest of all the Divine and the fear of his wrath that had been instilled in her since the birth of her malevolence had her crushing all thoughts of such. She bowed her head and then wrapped herself with silken threads that spun her into the creation of dimensional movement, her tail chasing her flesh back home, shaking in self loathing at her own cowardice. She vowed she would feel better after some slaughter of the goblins who were her people given but never her children, never her beautiful spiders.
Taranis, the Prime Lord of the Lands of Blood and Bone sighed once more. He spoke to the darkness that had shimmered in the corner of the room. “Keep an eye on our sister and this upstart she is so fascinated with. She was not wrong with the ties to the System.”
Ikaru, the God of Death and Tombs, covered in heavy cloak and chainmail, a long slim blade sheathed upon his waist and pale ghostly skin, the visage of a Vampire Lord he was partial too, nodded. His whispered voice was a fluttering of bat wings in the night. “As you say Prime.” The Cloud of darkness skimmed the etherials into flits of echo as the Divine presence slipped to other stages of machinations yet unwound.
The flaring eyes of the Bull God shone bright against the still drifting mist.