Topic: Skin And No Soul

Giminicka

Date: 2012-06-25 22:13 EST
Nocent journeyed in silence deeper and deeper into a long forgotten portion of the aged subbasement of the IronHelm Flats. Her serried boots crushed small rocks and repugnant scuttling insects with steady pursuit as she delved ever further into the uninviting jaws of the cold darkness. The solitary unwelcome light emanated from the dancing flames which leapt to and fro from the thick torch which the Anti-Scathachian held firmly in her right fist.

Each step forward brought Nocent further and further from recognizable reality and even further yet from the vigilant eyes of the Heavens....though the gods of light themselves held no sway in this immoral palace of vile iniquity. Finally the large Bhaalite stopped her lonely trek and slightly titled her head. With a sharp inhale of the thick and musty gloom, Nocent subliminally began putting out powerful and emotional thoughts of murder and butchery as she began to walk once more amidst the omnipresent desolation and crazily tilted cement ruins. At length she beheld a grass-grown opening toward a stagnant black pool situated between crumbling brick walls, with the weedy length of an earth-and-masonry structure projecting beyond.

Piles of slick, moss-covered stones near the dark water promised nothing safe....nothing untainted. The scene was nearly sheltered from all possible view by an archaic archway on the north.....an indisputably out of place locale for such detailed imagery of demonic design. Here Giminicka thought was the idyllic place for a long secret colloquy; and so she guided her armored form on into this sinister labyrinth and chose a clear spot to kneel in among the arranged stones. The air of death and desertion was ghoulish, and the smell of rot almost insufferable; but it did not seem to effect Giminicka's resolute pose as she bowed her form forward and tenderly kissed the cracked and musty ground.....the ground which hungered for much more.

As she spoke, the priestess's immoral words were carried on sharp but curt tones as they echoed throughout the dark chamber and seemed to fervently hover above the motionless pool of fathomless shadow, "Undun alacktho Bhallacus....Tudes faro al'kact'do'vanna...Alak setliquidox vel?nakk....conqusitax phullum vas Bhallacus...."

The IronHelm

Date: 2012-06-26 17:51 EST
As the words were spoken, the thick and mysterious pool began to stir. Undulations tore at its surface like a blunt knife spreading viscous honey. The temperature in this cove-like enclosure plummeted to a frigid chill, as anyone or anything present could feel the very crawl under their own flesh.

From the center of the pool slowly rose a tall black obelisk pulsating with a hypnotic tenor; a macabre theme that vibrated incongruously from the archway causing the weeds themselves to reach erect. When the monolith stopped its ascent, the shadowy pool continued to stir, and another, much larger, shape began to literally congeal forward...and such to behold was this slithering, Hellish, and glutinous sight.

With only a slight churning to mark its rise to the surface, the vile thing slid into view above the darkened water. Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a colossal monster of nightmares towards the monolith, about which it flung its barbed, tentacled arms. All the while, this entity continued to bow its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds that in no way sounded like any living thing from this known world.

Its true nature could not readily be discerned from within the sickening ebon fluid that seemed to delve endlessly below into the very ground. This beast's great arms crept with a frenzied and palsied limp, with more and more of them arising. It was beyond animalistic; a ghastly site of boiling enormity which chaotically pressed forth in a series of haunting movements that seemed to scorn the Heavens creation of sane, rational thought.

This abomination called forth was indeed channeling the twisted aura of terror which hung over this cursed building and lurked ever so silently in all of its black corners. The direction of progress focused due forward towards the kneeling priestess, and as the viscous "water" shrouded the monster in a slick embrace, it did not slow it. As this fiendish apparition rose higher from the black hole in the ground, there was no comprehension of the true identity of its coarse pandemonium. This shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as abscesses of crimson light all over the massive front which flung forth the tentacles which now gripped onto the monolithic structure with even more fury.

All of the new blood red orbs focused on the demonic woman in armor who was kneeling so diligently before it. A foreign almost alien voice abruptly bounded forward from a presumably massive mouth that was not yet seen:

"PRIESTESS OF THE HORNED NIGHT. WE HAVE HEARD YOUR CALL AND WE KNOW VERY WELL WHAT IT IS THAT YOU SEEK..."

At that moment, the grim obelisk before them seemed to shriek outright with the hopeless cries of the tortured and slaughtered; screams of men, women, children and beasts. Sounds of anguished torment ricocheted throughout this entire chamber, far below the ground, at the dire edge of this insane nightmare.

"PROTECTION FROM EYES, BOTH MORTAL AND SUPERNATURAL. PROTECTION OF MIND, LACED WITH ANCIENT EVIL AND AN ENCASED GUARDIANSHIP OF THE EVERPRESENT BLACKNESS OF YOUR VERY SOUL...A BLACK PLAGUE THAT REACHES AS DEEPLY INTO OUR ABYSS AS DOES THIS TRENCH."

The many lethal squid-like arms clenched the monolith even tighter, causing its tip to pulsate with a blinding jade tinted churn that dizzied any gaze beholding it. The ripples of the unpleasant, syrupy pool coating the immense beast seemed to reflect the glow of the obelisk in phantasmal fashion as the voice thundered once again:

"SPEAK DEMON..."

Giminicka

Date: 2012-06-29 02:17 EST
Nocent's toothy smile betrayed her sinister intentions immediately. She fleetingly, but with awe, beheld one of the many facial personifications of this damnable edifice of evil. As she slowly raised her crimson-haired head, Giminicka held out her large, armored fist in some twisted salute of greatness to the rancorous creature that impossibly manifested in physical space before her.

The Bhaalite's gravely voice was neither alarmed nor assertive...it simply was. Age old and firm, much like the unyielding chaos which resided here within the foundation of the cursed Ironhelm Flats, Nocent?s yearning for boundless murder hung on each of her words. "Your generousity and willingness to present your visage to me is met with our honor and tribute. Yes Ancient One....you know what it is that I truly seek. Beyond powerful alliances...and beyond divine plans.....I wish my true nature safeguarded and held fast from the eyes of mine foes.....and likewise from the eyes of their prying allies and aged sorcery. Have complete faith in my words, for though the beast within understands the limitations of such protection, it is an essential web which only one such as you can weave......for even my great Lord's handiwork in this arena would be detected in time."

"I beseech thee here in your very own palace of the fallen...fold your arms around me and veil my tainted being....conceal the ever festering hate and malice I possess for them, these Scathachian women who under falsified pretense stand as my fallen family.....these sanctimonious whores whose very nature seeks to destroy you and all that you've birthed. I ask this....for the greater glory of all that we desire to darken and consume. For you shall partake in our feast of carnage Ancient One....and this malevolent structure shall be well fed with blood and flesh until such time as you are primed to regurgitate your loathing onto this pitiful world and help fashion the very land into an Abyssal sculpture which has seen no equal. With the Eye of Bhaal resting deep within your very walls and the invaluable Heart of Bhaal in my fortified possession, I call on your focused darkness as the spokeswoman for those who awakened you, and I entreat your help in this grisly crusade which me and mine set to undertake. Undun alacktho Bhallacus....Tudes faro al'kact'do'vanna...Alak setliquidox vel?nakk....conqusitax phullum vas Bhallacus..."

Nocent quietly lowered her head once more before this stygian titan whose mere presence here surely made evident that while it was Cedric Idlemass's hands that had raised this dour place...it was unquestionably Hell who now owned it.

The IronHelm

Date: 2012-07-04 17:19 EST
The enormous creature shifted in its hostile position, sending shadowy undulations throughout the very structure of its vast and unholy form. Its sinister voice once more was heard aloud, and the words uttered were direct and without tone of waver.

"So let it be done."

The jade hues intensified in their rhythmic pulsations while the constant, radiating shockwaves violently leapt from their confined galaxy of light and consumed the damned Bhaalite...who all the while remained genuflected with an obscene reverence before the malevolent apparition.

As the monster's numerous arms gripped tighter upon the ostensibly magnetic obelisk of darkness, the intensity of the green illumination grew to blinding echelons, consuming the entirety of the forgotten chamber and all within its secluded belly. Horrific shrieks and howls arose from the swirling, viscous pool, all of which echoed off the thick walls; bouncing to and fro within this chaotic prison far below the unknowing earth.

This forceful rite lasted for several minutes, with the screams of torment tearing through the very fabric of the air in the chamber...before suddenly all was still. The room itself had dissonantly sighed and with that release came a tangible shift of keen visual perception.

The polymorphus titan from the darkened pool was abruptly gone. The tall, ghostly monolith was too gone. The dreadful cacophony of screams was also eerily silent.

She however, that great defiler and blasphemous apostate of Hell, remained. The Bhaalite, now still with without her unholy markings, was seemingly alone within this supernatural fortress.