Lobos
The Big Bad Wolf
The scene was one of utter darkness, of blackest night within the deep, abyssal depths miles below the surface that teemed with life far above. The pits so far away from the warmth and life giving light of the sun held umbral secrets tightly, secretively. And even among them, there were dwellers. And for some time, even they had avoided one of the deepest of them all, whispering of curses, of wraiths and monsters that chilled even their foul blood, that sent ice into their shriveled hearts. The cavern, in their tongue, Euol'renor Yath. Onyx Cathedral.
With the dark-piercing eyes of the deep denizens, the cavern was monstrous. Fit to house a sprawling city of the deep underground, yet occupied only by a collection of titanic shards, unfathomable pieces of an entity that had dwelt, slept, awoken, and worked within the yawning maw of stone and dripping water. Metallic segments of a colossal form measuring over a mile in length lay as dead, inert rubble among the cavern, pieces of some eldritch engine strewn as though scattered by the careless hand of some abyssal god. Portions of a collective being that had long fled the shell of its corpse that still oozed a malevolence and malice powerful enough to frighten the soulless creatures of the vast underground. Relics of what some claimed a god, others a daemon, yet others the manifestation of a single powerful concept into a physical form. The theories surrounding the remains that occupied this mighty cave of eons old stone, of water that has seeped through so deeply, of the mindless vermin that ran through the ruins of a once mighty entity.
And such had the scene been, for years. A taboo among creatures that were taboo all in and of themselves. And should have stayed forevermore, to be forgotten in the unending roll of time itself…
With a sound that seemed to rip through the underground networks with impossible volume, however, something twitched in the Onyx Cathedral. Metal shifted against stone, rasping. A collective hush went through the depths, a breath held in the hopes that it was merely yet another effort at settling, of the restless earth shifting a piece of the wreckage to a new point in its tomb. Silence, such silence…
Tap. Tap. Tick.
An almost imperceptible quiver ran through the deep rock.
Thump.
A muted hum quivered in the air, as keens of terror rose, the flurry of activity as creatures and beings fled the section of caves, tunnels, and caverns as though pursued by a nightmarish host of monsters so horrific, they fueled the fears of nightmares that were whispered nightmares of those surface dwellers so, so far above. As scraps shivered and rolled, as stone still shreds twisted. As ancient engines turned sinister turbines with lazy, twists in decrepit vents. Poisonous energies coalesced, their blackness a stain on the dark itself, gelatinous clouds of evil stirred by air disturbed by a corpse that was displaying behavior of no other corpse.
“I….”
The faintest noise, the suggestion of a sound. The whisper that nearly did not escape a throat, yet it sounded as thunder. The low hum began to thrum, the chitter of metal growing as the broken pieces skittered across the floor, drifting as though drawn by the pull of a magnet towards the central mass. Which itself was shifting, creaking and groaning as internal pieces lashed with phantom motions, catching and snaring together, jaws locking. A burst of light as an arc of energy spat between spires, giving a hellish insight of the crazed activity of dead pieces crawling, hopping, slithering, bouncing, rolling towards the not-corpse. And then again, and again. And again, again, again and again.
The bursts came like rifle fire, a crazed strobing view of thing, as pieces connected to each other, linking, becoming parts of a whole once again. Curving blades thrust themselves into sockets, keening metal protesting the brutality of its assembly with metallic shrieks and gouts of sparks. A mammoth crunch as a component hurled itself over, betraying itself to be a claw large enough to seize a dragon, shaking the cavern as it thudded to the stone, talons as large as cars curling inward, tearing gouges into the cracking floor with contemptuous ease. Rods, scales, components without definable names, shards of broken pieces, they began to dance a macabre harmony of ghostly life as they whirled through the air, slamming into place with dire impacts, fusing together with sickly bursts of lambent blood-hued light, heating to a ghastly orange as a new illumination began to rise. Engines spluttered and spat gasses and smoke, growling with beastly menace as they revved into life, as the first shreds of new arrivals twisted through the solid walls with the ease of spectres. Tentacles of translucent power, of some spirit, drifted through the disturbed void, drawing into gaping rents in the assembling mechanism.
And without warning, the scene erupted in an intangible wave that blossomed as would an eruption, an unseen, unheard, but not unfelt burst that ripped through the fabric of reality, expanding in an ever increasing globe. Tearing the veil, hunting, questing.
“I-I-I-I-.....”
Louder now, the voice that had no origin. It came from the air itself, bearing a stutter to it. Like a speaker that had no will, an automaton. But then an unnerving sound, that implied cognizance.
Something chuckled.
____
Within the realm of shadow, a pervasive inverse of what existed, a figure sat on a throne, lazily regarding his handiwork with the grin of a god. Pausing at some sense of perception, he glanced to his left.
“Fooouund...yoooouu…”
Bolting to his feet, staggering backwards. Gaping, at the sight of two orbs, lambent sunbursts stained with insidious potency. “You’re gone, you can’t be here. It’s not possible!”
Screaming, a gesture sent a crackling grey wave through the apparition, shredding it asunder. Sighing at the destruction of the phantom, his body relaxed. Yet his laugh caught in his throat, as the voice spoken again...from within.
“Aall e wer, n th rt. ll th p’r, ot e hea. All pow’r, no he’rt.” A broken chant, a litany of malice coming from within his own mind. Flailing, wailing, even as his eyes saw the horizon of his realm shredding before him, tearing into a drifting miasma that seethed, as thousands of twinned orbs bloomed within the cloud as it continued to tear his world apart, moving inwards with hurricane force. Silvertonge screamed.
“ALL THE POWER, BUT NOT THE HEART. TRAITOR, YOU ARE MINE.”
Phantasmal claws ripped into the puppet as the chaos closed the circle....
____
Disorientation, as Silvertongue was ripped through the strands of reality into the Onyx Cathedral, into Euol'renor Yath, impaled on a single, monstrous talon of spirit. Agony lit through him like a wildfire, even as his eye were forced to witness the profane self-rising of the mechanized remains. The grim choreography of the dance of gears, of plates, of probes, of cables. And yet the scene lacked an element, and slow realization drew him to follow the talon that held him aloft.
Orbs had become eyes, features writ in lambent, swirling daemonfyre and swirling ash, hues ranging across the spectrum, colors seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled. The spirit of that held him pinned as a though an insect threatened madness even in one of the damned, the sight of the monstrous abomination that dared, nay, demanded that it’s existence in this reality continue unraveling his mind as would entropy rot all things. Within his eyes, the swirling maelstrom gave glimpses, legions of consumed screaming in agony and terror, the flash of long faded places, of worlds, of realms torn asunder and consumed within his very essence, the sight of eternally held enmities, their faces arrogant, on and on, scene after scene. Closing his eyes, Silvertongue turned with a whimper from the sight.
“I…I...I!”
The puppet flung aside with a twist, the hooked talon ripping immaterial essence from the discarded toy, a swirling, poisonous, vaporeal subtance that wavered, at once the size of a mountain, then as a small stone, writhing like a thing alive. The Miasma. The spectral entity grinned, a hellish mockery of the expression that was felt even when unseen by Silvertongue, his shivering form quivering. Pausing to regard the figure, a voice rasped in his mind, shifting between voices, at once a foul growl, then an insidious squeal, a mocking voice, a legion of voices.
“You plotted and connived, deceived and lied, and wrought yourself unto a god. Yet you should have known, with the things you’ve seen come and gone, that when you put down a monster, you ensure it stays down.”
“The Pariah and the Silvertongue. How...disappointing…”
Shaking the Miasma as though a rag, a portion ripped free, hurling to hammer into the stone next to the puppet. The amorphous essences dripped free, etching corruption and corrosion into the stone, leaving behind bared bones, a foul countenance that was nonetheless pathetic in its slumped posture. Defeated. Stripped bare and discarded. As guilty as the puppet, the once dreaded killer.
A chuckle heard only within the minds of the fallen, as the daemonic entity watched as the last portions of the carcass align. With a rumble that shook the bedrock, the last pieces fell into place, the last alignments of the cogs, the gears, the cables, the lenses and the plating and the welds. The Miasma clutched in the foreclaws of the Spirit, a strange reflection of the shell, yet a somehow even more horrific by compare.
And finally, the circle was ready to close.
Twisting to hold itself above the shell, the spirit sunk into the metallic bones. The growl of the turbines, the thrum of the fans, the clicks and clanks of the gears fell away, going silent once more. One would dare to hope.
One would be wrong.
Fell light blossomed like a tainted sun, power, fyre, and raw energies igniting within and without as the cacophony, an orchestra of discordance as the pressure of his presence crushed like an ocean on the Cathedral, pressing the puppets into the stone with its weight. The form was unveiled, the draconian appearance opening wide it’s mammoth jaws, and from the gaping maw issued a roar.
The surface stone in the cavern erupted, the sonic pressure splitting it more effectively than any explosive, the overpressure wave tearing through the tunnels to the cave and blasting through the surrounding networks, echoing in a worldwide eruption of triumphant wrath and ecstasy. And with the thunder of his voice, came power.
In the icy regions of the north, in the depths of a lightless valley, a mammoth carcass lay, bones encased in frozen water, buried under years of snow. The prison ruptured in an instant, as with a bellow of its own, it blazed with life, a true dragon, twisted into macabre caricature by the energies of the one below. Daemonfyre flash boiled the snow and ice around itself, lifting skyward on a flood of his own power, announcing its return like a blazing comet streaks the sky.
Sunken in the bogs of the midlands, a shell broke apart, a legion of ripples churning the sludge before hundreds of near liquid shapes burst from the mire, their combined cries a harsh and grating chorus of revival. The black tide, the swarm alighting into the air, a cloud of foul intent.
“I AM!” The one below erupted anew.
“Lord.” The flaming dragon, corrupted long ago. The voice of the Butcher.
“Mmmaaaaaassstteerr…” The many who’s forms resembled a murder of crows, dripping with poison. The call of the Raven.
“God.” Spit in contempt and disgust, the bones who’s eyes blazed with inner fire. The sneer of the Pariah.
“Krycis.” Spoken in a whisper, for such was the way of the one known as the Silver-Tongue.
With the dark-piercing eyes of the deep denizens, the cavern was monstrous. Fit to house a sprawling city of the deep underground, yet occupied only by a collection of titanic shards, unfathomable pieces of an entity that had dwelt, slept, awoken, and worked within the yawning maw of stone and dripping water. Metallic segments of a colossal form measuring over a mile in length lay as dead, inert rubble among the cavern, pieces of some eldritch engine strewn as though scattered by the careless hand of some abyssal god. Portions of a collective being that had long fled the shell of its corpse that still oozed a malevolence and malice powerful enough to frighten the soulless creatures of the vast underground. Relics of what some claimed a god, others a daemon, yet others the manifestation of a single powerful concept into a physical form. The theories surrounding the remains that occupied this mighty cave of eons old stone, of water that has seeped through so deeply, of the mindless vermin that ran through the ruins of a once mighty entity.
And such had the scene been, for years. A taboo among creatures that were taboo all in and of themselves. And should have stayed forevermore, to be forgotten in the unending roll of time itself…
With a sound that seemed to rip through the underground networks with impossible volume, however, something twitched in the Onyx Cathedral. Metal shifted against stone, rasping. A collective hush went through the depths, a breath held in the hopes that it was merely yet another effort at settling, of the restless earth shifting a piece of the wreckage to a new point in its tomb. Silence, such silence…
Tap. Tap. Tick.
An almost imperceptible quiver ran through the deep rock.
Thump.
A muted hum quivered in the air, as keens of terror rose, the flurry of activity as creatures and beings fled the section of caves, tunnels, and caverns as though pursued by a nightmarish host of monsters so horrific, they fueled the fears of nightmares that were whispered nightmares of those surface dwellers so, so far above. As scraps shivered and rolled, as stone still shreds twisted. As ancient engines turned sinister turbines with lazy, twists in decrepit vents. Poisonous energies coalesced, their blackness a stain on the dark itself, gelatinous clouds of evil stirred by air disturbed by a corpse that was displaying behavior of no other corpse.
“I….”
The faintest noise, the suggestion of a sound. The whisper that nearly did not escape a throat, yet it sounded as thunder. The low hum began to thrum, the chitter of metal growing as the broken pieces skittered across the floor, drifting as though drawn by the pull of a magnet towards the central mass. Which itself was shifting, creaking and groaning as internal pieces lashed with phantom motions, catching and snaring together, jaws locking. A burst of light as an arc of energy spat between spires, giving a hellish insight of the crazed activity of dead pieces crawling, hopping, slithering, bouncing, rolling towards the not-corpse. And then again, and again. And again, again, again and again.
The bursts came like rifle fire, a crazed strobing view of thing, as pieces connected to each other, linking, becoming parts of a whole once again. Curving blades thrust themselves into sockets, keening metal protesting the brutality of its assembly with metallic shrieks and gouts of sparks. A mammoth crunch as a component hurled itself over, betraying itself to be a claw large enough to seize a dragon, shaking the cavern as it thudded to the stone, talons as large as cars curling inward, tearing gouges into the cracking floor with contemptuous ease. Rods, scales, components without definable names, shards of broken pieces, they began to dance a macabre harmony of ghostly life as they whirled through the air, slamming into place with dire impacts, fusing together with sickly bursts of lambent blood-hued light, heating to a ghastly orange as a new illumination began to rise. Engines spluttered and spat gasses and smoke, growling with beastly menace as they revved into life, as the first shreds of new arrivals twisted through the solid walls with the ease of spectres. Tentacles of translucent power, of some spirit, drifted through the disturbed void, drawing into gaping rents in the assembling mechanism.
And without warning, the scene erupted in an intangible wave that blossomed as would an eruption, an unseen, unheard, but not unfelt burst that ripped through the fabric of reality, expanding in an ever increasing globe. Tearing the veil, hunting, questing.
“I-I-I-I-.....”
Louder now, the voice that had no origin. It came from the air itself, bearing a stutter to it. Like a speaker that had no will, an automaton. But then an unnerving sound, that implied cognizance.
Something chuckled.
____
Within the realm of shadow, a pervasive inverse of what existed, a figure sat on a throne, lazily regarding his handiwork with the grin of a god. Pausing at some sense of perception, he glanced to his left.
“Fooouund...yoooouu…”
Bolting to his feet, staggering backwards. Gaping, at the sight of two orbs, lambent sunbursts stained with insidious potency. “You’re gone, you can’t be here. It’s not possible!”
Screaming, a gesture sent a crackling grey wave through the apparition, shredding it asunder. Sighing at the destruction of the phantom, his body relaxed. Yet his laugh caught in his throat, as the voice spoken again...from within.
“Aall e wer, n th rt. ll th p’r, ot e hea. All pow’r, no he’rt.” A broken chant, a litany of malice coming from within his own mind. Flailing, wailing, even as his eyes saw the horizon of his realm shredding before him, tearing into a drifting miasma that seethed, as thousands of twinned orbs bloomed within the cloud as it continued to tear his world apart, moving inwards with hurricane force. Silvertonge screamed.
“ALL THE POWER, BUT NOT THE HEART. TRAITOR, YOU ARE MINE.”
Phantasmal claws ripped into the puppet as the chaos closed the circle....
____
Disorientation, as Silvertongue was ripped through the strands of reality into the Onyx Cathedral, into Euol'renor Yath, impaled on a single, monstrous talon of spirit. Agony lit through him like a wildfire, even as his eye were forced to witness the profane self-rising of the mechanized remains. The grim choreography of the dance of gears, of plates, of probes, of cables. And yet the scene lacked an element, and slow realization drew him to follow the talon that held him aloft.
Orbs had become eyes, features writ in lambent, swirling daemonfyre and swirling ash, hues ranging across the spectrum, colors seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled. The spirit of that held him pinned as a though an insect threatened madness even in one of the damned, the sight of the monstrous abomination that dared, nay, demanded that it’s existence in this reality continue unraveling his mind as would entropy rot all things. Within his eyes, the swirling maelstrom gave glimpses, legions of consumed screaming in agony and terror, the flash of long faded places, of worlds, of realms torn asunder and consumed within his very essence, the sight of eternally held enmities, their faces arrogant, on and on, scene after scene. Closing his eyes, Silvertongue turned with a whimper from the sight.
“I…I...I!”
The puppet flung aside with a twist, the hooked talon ripping immaterial essence from the discarded toy, a swirling, poisonous, vaporeal subtance that wavered, at once the size of a mountain, then as a small stone, writhing like a thing alive. The Miasma. The spectral entity grinned, a hellish mockery of the expression that was felt even when unseen by Silvertongue, his shivering form quivering. Pausing to regard the figure, a voice rasped in his mind, shifting between voices, at once a foul growl, then an insidious squeal, a mocking voice, a legion of voices.
“You plotted and connived, deceived and lied, and wrought yourself unto a god. Yet you should have known, with the things you’ve seen come and gone, that when you put down a monster, you ensure it stays down.”
“The Pariah and the Silvertongue. How...disappointing…”
Shaking the Miasma as though a rag, a portion ripped free, hurling to hammer into the stone next to the puppet. The amorphous essences dripped free, etching corruption and corrosion into the stone, leaving behind bared bones, a foul countenance that was nonetheless pathetic in its slumped posture. Defeated. Stripped bare and discarded. As guilty as the puppet, the once dreaded killer.
A chuckle heard only within the minds of the fallen, as the daemonic entity watched as the last portions of the carcass align. With a rumble that shook the bedrock, the last pieces fell into place, the last alignments of the cogs, the gears, the cables, the lenses and the plating and the welds. The Miasma clutched in the foreclaws of the Spirit, a strange reflection of the shell, yet a somehow even more horrific by compare.
And finally, the circle was ready to close.
Twisting to hold itself above the shell, the spirit sunk into the metallic bones. The growl of the turbines, the thrum of the fans, the clicks and clanks of the gears fell away, going silent once more. One would dare to hope.
One would be wrong.
Fell light blossomed like a tainted sun, power, fyre, and raw energies igniting within and without as the cacophony, an orchestra of discordance as the pressure of his presence crushed like an ocean on the Cathedral, pressing the puppets into the stone with its weight. The form was unveiled, the draconian appearance opening wide it’s mammoth jaws, and from the gaping maw issued a roar.
The surface stone in the cavern erupted, the sonic pressure splitting it more effectively than any explosive, the overpressure wave tearing through the tunnels to the cave and blasting through the surrounding networks, echoing in a worldwide eruption of triumphant wrath and ecstasy. And with the thunder of his voice, came power.
In the icy regions of the north, in the depths of a lightless valley, a mammoth carcass lay, bones encased in frozen water, buried under years of snow. The prison ruptured in an instant, as with a bellow of its own, it blazed with life, a true dragon, twisted into macabre caricature by the energies of the one below. Daemonfyre flash boiled the snow and ice around itself, lifting skyward on a flood of his own power, announcing its return like a blazing comet streaks the sky.
Sunken in the bogs of the midlands, a shell broke apart, a legion of ripples churning the sludge before hundreds of near liquid shapes burst from the mire, their combined cries a harsh and grating chorus of revival. The black tide, the swarm alighting into the air, a cloud of foul intent.
“I AM!” The one below erupted anew.
“Lord.” The flaming dragon, corrupted long ago. The voice of the Butcher.
“Mmmaaaaaassstteerr…” The many who’s forms resembled a murder of crows, dripping with poison. The call of the Raven.
“God.” Spit in contempt and disgust, the bones who’s eyes blazed with inner fire. The sneer of the Pariah.
“Krycis.” Spoken in a whisper, for such was the way of the one known as the Silver-Tongue.
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