The Village of the Boyagers

[6M69I69B9]

That was fast.

What would I write about?

The day when Boyah is no more, and how these users will continue their lives without it.

[JohnnyRingo2]

The god knew no time. Flesh went in until it had been expended, whereupon it went out. A time to live meant a time to die. To grow it must consume; to think it must destroy. The process was a paradox but here they wouldn’t need logic. People went in, while some fought and some obeyed, all eventually bowed to the Deus Machina. This god had no existence, though it deprived others of theirs. It was a mechanized puppet that ate hope and spit out signatures. With every pull of each lever, the few that still felt wept and cursed their god in silent protest for its cruelty. The machine continued, molten steel hissed on hot template and another signature was pressed into place. Hiro shut himself off, the work was especially hard when the levers were designed to be pulled with both hands.  When he had first set foot onto the factory floor (before they had shackled him to it) the other inmates watched him with reptilian intensity. The weak were fodder for the strong and the more wiry bodies chewed through the gears the more time the machine had to be shut off. Hiro refused to embrace death as the others had and they hated him all the more for it. They would just have to keep on hating him.  They watched him in silence and Hiro could feel the haze of routine fading. Something primal within him had noticed the change long before Hiro’s attention was torn from the conveyor belt.
The man next to him was waning and his lever pulls had become infrequent. He stopped and turned towards Hiro. The action gained the attention of the floor foreman and a reprimand was given. The man sat motionless and Hiro could see the hint of a smile creeping across his lips. This was the look of death here, the stare that embraced the oblivion with open arms.  Exhaustion was deadly as his companion soon proved. His eyes glazed over and his lips mouthed silent utterances and then audible ones. Even amidst the industrial white noise, Hiro could discern the dialect of a local tongue.
“If I were to see her, just once more. I would tell her. I would tell her I loved her. I would ask of her but one thing, that when she is gray and old, when she surveys her life with her children and her grandchildren, when she looks over all of the beauty she has brought into this world that she take but a second to remember a wretch like I, that I may die a contented man. I am glad she is far from this place. ”
Tears now, for lost causes and hopeless dreams, streamed down the mans face. With one last futile look upward, the man let go of the lever and collapsed onto the conveyer belt.  His face had a vacant expression to it. The corner of his mouth quivered as his head came under the signature press. Glassy eyes regained some semblance of humanity, fixating on Hiro and burning their own signature into his mind’s eye. The machine’s presses had been designed to imprint thin sheet metal, not the human skull. Extra pressure was applied to attempt to overcome the obstacle. Hot steam scalded the man’s face and the machine screeched in protest. Everything shut down, lights flickered to nothing and all that could be heard was the soft searing of human flesh. Rough paper jabbed at Hiro’s hands from behind, on it a simple message
“Meet in half hour at mess hall. Alone.”
The message ended as cryptically as it had started. Short, hurried scrawls on a scrap of filthy paper.
A few seconds later, an obstruction alarm sounded somewhere high above. The piercing shriek alerted the captives to the scuffle of black boots. Routine had already taken precedence and Hiro and the others stood at their station, turning towards the door with arms extended at their sides. A gaze caught his attention from the corner of his eye. Before its identity could be registered, a group of guards burst through the door. Their black boots complimented their equally cold faces. Death was as commonplace as anything else here and the foreman had seen it all before. To him, they were numbers to be tallied at the end of the day. Hiro buried the wealth of hatred beneath a façade of complacency. Now was not the time to become indignant. The righteous were indignant and the righteous always died first. Hiro folded the paper into his palm with a subtle nod to the sender.  For the first time since he had arrived, Hiro felt and even more dangerous emotion than indignation, hope. Two guards manually tried to lift the bulky press from the corpse. The man’s face wouldn’t let go of the press, but after a bit of plying it released with a tear.  Little more than a piece of flesh caught in one big, broken machine. The foreman appraised the body casually and signaled two guards to have it disposed of. On the dead man’s face, the Nsider 2 insignia had been burned deep. He blinked once, and no more.

[JohnnyRingo2]

For as long as anyone can remember, the InvisionFree tribes of Nsider existed in some form or another. The first Nsider settlers to settle in the eastern country found it a bitter and inhospitable land. Before The Fall, an IF forum would typically consist of fifty members or less. The mighty Outsider, before Phydeaux and Carello led their peoples on a massive pilgrimage to the resource rich forest, was in and of itself one of those tribes. When Nsider finally fell, a great flood of refugees filled the forums, exceeding the maximum carrying capacity of those too generous to turn them away and draining them of precious resources in weeks. This in turn created more refugees, and the masses grew.  Seeing the fate of their predecessors hardened the hearts of other InvisionFree forums and the pleading masses of starving took what would not be given them. There was war and atrocities, as mankind has always perpetrated if at all within his power and when the dust had settled, seven tribes emerged. Splintered as they had been, they posed to Meta no problem.
Meta dismounted the cycle and briefly glanced himself over. Five tribes of the original seven now remained. The casualty rate of civilizing these brutes was unacceptable. A handpicked dozen of his Hellriders waited for his signal. Raven’s men had become war-weary and he had observed more than a few stray shots miss their mark on account of the perceived innocence of the target. Each of his men were marked with an unswerving loyalty to Meta.  The bandages Meta wore stank of blood and the flies itched fiercely but they would serve their purpose. If the religious texts Meta had spent the last few days transcribing bore any relevance to this tribe, the initial assault would be the most important. The heavy robe left a wide wake in the white desert sand, concealing the hellish apparition upon which they hung. Bones rattled in stride to the grisly reaper’s bleak march. Pestilence had come and gone and famine was here, but war was coming and death followed with him.
Meta approached the messenger he had been sent. He was a frail child with weak bones and a ruddy complexion. The child approached him alone.
“Qualanx has heard your offer.” The boy paused and swallowed, avoiding Meta’s glare “ We will not relocate. This is our home…” another pause,”A-and we are willing to protect it with our l-l-l”
“Lives?” Meta finished. “How old are you?”
“Eleven.”
“And your name?”
“Nathan”
“Nathan, did Qualanx think I would spare you because of your age? Is that why he sent you?”
The boy was becoming fidgety, turning his head away from Meta, seeking signs of help that would never arrive. Meta followed the boy’s gaze to the beige tents atop a distant dune. The rest of the tribe was watching them but they had made on fatal mistake, they had counted on him coming alone. The time for words had passed.
“Nathan.”
The boy turned his head and gazed pleadingly into Meta’s eyes. Warm blue eyes like sunshine through a clouded day. There was no taint of the cruelty from the world he existed in. They knew no hatred and they knew no pain. To take something so innocent from this burnt world would be cruel. To let him exist would be crueler. Placing one hand on the boy’s shoulder Meta ran the shoto across the boy’s throat, running a deep cut through both jugular veins. This time it was Meta who averted his gaze. He’d never heard anyone cry like that. Meta held the boy against his robes and let him weep. A quiver ran through Meta’s hand and it passed. Without the support of Meta’s arm the child collapsed into the desert sand and was forgotten. Meta rattled the blade, signaling his hellriders into action. The wolves would descend upon the lambs, and it would be Meta leading his pack. Mounting his cycle Meta revved the engine. He wasn’t close enough to unveil the beast, not until they could really see it or the effect was lost. His men were closing in on the encampment and Meta felt a vague uneasiness. It was like a puzzle with a single piece missing and he couldn’t place where. The silence. He had regarded the sound of battle as white noise before. The curious lack of reaction bothered him.
There were screams now, ingenuine to true panic, as a small group of three fled their tents. A single hellrider moved to intercept them. He had given into the bloodlust, so Meta would let it take him. The trap was sprung, ornate steel upon coarse cedar jutted forth from the burning sand impaling the rider and sending his cycle veering. Pretense abandoned, the tribesmen leapt from beneath layers of sand, roaring their battle cry with pike in hand.  The muscular figure held the writing rider above him contemplatively for a moment.
“Behold! I see blood, but no soul.” The chieftain chided. With a mighty heave the chieftain slung the broken figure messily from the pike onto the burning sand whilst the last ebbs of life drained from his body. Qualanx the Bitter (as he was known now) held the bloodied pike above him, waving in defiance at his aggressors.
“You wish to end my life? Then come and take it!” The warriors formed a protective circle as the remaining riders circled around, looking for a breach. The time had come, it was quite clear. Circling once Meta dismounted the bike. The ebb of the engines around him growled in support. The situation had changed. Raising his right hand in silence Meta signaled the riders to leave him. One by one, some begrudgingly and others more willingly, the riders left Meta alone in the company of his foes. Each one of the tribesmen would fight to the bitter end to protect what they held.
“Oh, you are a bold one!” Qualanx snarled.
Meta held his peace. The men around Qualanx weren’t as steadfast. Every chain had its weak links. The man to Qualanx’s right in the formation held a small pendant. A religious artifact Meta recognized from the smelter. Meta’s initial unveiling would affect him the most. He would take him first, then work his way clockwise. Meta cleared himself of any doubt, tactically examining the formation. Qualanx’s men crept forward with pike’s raised. Meta slowly pulled the katana at his side from its sheath and loosened his robe.
“What? Not so sure you can take something that fights back?” Qualanx snapped.
A calm washed over Meta, and he was quickened. Meta let the robe fall to the sand, holding the katana in a defensive posture. A steady puddle of urine pooled beneath one of the tribesman’s feet. They stood unsure now, some shaking and others whispering mantra’s of protection to their native god. The effect was exactly what he had hoped for.
It was one thing to fight a man. To fight a man meant dealing with something ordinary, familiar. A man felt fear and pity. To fight a monster though, to fight a monster was different. If your enemy perceived you as something horrific you held their fear. But it was always to be remembered that to play the monster was different than becoming it. If Meta succumbed to the horror, he became a beast and was lesser for it.
Inspiration arose from one of the holy texts he had come across. It spoke of a skeletal devil that collected the bones of warrior’s unfaithful and cowardly. Their faith was a persistent thing and it was faith that compelled these to fight against surmounting odds. Meta’s chest was bared, save for the necklace of moist ribs that hung about his neck. Two femurs had been tightly bound by cloth wrapping to his own, in them a host of flies proceeded from the opened marrow. Several sets of ribcages formed a skeletal armor. For a split second, there was nothing. The black storm of flies swirled around him preceding the coming slaughter with winged applause. With cobra like agility Meta seized the first pike and carved through the first man’s torso.  Shimmering steel contrasted the black cloud of death, mesmerizing the second man before he was felled. The third man was the first to make some feeble attempt at defense but by then it was much too late. The wolf was in the fold and the sheep’s bleats fell on deaf ears. Like ink to paper the blade cut its prose through the group in masterful strides, wreaking Meta’s masterpiece in bloodied sand and felled might. The cloud was dissipating and the one still standing could now see what man it was that terror inhabited.
“Oh God. Momma… ” The desperate sobs of the dying replaced the warriors’ bravado.
“Your God isn’t here. You mother isn’t here. I am here and only now do you realize how truly and fundamentally undone you all are.” Meta uttered. His voice maintained a detached monotony as he turned his attention to the one left standing. Qualanx blinked back his surprise. His cheek was bleeding profusely from a deep gash, but he had been left unharmed.
“This was a warning. Your people will meet here in a week. You will surrender unconditionally or perish completely.”

[Hiro]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUH3JQjcweM[/youtube]

[burzumfan420]

[22:07][PatchesTheClown] Dogs & humans are the only animals with what
[22:12][Mr.CMB] a taste for scat porn and single malt scotch
[22:20][PatchesTheClown] dodogs like single malt?

[Hiro]

I miss this so much  :'(

[FAMY2]

I thought he returned.  :'(

[JohnnyRingo2]

So, I'm going to try to post at least two chapters a week. One of my accounts was deleted that had the prior chapters between the Rat-King's death and Steal's attempted murder. So if you have any questions feel free.

In some ways, it was exactly as she'd imagined it. Old wine brought from the depths of cellars and backrooms in celebration of the Boyagers return. Grown men embraced strangers, laughing and weeping openly in relief as news of the rat-kings death spread. Their approach of Carello's Court was thronged by strangers, kissing the hands of their group and lauding them all with praise. All except Sam. They could see it in her eyes, something haunted and distant. The death hung on her heavily and she could feel the fear behind the eyes of the Outsiders. Clair stood at thee groups head, holding the bloodied bag that swung rightly at her side.
"We have upheld our end of the bargain." her voice reverberated throughout the courtyard. Hushed murmurs echoes through silence. Undoing the coarse string, Clair dropped the bag and held it's bloody package high above her. The greatest head of the rat-king
"Gaze now and fear no more!" her eyes beamed with a light Sam hadn't seen in years "Your children are safe, the despoiler is dead." with emphasis, Clair flung the bloodied skull forward onto dust floor. A wave of rejoicing erupted, the lightning cheers and cries crashed down on the four. Betraying his stoic nature, the corners of Sock's lip curled into a smile. Beside her, Sam could feel the vitriol boiling off of Steal. Something told her that whatever had occurred in the Rat King's lair was still eating at him. The boon of applause was silenced by signal from a figure high-above them. Carello's wood throne overlooked the crowd, giving him a regal air as he spoke.
"When you came to us, we were wary of your intentions. Since the fall of Nsider, our numbers across these lands have dwindled. It has made us cold people, with bitter hearts. Today I welcome you, not as guests, but as our friends. You have proven beyond any shadow of a-"
Sam's hearing faded. A vacuum of silence dulled Carello's words to indistinguishable utterances, and then a whine. It wasn't a noise that called her but an absolute absence of it. Without seeing, she knew. Standing behind her, the burnt Wrench stood. His voice twisted into a visage of perpetual pain. For a moment, he opened his mouth and screamed. Guttural, desperate cries. The skin on him was charred and peeling as it was in death, and she knew that Wrench's death had scarred his spirit. Seconds of writhing passed before Wrench mustered enough strength to stop. Fists balled, his eyes locked with hers and she immediately regretted it. His voice was soft and weak, as was hers as she quietly parroted the words aloud. Images flashed in her mind, mechanized and filthy. The suffering of hundreds, the genocide of more as progress trampled underfoot the lives of those who would dare stand to oppose it. Gristle and flies. Tribal markers. A shaman. A knight now gone ronin. All linked by one word. The images were gone as quickly as they came, as was Wrench.
Seconds passed and the riling call of Carello's closing came to Sam's attention.
"United! My brethren, we will stamp their bodies into mortar and build ourselves a better world!" Adoration spilled once more from the stands about them.
One of the Outsiders that had accompanied their group, Houdini, stood by Ringo with an aged parchment taken from Castle Nsider. Houdini was enthralled with the piece and for the first time since she'd met him, Sam felt a dread for Ringo. From what she could see there were no words written here, only notes. On the front, the words Solemne Ossium dominated. Houdini nodded in agreement to something and left Ringo. His attention turned to her and for a second something dark replaced it. He knew death, as she did, but not as an enemy.
"What were you doing?" She inquired
"Hm?"
"Just now. The parchment"
"Houdini has a varied taste in music. I sold him a piece I'd been carrying around I thought he might be interested in."
His explanation was terse, and Sam could practically taste deception on him.
"Besides, it's always good to have a few extra friends." he smiled at some inside joke before shifting subjects
"Now, what did you say about 'Hiro'?"

[Mando Pandango]

what

WHAt

[Daddy]

OMG RINGO

[22:07][PatchesTheClown] Dogs & humans are the only animals with what
[22:12][Mr.CMB] a taste for scat porn and single malt scotch
[22:20][PatchesTheClown] dodogs like single malt?

take a look at this guy

[JohnnyRingo2]

OMG RINGO
take a look at this guy

Yeah, I saw that. Asshole gave away the ending.

[Hiro]

WHAT THE FUCK

[silvertone]

Yeah, I saw that. Asshole gave away the ending.

sry

[JohnnyRingo2]

Lights out was thirty minutes ago. Hiro couldn’t so much hear the leaking pipe above him as he could feel it. The water droplets sent out the tiniest reverberations that echoed off his taut skin. Below him, the bunk his cellmate resided in lay soundless. Perhaps the newest addition was exhausted, perhaps he was dead. Hiro knew both possibilities to be plausible. As he listened past the silence of Schrodinger’s cellmate and could make out the dim drone of parting conversations. The guards lingered around the cells for twenty to thirty minutes after, he had counted. In the bunk across from him, V stared silent as a corpse, the only signs of life being his controlled breath and an unflinching gaze. It was said that happy men do not start revolutions. Happy men do not watch guards for men who would abandon their post when they thought everyone was asleep. Happy men do not fashion shivs from sheet metal and tuck them beneath their tongues. It is not the happy that uphold exceptional production standards to ensure to lax security.
Hiro was an especially unhappy man. As he watched his accomplice in the bunk across from him remove his shirt and urinate into it, staining it a tea brown, Hiro played the next few moments in his head in the same way you’d replay a sports reel. Thirteen drips since V began. Time was intangible here, so he counted the flow of water as the flow of time.
V’s footfall was silent, accompanied only by the resistance of fabric in his descent. Hiro crept into action as V looped the wet towel between two bars. The bars showed signs of minor damage and bloody knuckles from inmates who were foolish enough to address their captors. They had seen abuse, but not of the orchestrated variety. Forty six drips from now, the wet towel looped hurriedly around two sets of bars twice and Hiro was passed off a side. Torque and resistance were the vital ingredients here, the moisture in the towel causing it to bunch instead of tear. Sweat ran down their faces in time with the water droplets. Panicked euphoria rushed through Hiro’s veins as the first resistance gave way. It was only an inch, but in seconds it gave way to another. An audible creak reverberated down the hall in tune to their orchestrated abuse.
Whispers accompanied their efforts. The cell block stirred to life. With one last pull, the two wrenched a space barely capable of fitting their shoulders through. Pleading coughs became shouts as dying men called desperately for their freedom. They could not have saved them, but that did not stop the others for spiting them for it. Each cell they passed sprang to life with condemnations and cries for their captors. They were eighteen drips behind schedule.
Coal fueled lights flashed on in guard tower and dogs bayed. Hiro recognized the barks and terror filled him.  Meta had left his war dogs at home. He hadn’t anticipated this and some deep fear in him immobilized him in both mind and body.
V yanked Hiro forward and growled
“Move past it.”
Hiro’s hand shook, first in fear then in exhilaration as he saw the first section of chain-link fence. V moved into position, interlocking both hands in front of him in a kneel.Moving as a man possessed, Hiro leapt in synchronous with V’s boost and gripped the fence the best he could. He straddled himself on the fence and steadied himself. The dogs barking grew closer, and V grasped Hiro’s arm for a moment before leaving a stone emblem.
“We won’t make it.” His tone was resigned, and Hiro knew in his heart what was being said was true. Without a body they would hound them past the gates, if only to make an example of them. They could mask their tracks but not their scent from the dogs. As long as the prison believed there to be an escape, they would hound them. Two men guaranteed death, or one man only mostly dead.
“Take that to the IF tribe, tell them what happened here, what they did to us. More than anything, this need be said. We are fractured, and it is in that division that they have domesticated us.”
Hiro nodded. In between the guards approach and V’s diversion from the fence, there was only the knowledge that existed between executioner and martyr.


I swear to God, I can never leave this thing. It's like it calls for me every time.

[JohnnyRingo2]

The moon shone pale and beautiful, illuminating a marble altar of ancient times. Ringo could almost hear a seething call from the figures that stood watch. In the years preceding Power On’s dissolution, cults of devotees sought to stall the forums destruction by means of the dark arts. Hunter’s Moon was a time of sacrifice, as dozens of member’s blood was spilled upon the altar before him to act as servants in the afterlife.  Ringo felt the iridescent marble run the tips of his fingers, outlining the words “Pro Patria” In defense of our home. The knife in his pocket weighed heavy on him. Steal would come seeking vengeance. The spirits here recognized murderers, and Ringo had done his own share of killing, sometimes in self-defense. Often it was not. Ringo thought back to Sam, and wondered if he were to survive, if he were to stay with Sam, could he assuage his own conscience? Would his nature change by her goodness, or would he simply be concealing it? The scarred ones had always drawn him, and her own injuries carried in her stance. He had watched over the dead at Nsider partially out of a sense of pity and guilt for his own survival. In the coming battle, it would be these tortured souls, here and in the catacombs below Nsider that would serve instrumental in turning the tide, if it could be done. Ringo perked to the sound of encroaching footsteps and relaxed at seeing a welcome gait. Sam.
“I wondered where you’d gone. Outsider’s sent a third of their fighters to defend Castle Nsider. They’re offering to give us a ride back come tomorrow afternoon.”
“I wanted to pay my respects. In a few years nobody will be left to remember who these graves stood for.”
“You dwell too much on the past. The dead only linger where they feel they need to continue a work” she paused “Or where they’ve been wronged.”
Ringo remained silent, listening to the insect life bustle around the shrine.
“We’re not going to come out of this alive.”
“Don’t say that”
“Then tell me it’s not true. You and your premonitions, you saw the blood from the corpses on which the trees grew. You saw Wrench, you saw that Rat. You’re telling me in the face of mortality, you couldn’t sense our own?”
“You think I just pick what I see? That I selectively chose to see Wrench’s blistered body or hoped I would view the mass graves of those buried by Nsider’s debris? This gift is only a gift to those who use it. I’m afraid of sleeping anymore.”
“Come now. What of Boyah then? It’s been so long, how likely is it that they’re even still alive?”
Sam studied Ringo. In their travels, his own demeanor could be described as impish at best. This was not that.
“You’re afraid” she stated, her tone matter-of-fact.
“No, I’m terrified. They have what they need, they have Outsider’s support, they have fortifications and the defense that comes with that. What are two people? For the first time in as long as I can remember, I care about something and I’m afraid for it.” Ringo’s tone softened “leave with me. Tonight. Let them count us casualties.”
A dull chant rose from the marble statues, overpowering her senses and for a second she could see them. It had struck her that amongst the vast audience of marble figures, that there was one whose eyes were open. Her eyes had an oily black to their visage and they peered unblinkingly into Sam’s own. She forcibly averted her gaze, and when she did, it was not the one that watched, but them all. The chant grew louder, in unison, parroting some arcane dogma of rituals bygone. The spirits had shown her the next casualty in their ancient culling song.
“I can’t leave them behind. We have more to do.”
“What do we have then? An army to fight, friends to lose, innocents to watch be butchered? We are ash in wind at best, our lives painful and insignificant placeholders for a death  that few welcome. We have nothing.”
Sam took a step back. With steady motion she undid the tunic that clung to her waist and let the cloth fall to the stone pavilion. Her nipples stood erect in the night’s mist and her supple body shone luminous under the starlit sky. For once in his life, Ringo was at loss for words.
“We have tonight.”