RP-T BEZALEEL: Erebus, the Age of Night
Essence flowed throughout the realm. The flow of souls was restored with the blight, and the ranks of the mindless dead and the Shades swelled with souls freed from its grasp.
The shadowy, poisoned world heaved a sigh of relief, and what was lost began to return.
Shak'tek'lon - Deity of Rebirth - was resurrected by Erebus. He was undead, but retained the spark of divinity - he was a demigod. Taking the name of Saint Anastasius, he greeted the warlord of Erebus, Saesin, and offered his services, demonstrating a new magic of 'shadowmending' - fashioning the mindless undead into mockeries of life. When practiced on mindless undead, the product were ghouls - loyal creatures that operated on a basic hunting instinct and retained the ability to wield weapons and use armor.
More interesting, shadowmended sentient dead became wereghouls - gaining greater strength and endurance form muscles and organs woven from shadowstuff, but losing some of the enhanced dexterity and resistance to harm that other undead possessed. Wereghouls could bleed, feel pain, and needed sleep to naturally recover by absorbing the negative energies of the realm.
Saesin, seeing merit in the ghouls, struck an alliance with St. Anastasius on behalf of Esseth and Bezaleel. Moral among the foreign dead soared, as they relished this semblance of normalcy.
=
Meanwhile, in Darkheart, the old followers of the God of Purity came to the gates of the Forlorn Castle, and after ceaseless demands, were granted an audience with the Green-Eyed King.
Esseth had grown strange and grand - wreathed in shadow, tall as a house. A Nightshade.
"The Shadowgod made a bargain with us,"
"A promise. In a year's time, to grant us pure bodies."
"Twenty years have passed! And only a few grains have sifted through this hourglass!"
"I know of this bargain," said Esseth. "And the Shadowgod is true to his word. It was a year of HIS time that was promised, was it not? And did the Lord of the Realm not grant you the gift of the hourglass, that you might know when a hour of His time had passed?"
"Twenty YEARS! Are to wait a century for his return? Two? Ridiculous!"
The shadowflames of the room flickered, and Esseth arm elongated freakishly, seizing the pitiful Undead. "A bargain is a bargain, and you struck it in full knowledge. Do you wish to renege? To abandon your faith? Is your loyalty so pathetic?"
A portal shimmered, and a divine stepped through - Ophelia, bearing a scythe with a gilded blade. "My father is many things, and he certainly has a terrible sense of time - and fashion - and parental responsibility. But hm, I agree with your sentiments! You do look terrible. Absolutely atrocious, really. It's high time something was done about the bedraggled state of the citizenry. Hm. I'll be back, with a friend."
She left through a new portal, then returned, a skeletal form covered in solidified slag metal in tow - lines of molten metal showing through cracks in the carapace.
Skeles, god of the forge.
"Old Bezaleel needs MY help, you said? In his realm? He's never asked that of me before, even though we're friends! It must be impor-"
Ophelia came from behind him, cartwheeled forward, swinging the arc of the scythe upward - rammed the blade of the scythe through his pelvis - then threw the rest of weight backward, slamming her legs against Skeles' back, bisecting him - ripping the scythe through his left shoulder.
Skeles: 6/10
The half of Skeles with a still-intact head attached stumbled, fell -
Ophelia spun, the scythe cutting that half of Skeles' in half again -
Skeles: 3/10
then she settled a foot against the stone floor, and swung the blade of the scythe upward, spearing the still-living quarter of Skeles.
Skeles: 2/10
The Living Metal that Skeles wore as bracer on his right arm came to life Ophelia's surprise round ended, severing the scythe in half through the pole and splitting her left arm clean through. She was bleeding horribly.
Skeles: 2/10
Ophelia: 5/10, bleeding out
Screaming in pain, Ophelia caught the remaining haft of the scythe with the blade still attached, and brought the improvised sickle down through Skeles' head.
Skeles: 1/10
Ophelia: 3/10, bleeding out
Skeles was unconscious. Grabbing her own split arm, a searing golden light and heat filled the shadowed chamber - and the wound was cauterized, her arm a burnt ruin.
Skeles: 1/10
Ophelia 2/10, stable
Bracing the still-living head of Skeles' against the floor with her foot on top, she ripped the golden sickle out, and lapped up searing blood the poured from Skeles' neck - which, curiously, didn't harm her.
The light in Skeles' eyes went out. His body was now so much stone.
Ophelia had consumed his soul.
Removing the golden living metal from Skeles' right arm, she placed it on her own left arm. It molded itself over the ruined arm. She flexed the finger of the gauntlet - and it flowed over her body, becoming a suit of form-fitting golden armor.
The battle had taken all of twelve seconds. Ophelia huffed out a breath or relief.
"Now, that's done. Come, Pure Ones. I will grant you new forms."
Light - golden light - shown from Ophelia, and the flesh was blasted from the bones of the Undead. The light dimmed, became dust, and clung as flakes of gold to the skeletal dead.
"I am Ophelia, Daughter of Diadae of the Garden and the Shadowgod Bezaleel, Goddess of the Harvest. Oh -"
She looked at the ruined form of Skeles, a macabre grin on her face -
"and Artifice.
"Are you now pleased? Or do you desire further blessings - would you like jewels for eyes? Shall I clothe thee in fine white silk? My father's bargain is fulfilled. You are now my Gilded Dead. Or Gildead. No, we'll stick with Gilded Dead."
Esseth judged impassively. "You betrayed a god. One neutral to Erebus. We have a new foe, surely, and there will be political consequences among the gods of the servants that took so many to join their army."
Esseth sat back from the throne. "If you remain loyal to the shadowgod, he will share in this conflict. Yet, so too will your mother, who is among that same faction. You have made yourself a stronger piece in the game, and strength earns alliances that honor cannot. It is the weak the must lean on their moral character to beg for the right to live. Perhaps . . this Pantheon will respect us more, now. They would be remiss to engage us in battle on our home turf, so soon after the Battle of Noor."
Ophelia shrugged. "I heard that he hit on my mom. Crudely. Artifice is a powerful domain, and with it I can begin to make a proper killing machine out of the Undead that serve my father. He has more lives to him; they can hardly call me a murderer when my victim is still kicking. It's more like . . hyperviolent mugging."
Soon after, Ophelia began to slowly craft more Gilded Dead, taking her share of the new bounty of souls as she made her elites, and with the king's support, lead them into battle against the rising horde of the living . .
=
. . . lead by a being rumored to be the Greenfather, the once dead - or merely lost? - patron of Lifebringer Shoal. His soldiers were strange - their bodies were shadow, resembling fully armored knights but thin and tall. They only moved when the moon was full, sleeping through the dark. His headquarters was from a new province, to the southeast, betwixt the Warrior's Grave and Sepulcher.
A sizable force assaulted the caldera, meeting with the forces there. The Terror Guard lead the pre-emptive assault, supported by the new ghouls, soundly rebuffing and setting to rout the living forces. Saesin reigned in the Terror Guard, recalling them to the naturally defensible caldera, just in time to partly negate the damage of conjured wave of positive energy that reduced half the ghouls to dust.
That proved to be a feint. Outriders seized the mining town of Sepulcher, establishing a foothold in Erebus proper.
Weeks later, a message was sent by bonebird to the living force, a request by King Esseth for parley.
Taking the role of interlocutor, Ophelia and a detachment of her Gilded Dead met with strange being - not the Greenfather, but his own daughter and heir; Marilla Shining-Sea, Goddess of Antideath.
"Sepulcher and the South are mine. I am no fool. I have tested the strength of your forces, and they are not to be scoffed at. Where is Lord Bezaleel, the Lightbane? I would strike an alliance - I seek to slay Death itself, and care nothing for undead. I believe our mutual distaste for the curse of mortality is enough to give him common cause with me."
=
This all Bezaleel saw, and his desires flew on dark wings to his servants;
Ophelia heard his desires, and traveled to the Whispering Shrine:
"Father, I am a child in a world bereft of kindness or mercy. Each of us is a piece upon the board. The Harvest cannot wait for the readiness of the reaper, and neither can I stay my will for the sake of yours. The shades are our people, and Erebus is our home. I pray that on your return you will understand that I do what I must, and that without you to see after me, I must see after myself, and the realm of our shared birthright.
I do believe that the loyal dead require a softer touch now - they aspire to greatness of their own, and some measure of autonomy and liberty would surely enable their striving.
Already many have established themselves as worthy of note. I will tell you of three.
Draheals, a Nightshade, who has studied a forgotten fighting art. With neither weapon nor protection, he - steps between the moonlight, becoming invisible.
Wotran, a wereghoul, who has distilled shadow into ink. Tracing the patterns of shadow-rivers into the skin of other wereghouls and more intact undead, their bodies flower like water, awash in negative energy. I call them Inklets, but Wotran prefers they be called Umbrals. I guess that's more distinguished and intimidating or something.
lastly, Vuatha. One of the young shades - she display an aptitude for magic that manipulates earth. She fled Sepulcher before the town was taken, detering pursuit by rolling the soil over her pursuers. She's called Gravekeeper Vuatha for that now.
That's about all I've got. I have to get back to work. Can't reap what I don't sow."
=
Thinfinger departed, with the promised reward in mind. He soon left your field of consciousness - it seemed what you had yet to uncover was still hidden from you.
Three years later, he returned, with new nicks in his bones. He too came to the whispering shrine.
"Witch is alive. Lives in a deep cavern. Place was swarming with weird shit. Lots of mindless dead, and some not so mindless. Mutated. Horned purple creatures too. She was talking into a bowl full of something like blood. I ran, got shot at with a hell of a lot of arrows, the dumbasses. Skeleton protip- always wear a cloak. Protip to self: get a new cloak."
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:08, Sun 13 Jan 2019.