Roseway
02-01-2004, 03:06
The land was warm. Summer was coming, and the meager life of that place was preparing a welcome for the one moderately warm season. The scraggly bushes and naturally leafless forests were growing faster, and the trees were changing color to better suit the heat. The bushes actually had berries on them, as the precursors the the major crop plants of the land. The soil was red. That planet had been gifted with an abundance of iron, except that the iron had not been trapped in rock as is usual but in the dirt. Huge rocks poked from the soil as that planet's sun moved its meager water vapor in a cruel hoax of moister planets' weather patterns.
Picture a rock in the shape of a gargantuan thumb with a devilish nail poking from the top. The leafless trees crowd around the rock like calves around the cow. A hill next to the rock produces a way to reach the top.
A lone figure was on the rock. It sat, as if brooding on some problem, for some time. It then stood up and leaped easily from the thumb to the hill.
It loped down the rocky slope and toward a small spring that stood incongruously in the dry, red ground. Bushes had already found the spring, and they had grown like mad with the fresh water. The tallest had already reached two times the size of the largest other bushes, and the smallest was rapidly approaching that height.
The figure continued toward the spring and knelt by it. It muttered something and stuck its hands deep into the water.
The sun, on the end of its futile journey across the dusty sky, caught the face of the figure by the spring. It was a hideous face, a scaly mess with deep red eyes and a slight muzzle. Scars ran across it and a hole had been bored into the skull above one eye. Spines ran from its forehead down its neck and back. Small gill slits were cut in the dark skin of the neck.
The figure stood up, revealing the rest of its body. Vestigial fins hampered its long fingers and extremely worn yet still high-quality boots prevented a viewer from seeing if similar fins were on its toes. A tattered uniform covered a broad, muscled chest and what was either very long shoulder blades or small wings. The uniform had obviously been engineered to fit this creature, because it would take a very talented tailor indeed to modify any other clothing.
This creature had a name. It was Ramos Seral.
The insane hybrid of fish-man, human and dragon gently shook the water from its fins back into the spring, which had grown dramatically in the last few seconds. It had grown past the hole it had started in and begun flooding the surrounding area. Ramos now stood ankle-deep in water.
He walked from the embryonic lake to the base of the thumb. A door had been cut into the hill and covered with the hide of some armor-plated animal. As he shoved aside the door, he turned to the spring. "Grow, little ones," he said. "Go deeper. Grow stronger. Change this world."
He moved into the doorway and let the hide fall.
As he moved into his home, he picked up an organic-looking globe in the darkness. As he shook it, a faint white light filled a small room. A military-issue bedroll lay in one corner, a shelf on one wall, and a fireplace across from the doorway. A passage led from next to the fireplace into darkness. The shelf was filled with books and strange instruments. Above the fireplace hung a dust-covered broadsword, with a bright adamantium hilt paling in glory next to the alicorn-plated blade.
The man once known as Rame set the glowing sphere back on the floor and walked into the dark passage. He walked through the darkness with the confidence of one who has done so a thousand times. He found a stair, cut in the floor, and followed it down, ten, twenty, a hundred steps. He eventually found himself in a cavernous room, glowing fungus covering the spikes that protruded from the walls and ceiling, illuminating a cold stone floor and a subterranean river running perpendicular to the stair.
He walked across the floor to the river, where he knelt and drank deeply of the slightly murky water. He reached in the water and pulled out a fish trap, in which two blind, white fish flopped hopelessly. He pulled out the fish and set the trap back in the water.
Halfway back across the stone floor, a voice came to him, bypassing his ears and bringing the sound straight to his brain.
"Rame! How'ya doing?"
He didn't even slow as he walked to the stairs.
"Rame? I know you're there."
He walked up the stairs at the same pace that he had walked down.
"Rame, we need you."
He walked from the passage into his room and set the fish on a frying pan suspended above the fireplace. A bundle of dried wood was on the bottom.
"You listen to me, soldier!"
Ramos Seral looked at the fire. He inhaled, then spat a stream of flaming saliva onto the wood, which burst into flame.
"Do you want three trillion credits or not?"
He slowly fried the fish, and ate it. He didn't say a word, not as he ate of the fish, or when he went outside to gather the next day's wood in the light of the two moons, or as he fell asleep to the crackling sound of the fire. The voice pleaded, argued and threatened, but Ramos ignored it. He even ignored the sound of the transport as it hovered outside his door, and the sound of an ordinary man unsuccessfully trying to move the hide door.
The moons crawled across the dark, almost starless sky. They sank into the dead horizon as the sun rose again for another trip over the somehow more vibrant world.
Picture a rock in the shape of a gargantuan thumb with a devilish nail poking from the top. The leafless trees crowd around the rock like calves around the cow. A hill next to the rock produces a way to reach the top.
A lone figure was on the rock. It sat, as if brooding on some problem, for some time. It then stood up and leaped easily from the thumb to the hill.
It loped down the rocky slope and toward a small spring that stood incongruously in the dry, red ground. Bushes had already found the spring, and they had grown like mad with the fresh water. The tallest had already reached two times the size of the largest other bushes, and the smallest was rapidly approaching that height.
The figure continued toward the spring and knelt by it. It muttered something and stuck its hands deep into the water.
The sun, on the end of its futile journey across the dusty sky, caught the face of the figure by the spring. It was a hideous face, a scaly mess with deep red eyes and a slight muzzle. Scars ran across it and a hole had been bored into the skull above one eye. Spines ran from its forehead down its neck and back. Small gill slits were cut in the dark skin of the neck.
The figure stood up, revealing the rest of its body. Vestigial fins hampered its long fingers and extremely worn yet still high-quality boots prevented a viewer from seeing if similar fins were on its toes. A tattered uniform covered a broad, muscled chest and what was either very long shoulder blades or small wings. The uniform had obviously been engineered to fit this creature, because it would take a very talented tailor indeed to modify any other clothing.
This creature had a name. It was Ramos Seral.
The insane hybrid of fish-man, human and dragon gently shook the water from its fins back into the spring, which had grown dramatically in the last few seconds. It had grown past the hole it had started in and begun flooding the surrounding area. Ramos now stood ankle-deep in water.
He walked from the embryonic lake to the base of the thumb. A door had been cut into the hill and covered with the hide of some armor-plated animal. As he shoved aside the door, he turned to the spring. "Grow, little ones," he said. "Go deeper. Grow stronger. Change this world."
He moved into the doorway and let the hide fall.
As he moved into his home, he picked up an organic-looking globe in the darkness. As he shook it, a faint white light filled a small room. A military-issue bedroll lay in one corner, a shelf on one wall, and a fireplace across from the doorway. A passage led from next to the fireplace into darkness. The shelf was filled with books and strange instruments. Above the fireplace hung a dust-covered broadsword, with a bright adamantium hilt paling in glory next to the alicorn-plated blade.
The man once known as Rame set the glowing sphere back on the floor and walked into the dark passage. He walked through the darkness with the confidence of one who has done so a thousand times. He found a stair, cut in the floor, and followed it down, ten, twenty, a hundred steps. He eventually found himself in a cavernous room, glowing fungus covering the spikes that protruded from the walls and ceiling, illuminating a cold stone floor and a subterranean river running perpendicular to the stair.
He walked across the floor to the river, where he knelt and drank deeply of the slightly murky water. He reached in the water and pulled out a fish trap, in which two blind, white fish flopped hopelessly. He pulled out the fish and set the trap back in the water.
Halfway back across the stone floor, a voice came to him, bypassing his ears and bringing the sound straight to his brain.
"Rame! How'ya doing?"
He didn't even slow as he walked to the stairs.
"Rame? I know you're there."
He walked up the stairs at the same pace that he had walked down.
"Rame, we need you."
He walked from the passage into his room and set the fish on a frying pan suspended above the fireplace. A bundle of dried wood was on the bottom.
"You listen to me, soldier!"
Ramos Seral looked at the fire. He inhaled, then spat a stream of flaming saliva onto the wood, which burst into flame.
"Do you want three trillion credits or not?"
He slowly fried the fish, and ate it. He didn't say a word, not as he ate of the fish, or when he went outside to gather the next day's wood in the light of the two moons, or as he fell asleep to the crackling sound of the fire. The voice pleaded, argued and threatened, but Ramos ignored it. He even ignored the sound of the transport as it hovered outside his door, and the sound of an ordinary man unsuccessfully trying to move the hide door.
The moons crawled across the dark, almost starless sky. They sank into the dead horizon as the sun rose again for another trip over the somehow more vibrant world.