Demonreach
Serf
- Local time
- Today 2:40 AM
- Messages
- 12
- Age
- 30
There is a world, dark and dying, in a lower dimension. Only a few know of it, but most who do stay away and for good reason. This is a world were any and all visitors are treated as hostiles and none survive, especially in this place. It is chaotic, fucked and torn. No sense of anything normal.
It was... empty.
To get to this world, one must cross Damnation Way: a shortcut, if you will, between worlds, between dimensions. Only a few have tried and survived, but they were never really seen again. As to what happened to them... Who knew?
But there was one thing that was for certain about this dying world, in its dark purple skies and oppressive atmosphere, almost as if one were forced to carry all the burdens of the world on their shoulders. There was no sound as such but simply a growl of thunder that never seemed to end that echoed with the dead air. How could anyone survive this? Why would they want to? But someone did.
Someone thrived.
He wasn't much of a man, short in stature but lithely built. As far as he knew, he was the only sentient creature within this dying world. A world he was born into in the final days as the Many-Angled Ones came with their never ending hunger. He didn't have a name, as such, and he didn't talk: what point was there? He simply was. A small hope for this world to live on. He didn't have grasp of time nor did time have a grasp on him. The world was dying. Laws and physics were play things with the chaotic energies he had learned to harness. Granted, he didn't use those very often as he prided himself in his skills with the crudely made weapon he held always.
It was slightly rusted, though it was a few shades darker than rust and too light to be human blood. It was blood, but the blood of the creatures that plagued him every moment. He didn't really sleep, as day and night were meaningless in the bruise-colored sky. And there wasn't anyone else around that did sleep on a regular basis, at fixed intervals, to ingrain that in his head. Besides, sleep was for the weak. And he wasn't weak.
No, never that.
He was a warrior, though the word and its meaning were lost to him. He is intelligent, no doubt, having to use basic alchemy from time to time, but nothing complex as the dying world's already shredded reality didn't allow for complex machinery or magicks. Not that it bothered him, as he didn't know anything really complex to make or use. But then again, a monkey could figure out half the stuff he had done within his lifetime.
In truth, he didn't know his actual age. He simply knew the battles he has been in. If he could speak, he would regale those around him with epic battles fought and won, and a few lost. He had scars to prove it; Scars he bore proudly.
If there had been anything attractive about his face, it was hidden beneath the thick and heavy scars that criss-crossed his face and neck. A chunk of his left ear was missing from what looked like a bite-mark and the right ear had several cuts along the outside cartilage. His nose was crooked from too many breaks and improper resets. His entire torso and back were littered with scars from teeth, claws, and other objects of violence. A few ribs stuck out oddly from being broken, never set properly. His arms and legs were no less scarred, and he was missing missing the first knuckle of both middle fingers; the fingers were also bent at odd angles from being broken one too many times.
While he could not speak, his body and scars spoke for him.
As he was shirtless mostly, his body was rather skinny, though there was little body fat on him, so his veins stuck out unnaturally so. His body was used to poor nutrition and used to going without food for days at a time.
Whatever to survive, right?
But it was on this fateful fight, this small battle, that he saw visitors from another world just emerge from nowhere. It took him by surprise but he dared not venture too close to them. He waited, to see what they'd do against the creatures of the Dead World.
They fought bravely, tirelessly, and one amongst them was a devil with his sword as he carved his way through the endless creatures. There was a brief lull in the creatures as they gathered some more and noises from these visitors entered his mind. He didn't quite understand it, and simply shook his head and watched.
One of them, a big enough fellow, moved away from them as the others started to walk away, towards something that swallowed two of them. The third waited and watched the one who stayed fought against the encroaching creatures. When the big one fell, the third left without a trace.
Given his eye for detail, eyes expert at tracking and finding things not there, he moved down to the mass of monsters and carved them away from the big man with weapon and arcane energies and ended his suffering.
The lone warrior made his way the way the small party of people had came from and noticed the way the air warped and outstretched his arm and when nothing happened he frowned, puzzled. Then, he extended his index finger and pulled it back sharply as he watched it vanish into the air.
His face lit up with savage glee and curiosity as he then strode forward…
It was dark out, stars twinkling in the vast ocean of space. The man stood transfixed by such a sight, but when he saw the moon, his eyes grew wide with awe and wonder.
Everything was so... alive.
Not the bruise-colored sky where time had all but come to a halt; not the decayed-filled air. It was clean. Vibrant with life and energy. He could feel it, the order this planet had; it all but begged him to drink from its waters. This was a living world, not the dying world he grew up on.
He looked down, after what would've been half an hour of staring at the stars and moon, and ran his bare feet along the blades of grass. Green blades of grass. Not the prickly, dead grass that offered to kill the unwary. He felt tears running down his face, leaving tracks on his grimy face. He fell to his knees, hands running along the grass before he laid his forehead onto the ground, inhaling sharply the scent of the grass; his long, unkempt and matted hair spilled forth, the string he used to tie it back lost; a recent trend for him, as he usually kept it bald to admire his scars. He rolled over and lay in the green grass, his body shaking with silent laughter; a wheezing noise that would've scared even the bravest of souls. This was life. Beauty. Everything he could imagine and then some. He never thought so many colors existed. It was almost too much for his senses.
He drank it all in.
His fingers dug into the ground, feeling the dirt beneath; feeling the life churn. How could someone not see this as a gift? How could someone want to destroy such beauty? It was unthinkable. He wondered how his world looked before it died.
The man was content, overjoyed, to be here. The tears of joy had long dried up, though the smile hadn't left his face.
He didn't know how long he lay there, though the moon was in a different place when he opened his pale green eyes.
He could feel this worlds reality, the lines of chaos and order; of the arcane energies that swirled so interconnected with itself. He could feel it pushing its way into his own mind, filling him with its eager power.
It was intense. It was fire. The traveler rolled back on his knees, forehead pressed against the earth; the smell of dirt filling his nostrils, his senses. He felt the earth pouring itself into him, as if trying to fill a void. Sparks of crackling power issued forth from his body, his aura becoming alive almost as the sudden, greedy power continued flowing into him like water from a flood gate.
His body was growing hot, his mind starting to strain as his will tried to force the abundance of power into focus. To allow the power to have a channel, to give the life surging through him a chance to manifest itself.
He became a conduit as the world's magic cleansed him. For that is what it was, he understood now.
He was an anomaly. He did not belong. He was a lesser creature, twisted and wrong. The life he felt was not his to embrace.
Sorrow filled him, briefly, before it too was scoured away by the cleansing life of this higher reality. He was a warrior, however, surviving a dead world and would not allow this one to just sweep him away.
His will focused, the last vestiges of self offering a momentary respite as he shaped the magic. It was pain, his nerves on fire as the power flooded his veins; pounded into his heart and filled his lungs. Electricity began to arc from his extremities; nails getting blown off and the pain nothing to what coursed through him.
He was undeath, born into a dead and dying world; a world where chaos amd entropy reigned. This world, the reality, of life could not abide his existence. And for a brief moment, there was clarity. His life hanging on by thread, an endless abyss below him as the world promised him peace. He accepted, falling into its embrace in a flash of power, a thunderous boom as the release leveled the surrounding forest for miles.
Where the traveler knelt stood a single tree; strong and proud, connected and alive.
It was... empty.
To get to this world, one must cross Damnation Way: a shortcut, if you will, between worlds, between dimensions. Only a few have tried and survived, but they were never really seen again. As to what happened to them... Who knew?
But there was one thing that was for certain about this dying world, in its dark purple skies and oppressive atmosphere, almost as if one were forced to carry all the burdens of the world on their shoulders. There was no sound as such but simply a growl of thunder that never seemed to end that echoed with the dead air. How could anyone survive this? Why would they want to? But someone did.
Someone thrived.
He wasn't much of a man, short in stature but lithely built. As far as he knew, he was the only sentient creature within this dying world. A world he was born into in the final days as the Many-Angled Ones came with their never ending hunger. He didn't have a name, as such, and he didn't talk: what point was there? He simply was. A small hope for this world to live on. He didn't have grasp of time nor did time have a grasp on him. The world was dying. Laws and physics were play things with the chaotic energies he had learned to harness. Granted, he didn't use those very often as he prided himself in his skills with the crudely made weapon he held always.
It was slightly rusted, though it was a few shades darker than rust and too light to be human blood. It was blood, but the blood of the creatures that plagued him every moment. He didn't really sleep, as day and night were meaningless in the bruise-colored sky. And there wasn't anyone else around that did sleep on a regular basis, at fixed intervals, to ingrain that in his head. Besides, sleep was for the weak. And he wasn't weak.
No, never that.
He was a warrior, though the word and its meaning were lost to him. He is intelligent, no doubt, having to use basic alchemy from time to time, but nothing complex as the dying world's already shredded reality didn't allow for complex machinery or magicks. Not that it bothered him, as he didn't know anything really complex to make or use. But then again, a monkey could figure out half the stuff he had done within his lifetime.
In truth, he didn't know his actual age. He simply knew the battles he has been in. If he could speak, he would regale those around him with epic battles fought and won, and a few lost. He had scars to prove it; Scars he bore proudly.
If there had been anything attractive about his face, it was hidden beneath the thick and heavy scars that criss-crossed his face and neck. A chunk of his left ear was missing from what looked like a bite-mark and the right ear had several cuts along the outside cartilage. His nose was crooked from too many breaks and improper resets. His entire torso and back were littered with scars from teeth, claws, and other objects of violence. A few ribs stuck out oddly from being broken, never set properly. His arms and legs were no less scarred, and he was missing missing the first knuckle of both middle fingers; the fingers were also bent at odd angles from being broken one too many times.
While he could not speak, his body and scars spoke for him.
As he was shirtless mostly, his body was rather skinny, though there was little body fat on him, so his veins stuck out unnaturally so. His body was used to poor nutrition and used to going without food for days at a time.
Whatever to survive, right?
But it was on this fateful fight, this small battle, that he saw visitors from another world just emerge from nowhere. It took him by surprise but he dared not venture too close to them. He waited, to see what they'd do against the creatures of the Dead World.
They fought bravely, tirelessly, and one amongst them was a devil with his sword as he carved his way through the endless creatures. There was a brief lull in the creatures as they gathered some more and noises from these visitors entered his mind. He didn't quite understand it, and simply shook his head and watched.
One of them, a big enough fellow, moved away from them as the others started to walk away, towards something that swallowed two of them. The third waited and watched the one who stayed fought against the encroaching creatures. When the big one fell, the third left without a trace.
Given his eye for detail, eyes expert at tracking and finding things not there, he moved down to the mass of monsters and carved them away from the big man with weapon and arcane energies and ended his suffering.
The lone warrior made his way the way the small party of people had came from and noticed the way the air warped and outstretched his arm and when nothing happened he frowned, puzzled. Then, he extended his index finger and pulled it back sharply as he watched it vanish into the air.
His face lit up with savage glee and curiosity as he then strode forward…
It was dark out, stars twinkling in the vast ocean of space. The man stood transfixed by such a sight, but when he saw the moon, his eyes grew wide with awe and wonder.
Everything was so... alive.
Not the bruise-colored sky where time had all but come to a halt; not the decayed-filled air. It was clean. Vibrant with life and energy. He could feel it, the order this planet had; it all but begged him to drink from its waters. This was a living world, not the dying world he grew up on.
He looked down, after what would've been half an hour of staring at the stars and moon, and ran his bare feet along the blades of grass. Green blades of grass. Not the prickly, dead grass that offered to kill the unwary. He felt tears running down his face, leaving tracks on his grimy face. He fell to his knees, hands running along the grass before he laid his forehead onto the ground, inhaling sharply the scent of the grass; his long, unkempt and matted hair spilled forth, the string he used to tie it back lost; a recent trend for him, as he usually kept it bald to admire his scars. He rolled over and lay in the green grass, his body shaking with silent laughter; a wheezing noise that would've scared even the bravest of souls. This was life. Beauty. Everything he could imagine and then some. He never thought so many colors existed. It was almost too much for his senses.
He drank it all in.
His fingers dug into the ground, feeling the dirt beneath; feeling the life churn. How could someone not see this as a gift? How could someone want to destroy such beauty? It was unthinkable. He wondered how his world looked before it died.
The man was content, overjoyed, to be here. The tears of joy had long dried up, though the smile hadn't left his face.
He didn't know how long he lay there, though the moon was in a different place when he opened his pale green eyes.
He could feel this worlds reality, the lines of chaos and order; of the arcane energies that swirled so interconnected with itself. He could feel it pushing its way into his own mind, filling him with its eager power.
It was intense. It was fire. The traveler rolled back on his knees, forehead pressed against the earth; the smell of dirt filling his nostrils, his senses. He felt the earth pouring itself into him, as if trying to fill a void. Sparks of crackling power issued forth from his body, his aura becoming alive almost as the sudden, greedy power continued flowing into him like water from a flood gate.
His body was growing hot, his mind starting to strain as his will tried to force the abundance of power into focus. To allow the power to have a channel, to give the life surging through him a chance to manifest itself.
He became a conduit as the world's magic cleansed him. For that is what it was, he understood now.
He was an anomaly. He did not belong. He was a lesser creature, twisted and wrong. The life he felt was not his to embrace.
Sorrow filled him, briefly, before it too was scoured away by the cleansing life of this higher reality. He was a warrior, however, surviving a dead world and would not allow this one to just sweep him away.
His will focused, the last vestiges of self offering a momentary respite as he shaped the magic. It was pain, his nerves on fire as the power flooded his veins; pounded into his heart and filled his lungs. Electricity began to arc from his extremities; nails getting blown off and the pain nothing to what coursed through him.
He was undeath, born into a dead and dying world; a world where chaos amd entropy reigned. This world, the reality, of life could not abide his existence. And for a brief moment, there was clarity. His life hanging on by thread, an endless abyss below him as the world promised him peace. He accepted, falling into its embrace in a flash of power, a thunderous boom as the release leveled the surrounding forest for miles.
Where the traveler knelt stood a single tree; strong and proud, connected and alive.