The Escape of Mutar-oct

I hope you enjoyed the fourth wall, you're going to miss it.

The tremors shook the ground again, as if the giants of creation were pounding their primordial drum. All around Mutar, pieces of the ancient fortress began to crack and fall, one of them landing on his head backpack, sending him sprawling. The blow would have been fatal, but Mutar reached back into the story and diverted the path of the debris. He looked around to see his possessions scattered throughout the room, including Morde, who was just beginning to pull himself up from the ground. Mutar grabbed a few of his belongings before walking over the the warlock, who climbed back onto his shoulder. Mutar tried to read ahead in the story, looking for danger, but it grew increasingly difficult, the story loosing cohesiveness even as he tried to bring his eyes back to where they belonged. The half-giant had always found it easy to play with the words that no one else seemed to be able to see, but as he quested across Ogmar in search of a Servitude it had grow increasingly difficult for him to even see the letters that made up fate.

Ahead was a stair that he quickly climbed, emerging out onto a battlement, from which he could have seen for miles, were there anything left. Overhead the clouds rang of thunder and the gods struck at each other with flurries of lighting, often missing and striking the remains of the world below. Off in the distance was only an endless void, the ground crumbling away into nothing as the lack of direction swept across the world, reducing it to nothing.

"Morde? I don't know what that is, it scares me." Mutar had to yell over the thunder, even though Morde was sitting on his shoulder.

The warlock's replay was equally as loud, " I don't know either, but I would imagine that this is what the end of a world looks like."

Mutar could only stand quietly as despair settled over him like a heavy blanket. He stopped, pondering it, and deciding it was useful, rolled it up and tucked it under one arm, instantly feeling hopeful again. Mutar didn't want to die, so he would have to escape . . . perhaps the Servitude could help.

He took off running, Morde nearly flying from his shoulder as he bounded up another staircase. This one led to the top of the fortress, at which sat a door recessed into ancient stonework. Mutar ran through it, the ancient wood splintering around his hard skin as he burst into the room beyond.

Inside was a massive kitchen with a larger center table at which stood a man in white robes. He was bent over a small pastry, coating it with an emerald-green icing that glowed with an other-worldly light. He put his spatula down and glanced over at Mutar.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" He raised his hands, which began to glow. The half-giant was too fast, however, tossing the blanket of despair at the sorcerer. As it sailed through the air, the man let loose a bolt of lighting, but it did little to the metaphoric concept. It wrapped around him and he lowered to the floor, crying under the weight of despair.

Mutar looked down at the pastry, then back to Morde. "This is it, this is the Servitude I have been searching for the . . . " The floor beneath him shook as one of the walls collapsed, revealing the thunderstorm outside.

He bent and picked up the pastry, which felt surprisingly heavy for being made of dough. It glistened in the full light, the swirls of frosting coating it containing galaxies, the elegant puff of the dough shapely and full of life, the crunchy exterior . . . Mutar grew tired of the description and broke it in half. Handing a piece to Morde, he smiled and ate the entire thing.

Instantly, Mutar filled with energy, able to see the words clearly once again. and Morde vanished, escaping into a plot hole while the universe of Another Quest collapsed behind them.

Once again free, Morde went back and changed the fate of the words on the page.

Morde found, as one can only find out through experience, that there is no hole deeper than a plot hole. Down and down he tumbled, falling between worlds, and words. Not just worlds, but realities. All around him infinite blackness spun as he fell, pull him this way and that. He cried out as his staff was ripped from his hand, but he could hear no sound. He fancied that someone, somewhere in one of the many realms he had passed might have heard his cry and known terror at his furious passing.

For eons, he tumbled before finally stars began to prick their way through the darkness of the forevernight. Ahead of him, he saw a great, leviathan thing of metal and craftwork. It was so vast that Morde could barely comprehend it as it hung in space above a planet. High in space above the world, he could see words, great and bold: “Iron Souls.”

He marveled at it for just a moment before slamming into the side of the ship.

It took Mark a while to make his way into the infirmary, the personnel were a little on edge after what had happened and the security had been tightened recently. Using his ability to read his surroundings, Mark progressed deep inside the facility undetected, making his way to the ward for the heavily injured. There he found her.

Annastasia was trussed up and sedated, her condition stabilized in the time it had taken him to arrive. He walked up to her prone form and leaned over the chest-high cot. She lay upon the white sheets, breathing softly, the bright light of the fluorescents overhead making her appear even more pale than she actually was. He looked down at her soft face, feeling a moment of longing, before his thirst for knowledge flooded everything from his mind. He reached out, placing his hands on each side of her head as the ground shook beneath his feet. He stopped for a moment.

"There shouldn't be any earthquakes here . . . "

Then an incredibly large man fell through the ceiling, smashing into the floor next to him.

Mutar had fallen for a long time. He pondered his actions, beginning to think that perhaps plot holes were not the best way to escape the apocalypse. He was shrouded in a veil of darkness that persisted even in his attempts to peel it away from himself.










He tried to read around himself, but there was only darkness on the page.











He became scared. His life had always been directed by the words, even if he had manipulated them from time to time. Now that they were gone, he had no direction, no purpose, only the dark blackness that was the result of his stupidity. Mutar began to wonder if he was dead, and if this was hell. Once again a cloak of despair settled over him, and once again he pulled it off and rolled it up, stowing it in his bag. He noticed some text off in the distance, text that read "Engineering." Urging himself towards it, he missed his destination, plummeting into the thick of what remained of the plot. For he realized as he entered, this was another story that was without a writer.

Mark picked himself up from where the impact had cast him, looking over at the giant . . . with wings?

He was incredibly confused as he walked over to it. Something, perhaps his Engine ability, told him that this being was not from this world. As it stirred, he backed up.

Mutar lay there for a moment before righting himself, a spike of pain shooting through his leg. Reaching down, he removed it and let it clatter to the floor like so much metal. Feeling better he studied his surroundings. He felt a rift close behind him as he became one with the story.

Mark was aghast as the giant pulled a glowing red metal rod a meter in length from its leg before letting it fall to the floor. It sat there like some kind of metaphor for pain. It was then that Mark was able to read the creatures name, and realized that something had gone horribly wrong.

Morde yelled out into the void of space in pain and fury. Or more accurately, the ragged blob of annihilated flesh smeared along the outside of the venerable ship released a few pockets of air. Slowly, it shifted, coalescing into a single increasingly defined blob. And then figure. Soon, it was truly screaming, as the latent magical energy woven into Morde’s being pulled him back together.

Space was stagnant around him. The sun shone with no heat upon his face, yet there was no cold aligning itself with the infinite, deep dark. Something was wrong. Wrong not in the destructive, ruined sense that Morde was so fond of. No, it was wrong in the warped, unsettling kind of way that made his inner psychotic self twinge. He may be a destructive madman with illusions of grandeur, but he even he had certain gentlemanly sensibilities. It must be corrected, he decided.

He cracked his knuckles, their sound reaching his ears. More wrongness in space, he shook his head. He placed his palms against the non-temperature-feeling metal of the ship and began to chant. The words rushed out of him, alien and inhuman, seeping into the world around him. They resonated back to him, dull and cold. The magic was dull here, almost strangled. Still, it yielded to his commands, and the metal parted around him like quicksilver. A moment later, he had dropped onto the decking of the ship.

With the impact, something in him opened up. Words flew through him, telling him of the world and its shape. He stood stunned for a moment, until they had run their course. At some point, they suddenly stopped, leaving a lingering feeling of disgust and pain on the world around him. He waited, quiet for a long time, listening to something that was a faint buzz at the edge of his hearing, the last angry cry of a stagnated world.

After a moment, he recognized it. A name. The world had whispered:

John.

It had been useless, Mutar realized as the world fell about him once more. He had attempted to save the storyline of The Engine, only to fail. He stood next to an Engine Device inside of a crumbling military facility, Mark laying on the floor in front of him, blood slowly leaking out.

The next bullet hit its target, tearing through Mutar passed to Mutar's left, and he went back and diverted it away. With a quick slice, he struck down the gunman with one of his swords before turning back to the device.

It was a large metal cage that spun slowly, a walkway leading to the top of it where an occupant would enter. Projector arrays were arranged all around the base of the cylindrical tower, each prepared to emit the proper frequency to begin the reaction. Designed to inject energy into the subject, it was arcing with electricity even in it's low powered state. The ground shook again, the weight of his failures crashing on to Mutar's shoulders. He shrugged it off, where it left a crater in the cement floor behind him.

He would have to be stronger. This would be the last time he failed.

He pulled a lever, activating the device.

He made his way up to the entrance.

He dove inside and VANISHED.

Morde wandered the ship. Many of the glow orbs had ceased to function due to the lack of maintenance. Others were so caked with dust that they only produced a dull glow. He realized that his staff was still in the realm he had left behind. This would have been a severe limitation, had he not learned to use the words. He altered the text around him, a moment later an ancient and gnarled staff of metal appeared in his hands, and each step began to be punctuated by its metallic strike.

He had to find the root of whatever had doomed this world to its fate. As he continued to wander, however, he realized just how massive this ship was. He tempted fate with circular texts and edited them to bring him to his next clue. The world around him shifted and blurred for a moment before it resolved into the personal study of Zariah, who stood, autoquill in hand and covered with dust, at his desk. With a creak the Librarian Epistolary turned up his helmet to observe Morde. "He's coming," was all he rumbled, the depth of his voice making Morde's teeth itch.

"Who is coming, fool?" escaped Morde's mouth without a thought. For him the state of condescension was a natural one.

In a man such as Morde, impatience was practically a virtue. He reached into the words, not caring who He was or that he was coming, simply that he need be destroyed.The change was simple. He was not 'coming,' but rather, he was already 'here.'

A massive reverberation rung out across the ship, immediately accompanied by the sound of rending metal. Morde immediately began running toward the sound, and the thump of ceramite-shod boots behind him indicated the Zariah was following. It was not long before they found it. The disturbance had come from the mid-section of the ship, in the midst of the giant training hall that served as the major location of combat preparation for the Iron Souls chapter of space marines. Morde was not prepared for what he saw there. Another ship had crashed through the roof of the training area, its prow ornamented with crudely worked ornamentations of eagles and thunderbolts. "Who is this?" Morde muttered to himself.

Zariah had already made his way to Morde's side. He answered in a forced tone, "The God-Emperor of Mankind." Slowly the front of the invading ship began to iris open like the petals of a flower. The racket was enormous, as though the machine was thrown together and the part not properly machined for so coordinated a movement. With the most heinous sound of all, the flower finished opening, its petals landing in such a warped position that there was no way in the Warp that it would ever close again. Without preamble a massive figure fell from the center of the flower, like the monstrous birth of a seed. With an awful clamor the figure struck the ground, sprawled in a heap. A moment later, it began to rise, it's armor a garish yellow and bearing the same crudely made symbols as the ship. Even from a distance, Morde could tell that the figure stood several heads taller than even Zariah.

"Well," Morde started, putting the end of his staff to the ground, "let's go greet your God-Emperor."

In a few moments, they had reached the figure, though they wished they had not. It's face was the swollen parody of one that should be handsome, glorious even, and each eye never focused on the same target as the other for longer than a moment. A name swam up to Morde's consciousness: The Derp-Emperor. Morde began to smile at the thought before the thing before him roared in fury, drawing its sword. It glowed with disruptive, discolored power. "Perfect," Morde muttered as his face split into a wicked grin.

His hands twisted into arcane formations, the sluggish power of this world flowing about them. The Derp-Emperor began to lurch forward, only to be greeted by an enormous blast of lightning. It stumbled back, smoke rising from its otherwise unscared carapace. One eye focused on Morde. "Hmm, that usually works-" he had time to say to himself before he was sent flying by the flat of the Derp-Emperor's sword. He slid to a stop a Zariah's feet with a groan. He looked up at the Librarian. "Well, aren't you going to do something about this sick parody of your God?"

For a moment, Zariah simply stood there, dust still clinging to his armor. He looked at the Derp-Emperor, at his ship, and at the Emperor again. Disgust began to boil in his stomach, followed by a burning hatred. The psychic hood around his helm began to glow a fierce electric blue, and the eyes of his helm began to glow brightly. He reached over his shoudler, slowly drawing his forcesword. It left its sheath with a creak, as though it had not left it in centuries. After a moment, the sword's edge flowed with spectral fire. In a sudden burst of pent-up energy he barked, "To me, my battle-brothers! Down with this embodyment of folly!" In the same instant psychic power burst off of him in all directions as he charged the Derp-Emperor, casting the dust from his armor and revealing its ancient, dark luster. The Derp-Emperor roared in challenge and came forward to meet the charge.

The two met with almost explosive force, Zariah's might colliding with the disruptive aura projected by the Parody-God. When Morde could see again, his eyes could barely follow the insane melee him. Zariah's blade moved with blinding speed, blocking, delivering ripostes, and purposefully striking several times a second with supreme skill. The Derp-Emperor kept up, however, its hand guided by a preternatural skill and elegance that the rest of its body did not match. As Morde watched, the Emperor brought down a massive over handed blow on Zariah, the force of which, while caught on Zariah's blade, drove him to the ground. Suddenly, a continuous roll of thunder called out as a wave high caliber explosive bolts flew into the Derp Emperor's back. It stumbled forward just as Zariah released a massive blast of psychic energy, causing the Derp-Emperor to stumble back and fall. Seizing the initiative, Zariah launched himself onto the Emperor's chest, trying to plunge his sword into the Emperor's chest. It could not even scratch the obscene plate. As he brought his blade up to the Emperor's face, a coruscating field of energy bloomed around it, launching Zariah off.

In a moment, the Emperor was on his feet. With a sick slowness, he raised his hand towards the Devastator Marine in the distance that had fired the hail of bolter shots. Suddenly, the marine found himself floating in the air, and the next moment he sped like bullet at the Emperor- right onto the blade of his sword. As the marine slid from the blade, the sheen faded from his armor, and by the time he fell from the tip of the blade, he had crumbled to dust.

Zariah stood again, looking back at Morde, a solemnity in his voice. "We will die fighting this monstrosity." As he spoke, more shots rang out as other marines took to fighting the affront to their god.

Morde didn't hear Zariah. He had already begun sifting the words. There was nothing in this tale that would aid them. However, he sensed that this was just a single story in a larger one. He opened his mind a little more.

He cried out as his mind was filled with the texts of an entire universe. Ten thousand years of strife, warfare, corruption, purification, and damnation. He understood. The Heresy. He had to bring the story back into balance with the greater one. He began looking through the Emperor, and his fall. Morde began to speak, "Only one thing in this world has pierced the armor of your Emperor in the past. The Talon of Horus. We'll need it to pierce it again."

The Librarian turned to Morde. "That unholy artifact has been wielded by Abaddon for the past ten thousand years; there is no chance of attaining it."

Morde look sideways at Zariah. "You've never met a wizard, have you? Nothing is beyond my grasp." And, he thought, this story can't get any worse. He reached into the texts, drawing Abaddon himself from the Eye of Chaos.

Screaming from the warp, a huge figure in terminator armor flew into the center of the battlefield, his armor black and lined in gold in the manner of the Black Legion. On one hand he bore a massive set of Lightning Claws. "WHAT?! FOOLS, I WILL REND-"

"Shah! Shah! That's my line, Little Horus," interrupted Morde. "Look, a test from the Chaos Gods to have you prove your, as yet lacking, worth. A chance to defeat the Emperor, like the previous champion of Chaos United."

Abbadon's corpse-face shifted into a simile of a grin. In an instant, he had launched himself at the Derp Emperor, and in the next, Zariah and Morde joined him. In great arcing slashes, Abaddon worked at the Emperor's defenses while Zariah and Morde began gathering their strength. In concert Zariah and Morde let loose their power, Zariah in a vicious arc of pure warp energy and Morde in a terrific blast of arcane power. The force of the blasts knocked the Emperor back and to his knees. With a look of vicious glee, Abaddon rammed the Talon of Horus up and through the Derp-Emperor's chest plate with such force that it carried him up and over Abaddon's shoulder before coming off the Talon and hitting the ground. Immediately, Morde felt the world change as it began to heal. Abaddon was walking about with his arms up, yelling out at his gods in victory. Zariah, his movements sluggish with exertion made his way to Morde. "What happens now?" He asked.

Morde turned to him. "The healing." He pointed at the corpse of the Derp-Emperor. It began to turn in on itself, collapsing into a point of radiant light. In a moment, it began to expand, drawing everything around it into it. As Zariah watched, the unobservant Abaddon was drawn into it, still yelling at his gods.

"It will restart the story. It will run as another thread in the greater one, unsullied, and beyond the reach of those that would cause this again." Morde looked at Zariah. "Unfortunately you won't remember the passing of one so mighty as Morde."

The rift continued to grow, sucking the very wind into it. Soon it became a roaring gale, forcing Morde and Zariah to fight for their footing. “So long, Epistolary,” yelled Morde out over the cacophonous winds. His hands began to work as he pulled himself out of this world before its restart sent him into oblivion. The world shifted becoming the void between worlds. Just as he severed the connection, an armored hand came into his vision and gripped his staff. “No, you fool!” he began to shout, only to have them both send tumbling into infinity.