((A thousand and one thanks, you two. <3 ))
Of Dawn and Blood [Closed RP]
66 Blood Elf Death Knight
0
Please do post a link to this in World's End Tavern. I think you deserve more recognition. I truly wish I could join you in this plotline if you are playing in game? It's a lot more involved than the ones I am in now.
Vasiliy Nightguard was thrashing to keep afloat as a tide of pain ripped him to and fro. He was a squirming piece of flotsam, cast about by waves of searing, agonizing light. He was blinded by it. The light, pouring in from everywhere. It filled his lungs as he screamed, it singed his nails as he clawed for purchase on liquid nothingness. The only sensation his dead mind could report were the throes grinding at his soul, and the pull of some dreadful weight at his leg.
It anchored him here, with enough give to cast him about. With each scream, he felt his self – his essence- swallowed up by that omnipresent light, evaporating him. There were others, he heard between cries. Some shouted, some laughed. All were damned, all were lost. An ocean of souls, chained in place, burning beneath the blinding, malevolent brilliance. It staggered him. He screamed again. Blinded by white.
The failing rationale of him struggled to comprehend this, this purgatory. He had died, surely. The creators would not allow this upon their mortal creation. He had died, had been cast into this sea. But that was as far as his mind could reach, buffeted at each side by a fresh wave of torment. He screamed, again.
And Vasiliy began to feel it, sudden and shocking. The weight chained to his leg was lessening. He thrashed, and he clawed. It was coming loose! With the final remnants of his sanity, he coiled into himself, and raked at the anchor with all the panic he could muster. Other spirits and souls, invisible to his blinded senses, raised a cry as they witnessed him.
Out. Get out. Get out get OUT GET OUT.
The anchor binding Vasiliy Nightguard to the purgatory eroded and decayed, until he tore it at last from his leg. The bindings shattered with an otherworldly shock of light, and a rift between the times and the spaces of this place snapped into being.
And with a crackle of power, the sea of lost souls was sucked through.
It anchored him here, with enough give to cast him about. With each scream, he felt his self – his essence- swallowed up by that omnipresent light, evaporating him. There were others, he heard between cries. Some shouted, some laughed. All were damned, all were lost. An ocean of souls, chained in place, burning beneath the blinding, malevolent brilliance. It staggered him. He screamed again. Blinded by white.
The failing rationale of him struggled to comprehend this, this purgatory. He had died, surely. The creators would not allow this upon their mortal creation. He had died, had been cast into this sea. But that was as far as his mind could reach, buffeted at each side by a fresh wave of torment. He screamed, again.
And Vasiliy began to feel it, sudden and shocking. The weight chained to his leg was lessening. He thrashed, and he clawed. It was coming loose! With the final remnants of his sanity, he coiled into himself, and raked at the anchor with all the panic he could muster. Other spirits and souls, invisible to his blinded senses, raised a cry as they witnessed him.
Out. Get out. Get out get OUT GET OUT.
The anchor binding Vasiliy Nightguard to the purgatory eroded and decayed, until he tore it at last from his leg. The bindings shattered with an otherworldly shock of light, and a rift between the times and the spaces of this place snapped into being.
And with a crackle of power, the sea of lost souls was sucked through.
She watched as Vasiliy's spirit struggled with the chains binding it to the Other side. She witnessed his struggle as it played out, in sudden clarity. She watched as tendrils of black energy snaked from the Inquisitor as he hummed over the corpse, slithering and coiling about these invisible chains. Consuming them. And he continued to feed them, unwittingly, until at last they broke.
“Distinguished Inquisitor,” she whispered, her voice stolen by the suddenness of her vision. Of her insight.
“Uhm.” He grunted, not bothering to even glance up.
“Inquisitor-” Benoite insisted. Liore adjusted his tiny glasses, running a fingertip along the exposed spine.
For certainly not the last time in their partnership, Ms Dawnsong stomped her foot and raised her sweet voice. “BLOODWING.”
That got their attention. All eyes in the room snapped to birdboned Ben, displaying a wide palate of shock and irritation.
“Somethings coming,” was the best warning she could give them all, before it -came-.
With their heads turned, they didn't see how Vasily's mutilated body simply sat upright. With the torches along the walls suckling at the unseen magics, they could not feel it in its full, the change. Someone, the mortitian perhaps, gasped, and Liore twisted back to face the upright body. The golden scrollwork spread like white fire all over its skin, and ribbons of flesh were beginning to knit. Reality kinked, brilliant Light flashed in an explosion of radiance. The anti-magic torches blew out, one by one.
A series of eruptions overturned tables and cast bodies, living and dead, like dice across the tile floor. Vasiliy hovered in the center of a growing whirlpool of light, ghastly images of screaming men and women caught in the vortex. He gestured with bent arms, manipulating residual, white magic that he had no business wielding.
There was more to him than before, more than the strength which flesh and blood provided. Part of his soul was still back there in the terrible white ocean; he hadn't emerged fully into life, not yet. He was trapped like a butterfly unable to complete the transormation between dirt-bound pupa to wind-free ephermarl. Strange energistic vortices swirled around the dimensional twist where the two continua intermingled, kinking reality.
All he understood in this moment of half-freedom, was he would never, ever go back.
As the Knights and the agents gathered to their feet, Vasiliy reached out with his Light and began to pull the cadavers strewn across the room towards him. They danced like puppets, caught in his whirling tide. Their flesh met his, joined and molded with flashes of Light. He was healing himself, healing them, combining their organic pieces into a more perfect whole. Wailing souls scattered throughout the morgue, seeping into walls, flying with fleeting freedom. Locked shelves exploded from the containment units, vomiting more bodies for the collective.
What emerged in Vasiliy's place was a misshapen mass of twisted limbs and pure flesh, massive and serpentine. It supported itself upon a dozen pairs of arms, a massive, featureless head sporting an over-sized, blunt mouth. Lipless teeth, perfect and white, chattered as it turned its blind head, two massive limbs composed of bare legs thumping heavily onto the floor. Faces covered its flanks, howling with whatever hatred, fear, or longing they had been stripped from life with.
With an otherworldly roar, it launched its ten-foot bulk at the nearest paladin. The poor boy barely had time to screech before it flattened him. With a splash of light, he too joined the mass. His face twisted as it melded with another, crying in unison.
Liore Bloodwing stared with the rest, in absolute terror. His mind struggled to comprehend what his poison eyes were reporting. The scrollwork. The residual, white magics. How they played in concert with his own darkness.
“Asimenios...”
“Distinguished Inquisitor,” she whispered, her voice stolen by the suddenness of her vision. Of her insight.
“Uhm.” He grunted, not bothering to even glance up.
“Inquisitor-” Benoite insisted. Liore adjusted his tiny glasses, running a fingertip along the exposed spine.
For certainly not the last time in their partnership, Ms Dawnsong stomped her foot and raised her sweet voice. “BLOODWING.”
That got their attention. All eyes in the room snapped to birdboned Ben, displaying a wide palate of shock and irritation.
“Somethings coming,” was the best warning she could give them all, before it -came-.
With their heads turned, they didn't see how Vasily's mutilated body simply sat upright. With the torches along the walls suckling at the unseen magics, they could not feel it in its full, the change. Someone, the mortitian perhaps, gasped, and Liore twisted back to face the upright body. The golden scrollwork spread like white fire all over its skin, and ribbons of flesh were beginning to knit. Reality kinked, brilliant Light flashed in an explosion of radiance. The anti-magic torches blew out, one by one.
A series of eruptions overturned tables and cast bodies, living and dead, like dice across the tile floor. Vasiliy hovered in the center of a growing whirlpool of light, ghastly images of screaming men and women caught in the vortex. He gestured with bent arms, manipulating residual, white magic that he had no business wielding.
There was more to him than before, more than the strength which flesh and blood provided. Part of his soul was still back there in the terrible white ocean; he hadn't emerged fully into life, not yet. He was trapped like a butterfly unable to complete the transormation between dirt-bound pupa to wind-free ephermarl. Strange energistic vortices swirled around the dimensional twist where the two continua intermingled, kinking reality.
All he understood in this moment of half-freedom, was he would never, ever go back.
As the Knights and the agents gathered to their feet, Vasiliy reached out with his Light and began to pull the cadavers strewn across the room towards him. They danced like puppets, caught in his whirling tide. Their flesh met his, joined and molded with flashes of Light. He was healing himself, healing them, combining their organic pieces into a more perfect whole. Wailing souls scattered throughout the morgue, seeping into walls, flying with fleeting freedom. Locked shelves exploded from the containment units, vomiting more bodies for the collective.
What emerged in Vasiliy's place was a misshapen mass of twisted limbs and pure flesh, massive and serpentine. It supported itself upon a dozen pairs of arms, a massive, featureless head sporting an over-sized, blunt mouth. Lipless teeth, perfect and white, chattered as it turned its blind head, two massive limbs composed of bare legs thumping heavily onto the floor. Faces covered its flanks, howling with whatever hatred, fear, or longing they had been stripped from life with.
With an otherworldly roar, it launched its ten-foot bulk at the nearest paladin. The poor boy barely had time to screech before it flattened him. With a splash of light, he too joined the mass. His face twisted as it melded with another, crying in unison.
Liore Bloodwing stared with the rest, in absolute terror. His mind struggled to comprehend what his poison eyes were reporting. The scrollwork. The residual, white magics. How they played in concert with his own darkness.
“Asimenios...”
Knight-Lord Riverflare gathered his wits first, hurling his blade from its scabbard and commanding his men into action. He touched a gauntleted finger to his fine ear and shouted for reinforcements, and lead the first charge. They flew at the monster, hacking at it with fear and fury. Their light-blessed weapons pinged harmlessly from its perfect hide, merely empowering it further. Its jaws snapped up one plate-armored veteran. Its mal-shaped fore-limb crashed down upon another.
The sound was awful. A hundred, hundred voices, screaming in redemption, in terror.
And Liore just stood there, transfixed. He did not possess Benoite's Othersight, but he witnessed revealing horrors of his own, cast forth from the dismal halls of memory. It was Big Bucket who finally shoved him into motion.
“Lord! Dreadlord!”
Liore shook his head, tightened his jaw. He just could not look away from the thing.
“Sir! Come on! We've gotta !@#$ this guy up!”
Eloquent Buck. Fearless Buck. Bloodwing snapped from his daze, and bared his teeth.
“Right. Choir, some quiet if you'd please. Don't let it touch you. Come on.” He smacked Buck's broad shoulder and the two darted shadow-fast into the melee.
Choir sucked in a dead lungful and slashed out with both of her pretty little hands. A transparent shell of deep purple expanded from her, filling the morgue entirely. The unnerving screams sounded suddenly as though they were underwater, so distant. As the thing that was Vasiliy smashed a bolted table clear across the room, it collided harmlessly with the shadow priestess' barrier. She hovered just so, to include the wounded and Ms Dawnsong beneath her protection.
The Blood Knight's weapons were nearly useless. Riverflare stood boldly before the massive, snaking head, singing at the top of his mighty voice a song of protection. Bloodwing was a well-dressed blur, scooping up a meat cleaver from the floor. Buck got himself a bone-saw, yanking a cord and rushing at Vasiliy's side with a whine of metal.
The three worked in unspoken unison, attacking from all sides. Keeping it moving. Keeping it occupied. It howled with fury and denial, blinded by pain and rage. It was powerful, but it was slow, unused to its myriad limbs. Liore lopped off fingers here, gouged an unblinking eye there. They were making no real progress, and he could not fathom how they would.
Reynve sliced and hacked with expert strokes, his weapon rebounding from its flesh like some blunted stick. Bucket got the idea to abandon his bone saw and instead looped its thick power-cord around the monster's thick throat. He pulled hard, with all his might, his jacket shearing as the muscle beneath bulged. Liore took the opening and launched himself at Vasiliy's unbalanced underside, landing twenty tiny cuts in a second. He slid backwards, and cast into a flip to avoid a smashing limb.
A face on the very end of the limb chuckled darkly at him, and opened its mouth too-wide. A bladed tongue shot out and transfixed his left shoulder, passing through bone. It impaled him, shook him like a child's doll, and flung him brokenly at Choir's barrier. He passed through, struck the floor and skidded to a halt. Strained cracks snaked from where he had impacted.
Reynve and Bucket continued their best. A powerful shrug yanked the undead solder from his feet, and chomping teeth ripped the buckler from the Knight-Lord's arm. In his fury, Vasiliy thrashed and howled, the sound muted by Choir's magics.
And then it smelled her.
“RELEASER!” it boomed, turning itself to face Benoite Dawnsong. “RELEASE US!”
It began to drag itself towards her, ignoring the futile efforts of the pesky men. It coiled against the barrier, pressed its weight against it. Light and Shadow warred like water and oil. Choir shriveled beneath the strain.
It was going to consume them all.
There was a sudden gunshot, loud and impeccably familiar.
The sound was awful. A hundred, hundred voices, screaming in redemption, in terror.
And Liore just stood there, transfixed. He did not possess Benoite's Othersight, but he witnessed revealing horrors of his own, cast forth from the dismal halls of memory. It was Big Bucket who finally shoved him into motion.
“Lord! Dreadlord!”
Liore shook his head, tightened his jaw. He just could not look away from the thing.
“Sir! Come on! We've gotta !@#$ this guy up!”
Eloquent Buck. Fearless Buck. Bloodwing snapped from his daze, and bared his teeth.
“Right. Choir, some quiet if you'd please. Don't let it touch you. Come on.” He smacked Buck's broad shoulder and the two darted shadow-fast into the melee.
Choir sucked in a dead lungful and slashed out with both of her pretty little hands. A transparent shell of deep purple expanded from her, filling the morgue entirely. The unnerving screams sounded suddenly as though they were underwater, so distant. As the thing that was Vasiliy smashed a bolted table clear across the room, it collided harmlessly with the shadow priestess' barrier. She hovered just so, to include the wounded and Ms Dawnsong beneath her protection.
The Blood Knight's weapons were nearly useless. Riverflare stood boldly before the massive, snaking head, singing at the top of his mighty voice a song of protection. Bloodwing was a well-dressed blur, scooping up a meat cleaver from the floor. Buck got himself a bone-saw, yanking a cord and rushing at Vasiliy's side with a whine of metal.
The three worked in unspoken unison, attacking from all sides. Keeping it moving. Keeping it occupied. It howled with fury and denial, blinded by pain and rage. It was powerful, but it was slow, unused to its myriad limbs. Liore lopped off fingers here, gouged an unblinking eye there. They were making no real progress, and he could not fathom how they would.
Reynve sliced and hacked with expert strokes, his weapon rebounding from its flesh like some blunted stick. Bucket got the idea to abandon his bone saw and instead looped its thick power-cord around the monster's thick throat. He pulled hard, with all his might, his jacket shearing as the muscle beneath bulged. Liore took the opening and launched himself at Vasiliy's unbalanced underside, landing twenty tiny cuts in a second. He slid backwards, and cast into a flip to avoid a smashing limb.
A face on the very end of the limb chuckled darkly at him, and opened its mouth too-wide. A bladed tongue shot out and transfixed his left shoulder, passing through bone. It impaled him, shook him like a child's doll, and flung him brokenly at Choir's barrier. He passed through, struck the floor and skidded to a halt. Strained cracks snaked from where he had impacted.
Reynve and Bucket continued their best. A powerful shrug yanked the undead solder from his feet, and chomping teeth ripped the buckler from the Knight-Lord's arm. In his fury, Vasiliy thrashed and howled, the sound muted by Choir's magics.
And then it smelled her.
“RELEASER!” it boomed, turning itself to face Benoite Dawnsong. “RELEASE US!”
It began to drag itself towards her, ignoring the futile efforts of the pesky men. It coiled against the barrier, pressed its weight against it. Light and Shadow warred like water and oil. Choir shriveled beneath the strain.
It was going to consume them all.
There was a sudden gunshot, loud and impeccably familiar.
Young Skywell stood in the massive double-doors of the morgue, bracing himself with the Inquisitor's revolver in both hands. Several fresh Blood Knights poured in behind him, reinforcements. He shook in terror, shouting and firing again, and again. He reached behind himself, grasping.
“Here!”
Skywell threw something across the room. It came sliding to a stop between Benoite and Vasiliy. Liore Bloodwing was a sudden darting snake, crossing distance with terrifying speed. He snatched up Dansenzeal, bit the sheath and ripped the blade out with a masterful flourish. Arm hanging ruined and limp at his side, he leapt at the fiend. Matched its roar with his own madness and fury.
Vasiliy's twisted, leg-wrapped limb descended with violent speed. The unholy rapier flickered, trailing ash and darkness in its wake. It had been blessed, yes, but not by any Light-worshiping paladin.
Liore's first stroke separated the massive limb from Vasiliy's body. The second opened up a horrible wound in its throat. The third dissected it entirely, from head to gut. Dansenzeal devoured the force holding it together, and with as much savagery as it was conceived, the creature that was Vasiliy Nightguard expired.
A hundred explosions of light consumed its body, closed the kink between realities.
Liore Bloodwing landed in an unsteady crouch, blood gushing from his mutilated arm. He forced himself to his feet, and turned, pale and unfocused.
“Bloody heavens,” Riverflare said at last, observing the carnage in the morgue. The Mortitian sat still against a wall, in utter shock. The paladins did what they could to soothe, too unnerved themselves to be of any real comfort.
“Everybody out.”
“Wha-”
“Out. Please.”
Reynve was resistant, but made the order, all the same. He was too shaken to argue, even now. In a moment, only the Inquisitor and his three agents remained in the destroyed morgue.
“...it would not do, for them to witness this,” Liore explained, ripping pieces of ruined shirt away from his ghoulish wound.
Buck tilted his head in curiosity. “Witness... what, Ser?”
Bloodwing nodded to Choir, little Choir, who sobbed silently and dismissed her barrier.
The cries of the unliving filled the morgue suddenly, as insane fists pounded on the casket shelves lining the walls.
Unsteady and pale, Liore raised his rapier, his voice broken by the weight of the task that would follow.
“...they do not belong.”
“Here!”
Skywell threw something across the room. It came sliding to a stop between Benoite and Vasiliy. Liore Bloodwing was a sudden darting snake, crossing distance with terrifying speed. He snatched up Dansenzeal, bit the sheath and ripped the blade out with a masterful flourish. Arm hanging ruined and limp at his side, he leapt at the fiend. Matched its roar with his own madness and fury.
Vasiliy's twisted, leg-wrapped limb descended with violent speed. The unholy rapier flickered, trailing ash and darkness in its wake. It had been blessed, yes, but not by any Light-worshiping paladin.
Liore's first stroke separated the massive limb from Vasiliy's body. The second opened up a horrible wound in its throat. The third dissected it entirely, from head to gut. Dansenzeal devoured the force holding it together, and with as much savagery as it was conceived, the creature that was Vasiliy Nightguard expired.
A hundred explosions of light consumed its body, closed the kink between realities.
Liore Bloodwing landed in an unsteady crouch, blood gushing from his mutilated arm. He forced himself to his feet, and turned, pale and unfocused.
“Bloody heavens,” Riverflare said at last, observing the carnage in the morgue. The Mortitian sat still against a wall, in utter shock. The paladins did what they could to soothe, too unnerved themselves to be of any real comfort.
“Everybody out.”
“Wha-”
“Out. Please.”
Reynve was resistant, but made the order, all the same. He was too shaken to argue, even now. In a moment, only the Inquisitor and his three agents remained in the destroyed morgue.
“...it would not do, for them to witness this,” Liore explained, ripping pieces of ruined shirt away from his ghoulish wound.
Buck tilted his head in curiosity. “Witness... what, Ser?”
Bloodwing nodded to Choir, little Choir, who sobbed silently and dismissed her barrier.
The cries of the unliving filled the morgue suddenly, as insane fists pounded on the casket shelves lining the walls.
Unsteady and pale, Liore raised his rapier, his voice broken by the weight of the task that would follow.
“...they do not belong.”
[ 10/10 would feed stale bread.
And thanks for your kind words, friends. Duskwither, you should stop by the Library's Sunday salons. I'll be sure to send a cal invite. ]
And thanks for your kind words, friends. Duskwither, you should stop by the Library's Sunday salons. I'll be sure to send a cal invite. ]
66 Blood Elf Death Knight
0
I will join you with absolute glee!!
[ Brackets are so much more stylish than parenthesis.
My quality of life has improved by 81.4%.]
My quality of life has improved by 81.4%.]
((Is glad she decided to not visit the morgue today!))
[Next week: The Ice Cream Shoppe!]
[Genius is eternal patience. You will get your iced creams.]
[ Unfortunately, I haven't had the time and energy that this story demands. I plan on returning to this project in the new year. Thank you so much to those who have been reading and offering feedback. Your kind words mean so much. ]
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