A Fire from Heaven (Samheen 18th, Synch Event)

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Grant
Retired Game Designer
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A Fire from Heaven (Samheen 18th, Synch Event)

Post by Grant »

As the new day began on Samheen 18th, the sun slowly peeked out over the distant mountains to the east to find the heavy, overbearing clouds breaking and lifting. The rains had stopped, leaving the tattered remnants of King’s Court beneath them swampy and wet as well as cleaned of all the ash and rubbish. What clouds remained were high and shapeless, taking on a fiery shade of pink as the dawn’s light illuminated them from beyond the far horizon. With the break in the weather, windows and doors were thrown open and the busy sounds of a waking city, thick with cleaning and rebuilding, echoed up within the ancient walls of the Kingdom’s capitol.

Far overhead, a new form took shape out of the buoyant clouds above…a shape not unlike a sailing vessel, though larger than most on the water. Emerging from one of the many shapeless, airy masses of cloud above, the strange vision moved with a shocking speed, driving directly into the eye of the wind, as it tipped it’s forepeak towards the ground and began a slow plunge towards the city below. Shortly thereafter, eight similar shapes, creations born from the forges of man and made to take flight high above the ground, joined in the graceful dive downwards like a school of airborne fish, each varying only slightly in form or shape.

Coated in plates of corroded brass and bristling iron all along either side, the massive airships reached out to either side with winds made not of feather or scale, but of steel, wood, canvas, and cord. The distant sound of a mechanical whir, whining like an animal at hunt, could be heard from them, and their bare, empty masts reached upward to the heavens, their riggings dotted with crewmen intent to be the first to catch sight of their destination. The lead ship lifted a series of brightly-colored flags, and drew the attention of it’s companions with a sharp, hollow BOOM that seemed to shake the earth even from it’s elevated position, leaving smoke to float away with the suddenly ominous wind.

At that signal, the nine vessels took up their own course, spreading out as they approached King’s Court. The nearest airship, an impressive construction with a snarling, sinister wolf placed as it’s figurehead, closed near to the ground and released a massive, iron claw from it’s rear hawsehole to crash down upon the lush lawns of the Downs, a heavy chain playing out behind as it slowed to a stop. Dropping another massive claw from it’s forward hawsehole, the airship drew in both hawser chains, securing the claws upon the ground and bracing the ship between them, hovering just over a hundred paces off the ground with it’s side displayed proudly towards the city just beyond.

Once all nine of the airships had taken their positions, another signal came from the leader, it’s message delivered in the same cryptic flags as before. As the new orders flew in the breeze, the Condotierre Air Flotilla immediately responded with a hale of explosions, smoke, and fire, occluding the sides of the flying machines and sending massive balls of metal arching out to smash into the ancient walls of the old city, leaving cracks and chips where they struck.

Once again, King’s Court was under siege.
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