1-15-15 Writing Warm-up
Artwork © Christian Quinot, All Rights Reserved - http://darkcloud013.deviantart.com/
Story and Characters © Corey Blankenship, All Rights Reserved
Brought to you by Four Fools Press: “Crazy Good Stories”
“Black as sin and dark within,
The bulkier half-dragon gave the smudgy horizon a long glance, ignoring her friend’s spontaneous bar song. “I don’t see our client. I’ve got a bad feeling our ‘blood’ was in fact a barmy.”
A titanic crack! interrupted the pale-skinned rilmani. All about the two rovers sprouted wiggling tower-whips. Each appeared to be at once oil and smooth stone, adorned with rows of tar-obsidian eyes and sticky hollows. Lava and molten rock burst from the fissures caused by the colossal tentacles, a blistering shrapnel that burned and tore.
Mist bellowed from the half-dragon’s nostrils as she fumed. “By the Nine, I’ll have that tiefer’s head. Ashenbach to Ashen-Book, I’ll Scribe him yet.”
An inaudible message crossed between the two. The half-dragon unslinged a strangely crafted metal crossbow and unfurled her wings. The smaller planar slipped between the layers of reality, while a scurry of ratatosks hopped and glided out of nowhere. The silent, giant squirrels wove around the oily branches, which swung and struck through the vanishing creatures. A thrum rippled through the ground. Another spout of lava and serrated basalt ripped through the air.
A voice shouted from somewhere in the din. “Bersi, it’s getting hot down here! I think it’s time for us to cool things off.”
“I could use a bit of a breeze myself!”
As if on cue, the ash whipped into a vortex into which the half-dragon breathed a gout of frost. This sudden wintry gust slammed into the last of the squirrels and the writhing tentacles with a gale’s force. The tundra-wind stiffened the exposed branches and toppled them. Frozen stalks shattered into rubble on the gritty surface.
“As do I, after that, as do I…”
“This place is sodding desolate. Be open to a pack of devils running around such a sooty dump.”
“This is the plane of Ash, not Gehenna, Berk.”
“Still,” quipped the slender traveler. “It has the air of one th’ hells.
“Black as sin and dark within,
The Nine shall scar ya deeper
Than a thousand barmies swiggin’ gin!
Than a thousand barmies swiggin’ gin!
If you end up there, yer gonna be a weeper!”
The bulkier half-dragon gave the smudgy horizon a long glance, ignoring her friend’s spontaneous bar song. “I don’t see our client. I’ve got a bad feeling our ‘blood’ was in fact a barmy.”
“He may have been a bad blood, but that tiefling portal-master was a blood. It’s more like our host got spooked...”
A titanic crack! interrupted the pale-skinned rilmani. All about the two rovers sprouted wiggling tower-whips. Each appeared to be at once oil and smooth stone, adorned with rows of tar-obsidian eyes and sticky hollows. Lava and molten rock burst from the fissures caused by the colossal tentacles, a blistering shrapnel that burned and tore.
“...or eaten!”
Mist bellowed from the half-dragon’s nostrils as she fumed. “By the Nine, I’ll have that tiefer’s head. Ashenbach to Ashen-Book, I’ll Scribe him yet.”
An inaudible message crossed between the two. The half-dragon unslinged a strangely crafted metal crossbow and unfurled her wings. The smaller planar slipped between the layers of reality, while a scurry of ratatosks hopped and glided out of nowhere. The silent, giant squirrels wove around the oily branches, which swung and struck through the vanishing creatures. A thrum rippled through the ground. Another spout of lava and serrated basalt ripped through the air.
A voice shouted from somewhere in the din. “Bersi, it’s getting hot down here! I think it’s time for us to cool things off.”
“I could use a bit of a breeze myself!”
As if on cue, the ash whipped into a vortex into which the half-dragon breathed a gout of frost. This sudden wintry gust slammed into the last of the squirrels and the writhing tentacles with a gale’s force. The tundra-wind stiffened the exposed branches and toppled them. Frozen stalks shattered into rubble on the gritty surface.
More tendrils bubbled and thrashed through the soil. This time a flurry of feathered khaastas zipped between the writhing mass. The tentacles hammered as an air-shaking hum rose from the black soil. Sheets of molten fire blazed up into the sky, aimed at the flying half-dragon. She deftly crested above the lethal surge, though her scaled legs blackened in the heat wave. She hissed and pointed her crossbow at a fissure in the center.
“Give me eyes on the Beast Below, Galak!”
“Aye, Bersi, and Tiamat’s trove when I have it.”
“Shut yer scar! Find me a real target, Shadow-Walker.”
A small sphere of blue flames appeared over a smaller crack. Many of the tentacled burrowed, as if retreating from the light. The orb flew across the space to another chasm. This time a stalk slammed from a flanking side at the light. The flaming ball dodged and came to rest over a third hole. A silver bolt pierced its heart and sailed into the blackness below. A horrible shriek rippled outward, cracking and heaving thick clouds of ash into the air. Lava and oil spewed malevolently from the wounds in the land.
“Time for a pick up!”
“You better have that trove with you.”
The scrawny rilmani dashed between volleys of pyroclast and into Bersi’s view. He waved his empty arms, which two white-scaled claws gripped. The giant rolling clouds of tainted ash dwindled as the two climbed windward. Long and desolate lay the lands about them, an unending field of ash.
“Well, Bersi, no jink this time. I’ve a bad feeling if this is not Gehenna...”
“As do I, after that, as do I…”
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