A lone creature dragged itself along a rocky mountain side. Its bottom half resembled the hind legs of a goat. Coarse black hair covered it and black cloven hooves dug into the rock of the cliff. It had a man's stomach, chest, and arms. But its head was that of a goat, a ram. Two black horns curved backwards above pointy ears and yellow eyes with rectangular pupils pointed to either side of its head. A black beard adorned its long chin. It grabbed onto a rock sticking out from the side of the mountain and dragged itself up another meter.
Breathing out through its nose the goat man found an out cropping to rest before it finally reached the top. It squatted down and bleated to itself miserably shaking its head and tail from side to side. Recovering its strength the goat man stood up and peeked over the mountain.
Its eyes widened briefly before the top half of its head disappeared in a red mist. The headless corpse was knocked back off the slight shelf it had been resting on and smashed into the side of the mountain before continuing to tumble and roll down the side of it. The sound of snapping bones and meat sounded with each impact against the mountain. But those sounds were soon drowned out by an explosion. A gout of flame roared from the other side rising in a pillar of red and black into the sky. Another explosion echoed from across the mountain top. For beyond it, there was a war. A war not by man or woman, but by witches.
In the valley beyond thousands of goat men employed as familiars bit and butted humanoid rabbits. They would beat them with their fists, breaking bones and bruising skin. Their horns would crack skulls or tear fur and flesh dragging out their entrails as their victims high pitched squeals were drowned out by their vicious bleating and roaring. Any foe that tripped and fell into the mud was crushed by black hooves with such strength that they cut into their bodies and liquefied any organs in the way. The rabbits would claw and kick breaking limbs and bodies with each blow.
A rabbit delivers a clean kick to the chest of a goat man and it belches out blood and bits of lung. It flies backwards into another goat man knocking it over. That rabbit is then buried under a black mass of fur and claws. A sea of cats hiss in unison as they flay the huge squealing rabbit bit by bit like an army of ants tearing apart an unfortunate caterpillar. This sight repeats itself in the muddy valley under the black cloudy sky. Thousands of familiars tear and beat each other to pieces forming a writhing sea of muddy bodies killing each other.
This ocean of violence is dotted with raised pedestals of grey rock a top which one or a couple women stand. They are witches. Some huddle together fearfully casting gouts of elements such as fire, water, or wind so they can to drive back the monsters that surround them. Like a small flower desperately protecting its petals from a raging storm. Others blast away groups of creatures with more original spells; the summoning of spirits and elementals, physical enhancement and the summoning of weapons, calling familiars to protect them.
Occasionally a group is overwhelmed and the small grey circle of rock clear of bodies is turned black by the hordes of different familiars. The witches disappear in an instant as their screams are drowned out under the numerous animal cries as the monsters devour and defile them.
One young witch stands upon a grey slab of rock sticking out of the mud. Her name is Aveira. Her blonde hair tangles together as it is stained by mud. The simple white cotton shirt was dotted with brown and red stains and her brown dress was torn and dirtied as well. She fires off basic magical cuts as well as maintaining the evil eye. It slows them long enough to slit arteries or veins in the neck or thigh bleeding them out. She had brought a single tabby cat and three wood fairies she had made friends with from her home in the forest.
Her friends now lay in the mud. The tabby cat had been cut in two by the hoof of a goat man and the three wood fairies had been swatted like flies before disappearing into the mud.
Her arm swings across her as she releases another magical cut. It flies towards the neck of a goat man but it twists its head, losing an eye but keeping its life. Tears and snot stream down her face as rage and fear coursed through her.
She had never used her magic offensively. The cutting spell she was using was one she used when pruning the forest or cutting leather. The evil eye was a basic magic that she had mastered while learning the importance of how magic was affected by the user. Yet she fought for her dead friends, for her own survival.
A hand closes around her ankle. She had gotten close to the edge of the stone platform by accident and a goat man had reached up and grabbed her. The hand wrenches and she falls forwards catching herself with her hands but still winded slightly. The arm drags her off the platform and she lands in the mud with a splash. Her behind sinks into it and her head knocks against the stone she had been standing on. Dazed she blinks and shakes her head to clear the pain. Then she sees a goat man standing over her. It raises its foot and stomps. Blood gushes out of her mouth with a pained croak as she heard her spine crack. She looked back down to see the hoof sinking into her stomach as blood oozed out of the horseshoe shaped cut it had made. The goat man leans forward, its head filling her vision. Aveira pants in fear and pain as its rectangular pupils peer awkwardly at her from the sides of its head.
Suddenly its jaws snap open and it buries its blunt teeth into her left breast. Her eyes wrench open so far she thought they would pop out as she screams in pain. The wet tearing sound of flesh ripping off bone echoes through her even as she was deafened by her own cries. A dirty hand covers her bloody mouth and the yellow eyes of the goat man fill her vision.
What remained of her body sank into the mud with her friends another hour later.
Another witch stands observing the battle field with green eyes, alone on a similar grey rock sticking out of the mud. Goat men surround her on all sides, pushing and shoving each other as they clamber up to reach her. She wears her auburn hair in a bun behind her head and a long dark brown Victorian dress with gold embroidery along the edges. She crosses her arms and summons a golden opium pipe in her left hand. Taking a puff she takes the pipe and taps it twice with her index finger. Gold sparks drift down and dance around her before fluttering down in between the goat men.
A flash followed by a staccato of explosions. The familiars surrounding her are vaporized, not even bones remain and the mud has been dried into black glass. The ones further away from the blasts are in varying states of death. Some have had their internal organs ruptured due to barometric trauma. The pressure wave generated by the explosions popping their organs like bubbles letting blood gush out of mouths and popped eyeballs. Others have died due to the rubble blasted out from the witch's attack. Shards of rock and sometimes horn or bone were turned into bullets. The witch takes another drag on her pipe and smiles wickedly.
The surviving goat men around her raise their heads to the sky and roar calling more of their brethren to them. The unguided hordes now converge on a single target as this higher threat takes priority over others. The witch calmly taps her pipe again before waving it in a circle like a wand.
"Tower of Babel."
The ground beneath her shakes and the charging hordes stumble as a miniature earthquake rocks the ground under them.
Then a tower bursts from underneath the witch. The War Maiden, Conflict Linguist. Those are her titles. A black tower with numerous windows sealed with portcullises rises higher into the sky above the mountain tops twisting its way out of the earth like some demonic screw. It is cylindrical but not straight. Random sections stick out to one side or bulge out from the main body like a massive Jenga tower composed of rings. At the very top Conflict Linguist gazes down upon the thousands of bodies below, both witch and familiar. She takes another puff of her pipe and exhales a white mist that quickly dissolves in the wind that sweeps the top of the tower. A sick grin then twists its way across her face and she sweeps the pipe in front of her as if conducting an orchestra.
"BLAST THEM AWAY!"
The grinding sound of a thousand portcullises rising deafens all those below for a moment then the windows of the tower explode. Weapons of every kind pour out from the windows of the tower. Cannon balls, bullets, musket balls, arrows, swords, knives, clubs, darts, rocks, hammers, boomerangs, hot oil and water. If an item was used as a weapon by man it was fired from that tower.
3 arrows pierce the head of a goat man and a cannon ball opens a hole in its stomach. A sword skewers another goat man through the right eye socket, a spear pins its left hand to the ground before a ballista bolt blasts away the remains. A thousand weapons give out a million different forms of death. The language of war carves itself into the flesh of her foes and the fabric of the earth. Weapons litter the ground alongside craters as the tower rains the fires of mankind upon it.
A flash and the tower rumbles as a line has been drilled down the side of it and the windows along that side are buried with their own remains. The Conflict Linguist clicks her tongue and looks up. A woman in a navy blue dress and sun hat sits sideways atop a white horse. Grey hair flows from underneath the brim of her hat as she looks down upon the tower and its owner.
"Bunker Buster…" She curses under her breath then gasps as a hole opens up in her chest. The ground beneath her also has a hole which reaches all the way to the bottom of the tower. The Fortress Feller brushes a lock of grey hair out of her eyes before turning away and her horse runs through the air, back down to the battle below. Cracks open up from the hole in the tower's center and the windows explode as the tower crumbles inwards and downwards.
Along another part of the valley two different witches battle each other. The Queen of Cats and the Golden Rondo, the two witches throw familiars and blades at each other respectively. The queen's purple eyes chase after her enemy as she rides atop of a sea of black cats. Appearing as a little girl dressed in a black gothic Lolita dress with a pink ribbon at the tip of her black cat tail. She sweeps a hand through her long black hair that hangs freely behind her. The Golden Rondo wears a frilly yellow dress with golden hair in elegant curls. A small golden cap lies tilted at an angle on her head. She leaps through the air and winks a golden eye at her foe before swinging her arms forward. Ten golden chakrams buzz through the air like angry hornets. The cats jump to protect their queen and are shredded as the blades go through them. However, before they can land their wounds disappear as they use one of their remaining nine lives. The Queen of Cats smiles up at her enemy. The Golden Rondo clicks her tongue before grinning and twirls rapidly in the air firing off handfuls of chakrams with each spin.
The horde of cats stops and jump on top of each other forming a wall of bodies. The chakrams cut into them but don't pierce it. The Golden Rondo merely smiles and twirls a finger. The chakrams buried inside the wall begin spinning again and saw their way through, bursting through the other side with such force that they become lines of gold instead of disks. They pierce the queen through the forehead, neck, right arm, left chest, three places in the stomach, hip, both thighs, and the tip of her tail.
The wall crumbles and the cats begin to scatter. The victorious witch smiles and leaps towards her downed foe she approaches the corpse and reaches down to take the head as a trophy. Her left arm stretch down towards the queen's chin before a slender hand grabs her wrist. She blinks in surprise before gasping in pain as the right arm she had cut off pierces her heart with a squelch. The face she had reached forward to pick up grins at her as the corpse attaches itself back together. The dispersed cats congregate towards their master again as she yanks her blood stained hand out of the witch's chest. She cradles her dying opponents face in both hands, smearing it with her own blood before leaning forward to kiss her. She then lets go dropping her backwards into the sea of waiting cats. Blood and golden fabric fly into the air as the feeding frenzy tears away at her body.
A witch with brown hair in a red pleated dress with white sides sets the familiars around her on fire with only a glance. A witch with a scythe attacks her from behind. Her short black hair adorned with a black straw hat with a burgundy ribbon. The scythe stabs into the witch in red before her body bursts into a swarm of golden butterflies. The black witch is incinerated before she has time to scream.
A cloud of green locusts dive into the swarm of butterflies. Hundreds are burnt to death but the locusts charge forward biting and scratching as they burn. Soon all the butterflies are shredded apart, their golden broken bodies mixed in with ten times the number of burnt locusts.
A witch summoned mud golems to crush her foes.
Another used arcane swords to cut apart her foes.
Familiars collapsed another group of inexperienced witches. Their exhausted bodies barely had the strength to scream before they were torn apart.
A book wielding witch summoned a massive black tree with nooses hanging from every branch and smiled as her victims hanged themselves. The corpses were carried by the branches into a toothless red mouth at the top that swallowed them whole.
Fortress Feller crumbles another witch's defenses before her chest is pierced by 3 red arrows from behind. These detonate a moment later. Her horse is broken in two from the blast.
Witches kill and are killed; by familiars, other witches, sometimes even by their own spells they lose control over. Their blood and bodies spill into the mud.
The sky suddenly lights up. An angry red light coats the land below it crimson. The black clouds are ripped aside revealing an inky void disturbed by a black sun. Its corona halos it in a dark red light. The witches and familiars cease fighting. Killing blows are stopped and intricate spells fizzle out as all look up in awe at it. Some grinned others gaped at this massive construct, this gift from Mara. It pulses once before red cracks rush across it and it bursts. A torrent of liquid so red it's black falls into the valley. A blast of wind rushes down both sides carrying the deafening roar of the coming flood. The torrent is so huge the air beneath it doesn't have time to get out of its way and sets on fire from the pressure it comes under. The creatures below are incinerated with their flesh boiling off bone before being blasted by the red flood. The entire valley heaves from the impact. Waves, as tall as the mountains on both sides of the valley, thunder down upon them all. They throw weapons, spells, fortresses, and familiars into the air before swallowing them. The mountains buckle, trembling under the thing the witches had summoned upon them. The stench of iron filled the air as crimson fluid carves its way down the valley.
...
...
...
The valley is strewn with bodies. Many have sunk deeply into the mud showing only a limb or a patch of skin to the cloudy sky. Raindrops fall spattering the mud, cutting tiny rivers through it. The black clouds let loose their tears as a storm pours onto the empty battle field.
The mud moves. Like some obscene amniotic sack in a fetid womb. It bulges before tearing apart revealing a blonde woman covered in mud. She looks down at her muddy arms and body and touches her chest before scraping away at the mud on her stomach to check for blemishes. After seeing unbroken skin she hugs herself and her tears merge with the rain as it strips the mud off of her. She looks around and sees the mud pulsing around her before releasing more witches. The Conflict Linguist stands tall before magically scouring the mud from her body and hair and summons her favorite pipe. Takin a puff she looks down at where the Fortress Feller rises out of the mud and waves.
The Queen of Cats sets about grooming herself with her tongue before being tackled into the mud by the Golden Rondo. She hisses irritably and scratches at her. The Golden Rondo merely laughs and tickles the queen's stomach.
Aveira stands up and looks around at the other witches rising up from the mud. She searches for the four friends she brought with her but only human forms emerge from the mud. Her legs give out and she ends up kneeling in the mud. It is cold but she doesn't cast a spell to warm herself or protect her from the rain. Her body may have reformed but her heart is scarred.
Suddenly she feels a tongue tickling her back followed by a pitiful mewl. She turns around. Toby her grey tabby shakes itself in a vain attempt to dry its wet fur. It then jumps onto her lap and curls into a soggy grey ball. The three wood faeries flutter over to her before taking shelter in her hair. Tears merge with rain again but they are warm and grateful.
"Next time leave them at home. This is a Witch's Sabbath after all."
She looks up to see a witch with long red hair and crimson eyes. Her body is steaming as the rain that hits her vaporizes instantly. The witch puts a hand on Aveira's shoulder and instantly dries her body and hair. Toby purrs, thankful to be dry again and the wood faeries jump out of her hair to begin playing with the rain, catching drops only to watch them pop into white steam.
Aveira can only blink at this new witch who shrugs and smiles at her before walking off to chat with a brown haired witch.
This is the Witch's Sabbath. A blood stained ritual, a war which served not a king, queen, or emperor but the wagers of the war itself. The witches learned and experimented on each other and their familiars within this closed space, an infinitely stretching battlefield that would warp to their choosing.
This is the Golden Age of Witchcraft. These eternal women wielded power and knowledge beyond mankind. The Conflict Linguist, Fortress Feller, Golden Rondo, Queen of Cats, Sweet Combustor, The Cutest Importantest Most Loveable Witch Ever In The Universe (self-acclaimed), Suicide Caller, Goat Herder, Rabbit Breeder, and countless other witches both great and small.
Would be hunted down and killed, by the Witch Hunts.
A/N: I'm back from America, and I have a cold.
This is sort of a back story to Corpse Party in general. Since the game refers to witches quite a lot I wanted to write about where they came from and how they ended up extinct. You won't see any of the original cast of Corpse Party since this is almost 300 years in the past but one of Ayumi's ancestors is here. Dunno how well this will go but let's see what happens.