Curse

Sir Tificate · Jul 16, 2008, 05:29 PM // 17:29

(Decided I'd post this here as well as GWO)

I am going to tell you a story of a hero in the old times of Kryta, and the nefarious villain he slew. I'm sorry if I tend to go off on tangents; if I do, just say so, and I'll get back to the point at hand.

There once was a man who fought for justice. He called himself "Sir Justice," the great and mighty Paladin. Lord Arik stopped his thoughts there, choking on the word "Paladin." Even he had to stop and laugh at the word. Even he, old fashioned and malevolent as he was, was starting to scoff at the tired old term, and was using the common colloquialism. Sir Justice was not a Paladin, he was a Wammo, as people called them nowadays: another idiot who thought he was invincible and that he could take on the forces of evil all by his lonesome.

Lord Arik himself was a villain in every sense of the word. A master of Necromancy, he was the dark ruler of his small little province. Not that anyone paid much attention to him. There were plenty of dark rulers among the innumerable guilds that ruled Kryta in his day. But this new Wammo, Sir Justice, was going around from villain to vile villain, defeating his foes wth his "mighty" sword of brilliant flame (Lord Arik found flaming swords in bad taste, but that's unimportant.), and he would always enter their lair with his cliche'd call, "Justice Shall Prevail!" Not only cliche'd, but a bad pun to boot.

Now, Lord Arik, among other Necromancers, had always had to deal with such overzealous adventurers, many such Wammos, and some of more exotic varieties, but they had never truly been threatened by these wandering heroes. They tended to run in by themselves and encounter the entirety of the overlord's army at once, giving themselves an early grave, prepped and ready to be defiled by whatever kind of walking monstrosity the overlord felt like summoning on that day.

This "Sir Justice" shouldn't have been any different. He always seemed to run in, just like any other fool who wanted to challenge villainy, but he was somehow able to defeat the hoards of undead and dark mages employed in the typical overlord army. Whenever he looked like he was in peril, and the accursed spells started to destroy him, he would raise his sword, give his shout of "Justice Shall Prevail!" and he would be surrounded by a white light. Then he would drive on through with renewed force, cutting apart his foes with his blade 3 at a time or more.

Most disturbing to Lord Arik and other overlords was what happened when he finally encountered the ruler of the lair. He would, again, raise his sword and shout "Justice Shall Prevail!", emitting a glowing light over himself. At this point, no matter what deadly, malignant curse was used against the Wammo, it was useless. The dark magic seemed to simply break apart before it could take effect. Then the Wammo would bring down his sword and strike down the Necromancer (I'm just generalizing here; most dark overlords were Necromancers, but some were Mesmers, Elementalists, or whatever. I think there was even an evil Monk once, but I'm losing the story here, so...) with a single blow.

While the "single blow" part of the rumor may have been an exaggeration, whatever powerful magic Sir Justice used to protect himself from villain's powers was very much real. At least, Lord Arik had heard it repeated far too many times for him to just ignore it as superstition. This Wammo was a very real threat to his tyranny over his land. True, most everything not ruled with an iron fist was a threat to someone else's tyranny in Kryta, but this peculiar Sir Justice was proving his willingness to vanquish any villain without any serious planning or forewarning made him a unique one; guilds took a long time to mobilize, and you could see them coming from miles away.

Lord Arik had recently received a friendly notice from a colleague of dastardly deeds, saying that Sir Justice was smiting the nearby villains in their own lairs, so Lord Arik was very much on edge as he surveyed his troops. He had approximately 100 henchmen, split up among the 5 levels of his tower. It was a nice tower, and it fit Lord Arik's personality very well; it was dark and forboding, while still elegant and... sorry, I seem to have drifted off again.

Lord Arik had about 100 henchmen of varying forms, about 60 of which were undead minions, kept alive by the constant efforts of his other 40, who were varying forms of spellcasters, all learned in a bit of Necromancy to help keep the army from decomposing. The mages were all lined up for inspection, each wearing their dark robes with a small badge on it, implying they were from Lord Arik's Personal Army, or [LAPA], as the acronym on the badge stated.

"Gentlemen, as you have heard by now, we have a new threat to our rule as of late," began Lord Arik. "A Paladin..." Lord Arik stopped and chuckled. "A Wammo going by the name of Sir Justice has recently threatened regional guilds, but only those who tend to invoke tyrannical authority over their citizens. Needless to say, this includes us." He started pacing back and forth past them. "I need every one of you prepared for whatever attacks and spells he brings to bear upon us. You've heard by now of his corny one-liner, and the peculiar power it seems to have. But, he probably has other tricks up his sleeves, too."

"Sir, maybe we should set up traps for him?" piped in one spellcaster.

"No! Traps are utterly out of the question!" yelled Lord Arik. "Those are for ancient tombs; places where noone intends to live. I don't want to destroy this idiot hero only to be killed by one of our own untriggered flame geysers soon thereafter. No, we'll have to use conventional means. Bring all of your deadly hexes and curses to bear, and we will end this foolish Wammo's reign of non-terror here!"

The next day, everything was ready and in perfect condition. Lord Arik stood at the top of his tower, looking down over the side. As he had suspected, there was a lone man walking along the path to the tower, wearing fine-looking armor and carrying something that appeared to be on fire. Lord Arik ran over to the bell on top of the tower (which was obviously a recent addition to the tower; it wasn't ominous looking at all) and rang it as loudly as he could. The Hero Early Warning Bell, or "Hew Bell", was a good idea one of his subordinates had come up with before, but they had been too preoccupied to paint and... sorry again.

Lord Arik's subordinates were all at the ready, and the gates at the lower level opened up, spewing forth a rush of undead minions. Sir Justice raised his sword, casting some kind of spell. Lord Arik supposed it was the so-called "Mending" spell, a relatively useless spell that Wammos were famous for using. He then charged forth, swinging his sword wildly and easily "killing" all of the undead horrors that went against him.

Soon Sir Justice had entered the tower, and Lord Arik heard the Wammo's catchphrase, even from the roof of the tower. The sound of spells going off was truly marvelous, as about 20 different mages tried to destroy the Wammo at once. Once, Lord Arik had to jump out of the way suddenly, as a meteor landed directly where he had stood. After this was over, someone was going to receive a talking to about summoning meteorites indoors.

Well, one floor was clear and the next one started, and Sir Justice didn't seem to be slowing down. Lord Arik heard several sounds he didn't recognize; Sir Justice had some peculiar magic spells, it seemed. Lord Arik also heard several more "Justice Shall Prevail!"s and the cries of "No, that's impossible! What's going on!?" from voices he could recognize as those of his subordinates.

Eventually, the moment Lord Arik had been increasingly dreading came to pass. Sir Justice walked up the staircase and onto the roof, staring directly at Lord Arik. "This is the end of your tyranny!" he shouted, pointing his sword at Lord Arik. Lord Arik cringed as he saw the sword's utterly tasteless appearance. The hilt looked like a nauseous dragon's head, projectile vomiting twisted little blades, along with a steady stream of fire. How could he take someone who would carry around that stupid looking thing seriously? He reminded himself that this Wammo had just destroyed 100 some odd underlings of his.

Now Sir Justice brought up his sword above his head, and shouted his corny line again: "Justice Shall Prevail!" As he did, an eeire light appeared around him and enveloped the Wammo before Lord Arik's eyes. Now Lord Arik knew what he had to do. He had prepared for just this moment, and had spent the last days and nights preparing a new curse, one so powerful that not even Sir Justice's bad dialogue could stop. It would require a great sacrifice of blood, however, and Lord Arik drew out his ceremonial knife.

He ran it across his chest in an X shaped pattern. It hurt like Grenth's hands running along his ribs, but it was necessary, and Lord Arik felt the power of the Underworld flowing through him as he drew out all of his power. "Beware, foolish Wammo, for you now shall feel the wrath of the mightiest of hexes...." Lord Arik stopped. He had just realized that he hadn't actually come up with a name for it yet. "Evil Death Curse!" he finished, thinking quickly. The shadows of power flew from Lord Arik's outstretched hand and imbued into Sir Justice's body, and Lord Arik was pleased as the Wammo's face showed his unbearable agony.

But then, Sir Justice brought his sword back down, and the mysterious light around him pulsed for a second, and then suddenly vanished, taking the "Evil Death Curse" along with it. Lord Arik lost his will. He fell down onto his knees and stared in disbelief. "Wh...wha..." Lord Arik tried to say. "What happened? How did my you break my curse? How did you destroy my army!?"

Sir Justice started to explain. "The army was easy. My magic makes my weapons holy, destroying all of your undead, while the mages are only well versed in preserving undead minions, with the exception of a few curses." Lord Arik thought for a moment. Everything the Wammo had just said should have been so obvious.

Sir Justice continued. "As for the curse, that should have been the most apparent of all! For crying out loud, I told you exactly what I was doing: 'Justice shall pre-Veil!'" Then he ran the Necromancer through.

EDIT: So I did. V

Timotheos · Jul 16, 2008, 06:10 PM // 18:10

Hehe awesome story ^^, amusing =D.
Looks like there are smart wammos after all.

btw, you misspelt veil ;o

Chthon · Jul 16, 2008, 08:27 PM // 20:27

I was amused.