Marlowe (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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bakerstreet2016-10-10 03:59 pm
marlowe_tops) wrote in bakerstreet2016-10-10 03:59 pm
Sandal Punk AU
Sandal Punk AU
Icarus flew.
There are many myths of the wonders of Greece, Rome, and Egypt. Seven wonders, and tales of labyrinths and clockworks. Long-lost treasures in mausoleums filled with ingenious traps. The inventions of Daedalus and Archimedes, of myth and history, of the architectural wonders of Rome, the lost marvels of Atlantis.
Sandal punk is a subgenre of science fiction that takes the scientific and technological wonders of the ancient world and expands upon them. As steampunk has its clockwork computers and airships, so sandal punk has the wings of Icarus and the giant robot colossus of Rhodes. Perhaps the gods are real—perhaps they’re merely technologically advanced aliens or superhumans, in a science fiction past-future.
A. Adventurers in a Sandal Punk World - You’re an inventor, an explorer, a mathematician, a scientist, or perhaps Icarus here to sign up for the experiment and try on a pair of wings. Challenge the gods or simply explore the boundaries of science.
B. Sandal Tech Dystopia - The gods and kings of the world maintain their power by keeping the wonders of technology—call it magic—under the strict control of the elite. Question that control or abuse your power as a god.
C. The Dark Underbelly - Sandal goth, where the monsters of legend are real, magic and technology are blended, and the world is a dark, beautiful, and corrupt place, where all important plot points take place at night. Perhaps you are a monster—chimaera, lamia, medusa—yourself, with a lair filled with magical and wondrous traps.
D. Myth and present - Centaurs with cell phones, minotaurs on social media, gods reborn. The legends of the ancient world are now real in our world, and Aphrodite’s got a craving for a pumpkin spice latte.
E. Archaeologists of the past - Somebody call a librarian, because there are mummies on the loose! Re-discover Atlantis, time-travel to Ancient Rome, fight Sumerian deities, and desecrate some priceless archaeological site in the name of saving the world.
How to Play
- Pick a prompt or two and specify what role your character would have within that prompt.
- Tag around and have fun!
Griffith | Berserk | M/M
C. 100% here for anything dark, beautiful and corrupt in a Sandal Goth world. Also down for Griffith either being a monster (probably a harpy style monster) or encountering one.]
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Happy to start off and work the plot! ]
Madelyne Pryor | X-Men Comics | OTA
Laurent of Vere ; Captive Prince ; M/M
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And don't worry about being canon-blind! I'll make sure to write mindfully of that. Are you okay with some darker/horror magical elements, or should I be a light touch? ]
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Laurent noticed them now. They were outlined in their own pooling blood, silent corpses, obscuring the beautifully-tiled floor of the grand and high-ceilinged vestibulum. The attacker was clad head-to-foot in foreign armor, and had been swift and strong enough to make short work of Laurent's personal guards... and then those who'd come again after the alarm had been raised. That alone would have been alarming, would have been terrifying...
But the man was impaled by the broken haft of a spear that had once been in the hands of a loyal man Laurent had just watched the attacker butcher, and seemed utterly unaffected. No blood flowed from either end of the wound, and rather than wrench the offending object out of himself, rather than even grunt in pain, he lifted his gauntleted hand and sword to point Laurent out.
"Have you a prince's blood?"
The voice was young-- no older than Laurent himself, surely-- and echoed strangely in the metal confines of the helm.
"Are you the Prince of Vere?"
The words were foreign-accented, clumsy with the speech, but implacable and steely in their insistence.
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His limbs felt numb with terror, but he picked up a bloody, discarded sword and held it in a skilled grip.
He didn't have any idea what this was. An act of war? An assassination? Or, simply an attack from whatever horror this was in front of him.
Where is Auguste? I want him to save me. I want him to stay far, far away.
Was he the Prince of Vere? Yes. But he wasn't the only one. He had an older brother still living, and a father. He was the prince. He wasn't the heir.
"Yes," Laurent said, drawing himself up and keeping the sword extended, ready to die so that his brother might live. "I am."
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The thought strung through Gaultier's trembling mind and he seized at it like a hot-blooded horse seizing the bit. With so many fresh deaths at his back, he could feel his body wasting beneath his armor, feel his sense of the world sleeping... and he didn't dare linger long enough to partake of the grisly sacrament on which he must subside to keep his mind sharp in its withering prison.
"Lead me to your stables," He commanded, striding forward, careless of the sword in the hand of the slimmer man. Without sorcery or greater strength behind it, it was no deterrent to him; and with a flick of his wrist, he used his own sword's edge to lightly bat the prince's weapon so that it pointed away.
"Struggle at your peril, Princeling; no threat, no violence, no horror, no distance- even should it take me to the farthest corners of the world- will keep me from my dread purpose. Delay me long and I will burn out your eyes as just recompense for what these minutes cost me."
He said it more boldly than he felt, and his stomach twisted. Forgive me, forgive me. These circumstances make me a man different than I would be otherwise. Forgive me.
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He could fight, he could use all his skill to stall and hope for rescue. Or he could sacrifice himself in hopes that Auguste would stay safe.
Laurent let the sword fall. It didn't matter if the monstrous night thought he was a coward. Auguste would be safe. Vere would go on. "What purpose?" he asked, though he indicated the way to the stables.
Spine straight despite his fear, Laurent watched the stranger, desperate for any information that would let him master the situation.
A column of guards approached, but Laurent had already seen the unnatural strength that had dispatched the first two columns of guards. He held out a hand to command them to remain at bay as he took the monster to the stables.
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The words rang in Gaultier's skull with the sound of the sword dropping to the tiles, and behind the visor his thin lips twisted into a humorless and self-loathing smile. He bowed his head... and then turned in the direction the other man had motioned. One gauntleted hand settled on the broken haft of the spear which had pierced him, body and armor, and began to push it through himself 'til it fell with a hollow-sounding clatter.
"To kill you by sorcerous means, and thereby lift a great curse upon the lands of Lothric," he said it quickly, biting out each sharp syllable with courtly care to ensure that he was well-understood even in that foreign tongue... but with martial efficiency. Having glimpsed the column of guards who'd come to the sound of the fray, as they turned a corner through the grand open doors and into the sunlight, he reached to pull an unbroken spear from a body on the ground. Strong enough that the effort didn't delay his stride as he followed unarmored Laurent, he added,
"Royal blood to wet the kiln of the First Flame, and noble bones to burn. Take heart that your death will serve a noble purpose. Aid me to my Firekeeper, and I will see it kindly done."
When the shape and sound of stables became apparent, he hastened his walk, inwardly worrying at how he would make a living mount tolerate him to ride it.
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The fate sounded awful. Laurent intended to see to it that it did not come to pass. If mortal weapons were no use against this monster, he'd find some other way. No other lives would be fruitlessly wasted by casting themselves at the dread knight.
An arrow shot toward them, clattering off the knight's armor. A near miss. The hairs rose on Laurent's neck.
"Hold," he called, voice reverberating with command. No one else would die today. Not on his watch. Not when he'd already quite clearly seen that the creature beside him would not die.
"I don't know the lands of Lothric," he said to the knight, almost conversational. "Is it far from here, or is it called now by a different name?"
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"Hold!" Called the unnamed prince. Muscle-memory held Gaultier fast, a fitful wind catching on the scored-and-slashed tatters of his tabard. Like a nervy destrier held back in the tense moments before the charge, he held still, the moment stretching briefly overlong before he gave his helmed head a slow shake and resumed their course toward the stable. His gauntleted hand clenched around the spear it held, so hard the wood creaked.
"To your horse," he snapped, by way of answer. "Lothric lays beyond the Wall of the World, the black peaks which touch the shore where the Ellosean sea is ended in the West."
They fell under the shadow of the arched entryway into the warmly-lit stables, in time to a great and distant roar, like the far rumbling of volcanic activity. Gaultier's voice rose again, muffled by his helm, and he used the staff of the spear he carried to slap the backs of Laurent's legs as he moved, clearly urging him to still greater haste.
"Saddle the largest, and swiftly! They have woken the Bulls of Colchis." Towering bronze beasts of clockwork and stranger stuff, the metal defenders of the city were well-known to be impossibly implacable to any task they were set. As good as an army; and perhaps far more effective than a single deathless knight.
Expecting that Laurent would listen, Gaultier turned to his own self-assigned task, snatching up a woven-rope lead.
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Laurent noticed. He was pretty sure that half the guards watching had noticed that, too. The dread knight, whoever he was, responded instinctively to command. Laurent could and would use that, in a pinch. His command had been to his guards, the ones truly under his sway, but the knight had hesitated. The knight had obeyed.
Laurent saddled his horse quickly. He knew his way around the stables, knew his tack, knew his horse. He always saddled his own horse, after the incident with a tack laid under his horse's saddle. He wouldn't allow that to happen again.
It was in his interests to move quickly. He wanted to be gone before Auguste realized what he was doing. Royal blood. So the knight didn't need his brother after all. He wanted to ask, couldn't you find a prince within a stone's throw of your Wall of the World?, but it wasn't the time for sass. Even if the knight wasn't here for Auguste, he would kill more in order to secure his royal blood. Laurent could deal better with this on his own.
"That one," Laurent pointed, while he saddled his own horse. "He's got the training and endurance to deal with your plate armor."
They just needed to get clear of here. Clear of anyone else who might get involved, and hurt.
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The horse kicked and stamped, its good nature evaporating, and in the end Gaultier couldn't even manage to saddle it properly; just hastily tie on a training saddlepad with stirrups looped too high. He brought the second horse out with the first, tied the lead to one of the useless stirrups, and assessed Laurent's visibly better progress.
His posture was more than enough to communicate his frustration. "Up, Prince! To lose the bulls, we take the road North, and into the wilds. You will lead and I will come behind--" He reached for the spear he'd left leaning on a great, finely-ornamented timber supporting the roof of the stable, "And should you err away from the course I put you on, make no mistake. I will kill you."
So saying, with a proficient horseman's ease, he swung up onto the negligible comfort of the makeshift saddle, and used the spear to point the way forth for his captive.
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Mounting smoothly onto his own horse, Laurent glanced back. The guards were watching them, stiff with doubt and nerves. Auguste wasn't visible, though surely someone must have run for him. There wasn't any time. Laurent put heels to his horse and rode forth.
As they moved out through the side gate, Laurent searched his mind for what he could do. Any attack would risk more men and possibly himself, which would be utterly useless if he was the only person in danger in the first place.
His heart ached with futility, hating this strange fate.
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Like thunder, they rolled past pedestrian-thronged main streets and deserted side roads, leaving others to jerk out of the way or be shouldered aside by their mounts. Past villas and open-air markets and cramped, crumbling ghettos, diverting their main path whenever it came too close to a tall tower of the city watch. And after long minutes of hard riding, they came at last to the street which led through the northernmost city gates, flanked with stone and bronze statues long ago risen to honor heroes and leaders of ages past. The noise of their passage echoed loud to their own ears, and the guards at the gate stirred themselves too late to block their passage.
Twisting the spear in his hand as they galloped past farmers and other travelers heading into the city, Gaultier scored the flanks of bulls for slaughter and beasts of burden to assure that havoc rose in their wake. Even after a hard hour, when they had left most evidence of the gate and walls behind, with their mounts foaming and sweat-lathered, he pushed them both on, using the butt of the spear like a crop on Laurent's horse.
Into the woods, onto pilgrim-paths and then game trails, making it quite clear that he meant to run their horses to death, he drove them, unspeaking even when addressed, utterly implacable. The sun dipped below the horizon, the stars rose, and the hours wore on and on and the low-rolling plains became steeper and densely forested foothills. The knight didn't stop, not 'till exhaustion and hunger had worn so much on the Prince that he was falling asleep in the saddle, and the wan colors of dawn were touching the horizon like delicate fingers.
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He loathed the dread knight for his cruelty, how he harmed animals to ensure a clear passage for them and pushed the horses well past the point of exhaustion.
They had slipped their pursuit, it seemed, which was both relief and frustration. Laurent was alone now, with the creature. He felt fear and exhaustion, but refused to show it. If he was going to die, then his fear and exhaustion mattered little. He'd lived a soft life. A little privation was only fair. Shoulders straight, Laurent made no complaint and allowed himself to show no weakness.
Cupid | Hercules: TLJ & Xena: WP
Rider | Fate/zero
Leatherhead | TMNT IDW
The Dragonborn | Skyrim | OTA
D. Cupid/Eros, can come in 'reborn' or 'actual god' varieties.
Also open to C and E.]