This is Chapter Three. Wow, I'm churning these out ninety-mile a minute. Usually don't write this fast, but the idea for this one has made me hogwild. Here's the third update, and it's a Siegfried chapter. This fanfic won't be very long- ten chapters is what I figure- but it will lead to other fanfics.
P.S. This is totally off the subject of SC, but I have to find some help. Is there anyone watching "Big O" on Adult Swim reading this? (You've probably recognized the "SHOWTIME!" I put at the top of every chapter). If you are, PLEASE add a review that helps explain the last few episodes. I have my own opinions, but I would love to hear yours. If anyone reviews about it, I'll add a review to this fanfic myself that details my own opinion.
Okay, enough of that. It's....
" SHOWTIME!'
Chapter 3
The Lord of Decay
Siegfried sat on the corner of his bed in his mind, panting hard. The last battle with Inferno had cost him dearly. Inferno had been waiting, lurking outside the door of his mind chamber, and had attacked him when he opened it. Siegfried had fought hard, and he'd made the demon lose several hours trying to crush him (time in which Nightmare, in the physical world, stood still in the valley below the hill). The sun had set by the time Siegfried, exhausted and beaten badly, had fled to his mind-chamber.
He looked at the bed. Although in truth it was a crazy idea, he did require sleep. Siegfried knew (consciously at least) that he was now just a soul, a persona, that had no need of such physical things as sleep. Yet, he felt so tired...
He lay down on his bed, and when his head hit the pillow, he slept.
And he dreamed.
************************************************************************
Siegfried woke up the next morning with a distinct sense of well-being. He sat up, stretching his body out to remove any kinks in it. His body felt rested, rejuvenated. He felt pretty damn good, all told.
[Sleeping next to beautiful women will do that to you,] he mused.
Thinking of Ivy, he turned to look at her. She was just awakening as well, Siegfried having awakened her when she sat up. Next to her, the Snake Sword split apart slowly and then writhed once, almost leisurely. It reformed itself with a small snapping noise, and then was still.
Siegfried shuddered. Although Ivy swore that her sword merely responded to her current mood, he thought the damn thing was alive. Creepy.
Siegfried said, " Morning, Ivy. Sleep well?"
She stretched her arms out and popped her knuckles. Siegfried had a chance to notice (with no small glee) the effect this had on the front of her dress, and then she settled back. " Yes. Let's get going."
Getting up from his sleeping bag, Siegfried began rolling it up and repacking his few possessions. When he was done, he picked up Requiem and slung the immense sword over his shoulder, carrying it the way he had always done. Putting on the strap of his sleeping back/pack, he looked at Ivy. She had finished putting her stuff together as well, and nodded at him. They started off together, silent for most of the journey.
They reached the outskirts of Voldo's castle by noon.
************************************************************************
Castle Travens, eventually destroyed in battle, had originally been owned by a duke whose main activity was finding young, pretty serving girls and placing them in "special" positions, ones usually involving the bedroom. However, his whole reason in doing so was far different then what most dukes were doing at that time.
Duke Travens, a tall man who was just shy of seven foot, had a ghastly appearance. He weighed no more than 180 pounds, and at his height he was rapier-thin. His hands, large enough to surround a basketball, resembled claws. His hair and eyes were jet-black, but he was extremely pale. All in all, not the image of anything human.
Travens enjoyed Psi, and became quite talented with it. He was a War Psyke, and his specialty was using his mind's powers for destruction. However, he soon grew bored with his own limits and didn't want to go through the rigorous training that would increase his powers. So, he turned to magic.
The single forbidden Discipline, damned the world over. Magic was the calling on of demons, and ever since the Sundering War that drove the Four Races apart, those fools who call themselves Warlocks have been using it. To perform magic, the user must give their soul to the demon. In exchange for this bargain (damning the soul to eternal torment), the demon rewards them with magic.
Travens became one of these fools. He drew his magic from a Corruption Demon, a damned spirit named Thok'ti. Thok'ti, a demon that had existed even in the Sundering War untold thousands of years past, demanded the blood of young women as worship. Travens was happy to oblige.
His worship of this monster eventually consumed everyone around him. His servants mutated into undead beings, and the woods died around him. The earth all around his castle was rotted, and the graveyards of his villages spewed forth their contents. Murderous creatures stalked the night of his lands, and their screaming was heard for miles.
Eventually, a brave priest, armed only with a silver cross and his faith, fought the unholy warlock. He managed to kill Travens, burning him with the silver cross (for demons and their servants fear the touch of the symbol of their greatest foe), but he was unable to destroy Thok'ti and send him to hell.
Thok'ti lived on, and the lands never healed. Most of the monsters were slain by English patrols, and the matter regarded as closed. Travelers avoided the lands about Travens Castle, and took to calling it the EverBlight.
Voldo had come to speak with Thok'ti, who slept in a statue within the castle. His master had demanded it, speaking in his mind. He'd said it would make finding the Soul Edge easier.
Voldo had been happy to oblige.
************************************************************************
Siegfried and Ivy looked around themselves. They'd never seen anything like this. The ground was completely rotted in front of them- in Siegfried's mind, he thought of it as graveyard soil. Behind them, the land was green and the path, although worn from disuse, was fine. The trees on this side of some invisible line were normal looking. On the other side, they were black, not green. Their bark ran with strange, red sap that leaked through their pores. It looked as if they were bleeding to death slowly.
Siegfried looked at Ivy, his eyes wide with disbelief. The villagers had said the land was corrupted, but he'd never expected this. His courage, strong as it was, began to wilt as he gazed at this wasted and blasted land.
" My God," was all he whispered. She looked back at him, and Siegfried saw the same mix of disbelief and fear in her eyes that was in his mind. Rather than being more frightened, he drew heart. He wasn't the only one afraid here, it seemed.
" I'd heard it was bad, but this... this is beyond belief." She shook her head, and then drew a deep breath. Letting it out, she said, " But let's do this. Can't let the bastard scare us, right?"
Siegfried smiled at that, and the pallor of fear on them diminished as he smiled. " It's a little too late for that, but you're right. No sense hanging around staring at it. God favors the brave, they say."
Stepping into the woods, she said, " That better be right. We need all the help we can get right now."
************************************************************************
Voldo, who had just returned to the castle from his latest trip to the nearby villages, entered the main hall carrying a small trophy. It was the latest gift to Thok'ti, who had awakened when Voldo carried out the ritual required to summon him. Thok'ti had woken up hungry.
Very hungry.
In Voldo's arms, the young girl- she was twelve, and never to reach thirteen- stirred. He ignored her. He had rendered her unconscious with a blow to the head, and she wasn't going to wake until he had prepared the ceremony. He continued down the main hall, then opened the wide doors that opened onto the current abode of Thok'ti, the Lord of Decay.
The room was stone, shot through with gold, the preferred metal of demons. The gold pulsated with energy, looking much like veins. The entire room gave off the smell of rotting flesh, and somewhere, as if from a very long distance, one could hear a child crying in pain. Screaming in torment. The room seemed alive, somehow. Set in the center of the far wall, the golden veins emanating outwards from it, sat the heart of this organism.
The statue Thok'ti had made Travens construct was hideous in the extreme, and accurately depicted the demon's true form. It stood over ten feet high, torso covered in writhing snakes. From each snake's mouth, a saliva that swarmed with disease dripped. These snakes had red, ruby cut eyes that glittered dully in the torchlight that streamed in from the main hall through the open door. It's arms, seeming to simply erupt out of that snake-covered madness like stunted trees, were long and muscle bound. Each could have touched the floor if they were held to the sides of the demon. They ended in elongated fingers whose claw-covered tips were split and formed a set of distinct, c urved horns. Pus ran out of open wounds on these arms, and all manner of foulness grew on them. Dangling moss hung off them, like tattered sleeves. The legs, long as well, ended in talons not unlike a bird's legs. The head resembled a human face that had been stretched backwards and upwards, creating a hideous, pincer-like mouth filled with sharp teeth. Several eyes, perhaps a dozen, gave watch from various places on the monstrosity's face, and these were the only moving things on the statue; one gazed at Voldo from it's place on the cheek as he entered. It blinked dreamily, and then looked away.
Voldo lay the young girl down. Thok'ti's voice, a voice that sounded as if it produced a thousand echoing screams with a single word, spoke in his head.
* A WORTHY SACRIFICE, VOLDO,* it stated, it's tone deeper than a well. The voice spoke a dreamy madness.
" As you willed, Master," Voldo said, bowing to Thok'ti and then moving backwards, still on his hands and knees.
The mouth of the statue opened, and a single long jaw came out. This jaw, cat-like in nature, extended on a long neck of scales from out of the statue's mouth. It extended to the girl, and seemed to check her, as one would a piece of meat. Satisfied that the sacrifice was clean, the mouth extended and stretched outwards.
Thok'ti bit the little girl's head off, and crushed it in his mouth. The blood gushed outward, coating the floor. Bright symbols, unholy in nature, flared to life at this hellish sacrifice. The entire castle was soon painted in red, glowing symbols. The blood of the little girl's body was sucked out of her, food for the castle. Thok'ti's voice sounded once more in Voldo's mind, sounding satisfied now.
* IT HAS BEGUN.*
- Look for Chapter Four soon! Review me and tell me what you like!
P.S. This is totally off the subject of SC, but I have to find some help. Is there anyone watching "Big O" on Adult Swim reading this? (You've probably recognized the "SHOWTIME!" I put at the top of every chapter). If you are, PLEASE add a review that helps explain the last few episodes. I have my own opinions, but I would love to hear yours. If anyone reviews about it, I'll add a review to this fanfic myself that details my own opinion.
Okay, enough of that. It's....
" SHOWTIME!'
Chapter 3
The Lord of Decay
Siegfried sat on the corner of his bed in his mind, panting hard. The last battle with Inferno had cost him dearly. Inferno had been waiting, lurking outside the door of his mind chamber, and had attacked him when he opened it. Siegfried had fought hard, and he'd made the demon lose several hours trying to crush him (time in which Nightmare, in the physical world, stood still in the valley below the hill). The sun had set by the time Siegfried, exhausted and beaten badly, had fled to his mind-chamber.
He looked at the bed. Although in truth it was a crazy idea, he did require sleep. Siegfried knew (consciously at least) that he was now just a soul, a persona, that had no need of such physical things as sleep. Yet, he felt so tired...
He lay down on his bed, and when his head hit the pillow, he slept.
And he dreamed.
************************************************************************
Siegfried woke up the next morning with a distinct sense of well-being. He sat up, stretching his body out to remove any kinks in it. His body felt rested, rejuvenated. He felt pretty damn good, all told.
[Sleeping next to beautiful women will do that to you,] he mused.
Thinking of Ivy, he turned to look at her. She was just awakening as well, Siegfried having awakened her when she sat up. Next to her, the Snake Sword split apart slowly and then writhed once, almost leisurely. It reformed itself with a small snapping noise, and then was still.
Siegfried shuddered. Although Ivy swore that her sword merely responded to her current mood, he thought the damn thing was alive. Creepy.
Siegfried said, " Morning, Ivy. Sleep well?"
She stretched her arms out and popped her knuckles. Siegfried had a chance to notice (with no small glee) the effect this had on the front of her dress, and then she settled back. " Yes. Let's get going."
Getting up from his sleeping bag, Siegfried began rolling it up and repacking his few possessions. When he was done, he picked up Requiem and slung the immense sword over his shoulder, carrying it the way he had always done. Putting on the strap of his sleeping back/pack, he looked at Ivy. She had finished putting her stuff together as well, and nodded at him. They started off together, silent for most of the journey.
They reached the outskirts of Voldo's castle by noon.
************************************************************************
Castle Travens, eventually destroyed in battle, had originally been owned by a duke whose main activity was finding young, pretty serving girls and placing them in "special" positions, ones usually involving the bedroom. However, his whole reason in doing so was far different then what most dukes were doing at that time.
Duke Travens, a tall man who was just shy of seven foot, had a ghastly appearance. He weighed no more than 180 pounds, and at his height he was rapier-thin. His hands, large enough to surround a basketball, resembled claws. His hair and eyes were jet-black, but he was extremely pale. All in all, not the image of anything human.
Travens enjoyed Psi, and became quite talented with it. He was a War Psyke, and his specialty was using his mind's powers for destruction. However, he soon grew bored with his own limits and didn't want to go through the rigorous training that would increase his powers. So, he turned to magic.
The single forbidden Discipline, damned the world over. Magic was the calling on of demons, and ever since the Sundering War that drove the Four Races apart, those fools who call themselves Warlocks have been using it. To perform magic, the user must give their soul to the demon. In exchange for this bargain (damning the soul to eternal torment), the demon rewards them with magic.
Travens became one of these fools. He drew his magic from a Corruption Demon, a damned spirit named Thok'ti. Thok'ti, a demon that had existed even in the Sundering War untold thousands of years past, demanded the blood of young women as worship. Travens was happy to oblige.
His worship of this monster eventually consumed everyone around him. His servants mutated into undead beings, and the woods died around him. The earth all around his castle was rotted, and the graveyards of his villages spewed forth their contents. Murderous creatures stalked the night of his lands, and their screaming was heard for miles.
Eventually, a brave priest, armed only with a silver cross and his faith, fought the unholy warlock. He managed to kill Travens, burning him with the silver cross (for demons and their servants fear the touch of the symbol of their greatest foe), but he was unable to destroy Thok'ti and send him to hell.
Thok'ti lived on, and the lands never healed. Most of the monsters were slain by English patrols, and the matter regarded as closed. Travelers avoided the lands about Travens Castle, and took to calling it the EverBlight.
Voldo had come to speak with Thok'ti, who slept in a statue within the castle. His master had demanded it, speaking in his mind. He'd said it would make finding the Soul Edge easier.
Voldo had been happy to oblige.
************************************************************************
Siegfried and Ivy looked around themselves. They'd never seen anything like this. The ground was completely rotted in front of them- in Siegfried's mind, he thought of it as graveyard soil. Behind them, the land was green and the path, although worn from disuse, was fine. The trees on this side of some invisible line were normal looking. On the other side, they were black, not green. Their bark ran with strange, red sap that leaked through their pores. It looked as if they were bleeding to death slowly.
Siegfried looked at Ivy, his eyes wide with disbelief. The villagers had said the land was corrupted, but he'd never expected this. His courage, strong as it was, began to wilt as he gazed at this wasted and blasted land.
" My God," was all he whispered. She looked back at him, and Siegfried saw the same mix of disbelief and fear in her eyes that was in his mind. Rather than being more frightened, he drew heart. He wasn't the only one afraid here, it seemed.
" I'd heard it was bad, but this... this is beyond belief." She shook her head, and then drew a deep breath. Letting it out, she said, " But let's do this. Can't let the bastard scare us, right?"
Siegfried smiled at that, and the pallor of fear on them diminished as he smiled. " It's a little too late for that, but you're right. No sense hanging around staring at it. God favors the brave, they say."
Stepping into the woods, she said, " That better be right. We need all the help we can get right now."
************************************************************************
Voldo, who had just returned to the castle from his latest trip to the nearby villages, entered the main hall carrying a small trophy. It was the latest gift to Thok'ti, who had awakened when Voldo carried out the ritual required to summon him. Thok'ti had woken up hungry.
Very hungry.
In Voldo's arms, the young girl- she was twelve, and never to reach thirteen- stirred. He ignored her. He had rendered her unconscious with a blow to the head, and she wasn't going to wake until he had prepared the ceremony. He continued down the main hall, then opened the wide doors that opened onto the current abode of Thok'ti, the Lord of Decay.
The room was stone, shot through with gold, the preferred metal of demons. The gold pulsated with energy, looking much like veins. The entire room gave off the smell of rotting flesh, and somewhere, as if from a very long distance, one could hear a child crying in pain. Screaming in torment. The room seemed alive, somehow. Set in the center of the far wall, the golden veins emanating outwards from it, sat the heart of this organism.
The statue Thok'ti had made Travens construct was hideous in the extreme, and accurately depicted the demon's true form. It stood over ten feet high, torso covered in writhing snakes. From each snake's mouth, a saliva that swarmed with disease dripped. These snakes had red, ruby cut eyes that glittered dully in the torchlight that streamed in from the main hall through the open door. It's arms, seeming to simply erupt out of that snake-covered madness like stunted trees, were long and muscle bound. Each could have touched the floor if they were held to the sides of the demon. They ended in elongated fingers whose claw-covered tips were split and formed a set of distinct, c urved horns. Pus ran out of open wounds on these arms, and all manner of foulness grew on them. Dangling moss hung off them, like tattered sleeves. The legs, long as well, ended in talons not unlike a bird's legs. The head resembled a human face that had been stretched backwards and upwards, creating a hideous, pincer-like mouth filled with sharp teeth. Several eyes, perhaps a dozen, gave watch from various places on the monstrosity's face, and these were the only moving things on the statue; one gazed at Voldo from it's place on the cheek as he entered. It blinked dreamily, and then looked away.
Voldo lay the young girl down. Thok'ti's voice, a voice that sounded as if it produced a thousand echoing screams with a single word, spoke in his head.
* A WORTHY SACRIFICE, VOLDO,* it stated, it's tone deeper than a well. The voice spoke a dreamy madness.
" As you willed, Master," Voldo said, bowing to Thok'ti and then moving backwards, still on his hands and knees.
The mouth of the statue opened, and a single long jaw came out. This jaw, cat-like in nature, extended on a long neck of scales from out of the statue's mouth. It extended to the girl, and seemed to check her, as one would a piece of meat. Satisfied that the sacrifice was clean, the mouth extended and stretched outwards.
Thok'ti bit the little girl's head off, and crushed it in his mouth. The blood gushed outward, coating the floor. Bright symbols, unholy in nature, flared to life at this hellish sacrifice. The entire castle was soon painted in red, glowing symbols. The blood of the little girl's body was sucked out of her, food for the castle. Thok'ti's voice sounded once more in Voldo's mind, sounding satisfied now.
* IT HAS BEGUN.*
- Look for Chapter Four soon! Review me and tell me what you like!