- Short story 01 -
Of Humans and Demons
Three-hundred, ninety four years, seven months, two weeks and one day after the War on the Monsters...
The war of man is raging. Fields wither, cattle dies, famine slowly becomes the norm, and the land is drained of it's color in a slow, painful death.
Lady Kyndnese stands her ground before someone in the middle of a road.
She stands at the entrance of a pathway. The pathway leads to a village.
The someone is armed with a dagger coated with blood. A simple gambeson with an overlying tunic with red hand-prints staining on what is it's armor. It wore tall eyes and a sinister smile upon it's face.
The sun is setting behind her. The wind is howling.
Lady Kyndnese stands in it's way.
- CHECK: The Someone
- LV = 16. He looks remotely confused.
It doesn't know who you are yet, but it's objective remains unchanged.
Lady Kyndnese, wearing a cloak of evergreen color, a knight's arming doublet sized for someone close to her, and lastly a pair of brown trousers. She had no weapon except a simple walking stick that barely surpassed her shoulder in height. Her breathing is strange. Her expression is not fear, it's not anger, not fear nor hope. Her expression is bitter, and sorrowful, as if she's staring at something she used to understand a long time ago.
*Lady Kyndnese's defense rose.
"So... You've been busy, huh?" The lady spoke. Her voice almost quivering. The someone gave no reply, but it's interest in her dialogue is clear and abundant.
"Well... I need to ask... Do you think even the worst, most horrible of us could change? If we just try?"
No response, no skipping of dialogue.
"Perhaps... That somewhere in this dying land... is a soul that can forgive even the worst atrocities that we're responsible for?"
No response. It savors it's time with the dialogue, watching.
"Well, you wouldn't mind me telling you a short story, would you?"
The figure's eyes brightened and it's haunting grin nodded, eager to listen.
"Okay then, that's what I'll do. I've tried to reach out before many times. I've tried so many times to understand you, but I think you understand me perfectly... Because every result is always the same..."
Yonder the path behind her, in the tall watch-tower of the village atop a hill, a man stood aiming a strange machine straight at The Someone. Everything was ready, now all that needed to be done was for the Lady to step out of the way. He signaled the residents who were at the village gates to create a noise that would alert the Lady to step out of the way to create a clean line of fire. He expected a battle-cry; a noise of fire and courage that would carry itself over the distance. Instead, he was greeted with a sound that started with a single voice, and grew into a chorus of song.
"Rest now, my warrior... Rest now, your hardship is over."
The song carried itself through the distance and beyond the path until it could be heard from afar.
"Do you hear it?" Lady Kyndnese spoke to the figure.
"Live. Wake up. Wake up." The chorus grew with volume over the distance until it's words could be both heard and understood clear as day.
"Those are the people who I've watched their devotion, their struggle, their sacrifice to you, as I watched you farm them like wheat to a scythe, as dying wolves protecting their young against a bear driven by senseless blood-lust... Do you hear it?"
The sound of the chorus grew.
"And let the cloak of life cling to your bones. Cling to your bones."
The smile on the someone's face never faded, nor did it's expression change at all. It simply kept listening.
"You like to think you're a God because of your power? All because you exist outside of this world and don't share in the consequences of the actions committed by you... You know what you are? You're a coward with a puppet. You are a puppet god with power to ruin lives because you're entertained by it - you FEED on it!"
The someone still listens. He has not skipped a single line and has yet to feel bored, if at all...
"Live. Wake up. Wake up."
"Our struggles, our memories and experiences of love, loss, birth, death, joy... All those execution points and levels of violence you gain from inflicting such pain and sorrow...
"I want to make a deal with you that you can't refuse."
The someone; this puppet of something beyond - it cocked it's head, curious, but arrogant. It's form seemingly becoming devoured by a pitch-black darkness that grows like a mold as both itself and the darkness slowly approached Lady Kyndnese.
"Take mine. The LV I have gained, the XP that I have, the bitterness that I've hoarded like a pig... Take it. Take those horrible things from me."
The puppet took another step forward. The Lady, young on the outside yet older and ancient within, stood her ground shaking with something cut from the same cloth as fear.
"I hope you have a big appetite, because I've lived an abnormally long life. I've played the game for longer than my fair share... I've seen and done quite a number of things..."
The man back in the village watchtower observed all of this, unable to hear any of these words; his hands started shaking.
What are you doing? Get out of the way! I have the shot! Just get out of the way!
Lady Kyndnese continued.
"I was there during the war of the Monsters, four hundred years ago. Because of me, I had made the death and imprisonment of an entire species possible. I was one of the seven sorcerers who overthrew the Republic that damned them, and I was there to birth the Empire in it's place... I am the sorceress of green, yet I am nothing!
"I saw the birth of the *Hate soul, and I watched the despair on my last son's face as he watched the death of this world... Moment by moment until there was nothing! No love, no color in ground nor sky, no forgiveness, nothing! Just a colorless wasteland!"
Tears started shedding from the fair Lady's face. Emotions, all from guilt, remorse, and regret to sorrow, pain and countless other expressions and descriptions came flooding forth from her expression as every memory, every scream for 'mother' from every child and reverse, every image of every person she helped in every evil they committed because she gave them what they needed, every use of green magic she cast in bitterness, disgust, and hate for their opponents. Everything came flooding forth in a pair of rivers from her eyes as every sin she committed or assisted with, every painful thing flashed before her eyes in cruel, torturing imagery.
"I walked in once-beautiful planes of magic reduced to ruins by gods driven mad out of my doing!"
She shouted at the immortal puppet as it took another step closer to her.
"I've watched nations of innocent people cry-out in suffering as fire devoured them! I have seen people suffer for punishment that should've been mine!"
The sins that wouldn't have been committed if she had not assisted the guilty flashed before her eyes as ancient death-warrants of entire nations were carried out without a moment's hesitation from so long ago. The screams that started ringing in her ears, their volume only rivaled by the singing of the villagers some distance away.
"Atrocities have been committed by my helping hand - Atrocities you could never believe! I have lost an innocence that you will never understand!"
Her young voice cracked and despaired from it's facade, the tone of a much older, more ancient woman, falling as a kite with no wind.
"And I know things! The secrets of *Quit, *Save, *Continue, and *Reset! Knowledge that can't simply be spoken and understood!"
Lady Kyndnese adjusted the collar to her husband's arming doublet, her expression and posture shifted. She remained mournful of what she couldn't change, but a courageous fire stirred within her. She remained weeping, but was no longer afraid.
"Knowledge... That sets puppets like me free from the control of horrors like you!"
The puppet's darkness had now surrounded the Lady Kyndnese, as her surroundings became darker and darker.
"So come on then! Do it! Fight! Execute me! It's all yours! TAKE IT ALL FROM ME!"
She was facing her death and willing to embrace it with open arms. The darkness finished enclosing around her, and the trap was truly complete.
*SOUL VS SOUL INITIATED.
The Someone's Turn = Fight.
Hit.
Lady Kindness's HP remaining = 1/99
Lady Kindness's Turn = ACT, SACRIFICE
The box shrinks around your *SOUL. There's no room to dodge what's to come next.
At that moment, a giant beam pierced through Lady Kyndnese's shattered heart and straight into The Someone's pitch black, disgusting soul.
DETERMINATION SUCCESSFULLY EXTRACTED
100% from 2 subjects
A machine made of metal and the last magic the surface had to offer, created by a dabbling scientist for the purpose of severing the bonds between puppet and puppet god, *Save, *Quit and *Load...
Despite it's class as a prototype, the machine had done it's job and the experiment was a success at the cost of someone who, despite every horrible thing she had done in the past, had changed.
. . .
The man stood in the tower with the machine that was meant to save them, processing what he has done. With the pull of a trigger, he saved hundreds of lives and doomed someone who had shown him nothing but kindness. Tears streamed down his face. In that tower, he stood alone with that strange machine. He could do nothing but weep.
... And nobody came.
*So, a bit of a spoiler for this little thing. If this chapter feels familiar, then that's because... well, that's because it IS familiar (more at the bottom).
Yes, alot of the themes I've used has already been done by HumanTale, EnderTale, UnderFell, SoulsTale, most recognized GlitchTale, and alot of others that have used these ideas before I even conceived them. Kings Tale, though inspired from bits and pieces of these other things is still something I'm hoping will take-off and be it's own thing someday.
Anyways, thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoyed the first short story for the setting of Kings' Tale/King's Tale - whatever you desire to call it. I'm no judge.
Thank you very much for your time. Don't be afraid to tell me "No! That's not how that works!" or shenanigans in critiques. I want to have the setting open for consistency within what's been established by the game itself, with Kings Tale still it's own thing.
Again, thank you for taking time out of your day to read this little thing. May your days be better.
*Anyways, spoiler to why this is familiar (cuz it should be).
I watched a bit of Doctor Who from my phone, and I saw the iconic scene from the Rings of Akhaten, and I had a series of epiphanies.
The emotions and concepts between Time Lords and Player characters do have some similarities and strange overlaps. My brain wanted to explore these character concepts even further and in action which led to this chapter being created. I ripped the scene from rings of Akhaten because it fit best with the setting and characters within that I wanted to convey and draw-out the setting, especially when it comes between the "death(s)" of two player characters who are equally determined to accomplish their objective(s).