The Legacy staple is coming back, at one time the leader of Caw Blade, Stoneforge Mystic returns with some sweet new artwork! Stoneforge Mystic promo has hair drifting in the wind on top of the Zendikar mountains in the background’s landscape, great artwork made by Johannes York. We find this card in decks like Death and Taxes, Esper Stone Blade searching for the best equipment’s such Batterskull and swords like Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow.
The set that brought us Snapcaster mage and Geist of Saint Traft returns!
Set Name – Shadows over Innistrad
Block – Set 1 of 2 in the Shadows over Innistrad block
Number of Cards – 297
Prerelease Events – April 2, 2016
Release Date – April 8, 2016
Launch Weekend – April 8–10, 2016
Game Day – April 30–May 1, 2016
Magic Online Prerelease Events – April 15-18, 2016
Magic Online Release Date – April 18, 2016
Magic Online Release Events – April 18-May 4, 2016
Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad – April 22-24, 2016
Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad Location – Madrid, Spain
Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad Formats
Official Three–Letter Code – SOI
Twitter Hashtag – #MTGSOI
Initial Concept and Game Design
Final Game Design and Development
Languages – English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish
Available in – Booster Packs, Intro Packs*, Fat Pack*, Deck Builder’s Toolkit*, Gift Box*
(*-Not available in all languages. Not all products available on Magic Online.)
Shadows over Innistrad promo page here
Green
Gold
Booster Packs
coming soon!
Green Ramp players will be quite happy, as the best green acceleration of the standard format comes as the December FNM promo. The fact Nissa’s Pilgrimage FNM promo can ramp possibly 3 forest for 3 mana as spell mastery is quite impressive when you can cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger on turn 4 or 5 easily. Let yourself be invoked by Nissa, Vastwood Seer // Nissa, Sage Animist as this Christopher Choi art will bring to life your gigantic monsters!
Hi everyone and welcome back to Casual Encounters. Today I am going to do something that I haven’t done in a little while. I have fairly regularly cracked a pack and gone through what I would be looking at if I were starting a draft, but today I’m going to crack that pack and look at for the ART. I call it my Art Draft and today I’ll be busting open a pack of Dragons of Tarkir. Let’s not waste any time, let’s get down to business and see what is in the pack!
Have you ever really looked at the art on Qarsi Sadist? Have you? It is pretty amazing art on a card that is very marginal. The act of sacrificing the man on the altar is pretty detailed, but it is the masks of the guys pinning him down that are pretty chilling. These would be the type of ornate masks I would expect to find right out of some horror movie and are frightening while beautiful. However, look closer. Who’s is that in the background? Yeah, that is Silumgar. I don’t think I’ve ever actually noticed because my eyes get pulled to the masks in gold and the white shroud on the victim, but therehe is lurking in the background. That’s crazy neat. I may not be a big fan of the card, but I’m on board when it comes to this card in terms of art.
Sabretooth Outrider is a fine piece of art where the art is essentially exactly what you were expecting. You get a big cat, plenty off red on account of the colour of the card and generally a pretty predictable card. Heck, I can even account for the first strike because of the lances they are carrying. This is just fine on a card that is also just fine, but no one is getting excited. The white in the background is kind of whitewashing the whole piece, the art is reasonably predictable, and nothing remarkable really stands out. This is just fine, but nothing more.
Champion of Arashin is a little more interesting. The hound in the foreground is very interesting and highly detailed if you look at the armor he’s wearing. The background is also pretty interesting with the other hounds joining the battle as well. However, the real winner here is the fact that they sneak Dromoka into the background breathing a big gout of flame. This is more my style.
Atarka Beastbreaker looks pretty bland to me. Sure, he’s pretty jacked but that is hardly noteworthy. The colors and contrasts are once again kind of washed out and there really isn’t much happening. By comparison, the Champion of Arashin is on the midst of a battle, while this guy is coming home dragging supper behind him. This really isn’t anything super cool even if the card is a fine little card for a draft deck.
Mystic Meditation offers us far more in terms of visual eye candy. The colors are a little sharper and the detail feels like it is just a notch above what we’ve seen done in the other cards. Look at the dragons above the figure in the center and tell me those aren’t detailed portrayals of dragons. The gold steamers coming down from the ceiling look to be floating, further capturing the moment that looks like “mystic meditation” so that the art truly matches the card. I think the aspect that really pulls me into this card is the quote from Narset in the flavor text. I’m a huge fan of this fairly simple card draw spell because the art totally appeals to me.
Butcher’s Glee is one of my favorite combat tricks in the set and art is almost as good. That little goblin just looks so funny coming lunging at you brandishing that huge machete. The big toothy smile says all I need to know about this goblin and what it is feeling. I also really like that the action shot is up close. The close up perspective adds an emotional dimension that reinforces the panic for the card, much like you might feel if you are the one trying to cast this. You don’t want to have this spell fizzle so the sense of panic is real. The flavor text is also pretty neat as we get to know a little bit more about the the little goblin Kneecleaver. I’m just a fan on the whole and feel like the emotion in the card art matches the emotions I feel as I play the card.
Ojutai Interceptor is one of those card that had me excited when the set dropped because I like the art, but I’m less thrilled with it now. Sure, the morph like cloud behind the bird is pretty cool looking but there really isn’t much else to look at. There is a monastery appearing faintly in the background, but even that can not save this card. The bird in the foreground just doesn’t look like much because even the colors are a little muted. Sadly, this one has slipped down my list of card art preference and is much lower than it was a few months ago.
Herald of Dromoka has a lot more of what I like. The foreground is a highly detailed character in mid action which is a good start. The background is very interesting as well with a pile of soldiers leaving the temple on the left hand side of the card frame. They are clearly in a rush because the fortress is under assault. The right hand side of the card frame is a huge Dragon trying to bbq the fortress. My only real complaint with this card is the horn. It just looks so ridiculous right there in the middle of the card. I think the piece of art would have been more powerful with a different horn, but they were looking for a common thread to tie this to the Abzan from Khans of Tarkir. However, I still feel like it looks a little silly and detracts from the rest of the cool art.
Segmented Krotiq is a pretty gross looking centipede but it’s the sheer size of that thing is what’s so neat. Underneath the Krotiq is a monastery of sorts and it is absolutely dwarfed by the size of this gigantic creepy crawley. While I appreciate the proportions of the bug, I’m not hugely enamoured by the art and wouldn’t be putting this super high on my list.
Tail Slash is one of my favorite removal spells from the set but I can’t say the same for the art. The portrayal of the dragon doesn’t seem to match with the images we’ve seen elsewhere in the set. It feels like this has been pulled out of a book on dinosaurs because it looks like a brontosaurus with wings rather than an honest to goodness dragon. Apparently this dragon also got a 2-for-1 out this deal based on the two guys being launched in nearly identical positions. No, I can’t get behind this art even if the spell is very solid removal.
Echoes of the Kin Tree looks like it is a poster for the Hobbit. The relative positioning of the figures in the foreground look like they have been taken right out a movie. Their uniforms are dull to start with and dulled further as our eyes are pulled to the ghostly figure in the background. The art does a good job of conveying the significance of the card because it becomes clear that spirits are supporting the living warriors of the Dromoka brood. The best part for me is the flavour text about the human warriors maintaining their tradition of worshiping the Kin Tree despite Anafenza being executed. This card is reasonable and the art is pretty, but the positioning of the characters on the card feels very cliche.
Dromoka’s Gift is much cooler. I think what appeals to me is the vantage point as you look up, past the soldier being rewarded, up at the face of Dromoka. This feels like the moment is pretty momentous and should be something to take note of. Sadly, the card itself doesn’t match the grandiose art, but we aren’t here to quibble about spells are we. Based solely on the art, this is something that I like and enjoy seeing. If only the spell itself was slightly better.
Self-Inflicted Wound is a grisly card if I’ve ever seen one. Our eyes are drawn to the man in the foreground and the anguish he is experiencing as he fights against himself to try and prevent harm. However, what is interesting is the combination of the corpse in the lower right of the card frame in purple mist and the pair of matching purple cloaked wraiths in the background in the top left. This man clearly has no hope and The Reaper is clearly coming for him. This is chilling and grisly art to say the least and something that is interesting to examine more closely.
Clone Legion is pretty cool simply because of the mirror factor that has matching forces on each side. This feels like a flavor success in the truest sense of the word because the art and name show almost exactly what the card says it does. When art, name and card all match life for the players is made easy and things make sense. When either the card art or the name don’t match, players get confused. Don’t believe me? Check out a card like Tormented Soul or Orchard Spirit which clearly floats because it is a spirit or wraith. It can’t be blocked except by a creature with flying. However, they themselves don’t fly. That’s something that newer players don’t always remember because both of them LOOK like they should be flying. Well, Clone Legion is a win because if you look at the name and look at the art you can get a really good sense for what the card does.
My first pick is going to be the creepy art on Qarsi Sadist. The detail in the masks and the fact that Silumgar is lurking in the background pushes this over the top for me in this pack. This wasn’t the best art pack I’ve ever opened, but there certainly were some pretty reasonable choices. I always like looking at the art on these cards and this was fun today.
Thanks for stopping in to have a read! Have yourself a great MTG day!
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
@bgray8791 on Twitter
Hours later, within the Mage’s rhino-like head, something internal sparked, returning Kellot to consciousness. His first thought was, “Something is not right.” It floated there in the liquid depths of his head for a second before a more persistent one came along, scattering it. “No, more than that. Something is wrong. Very wrong.”
Kellot let out a long, slow breath, his bone-deep tiredness persuading him not to get up or open his eyes just yet. His first action was instead to probe his mouth with his tongue. It felt dry and cracked, as though he hadn’t drunk in days. A small part of Kellot’s awakening mind knew this was strange but the rest of him had yet to catch up. With incredible slowness Kellot pushed himself up into an almost sitting position, eyes still closed. His Sighted-Caste sigils clinked as he began to move in his heavy armour, and at the slight clinking metal his skull thumped, pain pulsing in near-tangible, repeating waves through the confines of his head. He grimaced; it was like the beat of a war drum.
Groaning at the unpleasant sensations Kellot nevertheless tried to stand, but exhaustion and his throbbing head overcame him and the best he could manage was a hunched sitting position. Despite Bant’s bright sunlight beating down on his head and heating his armour, Kellot felt cold all over as though in the shade on a winter’s day, and his whole body was wracked with a prolonged shiver. It reminded Kellot of the after-effects of the now hazy evening in which he had first experimented with intoxicating beverages, imbibing far more than his constitution had been able to stand. But this was worse than a dozen morning-afters at once.
Kellot opened his eyes and sunlight blazed in, bright, too bright! Like looking at the sun itself. He snapped his eyes shut, embracing the darkness. Eventually he cracked his eyes open to slits and slowly adjusted to the light, though even several minutes later he was still forced to squint against the glare. Surely it hadn’t been so bright before? Rendered short-sighted by the oppressive brightness that was the world, he instead focused on his hands. They ached and trembled and his veins stuck out like they were trying to escape from his body. Kellot put his hands to his head, blocking out the far too-bright light of the sun for a moment.
The last thing Kellot could recall with any clarity was the absolute strain as he and the vampire pushed themselves to the limit in a contest of effort. Then, just as it seemed that neither could prevail over the other there was a flash, a boom, and then blackness. And then he was here. But where was here?
Kellot slowly lowered his hands from his head, squinting against the light. He was sitting in the centre of some kind of shallow, blackened crater; the land around him scorched clean by the magic into something resembling polished glass. The vampire was nowhere to be seen, in fact the whole area, which had previously been a battlefield of hundreds of combatants of all shapes and sizes, was now completely empty. Only Kellot and his troubled thoughts remained.
Slowly Kellot stood, wincing at each clank of his armour. He was the only living creature he could see, smell or hear for at least a kilometre. He had triumphed against the vampire and wiped out its un-dead army, so why did he feel as though his body was in the grip of some hateful disease?
“Why do I feel so strange? So…wrong?” he muttered to himself.
For several moments Kellot concentrated intensely, trying to think through the pulsing pain in his head. It was though a fist was squeezing his brain. At last he came to a conclusion.
“It must be some residual curse from the necromancer’s death. Probably some of his stored Black Mana escaped his body at the moment of death, and it’s manifesting itself in an unpredictable way upon me, as I was the closest Mage to him upon his demise. Wild, unformed magic, this should be easy to heal.”
Kellot concentrated, working to pull healing White Mana to himself. It was somewhat harder than normal, as though he was trying to draw it through something semi-solid. It was probably just the exhaustion making things hard. When he had enough of it, Kellot gently dispersed the mana throughout his body, telling it to flush the impurities from within him by way of his spell. Seconds later he sighed in relief as his symptoms receded. His skin felt the touch of the sun again, his body ceased to ache, his energy returned, and the pounding in his head receded, all thanks from the motes of pure White Mana as they centred on and consumed the cursed magic within Kellot’s body.
Kellot launched into a few basic stretching drills to loosen up his muscles, feeling fine once more, and smiled at another triumph of the forces of good over evil; though the fight had been incredibly hard won. Now all he had to do was return to the Ivory Tower for his next assignment in defence of Bant.
His smile faltered when he felt his healing bolts of Mana change direction and home in on…his soul? Kellot blinked his dark blue eyes in confusion. That wasn’t right, he was healthy again. The spell should be complete and the mana should have dissipated. Kellot nervously flicked his tiny ears as he tried to understand. There must be something that his body was registering as a problem, and so the mana, acting of its own accord, was targeting it. Taking a deep breath Kellot used a standard medic’s spell to focus his mind inward, using magic to look through his own body for the problem.
Yes, there was something there, something which shouldn’t be there – an abomination. Through his magical senses he could feel it – a mass of dark corruption had latched onto his healthy soul and nestled there like a cancer. With rising panic Kellot could feel his healing spells bombarding the evil like a meteor shower, but they were not purging it, it was purging them. One by one the blobs of healing magic were consumed by the corruption, even as they threw themselves at it without reserve. In a mixture of fear and anger Kellot heaped more healing magic on it, forcing his power out in a greater effort than was safe. The corruption absorbed his attack as though hungry for more. Only when blood began to stream from his nose and left eye did he stop, but in the end the corruption was still there, and if anything it was bigger than before.
“My dear Kellot, I don’t think that is going to work,” said a voice that seemed to come from nowhere. Kellot tensed as he looked around to confront it. The voice was well spoken but devoid of compassion. Worse, it was familiar.
Kellot turned and there was the necromancer – skull-helmet, wooden staff and all. He appeared just as Kellot had last seen him. Healthy-looking and smiling a grim little smile, his fangs jutting out slightly.
“I think you’ll find that you’re wasting your time with that healing magic,” the vampire continued conversationally.
“How…. How did you survive? I had destroyed you!”
The necromancer chuckled. “Destroyed me? You were close, but not successful. You are powerful, I’ll grant you that, but I deal in the infliction and reversal of death itself! I was prepared for you and your kind long before you even left your little ivory tower to try to stop me.”
“Silence fiend! You shall not harm another!”
Without preamble Kellot threw a lance of solid light at his foe, the same spell that he thought had claimed the life of the necromancer at the climax of their contest. But the lance of White Mana passed through the necromancer as though he was made of mist. The necromancer’s only reaction to the lethal attack and the fact it had simply gone through him was a disappointed sigh, and he simply made an open hand and then scrunched it, as through crumpling paper.
Instantly Kellot gave a pained scream as unholy pain erupted in his chest, right where the corruption was. He fell to his knees, gasping in agony. He could feel it as the corruption gripped his soul with a necrotic touch, searing it like acid. The sensation was not far off someone squeezing all his vital organs at once. The vampire casually walked over, his hand still held out in the crushing gesture, and knelt down next to Kellot.
“You really haven’t figured it out yet my little crusader, have you?” His hand relaxed its grip slightly, and Kellot felt the searing pain ease off at the same time.
Though each word cost him, Kellot was able to choke out, “What…. have you…. done….to me?”
Beneath his skull-helmet, the necromancer’s coal-black eyes flickered in amusement.
“Now you’re starting to ask the right questions.” The vampire stood back up, pacing slowly back and forth in front of the prostrate Kellot, speaking as though he was a teacher delivering a lecture to a dull schoolboy.
“Though many unenlightened people would disagree, magic is all about power: the power to control the magic and make it do whatever is necessary to attain your desires – whatever they may be. It’s all about raw power, and who can control it best. When two mages battle, the victor is not the one who is righteous, or who has more magic, the victor is the one who has to the skill to control the magic. Now you and your Order may be utterly convinced that the quaint, little, self-righteous causes you champion mean you will always prevail, but I am more practical. Sure, I have much skill, and I know how to use it, but like all animals know, there is always another link in the food chain. I knew that one day I would face a mage who had similar or even greater power then me. So I plotted, and prepared.”
Throughout his speech he continued to periodically clench his hand, and each time Kellot would give a fresh cry of agony, his body wracked with spasms as the corruption burned his soul. Each time the necromancer would grin a little bit, before continuing.
“But I’m being a little long-winded, aren’t I? You want to know what has happened to you. As you’ve noticed, there is a little bit of darkness attached to your soul. It’s more than simple darkness; it’s actually a fully-living parasite, made up almost entirely of solid Black Mana.” The necromancer leaned in to Kellot’s ear, and whispered the next words with undisguised glee. “The parasite…… is me!”
Kellot couldn’t help it, he gasped. That couldn’t be. Surely the vampire scum was lying. He had to be…
The necromancer was nodding, enjoying the reaction he was getting.
“Yes, that’s right. You saw what happened to our magic’s when they were forced together. The reaction was…. volatile. Unstable. The resulting backlash enveloped us both. When that happened, it did something to you. I’m not even entirely sure what, I’m speculating here. Most importantly is that it destroyed me, in body at least. But you Kellot, you persisted. The trauma, or the influx of magic, or maybe both, has unlocked something in you. I can sense it; a burning nexus has ignited within you. You are a hundred times what you were, no longer one of millions, but one in a million. Your spark has ignited, you’re now a Planeswalker.”
Kellot had heard rumours and tales of so-called Planeswalkers. They were the most powerful of mages, with powers that approached that of Gods. No one knew how they came to be, but they were individuals of awe and mystery, and incredible power. A Planeswalker could devastate an entire army, bind to their will creatures of mythic stature and travel to entirely different realities.
The vampire nodded at Kellot’s understanding. “Yes, you have undergone ascension of the rarest sort while in that maelstrom. But you were also saturated with raw untamed magic, and it made you open, vulnerable, less protected. My soul was still intact inside the maelstrom thanks to some enchantments I had placed on myself for such an eventuality, but a soul needs a body to live in, as I’m sure you know.”
The vampire licked his lips, savouring the moment. “And so while you were weak, I invaded you as a germ invades a body, merging with your soul, joining with you in every way. We are now two souls, two consciousnesses, in one body – your body. Now we share your incredible power.”
In horror Kellot felt the blood drain from his face, and suddenly the ebbing pain didn’t matter anymore. He leapt to his feet, and swung a gauntleted hand at the necromancer’s face, which also passed through as though swiping at air. Again the vampire chuckled, amused at Kellot’s desperate fear.
“I’m not really standing before you Kellot, I’m in there now.” He pointed at Kellot’s chest, where Kellot knew his soul, and the parasite clinging to it, lay. “My soul has bonded with your body; I’m inseparable from you now. This,” he said, gesturing at himself “is just a mental projection of me, created so that we can communicate without your overworked little brain cracking under the strain. If anyone were to walk by right now they would see Mage Kellot of the Sighted-Caste conversing with the empty air. And best of all, when I am in control of your mortal shell and the glorious potential within you now, when I use it like a puppeteer uses a puppet, no one will ever guess it was anyone but you.”
Horror and shock battered at Kellot’s mind, but he found the will to be defiant. “I will not do as you command! Be gone from my body you godless wretch; you will have no use from me no matter what you do! I am an instrument of law, of justice, of honour, and I will not be…….”
Kellot’s body went completely rigid. His mouth seized up mid-sentence. His tongue may as well have been carved from stone.
The grin slid off the vampire’s face. Whatever mirth and joviality he had possessed up until now fled him like a scared dog. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
The vampire talked instead, spitting out the words with contempt.
“You seem to be confused as to the nature of our interaction. This is not a bard’s tale, a clichéd heroic battle between good and evil.” Kellot’s right arm rose stiffly, not of his own violation, and pointed to the ground, in direct imitation of the necromancer’s projection.
“This is not a contest of wills!” Kellot’s hand danced easily through a series of complicated gestures he didn’t know, as his mind screamed at his body to stop.
“This is NOT a negotiation!” Dark sorcery flowed through Kellot’s body; magic that was not his own but that filled him as though it was.
“This is you, doing what I want, because I…AM…IN…CONTROL!!” roared the necromancer’s projection, and Kellot could feel the parasite in his chest pulse with energy.
In a breach of the very laws of magic, Kellot’s body forced out Mana that was not his in a wave of sickly black, and before his horrified eyes the glassy ground cracked and split open. Seconds later a group of corpses hauled themselves out of the ground. They were identical to some of Kellot’s comrades, the reanimated zombies groaning with listless hunger.
“Like the resemblance to your former comrades-in-arms? I did it just for you. So easy now that I have your incredible Planeswalker powers at my beck and call. You know, looking at them now, don’t they look hungry?” The necromancer’s projection and Kellot twisted their hand once more and instantly the newly-risen zombies began to devour each other in a display of cannibalism, ripping each other apart. The vampire laughed pitilessly at the look revulsion and dread on his host’s face as the un-dead desecrated each other’s bodies. Then the necromancer felt an instinctual wave of holy magic being drawn through Kellot’s body. Something was coming.
“NO! ENOUGH!!!!” roared Kellot, and in a blink the energy had fanned out, shattering the reanimation spell on the zombies like a hammer blow severing an old chain and returning the zombies to lifeless bodies once more.
Both Kellot and the necromancer’s projection were panting heavily. The two looked at each other for a moment, knowing that one of them would try something. Kellot could feel the necromancer trying to marshal more Black Mana through him like the swelling of the tide, but with all his willpower Kellot concentrated on the most pure and innocent thoughts he could picture: a smiling child, a busy hospital ward healing the sick, the tower of his Order, and the foul energy was unable to build up, diffused by Kellot’s virtuous thoughts. After half a dozen attempts nothing had happened, and the necromancer gave up, the parasite growing still once more.
The projection straitened, leaning on its hand-topped staff. It smoothed out its cloak, trying to make light of the fact it had been beaten. “Well well. It appears you have a stronger will than I gave you credit for. Looks like you maintained control, denied me my little joy-ride, this time. ”
Kellot looked at his double with hatred and growled in a low voice. “You will never use me as a tool for your wickedness, vampire. Never.”
The vampire’s lip curled. “Don’t be so sure. You may be in the control now. But there are times when your mind is weaker or less vigilant. When you’re asleep, or stressed, or exhausted, or anytime when you’re not fully focused on keeping me locked away… then I’ll come out to play. You can’t resist me forever Kellot, that’s a fact. Sooner or later…”
“Be silent. I am no longer Mage Kellot of the Sighted-Caste. That Rhox is gone. For the dishonour of failing Bant, I shall be known as Kellot no longer. It’s Kalorn now.”
“Kalorn? I like it. A fitting name for us,” responded the vampire.
“I said shut up. There is no us, we’re not happy partners, fiend. I swear to you now, I will find a way to get you out of me. I’ll scour all of existence if I have to, and when I do, I will destroy you utterly. No evidence of your existence will remain when I am finished.”
The necromancer nodded, uncowed by the threat. “You will try. Just as I will try to use your body and your magic to carry out whatever foul acts I want. That’s just how it will be.”
Kalorn shut his eyes to block out the vampire’s projection. He knew he could never return to Bant again. His simple life of happiness and fulfilment was over. He was an abomination now, an outcast. Angels would try to cut him down on sight; armies would seek to put him to the torch for having ever held the parasite within him. If the vampire wasn’t lying, and Kalorn did not think he was, then he was a danger to all around him if ever he let down his guard. No, he could never return to Bant. Better the Order of the Binding Fist think he had perished in the battle. He opened his eyes and looked at the fiend bound to him. He could feel the paradoxical mix of pure White and corrupting Black Mana swirling within him, just waiting to be let forth and shaped. It would take some getting used to.
“Ready to go, Kalorn? A long and twisting path is before us. I humbly suggest we litter it with bodies. But then I suppose that will take care of itself,” said the vampire.
“Don’t talk to me. There will be a reckoning, vampire. This isn’t over,” warned Kalorn.
With that, Kalorn turned his back on his mental figment, plodding slowly out of the crater in which he had gathered near god-like status, in which he had both figuratively died and then been born again.
For a moment the vampire watched the Rhox walk away, before letting out an evil chuckle to himself. “Fool. Already I’ve made some progress into influencing your mind. Your “new” name…. it was mine first. But you don’t need to know that…yet”. Content for now to keep this victory to himself the vampire strode gracefully after the Rhox, catching up in a few seconds. No sound was made between the two as the host and the parasite, the clean and the corrupt, set out into the unknown before them. There was nothing but a light breeze and a handful of lifeless bodies to bear witness to their passing.
The End…
Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
The cultivated fields of Valeron would normally be full of the hustle and bustle of Bant citizens tending to their crops, but not now. Now the farmers had been replaced with soldiers and the only thing on the soil was blood.
“It’s all their fault,” thought Mage Kellot of the Sighted-Caste, as he ground another zombie into the battlefield. The moaning creature’s head turned to mush beneath his foot and the body stopped writhing. Around the Rhox, the battle between the forces of Bant and Grixis raged, a mass of courageous soldiers struggling to stem the tide of the invading undead.
Angels and demons sliced through the sky, engaged in immortal combat, while Aven soldiers conducted hit and run attacks against huge zombie behemoths that snapped at them in frustration. What had been two ordered battle lines engaging had devolved into a frantic, chaotic clash; with every combatant watching their own back. Bantian soldiers hacked down the zombies with their gleaming swords, and in turn were pulled apart by rotting hands.
As one of the few mages thrust into this chaos, Kellot looked for opportunities to turn the tide of battle in favor of virtue. With his massive build, typical of the Rhox kind, Kellot could see head and shoulders over the human-sized combatants all around. A short distance ahead an ogre-sized mass of corpses had been crudely stitched together and then animated by one of the Grixis necromancers. The shambling creature was hurling squires away as though they were rag dolls with a host of arms that sprouted from all over it like spines. Drawing on White Mana through his steel mage’s battle-staff, Kellot pointed the sapphire head at the disgusting creature and let the Mana loose, casting a simple ensnarement spell.
Instantly the undead horror’s form was bound in magical chains, shackling its many arms and rooting it to the spot. Immobilized, it was soon overwhelmed and chopped apart by the squire’s blades.
Looking up Kellot saw a lesser angel struggling to take down a colossal demon. With a laugh like a chorus of pain, the demon lashed out with a whip made from some colossal beast’s spine, and caught the angel across the wings. Blood arched through the sky as the angel began to fall, the grinning demon descending after it like a predator moving in for the kill.
Quickly Kellot channeled another spell, ignoring the exhaustion beginning to overtake him after nearly an hour of constant battle. In a split second the falling angel was restored, as holy White Mana replenished her body and sealed her wounds. In an instant the angel had ceased her falling spiral and surged back up to the demon, spear extended and a prayer on her lips. Kellot followed up by blessing the angel with a spell for some extra divine might, and watched as the angel’s spear tore through the demon like a hot poker through a scroll page.
As Kellot elbowed aside a skeleton warrior, shattering it into broken pieces, he heard the cry of awe that went up from the angel’s victory turn into a wail of dread. Nearby, a proud Sigil-bearing paladin, a veteran of a countless honorable duels and proud example to all Bant’s citizens, was struck by dark sorcery – a hundred sharpened pieces of bone ripped through the knight’s armor, the knight, and his steed. The attack was clearly magical and Kellot felt his blood surge anew despite his exhaustion. One of the foul necromancers was nearby! At last, an opportunity to take vengeance on one of the dreaded beings responsible for this invasion!
As the knight’s punctured body hit the ground with a rattle, Kellot traced the spell’s path to a figure who had gained some height on the battleground by standing on a pile of bodies. Kellot sized up the figure he would strive to slay.
In contrast to Kellot’s sapphire-capped steel staff, the necromancer clutched a heavily carved wooden staff topped with a severed hand, presumably preserved with magic. His weapon was not the only contrast to Kellot. While Kellot was a hefty, solid Rhox, the necromancer was an extremely lean human with very pale skin. A ragged cloak fluttered behind him despite the still wind. And while the top of his head was obscured by an impressive helmet made from the skull of a Nayan plowbeast, his mouth was exposed revealing a dark grin with pointed fangs. Kellot’s hand gripped the shaft of his staff that much more tightly. Not just a necromancer then, a vampire.
With singularity of purpose, Sighted-Caste Mage Kellot moved towards the vampire.
Crack! Kellot brought his staff down on the vampire’s head, sending it reeling. The vampire staggered but quickly recovered, lunging forward with a snarl and a clenched fist. Kellot braced himself against the blow, and absorbed the punch with his huge palm, gripping it tightly. The vampire was incredibly strong, as much as Kellot himself, but Kellot had the advantage in weight and height; and more importantly he knew how to use it. As soon as he had a firm grip on the vampire’s fist he pulled back hard, yanking the necromancer bodily off its feet. Kellot brutally slammed the vampire into the dirt with a whipping motion. Without pause he pulled again, smashing the vampire into the ground again. Before the vampire could move Kellot had the tip of his staff pressed against the necromancer’s throat, the staff’s head thrumming with magic.
“Do you have any final words, Abomination?” asked Kellot, preparing to deliver the deathblow.
The vampire grinned, tongue slurping up a trickle of blood leaking from its mouth. “I do. Are you a Mage, or is your staff just enchanted?”
Kellot frowned, confused by the question. “I am a Mage of the Sighted…”
“Oh, good, I was afraid this would be over too soon.”
Before Kellot’s eyes could widen the vampire struck the Rhox wizard in the chest with a stream of shadows as solid as lead. The force of the shadow spell launched Kellot into the air. At the end of a short trajectory Kellot ploughed through the surrounding melee of Grixis and Bant warriors, his heavy frame and momentum hurling unfortunate allies and enemies in all directions. When he came to a stop, Kellot beat at the shadows as though he was aflame, dispersing the darkness before it could attempt to entangle or consume him. The threat averted Kellot got to his feet, locking eyes with the smirking vampire who was striding forwards through the death-soaked battlefield as though through a beautiful field of flowers.
“Come on! Don’t you want to play again?” called the vampire, raising his arms in mock frustration. “Don’t give up on me yet! The fun is just beginning! C’mon, give me your best shot…”
The necromancer was dangerous, and powerful. He had to be dealt with quickly. Kellot knew the only way to do this was to use maximum force, no time for subtlety or strategy, just raw power. Letting out a long breath and closing his eyes, Kellot summoned every particle of White Mana he could into his being, drinking the energy in from the land around him like a parched man at an oasis. He could feel the magical energy brimming under his skin, thrumming through his blood, a holy and pure force.
Gripping his staff in both hands he aimed the sapphire head right at the vampire. Not the time for subtlety, Kellot roared the spell’s verbal component with all the righteousness he could muster. A thin but solid lance-like beam of pure sanctified light roared out of the staff’s head, as dangerous as any bolt of lightning.
The suddenness of the attack took the vampire off guard. There was none of the clichéd, heroic preamble he had come to expect from the weak do-gooders; no grandstanding moral speech to announce an impending attack; just a beam of hungry magic heading right at him. A normal opponent would have had no time to react, but despite his surprise the vampire had inhuman reflexes on his side and he reacted with unnatural speed, unleashing his own spell; a soul-sucking ray made of raw evil.
The two streams of opposed magic met each other en route to their targets, clashing like starved wild beasts. Each wizard suddenly felt a drain on their energy as the spells tried to destroy each other, both fuelled by huge reserves of raw Mana. As the clashing spells bucked and thrashed against each other it became clear to each mage that this would be a titanic struggle and that to win, one of them would have to summon more magic than they had ever summoned before.
The battle raged on and Kellot and the vampire lost themselves in their contest. Teeth gritted, hands gripping their staffs with white-knuckled intensity, they forced out all the power they could into their spells. The war around them faded into unimportance, it didn’t matter now. The sounds of swords clanging and zombies groaning ebbed away, the frantic movements of combatants fighting for their lives seemed to grind slowly to a halt in their peripheral vision. The two combatants just shut it all out, entirely focused on their one goal: the destruction of the other wizard. Sweat dripped down their bodies as they exerted themselves, their muscles strained and protested; but neither backed down.
In between them the forces of light and darkness battled, two elements anathema to each other forced into contact. The White and Black Mana roiled and thrashed, sometimes the white would pierce the black mass like a lance, almost cutting it in two, and then the blackness would almost swallow the light, only to be forced back again.
Minutes, or it could have been hours, ticked away but neither Kellot nor the vampire could gain a lasting advantage over the other, much less destroy him. Kellot was exhausted as he had never been in his life, tired to his bones and deeper, no mage was supposed to funnel Mana at this intensity. Kellot was literally forcing the Mana out, pushing it forth in great bursts, and it seemed as though the necromancer was doing the same.
A involuntary shudder ran through Kellot’s body, a sign of the incredible strain he was putting himself under, but the Rhox clenched his jaw and just kept pushing. The task was all that mattered. The task was to kill the vampire. The vampire must be destroyed. Good must triumph. Ignore the pain. Ignore the exhaustion. Good must triumph. Any moment now he would surely win. He just had to hold on a little longer. A little bit longer. A little bit longer… minor spasms rippled through Kellot, but he simply focused on keeping his arms still. Still chanting inside his head with the intensity of a maniac, Kellot forced himself to actually take in what his eyes were showing him for a moment.
The vampire was speaking, but Kellot couldn’t hear anything over the crackling of the warring spells, which roared in his ears so loud that it was started to verge on white noise. The necromancer seemed to be spitting out a continuous stream of what was probably vile curses if Kellot was correct, but he couldn’t hear them. The clash of spells had grown larger, as though they were feeding some over-stuffed animal. The writhing disturbance was almost obscuring the combatants, and seemed to both suck in and hurl out light at the same time.
Kellot had pushed all his limits, he had broken his pain barriers and who knows what else, smashed them into dust, and even the focus of the chants wasn’t helping now. His strength was failing; he had no more Mana or stamina left to give. His arms slowly but surely dropped and his torrent of White Mana began to lesson to a trickle.
The vampire saw a final chance at victory. Though he was also exhausted and under incredible strain – the extent of which had began to cook his brain inside his head – the necromancer seized the chance with the fury of a shark smelling blood. Drawing upon his last resources (and condemning another small piece of his sanity to oblivion in the process), the vampire sent a sizeable chunk of Black Mana out through his staff. Without the energy to contest this development, the necromancer’s darkness spell was finally the ascendant power and began to shunt Kellot’s light beam out of the way. Deflecting the light like a mirror, the ball of pitch-black death approached at a steady rate. Kellot struggled to do something, anything, but there was no Mana left. He was just a ghost in a shell.
As the death spell pushed agonizingly closer to its target, Kellot saw the self-satisfied grin on the vampire’s face. I’ve won, it seemed to say. You were a worthy opponent, but it’s over now. And at the sight of that grin, something within Kellot’s mind snapped, some part of his rational mind just released the catch on something pent up, or perhaps repressed. The foul creature would not defeat Mage Kellot of the Sighted-Caste. Evil would not overcome good. NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.
The air crackled with static, the ground split. The very battle seemed to stop. A glowing nimbus of blinding Mana surged through Kellot like lightning out of a cloud. It slammed into the spell’s meeting point, and this extra contribution of power was the tipping point. The clash of opposing energies was too much for the fabric of reality to take on in its current form. With a piercing whine that shattered glass and crystal throughout the battlefield, the combined Black and White Mana compacted and imploded inwards until the nearly house sized mass turned into nothing bigger than a crystal ball. But it didn’t stay that way for long; a split second later the concoction reversed and erupted out into an exponentially growing blast sphere of impure yet powerful magic.
The vampire’s jaw dropped and despite the glare Kellot’s eyes widened in astonishment. Neither had time for more than that before the energy blast engulfed them and seconds after that it exploded out for kilometres around, devouring the countryside, as though hungry for more. The entire battlefield disappeared into the phenomenon’s belly. Trees instantly rotted into slimy remains and were scatted on the gale force winds, soldiers and undead alike blasted into calcified statues. Nothing was left of a sizeable portion of the Valeron fields except a smooth clean crater.
As soon as the explosion touched him, Kellot felt his soul blaze with something unknown. He physically felt, through some sense that was not touch, a dark and evil power pour into his being. The touch of White Mana, always a comforting sensation in the past, now burned him as though he was within a volcano. Kellot could feel his heart beating as loud as hammer blows and within his chest something blazed like a dying star. His mind staggered as it tried to translate the incredible metaphysical sensations into actual physical feelings, but the task was beyond him.
Kellot opened his mouth to cry out, to scream, to pray, to articulate something. Before he could utter a sound, his pupils contracted until they almost disappeared and his whole world went black and then there was nothing.
Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
Kas’ nose was filled with the stench of death as he awoke. Blood, burnt flesh….. some of the weaker Viashinos had voided their bowls at some point, most likely when claws had sheared them open or fangs split them apart. The potent combination filled Kas’ nostrils, helped to rouse him. Groaning, Kas cracked his eyes open, one only getting to a slit as it was currently a mass of bruised tissue. He looked about. Around him, the members of his Thrash lay dead, their eyes unseeing, their limbs bereft of movement, their bodies marked by fire and tooth and claw. Those same flames still licked the area, feeding on the last patches of moss and lending the cavern a glow of slaughter and destruction. Kas stood, shaky on his feet, using Tear’s haft to steady himself. At his feet was Raz’s body. Reverently, Kas laid a hand on Raz’s body, gingerly closing his remaining eye shut. As his hearing started to return Kas realized realised that the sounds of battle had not ceased. Someone was still fighting the dragon!
It was Elder Drassom! Kas must have only been stunned for a few moments. The chance to make a difference flooded Kas’ frame with fresh resolve, and he started to jog over to the titanic duel of legends.
The fight had cost the Dragon dearly, the combined efforts of the whole Thrash taking a heavy toll in blood.
Cuts and gashes covered its body all over, dribbling blood, not much at individually but taken together they made an impact. One of its rear legs was held protectively off the ground, clearly hurt. By some amazing feat, Drassom had managed to ram Slayer into the side of the dragon’s head. It had only slightly penetrated the heavy scales, but the wound was saving Drassom’s life, the pain causing the dragon to strike erratically and move slowly. Both Drassom and the Hellkite were breathing heavily. The Elder, with his weapon removed had taken a sharp piece of rock from the floor, and moved it from hand to hand like an expert knife-fighter.
“Eldar Drassom!”
Kas didn’t know why he said it. A small part of him knew it was probably fear. Distracted by the unexpected voice, the Elder turned to see Kas moving towards him. Surprise crossed his features.
“Run, youngling! Get out of here now!!!”
While its preys’ back was turned, the Dragon lunged. Teeth the size of spears flew at Drassoms’ back. Kas went to yell a warning, but it would have been too late. Warned by his long-honed survival instincts and the change of Kas’ expression, Drassom instantly dived to the side with no hesitation. Such a move had saved the Elder countless times in his life, but for the first time it failed, as the Dragon’s jaws snapped shut around his leg. Howling, Drassom was yanked into the air by the Dragon.
As the dragon increased the pressure from agonising to excruciating Drassom gasped in agony. He still had the jagged piece of rock in his hand, and with an incoherent scream Drassom dashed it against the Dragon’s head. His pain driving him into a frenzy of hate, Drassom starting pounding the rock around the Hellkite’s nostrils, where he could do the most damage from his immobile position.
“Come on! LET’S FINISH THIS!!!”
Kas watched in stunned awe as even mortally wounded Drassom refused to go down without trying to cripple his murderer. The Dragon shook its head to try widely, but Drassom continued to attack with the stone. One of his strikes landed somewhere soft and the Dragon hissed, spraying blood from its sinuses.
All of a sudden the Hellkite flicked its head and relaxed its jaws, launching Drassom into the air like a bullet, almost all the way to the cavern’s ceiling. As gravity began to take hold again Drassom turned himself in the air, shifting so that he was falling head first, the rock held in a two-handed stabbing grip. Below him the Dragon looked up, mouth wide open as it prepared to snatch him up. It was unsure what the Elder thought he could do, but if nothing it was going to be defiant. Kas knew Drassom was doomed, but perhaps the Elder could land one more blow on his hated enemy.
“RAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!” roared Drassom.
With incredible speed, the Hellkite moved, its jaws once more snapping shut with bone-pulverising force, this time around Drassom’s head and neck. There was a tremendous cracking, and just like that Elder Drassom went limp, the rock falling from his hand without protest. The Dragon worried the body for an instant, ripping Drassom’s head off and sending his body to the floor in a spray of gore. By cruel fortune the body landing at Kas’ feet, spraying him in his Thrash-mate’s blood. It was thick and sticky, and Kas had to suppress the urge to scrape it off. But he had bigger problems.
With a terrifying rumble of contained fury the Dragon turned to regard Kas, the sole Viashino of the Flame-Thrash to still be alive. Wounded, with a sword jutting obscenely from its head and hideous lightning-bolt injuries to its chest and wing, the beast still lived, and it was determined to finish the last of the prey off. Kas gripped Rip and Tear so tight his knuckles creaked. It was time to follow his leader’s example. Time to die with his hands wrapped around a weapon and a curse in his throat.
Time for a last stand.
*
Impatient to get this last morsel out of the way and to retreat to its lair and hibernate away its injuries, the Dragon lunged. Kas didn’t possess Drassom’s reflexes or experience. There was no way he could get out of the way, so instead he flung Rip, his stone cleaver, at the onrushing behemoth.
It was a poor throw. Rip was about as aerodynamic as a Drake with no wings, only the Viashino’s raw strength allowing it any semblance of distance. Combined with the one handed rushed fling, Rip was never going to sail blade-first into the Dragon’s outstretched maw as Kas imagined in his mind’s eye.
Instead the throw went wide, sending the spinning blade perilously close to the dragon’s face. Following the instinct all creatures have when presented with an object flying at their eye, the dragon shut its eyes and twisted its head slightly to the side while trying to back away. This locked the Hellkite’s legs up and it started to skid as its weight and prior momentum worked against it. With a flinch-worthy crunch the Dragon’s jaws snapped shut centimetres to Kas’ side, sparing him for a moment. Time seemed for one impossible moment for Kas to slow to a crawl as the Dragon’s huge head slid by him. He could see Slayer glinting in the light for a moment, almost like its obsidian surface was winking at him. Just behind it was the Hellkite’s closed eye.
Strike now the blade seemed to say. This is your only chance.
Kas wrapped his hands tightly around Tear. His breathing was ragged, his body screamed out for rest, but his heart screamed for blood. And that was what he would get. Closing his eyes and grateful to the cosmic forces for this one last twist of the knife on the creature that had taken everything from him, Kas swung with all his might. He fully expected that this would be the last act of his life, but by whatever gods existed, he was going to give the hell-damned dragon something to remember him by. Kas swung. It was all down to this.
The Club swished aside the air with deadly force.
*
It was the shot of a lifetime. Any gambling man would have put his life savings on the club missing, or bouncing off a scale, or just failing to do any damage. Knightly orders on a dozen other worlds who had plied the soldier’s trade for twice the length of Kas’ whole life would say such a feat was impossible, and it was suicide to try. But fate, or luck, had other plans. The solid heavy stone head of Rip landed, not on the Dragon’s eye as Kas originally intended, but on the pommel of Slayer, jutting from the dragon’s head.
Like an oversized brutal hammer striking a brutal oversized nail on the head, the strike drove Slayer directly into the Dragon’s head. The force of the blow was enough to push Slayer through the Hellkite’s thick skull, where it kissed the edge of the creature’s brain, severing synapses and fibres by the dozen. “Brain damage” didn’t really cover it; “catastrophic cerebral trauma” was more on the mark. About the best that could be said for the Dragon was the parts of the cerebellum responsible for breathing and autonomous body functions hadn’t been shredded.
At once the Dragon reared up, screaming now in true terror. It clawed its head, brain overloaded with fiery pain. The dragon tried to think, but that was well beyond it ability right now. Dimly, the Dragon also realised it couldn’t feel its back legs. Or its wings. With a pained bellow, the huge creature fell over backwards with a massive crash that shook the mountain.
As the dust began to clear, a figure strode towards the prone Hellkite. It was Kas. He was holding Rip again, while his good eye was narrowed to a hateful slit. Without fear or preamble, he neatly vaulted atop the felled titan, striding along the huge length of Dragon to its chest. The Dragon’s neck and head lay against the edge of the cavern, propping it up so that it could see Kas approach. Damage to its brain had the dragon’s limbs spasming gently of their own accord, the beast was helpless. Kas came to a stop at the beast’s chest, his feet firmly planted as the expanse of flesh below him contracted in and out with wheezing breaths. Kas speared the Dragon with a glare of half-madness, a glare that promised great violence.
“You killed my thrash.”
Kas lashed out with his cleaver, hacking deep into the Dragon’s softer underbelly. The pinned predator howled in fresh agony.
“You killed them all. You killed my Shaman. And Elder Drassom.”
Kas’ cleaver rose and fell, widening the wound.
“All dead. Everyone I know gone. In a single day.”
Rip swung to the side, catching one of the Dragon’s forelimbs. Muscle parted beneath the serrated edge. Kas’ voice rose in volume as he took deeper and deeper breaths, his frame swelling with emotion and energy and his blows started to pick up speed as his anger spilled forth.
“YOU killed them! YOU took them from ME!”
The dragon bellowed at the top of its lungs, but could do nothing to defend itself.
“I saw them die! I will make you feel it! Everything you have done to me! You will feel everything! FEEL IT!!!”
Anger turned to Rage, and Kas saw red, the world turning as red as the blood of the dragon. As red as the blood of this Thrash-Members. All of Kas’ frustrations: the living in constant fear of predators and death, the indignity of being on the bottom of the food chain, the scrimping and hiding in cramped and uncomfortable valleys: it was all unleashed out in an avalanche of hate. Kas could feel himself losing control, and then that point was abruptly behind him.
“YOU KILLED RAZ! YOU KILLED RAZ! HE WAS MY FRIEND!!!!”
Muscle and bone, cartridge and tendon: it began to disintegrate under Kas’ cleaver. He wrenched the scaly skin apart with his teeth, ripping it aside to get to work deeper and deeper. Somehow the Dragon still clung to life, writhing feebly underneath him. There were tears flowing from the Viashino’s eyes, tears rooted in sorrow but grown beyond control with fury.
“FEEL IT! FEEL THEIR PAIN! FEEL THEIR DEATHS!”
He stood in pile of gore knee-deep, the dragon’s chest cavity a red ruin that would make a serial killer ill. Bone now splintered beneath Kas he lashed out like a butcher, buckling the dragon’s reinforced sternum. He was splattered with gore but it wasn’t enough. The need to kill demanded more.
“DON’T YOU DIE ON ME! NOT YET! YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE YET!”
Another chop, and there before him it was: the Hellkite’s heart, a great crimson organ larger than Kas’ head. It was still pumping. Madness seized Kas: he was hungry, hadn’t eaten in days. All this running and fighting and jumping: his stomach demanded meat. Fresh meat….
With an unrestrained howl, Kas threw Rip aside and seized the heart with both hands, wrenching it upwards with strength of madness. Tubes and arteries resisted at first and then ripped free as Kas hefted the heart aloft. He bit into the heart, filling his mouth with the hearty taste of meat and his tongue with the copper of blood. Like an animal Kas wolfed down chunks of flesh, filling his crocodilian gullet with chunks of meat as he gorged.
As its living heart was pulled from it and devoured, the great dragon, mightiest of predators on the whole of Jund, arched in pain, letting out a scream that would have cracked glass. It was the death knell of a creature that had lived for hundreds of years, now cut short in an orgy of violence. Then there was nothing left to do but die. Kas felt it as the great body around him shut down, the great and stubborn life seep from the shattered and torn flesh, and he both revelled and mourned in it. The dammed thing was dead, but it was too soon: he hadn’t finished avenging his Thrash. There were bones left to crack and flesh to tear, organs to split beneath Rip’s edge. He wanted to pluck the dragons eyes and strip the flesh from the skull. To destroy, to crush. To unmake this beast. The rush of power was incredible, intoxicating and electrifying.
Finally, he was the biggest, the strongest. He has cast down the Dragon and fed on its strength! No more fear, no more hesitation! This was all he needed, the kill, the fury, the reward of destruction on a world that had given him no favours. He was a predator, not prey. He would hunt again and again, never grow hungry or back down. Kas tipped his back and howled, bellowing defiance and anger. He wished someone could see him now, injured but unbowed, covered head to toe in the blood of a great Hellkite, his stomach full and his victory glorious beyond imagination! Where was the Thrash? They had to see this! Drassom, and Raz….
The Thrash. Drassom. Raz. No.
Kas roared again, a bellow of pain so loud that he thought the whole mountain would collapse on him and end it all. Certainly it seemed like his world was ending: the heat in this corpse-strewn killing field was no comparison to the heat in his chest. It wasn’t the hot blood coating him, wasn’t the fire of anger, but something deeper. His chest blazed. Kas sunk to his knees. He’d done it then: pushed his body too far. Something must have ripped open, ruptured, bled out. So this was it then. Death just at the moment of triumph. The fire burned brighter.
“MMMRAAAAAGHHHHH!!!!”
Fury, determination and raw battle-lust combined in that moment, and a shimmering nova ignited within the simple being known only as Kas.
One moment Kas roared, a terrifying primeval declaration of hurt and dominance that he thought would mark the end of his life. The next moment there was a thunderclap of raw power and he disappeared, a shockwave of destructive force rumbling out from where he had stood to scar the rock walls with its progenitor’s passion for destruction.
The Viashino known as Kas was nowhere to be seen, as his blood-soaked elevation to a great power sent him hurtling through the dimensional cascade known as the Blind Eternities. Suddenly engaged with feelings and sights beyond mortal comprehension, a not inconsiderable slice of Kas’ sanity was at that moment blasted away forever in a storm of mental and emotional trauma. Truly Kas would never again be the individual he once was. But for those unfortunates who would find the Viashino later, dumped into their world though chance, he had gained much in its place.
He had gained raw power.
Which they would learn the hard way.
The Cavern was still there, surviving earthquakes and volcanic eruptions with timeless indifference. The cavern had new residents now, the bones of the once great dragon that had died there now home to webs and spiders that secreted themselves in sockets and spaces. When the cavern was lit, not by the half-light of the glowing moss that grew along the rock surface but by a prolonged ochre flash, the monstrous arachnids scuttled away to their hidy-holes.
A Viashino stood in the great space, but it bore little resemblance to the youth once known as Kas. His frame had bulked out with muscle and growth, more than even Eldar Drassom had ever possessed. Nature fetishes and hunt souvenirs adorned the muscular frame, swaying slightly from the aftermath of the planeswalk. Long and ugly scars in various stages of healing adorned the Viashinos body, and the wurm-hide armour the figure wore was dented and scratched. Held within Kas’ huge bear-sized hands was a weapon as brutal looking and destructive as its owner: a great double handed executioner’s axe fashioned from obsidian edged with Dominarian bronze. Its haft was crafted from some dead beast’s spinal column shot through with living creepers that bound it together.
Kas looked around the chamber, as though trying to match up every surface with his recollections. Slowly, lost in memories, he strode over to the dragon’s skeleton that lay where it had fallen against the wall. Kas stopped before it, not so gently planting his axe in the rock before it. Once it was stable, Kas strode forward, between the huge spires of ribs till he stood where once he had ripped a Hellkite’s heart from its chest. It was here he knelt on the floor, planting a knee amongst the garden of bone. His eyes tracked left and right, as though expecting to see something, but when he has ascertained all was quiet and still he closed his eyes and spoke.
“Thrash. I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know if any part of you, your minds or your spirits or anything remain in the world of the living. I don’t believe it, to be honest, but in my time away I have seen…. such things. Things I wouldn’t have believed possible. So, here I am, because if there is but a chance…. well, you all deserve that.”
“I have travelled far beyond Jund, to places so different from our homeland. Places where the weak subjugate the strong under word-shackles called ‘laws’, places where the law of nature has been pushed back into corners. Surviving on them is….. challenging compared to the simpleness of Jund, but I make do. I will always make do.”
Kas reached behind his back, pulling out of a rucksack a long metal staff. Swaying from various parts of the staff were long, dagger sized bone claws.
“Every day, I think of your passing.
“Nixl, you saved me from that Goblin attack on Firespear pass.“
“Rond, you shared your haunch of flesh that day the hunt went against me.”
“Drassom, whose bravery saved us all a dozen times. “
“And Raz…. you were my greatest friend. I miss you still.”
With a heave, Kas planted the staff into the floor like a marker, sending the trophy claws swaying and clattering like a wind chime.
“In honour of you, the Flame-Thrash, I put at your resting place a tribute of blood for blood. A Dragon took all nine of you from me. And so from nine different worlds I have taken nine different Dragons’ claws, ripped from the beast’s dying bodies by my own hand. I hope that it gives you pleasure to know I have avenged you.”
Kas stood, appealing to the heavens.
“I have no Thrash to call my own, and the name of The Flame-Thrash will die with me. Our ways and tales are dead, but I hope to keep them alive through my titles, which I have given myself for lack of an elder to perform the ceremony. In them I shall keep all of you with me.
No Viashino has slain a dragon for a hundred generations as I have, and so I name myself Zek, Dragon-Slayer. I have been further than any Viashino has ever been, and soon I name myself Arr, Traveller. You may remember my as Kas, but the wider multiverse knows me as Arrkas Zek, and as I shall not be coming back here, that is how I want you to remember me too. Goodbye Thrash. The multiverse awaits. A banquet of treasures and challenges and hunts beyond my imagination, and nothing remains for me here. Just memories and ash. Be at peace.”
Arrkas took one long look around the chamber that had changed his life so much. Everywhere the ghosts of memory swam before them, coalescing as vaporous shapes that laid out the corpses of those who had fallen here. Sometimes, when he slept at night, he could still see Raz, lying on the floor dying, reaching out a hand to him. Could still see that instant when his friend slipped away.
A single tear slid out of Arrkas’ eye, and slid down his frame to kiss the dry floor. Arrkas shook his head furiously, wiping away the tear’s trail. There was no time for sentiment. His visit was done, it was time to be away from his home. Perhaps a truly challenging hunt would cure this moment of weakness from him. Either way, it was time to move on.
With a crack of his axe’s hilt on the floor, Arrkas Zek vanished from the chamber. It would be some time before the cavern’s spider population dared to peek out from their ambush holes. When they finally did, all they would find to mark the passage of Planeswalker many knew as Arrkas Zek, the Destroyer, was a simple staff planted in the floor, a forest of dragon claws gently clack clacking in the breeze.
The End…
Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
Ultra-Pro one of the top makers of playmats introduces these new premium 6ft Table Play Mat with premium fabric top to prevent damage to cards during game play. Rubber backing lets the play mat lay flat and prevents the mat from shifting during use. There are two different mats of approximately 72″ X 30″ dimensions each featuring its own Battle for Zendikar release artwork.
Three Kings Loot has two versions available for Pre-orders in Canada at 124,99$CAD made before September 29th.
