The Tower of the Kraken: Chapter 3

[Alpha 360]

THE TOWER OF THE KRAKEN

Chapter 1

*Crack* 

A raven crows.

*Crack*

The dead groans.

*Crack*  *Crack*

A single feather drifted down towards the south-east, the feather of an eagle. 

*Crack*  *Crack*

A dry wind gusts through life deserted buildings, buildings surrounded by a rocky valley. Water trickled down. The amount was insignificant compared to what an average citizen could drink.

*Crack*

Koland Guile wasn't your average citizen. He liked to be called Kole, for starters. Anybody who's name is Koland and decides to do away with such a magnificent name and trade it for a miserable, mediocre name like Kole is partly insane. 

*Crack*

Secondly, he stood facing off against a half-a-dozen sun baked skeletons with a pair of pistols the size of pork chops which belted out fire and smoke. This Kole, he carried a tattoo of a Kraken on the back on his right hand. The Kraken's body was centered in the middle of his hand, while the tentacles formed a protective shield around the Kraken and a miniature ocean drawn inside the Kraken. This was another indicator of his weary mind.

Of course, you could have never seen the picture of the Kraken because the hand was moving so fast. Bullets punched through the un-dead agents of evil, knocking parts off them until one by one they crumpled into the dust. The gunslinger observed the bones as they withered away in the sunlight. It could have been his bones that withered if it wasn't for his guns. 

He stooped down and eagerly lapped up the water like a dog. His torn cloak hung around him, covering the meager remains of his shirt which used to be hardy but now shreds. His pants were now more similar to worn shorts which were looked down upon by homeless societies. 

Lucky he did not have, what the tales called, a nose. His foot-tall head stood above his eyes while a foot of body kept him to the ground. Gravity worked in his favor, unlike in other worlds. 

He finished lapping up the water, then he stood up with little dignity. He looked out at the towering walls on either side.

"The tower. Must get to the tower." He murmured to himself. There was nobody else to talk to, so he talked to himself. The tower would solve all of their problems, for it was the tower of the Kraken.

He was the last of the gunslingers, or so he thought. All he knew was that he went travelling into the eastern mountains, and then after a year of hiking and travelling he returned. He expected to find his wife at his home. He expected to find his father in the throne room. He expected to kiss his kerbling daughter good-night and bear hug his eldest son. 

He returned to ruin and despair. He wept over the mauled bodies of his family, then he swore revenge on what ever caused it. Then his eye caught a great flash of light in the in the distance. 

He gathered his father's guns,  provisions and clothing for another journey and set out to follow the flash. He had been following the reflection of light for the past 8 months, and his eyes watered. They probably been damaged in the long run from this, but he didn't care. The flash would lead either to the murderer of the entire castle of Kiggen-Rolls. 

He straightened up and looked around him. Maybe there was a scrap of food somewhere. He entered the ghost town, which he suspected, actually full of skeletons, and therefore a Skeleton Tower. Sorry, Skeleton Town. 

Kole recognized that his mind was slowly dying, dying form hurt and shame. He collected his thoughts, and breathed deeply. 

He threw a stone at one side of a building, smashing through the side. 

"HEY! WATCH WHERE YOU THROW THOSE THINGS!" screamed a voice inside. A bedraggled kerbal stumbled outside.

"Do you live here?" the gunslinger asked. 

"WHAT?"

"DO YOU LIVE HERE?" bellowed Kole. 

"YES! IN MATTER A FACT I DO!" Kole assumed that the old fellow was a little hard of hearing, but this kerbal was practically deaf. Deciding that his voice would be for the better if he left the Skeleton Tower, he turned around to walk back out the valley, then go around the town.

It was tiring, knowing that you were the last gunslinger, but Kole carried that burden lightly in comparison to the urge to kill his family's murderer and to discover the Kraken's Tower.

[Alpha 360]

Chapter 2

Kole stumbled through the desert, the sun beating on his back. It was the same sun that beat down upon him when he battled the skeletons of Skeleton Tower. Sorry, Town, he thought wearily. He looked up again, and the flash led him onward. Eventually, he arrived at the base of a skeleton of a tree. The branches stretched out towards the horizons, crying for water. 

The gunslinger leaned up against the tree, resting in the welcome shade. He looked at the west, where the flash stayed calling him further. He felt himself falling asleep in the embrace of the tree. He attempted to resist it, but it felt too good to let go of the world for a few hours. Suddenly he jerked himself forward. A root of the tree had snared his leg. He drew his pistols and fired at the root. It shattered, so dry it disappeared in a shower of splinters. The tree groaned, then screamed. The scream of the tree was unlike anything he had heard before. 

"Speaking Demon." He muttered to himself. He stepped back three paces, the unloaded his clips into the heart of trembling tree. It screamed again.

"Something different." 

He reloaded his guns, and fired another volley at the tree, "Demon! Tell me what you were sent to tell me!" He ordered. The tree shuddered, then the branches fell from it in a wave of wood. 

"Speak!"

It moaned, then slowly spoke in a gravelly voice, "The one you seek is near. The one you seek has sent me. The one you seek has trapped you. The one you seek will lead you to the tower." 

Kole eyed the tree, then he holstered his pistols. The tree turned into dust, which promptly flew into Kole's face. He coughed, then straightened. 

"Nasty demon." He looked back towards the flash of light on the horizon and continued walking. As he walked he tripped on something. He fell into the dust. He stood up again, and eyed what he tripped on. It was a bone, a funny bone to be exact. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand, then slipped it into his satchel.  

Two days later he stood at the edge of an oasis. On the far side of the lake, a town stood. It looked partially inhabited, most of the buildings being shacks built up next to a large tower. The tower looked ancient, its broken glass windows stretching up into the sky. A sky-toucher they called them. Left over from the technological civilization that lived on the Green World. Lots of towers from that day still stood, a testimony to how the world moved on. 

He again fell to his knees and slurped up water, quenching his thirst. When he looked up, a little kerb stood behind him. 

"Who are you." he asked.

"Koland, of Guile. Gunslinger." answered Kole.

"Aren't all of you dead?" He looked puzzled.

"I'm far from dead yet. Take me into that yonder town." Kole pointed towards the clustered shacks. 

The boy nodded and walked ahead of Kole. It only took a few minutes to reach it. Kole observed at most nine families living around the sky-toucher, all either getting water from the oasis, or tilling the meager earth around the village. 

The matriarch exited one of the houses, and stared at the gunslinger. 

"What is the name of this establishment?" Koland asked. 

"Kull, sir. Are you  a gunslinger?" He eyed the pair of pistols around Koland's waist. 

"Yes. My name is Koland, of Guile. I want lodging for a night, maybe two at most." Koland ordered.

"Ah, yes. Yes sir." twittered the old kerbal as he clumsily bowed. Koland looked west, to see the irritating glare from the unseen enemy, "Give me a few nights rest and I will chase you to your heart's content."

"What was that, sir?" 

"Nothing."

Edited December 18, 2017 by Alpha 360

[Alpha 360]

Chapter 3

Koland woke up in the middle of the night. In the distance, the howling of wolves pierced the darkness. He stood up and exited the shack. A orange devil Mun rose from the west. Nothing was right tonight. 

Others sleepily left their shacks to listen to the symphony of the wolves and the watch the Mun rise from the wrong direction. 

"What's causing this, Gunslinger?" asked the patriarch of the village. 

"Sorcery. Very strong indeed." He pulled out his guns and carefully reloaded them with the best shells he found in his belt. 

"Get back inside your huts. If I'm not mistaken, then the Mun is calling the wolves somewhere. That somewhere could easily be here." The kerbals scattered back to their huts, cowering in fright. 

The gunslinger stood alone, waiting for the wolves to make their move. Their howling grew closer and closer, as if they were circling the village. The Mun was extra-ordinarily dark for such a color. A cold wind swept down from the north, bringing cold sleet in droves. The gunslinger didn't mind the cold, but the icy rain was very uncomfortable. It was also bad for his guns. He stored them away in his tattered cloak, hoping that they would stay dry. 

Then he saw them. Large red eyes, moving around and around the village. Stalking, looking for prey. Looking for kerbal flesh.

Koland eyed them, waiting for one to spring out at him. The Mun rose to full height, staring down at the village surrounding the sky-toucher. The wolves stopped their circling. A heart-shattering howl broke the stillness. The north-wind stopped, and the sleet ceased. The ground shook beneath the moon. Then they started bounding towards the village. Koland drew his guns and fired at the one closest to him. This was when he realized that they wolves weren't normal. 

These wolves bounded ten feet above the ground, their jaws glistening with overly large canine teeth. Koland fired once more, the bullet barely making any wounds on their impenetrable coats. The one he was firing on turned towards him, and howled a question to the Mun. The Mun gave its assent, and the wolf charged Koland. Koland waited for the last second, the dove out of the way of the charging canine, guns firing at its head.

The wolf didn't even wince in pain. It turned around, skidding in the muddy ground. It found its feet and started to charge towards Koland again. A little metal something was on top of the head, facing him. Koland didn't hesitate to shoot it. The bullets found this mark, and the wolf collapsed. The other 8 wolves took notice and turned from their attack on the village. 

"Go to hell" muttered Koland as he fired at the oncoming wolves. The metal hats or whatever they were, now were visible. Koland fired his guns, then was rewarded with the click from hammer. He swore to himself, as he reloaded his guns wasting vital seconds. He fired through his ammo, taking down 7 of the 8 wolves as they approached. The last one was almost upon him, as his guns run out of shells for the second time. 

He turned to run for the Oasis. He only made it a couple steps before he was kicked onto the ground by the wolf's rising paw. He was flung onto the ground. He rolled over not a second too soon as the wolf's massive jaws missed him. He hit one of his guns against he leg of the beast. It didn't even feel it. The wolf's jaws were about to snap him up as he leaped up. The jaws swallowed him up. 

The wolf shook his head, trying to swallow the pesky little morsel that was stuck in his throat. Suddenly eight shots fired from the interior of the beast. The wolf groaned as it fell down to Kerbin. Dead. It took Koland working at least 10 minutes before he could cut his way out of the wolf's throat. The wolf's saliva gnawed at his body and clothes, and he quickly jumped into the lake after getting out.

When he exited the lake, dripping wet, the villagers were all standing around, looking at the dead wolves in fascination. 

"What are these, Gunslinger?" asked the same little kerb who brought him there.

Koland looked over the carcasses, then he examined the head of the last one he killed. The metal hat which he used the kill them, was still activated on this one. It wasn't as small as he thought it was, but it wasn't very large either. Little did he know that he was looking at a receiving dish, attached to a robotic creature.

Then, after wrestling the metal hat off the head of the creature, a little transcription appeared on the side of the head. It read:

This is the property of Southern Positronics, model 004-898-367. Otherwise known as Giant Wolf number 32. If you are seeing this message, then model 004-898-367 has been taken out of action. It will self-destruct one minute after take-down. 

"RUN!" cried Koland. He sprinted away with fervent haste. The other kerbals followed his example, and screamed like crazy into the bargain. Then seconds later a fireball expanded into the sky. He felt the heat at his back, and he was thrown forward by the shock-wave. Then the other wolf machines started exploding. It suddenly was as bright as day. The fires spread to the metal shacks and the trees by the Oasis. Flaming debris fell all around him. 

A thought run across his mind, wondering how the poor villagers were doing. He shoved that thought back into the depths of his mind, it was never good to dwell on civilians. 

It took time for the fires to die down. When Koland stood up, the land around the lake was blackened and disgusting. Koland walked solemnly towards a group of villagers sitting in wide-eyed shock, staring without seeing at their ruined homes and at the blackened bodies. 

"Its your fault, gunslinger! You brought them to us!" cried a kerbette, presumably the widow of the body she knelt beside. 

Koland nodded slowly, "I should have warned you. But what does it matter now? I am sorry for this destruction, but I am chasing the one who caused all this pain and suffering."

"Get away from here! You are a curse on the living! Gunslinger!" the kerbette broke down in tears. Koland stood up, and casting one last look at the devastation continued west toward's the Kraken's Tower.