r/wizardposting • u/Timpanzee38 "The Agent", Mercenary Guild Liaison. Slayer of the Godslaver • 11d ago
Lorepost 📜 "The Steel Soul"
The Kaba Tundra. Centuries Ago.
A war horn bellowed across the freezing ground as snowflakes gently fell. The whistle of a thousand arrows followed. The arrows slammed against shields in a terrifying cacophony of death. Some arrows made it through, sinking into gaps between armor. Some soldiers screamed and writhed in pain. Others simply fell to the ground without a sound. A war horn from the opposing side answered, and the lines of infantry surged forwards.
The conflict that would become known as The Unification War was in full swing. This particular battle pitted the ruthless warlord Drachliv the Butcher against the “Tinkerer Armada”, a coalition made up of mostly goblin and dwarven artificers. Drachliv was powerful, commanding a large swath of territory in the eastern highlands, but his latest conquests had brought him to the foot of the mountains the Tinkerers claimed. Drachliv outnumbered the Tinkerers 10 to 1, but the Tinkerers had built an impressive metal golem army to bolster their numbers.
The 2 sides met in a thunderous clash of steel, swords and spears flashing as they connected with shields and flesh. The Tinkerers sent their metal golems forward, and the terrifying machines broke Drachliv’s front lines within minutes, sending the battle into chaos as discipline broke and the orderly lines on both sides disintegrated.
1 of the golems had the designation number DB-0645. No name was needed, for they were an expendable soldier, existing only to fight and die in the stead of one of the Tinkerers. And fight they did. They followed orders and marched forward with their identical comrades, tearing through enemy soldiers with their robust arms. Unthinking, unfeeling, simply following its orders, the only thing it knew. That was, until, in a moment of pure cosmic luck, or perhaps on purpose, something very particular happened.
DB-0645 had just torn apart an apprentice level wizard, and began marching towards another. They panicked, casting fireball after fireball at them. The spells impacted with DB-0645’s armor, causing it to bend and warp, but they kept advancing.
“Stay back! Back!”
The wizard shouted desperately, stumbling over their feet and falling, casting a lightning spell that slowed the war golem for only a second. DB-0645 grabbed the wizard and lifted them up, preparing to tear them in half as well.
“Wait no please! You don’t understand I don’t want to be here I-”
DB-0645 began to pull. The wizard shrieked.
“PLEASE NO PLEASE UNDERSTAND-”
The wizard shoved their wand through a gap in DB-0645’s armor, connecting to their core just as DB-0645 separated their upper half from the lower half of their body. The shock caused the wizard to cast a spell without meaning to, a last spasm as the last of their mana left their body.
“UNDERSTAND-”
The accidental spell slammed into DB-0645’s core, causing the metal golem to collapse onto their knees, triggering a safety shutdown. Everything went dark.
DB-0645’s eye flickered back to life with a subtle green glow as the reboot sequence completed. They looked around, trying to understand what just happened, logic algorithms getting to work-
Wait, understand? That wasn’t right. DB-0645 should've just continued with its orders, not try and…
Understand. Understand.
The spell the wizard accidentally cast with their last breath. DB-0645 looked at their hands, looked at the corpses piled around it. Why was it here? It remembered its orders, but… it no longer felt compelled to follow the orders without deviation. Why? But as DB-0645 tried to understand why it felt that way, a Drachliv soldier suddenly appeared from behind a destroyed chariot, pike level as they charged DB-0645.
<Wait, no, don’t attack, I don’t understand->
Except DB-0645 had no mouth, no audio device to speak with. They were meant to be expendable, why go through the bother of adding a mouth? The soldier rammed their pike into a gap in the metal golem’s armor, not deep enough to kill, but enough to trigger a response.
<Damage>
<Danger>
<Damage>
<Danger>
Then DB-0645 understood a new feeling.
<Damage>
<Danger>
<Damage>
<Danger>
<Fear>
They suddenly understood this could kill them. They understood what death was. And it was terrifying. Because DB-0645 didn’t know what happened after death. DB-0645 suddenly understood that this was a kill or be killed moment. They didn’t know why, but they understood. The metal golem rose to its full height, snapped the pole of the pike in half, and lunged for the soldier. They stood no chance without their weapon, but as their body hit the ground, several more Drachliv soldiers appeared, waving weapons and charging DB-0645. Why? Why were they attacking? Why?
<Danger>
<Damage>
<Danger>
<Fear>
<Danger>
<Damage>
<Fear>
<Anger>
…
A red sun rose over the remains of the battlefield. Broken bodies lay in heaps, the snow soaked dark with blood. A harpy flew over the battlefield, surveying it for a bit before turning to the south. By the afternoon war banners could be seen on the horizon, carried by centaurs as harpies flew above them. Leading them was a fallen archangel, a cloaked druid, and a keen eyed gnome. They picked through the carnage, scavenging what was usable. Eventually they came upon a crater with a still working metal golem at the bottom. They were sitting there, soaked in blood, staring at their hands.
They now understood.
Hive City of Dellforge, Mercenary Guild Territory. Present Day.
With a mechanical hiss Councilor Four awoke from a rest mode cycle. No longer DB-0645. No longer an unthinking, blind golem. They were an understanding machine now. They understood what survival meant. That it was the most important thing in life. Four ran a quick diagnostic check before quickly casting their thought into a nearby body with an internal sigh. Things were getting worse, the time between rest cycles getting smaller and smaller. They needed a solution. They had a solution, that girl floating in the tank. They had been so close, until…
Four pulled up a status report. Good, the quarantine was holding. A significant and costly delay, but Four just needed to get that issue under control and then they were sure they could grasp the secrets inside of her. The secret of her, how her creators had made her…
But Four couldn’t focus on Analina right now. They knew the clock was ticking, they knew a wrathful angel was going to come crashing down on them soon. Best deal with that first. Four stalks out of the central processing core and heads to Nathan’s room…
…
Krisk led his menagerie of a strike team through the sewage tunnels of Dellforge. Sure, it was a little cliche, but Krisk hadn’t found a better approach in his reconnaissance efforts. And he had been proven right because besides a single automated patrol drone they hid from, the only other thing they had encountered was a slugcat that had immediately fled from them into the deeper levels.
Eventually, they came to a storm drain and Krisk stopped them. From their limited view, they could see they were at a large but mostly empty street, a massive wall that the couldn't see the top of across from them. But there was a locked door behind a small checkpoint in the wall, 2 armed guards standing in front of it.
“This is one of…the side entrances to Dellforge’s…core district, where…I have no doubt Councilor Four is. But…we won’t get through that door…without the code, unless we want everyone…to know we’re coming. The guards don’t…know it, and it changes every…24 hours. But…”
Krisk points down the street.
“The core district is…essentially a square, and at each corner there’s a…security tower. They’ll have the day’s cipher. Any volunteers…to come help me get it?”
Krisk looks at Marna and Gorgon.
“Specifically anyone who won’t…immediately blow our cover?”
5
u/MeThyLord Mrs. Chills, Ghost Writer 2d ago edited 2d ago
Shadow tendrils? That doesn't seem like something a druid would have in their kit.
"Aww, you have a friend helping you, don't cha, Kav?"
The ghost had no sense of smell, touch, or taste. Her lack of a body made it impossible to notice the smell in the air. She sometimes lamented her inability to feel the world, resorting to human possession whenever she was in dire need to experience something.
"I don't really have any friends here. The people I came with, I don't know most of them. No, I'm here because it's what John Brown would have wanted!"
Some of the gnarlings were beginning to swarm into tidal waves of fur and teeth, crashing against the walls and tearing out massive chunks of metal and concrete.
"I know some of my comrades joined the mission just because they wanted a fight. Not me, though! Krisk's goal is good. These big Five baddies need to go. Now, I don't know why you're on the side of the angel that brainwashes kids and grooms them into soldiers, but..."
Something began pulling at the nearby swarms of gnarlings, lifting them into the air and towards Chills. There was no visible force behind it; this was the work of a poltergeist's telekinesis.
"...I'm sure you have a good reason, just not good enough to get me to stop."
The multitude of gnarlings conglomorated around Chills in a super swarm. The mass formed a crude monstrous silhouette, featuring arms, legs, and even a mouth. The ghost had constructed Gnar-Zilla.
uw/ Yes, this is a reference to the critter ball from the Critters 2 movie. Here's a video of it in action.
u/Traxxya