THE THREE ANCIENTS

In this post we relive the final scene but with some never before seen and very rare Simon Sherry   Drafts and Works In Progress


High above obscured by the white mist the three ancient Elders looked down in disbelief.
“Didn’t see this coming” said one as he quickly leafed through the large tome resting on his lap.
“Never seen such a battle fought like this one brother, it defied all the rules of common sense” said the other scratching his head with the hourglass he held.
“What happens now brothers?” said the other his staff tapping against his sandal impatiently.
There was silence as each thought about this last enquiry.
“We can’t clear the board, the battle’s not won”
“But there is always a winner brother it is how it should be, it is our rules and our rules by nature of who we are, are infallible”
“But brother, there is your proof that our laws are infallible, look they cannot strike each other, thus no one can fall to be declared beaten. They must remain until someone does. That by my reckoning, should take eternity”
”But that is impossible, infallible is exactly that. There is no contradiction to our laws”
“Well judging by those two warriors standing nose to nose down there, I think you may be mistaken”
The Elder holding the staff suddenly struck by a sudden awareness, dropped it, and as it fell its stone shone brightly.
“I think we have a serious concern brothers”
The Elder holding the hourglass realized that all of a sudden it felt bottom heavy, he held it high to discover all the sand had rested in the bottom chamber and it was now too heavy to turn.
“This is not looking good brothers” he said.
The Elder holding the book started to flick the pages of the book faster and faster, searching for anything to contradict or clause that may negate the situation on the field. Then he slammed the book shut realising, as his brothers had already surmised that the laws off the game were flawed.
“You know what this means don’t you brothers “ he said.
This simple sentence had completed a path.
All three Ancients had admitted that their laws were not absolute.
This realisation by all of the three ancient and almighty Elders meant that their existence though thought to be absolute for eons, had shown that they were indeed fallible thus denying the very essence of their power and might. By being proven wrong they could no longer absolute, which was the sole purpose of their existence, they would become nothingness and thus their world was unmade.
There was light no more.
From below, the two Kings momentarily looked skyward to see the mist swirl into a vortex and quickly spin at dizzyingly speed.
In the centre were three figures who appeared to be screaming, the White King recognised thousands of choirs of angels being thrown about around them being ripped apart in the maelstrom.
This was accompanied by a cacophony of sound like a million horns and souls screaming in tandem.
Then it just stopped.
The silence was a shock.
The two Kings still faced each other, still unable to touch one another, their weapons still in their hands.
They were suspended in nothingness, as far the eye could see in every direction.
Two Kings, unable to touch unable to move locked in stalemate for eternity.

Game of Kings First Phase revisited

The General Knight looked at his ribs again and flicked the third one down with his bony finger.
It made a high “pingy” noise.
“Oh how I wish I could tune these things, it could make a fine musical instrument”
he thought out loud to himself .
“Oh, who am I kidding – I am so bored”
The General Knight was sitting on his trusty steed Watebuscuit watching his charges practice their battle formations. Which they did each and everyday over and over and over again.
The Men under his command were just like him, a Risen Hero, an army of soldiers and leaders reanimated by the University of the Gears to help in the leadership of the White King’s army.
They were a very controversial bunch to start with and would have been sent back to the mausoleums and Necropolis that held them if it hadn’t been for the Queen and the King coming to an accord and making a strict set of protocols.
No reanimated member of the Risen Army could have memories other than that of the battlefield. No personal recollections of their lives prior to military service, of loved ones or their histories, not even their own deaths. These skeletons with armour and fighting styles from several centuries only lived for battle, and that was all they did.
Over and over again ad infinitum.

The General wished he’d had that privilege.
He was different, he remembered everything.
He remembered falling off his horse in the middle of a battle and before he could right himself, looking up at a massive barbarian holding a somewhat bigger axe, next thing he knew he was standing in front of the Queen and her Bishop in ceremonial armour and with see through hands.

He was a skeleton.

The Bishop did something that took away the shock and utter disbelief and briefed him on what his new role would be.

They then revealed him to the King and boy did that cause some problems.

It looked liked the King had found one of his own and it didn’t like him one bit.
Being a good servant the General stood his place and listened and observed.
It was obvious things had changed in the Kingdom since his death, the University staff were a great source of information and he gleaned as much as he could from them.
Then he was summoned back before his Queen and her Bishop.

But then they started asking questions.

“Did he remember the King and where he came from?”
and stuff about his past.
He remembered the King all right, but he was different now.
Though he looked the same age, he didn’t have his wings anymore – either that or he hid them pretty damn well.

He wasn’t the old King he remembered. The King he had served under was a happy King and rid the land of Warlords and greedy landlords who took advantage of and neglected their charges.
His King united his world.
The King still had the whole place under his control but these days seemed obsessed with building. Armies
He even saw that the King with the help of the University, had recruited a Mountain Titan into the army.
The General remembered losing a whole infantry of good men to rid these lands of that. Now it was a comrade.
Go figure.
The Queen and the Bishop tried to look like they weren’t surprised when he revealed what he knew about the King, but he could tell something was amiss.
Probably the worst part was he and all his Risen Heroes weren’t allowed to mix with anyone and were kept separate from the other army members except for special exercises or when the King or Queen wanted strategy information.
It was weird the Queen had sworn him on his professional oath not to reveal to his King that he had these memories and that he was privileged amongst all the Risen Heroes and then stick him under the King and his Bishop Angel’s noses on his flank.
Most times he just wished they had left him buried in the cold hard ground.



All things considered though he was comfortable in his own skin- No wrong term – bones- these days, everyone he knew was either dead or talked about battle strategy, but he still knew how to have a bit of fun as long as no one was watching.
He separated his skeleton army into equal teams and made them do berserker attack formations.
He nearly literally laughed his head off as the two sides smashed into each other and virtually exploded into a pile of bones and armour.
He loved watching them try and put themselves back together again.
He had to find fun where he could get it these days.

Game of Kings First Phase revisited

For the better part of the last three years, I, along with a great team of fellow bubblers have been working on a chess-themed collaborative project called the Game of Kings. Featuring a board populated by creatures as varied as the backgrounds and skills of the artists involved, the second phase (the battle/chess game itself) wrapped up recently (you can explore the whole story starting from here)

However, as anyone who has explored the various pieces of the board, read their bios, or the additional prelude pieces contained within the GoK profile would discover, there is a wealth of untapped material concerning the two opposing armies and the worlds they inhabited before their climactic struggle began.

So, proving yet again that they are two of the mightiest contributors (or most foolhardy ;o)), messrs Sturstein and Ausven took it upon themselves to start adapting some of the early prequel material. Starting today, you can read the fruit of their labours, beginning right HERE
Click on image for larger view.

THIS IS THE ORIGINAL STORY PIECE
The White Queen, Her Bishop and the University of the Gears.

The steps to leading up to the University doors were imposing, they’d even have an air of respect it weren’t for the dog turds everywhere.
The Queen’s Bishop was witnessing first hand one of his greatest triumphs and failures in one hit.
Having pioneered gene slicing and genetic engineering, as Dean of the University his most brilliant achievement had been to create his Lone Wolf battalion.
A genetic combination of human and wolf, years of trials had created the most fierce and loyal fighters outside of the King’s own personal guard.
The only problem was that no matter how he tried , even after giving the Werehounds the power of free will, speech, the ability to educate themselves and breed, the Bishop still couldn’t stop them from going to the toilet wherever it suited them.

The Bishop who was the military chief of the Werehounds was also responsible for their mess and the King’s Bishop was always there to remind him of the consequences of playing with God’s tools.
Angel’s were just so damn self-righteous.

The Queen’s Bishop never really trusted his companion Bishop but these things usually swung both ways.
Having the Queen’s ear and control of the university gave him huge influence and his work at the university had been responsible for the ultimate strengthening of the armed forces, something the King had prioritized many years ago. which had resulted in the Kingdom being the most powerful nation in the dimension.
The Bishop, along with the University of the Gears staff had created marvels and oddities using science and ancient crafts and majik that had his peers could only dream of achieving in several lifetimes.
The Steam City and the control of the Rock Titan ,
but it was the re-animation of the past heroes and Generals that had been the turning point of his career.
When the Bishop had rediscovered the secret of re-animation with the Necromancer tribes of the Western Plains, the King’s reaction had not been favourable. In fact it was so severe it had threatened the end of the university, especially after his companion Bishop decreed that laws of the known God had been broken and that abominations had been created. If it hadn’t been for his Queen’s intervention and her quick wits all would have been lost, and together they would never have found out the truth behind the King’s distress.
With the Queen’s persuasion the King had let the living dead remain in the service of the army on several conditions.
Firstly, that they remain under his flank, secondly that only their military memory be reanimated with their bones, and the final condition – that only those the King chose were to be raised from their tombs.
The Queen’s argument was that these past warriors would be invaluable in combat. Their experience and knowledge would be unsurpassed, which they went on to prove time and again. The King’s concern was that such figures of history would reveal what had taken him centuries to hide.
Of course, the ever insightful Queen with the help of her Bishop strayed beyond these commands and discovered from one of the ancient soldiers the truth of the King’s origins and filed it away for future use.
The Queen and her Bishop’s ultimate aim: to find out why their King was so determined to built such a vast unbeatable army, when he had already conquered everything that was defeatable in and beyond his known realm.