An Update

I'm sure you noticed there wasn't an update last week, or this week. This is because I have been cooking.

I've always meant to make the shift to writing original fiction over fanfiction, and I've been making strides to that effect in the past few weeks alongside a good friend. As a teaser, and a way to show you all I am, in fact, still creating, I'll give you a teaser below. This will likely come with some minor changes to tiers and such, but that isn't set in stone currently. Presenting my current project, a little sneak peek at:

Traveler Wolf: Sin-Eater of Haraz

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Traversing the basalt flats of Meridian is an arduous task, though not impossible by any modern measure. At minimum, a single soul should require: A sturdy mount, water carefully stored and rationed, a hearty collection of cured meats, a covered caravan for shelter against the whipping winds, and a careful prayer to the umber banded giant called Hearth in the sky above. Equipped thusly, any traveler may survive the thousand span journey across, and indeed, may even enjoy the wildlife, flora and fauna alike.

Traveler Wolf is not equipped thusly. The krill is out of place from the get: xey are of great stature, standing six and a half feet tall at the crest of their curved rust-red carapace, a metallic shell that pulls and flakes at the seams; xey are molting. A grim, triangular head juts out and bears four probing antennae and two simple, unblinking black eyes. Xey possess four shoulders and four arms, two on either side; a fore-pair, long and triple jointed, and a rear-pair, slimmer and the more dextrous for it. Powerful swimming legs, possessed of two alternating knees, that end in great claws, are covered by thin spinweed trousers cinched at xeir slim waist by a tight cord of wound kelp rope. Xey are well adapted for the great seas of the north, or the beaches and coves of the Jorall coasts, not the basalt-deserts of the equator.

Xeir rations, it must be said, are a poorer affair by far. Hung from their belt is a simple water flask, made from the common hard shelled spiral-conch native to xeir home. Tucked through the same belt is a long, unsheathed spar of metal, a sword bearing a hilt of whale-bone half as long as the blade itself. This is held steady by xeir two right hands, manipulator stabilizing the blade and fore-hand resting across the glinting argent pommel. 

And yet xey walk, razor-sharp basalt dulling against the dense metal of krill-claw. What scrub that can fight for life, what animal that dares flit from its burrow in this barren expanse, remains unremarked upon, so stoic is xeir march.

But stoicism is no armor against such environs. In defense against the oppressive heat that threatens to bake xem alive, the flask comes up. First, the mouthpiece is pressed between serrated mandibles, then it is gently tipped over the gills that rest recessed between the plates of xeir neck and chest.

The last droplets of precious water run off red plating to sizzle away on the hot sands below. Wolf regards the empty flask for a moment or two, never once faltering in xeir long ground-eating stride. It goes back to its spot, and a new eye turns to gaze out across the empty wastes beyond.

No place is truly free of water.

Xey stalk forward, sensory apparatus well-attuned to even the faintest of hints of vapor in the air. It is in this same fashion that krill of old, when coves and lagoons became overfull, would venture forth into the wilds and find new homes where they might spawn clutches new. The names of those krill who accomplished journey’s most harsh echo through the spoken histories of their kind, and it must be remarked upon that Wolf now marches in the claw-prints of Swell Sure-Claw, who carried the last survivors of her clutch in a tank on her back through the blasted Meral desert of the northeast.

Much like the well-venerated Sure-Claw, Wolf pushes on, long enough that Hearth above twists down and begins to dip below the horizon leaving the basalt flats open to the punishing blue-white gaze of the ever distant sun. The heat rises in the absence of that kindest guardian.

And Wolf begins to bake. Gills expand, desperately perspiring against the sudden internal disturbance. Xey pant, dragging as much air as possible over the expanded surfaces. These great heaves are the only thing to disturb xeir gait

It is here, straining through this great temperature, that Wolf must learn that xey are not the only thing that stalks these wastes. The rumble of the sands below are the only warning afforded to xem. Some forewarning, the instinct of the deep perhaps, drives xem to leap straight up. Xeir legs coil like a great spring, barely clearing the height needed to avoid the great scything jaws that erupt from the sand below. Claws make contact with a scaled maw, purchase enough that xey can fling themselves to the side, away from this sudden foe. Xeir great blade, Thorn it is called, leaps from their belt in a swift arc.

The blade sparked off of dense hide, some confluence of exhaustion and poor angle conspiring to send it shrieking to the side off of great scales. Wolf stands, whale-bone hilt creaking under xeir grasp as some strange monster shakes itself free of its basalt home.

Longer from nose to tail than Wolf is tall, the great monster shakes the last of the black sand free from its back with a low throaty growl. A sightless, wedge-shaped head turns to face Wolf, hundreds of strange cilia twitching in the air just above a great slash of a maw. Its body is sinuous, and supported by four thickly-corded legs that are each tipped with a single glimmering talon. There is a tail as well, thick enough to strike a full grown krill in half with an errant swing.

But these are of lesser concern to Wolf than the twinned, whip-like tentacles that protrude from the long, flat back of the beast. Razor teeth line the things, long and cruel enough to cut through even the greatest of armor.

Despite the lack of an easy meal, this great monster does not back down. Wolf is not the only thing in this desert with a desperate need for xeir daily victuals, after all. This contact passes for some few tense moments, eyes meeting cilia, each hunter waiting for the other to make the first move. Each is tense as a pulled bowstring, each as likely to burst into sudden violent motion.

Wolf takes a great breath and shifts, Thorn falling into a low trailing guard position.

The monster springs, the hypersensitive organs lining its face sensing the great exhaustion that has set into the krill before it. Hunger drives grasping tentacles into mirrored scything arcs; for as hard-shelled as a krill is, such a bounty would keep even the mightiest of desert-beasts sated for many days.

They meet only empty air, Wolf dancing about the blows and sending Thorn around xem in a near-lethal arc that ends in a deep slash through the forest of cilia upon this monster’s face. A waterfall of red ichor is xeir reward, and it is followed by a great gnashing of teeth and a strange keening whine that issues from the depth of a thick scaled throat. 

Wolf steps forward, Thorn glinting bright in the sunlight as it swings high. For a brief, brilliant moment, it is as a great guillotine set to end this impromptu duel in a second terrible stroke.

But fate is not on Wolf’s side this day. The passage of this great beast has disturbed the sand below, such that when Wolf plant’s xeir forward claw for the strike, it sinks deep, past their ankle and near to xeir first knee. The shock is enough that Thorn tumbles from slack fingers to plunge hilt deep in silt. There is no chance to dive for the weapon; the sand below has become a trap, settling around xeir ankle as surely as a noose, rendering the krill as vulnerable as a caught fish.

A furious lash catches xem, binding the two arms that are thrown up in its path, a desperate shield against the vicious thorns that might lacerate the soft underbelly of the krill. Wolf lashes out with one free hand, catching a fistful of cilia in a clawing desperation that sends another spurt of red ichor across the scene. But this is not enough, despite the scream and howl that it elicits. 

The great beast heaves, an effort tremendous enough that it is only the fact of Wolf’s molt that saves xeir leg. A screech of rending metal sounds, and xeir ankle slips free to leave fresh carapace to sting against the sudden invasion of sand and air. The tear is not neat; droplets of cyan lifeblood fly in an arc from the uneven seam, a tracer of the krill’s great arc through the sky.

An arc that terminates in a sudden crash, metal carapace impacting packed basalt with enough force that Wolf finds xemself lodged in a half-hand deep crater. A heaving gasp escapes xeir mandibles at this blow, enough that the great lizard before xem finds it chance enough to lunge, great scything teeth aimed squarely at Wolf’s head and neck. 

It is monstrous effort that saves xem; Wolf curls, pulling xeir legs in close, pooling prodigious potentiality into the spring that is xeir body. Then, at the apex of xeir foe’s attempted strike, this spring unfolds, unleashing every ounce of power into a blow that lands against the thing’s jaw. Metal claws scream against heavy scales, and the monster rocks back with a choked gurgle—some important mechanism within has been crushed, destroyed by Wolf’s desperate gamble.

There is no chance to waste. Perhaps fate smiles on this strange being in some regard; xey landed from their short flight half an arm away from xeir discarded Thorn.

This blade leaps from the silt unblemished, unscratched. Testament to the hunger in the reptilian's gut, its tentacle has not released Wolf. 

Such tenacity is its undoing. 

The krill rolls, carrying xemself over the back of the reeling beast. The tentacle pulls, looping about the things neck. Wolf pulls tight just as xey turn the momentum of xeir roll into a mighty thrust. Thorn’s ever-sharp point finds purchase between the scales of the thing, punching through scale, skin, and bone alike to emerge from the top of the cilia-laden head. Yet more life-giving ichor joins the abstract stains across the desert floor below the combatants.

Yet the beast gives not, jerking weakly against the grasp of its soon to be killer. So weakened, Wolf has no difficulty tearing xeir limbs from it’s tentacular grasp, and even less trouble ignoring the weak blows said limbs rain down on xem. Now freed hands reach out and grasp the stained blade. The strain is great, like turning a massive gear against the direction it wishes to go, but this beast is on death’s door already. 

A final twist, accompanied by the horrible wet crunch of cartilage tearing and bone shattering, and the beast thrashes its last. It falls in a heap upon the basalt below, dead at last. Wolf, having clung to life with a tenacity a simple creature of the wastes could not match, took only a moment to rest against the still-warm corpse. Xeir thorax still heaves, xeir gills still perspiring agains the oppressive heat and exertion.

Despite this they stand, pulling Thorn free with a wet sound. The ichor comes off with a simple scrub of a cloth tucked into one pocket on xeir trousers, and once it is returned to it’s spot, xey set out the way they came, shaky and limping where one leg is still sore from the molt.

Three steps is all xey manage. Xey collapse under the heat, insensate.