The Online Craftsmaster

Ullr walked past the guards and they didn"t move an inch, he was surprised by this much discipline but couldn"t help but hold his nose because something was smelling terrible. He looked around and saw a man pulling a wooden cart filled with dead pigs. Ullr decided that he wouldn"t eat any pork today as they were probably rotten.

He continued into the palace still holding his nose, it was as if this rotten smell burned itself into his nose. While he was walking through the palace he could hear strange sounds like clicking and something rubbing against something, they sounded strangely familiar but he just could find out what they were. Ullr also noticed that some of the statues he saw when he was here were either missing or had metal parts missing from them. Ullr felt strange, he had a bad feeling since he entered the kingdom and it got worse and worse.

But it was as if something deep inside him pushed him forward knowing that he might find something out that he didn"t want to know. Ullrs steps were echoing the hall and he was slightly estranged that no butler or servant welcomed him and accompanied him to his brother. But as he was here before Ullr could roughly remember the way to the audience chamber. Suddenly as he was walking through a wooden door that was leading to the inner part of the palace a cloud of perfume was all around him. The scent was heavy and completely overbearing, he couldn"t smell anything except that perfume but he didn"t mind it that much as the rotten smell from before was overwhelmed too.

Also, there were some guards stationed in this room. They looked at him with strange gleams in their eyes and a slight s.h.i.+ver ran down Ullr"s back. Ullr knew that they were not the type of person you would hire to keep you safe but more like to hurt someone. At first, Ullr found it strange that this kind of people were guarding this place until he thought a bit about his brother"s personality and thought that it seemed to fit.

Ullr advanced past these guards that looked at him with a bored expression and entered the audience chamber.

He looked around and he saw a big burnt spot in the middle of the room that also had some spots in it that were molten. He also saw strange pipes that were laying on the ground with a strange green liquid leaking here and there. But he couldn"t see his brother anywhere and was thinking about what he should do now, wait till he comes back or leave when he suddenly heard laughing he could recognize every time. It was more a cackling than a real laugh but it undoubtedly belonged to his brother.

Ullr followed the piping walked past the throne entering the room where he heard his brother from.

But Ullr wasn"t prepared for what he saw now, the first thing he could make out was the ma.s.sive amount of pipelines that were coming into the room from every direction, some of them had liquid running in them that looked like health potions, some more had the strange green liquid running through them while the rest had something like running in them that was used to power all kinds of devices.

His brother completely clad in a purple jester uniform was cackling while looking into a corner Ullr couldn"t see. The ground was dyed dark from blood and suddenly Ullr saw something bad, something he never wanted to see again, something that he thought was destroyed by chrome. He saw the giant anger steel colossus moving again after it was destroyed by chrome, it even was bowing before his brother, but as soon as he was moving a step closer the angersteel colossus lifted its head looking at him.

Mephisto who saw the movement of the colossus turned around and looked at Ullr while wearing a white mask with a laughing and crying face and started giggling while saying: "Oooh we"ve got a visitor...hehehe...and it"s even my lovely brother...hehehe...without him, all of this wouldn"t have been possible." Mephisto couldn"t stop giggling and was hopping from side to side.

"What happened here? What do you mean that without me all of this wouldn"t be possible? What is all of this?" Ullr asked?

Mephisto started giggling again and looked up to the angersteel colossus and said: "Should we tell him...hehehe...should we?...hehehe...". Mephisto started cackling again and walked towards Ullr on his tiptoes and grabbed his wrist and pulled him to one side of the room. 

Ullr looked at his brother and couldn"t believe what he saw, was this really his brother? Did this game really reveal his brother"s real personality, was he really so twisted and insane? 

But his thoughts were abruptly stopped when he was pulled through a door leading to the balcony by his brother. But Ullr"s mind couldn"t comprehend what he was seeing now, instead of a nice garden filled with flowers they were greeted by a roof that has been built over garden creating a big factory. The first thing Ullr noticed was the smell, it smelled like rotten flesh mixed with smoke, he couldn"t help but cough and hold his nose while his brother was happily hopping up and down like a child that wants to show you its toy.

The next thing that Ullr saw were dozens of people working on the machines and walking around, some of them looked strange as if their limbs were stiff and couldn"t be moved very good, Ullr even thought that he saw one or two crawling on the ground. But then he saw it, the machines weren"t ordinary, he was shocked when he saw that a human or beastman was strapped into every machine, he could see that the ground was drenched in blood and painful howls were echoing through the hall. Ullr took a step back when he observed two men cutting off limbs of one man that was strapped into a machine while he was crying in pain.

Ullr couldn"t believe his eyes, he just couldn"t comprehend that something like this was possible. Ullr turned around and grabbed his giggling brother by the shoulders and yelled at him: " What are you doing? How could this madness possibly be my fault?"

Mephisto was giggling heavily while he pulled away Ullrs arms and brought him back inside the palace, but Ullr was rooted at the entrance when they entered the room while Mephisto advanced till he reached the middle of the room.

But Ullr couldn"t move, he even fell down to his knees, when he entered the room coming from the balcony he saw something he couldn"t see before, something that hurt him in his deepest core. He saw his youngest brother strapped into a machine complete drenched in his own blood looking at him with lifeless eyes, the hands and arms were cut off and replaced by machinery. And Ullr understood, he really was at fault for all of this, he had brought the samples of Chrome"s robots to his brother, he chased after Chrome even though he should have looked after his brother helping him get through this hard time. But Ullr failed, it was his fault, he slumped down complete being a poor excuse of the man he once was. His heart has been shattered and his mind also could break at any moment.

But Ullr caught himself, he stood up and looked at Mephisto with pure rage, he pulled out his bow and drew it to a full draw but before he could fire it something moved in front of Mephisto. It was Cpt. Bling having a lifeless face, Ullr really wanted to kill Mephis...o...b..t he couldn"t kill his youngest brother so he put his bow and arrow away and said:" You still owe me a favor brother, let our brother go!"

Mephisto giggled and said: "The only favor I grant you is that you can leave without being harmed knowing that you"re at fault for the pain of our brother."

Ullr flinched but couldn"t do anything else than to go, he left the room, left the palace and left the capital. People that saw him walking looked at him as if he was a lifeless corpse and avoided him, but Ullr couldn"t complain as he really wanted to be that corpse, everything he did was wrong, he wanted to avenge his brother and blamed the wrong person destroying the first real friends.h.i.+p he made and now even the brother he wanted to avenge and protect suffered because he didn"t look after him. Ullr didn"t know anymore what he should do, so he logged off and decided to go drinking...