Thread: Eternal Sands - Closed

Otis watched the desert with eternal vigilance as he stood at his post. The garrison was only a small fort built of rock and mud, but within its primitive walls were the most advanced weapons ever designed to combat demons, spirits, sorcerers and other denizens of the Shadow Lands.

As a dwarf, Otis had an instinctual dislike of the Empire mages that also resided within the walls, but they were a necessary presence for fending off the Shadow Lord's very own power. The more experienced Rangers were patrolling the area between garrisons, walking across the invisible border that separated the Shadow Lands from the rest of the world.

In truth, the only visible sign of that nightmarish realm was when the sands of the desert began to turn as black as obsidian. Such features were not within eyesight, despite the fort's watchtower affording Otis a view that stretched on for kilometres. He could only see the true Shadow Lands as a dark speck in the distance, where coming too close would mean certain death. Of course, with the Rangers on watch, the same concept applied for anything that dared to venture outside of that hell-zone.

It was a stalemate as old as the battle between Empire and rebels, which was mere petty squabbling compared to this. There were true monsters out there in the Shadow Lands, and without the Rangers, there would have been no Empire or any place in the world that could be safe from the touch of the Shadow Lord, that ancient and inscrutable foe. Otis wondered if the new recruits truly understood this. They probably didn't, but such was the nature of youth. He sat down, keeping one eye on the horizon as he tended to his rifle.

The Rangers- how did he end up with them? Right he was drunk. It wasn’t the most glorious moment in his life, but in retrospect it was the most fortuitous. Roland Reinhardt II was currently one (of the many) last line of defense between the Marutuk Empire and destruction. In countless numbers of his travels he had heard of the ‘darkness’ that licked on the edge of their kingdom like a cancer that invaded the bones and blood. He had hesitated at the thought of it multiple times but inevitably drank it out of his existence. Since then he had fought desert trolls, dragonlings, countless mercenaries, and the occasional angry noble woman (he had needs you know).

Yet now he stood- in the garrison that stood at the mere brink of their destruction. Roland was not the youngest member here or the greenest- but he was still a new recruit if given a title. Many a time he had sparred against some of the younger boys that had lined up in hopes of impressing the higher-ups and the older man had one; they had a lot to learn and hell if the Reinhardt heir was going to teach them a lick of it. He figured they probably didn’t have the pedigree he did with all the noble teachings and the inevitable (and high uncomfortable) thrust into the danger world of adventure- but that didn’t mean that they were exempt of a few good lessons.
Unfortunately given all his years (ten to be precise) of experience he mostly kept to the artillery and its’ function. One time he showed prowess in cleaning and fixing an old rifle, and now he was overlooking every little sprig’s gun that walked into this damn place.

This in itself was probably the reason he was lurking away from the barracks.

“You know you are doing that wrong,” Roland ho-hummed as he came upon the older dwarf- his eyes on the rifle that the other was holding. Honestly Otis could be doing everything correctly and yet the human would find fault in his technique. Why you say? Because that technique was not his own- which given his background- he thought such a thing was perfection.
“I once thought that the edge of the world was nothing important- just like the edge of a piece of paper- just an end of a tale.” Roland mused as he glanced out at the spread of sands. “Little did I realize when the paper ended there was the desk, the floor, the rest of the world at the mere cusp of it,” Roland grunted not amused. “At this point in my life I figured that some maiden would be at my feet begging me to marry them- pleading: ‘Roland love of my life- strongest man alive- I want you with me and to power me through those lonely nights with your-‘.” He abruptly ended and waved his hand rather bored in the air- “you know what I mean- though I imagine for you the women being far shorter and with a beard. They do have beards right- female dwarves? Or is that just an old wives’ tale that is told to overlook the stray facial hair?” He slapped a hand against his own well-manicured beard, “ ‘oh but Griselda- this one stray whisker off of my chin is nothing like a female dwarf’s beard’ to which Griselda would reply ‘of course not Beatrice of course not’. “ Roland then sighed, “my mother would hire the strangest cleaning ladies.” A pause and he swiveled those deep- extraordinarily murky- blue eyes towards the dwarf. “So need any help with that rifle?”

Otis looked up at Roland and listened patiently with an unblinking stare as the other Ranger went on and on the way he usually did. When at last his nattering had come to a stop - however briefly - Otis remained silent for a calculated moment and replied, "No." And then he went back to cleaning his rifle. For as long as he had known Roland, the man was a blow-hard. A no-good, no-brained scallywag and adventurer with a past as chequered as most other Rangers. Sometimes Very often, he acted such a fool that it was a wonder that he managed to survive past his first year as a Ranger. But survive he did and he had proven himself a worthy member of the brotherhood of guardians... such as it was.

Incidentally, it was almost time to change watch and there was no poorer choice for sentry duties than Roland. A watchman was to be the first eyes, the first gun and the first defender on the wall in the event of an attack. Although direct assaults by the denizens of the Shadow Lands were few and far between, there were still bandits, dangerous creatures and the very elements of the desert to contend with. Roland simply could not be counted on as a watchman, but Otis had no desire to listen to the man's voice any longer than he had to. He was about to foist Roland into watch duty when the walls began to thrum with the energy of magic sensors, a single pulse through the enchanted stone that warned of possible interlopers. Otis picked up his binoculars and scanned the horizon, seeing nothing for a moment... and then a sand worm came rearing out of the sand, thrashing around as though it was in pain.

"Sand worm. Got too close to the Shadow Lands," Otis said tersely into his voci link as he grabbed his rifle and rummaged through the nearby ammunition box for special rounds. Typically, it required either heavy artillery or great magic to bring down a sand worm. Both roles were fulfilled by a particularly large rifle round in the box marked with a black tip. Hand crafted by the garrison's alchemist and weapons engineer, it was a true work of art and certainly not meant to be used lightly. Otis levelled his rifle over the parapet of the watchtower and aimed carefully at the erratic sand worm, ready to fire only if he had to. The magic pulse that initially thrummed through the walls was now rippling through the sand in a wave to discourage the leviathan. It always bothered Otis to know that whatever the mages did, they always worked from inside the walls of the garrison, rarely showing their faces. Well if their magic didn't work, he was ready to handle the situation himself. Such was the rivalry between Rangers and mages, built upon an ancient tradition of tolerated cooperation and grudging respect.

So- Otis was about as kind and gentle as a bush of burs, but that didn’t stop Roland from chattering on rather feverishly at him about this or that. He had gotten used to one word answers and gruff grunting responses from the dwarf and honestly he would be more surprised if the other broken into a sentence around him- much less a paragraph. So Roland didn’t boast the best there was in the rangers, but he didn’t think that he had acquired the lowliest status. Oddly enough- the one thing that Otis and Roland seemed to agree on quite unanimously was the distrust of magic. The Reinhardt heir had never trusted the stuff and had on many an occasion referred to it as ‘that dark juju’. To him it was a mixture of all the bad things in the world that had managed to become palpable and inevitably personified in tangible waves.
Roland was a good shot, a talented combatant, a decent swordsman, and (in his opinion) an expert ladies’ man- but he would never find himself on the giving end of magic (the receiving end he figured would be far less negotiable).

“Well aren’t we a bag of-“ Roland paused as the magical alert system went into a ruckus and he found himself attempting not curse in surprise. He watched as Otis began searching the horizon for the possible disturbance and found it rather quickly- or at least more so than the human who was squinting into the abyssal stretch of land.
“Ah,” he stated half-impressed. “Well this should be a nice break in the monotony.” Roland was about to make fun of their mission by paraphrasing their need to be here: come to the edge of the world, watch all the evil of the world, fight it- not really- just watch it, oh and try not to shoot yourself in the foot from boredom. After he thought it- Roland was assured that Otis would find it about as amusing as he did everything else.
Otis mounted his gun- ready to fire in case the magical barriers didn’t seem to repel the tainted creature.

Roland snagged his own binoculars and stared at that beast. “It’s flopping, and flopping some more, it’s looking like it can’t quite scratch an itch on its back, and back to more flopping.” He stated methodically. “Oh wait now it is shooting itself into the ground faster than women say ‘no’ to your sexual advances.” He lowered his binoculars- “well that was anticlimactic. Not that I’m complaining though that would beat guard duty once again.” There was a hesitation and he lifted them again noting how the creature reemerged faster than it should have- and far closer than it should be.
“Damn- no- looks like we might have to handle this one.” Roland glanced at Otis and rather nonchalantly asked: “what are your orders boss?”

"Grab a Kraken round, load your rifle and wait for my shot," Otis replied sternly as he tracked the sand worm. He knew that despite Roland's near complete lack of professionalism, he could be counted on to be a Ranger when it mattered. "If it doesn't go down, sound the alarm. The big bastard might be too far gone to even know that it's dead."

With those words, Otis closed his finger around the trigger and waited until he could see the teeth in the worm's maw. It was still quite some distance away, but it was rapidly closing the gap. With a single great lurching movement, the worm dived into the sand and emerged within effective shooting range. Otis fired his rifle and was nearly blown off his feet by the recoil, but long practice and experience allowed him to remain steady as he hopped back a step from the force of the shot. Then he ejected the smoking shell of the spent round and watched as a black fireball bloomed on the sand worm's carapaced body, expanding for a brief instant before coalescing into a solid lance which pierced through the exit wound and exploded again.

The worm thrashed around more feverishly than before. It even managed to fully emerge from the sand until it's blunt tail was visible, fully exposed in the desert. The sand leviathan's colossal girth was now positively churning the sand up into a billowing storm, obscuring the horizon and filling the air with a thunderous crashing. Otis ducked down behind the parapet (which did not require much effort at all for his height) as a rain of sand assailed the fortress walls. Above the noise of the shower, Otis could hear the sand worm's roars of anguish, but he couldn't see the beast any more as he peered over the parapet again. Visibility was near zero in the dusty cloud.

The thing about Roland was that no matter how much of a blathering idiot he can be- when battle called he was an apt soldier. Without even questioning Otis he grabbed the rounds out of the massive wooden crate which the various munitions and loaded his gun with the fluid efficiency of a fish through water. “Understood,” he stated with calm reinforcement. “I do hope it goes down though- any closer and we’ll smell of putrid sandworm for weeks. I can’t stand to lose any more weight- the boys in the barracks might start thinking I’m a lady.” It was true- a lot of his defined musculature had been lost to drills that required a more sleek body than one that required a stout one. “Don’t want to bend over if that’s the case.”

Yet while he blathered- his eye never left the sight of his rifle. When the sandworm came into view he offered a complementary shot to Otis’s. The worm faltered for a moment as Roland rubbed his shoulder in painful recoil. He knew he would be bruised there in the morning, but that was tomorrow and right now needed him to stay focused on the job at hand. Numerous rounds went into the creature before it faltered, but it still didn’t seem to halt or slow in its’ movement. The dust cloud rose before any suspicion that the creature might have been dead. There was a paramount of screeching and Roland ducked behind the armament for protection and plugged his ears just for his sanity. Honestly he would have stated something snarky had he felt it was an opportune time to actually be heard.

The silence banqueted them after that, and Roland lifted his head onto the almost foggy horizon. He didn’t see a figure writhing in the distance, but that didn’t mean anything truly. About the time he was feeling smug the sandworm wretched upwards from the ground and made a gruesome noise towards the duo.

“Sounding the alarm now,” Roland stated to Otis as he bolted towards the stairs. He was no coward and wouldn’t at all have left his post otherwise, but the mages needed to know that the creature was getting too close to their installation. Of course he didn’t much care to talk to the odd magic wielding denizens, but necessity demanded that he should. Hopefully they would end this plight.

The roaring was endless, but Otis could not pinpoint its source in the blinding cloud of dust over the desert. The colossal sand worm had effectively become invisible and that made the dwarf very concerned. He tapped his voci link and said, "I can't see the worm, it's probably gone underground again."

Otis looked over the parapet to check, but it was useless. He could barely even see the ground in front of the wall. For all he knew, the worm was either still thrashing around in the desert or just about to collide with the fortress. As much as he was loathe to admit, this situation required the assistance of magic, but he loaded his rifle with another black headed Kraken round anyway and waited... and waited... and then the worm's roaring abruptly ceased. An eerie silence fell as several other Rangers rushed to the wall.

(to be continued)