Tarnished, Part 2

Continued from last post ...

The advancing waves of undead continued for nearly half an hour as the shrouded moon moved lazily across the sky, the Maguuma Jungle silent behind them as the wildlife within watched the spectacle of magic and battle. Loud cracks, deadly hissing and thunderous explosions rippled through the night as spells appeared from above and below the enemy and as Tyron’s rifle and gun turret spat angry bullets.

  They had fought valiantly against the surging enemy that had grown far beyond Alastair’s initial estimation. He had attempted to keep count of the masses of husks that had blundered toward them, but once he crossed the mark of one hundred he ceased counting. On several occasions he and Agrestal had moved to avoid a brainless fiend from attacking them; something behind the lines knew they were the threat, not Tyron.
  Yet despite their intense concentration and their best efforts, the oncoming waves of their enemy seemed limitless. Their energy was quickly dwindling and they had begun to make mistakes. Agrestal had foolishly thrown an arc of lightning at a mass of undead who had just fallen into large cracks in the sand caused by Alastair; she had been anticipating them to be frozen and her lightning simply fizzled into the sand, barely touching any of the lifeless corpses. On other occasions Alastair had thrown down the large fiery boulders and completely missed his target. Tyron seemed to be doing the best out of the three of them and had attempted to pick up the slack, but even he was beginning to tire.
  None of their undead enemy had gotten any closer than ten metres before Alastair desperately summoned a static field of crackling lightning. The dense wall of enemies shook violently as the electrified air coursed through their husks, crackling into the night, Alastair turning around to look at the other two as the brief respite transpired.
  “I can fight no longer; with one final gust after this we run!” he gasped, sagging as he spoke.
  He held up his staff behind him, its point aimed toward the wall of crackling lightning that flickered softly in the dense darkness of night. Agrestal could see him struggling to maintain his grip on the weapon. For a moment she stared in wonder at the young man as a decision warred inside her. She could see how exhausted he was; there was no way he could possibly outrun the chasing enemy even if he managed to push them back.
  “Alastair!” she cried out, louder than anticipated despite her own fatigue. “Let me distract them while you escape. They cannot turn me; I would die so you can live.” Seeing his disagreement in his eyes before he even spoke, she shouted all the louder. “It would save two lives rather than none! You cannot outrun them!”
  Behind Alastair on the beach where the far reaching fingers of the Jungle stretched across the pale sand, the static field wilted into darkness. Lifeless undead fell to the sand in a loud crunch that carried over the mindless groans which came from further beyond on the beach. The three of them turned instinctively and looked in defeat, and before Agrestal could action her offer, Alastair turned towards the fallen enemy and pointed the staff in their direction.
  The air hummed with energy as the magician found the power he had been using throughout the whole fight, surprising himself with how much he was still able to find. And then, as the bodies began to shift again and pull themselves from the sand, the Jungle hissed as a growing wind carried through the boughs and towards the beach. In a split second a howling gale rushed over the final dregs of the outer Jungle where the three of them stood and came together in a wall of wind that picked up the fraying corpses and threw them back to the next wave of undead. For a moment it seemed as though the wind had dissipated before its sharp whistle pierced the night and picked up the second wave.
  Alastair turned in wonder towards Agrestal and Tyron, his mouth wide open as he marvelled at how powerful he had managed to make the wind in his exhaustion. Yet before he had even looked into his sylvari companion’s eyes, his attention was caught by something behind them.
  Suddenly a glistening blue light appeared barely inches above their heads and stretched over them in a bubble while unfamiliar cries carried through the night, shapes appearing out of the darkened recesses of the Maguuma Jungle. Three trailing balls of fire flashed overhead while sudden circles of glowing light appeared in the sand, screams of pain filling the night as they formed. Flaming arrows followed seconds later while a shower of bullets crackled through the darkness after that.
  Within moments the beach turned into a warzone as a stout, heavily armoured asura appeared nearby, easily passing through the beautiful blue dome that had appeared around Alastair, Agrestal and Tyron. The asura looked at the three of them excitedly with wide yellow eyes and flashed an even wider toothy grin. A large mace hung from his hip while a particularly large glowing shield, especially for one so minute, was strapped tightly to his left forearm. His thick armour reflected the glistening light that hung over them, each contour and bend in the design pooling the light as he moved.
  “Looks like we got here just in the nick of time!” he roared cheerfully over the sudden cacophony that rolled towards the Jungle from the beach, showers of flaming rocks pelting into the beach that had appeared out of thin air.
  In a sudden flash of movement, the small asura turned away from the three he had saved, ran forward to close the original ten metre gap where the undead had nearly passed, and threw his shield around his head aggressively. A pulse of light exploded forth from the shield and rocketed along the beach before smashing into some undead that were nearing them.
  Alastair watched the asura in wonder, Agrestal watched him with mixed emotions, but Tyron was too busy watching the others who had appeared along with their apparent saviour. From what he could count in the flashes of light from the battle, there were at least fifteen extra fighters who had appeared from the Jungle behind them, all of them engaged in the fight. The only one who was not fighting as if it were life and death was the small creature who was making his way back to the three exhausted warriors.
  “Before any of you talk, just listen,” he ordered as he neared, shooting a quick glance behind him to the group of undead he had incapacitated with his shield. “You’re exhausted – knackered actually! I dare say, if you hadn’t started off with such a bang, I doubt we would have even heard you!”
  One by one he looked over Alastair, Agrestal and then Tyron. Each of them could barely stand and they each carried the same stunned surprise on their faces. Slowly they all returned the yellow eyed gaze, but by the time they seemed to be alert enough to absorb what the asura said, the remaining waves of undead had almost been wiped out.
  “I am Kip, short for Kipnarr, and I applaud your valiant efforts! We are from the Vigil, perhaps you have heard of us?”
  With his wide, all-knowing, toothy grin he extended a hand to Alastair to shake his hand. Kip’s gauntlets quietly clicked as the overlaying segments of the wrist scraped over themselves while he shook the young human’s hand. Alastair stared in bewilderment at the small, pointy-eared creature before him and wondered what his crazy endeavours had gotten him into.

Tarnished

The Tarnished Coast follows the southern border of the Maguuma Jungle. Along this coast reside both capitals of the asura and sylvari within the dense forest, whilst the border meets the Sea of Sorrows. During Zhaitan’s awakening and the rising of Orr, the Coast suffered much as tidal waves pummelled against it.
  Yet what came after the tidal waves was much worse. Waves of undead began to relentlessly appear from the water to make their way to settlements renovated by the asura and attack sylvari and hylek areas as well. Undead corsair ships and coral-infested, soulless husks appeared from the darkened horizon and seabed. Since then the attacks have not stopped; an entire century of conflict that has engulfed the Tarnished Coast.
  Many have lost much, sylvari, asura, hylek alike. Even the rat-like skritt have suffered in the wake of the undead. Yet despite the never ending assault, these races defiantly defend their beloved lands and Jungle, and will continue to do so – even in the face of Zhaitan’s champions.

It was the heart of the night as three figures huddled quietly within the thinning edges of the Maguuma Jungle. The bright moonlight sparkled sadly high above and cast an eerie light over everything. Long shadows from a few lone palm trees stretched over the sandy beach before the three figures. Noises of the jungle at night hissed and squawked loudly around them like a constant buzz, but their attention was too focused on the pale stretch of coastline before them.
  It had been nearly three weeks since Alastair’s horrifying nightmare and they had made it a long way south west since then. The morning after his vivid memory he ferociously attacked his personal endeavours with Agrestal by his side. Within two days it was clear that they would not have the support of the Captain’s Council, and so Alastair took matters into his own hands and began to recruit for what he had planned.
  By the fifth day he had only gained one extra enthusiastic member who had been foolish enough to find his endeavours interesting. He was a young and relatively naïve charr, adept in the ways of an engineer who had originated from the Iron Legion. Upon meeting each other, the furry young mechanist introduced himself to Alastair and Agrestal as Tyron Flamefist. His lightly charcoaled fur covered a muscularly lean frame with two sets of small double horns protruding from his jaw bone and temples.
  In the dead of the night he looked like one of the large cats from the Jungle, however his clothing and large backpacks of tools and weapons would have given that away in an instant. Tyron had smelt the stench of the undead barely minutes before, somewhere out towards the water. All three of them keenly searched over the flat sandbanks towards the softly crashing waves where the Sea of Sorrows met the beach. Agrestal remained relatively poised despite her growing anxiety whilst Alastair and Tyron were peaking.
  Even after two weeks along the trail they had barely come into contact with undead, let alone skritt or krait. But as they crouched in silence, staring beyond the thick fern they hid behind and along the silvery strand of coast, they knew they were in for a fight. Tyron’s nose was unbelievably accurate with scents and Alastair himself could have sworn he could smell the acrid, salty stench of Orrian undead.
  Tyron sniffed sharply and louder than he had before and suddenly moved back instinctively, his eyes fixated straight before him towards a sandbank that rose high enough so that they could not see the water beyond. The others could not see as well as Tyron in the night, but his reaction and the soft growling that sounded from deep within his throat meant only one thing: their enemy was nearby.
  The three of them shifted as quietly as they could to prepare for the incoming battle. Alastair carried the staff he had kept by his bed the night of his nightmare and wrapped his fingers tightly around its shaft, Agrestal unsheathed her sceptre and focus and brought them around to her front, and Tyron began to load the necessary ammunition into his favourite rifle. The whole while they kept their eyes focused on the sandbank and by the time Tyron had completely readied his weapon, the beginnings of their enemy had begun to appear.
  The first thing the three of them noticed was the sudden silence as the Jungle itself went quiet. The squawking and buzzing of critters died away and was replaced instead by the mindless groaning and grunting that quietly carried across the open beachfront from the dark shapes that mounted the sandbank and continued towards the Jungle. The second thing that was noticeable was that clouds seemed to appear in the sky and shroud the moon so that its silvery light disappeared. Within a few short moments the entire atmosphere had changed and the few initial undead that had been visible began to grow in numbers as more appeared atop the sandbank.
  By the time the first of the mindless beings were fifty feet away from Alastair, Agrestal and Tyron’s position their numbers had swelled to a small horde. Alastair quickly counted as best as he could and quietly whispered his estimate to the other two, “At least thirty.” Their bodies were dark and shaped grotesquely as though a thinly fleshed skeleton hobbled awkwardly forward. Some of them had bits of coral and sea life attached, while some still managed to have strips of their original clothing or armour garbed over them. They carried crusted weapons of swords and daggers and moaned into the night. It sent chills down the three onlooker’s spines.
  The horde was twenty feet away when Alastair shifted in his spot, looking between Agrestal and Tyron with a sudden fear in his eyes. He had never anticipated his first skirmish would be against thirty or more undead. Opening his mouth he paused as though he was going to say something before slamming it shut and closing his eyes tightly. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes and opened his mouth a second time, but this time the fear in his eyes had been replaced by a fiery determination that Agrestal had never seen before.
  “We fight until we need to retreat. I will not let them turn us into one of Zhaitan’s minions – even if that means forsaking a warrior’s honour.”
  He flashed a mischievous grin as he always did when he knew he was right – or crazy.
  “Right, let’s make them taste fire and brimstone!”
  Standing to his feet, Alastair pulled his staff up and above his head as the air around him seemed to hum with churning energy. Looking skyward, Agrestal watched as three large fiery boulders plummeted from the sky, appearing from nowhere. Each crashed into the beach with a loud explosion that rippled through the night leaving craters where they had landed on top of advancing undead.
  Tyron dropped to his four paws and jumped forward beyond their forested hiding place, his tail flicking wildly behind him as he did so. Rearing onto his haunches he pulled his rifle around to his front and fired the first of his shots at the closest coral-infested monster. It stumbled before falling, a cloud of sand spraying skyward as he did so. Victoriously he roared into the night as he fired off another shot, his sharp teeth glinting orange as a fireball soared through the sky overhead.
  Agrestal moved to stand beside Tyron as Alastair unleashed magical hell upon the coming undead. She summoned the necessary power she needed and with a sweeping movement of her plant-covered hands created a wall of flames that sprouted effortlessly from the sand just in front of Tyron. Moments later, after Tyron sent a shower of flaming bullets towards the advancing enemy, she pulled energy from the air around her and released a great wall of wind that howled towards the undead. The gale screamed into the night before smashing into the front lines of the enemy, knocking them over and causing many behind to stumble. Seconds later she watched as ice crystallised across the sand where many had fallen.
  “Good!” Alastair called, sweeping his staff downward as the ice he had summoned solidified in the beach. “Summon your phoenix! We can do this!”

Bay of Sirens

The Sea of Sorrows, once known as the Bay of Sirens, is a sea surrounded by Kryta, the Southern Shiverpeaks, the Tarnished Coast, Orr, and the Strait of Malchor. Its hub and northern most stretch reaches to the mouth of Lion’s Arch, the renovated remains of a corsair’s haven and shattered city from hundreds of years ago.
  Within the Sea of Sorrows linger dark enemies other than Zhaitan’s undead minions. The bloodthirsty and ravaging krait, the frog-like and alchemically excelling hylek, the stout and peaceful quaggan and many other of the usual creatures of the ocean mingle, fight and exist with another in the waters and along the coastlines.
  The rising of Orr turned their ecosystems into havoc as Zhaitan’s chaos ensued. The hylek were forced inland along the coastal regions and have spread vastly in numbers and size while the quaggan have opted to move further inland through rivers to lakes and shorelines around the Maguuma Jungle, Steamspur Mountains and Kryta to avoid trouble.
  Despite the fight for survival amongst these races and environments, it still appears as though the truly dominant races of the land have the hardest fight to win. Human, charr, asura, norn and sylvari alike face the undeniable threat of the Elder Dragons in each of their respective places of Tyria, yet even within the shadow of their darkened wings, the fight for supremacy, revenge and life continues in ways that can never be completely traced.

A heavy downpour fell from the canopy of dark grey clouds as though the land needed the rain. All around the small fishing boat waves crashed and caused the vessel to groan in agony. A younger adolescent and his father worked hard to hold the boat on its course as the farthest eastern island of the Dominion of Winds disappeared behind a thick curtain of fresh rain several miles away.
  They had been out fishing among the Sea of Sorrows since early morning and had let themselves drift far too south. It had been the boys fault, but his father had not criticised him – the storm was enough of a consequence as a tongue lashing, maybe more. The clouds had appeared faster than usual for the bay and had caught them off guard before they had a chance to redirect their course. In the end they simple resigned to the fact that it was going to be a long slog back to Lion’s Arch.
  The boy went to grab a flailing rope but lost his traction as a frighteningly large wave collided with the side of the fishing boat. He toppled over, threatening to fall head first into a large bucket of fishing spears, but at the last moment a strong grip swung him around. His father’s fingertips lost their clutch and the boy slammed painfully into the deck of the boat with his shoulder.
  “Get up, son! No time to feel sorry for yourself! I need you to fix those lines!”
  The boy groaned and pushed himself up as the boat swayed on a sickening angle. Tools of the fishing trade spilled over the deck and over the sides as another massive wave threatened to flip the boat, throwing the boy off balance for the second time in a minute and sending him careening towards the port side of the vessel. Just in time he threw out his right arm and hooked it around the mast pole and held on for dear life, grunting with the effort as his energy quickly drained.
  Mercifully the boat levelled out and the boy’s father quickly picked him off the deck, leaving him instantly to leap into the air and capture two flailing pieces of rope to bring into submission. The boy watched his father in wonder as cold rain pelted against his sodden body and gale force winds pushed angrily against him. He hung onto the mast as a sharp pain jolted from his shoulder up his neck, determined to not be more of a burden to his father than he already had been.
  The storm continued as they sailed north, its ferocity barely dimming as the first hour crawled by. Both fishermen were robbed off whatever energy they had had and were left feeding off the adrenaline that kept them alert. Shadows of distant islands lingered beyond the hazy layers of pelting rain and every few minutes both looked north in the hope that the magnitude and shadow of Lion’s Arch would become visible through the rain, a beacon and symbol of hope amidst the storm.
  The father barked orders frequently as the storm began to slow and allow the boy to move more freely without danger. Slowly but surely the seas levelled out and the wind quietened. The rain continued to pour in flooding quantities, but somewhere through the thick haze a growing wall of darkened shadows was growing to the north.
  With a wide grin the boy pointed towards the silhouette of Lion’s Arch with his unhindered left arm, turning to his father as he did so. But as he turned, his smile quickly changed to a gaping mouth as his elation turned to dread.
  Slithering over the handrails on the starboard side, a large snake-like creature armed with swords and strange armour appeared. The boy’s father had his back to the creature, and before his son could even utter a word the creature had the man’s head in an iron grip, its slimy skin oozing over his father’s leather tunic and stubbled chin.
  A look of horror filled the father’s eyes as the creature began to retreat back to the handrails, the human unable to get a solid grip on the creature’s slimy hold. The boy ran forward instinctively, not out of braveness but out of foolishness, and attempted to help his father with his able left arm. His smaller fingers fumbled and slipped over the glistening skin of the creature and seconds later he was kicked aside as his father’s upturned legs smashed into his head. The boy recovered instantly as his awakening fear pushed him beyond the concussion he had just incurred and watched as his father’s boots dipped beneath the surface of the churning water.
  “Father!” the boy screamed, frantically searching the surface of the water for a sign of his father’s return, slipping over the handrail as ooze from the creature mixed with the rain water on the wooden surface.
  But as the minutes passed and the storm continued to calm, his father never returned. Miraculously he had been able to sail the fishing boat one-handed back into the harbours of Lion’s Arch, but as he sought for assistance to find his father he was only met with resistance.
  “Boy, it is unfortunate, that is true, but no one could hope to follow that damned creature. Not the krait. The best you can hope for him is that his death is swift and painless.”

  Alastair opened his eyes and sat bolt up, frantically wiping away the sweat that had pebbled on his forehead. His eyes were dilated and he searched almost desperately through the small room with his eyes, a faint glimmer of hope shining through the fear.
  Nearby a shadow moved and he reacted, rolling off the bed and reaching for a staff that he had left leaning against a bedside table.
  “Alastair!” A familiar voice called.
  The results were astounding. Agrestal’s call cut through his hazy dream in an instant and brought him to the place he stood, half-dressed and panting, a staff at his fingertips.
  Her silhouette filled the doorway in the dark pre-dawn shadows. He could feel waves of empathy coursing from her towards him as he silently returned to the bed and pulled the sheets over him despite the heat he felt.
  “Is everything alright?” she asked, not bothering to enter further.
  Somewhere outside a snarl cut through the night, no doubt some charr having nightmares.
  “It will be,” Alastair replied, staring out to the grimy window and towards the faintly glimmering stars beyond. “It will be.”