Vaunted

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Drowboy
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Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Tue Aug 18, 2020 1:29 am

Y si me quedo sin alas
Además me muero por ti
Water everywhere, stained black with the blood of the dead. The dying.

The dying. His boot is on a chest. Holding down some anonymous priestess as the water rose. Probably waterlogged plate would do this work. But it wasn't about the dying so much as the killing. Besides. The dying would come soon enough.

Water everywhere, pouring from cracks in the stone, from great rents in the ground. From the cavern ceilings overhead.

Water in his boots. Drenching his clothes. In the scabbard of his sword, little more than a hilt and a stump of jagged blade, now. He trudged upwards. Upwards, he hoped, to safety. Salvation. He had little to think about but the irony. The bitter, seething joke of it. Better that, than

an obsidian hand reaching out desperately beneath rubble. ignored

Would the flood reach the surface? Would these beasts from below do to the elves what was being done to them? Better to focus on that, the poetry of all of the children back together again, sharing one final, wretched fate. Better that than

rolling over the body in House regalia. knowing without seeing that it would be

your brother, who not long ago had smithed the sword you so callously tossed aside, broken, but well used

did he die, at the moment your sword broke? did the death of it's creator weaken the blade?

Water everywhere, but this close to the surface, it was barely ankle deep, if that. The wound on his arm burned righteously. Swelling at the joints. The wrist. His fingers twitched uselessly, but he kept his two-handed, desperate grip on his dagger. There was sound up ahead, just around the corner, even. The hissing and spitting of kobolds, maybe? Maybe the horrid lures of the deep creatures, waiting for just one more- for him, anyway- before moving on to the next. Fine. It would come now, or it would come later. But it would come, this cycle or the next. He braced himself, took in a breath, and rounded the corner.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:58 am

Awake. Sweat drenched. The nightmare- reverie? Impossible to distinguish any longer- was never about the triumph. The survival. It was moments, raw strips taken from memory like skin beneath the lash. The worst two centuries could offer. Struggles in the Vault, watching the Claddath growths sprout on some cousin who died choking on too many tongues. The flayers rising up from the depths, infesting and enslaving, whole swathes of stone turned to glass beneath their foul magic and fouler inventions.

The look on a sister's face as a division of slaves broke and ran, fearing the deep things more than the soul-scouring lash of a broken pact. The worst of two centuries. In reverie or the supposed abyss of sleep, it hardly mattered. The faces of dying almost-friends, of wicked creatures, of the Udosian dead that had begged, in those final moments, for mercy. But always, always, the water.

Rising.

He sat up, reached for a vial on the nightstand. A purchase from the Concourse, promising swift and dreamless sleep. He stared at it. Replaced it. Coffee, filthy surface import that it may be, would do in the meantime. Save the real sleep for when need is fire. He laughed at the thought. As if things were ever stable, ever calm. The dark marched steadily towards dire at all times, with a lack of regard or mercy to frighten the hardest of ilythiiri, if any outside if the compound still possessed the ability for introspection. For risk-averse self-awareness. He wasn't so sure.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, to clear the disdain and disappointment and examine, as if from a great distance, what was left. He sent an imp ahead to prepare the bath. The empty bath was nothing. The filled bath was nothing. But the space between was

water
rising

Lapping gently at boot-soles at first. Noticeable only in its novelty. A river overflowing somewhere, due to some ill-advised duergar dam, to flooding on the surface that was, perhaps even as they speculated idly, drowning a few elves. Then it was ankle deep and had anyone heard back from those patrols, dipping out from the Vault to gander at Udos, at Pit Town? Deeper still? Knee deep and the stragglers came up, gibbering stories of mutant things from the deep. Of the Vault filling with water from an unknown source. Of Pit Town, now nothing but slow-bloating ruins beneath spontaneous sea.

He snapped back to the present. Chided himself. Marched to the bath to meditate in its furnace-hot water. Without disdain, disappointment, distance, what was left in that core. A poorly healed scar, stitching itself together from memory better purged.

The ilythiiri, it is often said (by who?) have no words for fear, for love, for regret. So as he watched steam rise from the water, eyes half-lidded, mind finally at rest, he settled in the closest thing the language had.

Anger.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Mon Aug 31, 2020 12:45 am

Sangre sonando
De rabia naci
The war never ended. It was interrupted, for certain, by the misguided of Udos, by the flayers, by the great migration of the uncaring court. Distractions. There was one enemy, two-headed. Often, literally.

Those who would betray.

Not individuals, not even the House. Not even the city over which the Reclusiarch and her progeny now watched. Punishments for all, as a matter of course. Meted out in secret or in the open, with the bored contempt of centuries at this work. No. Special care and attention went to those who betrayed the ilythiiri entire. Elves were, like the others, dealt with as need be: annihilated when necessary, a useful diversion, and occasionally decent practice. But they would all be handled when Her kingdom came.

Which left the apostates. Slithering things of blood and flesh. Walking foulness clothed in the skin of the ilythiiri, if they had skin at all. Spore-things. Craven things. Bulging, sickly, moldering, stitched. Deviants of the holy form, final parting gift of the Queen before eternal imprisonment.

Fleshcraft. Goddess forfend.

He observed one such example, laid open and living upon the table. A middle sister, well-trained as Excrutiator and vivisectionist, had done a job sure to bring this branch praise, if not attention.

"We offer you fair terms," he said, to the creature on the slab. The duty of asking had fallen on him, as the holy implements had fallen into his sister's hands. They never took the terms. Still. It was only polite, to ask.

The creature gurgled. Its face was a ruin, may once have been that of a particularly beautiful ilythiiri male. Only some of the ruining had been at the House's hands. The rest was blasphemers’ work. He wondered, as he often did, where these sinners found so many "converts." Thoughts turned to all those fresh adventurers, newly arrived from a hundred different cities. The lifeblood of their own city, living and dying in their scores to bring wealth and temporary respite to these caverns. It was from this stock the apostasy pulled, perverted, putrefied.

"Terms offered as follows," he continued, watching the thing's lungs fill and empty. It must have been painful. It was intended to be painful. But this was the way. His sister took up sanctified scalpel and did something surprisingly noisy. The creature twitched. Clamped its mouth shut as much as it could. He knew it could speak just as surely as he knew it wouldn't.

This was necessary. Not in the singular sense. This single digit of the greater beast masquerading as a house hardly mattered. It would feel it the same way he felt hair plucked from his scalp.

No.

This was for them.

This was to remember.

remember

Bone-bite rumble of explosively sealed tunnels. Shrieks of outrage. Horror. Down the hall, deep in the old compound. The baying of hellhounds trained and pacted to detect a breach. To scent out the whiff of corruption. They found it, for the first time in decades. The nursery. Turned now into a mockery. A webbing of fused and gasping flesh. Caretakers and their charges. Guards. Heathen fleshwarping, and at its pith, a nine-pointed holy icon clutched in the hand of a man who had, until that dark, been perfectly loyal. What was left of him, anyway.

remember

try to breathe

sentimentality is a weakness

you did not seal your helmet, draw your sword, and slice your way to the creche inhabited by your sister and her new son

that would not have been drow
would not have been merciless and heartless

you were not joined by brothers, aunts, cousins, crowding into what should have been the safest place in the compound

this does not happen because everyone knows that it could not have happened.

drow have no hope to break. no hearts to wound. no tears to shed.

Drow have hands, and blades, and the Queen's own cunning. Nothing else.

remember.

"By agreeing to this contract," he continued, face a placid mask, hands unshaking, "You will be granted temporary asylum in exchange for answering our questions to the best of your ability."

The creature on the slab sucked air and gurgled.

He kept talking, reading the ever-long terms of a soul-shredding contract while the Excrutiator made the question more pointed.

you marched into the slaughter-House in your sealed armor, by the dozens. through the front door, bold as you please.

"You will be offered enough comfort, medicine, and healing magic, for your aid,"
the Excrutiator (which sister was it?) had gotten up and left the room. "To ensure full reconstruction of the body, if not mind," there is no divine sanction for what you all do when the word spreads of what has been done to the House's young.

"If you agree to even partial questioning," he says, and the sword is in his hand again, the mask over his features. Nameless House Servitors, turning the fleshworks into a true abattoir.

you read the pact, even said some convincing words. he maybe, almost, agreed. the excrutiator was surprised. your mother was proud. you got closer than any of them ever had to turning one of the apostates.

except.
except
remember

Remember the subtle nod of your sister, the torturer, as she left the room. The wicked dagger, thrice-cursed and baptized in the blood of its owner's closest sibling, that she had left. Remember how near she looked, exhaustion creeping into her features, to the sister you both lost that dark in the creche.

you didn't. you wouldn't. what was done with prisoners was set in stone.

except. that dark in the mutants’ compound. and there was so much fury it bled out of gums and from your ears and made the world tip just a little bit sideways and of course, of course, it was right and holy to destroy the apostates but

No buts. He was a good son. It was right and holy to destroy the heathen, the betrayer.

The creature on the slab burbled as the world began to tip. To skew.

Just a little.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
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Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Fri Sep 04, 2020 4:30 am

A Letter Addressed to the Honored Priestess of Our Chained Queen, Heritor of Dormant Blood, Fifth Hand Upon Whom The Sword Falls, High Excrutiator Seventh Discipline,

Mother. I hope this letter finds you well, and that my indiscretion has not caused you the trouble I fear it may have. The audit continues apace, and my observation of ██████████████████

...many of the shops hold wares that are of primary interest to adventurers.

I have spent some small time examining the Concourse, and it pleases me to see it remains a location as popular as ever, even with projections of prime troublemaking being roughly accurate.

Your instructions, as you no doubt know, have been received, and I am in the process of carrying them out.

Your humble servant,
██████
Father,

I am safe. I am well. I visited my brother's grave and it seems I just missed you. I am sure he appreciates the offering. I don't need to tell you to take care of yourself, but please see that you do.

Your son.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Tue Sep 08, 2020 5:42 pm

Tomé la sangre, comí el cuerpo

How long had it been, since he held a sword?

your brother

Keep it together. Not holding one by hilt and point to show proper maintenance technique to some young cousin who would either bother to learn now, or have their blade fail them when push came to shove.

broken at your feet
you could barely recognize

Breathe. Eyes closed. The hilt of the sword clenched in his fist.The blade trembled from the force of his grasp. Safe. In his room. Armed, Goddess forfend, if there was any threat at all.

alone

Stop. He growled, clenched his jaw, and set himself to the simple sword-forms of a novice. His muscles still ached from last cycle's attempt. Despite this. Because of it. He forced himself from simple to complex. Forms and stances he hadn't held in years. Decades. Not since the Flood.

since the weeping dead
since you're pointless alone

Since the city had needed building. Since the House had better need of his mind and words than his hands. He worked himself into exhaustion, lashing out at imaginary targets in the dark. No definition to them. Just shadowy figures in places only his mind could see, parrying, riposting.

your sword is snapped off at the hilt and the thing is there all at once

He wiped himself down, settled on his bed to give his new sword the same treatment. The pattern on the blade, dark whorls and false etching, kept his eye for a while. Calmed him some. It hadn't really cut anything other than air, but he had been out of practice so long he felt it important to build up good habits. Again.

he would be disappointed

Tight grip on the hilt. The tremors were normal. Too much work, not enough water. That was it. He sheathed the sword carefully, belting it to his hip and giving himself a shake before he left his quarters. The younger, the newer, the braver, maybe, hardly wore weapons inside the compound. Something stylistic maybe. But he remembered.

crawling screaming bleeding burning

He clenched his fist ‘til his nails drew blood. Just a little. Breathe. Breathe.

A mental tingle. He held out his hand and a jug of water appeared there. The imp resolved into sight a moment later. It grinned at him. He should have gotten a hell hound. He had wanted a hell hound. He might pay someone to turn it into a hell hound.

"Can't carry water," it said, following the line of thought clear in his eyes. It didn't say that the hounds couldn't very well articulate a threat in a useful manner, if the flayers or worse came to call. To collect in vengeance of their old dead. They both knew. This argument was a hundred years old at least, carried on by rote. By habit.

"And you can?" He waggled the now-empty jug at the imp as he wandered back to his quarters. The devil took it, muttered the same curse it always did, and faded from sight. Alone again, the slight behind-the-eyes pressure of his familiar link fading as the imp flittered away to the next task. There was always another task, for either of them. Speaking of. Back at his desk. Sleep discarded and replaced by a series of alchemical creations that would doubtless have their own debt to pay.

it should have been you

Darks like this the left hand was functional dead weight, especially after so much work. So he used it for what it was good for, held down the ledger while his right flowed through squig-scratch shorthand. Beyond meditation, exhaustion, or substances he considered to be for the weak.

used them all the same

He found peace most easily in this work. Copying down notes, figures, ideas, proofs, mostly from memory but keeping extensive notes was its own small ritual. A kind of portable meditation suite. He laughed to himself, wrote the idea in the margins. Tried not to acknowledge that he was relaxing, lest it fade off, be replaced once more by the stress and shock.

It would. Maybe not now.

But soon.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:17 am

A quill scratching, lonesome, in the quiet of the the dark. Never silent here, never silent. Not if one listened. Never dead, either. Well. Never dead for long. All manner of scuttling creatures, of strange gemforms crackling. It wasn't the noises to fear. It was the lack. The quick-quiet before a strike, when even the mushrooms know not to shiver. When the dark holds its breath, just for a moment, to exult in another death. He's gone the moment he hears it, the expectant lull. The inward breath of the deep. Sword drawn before the book touches the ground. Two steps and he's

backed to the ledge of the overpass. fighting against inexorable destruction, against the end itself. you see an ilythiiri- your own? Claddath? We Survive? (Ha.)- mobbed, dragged down. dragged away. far from home but that's the only way. the House will be kept safe here. now. every inch of flesh. every drop of blood. no further. don't look back. don't look down. that deep drop will call to you, and that's all they'll need.

He doesn't smile when he sets to work defending himself. He didn't come here for sadism, so easily found elsewhere for those willing or able to pay, anyway. He truly did come here for solitude. To remember. To write. The sword was just to ensure he was left alone. But of course, nothing leaves well enough

alone, cut off, but there's only the one left around you. big though. it drops the warrior it had been holding. mess of shredded bone where the discarded form's face should have been.

The dark is never safe, never peaceful, never quiet. Not for long. But it can be all of those, sometimes. For as long as you're willing to hold that safety at swordpoint. No art, no fancy footwork, no japes or taunts. Peace should not be interrupted. Close to the city, or where strange things roam, fine. Fine. But here, halfway to nowhere, sought for its stunning lack of natural fauna? That was just

too much. too fast. the thing caught your arm in its foul grasp. squeezed. you had never heard your own body resist, fail, and break before. never felt it either. no art, no fancy footwork, no japes or taunts. you should not die this way. close to home, mounting a final defense, fine. fine. but here, halfway to nowhere, staged for its stunning lack of value? that was just too much for your mind to handle. you fought. if vague flailing, desperate for one more gasp of air, one more scream of agony at every movement, could be called fighting. and when its grip failed, you kept swinging at it like a child. like a frightened elf. sword slick with gore, half your blood gone. the burning, crunched ruin of your arm hanging uselessly down

But he kept swinging. Over and over again. Teeth bared, animal noise from deep in his chest. Stood panting over what was left of-

Of

A caravaneer, of some now-impossible to determine race. Several rothe to pull the cart. An overturned and severely beaten cart. He did what any sensible ilythiiri would do, then: checked the cart for gold, drugs, and magical artefacts, before ambling away as if nothing had happened.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:37 am

Down here, and for what? When the threat returned, it would not be through known passages, not the form and tactics of known foes. Izlude's Torment was a distraction at best. A defensive testing ground at worst. Send to us what you have and we will take them, know them. Devour them. They may leave whole. Every action etched into the place. Imitated. Dissected. Or they may not leave at all. No. There was another colony, out somewhere beyond the city's ken, for whom the Torment was nothing more than a lure. And yet

and yet the sword is in your hand and isn't it good, once again, to feel it bite their soggy flesh? to see their lamprey-mouths try to contort one last time? isn’t it good to fight as you were meant to

a complete unit. your brother in the lead, stout-armed and singing. your sister with the blessings of the ninefold queen, searing flesh to one end or another, calling forth the angels of your faith. and you.

alone. alive.

they aren’t with you. they never will be again. the ones you are with, you don’t recognize their faces. The city is a river. a waterfall. flowing down, down


down

into izlude’s torment. beyond. there are fewer of them than when you started. taken. turned. did that squid have the face of the orog you met, in the myconid?

no.
not that fast.
not now. not yet.
please.

The city isn’t ready.

you aren’t

here

yet.

“Which way?” The orog asks, ichor-soaked and grinning. Panting, ready to get back to the slaughter. He didn’t know its name. Rarely bothered. Only a handful of the creatures had ever been worth acknowledging. He shrugged, looked to another. Black clad, indeterminate. No name sprung to mind. He must not have asked this one, either. Why was he here?

The scout scoffed, swished their daggers. Led the way. One had to keep practiced. Keep count. Left with four others. Four others yet stand. Then what was- It doesn’t matter. It never matters. There are few things that matter, in what he secretly considers to be the end of things. The great winding-down of some mechanical apparatus that, at the beginning of the world, was settled into place with struts of gossamer webs. Either the Queen would be freed, or the threats would return, and this time

This time.

there will be nowhere to run. none of the squids will escape, none of them will run to start a new hive. to regroup. to plan. not with the three of you. two blades, your sister’s spells. you cut deep into the heart of the hive. past the torment, past the facade, the lure, the guise. deep. so deep the thing starts to scream in your mind. to plead. it begs for mercy. but there can’t be. there can never be. your brother cleaves ruthlessly, knowing that each flayer is but a limb. a strand of hair. a message.

We come.

you come to end it. to end the threat. your sister. she has a name
your sister.

is glorious in battle. armor gleaming, hands ablaze with divine light. spells wreaking havoc undreamed of when she was alive.

what?

you look to your brother and there is a ruin where his chest should be. your sword hangs limp and broken from unfeeling fingers. your sister collapses. charred bone and little else. and in your mind, it begs, it pleads. help me, it pleads.

He opens his eyes, looks down at his companion. One of the four unnamed. The creature’s leg is badly injured. It is pleading for his help.

There is one mercy left for the hive. For the elder thing that directs it.

“Please,” it says, “A little help?”

“Yes,” he says. “Yes,” you say. Fingers no longer unfeeling. Sword unbroken.

There is mercy in a well-executed stroke.

Weakness in sentimentality. In anything but perfect efficiency.

But Goddess.

Goddess.

You miss them.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Sat Nov 07, 2020 11:30 pm

This is how you win a case put before an infernal court: you study the contracts, not just between claimant and defendant, but between claimant and their counsel. Between the judge, the court itself, and the law-magic binding the officiants and witnesses. The stories are always wrong. There's a loophole. It's there to make you feel clever, to think, "I can worm out," which you can - soul-slugs are worms, of a sort. One hole in one contract is not salvation. Two in two, minuscule misreadings subject to dismissal by a wary (or bribed) judge? Nothing. Comb over the words woven into the stone of the witness stand, the credentials of your opposition. The pacts, promises, pledges, prayers of their family, their friends. Colleagues. Clients. Dig until your fingers bleed. Find every twist, every grain, every morsel of advantage, of uncertainty. Look until your vision warps. Until you've memorized the ties that bind together your opposition, his client and his society, his life, his blood.

Do it to the desperate fool who hired your team. Do it until you can hear the desperation in your client’s voice, feel the rattle in his bones, when he called upon the pact. When he begged, anything, if he could just have this moment, this life, this salvation.

Don't cry for him. Pactees are degenerates, one and all, and the trial itself is dangerous enough, to life, limb, mind, soul, for you to spare a moment on something so sentimental as care. You'll have to dig deep for something else, though - atrophied and hidden, subsumed by your people's all-encompasing id but never fully killed. You must find empathy. Sympathy. The ability to wear another's skin, to see the world through their eyes. Shiver, shake, understand this pact-wrecked creature, then slough it off for the ill-fitting slime that it is. Bury the ability to feel, lock it away against scratches and damp. It's a useful tool, and in short supply for your sort.

Understand him, though. Understand the opposition just as well. Learn their thoughts. Skim dainty fingers across their souls. Do you feel that? That's what being one percent closer to victory feels like. Pass the docket along to the next advoker, and see what they can skim. What you've missed. Maybe your part of the case is over, here. Maybe you’re needed in the circle. Maybe someone in the opposition has family. A home.

No, you don’t have to hurt them. People understand signs. Portents. Seven dead crows in the prosecution’s pillow. Six in their husband’s.

Of course, having to, and wanting to? They live in different worlds, and anything that can be exploited should be. Must be.

Look at that. A new litigator on the other side, not as versed in the case. Who hasn’t done the due diligence against you, against your client. When the circle is drawn, the wards are closed, the trial commences, his hands shake with the fear of the novice. Maybe his second, third case. First as principal representative. He has his assistants, his aides, of course. But you are part of the machine now, law-bound into a greater whole. Still distinct, still separate. Still unique personages. Just a nudge here, a nudge there, nothing like the ██████. Never that. Just a little smarter, a little faster, borrowing the spark of shared blood.

Win? Win? Yes. Fine. You won. When the athames fell, and the pact wrent and twisted into a noose, when the judge called furious order and the caul of flame fell from your eyes, and you spoke only with your voice, not with the joint voice of the Defense, The Machine, you saw that your side had won.

Not that it matters.

It just means the game is over, and you will have to wait for another client, another puzzle. Another game.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Fri Feb 12, 2021 6:51 pm

In The river Ganges, God damns my name
Weren't you told, this isn't how it happens? hat there was nothing for you here? You cannot be here. you will turn around, you will leave

He doesn't leave. He stands at the precipice of the pit, fists clenched, jaw creaking. There is a tether, he knows. A chain, buried deep on both ends. It will always pull him here. Waking, sleeping. He thinks maybe it will make it real, provide a variable that will balance thought, memory, emotion, logic. Maybe it will. Was it here, 'neath poisoned waters and shattered towers, that it happened?

He works his mind carefully around a razor-edged truth, any dulling, paradoxically, faded over time. It has been some time since his last penance. His last tutoring.

you should go home. while there's still a home left. while you might with pleading and sacrifice be welcome. you can lay down and let this jagged thing be taken from you

He doesn't go home. Business only. Home is somewhere else. Hasn't been there since

the water flows and flows and there is a ragged hole in his chest and the blood flows like water and the water flows and flows and there's no time there was never time

He looks across the dusty, shattered streets for a sign. It was here. It was gods-damned here. This alcove. Burning now like a beacon in his mind's eye. The world flickers. Shifts. The water is falling from the cavern ceiling. Seeping up out of the ground. Rising. Always rising. His brother sits against the wall

and there's nothing there

His brother sits against the wall, one leg twisted unnaturally. Something is wrong with the man's armor. With the body beneath. His brother beckons him over with a hand that flops to the ground as soon as the motion finishes. Even that small effort taking everything.

there is nothing here except a blank wall and the detritus of a series of failures. you have convinced yourself otherwise. is chasing ghosts what you were tasked with?

His brother sits against the wall, and the hole is in his abdomen. It was always in his abdomen.

your memories are faulty. let me assist.

His brother sits against the wall, a ragged hole in his armor, chest height. Blood stains the ground and the torn tabard his brother wears. Too late to save, to comfort. He takes a step forward

The image

Shifts

His brother sits against the wall and he curses and curses and screams, but now the image won't change, the gentling voice silenced. The hole is lower again. His brother still alive. The man piled against the stone beckons, and he steps close, close enough to hear the request.

it takes a long time to die of a gut wound.

He comes back to himself in the ruins, feeling warmth filling his clenched fist. He opens his hand by painful degrees, stares at the glint of metal. Broken sword-point. A gap, a crack, in the wall, slick with fresh blood, where desperate fingers dug out a memory. He stumbles forward, knowing, and collapses to sit against the wall. Reaches out to check the crack with screaming fingers. He nods, that tiny movement taking the rest of what he has.

Chest height.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Sun May 09, 2021 12:52 am

Les souvenirs d'une patrie perdue, l'espoir d'une terre promise.
Blood. Bone-deep thrumming of a beating heart. Familiar ache of strained pacts, stained self. In the disorder of the world, here were constants to rely upon. Their loss, their absence, not simply leaving a bereft bearer, but an empty body. Body. Desecrated, arrayed in grim and mutilated form. Messenger. Message. Push down that feeling. There is work to be done.

Bodies. The peasantfolk of the city were never missed. Of course, neither were the nobles, the leaders, the adventurers. Or perhaps they were missed, every one, but the constant and unrelenting pressure of the deep crushed either extreme into a paste of silence. He laughed to himself, shaking his head. A paste? Poetry was never his strong suit. He barred the door to his office, in the compound once again, the bunker. Home. Not out of necessity, but sloth. The altar in his private rooms was finer, but was also a longer walk by any measurement. No, he told himself. This was logistics, not simple laziness. Herding three captives through two cities would be a ridiculous strain.

Oh, he thought. Yes. The captives. A trio of humans, found scrabbling in the dark. Did humans have Houses? They looked similar, he supposed, but it took an effort to discern differences between unfamiliar humans on a good day. Two adults, one younger. A ‘family,’ then. Thirty-five, forty? Of course, he could never tell humans ages. Running joke. Not funny to anyone but him.

They stared up at him, bound and gagged, with wide eyes, one of them- the male?- shifting on the floor to place himself in front of the other two. He realized he had been speaking aloud. To who?

yes. to who.

“If you go willingly,” he said, leaning down to the man, “I will consider letting the others go.” He had seen that look before. (Where?) That sense of purpose, of virtue. (From who?) Protectiveness. Fear, for another, at one’s own expense. (When, damn you?) Would a willing sacrifice be of higher potency? Perhaps. The man looked heavy, mostly, was the problem.

The human nodded. The other two started to make noise, of protest, or perhaps anguish. He ignored it. People protested all the time. People were anguished all the time. So was the world. The human followed him to the altar, a perfunctory thing, runnels for collection set across the slightly concave surface. The man laid across it, shaking.

you look at him and you see a handful of scars, of wrinkles. academic judgement. what does he see? beast, spider, hunter? no, no, i know what he sees. let me tell you.

He grits his teeth and tears his gaze away from the altar, from the sacrifice. There was something- wasn’t there? He was thinking about poetry, about the deep. The endeavor. He was distracted. He had forgotten his knife. He smiled down apologetically to the man, patting himself down, coming up dry save for a token.

He turned the thing in his hands. A single claw ring, cast in gorgeous pearlescent metal. A thing of painstaking, delicate filigree. A work of art, really. One with a wickedly sharp point. This was a better use. A holy use. He slipped it on, offering a smile of apology for the delay-

There was always less, after the daubing and burning and-

Well. A lot of it gets on his hands. A lot of it.

A few vials, enough to pay off a few of his simpler debts, keep his familiar happy. And a fresh sacrifice, willingly given (technically), headed to the Queen. A tiny moment of lucidity for her, perhaps. The idea warmed his heart. Kept his mind off other times, other altars, other cities.

we

“Stop it.” He clenched his jaw.

survive

“Silence.” He hissed through gritted teeth.

don’t reach up.

“Be silent.” He managed, one tacky and coated hand pressing against a tiny nick in his chest.

you’re doing it.

“Leave me be-“ He frowned. The remaining humans were staring at him. Quite rudely indeed. Judgemental, even, almost as if they possessed more than simple animal intelligence. He laughed to himself. “Don’t be ridiculous. They can imitate quite well, like a- a well. A mimic, perhaps, yes? But I did promise to consider, and I keep to my word.”

He leaned down, examining the pair of humans. Both smaller than the male, one more so. He pondered. Ran the numbers. He honestly, genuinely, considered. He kept to his word.

He sighed in contentment. Signing off on paperwork was always a joy. One of Lolth’s little gifts. A shipment of sacrificial blood for the Concourse priestess, a little left over for ritual components. Poetry, perhaps, could be found in life and satisfaction, rather than in words.
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

Drowboy
Posts: 744
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:30 am

Re: Vaunted

Post by Drowboy » Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:32 pm

It's high noon somewhere
it's dark in here
Back against cold stone. Eyes blank. Whisper the complicated consonants of immortal words with mortal tongue. Fingers flash a prayer, wire wound between. Different words, different tongue. Self-inflict glossolalia.

The other hand holds a quill, poised over parchment. Better to catch scraps of divine truth. Fire cooled. Ember to ash. Cave slowly slips towards freezing.

Parchment blank.

Perhaps males don't deserve answers.

Back against cold stone. Eyes bloodshot. Mouth hissing desecrated phrases of devilish prayer. Fingers twitch, slow and painful, the eight-and-one verses by rote. Other hand grips a quill, near-grudgingly. After ten years of this, he had learned to bring spare kindling.

No answers, still.

Back against cold stone. Eyes tired, empty. Words on lips, words on hand. No quill in the other. No divination, no psychography. Not like that. Lessons well learned. Flames from the lonely memorial pyre reflect in dull eyes. Shine off of the razor-thin wire of the prayer weaving. Off of the drops of blood falling from limp fingers, pattering against parchment.

Males must earn their answers in blood.

Back against cold stone. Over a century now? Could that be right? The answer had long been found. Now the prayers of the penitent. Harsh drone of the devil-sacrament. Blood-draw weave of the Queen. Coals, once sun-bright, fade into somnolence. Sweat soon cools, threatens to freeze with the cave.

Don't worry. Some things run hot forever.

Back against
Infernal words
Weave this web
Dead ash

Again.

The cave. The words. The blood.

Again.

Again.

Again
Archnon wrote: I like the idea of slaves and slavery.

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