KILL WITCH KILL

“Cormantel, first of his name, came to once proud Ludum. The Empress who had once been a dream the size of an island, who had won the hand of the sun in marriage and been attended by all the daughters of the ocean, had been overthrown. She now looking far lessened, her crown stolen and as if wise with foretelling had painted herself in the colors of mourning with great black streaks across her face.

With Cormantel stood the strongest shapers, fresh from a hundred dream battles. But it was not Ludum Cormantel had come to confront, but the hated foe that now held her hostage.

Arrayed against the Siol were the last legions of the Steel tribe and the Reasoning clan, their Iron Kolossus towered above the river, Rust Demons held the high towers and Thinking Dragons circled the clouds.

“Detest, Shapers of the mind, we have crushed those that rose against the proper order of things and the Crystal Cerebrate Minds we have created from the crown of Ludum have forseen all the thousand ways of your coming defeat and our own perfection. Should you wield your cleansing moonfire know well that we will unleash a thousand of our Dividing Lances upon Ludum and all the other places you have turned inside out with faulty feelings”, with that the Thinking Dragons swooped in a pattern of entrapment and roared in a great display of their might, raining orbs of fire with which they slew many of the innocent hills before Cormantels forces.

Shaiban, one of Cormantels closest generals and sworn sister, slew a dozen of the over.eager beasts with her hidden spectral nets and seeking javelins, and spoke thus “The Truth-benders do not speak lies this time, look” and pointed upon the Iron Kolossus, their armored fists glistening crimson, the water around their feet likewise red and thick with corpses of the Steel tribe that had once created them with their own dreams.

Doubt spread through the assembled shapers, for to travel swiftly and evade the many-headed krakens that still ruled the seas around once-great Ludum they had left the many armies of the earth, the grass and the moon tribes behind, relying upon Ludum to aid them. But now they saw that she was an empty tomb, inhabited by demons, dragons and beasts, shackled by steel and harsh intonements.  They turned to Cormantel for assurance.

For the moment, he ignored them and studied the foe closely. The Iron Kolossus stood perfectly still, and Cormantel saw that as their joints trapped many bones and entrails of steel, so were they ensnared in turn. The Rust Demons had gorged themselves on the flesh of those that had sought to free Ludum, and thus grown turgid atop their glass towers. Above, the sky was much cleared from before, as many of the Thinking Dragons had grown tired from their earlier display and returned to their black flat trees that lay upon the ground across the river. Now did Cormantel speak,

“Before us is naught but a tomb of deception. Our foes have devoured their own dream by predestined argument. Pitty the foe that self-perish.”, and so filled with sorrow-anger did Cormantel lead the Siol in shaping a new dream for Ludum.

The river boiled, revealing the Iron Kolossus to be hollow clay sculptures, turgid with apathy, and were wiftly carried out to the sea and the vengeful daughters of the ocean.

Above, the heavens ignited with moonfire and thunder, showing the tired Thinking Dragons to be poor dancers and filled with immolating self-loathing.

But half-true to their words, the lying thinking minds of the Reasoning Clan did let fly their Dividing Lances, but passing through the upset heaven they grew unsteady in their preconception, self-dividing in self-imposed isolation, flickering out of the new dream.

The shackled corpse of Ludum heaved and the towers shattered as she rose one last time to embrace the Rust Demons, and the last of the Reasoning Clan, crushing them and their Crystal Cerebrate Minds beneath her. And so did Ludum pass into the realm of the dead, with her crown regained, where she would in the future reforge it and become Empress once more.

At the end of that day, a unspoilt banner flew where Ludum once lay, bearing the symbol of the new age.”

-The Cormantel Chronicles