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The Serpent's Throat
Author: NB LMO
last update2025-12-13 16:10:45

The Serpent's Throat was a misnamed god of stone and shadow. It wasn't a gentle pass but a jagged, vertical split in the mountain, as if a giant's axe had split the rock. The path at its bottom was barely wide enough for three men to walk freely, flanked by sheer cliffs that rose like prison walls, blocking out the weak dawn light. The air was cold and still, smelling of damp stone and old iron.

It was a perfect kill zone.

Kaelan’s team—nineteen men led by Sergeant Alaric—was positioned not on the ground, but above. Using ropes and grim determination, they had scaled the eastern cliff face under cover of darkness, finding narrow ledges and crakcs fifty feet up. They were now shadows among shadows, invisible from below. The Neuro-Kinetic Link made the climb feel less like a desperate struggle and more like a complex problem his body solved with efficient, precise movements.

He lay prone on a flat outcrop, his Environmental Awareness painting a perfect, three-dimensional map of the pass
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  • The Council of Three

    The air in the Deep Analysis chamber crackled with the ghost of spent magic and simmering tension. Kaelan, Eldric, and Lira sat on one side of the polished crystal table that served as the main display. On the other side, projected in shimmering light, was the rotating, three-dimensional model of the new Tieron weapon Aris had identified.It was not a machine of crystal and iron. It was a nightmare of contradictions—a vortex of shimmering, oily darkness held in a cage of painfully bright Void-Steel filaments. Aris’s analysis scrolled beside it: “Weapon Designation: ‘Entropy Lance.’ Function: Generates a localized field of high-energy, randomized particle decay. Effect on Ordered Systems (e.g., Crystallized Reach): Induces rapid structural fatigue and harmonic collapse. It is chaos, weaponized and directed.”“He reverse-engineered our own research,” Lira whispered, her hands trembling slightly as she manipulated the image, zooming in on the Void-Steel cage. “This lattice… it’s a perver

  • The Calculus of Desperation

    The silence broke with the shriek of Tieron artillery. Not the fiery whoosh of catapults, but the sharp, crystalline crack of magically-propelled bolts. They flew in a flat, murderous arc towards the junk-barricade.Lira’s projected barrier flared to life. The bolts struck the shimmering wall of geometric light and… splintered. Not with an explosion, but with a sound like shattering glass. Shards of enchanted metal rained down harmlessly short of the wall. A cheer went up from the defenders—farmers, blacksmiths, and the handful of regular soldiers among them.But the barrier rippled violently with each impact. On a hastily erected command platform behind the lines, Lira watched a readout spike. “The energy drain is massive! Each bolt is like a hammer on the lens! We have minutes, not hours!”Kaelan, standing on the barricade with a borrowed shield, didn’t need the readout. He could see the wall of light flicker, growing slightly more transparent with each strike. It was buying time, n

  • The Heartland Gambit

    The news hit the war room like a physical blow. While they celebrated the annihilation of a Tieron legion in the Weeping Gorge, the real blow was being delivered fifty miles to the northwest. Two fresh legions, untouched, were driving hard into the Federation heartland, bypassing all fixed defenses. Roderick’s forces were out of position, too far east, lured by their own successful deception.Marcus had not taken the bait. He had used it as a feint of his own.“He’s heading for the Argent Valley,” Eldric said, his voice hollow as he pointed at the map. The valley held not just the capital, but the vast majority of the Federation’s croplands, its principle forges, and its people. It was the stomach and the brain. “He’s not trying to defeat our army. He’s trying to starve us and shatter our will in one stroke.”Kaelan’s mind, reeling from the sudden reversal, locked into a state of hyper-clarity. The Tactical Simulation discarded all previous models and began building new ones with fran

  • The Anvil and the Storm

    The war room in Argent was a tomb of silent tension. The eastern map, once cluttered with the slow, creeping fortifications of Marcus's "Phase 2," now bled with fresh, urgent crimson arrows. Five full Tieron legions—over twenty-five thousand soldiers, supported by skiff squadrons and lumbering war-golems—were advancing in a concentrated spearhead towards the weakest point in the Federation's central border: the Sunstone Valley. It was fertile, lightly defended farmland, a corridor that led straight to the heartlands."He's not probing. He's not fortifying," Roderick growled, tracing the line of advance with a calloused finger. "This is a kill-strike. He's abandoning subtlety.""Because subtlety failed," Eldric said, his voice thin. "We damaged his grand project. He's responding by trying to remove us from the board entirely before we can interfere again. It's a logical escalation."Kaelan stood before the map, his mind a whirlwind of calculations. The Tactical Simulation ran scenarios

  • The Soul-Sick Plague

    The alchemical lab beneath Argent smelled of bitter roots, crushed crystal, and a metallic tang that clung to the back of the throat. Lira and her team worked in a sealed chamber, their faces hidden behind filtered masks, their movements precise and grim. On the central worktable lay the two source materials: a vial of viscous, night-black liquid, the distilled essence of the Shaman’s soul-shock—and a shimmering, iridescent powder—the pulverized Mage-Bane agent.“The problem is persistence,” Lira muttered, her voice muffled. “The soul-shock is potent but ephemeral. It fades within hours. The Mage-Bane is stable, but attacks magical bonds, not life-force.”An elderly alchemist from the Frostmane, a woman named Yrsa who knew more about toxins and tinctures than anyone, peered at the mixtures. “You need a carrier. Something that lingers in the lungs, the blood. Something the body won’t purge quickly.” She held up a small, waxy tuber. “Frozen lichen from the high glaciers. It grows in the

  • The Conqueror's Gambit

    The data from Aris was a feast of intelligence, but the aftertaste was ash and unease. For three days, the Federation's analysts pored over the schematics of Fortress Prime, finding weaknesses, drafting plans for sabotage, calculating the force needed to storm its now-exposed gates. It was a war-planner’s dream.But Kaelan’s attention was fixed on Sector Delta-Seven.The scout reports were vague, terrified. "The sky is wrong," one message read. "The light bends. The machines… they don’t look like they’re from here."Roderick wanted to attack Fortress Prime immediately, to use their new knowledge to strike a decisive blow. "We cut the head off the snake! While he’s distracted with his… his digging project!"Eldric was more cautious. "We barely survived the last direct engagement. Attacking a fortress, even with blueprints, would cost thousands. It might be exactly what he wants, to bleed us dry on his walls."Kaelan said nothing. He was in the newly established "Deep Analysis" chamber,

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