3. Merrick Affleston

Merrick Affleston

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    Char: Merrick Affleston
    Player: Equus

    Hope this is kind of what you want for history.. Not the best writer but I'll give it a go.

    Merrick flicked through the old book again, one of the many items from his masters hidden lab, it was more sinister in tone than the ones in the labs on the second floor, the kind of thing it was only really right to hide away from the casual observer in case those not magically inclined got the wrong idea about what you got up to. He looked at the diagrams again and adjusted the straps on his arm one last time, the upper strap pulled tight enough to cause the veins in his arm to rise up.

    The thick brass needles still looked threatening even though he’d followed the journals instructions to the letter, they’d had various prayers and incantations muttered over them before being submerged in boiling elemental water and cooled in more of the same. Still, looking at their brutish hollow points Merrick had his doubts about these things sharing the same passageways as his lifeblood, even the idea of having his own powers supplemented by something as odd as a box of gears seemed off, but he’d used these ticking little boxes a little before but he’d not yet tried this method of supplying blood to them.

    The idea was simple; you poured your magic into the clockwork box which, through some complex method he didn’t quite understand held it trapped amidst its springs and cogs. This clockwork was oiled with life, a trickle or more of blood to power the spell along its way, this way you could prime a spell, and not worry about it until you needed it. Once triggered by either the timing wheel or moving a lever a whirl of gears would unleash the energy. It could work another way to, attached to a supply of life with these cruel brass needles and pipes it could channel the energy into a spell to supplement the casters own power, useful if you needed to give something an extra oomph but didn’t have a handy group of casters around to help.

    For a while Merrick had been studying some of his masters necromantic and golemist works, he’d learnt to breath life into small things for a short while, sending a mouse from a trap scuttling away despite it’s broken neck and a copper and paper golem tottering across his desk. He’d realised these clockwork contraptions could help him in this work, allowing him to wield power that would have remained beyond him for some time, to this end he’d laid traps and snares, and with the harvest from these constructed what sat on the desk in front of him, a medley of rabbit and rat parts stitched together to form a crude golem.

    Laramin, his psuedodragon familiar hopped from the bookcase to the lab desk, glaring at the assorted contraptions and hosing that dotted the surface of the labs bench.
    “This isn’t right you know, this is wrong a proper mage doesn’t need some ticking box to do his workings” she waved a foreleg in the general direction of the creatures misshapen form “Besides, I’m sure they’d have something to day about all this. It’s not right killing animals just for your experiments.”

    Merrick sighed, tapping a vein with the tip of a needle “Don’t be stupid Lara, they’re just vermin it’s not like they ever had an opinion on anything, and what’s wrong with a bit of help along the way? Most magic needs something, so what if it’s something a bit more practical than waving my arms about?”

    “Just vermin? That’s what it is now, I’ve read as much of that book as you, and I’ve read the notes that your precious Alderbrights added in” Laramin hissed the words as she glared at Merrick, “We both know that it quickly stops being the mages blood that’s used. It makes me sick just to think about some of those illustrations, it’s evil”

    Merrick shook his head and glanced at his familiar, “Sometimes Lara you can be terribly short sighted, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of research and we both know that I’m not about to start nailing virgins to trees and wailing on about dark times and strange powers.” He grinned at the angry dragonet “If I’d have wanted to do that I’d have become a druid, plus I’d have got to run around nude a lot more”

    “What?” Laramin spluttered, “What in the hells has you wanting to run around naked got to do with this? You’re just trying to change the subject because you know I’m right, this is evil magic and you’re meddling in it for no more reason than because you know you shouldn’t.”

    Laramin shuffled closer, her body held submissively, her wing tips trailing on the desks surface her reptilian eyes locked onto Merricks

    “Please Merrick, I worry about you. Alderbright knows you’re down here and he knows you’re going through his old work, you’re a good boy at heart I know it. But some of the things you say, it’s just vermin, they can’t think, they don’t understand. It’s too close to thinking that your research, his research can be justified by any means. When does it stop being animal vermin and move onto human vermin?”

    She laid a paw on his hand, stretching her neck out along his arm her head under the tip of the brass needle “Please Merrick, stop, take a break. If not for me then for Elana, she gives you enough chances to run around nude doesn’t she?”

    Merrick sighed again, putting the needles down on the desk and stroking the dragonets head “Lara you really should stop..” Merrick was cut short by the sound of a door slamming behind him, Alderbright dressed in his usual garish mix of oranges and yellows strode quickly into the room, he cast his gaze over the work laid out on the desk and nodded appreciatively.

    “Merrick, I’m having some guests over this evening, I’m sure you’d appreciate the night off, I hear Elana and her kin are moving on soon so go spend some time with her. Just tidy up here first.”

    Merrick sat slightly stunned, he and Alderbright often seemed to have an unspoken agreement, about these labs Alderbright would always make enough bluster and noise about entering the hidden labs to give Merrick enough time to escape, and in return Merrick would pretend they didn’t exist and never question the old mage on the moral complications of some of the experiments he’d seen detailed. This seemed fair enough to Merrick, after all Alderbright was a genial old soul why drag up the less scrupulous points of what he may have done a long time ago.

    “Umm.. Ok then, thanks” Merrick stood and shook his head as Alderbright turned and walked to the door, waiting until the old mage had left before turning to Laramin “Odd.. Still, can’t complain. Fancy a swim?”

    Larmin frowned at the door “Odd doesn’t do it justice, but at least a swim’ll get you out of here.”

    Merrick flicked a pebble out into the middle of the pool, watching the ripple spread and vanish with the slow movement of the water. Laramin was busying herself hunting frogs in the pools shallows. Merrick lounged back against a rock next to Elana.

    “So then lady, anything interesting happened in town? Not like I get to go there myself these days”

    Elana Chuckled, “No wonder, after your little rat trick I wouldn’t show my face in town either. The miller’s still fuming over that. What kind of mad old wizard decides to ride a cart drawn by hundreds of rats into the nearest town? I still laugh every time I think of it, the way Alderbright simply clicked away the leashes when told he couldn’t use rats like that by the mayor, then watching the town folk flee before the tide of vermin”

    Merrick grinned, “True. I was glad of Alderbrights teleport that day, saved us from a beating for sure”

    “Pah, you know full well the mayor wouldn’t have touched a hair on Alders head, he’s scared of him”

    “Not surprising” Merrick grinned, “The mayors scared of his own reflection, scrawny wretch he is”

    “Hah, that he is. His wife must eat all the food they have judging by the size of her” Elana’s smile faded “They hung Francis Tiller though, couple of the justices and a few of the farmers went out to see him, Robertson found part of his daughters dress under his bed, the farmers lynched him while the justices just stood back and watched. Justice my arse”

    “Robertsons daughter went missing to? Makes what? Eight now?” Merrick looked shocked. “I always thought Francis seemed a bit slow, been out in the woods to long, but not some child thief”

    “Seems that he is, they found a couple more dresses buried in his woodshed and a box of hair under his bed” Elana stretched out and smiled “We’re moving on soon, heading east, surely there are better things to do than talk about such things?”

    Merrick grinned, and stretched out along side her, running a hand through her long raven hair “Well my dear, I’m sure there are plenty of things I can think of doing with you”

    Merrick was suddenly aware of an low whining, glancing around he saw Laramin perched on a rock on the poolside staring towards Alderbrights tower, her body was tensed, her wings clamped to her sides. A second later it seemed the world exploded, a deathly scream that seemed to match a banshee’s caused Merrick and Elana to curl up in pain, a blast of fear, torture pain and panic washed over them, almost eradicating all other emotions. Through blurred vision and ringing ears Merrick could see chunks of falling masonry and burning timber crashing into the pool and woods, he grabbed Elana and tried to cover her with his body, something struck him hard and the world went black, leaving him with nothing but the numb taste of metal before he passed out.

    “Good job you’ve got a thick head” Merrick woke to Elana’s voice, his head was pounding and he felt like his limbs were full of sand but after a quick limb count Merrick he realised he’d gotten away luckily, both he and Elana were relatively unscathed, save for Merricks bruised and bloody head, Laramin hadn’t been so lucky, she was unconscious and had been hit by a flying piece of timber and despite both Elana’s and his best efforts they couldn’t wake her.

    “We’d better head to the tower” Merrick muttered after gingerly placing the wounded dragonet into his rucksack “See what in the nine hells happened and if anyone’s still alive”

    Elana nodded, and together they picked there way from the poolside through the woods towards the tower. Closer to the tower the magical nature of the explosion was more evident aside from the steaming or burning remnants chunks of masonry hung in the air, some still drifting slowly away from the blast hung by either the arcane energies of the blast or forced to suffer time at a slower pace, the ground was contorted and rippled, on the leeward side of many of these ripples the ground seemed to take on the forms of screaming faces, mounds of earth caught in some eternal blast of pain.

    Trees had been flattened, or changed one turned to what seemed to be meat, flayed and dripping arterial sap from it’s organ shaped fruits, a slim birch Merrick knew to be the favourite of a dryad rippled with movement beneath its thin bark as though a horde of rats were trapped beneath, they passed more of these, some pitiful some horrific as they travelled to Alderbrights tower.

    The tower itself had been almost wiped out, The ground and most of the first and second stories were gone, the third and roof top still stood almost exactly where they should be, hanging in the air with no visible means of support, the occasional piece of masonry drifted slowly away from the unnervingly static upper stories. With the ground floor gone the true extent of the basements secret labs were shown, from the not so secret entrance in the wine cellar Merrick had used so often, through another library, more lab space and cells that Merrick had never even guessed at. In the centre of this new lab space sat the source of the explosion, the tied, desiccated husks of what appeared to be eight young girls, their faces contorted into dried masks of agony and horror, all these bodies were linked by tubes to a large, broken clockwork and steam powered device. It lay on its side, its casing split, a mix of cogs and springs spilled from the rend giving it the impression of some gutted beast. Either side of the girls bodies stood tall oil braziers, seemingly untouched by the explosion.

    Something stirred in the shadows of the cellar then crawled spider like from the darkened doorway where it had cowered Merrick gasped and Elana drew a holy sign over her heart. The creature appeared to be fused from whatever had been in the cellar, a mix of bodies formed it’s core, the score of arms and legs that spread from these gave it movement, skittish almost insectile. Some of these limbs were dead, blue and bruised attached to the bodies whose heads disappeared into the chests or abdomens of others. The other heads gazed out from the fusion of limbs, breasts and other organs, staring red and wild eyed, those with mouths hissing whispering or mewling like some hungry kitten, it wasn’t just the dead limbs that dragged along the floor, here and there other objects jutted from it’s mass, the edge of a chest or a section of shelving, all caught it the magical fallout that had thrown this thing together.

    “What the hell do we do?” Elana suppressed the urge to gag as she watched the thing scutter and mewl below them, she glanced at Merricks face, the look of hatred and anger there sent a shiver down her spine.

    Merrick grabbed a rock from the floor and hurled it at the beast, smiling evily as its various mouths cried out in pain and confusion, it circled uselessly as it’s various bodies fought in different directions.

    “I can see your face Robertson, I can see your ugly face” He grabbed another rock and hurled it at the creature while Elana looked on in shock “You bastards hung Tiller to hide your shame, your own daughter you sick dog”

    Elana saw it to, various faces from the town, the lord justice, Robertson, a mix of the wealthy and powerful merchants from the town, shreds of robe and ceremonial markings on the creatures parts, they’d all been watching or taking part in what had happened.

    “Burn it, burn it all. Burn the tower, the woods. Everything.” Merrick had gotten tired of throwing rocks, the cut on the back of his head had re-opened, a thick trickle of blood was running over his shoulder. “If we burn it all then when people try to work out what happened they’ll think I died here to, otherwise all the justices, rangers and druids will come for me. They’ll think I had something to do with it” He shook his head and sat down, laying his head in his hands. Elana sat next to him, running her hand over his short cropped blonde hair.

    The next day Merrick watched the fires still burning from the back of the caravan as it slowly rolled it’s way east, he learned later that the woods had burnt for days, acres upon acres were consumed along with some outlying farms but he could never bring himself to care.


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