My Short Story/Arcanum Fanfic

[Derfud]

I wrote a short story for my english class that takes place in the world of Arcanum since I suck at making my own characters or settings.

It's entitled "The Last Resistance"

Suggestions and corrections are welcome.


Every morning at 5 am Thomas would wake up and make breakfast for himself, then get ready to bring his vegetables into town to sell at the market. Today was no different. The rude intrusion of the newly purchased alarm clock woke Thomas from his comfortable slumber, the clock he had was one of the marvels recently created by technology, but you could find them almost everywhere. As Thomas got out of bed, and dressed himself, he wondered how those silly mages managed to get up on time, without an audible intrusion, it was near impossible for Thomas to awaken himself. Thomas walked into his kitchen, and took some eggs out of the icebox, then lit the stove, and cooked the eggs for his breakfast. Once he was finished his breakfast, Thomas proceeded outside to load his packed eggs onto the cart, so he could bring them to town. He noticed something eerie this morning though, something in the air did just not feel right, but now that he though of it, nothing had felt right ever since that neighbor of his had recently moved in. An old fellow, a bit loony Thomas thought, but that is the way with most of the magick folk these days. Even trying to practice a simple spell is difficult in this world being now dominated by technology.

By the time Thomas had arrived in town with all his goods, the market was already thriving with activity. The usual bourgeoisie were roaming the streets, showing off their riches to the less fortunate citizens of Shrouded Hills, a small Mining towns near the stonewall range. The town had grown quite a bit ever since the reincarnation of Nasrudin passed through here, it was some kind of prophecy to do with the Panarii religion, Thomas did not take interest in such things. Old constable Owens had enlarged the force quite a bit, and the first bank of Shrouded Hills had guards around the clock. Thomas began to set up his goods, carefully placing his vegetables, and eggs on the cart-turned-table, when an old figure approached, It was Doc Roberts, he had been the town physician many years ago, and was also an expert firearms handler. When Thomas was younger, he had been quite sickly, and made many trips to visit the Doc. With the amount of time he had spent there the Doc took a liking to the young fellow, and had given him considerable training using an old flintlock pistol he kept around. The doc, smiling, said tiredly �Hello Thomas, lovely day, isn�t it? I need about a dozen eggs for the week.� �Certainly, Doc Roberts� Thomas replied. �Say you haven�t noticed any strange happenings lately, ever since your new neighbor moved in, have you?� The doc inquired �Yes, I thought it was just me who was feeling that way about him.� Thomas replied, Roberts continued �I had an eerie feeling, some people say he�s a necromancer, some think he could even be the nefarious Kerghan, but I doubt that, he was destroyed by the Nasrudin a couple of decades ago, wiped from existence, they say.� �Is that even possible?� Asked Thomas, �Oh, yes indeed, ever since those ancient Vendigroth�s made that device, the �Vendigroth Device�, they called it.� Roberts took a deep breath, then continued �Well anyway, I think I might know who that old fellow next door to you is, I think he might be a necromancer over from Ashbury, by the name of Geoffrey Tarellond-Ashe. He was often seen hanging around the graveyard over there, I guess he finally decided to settle down somewhere.� Thomas seemed surprised �A necromancer, living right next door to me! I never would have guessed, I knew the whole time he was a magick user, but necromancer? I don�t like this one bit.� �Neither do I Thomas, I say you should be prepared for anything coming from a necromancer, here, take my old Clarington rifle, just in case anything happens.� Roberts replied, Thomas thanked him, as he left, then, looking at his pocket watch, realized he needed to get back to the farm, and the market was shutting down. He packed up all his goods, and slipped the Clarington, the doc had given him into his backpack, and made off for the farm.

By the time Thomas had returned, it was about noon, and the sun was blazing quite hot that day, but Thomas didn�t mind, he was going to finish digging the well he was going to make inside his barn so he could easily get the water to his animals. Eventually Thomas planned to make a gravity driven waterworks that would work with counter-balances and weights to periodically fill the animal�s troughs. Though Thomas had worked hard for the early part of the day, he was still not hungry and decided to skip lunch, continue working on digging the well, to have an early dinner.

After dinner Thomas continued digging the well, he made excellent progress, but he was growing tired, and it was getting late, and the sun had begun to set. But Thomas kept on working; he was determined to make as much progress as he could. He had dug quite deep, and was attempting to dig out some roots that were blocking his progress; he chopped at the roots with his shovel, and was gradually clearing them. As soon as he had them almost completely cut, they began to rip, and buckle under his weight, it seemed like there was nothing beneath the roots, and it seemed hollow. Thomas quickly scrambled up the side of the hole, back to the floor of the barn, he looked back down to the bottom, and to his amazement, the roots had all ripped, and down through the roots, there was a hole, and in the hole, darkness. Suddenly a large gust of wind was sucked into the hole. Thomas was so surprised he didn�t even know what to think of this large hollow stop beneath his barn. Surely it must house something, or have housed something at one point. But he was too tired now, so he decided to call it a night, and worry about it tomorrow.

Thomas left the barn, and entered the house, he was about to undress when he heard a strange sound coming from outside, it sounded like 2 boulders colliding at full speed coming down a mountain, a chill ran down his spine. He turned to face the window, and the sound repeated, but much quieter, then again, and again, the sounds shortening in intervals, then growing louder in their harmonic mass. He could see nothing through his window, as it was too dark now, and the reflection of his lamp made it impossible to see. Suspecting the worst, Thomas fetched his Clarington rifle, and a box of ammunition, he loaded the weapon, grabbed a lantern, then went outside to investigate the noise. What he saw, shocked him, on his field, around the barn there were skeletons, hundreds of skeletons, some emerging from the ground, leaving small piles of dirt behind, like a mole would do, and in the middle of his field was now a gaping pit, at least 40 feet deep with skeletons climbing their way out of it, none of the skeletons seemed to notice him. As he scanned the landscape, assessing the situation, he noticed what appeared to be the man living next door, standing at the edge of his property, who was staring directly at him. Suddenly the man moved his stare to the skeletons on the field, and the hole which they had emerged from, then he raised his arms, moving them precisely in a strange motion, his hands began emitting a blue glow, then a beam of blue light shot spastically from his hand s and hit one of the skeletons, then branched to the others, from each one that was hit, it would branch out and hit 2 more, finally once all the skeletons were all connected through beams of blue, the beams dispersed. Thomas was now to amazed to act on anything, observing the situation, and sucking in every detail, until, all the skeletons stopped, and simultaneously looked directly at Thomas with their eyeless skulls. Thomas, now aware of his situation quickly retreated back into his house, locked the door, and immediately began boarding it up. He made haste, and the skeletons were not moving too quickly, and then proceeded to boarding up the windows, now as the skeletons drew nearer, he realized they were all wielding at least some type of crude weapon. Some of them now began to hurl axes at the house, Thomas decided to start trying to hold them off with his rifle. He loaded the Clarington, then began taking precise shots at the skeletons, the rifle was powerful enough that it could take the limbs off the skeletons, but they could not die, as they were already dead. He tried to aim for the legs to slow them down while he formulated a plan. He took aim on a larger skeleton, and fired 1 shot at each of it�s legs, the skeleton�s legs came off easily, and the force blew it on to it�s back, but to Thomas� horror, it began to crawl along the ground, clawing with it�s fleshless fingers. Thomas knew this practice would be futile in a little while, then remembered he had been given the schematics of how to make some simple explosives out of every day household items. He quickly went to his work room, and retrieved the schematics, the 2 that he had explained how to make molotov cocktails, and a fused explosive which was a bit more powerful form the looks of it. Thomas gathered the necessary items, then furiously started constructing the devices. He had made about 10 Molotovs before he ran out of rags and 7 or so fused explosive devices with the supplies that he had. Thomas decided the way most likely to stop the skeletons was to kill his old neighbor, who seemed to be controlling them.