Musical Atmosphere:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0pDuYd58hY
My sword was broken
My armour gashed, rusted and crumbling. I took its jackal maw in both hands and stretched it. I heard something crack, and tore off its jaw. My hand reached into its throat, and held onto whatever it found. It gurgled, it writhed, it sputtered. I pulled it out with me, and it collapsed onto the floor. The Arcanaloth clawing at its bestial mug helplessly as it choked on its own lungs.
I stood on that lifeless and colourless field, surrounded by burning trees. Its decaying, pox-ridden vegetation feeding on the blood of every type of fiend that's ever been given life. The skirmish was over and there were no victors, only survivors. My wounds have not been deep this century, yet each has been festering ceaselessly. It's like I've been rotting away for years. Exertion, nausea, pain, sores, a constant itching. The plague-bearing winds of this plane did wonders to the skin.
I limped around in search of life and weapons to use. I found a Cambion with shattered limbs. Its guttural breathing was shallow, its burning and hollowed eyes stared at me with paranoid uncertainty. Another one of Graz'zt's dogs, just like me. It seems to have lost its weapons, useless. Two lost embers in the dark. A howling, sorronous wind picked up, drowning away the sounds of the war miles ahead. It sung the melody of loss, Oinos feasting on our flesh. Only one flickering candlelight of life remained as I left him behind with a hole in its socket, dead. The sweet song of its pleas and deranged cursing reminded me that he was a weak victim of this place, and I was not.
This is it, isn't it? This is where I'm going to die. That black, six-fingered prick had finally found a place where I wouldn't come back from. The corpse plains became ashen dunes, the sounds of war grew distant. How long have I been limping in this direction? Does it lead anywhere? No, it leads nowhere. There is nothing of any worth here. There was only a constant itching.
On the top of a dune of searing ashes, I almost collapsed. I had to keep standing, lest I became one with this decrepit place. There was an endless wasteland before me here, and the war behind me. In the silent absence of battle, the plane began to speak to me from its own shadows. The whispers were constant and draining. I've grown numb to them, but the itching was getting worse.
How many cycles have I been in this broken place? I considered to just end it here, return to the Abyss as a maggot. Try again, try anew. Maybe next time, I wouldn't end up here. Or. . .No. Those where suggestions that came from the shadows. They sought to take me off the slopes of thought, into an endless fall.
Another forest lay ahead, more intact than the last. Things moved in the dark of its branches, lurking in its pretend-safety. Then, something ran out of it towards me, like a wild animal. I couldn't see what it was, until it tackled me, setting its teeth to my flesh. It was a Hordling. I laid there, limp and serving as its meal, thinking that perhaps this would be a fine way to end it as it tore flesh from my cheek. Did it just. . .Touch. . .My face? My arms reached up. The grunt of surprise from the animal was comically timed, as I then snapped its neck. I pushed its limp corpus off of me, pulled myself to my feet, and kept walking.
A gate-host of Tanar'ri approached. It wasn't a large group, heading from whence I came to open more portals, reinforcements. They didn't slow or stop as they passed me by, but a Quasit broke from its ranks and flew up to me with a sword. It locked my fingers around its hilt as it flashed me a stupid grin. Soon enough, I was walking with them, back across the dunes.
It didn't take long for a Baatezu ambush to rise up from the land's ashes. The desert we helped create was now their weapon. It was over in minutes. Screaming, roaring, burning, the sound of metal clanging against itself and carving into flesh. There was no time to open a gate, and death surrounded me, again. Two remained standing, as I stood opposite of their Erinyes commander. I suppose it didn't expect us to kill all of its thralls, as it didn't have a stupid grin.
She hurled a black rope at me, it coiled around my neck. I was yanked towards her, my face meeting a knee. Tackled and disarmed, again. With a Green Steel sword raised, the devil straddled on top of me. I suppose there's worse ways to go, but I preferred the Hordling. It landed next to my head, chopping off an ear. . .It. . .missed? How? My hand found a rock, and slammed it against the side of their head. I overpowered it, fighting for control of its weapon as it slowly lowered on its throat, until its head was separated from it.
I was alone again, surrounded by corpses, alive. This scenario has played out thousands of times before, history in endless repetition. This was my curse, a curse of ineffable luck. The last man standing. I took a moment to embrace the emptiness, eyes casting down. . .Ugh. . .Disgusting, I shouldn't have stuck it in that Cambion. I could barely recognize my wounded and diseased body.
My skin was cold. My flesh was cold. My bones were cold. My soul was cold. Was I really alive? Maybe that sword hadn't missed and I was just living a dream. The itching was gone, and I stared across the dunes as a lightless dawn casts over its ashes. Something snapped within my mind at that moment. I would be here, doing this same thing forever. I screamed of anger, soon to cry in sorrow. Despair took my mind as it reflected on the mindless futility of its own actions, on its withered passion, on its pointless existence. A nameless thrall, a dog to that six-fingered bastard. A slave everlasting.
In that moment of frayed thoughts, an old memory resurfaced. A secret once learned, back in the court of Shendilavri. When it was still in union with Torremor. In a time before I was taken from home. So I rose once more to my feet, casting my gaze to the void above. Standing on this colourless throne of the damned I uttered an ancient incantation. If there was ever a time to speak it, it was now. All other forms of escape had already failed.
Musical Atmosphere:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKaeg4fBOlA
"Pazuzeus Pazrael Pazuzu!" The sound of the wind and distant battles died. My heartbeat was suddenly as audible as cannon fire. A moment of horror enveloped it, was this a mistake? No. There is no other way, only a miracle could bring me salvation. This feeling was the kind of apprehension of opening a door, knowing something terrible lurked behind it. Uttering those words had opened that door, and a mind far greater than my own flooded into my thoughts, dissecting them with the precision of needles. Its attention scourged my cold soul with torturous heat.
Something came into being before me. Something so vast, it towered over me despite that I stood atop a dune. The light of a yellow sun cast behind it, offering me only its mighty, four-winged silhouette as colour made itself manifest in the Gray Waste. Its presence was oppressive but warming, its light blinding but magnificent.
"SPEAK YOUR WISH." A titanic voice vibrated through my flesh, and my wings felt heavy. The compulsion to kneel before it was unbearable, and I failed to resist it as my knee broke itself in the attempt to stand tall. I had tossed the dice of fate, and even my ineffable luck would be of no use before such a thing.
"I wish that this would end!" I cried out in desperation, unable to cast my gaze up to the Anunnaki-spawn. It was all I really wanted. There was not a flicker of doubt to scrutinize those words as I spoke them, and it knew this.
"THIS COVENANT LIES SEALED. I NAME YOU VARAZU THE ENKINDLER. MAKE WAY, MY HERALD, TO THE CITY OF URUK. THERE, YOUR WORTH I WILL TEST." The words were terrifying and empowering. Like a god's decree, they filled the emptiness of before with an unshakable resolve. My new sovereign then vanished in an instant, as if it were never there. The colour he brought to these wastes lingered in the shape of a portal, my escape. This blighted life, this unending suffering, would at last come to an end.
Zephon
