You welcome the delegates in, only pausing to issue from brief commands to Duthrax as you stride to the desecrated temple, the other following nervously behind you, their eyes following the piles of desecrated dead, the blood-soaked buildings, the brutes in their spiked armor. Fear wafts off them, forming a dense cloud that you eagerly drink in.
You lay out your terms. Their town will be your vassal. They will dedicate their faith to you. They will send their criminals and their heretics in a monthly tribute. If this tribute is insufficient, you will be…displeased. They accept, knowing this is a surrender and not a negotiation. You invite them to enjoy your hospitality for a while…the festivities should start soon. As you speak, there is a great cry, and a sound like a thousand blades clashing. You can see hope in the eyes of some of the delegates…perhaps your grip is not as strong as they thought. You crush this hope in an instant as you invite them to watch the grand tourney with you.
It is madness. Small knots of combat form, then break apart. Fresh bloodstains overlap with old. Alliances are formed and broken a dozen times every minute. Archers-Thrall are impaled by Spear-Thralls even as they struggle to shoot one final time, and the Spear-thralls are cut down by Sword-Thralls. The air is full of the screams of the dying and the cries of the fighting, many given in your name. And above it all stand Duthrax and his god-slayers, their zombie horses standing patiently. Interestingly, you notice several Spear-Thralls have tied zombies to their shields and are pushing forwards in a shield wall. You make a mental note that whoever came up with that will be one of the thirty, assuming they survive.
After what feels like a long time, but is really only twenty minutes, the fighting is done. The twenty still standing are brought to you, and then you pick out your ten. Among their number is the Spear-Thrall who first made a zombie shield and an Archer-Thrall who stabbed one of her opponents to death with her last arrow and then fought off another of the ten with a dead man’s shield. You announce their ascension to the new elite of your forces, the Demon-Touched. You begin to lay your hands on their heads, one at a time, blessing each one with a fragment of your might. Two cannot withstand the sudden influx. One explodes rather messily. The other splits in two, then both halves fall to the ground in vaguely-flesh colored lumps. Irritating.
The delegates depart with hasty promises and oaths of obedience, and one grumbling about how his shoes are ruined. Your Dark Priests accompany them. The forges of Avar begin to ring with the sounds of smithing, and Duthrax approaches you to note that they will not have enough equipment to outfit anyone without sending laborers back to the mines of Canord. You tell him…
[] Some sort of solution
[] Don’t bother me, slave!
And you call forth the bonies. They have given good service ever since you found them below the castle, killed one of them, and mangled their minds to ensure their everlasting loyalty. They deserve a reward…and stronger servants are always better. You force their eyes open, revealing gaping holes. Then the holes begin to fill with new eyes, better than the ones they had before. The pupils are long horizontal slits. Behind them seem to burn unnatural fires if one looks for too long. Their bones retract into their flesh, which regains at least some normal human color. Within their bodies, you make changes as well. You calm the endless anguish of their minds, replacing with something more orderly and functional. You grant them the power to use magic to distract attention from themselves. And you give them their bone blades back. They can extend or retract razor-sharp sickles of iron-hard bone at will from their knuckles. They can also make shorter ones appear from their toes. You name them Reavers.
That task done, you devour a few of the corpses of those who died in the tournament, and order the remainder to be left for you. Then you fly to Henord Crossing. You can see the fighting in the town, and the results.
The gates have been broke open and hastily barricaded. That barricade in turn has been smashed down. The temple is on fire. The docks were on fire, but are now mostly ash. For now, it seems mostly quiet. Some people begin to cheer when you arrive, others let out a cry of despair. Most simply watch with miserable eyes. No matter what happens now, they know it cannot be good. You do not enter, instead simply watching as the delegation, accompanied by your priests, enters. There is a brief discussion. Some surrender, others are clubbed unconscious. Half the priests enter the temple, accompanied by your eager followers and foot-dragging laborers. The other half begin to circulate among the assembled townsfolk.
You leave, satisfied, but do not return to your cult yet. Instead, you visit the castle. It’s changed since you last came, to retrieve the blade which would be Desecrator. Two skeletons guard the broken gate, standing at attention with rusted halberds. They do not bar your path. Smoke seems to flow out of the ground, forming an arrow. You follow it, and it leads you into the cavern you left the corpse and its holy equipment in. The vapor and the vent it rose from are both gone. The corpse sits upright, the amulet – now twisted into a malformed spiral - around its neck. “Greetings, kin of my father.” It says, and shifts smoothly to one knee. “ I, Caliwick, son of Clrgth, angel slayer and arch necromancer, swear to follow Klx-Dryklfx as his loyal servant.” It rises, its eye glittering. It doesn’t have lips, so it licks where they would be. “How may I serve?”
All around the world, people that night have bad dreams. At long abandoned battlefields, warriors from both sides stumble to their feet, clawing their way from the pits they buried in. Spirits of ash and sorrow swirl across the blood-stained grounds. In graveyards, the dead stir as well, some rising from their graves or breaking free of their mausoleums. Most don’t rise, and most of those who rise don’t manage to escape the unintentional prisons they are trapped in. But only fools wander graveyards in the dead of night these days. In vile fens and foul swamps and dark woods, monsters thought long dead stir in their slumber. The surface of many a lake and river are plagued by sudden gouts of bubbles or unexpected waves, as though something is shifting in the deeps. Scraps of horrible rituals and dreadful spells are found tucked in the pages of long-forgotten books. And far to the north, in the most sacred halls of the dwarves, a young warrior stares at his reflection in the shimmering breastplate of the rarest metal known to dwarves.
Name: Klx-Dryklfx
Time: 7.25 months
Physical Might: 92+6 (+10 slaughter, +15 worship, +4 feasting -30 empowerment, -5 mutation )
Mental Might: ] 92+6 (+10 slaughter, +15 worship, +4 feasting -30 empowerment, -5 mutation )
Followers
13 Reavers, 152 thralls, 114 Spear-Thralls, 132 Sword-Thralls, and 115 Archer-Thralls, 8 seducers, 113 peasants, 10 Hunters, 1 High Seducer, 17 Doom-Seekers, 2 Doom-Seers, 18 Dark Priests, 5 god-slayers(mounted), 28 Demon-touched
Servants
17 wisp wights, 8 armored brutes, 2 crushers, 431 zombies, 67 skeletons, 50 wisp wretches, 89 weeping sores, 17 specters
Cults
The Broken
Members: 13 Reavers, 152 thralls, 114 Spear-Thralls, 132 Sword-Thralls, and 115 Archer-Thralls, 10 Hunters,17 Doom-Seekers, 2 Doom-Seers, 18 Dark Priests, 5 god-slayers(mounted), 28 Demon-Touched
Resources: 22(-30 Demon-Touched Armor, -15 weapons and armor)
Power: 25(12 spent worshipping you, 3 spent on the tournament, 5 spent training, 5 spent making equipment)
The Ceaseless Consumption
Members: 8 seducers and 24 thralls, and 54 peasants split among 8 locations, 1 high seducer and 60 peasants
Resources: 0
Power: 13 (5 spent worshipping you, 4 spent recruiting, 3 spent spreading rumors)
Fortresses
Canord
Strong walls (45), Deep moat (25), Thorn Wall (25), Weak wards(15), Traps(15) Demonic crops, plentiful mines, Strong aura of domination. Currently empty
Avar
Basic Walls(20), Living Ward(15)
Demonic Realm
1300 Peons
Champions
Kreth Woemaker
Physical might: 12
Mental might: 12
Other: Magic Cloak
Duthrax Soul-Render, First of the Thrall-Herds
Physical might: 7 + 1
Mental might: 3 + 1
Other: Duelist, skilled commander, zombie horse, Herald
Lurrothel, Weaver of Nightmares
Physical might: 1
Mental might: 6
Other: Necromancer, skilled at wards and dream magic
Artifacts
Desecrator
+6 physical, +6 mental
Bringer of unholy rot, Reanimator, Focus of Power
Magic Cloak
Unknown properties
Herald
+1 physical, + 1 mental
Inspiring song
You should probably decide how much tribute exactly you want from Henord Crossing. For now at least they will probably try and do the miniumum.
Author
Topic: The Rise of a Demon (Number of ritual wedding duels: 1) (Read 52357 times)