Here is a little story for you all, enjoy.
Once upon a time in a land far away, there lived a Necromancer, or for thous of ye who don't know, a raiser of the dead. He lived in a castle, alone with all his skeletal minions, and every so oft, he would go into the near by village, and take the young ones, his name, was Derzza. He wore all black, with a red spider on his chest, his skin was pale, his bones stuck out, ye could see his ribs, and point them all out. He wore a necklace of bones, some bleached white, others stained red by the blood of the children they came from. His source of power, a staff, was a piece of ebony wood, with blood red carvings of arcane runes upon it. Skulls of newly born infants hung from the top. It twas said that he died his hair red with the blood of innocence.
One day, a group of Villagers grew angry at the most recent abduction, a young girl, the age of 16, her name was Ivy. So, the group of men walked up to his castle and began to beat upon the door, and seven piles of bone, turned alive, pieced together, and they're bloody bones grasping blades, so rusted, if you pricked yourself, you would die of someting... The men cried out for help, but they were destroyed, as one skeleton came up, and sliced a mans head off, the blood squirting from his severed neck, as if death itself was raining from the sky. At this the skeletons seamed to revel in the gore, and another decapitated a man's arm, he fell to his knees waiting for the killing blow, but it never came, as the skeleton just chopped off his other arm, and kicked him on his fallen comrade, the blood flowing freely from both shoulders, they would let him suffer.
I'm afraid that none of the other men faired well either, in that bloody massacre, and not one came back... alive. the skeletons carted they're bloody bodies into the castle, and hung them on the walls on spikes one man still alive, his screams of agony music to the oncoming Necromancer.
"Bring them back to the village" came Derzza's cold voice, it showed no emotion, no pity, it was as if, the Grim Reaper himself stood reincarnate in human form.
The skeletons bowed they're gore soaked heads in acknowledgment, they took the heads and unceremoniously threw them into a catapult, aimed it promptly toward the town square, and fired the six decapitated heads into the town.
Derzza moved to the dieing man on the wall spike, "Don't worry, you yourself shall be joining your friends soon enough."
The man on the spike was slowly dieing, and he began to throw up blood. "Go to Hell..." He said and spit on the floor next to Derzza's boot.
"Ah, if only you knew what I've seen," he said shaking his head "it would peal your skin from the bones. You have a bit of blood on your cheek." Moving to the man and with his hand wiped the blood splat from his cheek, he licked his fingers clean. "Your blood tasted excellent, but nothing like the flesh of young children."
"Your sick, I would rather die than to serve you in any life."
"Well thats too bad, because you lived, you get the honor of serving me in undeath." He spun around and stabbed the man in the neck with a grisly dagger, blood seeped through the wound between his fingers, and onto the floor.
"Your death was going to be slow, but now, you will just have to be my new servant..." He pointed to a pair of skeletons "You two, take him from the wall."
Obeying the word of his master, the two took the body from the wall and layed it on the floor. Derzza stood over the body, the bloody dagger still in the warm flesh, blood still seeped from the neck, but not in the same pace as before. The whole in his torso from were he was impaled was caked with dried blood, and his dead heart was visible if you looked at him from an angle.
"Your will is mine, your body is mine. Your soul is mine!" Derzza said, getting louder with every word. "Kathul, take this meager offering, I give you the heart of this man! Now, allow me to take this man's soul, and his body!" He raised his staff and dagger up high. A greenish mist rose from the body, and then stopped as it began to take the shape of an orb.
A great creature was visible within the orb, and Kathul, spoke. Give me the offering, young necromancer. Derzza bent over, and ripped the heart from the body with his bare hands. The blood was dripping from his hands "I offer this heart to you oh mighty Kathul." Dip your teeth within the heart. Your savoring of the heart shall make it all the better for my lake of death.
Derzza bit into the heart and bit, red liquid ran down his mouth, as his eyes went mad with lust, anger, and the savor of his grizzly god Kathul. Cast in the heart. Down into the bloody pit that is my home. Kathul ordered. Derzza obeyed. His body is yours, will crushed. Kathul said, and the orb disappeared.
The whole of the time, the young girl,, her hands at her mouth, blue eyes wide eyed, and she was almost at the point of curling up. Her skin was pale, and her brown hair was unruly, from her shaking. The dress that she had been wearing was slightly messed, and she barley noticed.
Derzza turned around and saw that she was there, "Ah, my guest, did you enjoy the little show?" He began to move toward her on the stairs. She whimpered a little in response. "Your dress is dirty, I have a gown ready for you in the room you have been given. The skeleton will show you the way." He pointed to a skeleton, and it began to walk up the stairs, and it took her with it.
As the skeleton walked up the stairs half leading, half dragging the girl it passed over many a door, iron bound, wooden, cage, as if they went through the dungeon of the castle, only it was in the keep of it. She began to become awear of herself again and realized what was going on, or so she thought was going on. Ivy began to fight the skeleton trying to stop it from dragging her, but to no avail, it ignored her and truged on over the stone. Soon, it stoped and she ceased her struggles as the door they stood before made of dark oak wood with iron rivets driven into it. As if transfixed Ivy pushed open the door and saw the furnishings of the room, velvet tappistries hung from the stone walls, wooden funitur stood agaisnt the walls, a four-poster bed, and a warm rug on the floor. Upon the bed was a gown of red crimson satin, with puffy shoulders and a frilly lace coller that rode up high into a neck. The door slamed behind her and the deadbolt clicked from the other side.
Derzza shook his head, annoyed by the girls interfearince, all though she did not directly interfear, she was still in the room as the sacrifice was going on and therefore, the energys of the room may have been compromised. He would have to check, but for now, he must move the sacrifice so it could reform into the shape of its new life. One thing you could not trust the dead with, moving a body with care... He pulled out a small knive and a rock from somewhere in his robe, and carved a triangle into the stone, doing some arcane trick moving the body to an area unseen.
Moving up the stairs he found the door in which Ivy was in, made sure the deadbolt was in place then left the door. The girl had no idea what she was going to be in for, and Derzza liked it that way. Her soul had something strange in it. Some abnormality in it that he didnt like, he knew not what it was, and he had to know... If he had to rip appart her soul to do it, then so be it. Walking down a set of stairs that had been hidden behind a tappastry Derzza moved into his dwelling, many thought that the castle was where he resided, but they were wrong, he lived in the cave below the castle. The walls were natural, and all that was in there was made of bone, stone, or wood. A skull on the table held a candle which lit automaticly when Derzza entered the room. The necromancer looked upon the wall, a chart showing the cycles of the moon was visible, and it was almost time for the new moon. The time when necromantic engergies would be at they're strongest. "Two days, two days until I unlock the seal with her unusual spirit... Then might Kathul with roam this world, and I will be the seccond in command..."
It was night, and he would need his strenght for tomarow, as many new bodys would be comming to him...
The next morning, before the sun had risen, only a few hours after resting Derzza was up and moving out of the cave, back up the stairs and into the castle above. There was shouting from the portcollus in the front of the castle, and a mob of people where there on the small walkway to up to the castle, only twenty feet wide, there was nowhere to run if Derzza decided to drop the hot tar on them. Just more minions for him... But there was somthing strange about this... a creeking sound as if the portcollus was opening. He turned his head to the door and saw that the mob of people was a group of soldirs rallyed together from the local towns, millita, mercinarys, and soldirs, all had blades and all looked for blood, Derzza's blood. Well, he wouldnt let the die emptyhanded now could he?
"You want me? Come and get me!" Derzza moved to a hole in the wall and did a little thing with his hands, making arcane movents, then a red glow enveloped the hole and a string of bones filed out, and began to assemble themselves into a skeleton. On the wall above this, a curved serated blade hung, and he grabbed it turnning to another hole, repeating the prosess of animating the bone. He began to laugh as the men, once ready to kill him began to try to flee, but the portcollus had already closed, on the outside, and the inside one was dropping, thus trapping a few of the millita in a cage.
"Drop the tar! Show the fools that there is no such thing as escape from me, in life, or death!"
The skeletons above did just that, tipping vast coldrons on they're sides and pouring the hot sticky contents onto the poor men who had tried to flee. Derzza laughed more, and unsheathed his blade, holding it in one hand, his staf in the other. He rushed the closest attacker and whent to strike him down, but the man was able to block the sword blow, Derzza swung his staf into the mans side, winding him then brought on the killing strike. He looked around and saw one of the undead he had revived fall, no matter, only skeletons, and old ones at that, they would last longer, but they are easily replaced.
He engaged another of the men, taking him down from behind, then an arrow shaft whirled by his ear, and landed with a thud on the head of his staff, the arrow came from behind, and the necromancer turned to attack the new opponent, but was struck in the chest as he turned. Then a seccond arrow was logged in his chest and a third. He staggered and looked at the weight of the shafts protruding from his chest, as a fourth struck him. He collasped and began to dissapear, as if he was melting into the floor.
The skeletons, now that Derzza was gone, collasped into piles of bone, and the men where victorious. A few of the men raced up the stairs to find Ivy, -one of them her father who had been woebegoten untill he had heard about the raid- and began to search for her. Ivy's father was the first to find her, and unclasp the deadbolt, calling the other men to him.
"Ive found her! Ive found her! She's alive!" He yelled as he ran up and embraced her tightly.
"Father, Ive missed you so. I would like to leave this place... Its so cold."
"Yes, as soon as we find that necromancer, he may be dead, but I want to make sure he cannot cause any harm to anyone again."
"Father..."
"Yes?"
"You need not look any furthur. Father."
The man released Ivy, looking at her strangly backing away. "What do you meen, 'I need not look any furthur.'?"
Smiling, Ivy said "Becouse, Father, you foolish old man, you've found me. You have found me, I am the necromancer. Or rather, I was... And now, you die." With saying that, her final fairwells to her father, Ivy pulled a dagger from behind her back and plunged it into her fathers chest, then twist.
In his last moments of life, a tear drifted from his eyes as he realized that his daughter was no longer his daughter, and that Derzza lived again. That you couldnt kill him... He always came back... Ivy stood there, the bloody dagger in her hand, and the men that had heard her former father's yells of happyness finaly got ho her, they stood in the door, staring at her blankly. Then she threw the dagger at one of them, peircing him in the neck. He died almost instantly. The rest where put down with magik, blasts from her fingertips, and acid misted blood from inside them, they all where killed.
Ivy walked out of the door, and down the stairs, out of the castle, and into the villige, down to the center of it. And she held up the staff of the necromancer, his blade sheathed on her hip.
"I have taken this girl as my new body! And I am tired of you all, in one day you shall all die! When my lord Kathul comes, none of you shall be spared..." She waved his staff, and all the villegers fell to they're knees as if bowing. "You will all be sacrifeced to his glory."
Then she dissapeared. Back at Derzza's castle the night came, and the morning followed, the moon never rose, and the skys turned dark. Kathul was here, and Ivy, planed on takking his power... It may have been Derzza in her body, but her mind still lived on inside as well, making them one entity, one being. Kathul became visible, and Ivy slaughterd the villegers. Then took one of the arrows that Derzza had been slain with and shot Kathul, peircing him throught he heart, and killing him. His power seeped from him and Ivy drank it up like it was honeyed water. She became powerful, and no longer needed the staff, breaking it let loose a dark torrent of power that morphed the land and made it hers. She became the Dark Queen that ruled over that ruind land for the next thousand years....
Derzza Community Member 
|
|
