Torg Eternity – Dead Legion
Alea Jacta Est
The time had come to finally make his move, and he still wasn't quite sure he could admit to himself the need for some of the concessions he was making.
You've spread the darkness to so many worlds, but always heroes arise to fight back. This is a world with greater power than any you've ever tasted. There will more Stormers than ever. More powerful Stormers than ever. One of them will strike you down. You know your luck will run out eventually.
With an imperceptible shiver, the Gaunt Man shook off Heketon's stinging words.
It was the voice of an infernal engine, and it was the source of his awesome powers. But it was the power of Fear. Always, it clawed at his mind, at the very core of his black soul. If he ever gave in, if ever he let his control over that power slip, it would destroy him. Just as it destroyed the weak and unworthy people his world home.
However, the Gaunt Man's thoughts were not on the bleak world he left behind. Instead, they were on the world he and his loathsome forces would travel to next. A bright world, full of life and energy.
Full of the very energy of reality itself. It would be the core of his empire of darkness.
Pulling his tattered black coat around his skeletal frame, the battered black hat down over his face, covered in cracked grey skin, the Gaunt Man could already feel fear filling the castle chamber around him. He didn't even need to see the tortured faces of the captive heroes chained inside the six alcoves in its walls. They knew exactly what was about to happen. He'd told them in lurid detail days ago. They knew even more clearly this was only the beginning of their agony.
The Gaunt Man clenched the head of his cane as he raised it, then banged the tip against the floor of the castle chamber. A hollow reverberation echoed out. To the Gaunt Man's overpowered senses, it seemed to go on forever. It might as well have, with how far it actually did reach. Pieces of the captives' souls cracked off and were washed away by its awesome pull. The first pangs of their terror brought a twisted smile to the Gaunt Man's purple lips.
Around him, the six windows he'd had specially prepared started to light up one by one. The Stormers screamed in silent anguish as the power of possibility was sucked from their bodies to make this happen.
It was time for the conference of evil to begin.
An insult, that was the only word for it. The Gaunt Man's call for an alliance was nothing but an insult.
For that withered freak to think he was worthy of a partnership with the mighty pharaoh Doctor Mobius. Indeed, an insult was the only way to describe it.
His indigo cloak flared out like the funnel of a hurricane as the great villain reached the wall of his council chamber, turned and started to pace the other way. His eyes flashed with power in the darkness of his hood. "Speak to me like an equal, will he?!" ranted the pharaoh. "For now, we'll play the Gaunt Man's little game…but when this is over, he'll suffer a year of agony for every grain of sand in the deserts of the Nile Empire!"
Mobius's governors sat silently at the meeting table, some watching their ruler as he paced to the other side of the room and turned to start stomping back the other way again, muttering new threats. To a one they were powerful figures, but all of them knew that would end the instant anyone dared to interrupt the pharaoh in the middle of one of his moods.
For they all knew the great Doctor Mobius was many things. A man of power. A man of brilliance. A man of passion and ambition.
But not a man of mercy. Or a man of patience. Or a man of subtlety. Mobius might never have heard those words once in all his long and storied life.
In front of the council table, the air was starting to shimmer. Two of Mobius's aides, though they would never have admitted in the future, considered calling their master's attention to it. This was a delicate phase, and surely he wouldn't want to be seen cursing his new ally in front of them. To their immense relief, Mobius saw it as well, quickly composed himself and took his place at the head of the table.
All of the governors looked away from the hovering mirror as the Gaunt Man's withered face appeared on it. Only Doctor Mobius himself dared to look straight at the Gaunt Man. "My forces are ready to deploy at a moment's notice, Lord Salisbury," he reported.
Just as only Mobius dared meet the white, empty eyes of the Gaunt Man, only he noticed the momentary quirk of disgust on the Gaunt Man's pale face at being called by his mortal name. Yes, the Gaunt Man's dark power was awesome, but it was best he not forget that he wasn't the only one who'd been blessed by an awesome power.
"Splendid," the Gaunt Man replied. "You've verified the entry coordinates with your advance party?"
"Twice, then thrice more."
Slowly, the Gaunt Man nodded. He was measuring Mobius, as he had many times before, the pharaoh recognized. That was the problem of trying to ally with conquerors: one always tried to conquer the other. Mobius only had to scan the table where his governors sat to remind himself of their many games. But Mobius was already weaving his strategies for when he would cut down the fearmongering Gaunt Man.
Who then turned away from the mirror, to check on the preparations of another of their partners.
Mobius had to fight down an urge to get up and resume his angry rant.
Next to the see the Gaunt Man appear to check on them was Pope Jean Malraux, resplendent in his white robes and mitre, all edged with red. He was going to look his most refined and powerful when meeting with a demon like the Gaunt Man, that was for certain.
Malraux had made sure other aspects of himself were on prominent display. His bionic hands. The processor wired into the side of his face. He'd had the light of his artificial eyes turned up just to make sure the Gaunt Man wouldn't miss them.
The Gaunt Man was ignorant of the marvels of technology, choosing instead to hide it from the people he terrorized to limit their ability to fight against him. Malraux, on the other artificial hand, had had the wisdom to embrace technology as the means of taming the unfaithful of the worlds where he spread the teachings of God.
And eventually he'd use it to tame the Gaunt Man. For now the demon could be useful to him.
"May blessings shine upon you this glorious day," Malraux said as his partner's face lit up the prepared mirror that'd been sent to him for precisely this moment.
A curt nod was the only response Malraux received. He wasn't surprised; minions of the ultimate darkness were never receptive to the gentle methods of faith. Truthfully, Malraux was looking forward to the confrontation with the Gaunt Man. An evil so great it could unite all these other followers of evil together…the Gaunt Man's defeat would be the high point of Malraux's career.
Instead of waiting for the demon's acknowledgement, Malraux went on, "I am ready to spread the faith to this benighted world."
The Gaunt Man turned slowly, acknowledging each of his compatriots whose face graced one of his mirrors. Uthorion, tyrant of the world of swords and sorcery, clad in crimson armor with its spiraling horns, supposedly colored by the blood of his countless slain foes. A petty claim, thought the Gaunt Man. Any madman with a shiv could kill. It took an artist's touch to crush a soul.
The stern face of Reiko Kanawa, of the Pacific megacorporations, who seemed as if she was trying to split the Gaunt Man in two with her piercing gaze. She hadn't been the first to try, but it would take even better than her to succeed. He smirked eerily at the thought.
Baruk Kah, the savage lizard-man wearing his usual ceremonial bone helmet. He'd convinced his prehistoric legions he was the chosen one of their goddess of life, and led them in expanding his prehistoric territory full of other lizard-folk and dinosaurs. No matter how many locals died in the process. Not a bad bit of work, the Guant Man admitted.
And the bloated pink visage of Duke Kranod, gnarled horns spiral backward out his bald head, with the bionic implants that dotted the rest of his putrid flesh thankfully out of sight for the moment. He was typical of the "technodemons" of the wretched realm of Tharkold, where high technology mingled with the occult to create horrors that almost, almost, rivalled those at the Gaunt Man's own control.
"My fellow conquerors," he addressed them all, but stopped himself. "No, a station such as ours deserves a grander title, don't you agree?...My fellow High Lords, welcome to the invasion of Earth."
"Skip the pleasantries," Kranod growled. "Are you ready to strike?"
The Gaunt Man felt compelled to show Kranod he was speaking to his better, but now was not the time. If even one of these fellow invaders failed to play their part, his plans would fall apart. When the time came, though, Kranod would pay.
But every member of that assembly of villains and dimensional conquerors was already thinking that same thing. They were thirsting for blood, so the best thing the Gaunt Man could do was offer them blood that would advance his plans.
"My fellow High Lords, I haven't called such lofty company together lightly," the Gaunt Man said, paying no attention to the annoyed grunt he got from Kranod from indulging in pleasantries. "I promised you all the richest store of possibility energy any of you have ever seen, and you've surely seen for yourselves by now that was no boast.
"Let us make this world the crown jewel in all of our collections. Let this world be remade not into one, but many. My friends, let us begin the occupation of Earth."
A sudden surge of emotion was the only thing that warned the people of Bonjoli, India that something was wrong.
It was a surge of fear. Pure, primordial terror.
All at once, as if the horrible structure in the middle of the city had always been there. A huge bridge leading to a dark tear in the sky. Built from a horrific lattice of bone, human and unidentifiable. Skulls wailed their eternal agony from where they were trapped in the supports. Twisted gargoyles laughed and danced from the top of support cables made of clustered black spiders.
And then, from the ramp at the top of the bridge, descended its horrible travelers.
Black-furred werewolves. Pale-skinned vampires with glistening fangs. Grey-skinned ghouls who darted back and forth on all fours. A nightmare legion spreading down the bridge and into the unprepared city.
Not only that, a malevolent energy seemed to spread from the base of the bridge. A married couple who were out on a late walk to try to get out of their stuffy home gasped as a tingle ran through both of their bodies, and they realized they'd been transformed. He suddenly wore a medieval peasant's ragged cloth tunic and breaches with no shoes, while her dress had changed into a patchy outfit made of sack cloth.
They were just the first victims of the terrible attack.
The invasion of reality had begun.