So. Is this the plan?
-Live, Ghouls, Slaves
-Marry the pretty princess, also start corruption via lust path.
-Just give one of your regular commanders Barrsdoom and hope he turns out okay
-Followers of the Tall Man/CFM/Alternate Faith: Just muddle along
-Rebellions in other towns: Let the lords deal with their own problems
-Realm: Keep on corruptin'
Apparently yes.
You awaken after a fitful night's sleep on very uncomfortable bedding. The reason for your discomfort quickly becomes apparent: you have been tied to the ground, with nothing but a roll of cloth between you and the wet grass. You have also been gagged with a filthy rag that tastes of blood.
You struggle feebly against your bindings. A nearby soldier notices that you have awakened, and wanders off- presumably to fetch someone to deal with you.
An amount of time -which you judge to be precisely one instant less than what would be required to convince you that you have been left tied to the ground to die- later, your kidnapper himself walks up, looking very pleased. He bids you good morning, asks if you slept well. Your attempts at profanity are hindered by the gag, but you think you got the gist across.
The demon laughs, and unties your binds with a wave of his hand. His dark energy washes over you, making you feel sick; you would throw up, but your stomach is empty. This too amuses the demon greatly. He snaps his fingers; a skeleton walks up, bearing a platter of roast meat and vegetables. You eye the food suspiciously, poking it with the supplied fork. The vegetables seem normal, but the meat you do not recognise. You inquire as to its origins.
The demon looks thoughtful for a moment. I think, he begins, I think it was a John. Possibly a Jack? Something with J, anyway. Don't worry- I tried some myself, and he tasted fine to me.
You wordlessly eat the vegetables, leave the meat, and tuck the fork into a fold in your dress.
You are kindly requested to follow your host. You refuse, whereupon the demon shrugs, and extends an arm with which he grabs you by the waist, and then places you upon his shoulder, even as he grows to titanic size. You cling -not fearfully, but cautiously- to the ash-like 'flesh' where his arm dissolves into the swirling nightmare of his torso, meditating to close your mind to the whispers of madness that emanate from the billowing darkness.
It is well past dawn, but the sun shines dimly. Clouds have gathered over Barrtal, and as you approach Dolnar, unnatural mist thickens around you, until you can barely even see the feet of the colossus whose shoulder you ride upon. The demon does not seem hampered by the mist; he strides forth confidently, eyes burning with anticipation.
As you near your destination, you hear unnatural howls and the clattering of weapons, and feel oppressive waves of demonic energy beating down upon your soul. You redouble your efforts to resist its corruptive influence, casting a simple spell that blocks your ears and eyes so that you can focus your mind entirely inwards.
You spell is immediately undone by the demon. The brief respite from the noise and madness merely makes its return all the worse; you cannot help but waver in your concentration, distracted by a particularly fearsome roar, accompanied by a rush of wind and- oh gods no- a dragon flying past. (You are fucking terrified of dragons. You refuse to even read stories about them. Visitors to the palace must be instructed not to mention them in your presence. What can you say? Dragons are the natural enemy of princesses.)
You scream, and instinctively dive for cover. Unfortunately, said cover is the chaotic vortex that makes up the demon's torso. You plunge head-first into the twisted darkness.
Your first thought is that the vortex is surprisingly comfortable. Falling in feels like diving into a sun-warmed pool; a brief shock as you transition from one medium to another, followed by relaxation as the thick, warm darkness takes the weight of your shoulders.
Your second thought is pain. Horrible, horrible pain. The darkness tears into you, biting, corroding, scratching- at least, that is how you would describe it; the actual experience is similar to all three, but at the same time entirely
different.
Your third thought is one of horror. Even as you feel your skin falling away from your body, and the darkness attacking your raw nerves, seeping into your veins and tearing you up from within, the terror is worse. There is something beyond the darkness. Something beyond the vortex. You are falling towards it, and you hope with every fiber of your being that the darkness kills you before you reach it because even the thought of witnessing the true nature of this beast makes your mind shake and scramble. You can feel your memories and feelings becoming muddled as your brain desperately tries to reconfigure itself into something that can even comprehend the oncoming-
Your fourth thought is one of pain and relief. You dangle upside down in the air, suspended by a coil of darkness that still eats into your ankle, blood pouring from your nigh-skinless body. But the
! is gone, once again sealed away by the blissful illusion that is the demon's 'mortal form'. You realise now, of course, that there is no mortal form. It is merely an illusion so powerful that it manifests physically, erected by your own subconscious mind to protect you from
!. This revelation fills you with so much
!, that despite the agonising pain of your terrible injuries, you cannot help but laugh manically, which given the blood pouring down your throat and out of your nose and mouth emerges as a series of gurgling coughs.
The demon holds you up to his terrible face -not so terrible now, you muse, giggling internally as you consider how silly the whole thing looks compared to
!-, and with genuine curiosity asks you why you did that.
The question enters your mind. It subsequently gets broken down into component sounds, which you reassemble and attempt to repeat. Again, the blood flowing out of your mouth prevents you from articulating your thoughts properly.
With a brush of dark power -which, again, seems positively delightful compared to
!- the demon seals your injuries, halting the flow of blood. You snort, and the last few drops shoot out of your nose in a manner which you cannot help but find hilarious.
The demon repeats the question. Again, you hear the words, make the appropriate changes to the structure of syllables, and speak the result.
Strangely, all that comes out of your mouth is incoherent gibberish.
Yeah okay princesses are stupid. Besides, this one's broken.
It would appear that miss Eliza has lost all sanity. You ponder this development.
The tendril of darkness holding her up finally eats all the way through the bone, and she falls away, blood pouring from the amputated stump where a foot should be. You catch her in one of your hands. She finds this hilarious, and laughs madly, her skinless face performing a series of random spasms as it tries to remember which muscles make you smile.
Well, this rather puts a damper on your plan to marry her. Or does it? You could still do so. Might be a bit hard to get her to say 'I do', but there's probably some old rule for mutes marrying that you can pull out. Oh, and the wedding dress will have to be made of sterilized cloth, or she will probably die of an infection. All in all, could be tricky. Well, you guess you should
-Fix her up. It'll take a while. Probably require a fairly large dose of power. Fortunately, given her pre-existing mutations, she shouldn't have an all too extreme reaction to the treatment.
-Just marry her like this. It'll be messy, but you won't have to faff about trying to heal her.
-Just forget the whole marrying plan. Finish eating her. She didn't taste very good -alchemy will do that to you- but she's useless to you now anyway.
FLASH DECISION: PICK ONE OPTION:
-FIX
-MARRY
-EAT
Only in Demonhood will you find these three options as plausible reactions to the same decision.
(Status: See previous status, except Eliza is 'pending decisions')
Author
Topic: Demonhood. -Slumbering for an indeterminate number of Strange Aeons- (Read 224714 times)