Where I've been

I had a feeling that this blog might fall into disuse every now and again, so here I am making sure it gets used to some degree.

Lately, I've been working my two jobs to save up money so I can get my own place in the area, working on my books when I have time to. So why do you ask am I bothering writing this? Because I'd like to think that someone, somewhere actually gives a small shit about what I write about. Now granted, I'm sure that people actually like the stuff in here, but it's hard for me to be sure about that when virtually no one bothers to acknowledge it without prodding. Maybe I shouldn't be so focused on recognition and just focus on my work and it will speak for itself, but how anyone know about what I'm doing unless I blow my own horn?

So without further ado, I present the Prologue to Xenoearth. Please read it and comment either on the blog itself or my facebook page where I'll be linking this blog.


Prologue
Gothic Shadows



How long has it been since he had known what it felt like to be alive? Sure, he had seen things that people only read about now, but now he merely wished for death. A death that would not come so long as this “thing” was engraved on the back of his left hand; something that he had known for ages. This rune was little more than a prison for his soul now, ready to add him to the collection already residing in it.
It’d have to wait until he met something that could kill him, or find a successor to his power. Now that was a thought. Who’d be fool enough to accept such a fate? Running the hand through his now white hair, he surveyed the overlying city from the darkness. Well, what parts he could make out from the Shadow Plane, the place where the vile vestiges of souls end up. Its influence is twisting, malignant, ready to warp you into a being of its will at a moment’s notice.
Thankfully, the rune gave him influence over all things of darkness, including this plane of existence; he could come and go as he pleased untainted by its desiccating touch. His companion was not so protected, however. A beautiful, scantily clad woman that didn’t look a day past twenty. Long auburn hair with eyes of a rich hazel, Lilith visibly shivered as they watched for something, anything.
“Why are we here?” she asked. You’d think she’d choose an outfit that was more comfortable. She wore a red and gold bra and panties with matching wrist and ankle braces and not a stitch more. “Can’t you feel it in the air?” he asked her, arching an eyebrow. “The ley lines are beginning to pulse again for the first time in about 500 years.”
December 21st, 2012. That was today’s date, a day that was prophesized by the Mayans to be a date of major change. Other religions claim it to be the end of all things, an apocalyptic event. He could sense the mana seeping through the soil as it worked its way up from the core of the world. Such a surge of mana could have many untold effects. There was something else with the mana. He studied the flows a bit longer and his heart skipped a beat. He was startled that it still beat at all after all these years. “There’s…shadow stuff weaved in with the mana!” he shouted. That was a mistake. He could feel the darkness starting to shift toward him, directing some sort of malevolent beast toward him. He could more than handle himself, but Lilith is a bit of a liability. He couldn’t put her at risk like that, so he grabbed her arm and shifted back into the Material Plane.
They shifted into an alleyway in some part of the place called New York City. It was a tad difficult to keep track of all the names of new cities that sprung up and seemed to die off just as quickly. Living, no, existing for eight hundred years will do that to a person. Yet even though they were back in the land of the living, that cold, dead feeling of the Shadow Plane lingered beneath his feet, it’s dark eldritch tendrils creeping from the earth trying to find suitable hosts for their power. He knew exactly what they sought out.
The crashing of windows and the screams of people were enough to alert him to the presence of something coming out of a city morgue. There were zombies of the recently departed ambling out of the morgue. A lot of them. He wondered how long it would take the police to respond to this, though he doubted their ability to deal with them. With a sigh, he reached underneath his long black coat and revealed a long staff. He spun it around in a circle in a practiced motion, and a long black blade of umbral energy sprang to life from one end. He would be the reaper of the undead this night.
“What are you doing, Goth?!” Lilith shrieked, “They’ll see us!” Goth, the name that Lilith gave to him because she saw some show on television of a man that dressed in a similar fashion. He had forgotten his real name a long time ago, so Goth would have to do. “Just doing a little street cleaning,” he replied off-handedly. It felt like eons since he had to use his scythe, but the time away from its grip had done nothing to mitigate his abilities.
One by one, Goth hewed his way through the group of undead, using the scythe like a farmer cutting wheat. The ichor coming from the wounds of the creatures was absolutely putrid, but acceptable in the face of sending the creatures back to where they belonged. The dead had no business walking around. Thinking about that, he laughed out loud, looking very much like a madman to the onlookers.
“Return from whence you came, stuff of the shadows!” Goth called out dramatically as he weaved a blanket of darkness to envelop each of the now still corpses, corpses brought back with magic and the victims of the zombies. The bodies were swallowed by the darkness and pulled into the Shadow Plane, where they couldn’t be used again. Sending them there would fully corrupt their empty vessels however, eventually turning them into something far more foul. He could only hope that no other being knew of how to weave shadows, and yet he did, for that one person would be his successor to this accursed rune.
Though this group of zombies was defeated, more screams and explosions could be heard in the distance. More living dead were rising from their graves and morgues to gorge upon the living. This was going to be a long night. “Come Lilith,” he called with a smile splitting his face. “Let us bring peace to the living dead.” Lilith sparked flames in her hands, preparing to incinerate anything in her path. Her skills with the arcane were very strong, the strongest he had seen in well over five hundred years. The girl was a complete mystery. An orphan residing in Massachusetts during the nineteenth century, she was going to be strung up during the Salem Witch Trials for accidentally setting fire to a church when a priest tried to molest her. Her connection to the Æther must‘ve extended her lifespan somehow, though Goth was no expert on magic.
A conflagration engulfed a group of zombies as they stumbled around in a daze, the acrid smell of burning flesh in the air. Her powers were much stronger now. She’d only be able to conjure up half of that before with strain, now she did it without a bead of sweat forming on her body. With this much mana free-flowing around them, it made Goth wonder what else could happen. He could only hope this spike in the ley lines was merely temporary, the world was not ready for magic to make its triumphant return just yet. Still, the increased amount of the stuff would let them move from spot to spot in the city to destroy any undead they could find.
The air grew cold fast and a light snow started to fall. It was the first snow of the season, and it could very well be the last this world ever knew at this rate. Lilith made a quick gesture and was garbed in fuzzy red winter clothes with gold trim. She never did like the snow, though he’d seen her walk around stark naked in colder temperatures than this. Zombies along with skeletons ambled toward the two of them, thankfully now ignoring the masses of people fleeing for their lives.
A smirk crept upon Goth’s face as he swiped with his scythe to destroy a few more of the abominations. The rest of the night continued in this fashion, though the snow only seemed to get worse and worse, the ley lines still raging with power. There was nothing Goth could do about undead in other parts of the world if there were more of them. All he could do now was creep back in the shadows to rest his body. Being immortal didn’t protect him from exhaustion.