#trailing footprint made of cinder and ash

[halflifehoarding]

A long shadow stretched through the entrance of the opened vault. A trail of bloody footprints followed the lone figure that shuffled toward the light at the end of the man made tunnel.

Adjusting their grip on the supplies at their side, a cooing had them immediately trying to soothe the infant resting on their shoulder.

“Shh, shh, you’re alright.” the long shadow swayed back and forth as they rocked the babe back to sleep. The infant made another quiet noise before settling back down.

“Don’t you worry,” they sighed. “We’re going to be just fine.”

-------------------

War. War never changes.

At the dawn of the 21st century, the date of May 16th would forever be a dark mark in earth’s history.

As Black Mesa gathered the greatest minds of their current generation, their curiosity would end up being humanity’s downfall. 

Playing with powers beyond their comprehension, an experiment ripped through space and invited in a flood of other-worldly creatures inside the walls of Black Mesa. But it wasn’t just isolated there, the event caused a cascade of Portal Storms to ravage the earth for months, allowing the new wildlife to run rampant.

But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the Storms were simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. As the Portal Storms ceased, just when humans thought the nightmare was over, the Combine arrived. 

Humanity never had a chance. The Storms had taken all of Humanity’s resources to push back the invading lifeforms and left the nations of the world weak. In seven brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders, and from the ashes of the otherworldly invasion, awoke a new civilization that would struggle to survive.

It wouldn’t be until 20 years later when Doctor Freeman would suddenly reappear. The man who was at Black Mesa Ground Zero, the slayer of the Nihilanth, The Opener of the Way, The One Free Man.

The man that would single-handedly raze through countless Combine forces, head an entire Resistance, release the lethal grasp the Combine had on the world, then just as quickly, fade into obscurity.

200 years later his legend lives on, but repairing the damage the Combine had done hasn't been easy.

The scars left by the war have not yet healed.

And the Earth has not forgotten.

[tk-duveraun]

Little Bitty Pretty One

Mathilda escapes the Ansburg Circle, part of a trade with @elalavella

Why aren’t you angry? If you had stayed in the Gallows, you would be free now, Rage whispered in Mathilda’s mind. Its words didn’t cause the slightest hesitation in her movements; her writing was as delicate and refined as always.

She looked back over her notes and nodded. Though no one was in the room, Mathilda said, “Yes, I do believe this is all I need out of the Creation school.” Though she left her grimoire open for the ink to dry, Mathilda closed the Creation text with a loud thwump. With one manicured finger, she drew a small Force magic rune in the air and the book flew off to settle onto the returns cart. The Ansburg Circle’s librarian would normally complain at the casual use of magic, but he was slumped over his desk, blood and spit foaming on his lips.

All of the little mage apprentices were locked up in their classes - a futile attempt to keep them from learning of the fall of the Gallows. Each lesson was taught by at least two Enchanters and no mage was left alone, lest they plot sedition. Mathilda had been assigned to watch over the librarian, a elf man who’d given a leg to a failed escape attempt in his youth. Not even the most suspicious Templars suspected sweet-faced Mathilda of wanting to escape. She’d petitioned to come to Ansburg, afterall.

Darling Mathilda, recommended for transfer by Knight Commander Meredith herself, would never ever want to leave the Circle. Why, outside the Circle she’d only experienced pain and betrayal, by her own father, no less! The horrors still brought tears to her meticulously-lined eyes. She was a mage, yes, but magic was the least of her problems. She lit candles and flash-cooked food, but really, her power wasn’t anything to fear. Mathilda just liked to read. Wasn’t Nevarra such a silly place with its Necromancy and Mortalitasi? No, Mathilda would read under her fancy magic flames and keep to herself and never do anything untoward.

Destroy these fools. Let them pay for how they underestimated you, Rage said.

Mathilda continued to ignore her demon. The ink in her grimoire still hadn’t dried, but didn’t let the frown crease her face. She wouldn’t court wrinkles anytime soon. A dismissive hand wave and burst of careful Fire magic finished the job. Mathilda flipped back through the pages, skimming over her collected knowledge. The idiot Enchanters they made teachers couldn’t teach a horse to shit, but she was more than capable of learning on her own. She hadn’t been able to practice overmuch - you could only frame so many people for blood magic in a single year before the rules changed. Idiot, lusty boys who had thought they could lay hands on her had been her favorite choices for the Brand, but Angelica had really been asking for it.

She was in truth a blood mage regardless, Rage said, trying to sap enjoyment out of the memory.

Do hold yourself with some decorum, Mathilda thought at it. The moment I’m done here you’ll be able to boil every Templar in their armor as I fetch my phylactery.

A wordless sulking feeling was her only response.

Where was she? Right, double-checking her grimoire. She’d long-since stolen every tome on Necromancy from the library and they were carefully hidden in the home of the farmer that supplied the Circle. She paused in her page flipping and pulled on the thread of Fade connected to her blood magic compulsion on the farmer. Hmm, yes it was still there, but fading. It was good that she was in the process of leaving. Her grimoire was far from complete, but it wouldn’t get any better in this… well, calling it a refuse heap was putting it all rather nicely, wasn’t it?

Destroy it.

Come now. You have a better vocabulary than that. Mathilda snapped her grimoire closed. She pricked her finger on the needle-point rivet and sealed it with magic and a drop of her blood. It belched out a delightful purple-black plume of smoke. She patted it like a particularly well-behaved dog before scooping it off the table and cradling it in her arms. Mathilda loosened her hold on Rage as she walked and by the time she left the library, her footsteps steamed.

An apprentice laid dead next to her bag. Mathilda clicked her tongue before kicking the corpse away. If his skin hadn’t been mottled and green from the curse on her things, it would have been bright red from the scorching heat of her boots. She pulled the strap over her shoulder and shifted until the weight hung comfortably against her hip. The floor sizzled with each of her steps as Rage’s magic burned the dust and detritus against the heavy, stone tiles.

Flames jumped out of their magic sconces to float in the air behind her, bobbing and weaving with every step. She was halfway up to the tower before any Templars appeared. The first didn’t get a single word out before fire burst through their armor and threw their helmet into the air. It clattered to the floor with the rest of the armor, making a terrible racket of clanks and crashes. Mathilda’s footprints were a trail of fire by the time other Templars came to investigate the sound.

“Mathilda! Look out! There’s a maleficar loose in the Circle!” One idiot had the lack of awareness to say.

She didn’t bother to turn around to look at her. She simply raised a hand and brushed it against the stone wall as she walked. The stone glowed and reluctantly caught fire as she passed. “You don’t say, Ser Clarice.”

A wall of fire erupted behind Mathilda, blocking off the Templars before they could muster their wits and wills enough to Silence her. The screams were rather distracting as she picked apart the spells on the storeroom door, but she persisted. It was the smell of burning hair that really bothered Mathilda, so she paused long enough to snap her fingers. The spell didn’t go off, so she snapped them again until the warm, comforting scent of smoking hickory filled her nose.

When the spells on the door gave way, it collapsed to the floor in a pile of ash. The storeroom had little to boast aside from a few forbidden texts - useless, she’d already read them - and the collected phylacteries of every mage in Ansburg. Mathilda pulled out a few vials at random and inspected the labels, trying to figure out how they were organized. Either the Tranquil that had labeled them had had a stroke or they were written in some kind of code. Mathilda dropped them to the floor, enjoying the sound of shattering glass as she put her hands on her hips. “Well, this simply won’t do.”

She stare at the racks for just a moment before holding out both hands and letting Rage channel through her. Not only did the phylacteries go up in a burst of purple fire and crackling blue magic, but the entire back wall gave out under the heat. “That was excessive, don’t you think?”

Rage didn’t answer.

Mathilda turned to leave, but was met by the Knight Commander himself. He brandished his sword and screamed commands at her, but his uncivilized, backwater Antivan accent made his words completely insensible. Either that or his feet boiling in his boots from the molten stone under him had yowling in agony like a particularly ugly mabari. “I never did like you, Knight Commander Estevan. You smell worse than the dung you have for brains.” Mathilda’s tone was light and sweet. She walked backwards through the storeroom with every airy word. “And your taste in wine is painfully plebeian. I really should kill you, but you simply do not deserve a second more of my time. Goodbye.”

With a jaunty wave, Mathilda jumped backwards out of the hole Rage burned in the wall.

That was a four-storey fall, Rage complained once Mathilda landed. I will take a year of your life for that maneuver.

You may try, Rage, dear, Mathilda replied as she looked around to get her bearings. She hadn’t seen the outside of the Circle with her own eyes since she’d arrived. It didn’t take her long to piece together memories of what she’d seen from the farmer and various workers she’d possessed with her magic over the years. With confident, still-smoking strides, Mathilda left the Ansburg Circle grounds.

She smiled when she heard the time-delayed explosion in her room go off. Who knew freedom smelled like fire and cinder?