Disclaimer: I don't own Witch's House or any of the IPs from which my imported characters originate.
Why Cute Witches Should Deal With Outsiders (And Their Lairs)
Prologue: Conception
Beta: AllForFire
Duke Elliot Beauclerk stood in the centre of his laboratory and surveyed the elaborate runic circle he'd drawn on the stone floor with meticulous precision in goat's blood. As he carefully looked over his work, he could barely contain his excitement at what he was about to accomplish.
Finally after years of hard work, I'll achieve my dream! The young aristocratic brunette in his thirties thought to himself with a pleased smile as he finished checking the elaborate spell circle and was certain that everything was perfect.
Looking up he eyed his sacrifices, a quartet of crying infants held firmly in the hands of the four stone golems standing in each cardinal direction. Two boys and two girls. Just as the ritual dictated was necessary.
Nodding to himself as a final confirmation that all was ready, the young duke took a moment to bask in his success. After he'd finished his schooling at Oxford, he'd poured tens of thousands of pounds into his occult research and spent the best years of his life toiling away at learning the mystic arts.
After all that effort, I can finally accomplish the greatest feat in all of Occultism: the summoning of the devil!
One of the children made a particularly shrill wail and the Duke was drawn out of his self-congratulatory thoughts to look at the child. For a brief moment the sight of the innocent babe invoked pity and a sliver of doubt, but he rapidly dismissed the weakness.
As terrible as it sounds, sacrifices must be made, and these children are mine on the altar of greatness.
With his conviction reaffirmed, the Duke looked to his golems.
"Bleed the children," The duke ordered the automatons. With the mechanical detachment that befit the constructs' nature, they proceeded to literally rip the children apart and let their blood and innards pour into the confines of the circle.
Even as his familiars carried out their bloody task, the occultist began to chant in a blasphemous language that was not meant for the human tongue. His words sounded like the cross between the most wondrous music imaginable and the guttural cries of a foul beast. They carried the power to at once stir the coldest of hearts to rapturous joy whilst also sending the purest of souls into the depths of despair.
As he chanted, he watched in satisfaction as the wretched remains of his sacrifices begin to glow with unholy light before beginning to move of their own accord. Slowly at first but with steadily growing speed, the blood and guts became a swirling whirlpool of gore.
All the while, the duke continued his chanting unabated even as the ritual pushed him to his limits and drained him of his magical energy. He refused to stop though, not even when he felt his reserves start to run dry and the ritual started to leech from his life force instead. How could he when he was on the cusp of glory?
It was as he was on the verge of passing out from the strain that the ritual entered its next phase. With the sound of cracking glass, a small dark fissure appeared in the centre of the spiraling mass of gore and slowly began to grow.
Seeing this, the Duke willingly poured even more of his life energy into the ritual and intensified his chanting. In response the crack in the walls of reality begin to grow even more quickly, until moments later, there before him, hovering in the air was a portal to hell itself.
It was not anything like what he'd envisioned. There was no fire or brimstone on the other side. Instead there was simply a vista of infinite emptiness. The Duke just knew however that this was hell.
Perhaps I've just opened my portal into some part that's not engulfed in flames? The aristocrat mused as he reached with shaking hands into the pouch he wore on his belt to pull out a restorative potion which he immediately downed to recover some of his lost vitality.
He'd barely finishing swallowing the bitter concoction, and felt the slight rush of energy that accompanied the consumption of the alchemical creation, when his view of the terrain beyond his portal was obstructed.
Between one moment and the next, faster than the human could possibly comprehend a creature had come to stand before him.
Its massive body that seemed to fill the length and breadth of the large basement that the Duke used as his laboratory was a gaseous, shapeless form, but that barely registered in his mind. Instead, the human's attention was wholly occupied by the pair of immense golden eyes that stared down at him. That and the sheer awe inspiring aura that radiated from the god that was before him.
"Hail, Mighty Prince of Darkness," The Duke said sycophantically as he took one knee before his new god. "Your humble servant offers his humblest apologies for having beseeched your presence."
"Prince of Darkness? You think I'm Lucifer?" The great deity said in a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, his tone tinged with amusement.
"You are not the Morning Star?" The Duke asked, confused and suddenly fearful of having offended the divine being. Tentatively, he tried to correct his mistake.
"My deepest apologies, my lord!" The aristocrat said with the deepest bow he could manage.
"Mah! It's not a big deal." The supreme being said dismissively. "Just don't make the mistake again."
For a brief moment, the Duke felt a surge of disappointment at failing to summon the devil like he'd planned, but quickly dismissed the silly notion. He might have summoned the wrong divinity, but there was no doubt that he was in the presence of a god and that was all that mattered. Who cared which great god of the abyss became his patron? That he'd called forth a being of supreme power and would soon reap the rewards thereof was all that mattered.
"Then might I ask, o great one, what I should call you?"
"A name? Well, I don't really feel like giving you my true name. That's kinda important for Outsiders like me, you know?"
At the mention of Outsider, the Duke's heart skipped a beat in shock. The god before him was an Outsider!? If that was true, and he had no reason to doubt it as no one but an Outsider would be suicidal enough to risk the ire of their kind by impersonating one, then he had outdone himself. Outsiders were beings of immense power worshiped as gods across multiple worlds.
"I completely understand, my lord." The human told his new liege.
"Good. Good. Now why did you tear a hole into the Realm between Realms for anyways? Not that I'm complaining mind you, since it's opened your world up to me and a new world to explore is always fun, but it's not exactly a safe thing to do. I mean there are plenty of less than friendly things, unlike me, who tend to wander through there."
"Then it is my great fortune to have attracted your attention, o august master!"
"Yeah, it really is. I mean, what if it was one of the Collectors instead? I'd imagine one of those crazies like the Darkling would just eat this little universe of yours whole just to get a little power boost."
The Duke shuddered at the fact that if he had just been a little more unfortunate he might have doomed his world. He didn't dwell on the thought though. It wasn't the time for it, not when the most important part of his plan was at hand.
He was about to speak and take the all important step when the Outsider continued.
"Oh! I recognize that scent on you. You're one of those aren't you?"
The occultist was thrown off by the sudden question and remained respectfully silent as he tried to puzzle out what the god meant.
"You are!" The divinity declared with certainty. "You're one of those people who summon things beyond their ken in the hopes of getting some kind of boon from them, aren't you?"
"Guilty as charged, my lord." The Duke admitted freely. There was no reason to lie to his god, besides he was fairly certain it would be a futile thing to even attempt. While the Outsider gave no indication of having done so yet, mind reading was one of the many, many powers that had been attributed to these supreme beings.
"So what are you willing to offer in exchange?"
"My very soul, my lord!" The Duke said earnestly.
The great Outsider chuckled, a sound that was both wondrous and horrible at the same time.
"I have no use for souls, mortal. That said, in gratitude for opening the way for me into your world I'm willing to barter. In fact, I'm generous enough to grant you the boon you desire for a price that you're perfectly willing to accept."
"R-Really!?" The Duke asked in shock.
"Of course!"
"You have my undying gratitude, my lord!" The Duke said sincerely. At last! All the sacrifices he had made to make this day happen would finally be vindicated!
"You want to leave a lasting legacy of power, wealth and prestige, don't you?"
The Outsider's declaration caught the Duke flat footed and his face twisted into horrified realization at the same time that a evil grin appeared below the creature's eyes. That was what he wanted in the broad sense, yes, but not worded like that. If the god granted his boon on those terms there was no telling just what form his hard earned reward would take. Hastily, the human opened his mouth to object, to correct the monster, but he suddenly found himself mute.
Chuckling maliciously, the Outsider nevertheless spoke evenly. "Well, wish granted!"
As the eldritch abomination finished speaking, the whole room froze. All around the Duke, with the portal as its point of origin, a wave of raw power rushed out. It washed over him, and the Duke, still frozen in time, felt part of him be taken by the Outsider's power for whatever malicious purpose it had in mind.
As his vision blacked out, a single thought permeated his mind. What have I done!?
The Duke slept the dreamless sleep of a dead man for what felt like eons. It was a slumber he wished he could enjoy for all eternity. Better that than face whatever horror he had unleashed upon his world through his foolishness.
His rest was not as final as he hoped, however, as he was slowly roused once more to wakefulness by the gentle shaking of his shoulder.
Groggily, he opened his eyes and turned to glare at whichever presumptuous servant that dared come into his laboratory and disobey his direct orders to keep out.
He was shocked however when the one who woke him was no servant at all. Instead, it was a little girl who could not have been older than five. She had fair skin, waist-length purple hair that flowed down her back that was topped with a large red bow, and inhuman golden cat-like eyes.
His heart froze in horror at those eyes. Those all too familiar and terrifying eyes.
He was so shaken by those golden orbs, that he almost failed to catch what the girl said next.
"Daddy, are you okay?" The impossible child said, even as the Outsider's mocking laughter rang in his ears.
Hello everyone and thanks for reading my latest fic. I hope you've enjoyed it so far, as dark as it got in some places. That's a sign by the way. This is going to be a dark fic.
Well, that and also a very derivative fic. I'd almost go so far as to call this an Original Work, though on the advice of my friend E4E I'm labeling it, as you should be aware by now, as a Witch's House fic since that's where the inspiration for much of this fic was drawn from.
That being the case, most people familiar with Witch's House should be able to tell who the little girl at the end of the prologue was: Ellen. Or at least this fic's version of her. So what do you guys think about my origin for her? Give me your thoughts in a review.
Oh and one last thing, the Duke is a self-serving, vacillating person. At least I hope that's how I made him appear. Well, let me know if I succeeded.
Till next time!