Litany of Ashes

[Rance]

Husks of the damned.

The chambers reeked of burned flesh and scorched hair as if it were the still-lingering perfume of a masquerade ball from the night before, heavy and thick, richly stinking. The stone floors were bathed in the films of burned oils and cooked blood, and the sulfurous stench of a past conflagration still whispered throughout the stagnant, smoke-screen air.

The cathedral ceilings bending far above, the jagged granite ribs of this black necropolis, were streaked in lengths of burned black as if the paintbrush of the Goddess herself had demanded these chambers as some macabre canvas. The faces of massive pillars -- their sides bearing the tender, bas-relief patterns of rigid skeletons and prophetic spiders -- were scattered in the tattoos of a recent blaze.

But the husks of the damned, the charred skeletons of fallen humans and skewered drow, were the most gruesome memories. They were a circle of destruction locked in final, brimstone death around the single lonesome body still crumpled in the center of it all, as if he had been the creator, the destroyer, the harbinger.

For the nineteen slaughtered Brotherhood of Janerio, for the thirty-six dead drow -- all but four of them male and replaceable with time -- he had been Death, the fiery demon of rage and revenge.

He had been the fire-bringer, the invader, the bane of black flesh. And now, now, as the wet sounds of invasion clucked and gurgled and chuckled in the echoing caverns of this invaded chamber, he was a feast.

He was Captain Kerrak.

Even now, hours after the invasion, hours after a pinpoint of light had shattered the morbid complacency of the rituals of the Successor Faeryl, the tentacles of the illithids were thrust like new veins into the flesh of the remaining human. He had brought with him his men, and these had been dispatched with careless abandon, but like ravenous beasts, the mind-flayers -- their robes ripped free, their hands and the caverns where mouths should have been -- latched to his flesh with a deadly carress.

If only there could be mercy in the kiss of an illithid...

They call you Captain Kerrak.

They say you are human.

These were the words in his mind as together, the sleek tentacles of these vicious beasts moistly molested the meats of his mind, trying to twist him, trying to take advantage of the already crumpling stones of insecurity and deception.

You brought with you twenty of your loyals, and yet, like insects, they died. They died at the ends of drow blades and dark elven spells. They died at the heat of your own vindictive flames.

They were every voice that he had ever hated. They were the cold and sleek and insidious tones of Cecinefien Audmathus Xhevus; they were the seductive, vicious, and holy sounds of Successor Faeryl. They were enemies from his past, enemies from his future, loves that he had held or destroyed, friends he had seen slaughtered and corrupt. In this sightless realm of filthy conscience burrowed in his mind, the words the illithids were a serpent scaled with every emotion, stabbing at his resolve with barbs ribbed in brutal deception.

Hate.

(those of dark flesh have shown their wrath; you interrupted their ceremony, and they hacked through your leagues like the murderers they are. are you not to blame for this intrusion, kerrak? did you not bring the scythe down upon your fellow humans? did you not burn them in the shadows of their own impending deaths?)

Avarice.

(they seek to usurp your control; they seek to render your council weak, but is your council not already weak? do the snakes that linger in those chairs not already flick their tongues in selfish abandon? myrken wood is the product of demonic humanity. you deserve the seat in which councilor helstone presides; councilor roschen is little more than grime upon your boot-heel; coucilor guillaume is a useless, simpering waif.)

Lust.

(bear no reproach; the council belongs to you, kerrak. you, and only you.)

Confusion.

(alone, you cannot bring to myrken the cleansing it requires. faeryl and audmathus, however, are bountifully strong. she bears the support of a goddess; he bears the hate of the same. the chaos is pure. chaos can cleanse, and must, for order to be restored.)

Myrken Wood is on the verge of its final destruction, Councilor Kerrak. The hamlet breeds its own mutilation from within. Will you fall with it, or will you destroy it and build it anew? It is not yet your time, Kerrak. Though you may despise them, the Successor Faeryl and her Black Prince seek to overthrow what is already flawed. Assist them, and you will have your chance to rebuild it.

Refuse, and you will die. Whether it be at the whims of your own madness... or whether it be at the ends of their coarse weaponry. Be the cleanser, Kerrak, or be he who is cleansed. Be he who dies as part of Myrken's fading death-rattle, if you so desire...

And looking onward, standing between piles of razed, burning corpses, a shadow of sleek purpose watched on as the illithids continued to partake in their meal, and with bloodied robes that hung like the wings of dead ravens from his shoulders, he was twisted against her, against his Mistress. His silver hair, scabbed with gore, singed at its edges from Kerrak's flames of retribution, was a waterfall of silver blades down his curled spine.

The illithids fed on, and while they stood in the center of these chambers, overlooking the feast of the supplicated Kerrak, he ran a slender finger down the length of Faeryl's black chin, whispering gently.

"I want him alive," He hissed. "They have fed for hours, and will continue to feed. They shall do with him what they must, but only with Kerrak intact can we intend to take what we so readily desire."

"Then alive we shall leave him," was the calm silk of returned words. "We shall use him as the hammer to drive the final nail into Myrken's coffin."

"Shadowdancer is fading," Audmathus murmured against her. "I call upon the blade, but she resists my call like a recluse child. I will not have her long. But Kerrak," His rigid, obsidian lips curled upwards into a seething smile. "Kerrak will be strength enough to strike into their core, I am certain."

There was a momentary pause from the other, a careful tip of chin and study of those brimstone eyes. "So that is why she did not come to your aid when your end appeared to be at hand." Why she had not struggled against the game that had been played with the male's own mind but nights before. "There are other blades. There are her sisters." If he wished it. She had wanted them in the beginning -- here was her chance to press once more.

He turned his cheek. He peered upon this catastrophe of scattered Brotherhood corpses, and there was one that still twitched, that still smoked, and its eyes still danced with a light of life. The robed shadow simply chuckled.

"One of them survives, it seems." Audmathus flicked a finger at it. "Shall we let it go free, Faeryl, and see how long it lasts? We have what we wanted."

The male's turned cheek would feel the slither, moist of tongue -- a careful touch accompanied with that of sly curling smile. "Leave it ... His moaning mixed with Kerrak's own pain sounds like an angel's choir to my ears." A sleek twining of arms was the seduction of Myrken's most frightening nightmare.

Be the cleanser, Kerrak, or be the cleansed...

(this council is weak; this council is the bane of progress. this council has turned you into this, kerrak -- this, a fallen, failed dervish-sword of a human. you are worth far more than this. let audmathus show you. let faeryl show you. let us show you.)

The Council of Myrken Wood is destroying itself, and the city around it, Kerrak.

(the time to act is now, kerrak.)

Even the blackest rhymes have a reason, Kerrak. Let this be yours. The Successor and her warrior can help you in this. Will you, Kerrak? Be the cleanser or be the cleansed.

(we are waiting for you.)


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OOC Note: This post was a work by both Liz and I, but clearly having one collective post made by two people is a little hard on the bulletin boards! ^ ^ Just thought I'd make everybody aware!

[Vanidor]

(we are waiting…)
(you can do it, we can do it. rebuild your mask)
(be the conquerer)

The man known as Kerrak al`Nerun rustled in his stooped place, the mind within reeling with the vibrations of ilithid hunger and ministrations. Their words mingled with the heretical whispers of the filth that tainted his source of mystical power. Rebuild the mask. Reclaim your power. Protect the weak. The council was weak. They had to be destroyed.

(you have the power, you can raise the blade of righteous destruction)
(they are destroying the town, be the cleanser not the cleansed)
(Fight until the end, do not give in to death)

There came, finally, a breath from the mighty soldier. Sinews seemed to twitch. To rustle where they should not, not whilst the ilithid saited their hunger on his once iron will. Rebuild the mask. Kerrak released a low moan. His breath hastened. Quickened. Subsided and grew calmer and more collected.

(hate… the name writ upon your hand. etched into your flesh)
(burn… they must burn. your fires are cleansing…)
(restore order. destroy the festering council, the crown be damned…)

His mind whorled, and it pained him. Anger suffused him to the bone. His hand… flexed. Words were written upon that flesh, stained and ingrained into the meat of his hand. His mind whorled, and it pained him. Pride filled his shadowed soul, digging into the cracks left from a shattered mind.

(you can rebuild it all. the drow will help you. The realm will be safe)
(they can help you. help us. Fire will claim them all)
(rebuild our mask. rebuild your mask. rebuild myrken and the council)

A stuttering of flesh. A hand that tightened once again. Pain lanced through his body, and that mental barrier that had once protected his mind snapped back into place. Perhaps it stunned the mindflayers. Perhaps they ignored it, for their talents with mind-play surely overrode his own… But the Void was back. Had returned to the dark and brooding councilor. There were three of them around him, having fed and sown dissention into his grey matter.


(successor faeryl and audmathus are your allies)
(shut the fuck up, I am rebuilding my mask)
(join them… join them…)

And Kerrak rose from his squatted posture, one of his hands shooting sideways and clenched in a fist. Flames billowed from that hand, a blazing sword that slashed outwards and caught one of the trio of ilithids in the face, directly between eyes of milky white. “I thought I told you to be quiet…â€