NationStates Jolt Archive

The Osage ship gleamed. The light-webs that shifted in color and position on its surface shone bright, as did the irregular biometal surface underneath that was the exoskeletal outcropping of the network of biometal circuitry within the surface of the once-asteroid where the shipmind resided.

It struggled to contain the life-leeching presence of the being inside. Sikal Kasaros had tried to tone down the phagobiotic spells he had set up to radiate around his presence so that he might take a voyage across the stars without funneling all the soul energy contained within the ship into his starlike presence.

Tendrils of his soul snaked out across the void, probing the scene in front of him.

A baroque fortress hung suspended above a black vortex enveloping a blacker land. Around it buzzed cephalopodic drone swarms. The name of 'drone' was apt, for around the great decadent void-encampment there lay dark segmented orbs akin to hives with equally menacing themes woven within them. Wolf-formed cannonry marked their surfaces, as did runes that seemed to sear with the glow of the dark forges where they were birthed.

Despite the impression that these machines made upon the cast soul tendrils of the Necromancer aboard, the deathly fortress his ship was being drawn to took all of his focus as he sought to sort out the character of the things within, though they were bleak and obscure to what was literally his mind's eye.

Around him pale soldiers of his own devising stood readied, all of them splattered with some unaltered mortal wound that voided them of their original souls. They now required the animating power contained within the hands of Sikal Kasaros to keep them standing. Each one was armored in what looked to be dark grey synthetic armor moulded in the style of ancient lamellar, and carried a strange spear-like staff weapon with a pit at the end that glowed with blue-white light.

The Necromancer felt the discomfort within his clouded mind, felt the walls put there by the Sage-Emperor restricting his free will, denying him his right to vengeance, reducing him to slavish obedience.

He'd beat the geas, eventually, he was almost certain.

For now, he had a mission. Messages of respect and obeisance preceded his arrival, and the arrival of the gaunt-looking Necromancer was sure to be well-known to his hosts as he was ushered aboard the strange construction.

The Black Land awaits.

The great skyhook Door of Night was so much more than a simple tether. It was a vast, matte black station constructed over the ten years following Alkanphel's takeover of the Five Kingdoms as a show of strength and to stir memories of mighty Nargothrond. Baroque indeed. A fortress certainly.

Flames guttered improbably in torches scattered around the jet black construction, casting lunatic shadows across its surface where there was sufficient light for them to be seen. A number of them lined the edge of the hangar where Sikal Kararos's twisted asteroid now put in, revealing the beastly faces of the welcoming party that had come to greet him before his jorney into the bowels of their master's accursed realm.

The dead walked around him, his personal guards armored in grey. His own drab grey robes marked with an image of a unknown white sphere hung off his gaunt, sinewy frame, thin yet possessed of cordlike muscles here and there.

His face held a touch of regal arrogance, his skin was paler than any known Osage, whose ethnicity usually granted them a color of deep brown. Wisps of light periodically wheeled away from him, the color of delicate moonlight. His staff, wrought of silver and black metal twisted together and crowned with a pale red stone, clinked gently against the floor as he walked in.

His expression held tones of arrogance and interest at the same time, obviously intrigued by the pervading, underlying presence of Mordor and its Lord.

The creatures around him are met with demeaning expressions. He is no stranger to Uruk-hai, though these seem to be of a higher caliber, and the Dark Lord must know this, torn as the Osage Empire's black banners were from the very furthest borders of his will. He lets them flank his personal guard of walking corpses, then mumbles something in the soft, breathlike Osage tongue that manifests as another wisp of smoky moonlight that the skeletal walkers breath in, ironic in their unlife.

His soul reaches out, and feelings begin to pervade his growing entourage's minds, should they possess them. He takes a step, and the miniature universe that is those who his soul toys with holds their breath, hanging on every snakelike movement.

The Uruks need no words. They nod and usher him on, and Kasaros gives no gesture of assent other than his footsteps, letting them lead him where they will.