StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Okay, I'm going to take the plunge and finally post one of my writing pieces. Hopefully having an audience and feedback will encourage me to finally finish off a story (I would like to take this opportunity to say to the 40k writers out there, "Damn you for writting so well and never updating!" *shakes fist*). The first bit is meant to be somewhat vague and unrevealing, not to mention short, but if you have any serious concerns about grammar/style/etc please tell me.

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They called her the Bitch Queen of the North, an appellation she bore with a smirk, for she enjoyed the fact that her minions and detractors alike recognized just how much effort she put into being a bitch. Of course, she never allowed anyone to use that title around her because that would defeat the purpose of being a bitch, but with eyes and ears everywhere, she knew just how widespread the title was. In fact, occasionally she would punish people for not using that title instead of using it, just to screw with the people around her.

Tonight though she had lived up to her other, better known title; Mistress of Slaughter. She had a debt that was coming due and the easiest and fastest way of dealing with it was to destroy one of the quiet hamlets within her domain, plundering it for its resources. While this would put a dent in her long term tax collection prospects the long term damage was less than the short term damage if she did not pay off her debt. Besides, there were enough people in her domain that within a generation no one would remember about the devastation occurring this night, the hamlet restored to full population my immigration to the vacant land.
Her sedan coming to a stop at the heart of the ruined village, the Mistress extends a hand out through the chair’s silk curtains and beckons for the commanding officer of this little raid to come forward. A wan, nervous little worm, the man had only managed to climb as high as he had in the ranks for his remarkable ability to avoid dangerous situations while those above him died.

“Report colonel,” the Mistress orders distantly from behind her screen.

“The village has been pacified successfully Mistress, our troops taking minimal losses against the peasant who did not see the wisdom of your decree,” the colonel said while trying to conceal the quiver in his voice by swelling up like a comical rooster on display.

“Minimal losses? Colonel, please explain not only what you consider ‘minimal losses’ but how exactly you took any losses against unarmed and undernourished peasants,” the Mistress asks icily, savouring the opportunity to watch a worm squirm while being skewered on a hook.

“Um… err… you see a gargoyle…” the colonel stammered.

The Mistress never lost her temper, but her voice did rise noticeable in displeasure, “You lost a gargoyle! If it weren’t for the fact that I can’t pay in gargoyles I wouldn’t have bothered with this pathetic heap of dirt.”

Visibly quaking, the colonel said, “Actually, we lost three plus a reaper.”

The Mistress suddenly found that her rage had grown to the point where she had transcended beyond anger into simple academic curiosity. While there was certainly a degree of incompetence involved somewhere, if somehow a squad of tiger-troll warriors had infiltrated her realm without noticing she would have to make a number of summary executions amongst her border patrols. She needed to know what had happened.

“Colonel, do not cower or shrink away from me, I need to know exactly what happened here. What killed my troops?” The Mistress asked gently.

Trying not to cower, the colonel says, “A gargoyle went into the local blacksmith shop as part of a routine flushing operation only to go flying back out, its head crushed by the impact of an anvil. Hearing about this I presumed a trap of some sort but sent in two gargoyles just to make sure that there was truly overwhelming force against anything that could conceivably be within. After the second gargoyle came flying out, its torso ground to powder by terrible impacts, one of the reapers leapt into the fray against my orders. When a reaper limb flew out the hole in the wall almost immediately, I sent in all unassigned forces. We found two peasants inside, one male and one female. The remains of the three gargoyles and the reaper surrounded the male and he was easily subdued; while the female had a gargoyle inflicted concussion and was unconscious. I am currently holding them in isolation surrounded by heavy guards while harpies scout the area in case they were not related to the destruction of your troops.”

Addressing the porters carrying her sedan, the Mistress says, “Follow the colonel as he takes us to where these peasants are being held.”

Nodding, the colonel gestures for the porters to follow and then heads for the outskirts of the hamlet where a large group of heavily armed and armoured soldiers, along with more than a few abominations against nature, stood guard around two limp figures in chains and shackles originally designed for animals.

Immediately the Mistress detected something amiss about the male and ordered her porters to move towards him. Sending out a gentle and cautious mental probe, she immediately retracted against what she discovered and smiled. Speaking to the colonel through the thin silk curtains separating them, she says, “Have them both brought back to the citadel immediately, the male under maximum security. The female is important so do not lose track of her, but she is no more dangerous than a normal peasant so no additional protection is required.”

Once the colonel had finished passing on her orders, the Mistress added on, “Oh, there is one more thing I need to talk to you about colonel.”

“Yes Mistress?” The colonel asked, clearly more relaxed now that the Sword of Damocles no longer hung over his head.

“While you did perform admirably given the circumstances, you also did lose three gargoyles and a reaper under your command in a simple body raid in friendly territory. Plus I never did like you. Goodbye,” the Mistress said with a wave, causing the colonel to explode in a shower of gore as every inch of his skin was flayed away and all of his internal organs ruptured from the inside out.

The Bitch Queen of the North, Mistress of Slaughter had not earned her titles by sitting on her laurels and letting underling or rival get away with any form of stupidity, incompetence, or bad luck.

Oooh, nasty. I like.

The dialogue needs work.

“Have them both brought back to the citadel immediately, the male under maximum security. The female is important so do not lose track of her, but she is no more dangerous than a normal peasant so no additional protection is required.”

would be better as

“Have them both brought back to the citadel immediately, the male under maximum security. The female is important, but she is no more dangerous than a normal peasant. Do not lose track of her. ”

Thanks Singular Quartet, I know that my dialogue needs work big time and I've already made that change on my master copy.

And since at least Ford Prefect likes it, I will continue. This next part is a little longer than the last but significantly more unpleasant.

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He awoke alone in filth and squalor, naked except for a rotten, tattered leather blanket thrown over his beaten and battered body. The cold stone floor had sapped his strength where it touched his skin, leaving the muscles underneath sore and stiff. In addition to the generic fatigue of capture and imprisonment, he also felt a profuse physical and mental exhaustion so profound he could barely even remember his own name; let alone what he was doing in this cell.

“Are you awake yet Harold?” A lovely feminine voice asked. Blinking his eyes and looking up, Harold saw an indistinct figure haloed by the soft orange light of an oil lantern hung from the ceiling behind her head.

“Clara?” He asked weakly, his throat cracked with thirst.

Moving forward slightly, the figure suddenly resolved sharply in the light into a face Harold had only seen previously stamped on coins. While undeniably beautiful, a certain reptilian coldness surrounded the Lady Clementine, Mistress of Slaughter, ruler of the northern lands where Harold had been born and raised. In a melodiously imperial voice, the Lady said, “No, I am not your fiancé.”

“Where’s Clara?” Harold asked impetuously.

Waggling her finger at him like he was a naughty puppy, Lady Clementine says, “Now Harold, asking questions like that is rude, and you did not address me by my proper name. I find rudeness like that intolerable, and I am afraid that when I find things intolerable I must correct them. After all, stress causes wrinkles and I would not want to ruin this gorgeous face of mine would I?”

For a moment Harold wanted to flinch, but the exhaustion that hung off him like a lead jacket caused his fear to turn to apathy, and all he could say was, “I’m sorry my Lady.”

Nodding, Lady Clementine said, “Better, but I really must punish you simply out of principle. After all, if I had a rule like ‘people who upset me must be punished’ and did not go through with it, then what good are rules at all? Now I hear from the others in your village that your master liked to get drunk and thus your strong back is not just from hauling iron ingots around all day, so I figure physical punishment will be inadequate with you.”

Clapping her gloved hands together twice, the Lady stepped out of the way so that two reapers could drag a limp figure in front of Harold’s cell. The reapers were little more than a mass of filthy rags and shadow with two eyes burning like coals beneath their deep hoods, the demonic elites in the Lady’s armies. While only one was required to carry the doll like human being, one also carried a long spear with a trident shaped point, only the two outer prongs hooked back instead of forward and an extra set of forward facing prongs about a foot down the shaft from the head.

Smiling cruelly, the Lady says, “The other villagers tell me that this wretch was once the local storyteller, a bit of a retard at everything else at life but he could tell a tale like no one else. I have little doubt that you spent your childhood as an apprentice to a drunkard master filling your precious free time with tales of far away places and mythical heroes of old. What do have to say to old Samuel?”

Harold stared at poor old Sam, the most beloved member of the village by the children, and knew that the slow thinker had a glimmer of an idea what was about to happen to him. Looking Sam in the eyes, Harold began to say, “Please…”

“Is that the sound of begging in my presence?” The Lady interrupted, and with a jerk of her head one reaper threw Sam up against the bars of the cell while the one with the spear moved faster than the eye could track, thrusting the spear up through Sam’s abdomen and through the bars, turned it at a right angle and then braced the butt against the floor. The backward prongs caught the bars of the cell while the prongs that faced forward kept Sam from slipping down the shaft of the spear while he thrashed about in agony and terror. The spear belonged in the dungeon, not the battlefield, which explained its strange design.

Somehow Harold found the strength to get up and grab the prongs in an attempt to unpin Sam from his elevated death perch, but that brought him within reach of the reapers, and with an almost lazy ease the one not holding the spear hit him with a bone breaking jab through the bars. Falling back holding a bloody nose, Harold tried to find some glimmer within Sam’s eyes, but all he saw was animalistic thrashing as the death instincts took over. Blood and mucus running from his nose and tears from his eyes, Harold finished his interrupted sentence, “Please forgive me Sam!” but by then the ears the words were meant for had gone deaf.

Examining her gloves, the Lady makes a disappointed sound and says in a mildly annoyed voice, “That stupid bastard got a drop of blood on my new gloves. That will be hard to get out, don’t you think?” Holding the glove up to the light so that both Harold and her reapers can see her immaculately white gloves unstained by the spray of viscera, Lady Clementine waits for a response.

“Yes Mistress,” both reapers say sycophantically in their flat, dead voices. After a few silent moments the Lady asks, “Do you not agree Harold?”

“I am sorry my Lady, my eyes are weary for want of sleep and the light here poor, so I simply do not see the spot of which you speak,” Harold replies, trying and failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Making an annoyed sound, Lady Clementine says, “You are right that it is to dark down here,” turning to her reapers, she says, “While I go change my gloves, would you two be dears and provide Harold with some better lighting? I think one of the toddlers from the village, if properly soaked in oil to get started, should burn nicely for several hours.”

Before Harold knew what had happened he was at the bars of the cell madly clawing the air next to Lady Clementine screaming, “You bitch! You fucking bitch! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

The Lady did not blink, but only stared at him with a combination of pity and disgust before turning away and saying, “Maybe one toddler torch will not provide enough light for Harold to see how rude he is being. Put up two and see if that provides him with enough illumination. And do not leave the mothers of those children in the dark over exactly who is responsible.” Turning back to Harold, she says disapprovingly, “I hope you are happy with yourself you baby killer.”

Just as Harold begins to weep Lady Clementine says, “Oh, and since you asked a question and it would be rude of me not to answer, Clara took a rather unpleasant knock to the head because you resisted back at the forge. She never woke up.”

While your dialogue does need some polishing, it isn't jarring. I certianly see promise in this.

Well, here's the next bit, which is significantly longer than the last two (a little under twice the previous two sections combined). The next update might be a little while seeing as I have a paper due next week that will probably take up most of my time until the 23.

Enjoy.

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Summoning the Dread Lord Tareton was always something of a pain in the ass, seeing as how he never bothered to craft a permanent avatar for the mortal realm, instead relying on those who sought his audience to craft a temporary one for him, and because he could he had made his summoning ritual suitably complex to be annoying if you wanted to do it more than once. As a martial entity, Tareton demanded that a suitably martial material serve for his avatar's construction, and since he had not bothered to update his form in almost six millennia, that meant that he demanded his form be made of copper. Since he had an incredibly lazy streak, he also demanded that the copper easily sculpt under the manipulation of his will, which required it to be boiling hot and only hellfire flames would do to get it to that state. Until Lady Clementine had come along, this required a powerful mage to summon the necessary flames, but she had become so tired with the hassle that she had hired numerous alchemists to come up with an easier method. As it turned out blowing the gases from lightning charged seawater onto a combination of powdered brimstone and nitre worked nicely. With her teams of alchemists and her armies, Lady Clementine always made sure she had plenty of all three substances on hand at all times.

Then, because all demonic summoning rituals required it in order to keep the net balance of souls in the Underworld in order, a human sacrifice was required. For Tareton only a mighty warrior beheaded by an axe stained with the blood of soldiers and innocents in open warfare would do. Lady Clementine found those components the easiest to obtain seeing as she had crafted a gladiatorial arena to supply a constant stream of mighty warriors worthy of sacrifice should the need arise. And while getting the stain right on the axe was always a problem, Lady Clementine kept around a few weak, independent border nations to bully to keep her primary axe and her back-ups in good condition. Still, when taken together the summoning ritual still took far too long to organize.

Of course, whenever Tareton came over it gave Lady Clementine a chance to show off for her patron, demonstrating just how well she had done for herself. Despite the fact that Tareton still looked down on her somewhat, even he had grown to begrudgingly admire her skills at manipulating the other demon lords into dancing to her tune. Thus, to avoid disappointing Tareton, Lady Clementine enjoyed dressing up and playing the part whenever he showed up.

First, she had an enormous throne constructed within the enormous summoning chamber from which she could direct the ritual. Crafted of twisting iron, polished obsidian, and bleached bone with numerous points for censers and candles, the throne appeared to be a great mass of flame and shadows rising from the writhing corpses of the damned. Personally Lady Clementine found the throne to be a little tacky, but since the style had been in fashion in the Underworld for the past thirty thousand years, who was she to argue with fashion?

Second, Lady Clementine had an extensive wardrobe of finely tailored outfits that she used just for the summoning of Dread Lord Tareton. In this respect, she refused to follow the fashions of the Underworld, because they were rather uncomfortable. She had not fought as long and as hard as she had only to wear a push-up bronze brazier that somehow also formed a thong. While she accepted the fact that all sexy clothes required some degree of discomfort, she wanted to be able to sit down without her ass either tearing the upholstery or clanking; not that sitting in such a ridiculous outfit happened that often. Instead she had adopted more reasonable clothing that while accentuating her curves also gave her a full range of motion. This night she had dispensed with the usual cloaks, capes and high heels to go with something more minimalist that would ensure that her motion would go totally unimpeded. Thus she wore a simple corset, moderately laced, with a curve hugging black satin dress overtop. Sensible shoes meant that if she needed to run then her legs would be for more than just show. And of course, every piece of jewellery that adorned her had some sort of magical purpose, either for defence or offence.

Finally, as the last display of her power, Lady Clementine had the core of her elite forces in attendance, a veritable menagerie of twisted mockeries of the natural order arranged about her. In the back rows stood her gargoyles, the foul creatures carved from the stones of desecrated holy sites and graveyards, animated by binding the deranged spirits of those who can never find rest. Up in the lofts of the chamber the harpies crooned and preened, their unholy crossing between vulture and crone created when a woman who had suffered great loss died under a foul curse, the baby harpy tearing its way out of the body in the final moments of life. At regular intervals the fruits of Lady Clementine’s investments into alchemy stood, the quiet golems, sculptures of metal and clay given motion and unholy strength by potent magic. And finally, at the heads of all the masses of gargoyles the reapers stood at attention, Lady Clementine’s most elite warriors, still and silent beneath their cloaks.

And so Lady Clementine sat before the summoning pit, a look of carefully constructed disdain on her face while the ritual proceeded to its climax. Fortunately, she had summoned Tareton enough times that the carefully constructed part just meant that she looked disdainful in a regal manner instead of the vulgar disgust and boredom she wanted to display. With the room smelling of rotten eggs and uncomfortably hot, the ceremony came to its climax with the specially prepared gladiator dropping into the pit of boiling copper, his head and body no longer attached by the neck.

Most demon summoning ceremonies were actually quite anticlimactic, with the demon just appearing in a puff of smoke at the end, wondering what was so important that it had to interrupt their business down in the Underworld. Dread Lord Tareton enjoyed the dramatic a bit too much, and thus once the sacrifice was finished the copper wrapped around the decapitated body and then levitated up into the air. For a few moments the mass of glowing white metal writhed and boiled before forming a humanoid figure of imposing size and with sculpted muscles, cloven feet, and wickedly clawed hands. In place of a head there was a floating orb of flames vaguely shaped into a horned face with dark points of coal for eyes.

Settling to the ground, Dread Lord Tareton had a semi-solid appearance, his form seeming to ripple and flow like a fluid one moment and take on adamantine solidity the next. Opening his mouth to speak with a voice like great boulders grinding upon one another, he says, “You’re late in calling me.”

“What? No, ‘Good to see you Lady Clementine’, no ‘How are you Lady Clementine’ no ‘What is new in your corner of the mortal realm Lady Clementine’? Honestly, you have no sense of class or timing my Lord. The least you could do is let me bring out the snacks before jumping straight to business,” Lady Clementine says annoyed at her patron.

“For someone who owes their land, titles and power to me for my patronage you sure have a mouth on you,” Lord Tareton responses with equal annoyance.

“Bah! It is amazing that the mortals with their short lifespan figured out idleness amongst the upper classes faster than immortal demons,” Lady Clementine responds dismissively.

“Idle chitchat is a good way to encourage a coup in the Underworld, which of course you know so well Little Succubus,” Lord Tareton replies, putting extra acid into his pet name for Lady Clementine.

Bristling at the unwanted title, Lady Clementine replies, “You might have helped me get the title Mistress of Slaughter, but I shed the filthy occupation I was born into centuries before I even came to you seeking that loan.”

“Which has its final payment tonight Little Succubus,” Lord Tareton says maliciously.

Shrugging, Lady Clementine replies, “Actually I am going to be a little short on the final payment so I will need an extension.”

“EXTENSION!” Lord Tareton screams, “What do you think this loan is a penis you can pull you if you massage it just right?”

Hissing at the reference to her previous occupation, Lady Clementine is about to say something biting before calming down and putting on her best smug bitch sneer. With two soft claps, she performs a much quicker summoning ritual with even more dramatic results than Tareton forming his avatar. Entering through a side door, two reapers carry a weak, emaciated Harold between them. Arcane markings made by ink and blade adorn his shattered frame, and where once the spark of life burned beneath his eyes only a dull greyness remained. Yet for all this at the mere sight of him Tareton recoils back in fear.

“Where…” Lord Tareton begins.

“Within my realm I found this fledgling, probably just a passing shard that would have lived an uneventful life before reincarnating somewhere else if plague had not struck my realm forty years ago and put me slightly behind on my payments. When we went to liquidate his village the anger and fear caused him to manifest, but fortunately the title ‘Mistress of Slaughter’ does not come from using a minimum of force so my troops managed to subdue him while he was still weak,” Lady Clementine says while smiling wickedly.

“That must have been an impressive battle,” Lord Tareton says curiously, living up to his role as a war demon.

“Three gargoyles and a reaper, but that is immaterial. As you can see I saw his potential and that necessitated the expenditure of several of the people from his village to ‘prepare’ him for tonight, so I am forty souls short of the final payment,” Lady Clementine explains.

“Forty souls is a pittance in comparison to this,” Lord Tareton says greedily.

Raising a finger, Lady Clementine says, “He is mine and he shall serve me before he serves you.”

“I am your Lord, I…” Lord Tareton begins before Lady Clementine gives him a look that causes him to go silent for a moment before saying, “You wouldn’t dare!”

Smiling wickedly, Lady Clementine says, “You will have to kill me to take him and should I die the wards holding back the ocean of fury and hate would fail like dykes in the face of a hurricane. All that monstrous energy would follow the link to your avatar back to the Underworld and somehow I doubt even you could survive the devastation.”

Somehow gulping for air despite his lack of lungs or a throat, Dread Lord Tareton says, “What do you propose then?”

“When this night is through you train him, not in the Underworld of course, until he has claimed twice the number of souls as I am short this night. Then to pay for the training, I will pay you back a hundred times the number of tonight’s shortfall over the next two centuries, plus my regular tithe,” Lady Clementine says.

“Four times the number of souls for the shortfall, a hundred and fifty for the training,” Lord Tareton offers.

“I do detest haggling, it is so vulgar. What say we split the difference at three times and a hundred twenty five times?” Lady Clementine counter-offers.

“Done,” Lord Tareton says, a chunk of his avatar falling away to form an indestructible tablet detailing the deal.

“Perfect. Now let us finish off that little piece of business we started seven hundred years ago,” Lady Clementine says, and with a flourish of her hand the main gates open up to reveal the surviving members of the hamlet raid, plus a few extras claimed as taxes over the past few months.

Not only did the pit at the centre of the chamber serve as the perfect summoning circle for the Dread Lord Tareton, but the arcane designs about its edge could trap any spiritual entity within, including human souls. With the link already established to Tareton’s domain, any human killed within the circle would have his or her soul trapped within until Tareton returned to the Underworld, taking them with him. Thus the gargoyles would herd the people to the edge of the pit where the reapers would cut their throats and drain their blood into the still superheated walls of the summoning pit before the golems tossed the bodies to the cannibalistic harpies.

Harold watched the procession with dead eyes, his mind burned out by the atrocities he had witness over the past several days. In fact, the deaths of the remainder of his friends and family were so tame in comparison to the abominations he had already witnessed that he did not even feel sorry for them. Less than half an hour later, the bones of over two hundred bodies lay at the feet of the sated harpies.

“Harold,” Lady Clementine said sweetly, causing Harold to look up and politely say, “Yes my Lady” out of pure conditioning, despite the fact that no one he knew still lived to punish him with.

“Harold, come to the pit over here, there is something I want you to see,” Lady Clementine ordered, and Harold tried to walk but his legs had given out long ago so the reapers carried him there. Once there, Lady Clementine said in a voice like that of a mother showing her young son a butterfly, “Do you see what is in the pit?”

Looking down, Harold sees the ghostly forms of everyone sacrificed that night trapped within the pit, trying not to touch the hole in reality at the bottom. Gazing down through their translucent bodies, Harold sees an ocean of fire tended to by countless thousands of figures wailing in agony.

“My Lady, I see souls about to be damned to Hell,” Harold answers dully.

“Unfairly you might add. You see, all those people I killed in front of you did not have to suffer the eternal fate my patron and I are about to bestow upon your friends and family, so while their deaths may have been gruesome at least their suffering ended there,” Lady Clementine says softly for all the horrors of her statement.

“I see my Lady,” Harold replies.

“Good Harold. You will also notice that the walls of the pit are still quite hot despite all the blood we have poured in there. Were a human to touch that death would be guaranteed and painful, followed short after by an eternity of suffering at the hands of Dread Lord Tareton,” Lady Clementine then claps her hands and a reaper brings over a shrouded figure and dangles the figure above the pit.

“There is one more soul to go to Lord Tareton. Would you like to see who?” Lady Clementine asks sweetly.

“Would the Lady like me to see who?” Harold asks wearily, drained by the various head games she has played with him.

“I would Harold,” and with a nod Lady Clementine orders the reaper to unwind the shroud about the figures face.

For the first time in over a week Harold finds the strength to get to his feet for just a second before the reapers force him back to his knees. Where grey dullness like a March storm sky had once filled his eyes, a spark of fire has returned. Safely out of Harold’s sight, Lord Tareton recoils as part of his avatar melts under the incredible burst of invisible spiritual energies, his temporary avatar not aligned properly with the mortal realm and thus susceptible to such things.

“You said Clara was dead,” Harold accuses.

“I said she never woke up, which is true because since the fight she has yet to wake from her coma. Now I give you the choice Harold, does she fall into that pit and wake up in Hell, or do you do what I ask of you?” Lady Clementine asks Harold, all the sweetness evaporated from her voice.

“What do you want?” Harold asks, fury almost visibly flowing out of his eyes.

Holding out a hand, Lady Clementine has a reaper place a ritual knife in it. Holding it up, she says, “Those scars on your body are not just to make you hurt. They are to prepare you for this choice. If you plunge that dagger into your heart willingly, you will be bound body and soul to my will forever. You will no more be able to resist a command from me than your hand can resist a command from you.”

“And in exchange Clara remains safe? And I mean truly safe, not some equivocation bullshit whereby I do this and you kill her and say she has gone off to a better place,” Harold asks, the reapers visibly straining to hold him in a kneeling position.

“Of course, I can promise you that no harm will ever come to her at my hand or at the hand of any of my minions, or Lord Tareton’s minions. I will even make you her guardian,” Lady Clementine says reassuringly.
Taking the offered dagger in hand, Harold asks rhetorically, “My damnation or hers? Is there really any choice?”

With a swift, fluid motion like that of a serpent striking, Harold drives the ritual dagger straight through his sternum and into his heart. For a second all is calm, and then Harold’s entire body jerks in a spasm so powerful it throws the reapers holding him down clear across the chamber to splatter against the walls with bone liquefying crunches. Backing off as fast as possible, all in attendance watch Harold break his bones in an all consuming seizure.

Rising up with his back curled into an upside-down U arch, he lets out a scream that echoes throughout the chamber and can be heard far across the snowy landscapes of the Lady’s domain, causing the human citizens to cower in fear at what new horror has come to haunt their nights.

Almost as one, the harpies start convulsing along with Harold, explosively vomiting up their human meal. The bloody chunks of meat immediately begin to boil upon contact with the stone, releasing a thick black gas that hugs the ground and moves like a living thing towards Harold. More black gas rises from the sacrificial pit and falls off the ceiling. Converging upon the dagger in Harold’s chest, the gas solidifies and causes the dagger to grow enormous cancerous tumours of metal.

Then the mortal attendants of the ceremony fall over, unprotected from the energies of the transformation by any supernatural qualities. Screaming in agony for a few seconds, their bodies explode almost simultaneously, the blood in their veins boiled away and ripped out by the arcane forces swirling about Harold. Finally the clouds of black gas finish flowing into the dagger, which is now the size of a large watermelon and the room goes quiet except for the electric buzz of enormous energies waiting for release.

Screaming again, Harold begins clawing at the lump of metal sticking out of his chest as it starts to shrink. Long tendrils of a viscous black slime coat his fingers every time he touches the lump and as the blood vessels beneath his skin turn black, it becomes obvious that the dagger is moving into his body. Welling up from the corners of his eyes like demonic tears, the black liquid flows back out of his body to coat his face in an oily death mask. Other points open up like sores to release the horrible slime seemingly at random.

Finally the transformation ceases, with Harold slumping to the floor, curled up in the foetal position. For a few moments nothing happens, but then Lady Clementine strides boldly forward to tower over Harold and asks, “Do you live servant?”

Uncurling, Harold rises up to tower over the Lady Clementine, a monster by any definition of the term. Where there was once the youthful face of a young man with a bright future ahead of him, only a horrible, near featureless mask of black iron remains. Extending from beneath the throat to the crown of his head, the mask covers both front and back, leaving only a horrific smoothness of the head. Random patches of flesh have burned away to reveal the steel muscles and bone just beneath the surface. Calloused hands roughened by years of working in a smithy have become enormous iron gauntlets set with claws as long and sharp as daggers. Solid blocks of wrought iron crudely shaped like boots encase his feet. In summation, everything weak in him has burned away like flesh in a casting mould for molten iron, leaving something just human enough to revolt the senses at the wrongness.

Like a voice said through a metal pipe, Harold speaks and says, “I live my Lady, and I live to serve.”

“Excellent. Then start by casting Clara into the sacrificial pit,” Lady Clementine says without blinking.

Remaining perfectly still, Harold replies, “I pray my Lady asks in just, for I do not wish to sully her lovely dress with excrement from her ruptured intestines, to say nothing of the blood or rips that would occur as her intestines come out her torso.”

“You question my first order servant?” Lady Clementine demands angrily.

“No, it is just that while my Lady’s name is written onto my soul, so is Clara’s. So long as Clara lives the contract remains sound, but should Clara perish my contract with my Lady would expire and I would probably kill her out of spite. Do you wish me to enact your order my Lady?” Harold asks, his hollow voice making it impossible to tell if sarcasm has entered in or not.

Smiling coldly, Lady Clementine says, “No. I merely wanted to know the extent of my control over my servant. My first act is for you to guard Clara.”

Turning to the limp form of Clara, Lady Clementine begins weaving a spell of ancient design and immense power. After thirty seconds of speaking in a language that existed perpendicular to the mortal realm, Lady Clementine released the conjured energies upon Clara. In a flash of brilliant white light the spell was completed and a necklace set with a large gemstone replaced Clara.

Moving with eerie grace for his bulky form, Harold picks up the necklace and gazes at it without eyes. The chain is made of cold iron like those of a dungeon cage, or like Harold himself, and the gem is an enormous diamond with the image of Clara at its core. Lady Clementine explains, “Within that gem she will remain outside of time, within her own little world, preserved forever by my power. Now pick it up and bring it to me.”

Despite the wicked blades that sprout from his fingers, Harold picks up the necklace with remarkable dexterity and grace and then brings it to Lady Clementine.

“Hang it about my neck, so that when you guard her you guard me and when you guard me you guard her,” Lady Clementine orders, to which Harold faithfully obliges, placing Clara’s timeless tomb so that the jewel hangs within the cleft of Lady Clementine’s bust.

Turning to Lord Tareton, Lady Clementine asks, “Now my good Lord Tareton, where do you think would be the best place for my new servant to train in the ways of war?”

Tilting his flaming head to the side for a moment, Tareton answers, “Lord Vanthis with his academies and gladiatorial pits should provide suitable basic training, and the trip there and back through Free Human Territory should also provide excellent experience as well.”

“Perfect, then we shall get Harold-” Lady Clementine begins before Harold abruptly cut her off by raising a single bladed finger in protest.

“My Lady, Harold died the moment he plunged the blade into his chest. I am merely your servant, and thus have no name until you give me one,” the creature that once was Harold points out.

Considering for a few moments her options, drawing a gloved finger over his torso, Lady Clementine then says, “I do love the language of the southern humans before we demons arrived, it was so complex and precise, wonderful for portraying subtle things quickly and easily. ‘Ferreus prodigium’, it has so many meanings that all fit my iron monster, my unfeeling prodigy. Would you like the name Ferreus Prodigium my cruel omen?”

The iron monster stands still for a moment before replying, “If my Lady wishes it, then my name shall be Ferreus Prodigium.”

“I think he likes it,” Lord Tareton comments.

“I think he does too,” Lady Clementine says with a smile. “From this day forth you shall be called Ferreus Prodigium. Now, as I was saying, I shall kit Ferreus out in reaper gear and then send him on his way with one of my reapers as a guide. I am sure my Lord can send word to his servant to the south before the student arrives.”

“I shall send an imp to speak with Lord Vanthis as soon as I return to the Underworld,” Lord Tareton promises.

“Excellent,” Lady Clementine says with a wicked smile.