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STATUS: "Soon you will have forgotten all things. And soon all things will have forgotten you." 5 yrs ago
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5 yrs ago
Current "Soon you will have forgotten all things. And soon all things will have forgotten you."
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courtesy of @Muttonhawk

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In Re:Divinus VII → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Kholdspeagle productions present:

WEHI TAMA

HE STRIKES WITH THE SWORD OF WONDER | GOD OF THE CHILDREN | HE HAS BEHELD | AWEBRINGER
&


Po



In the lap of unliving aeons I have slept... I have been caused to sleep. And I thought I would sleep forevermore, my fate thus halted and destiny foiled, the age of wonder stilled, the marvels of the world nevermore to be beheld. But behold: I have awoken! - you bring me forth, Anath, you stir me once again. I have awed worlds before, I have beheld with the eyes of crazed wonder - I have struck with its sword, I have slain the lifeless corpses of those who could not marvel. I am come, Anath, you have unloosed me on existence! I strike with the sword of wonder.

For Anath so loved the world that she woke what should ne'er be woken and summoned what ne'er should be summoned through the veil of the beginning and end: and lo! the world was without wonder, and Anath bid elsewise; then behold! there was wonder. And wonder spake thus: 'I was the hidden jewel of the worlds, and I have come forth a wonder yet hidden; and I have come for no other purpose than to be known. Behold me ye who are above and who are below, ye who are granted the beholding arts: your perfection is in knowing me! I am the wonder of the skies and trees, I am the wonder of the earth and rivers, I am the wonder of your hidden selves and your multitudinous forms! I am the wonder of the world - I am wonder! All that thou art is naught if wonder is not in it! Have it as you will; if you do not lift the veil of wonder then await my wonder's sword: I strike with the sword of wonder!'

And he raised the sword of wonder - that gleaming sword of flame and mystery - and he marched across the heavens declaring the coming of wonder. And where he went in heaven he struck the rocks of the endless spaces - that sword of wonder struck! - till they were as glittering dust. And that dust was his hair. And that dust followed him as he marched declaring his coming - at speed it followed! till with suddenness he stopped and it crashed upon him and around him and in every direction and way. The dust worshipped him all around. And that was his coffin, and it was the moon of every mortal night.

So was wonder the hidden jewel in the jewel of the world's sky.

***

"Wonder nuthin!" A scratchy voice came shouting from the folds of a cloak of flame. Po hovered by the moon, flapping her fiery wings and staring out from under her white-hot hood with red eyes. "What are you doin' in there! It's too cold!" She shook her hidden head and held out her hands. "I'll save you!"

A searing bolt of white formed at her fingertips, growing larger and larger until an orb of immense weight and heat was shaking just off the edge of her grasp. With a powerful sound snapping blast, Po let loose her creation. The immense recoil sent her flying backwards with an excited squeal, the sound to be drowned out by an even sharper explosion as the mass of fire crashed against the moon, punching an immense crater into it and dousing it in flames of every color.

The moon, barely settled from its dusty genesis, roiled under the heat and mixed with - and it grew and expanded and danced in the darkness and cold of the world beyond Galbar. Fire kissed wonder, and wonder basked in her flame. Those fires - green and blue and red and purple, and colours known and unknown, conceivable and elsewise - bled into the moon-dust and pervaded it till the god-jewel at the heart of the moon was bathed in a kaleidoscope of flame. He shook and rumbled, and with him the moon shook and rumbled too, and when he emerged it settled and burned gently and warmly - and oh! how it shone like a second sun; but it was a wondrous light that turned inward and only bled an iota of its truth unto the world below. Wonder beheld fire and brought his sword before him, its tip digging into firm ground where the eye conceived none. "I behold you and hail you!" He announced with an easy smile, "and I have loved the passion that roils in you. Lady, you have scorched me wondrously and brought marvels to the marvel of my moon; I would know the name of she who burns me thus!"

"PO!" Po shouted back.

Wonder frowned and leaned forward, his chin resting on his sword pommel. "Po? Not Poliana? Or Poinievere? Porgenlefae? Not even..." he paused and looked upwards, "Posolde? Just... Po? What does it mean, this Po?"

"It means me," Po answered. "Now who are you?"

"Who am I?" He repeated, then leaned back. "If you behold me you will know. But if you do not come to know me, my sword will know you!" He smiled and raised his blade. He did not speak or move threateningly but seemed in all ways amiable. "Or if you can't know me, then look here," and he turned to the moon and gazed upon it, "and surely then you will know me!"

A pregnant silence ensued, with only the crackle of flames filling the atmosphere. Po's eyes squinted to suspicious slants. "Are you making fun of me?" Her scratch voice was a growl.

Wonder's head snapped back to Po, eyes wide in frozen wonder and smile widening. His teeth were the colour of unshelled sunflower seeds. "How curious you should think that," he hefted his sword - it swept across the endless emptiness of creation, seemed to be a glinting endlessness for seconds - and pointed it at the moon of roiling dust and flame, the moon of light too great to be known, whose rays shone back upon it and made it the singular blaze of the cold and darkness of the spaces. "Look on that you have made, Po!" His arm shook, his eyes trembled, his chest quivered. "Do not look with your eyes! They who look with their eyes will never know me. Look with your heart."

"I'll admit," Po stayed squinting. "This is getting very weird. I think I might head out; there is plenty more to heat up in this place."

Wonder relaxed his arm and let his hand drop, but continued to gaze at the moon. "Good idea. I'll see you when there's something to see!" He took two powerful steps in the emptiness, leapt, and dove sword first into the churning moon. His voice echoed after him like a thunderclap. And the roar of its canon was: "I am the wonder of the world!"

In Re:Divinus VII → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


New Aspects:
Swords: This Aspect covers the crafting and use of swords, as well as magics relating to the crafting and use of swords.


1. Wehi Tama & Po
2. Wehi Tama
3. Wehi Tama
4. Wehi Tama & Anath Homura + Mahara and Mawazo
5. Wehi Tama, Aveira, and Chudungus
6. Mahara, Mawazo, and Core-Lorelei
7. Wehi Tama and Chudungus
8. Wehi Tama and Chudungus
In Re:Divinus VII → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
In Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk. VI → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
AERON

&
ZIMA the ZIMMER

in
An EXPLICATION of the BEGINNING of SORROW

followed by

A PRELUDE to ALL SUFFERING


The chirping of songbirds, a warm sun, and the roar of a high river across the northern bounds of the world could signify one thing only: Spring was coming North. As the sun’s conquering rays marched ever more northward and subdued plain after plain and forest after forest and lake after lake, the days had started growing longer. The sun-kissed air was blowing a good and pleasant breeze, and greenery was beginning to emerge from the melting snow - which was now in full and open rout. True, the nights were still chilly and often froze any still water, but a change was coming; the land and animals could feel it and so did those that walked on two legs.

Soon the Voirans would be moving off to new lands as the Council of the Nine decreed. Winter had taken its toll on many and with that came restless feet and legs in need of long rambles across the earth. It was the Voiran way, after all. So there was indeed a growing murmur amongst those nomadic people, who waited each day with patience and anticipation. Many of the things they murmured were trivial. Would Haana bear twins? Could enough furs be found to replace old clothing? Would they be heading south or south-east when the time came?

That naturally gave rise more generally to the matter of moving on, lamenting those who had not made it through the winter, and talk of the celestial debris and strange moonfalls - as those were called. Many of them had witnessed the way the moon had shed itself and sent great clouds of dust and rock in every which way. The Council of Nine had deliberated on the strange happenings but ultimately declared that all things were as the gods decreed and that the world would go on whether the moon exploded or did not, and life too and all things.

“But what about us?” Juirga asked, holding her latest child on her shoulder (her fifth, and one of three who yet lived).
“Yes, Juirga,” councillor Rhinan said, “life and all things will go on even if we don’t.”
“Not very comforting,” the mother winced.
“That’s how it is,” Rhinan shrugged, and everyone had dispersed.

Along with all that, many also wondered if Aeron would ever get to work and stop playing with his nasnook. Others wondered, more seriously, when his more diligent sister would return. Though she had not stayed with the Voirans for very long, Mair had become immediately popular with her people and something of an authority. She was renowned for better reasons than her brother, who was more infamous than famous, and was praised for her hard work, respect for their Maker’s wishes and was, above all else, idolised for being a true Voiran explorer. Oh the tales she might bring when she returned! The words from Voi she would bring! Not like Aeron, who sat lazing about all day… Oh but none could deny his tricks with Voia were a delight, and he did make everyone laugh, so he was tolerated. And, of course, he was an eye of the Maker, just like his superior sister, so they had to tolerate him regardless of his usefulness.

Mair did not return with the coming of Spring and did not return on that day. Instead, a pair of siblings - gone out for a walk earlier in the day - came trudging home. Night had already approached and their worried parents had gone to the Council for aid. It had not been needed, ultimately, for little Von guided the now sickly Vare into camp, much to the relief of their parents and kin. Yet, even as she was fussed over and helped to a bed, Vare seemed different. It was not her hand or their furs or the story she told of an evil spirit that had attacked them. No- it was her eyes. Lifeless eyes. The sort that marked something truly terrible. And so, as gossip spread like wildfire through the camp, many remarked how the chill had turned colder. The promise of spring seemed to fade away as quickly as it had come and there was an inexplicable feeling that something had gone terribly wrong.

Aeron felt it too, and Voia curled on his head and covered herself in his long white hair as he sat by a fire with some six others to ward off the sudden cold. “You seen lil Vare’s eyes, Ron?” Petors asked him.
“Oh, she back?” The performer asked. “I told her not to go off all on her own. Feisty that one.”
“Wait, you knew where she was all along?” Petors frowned.
“Uh…” Aeron glanced at the bigger voiran, then at the others who looked equally unamused, “sort… of? I mean, well, in theory. Uh. Allegedly.” He kissed his lips. “So it is said… I have heard that claim made of late. Uh. I can neither confirm nor den-”
“You’re a real twat sometimes, you know that? She’s not in a good way at all. What did she even go off for?” Another, Poilina, asked.
“Well, I’ve heard it through the tree-vine tha-” Aeron began, but swiftly ducked away from a slap Petors sent his way. He righted himself after that and grinned. “My, so violent, these big fellas. Typical brainless sort, y’know?”
“Where were they?” Poilina asked, ignoring his antics.
“Well, like I was saying before I was set upon by this giant mammoth spawn thing, I heard it through the tree-vine that she and good little Von were rather impressed by the many heroic - and entirely truthful - exploits of a certain fella and his nasnook-”
“Oh for crying out-” Poilina got up and trudged off, “you should watch those stories of yours, Aeron!” She shouted, turning around. “Watch them or you’ll have more than Petors’ slaps to worry about!”
Aeron watched her go off and then glanced awkwardly at the others, then frowned indignantly. “Look now, my stories are important. How are these kids going to grow up into the fine brave sort without good stories, eh? How will they know what goodness looks like if they don’t have any proper models of goodness? Don’t blame my stories if Vare is in a bad way. Going off and exploring is our way - what she did was good, heroic, courageous. What? Would you have us coddle them? You have only one of me today, but if you start coddling them you might as well kiss your ways of bravery and hunting and exploration goodbye.” He stood up and flashed them an affronted look. “That’s how it is.” They were all silent.
“Well, no one’s blaming your stories, Ron, sit down.” Petors muttered.
“Vare is a good kid,” Aeron insisted, not sitting, “in fact, Vare is the best kid. She’s helpful, she hunts better than anyone, she’s not afraid of the dark, she’s protected her brother from more things than I care to count. If my stories made her like that, then I’m proud of it. You all go off hunting and doing your stuff, but my stories are creating our future - my stories made Vare what she is.” No one said anything. “What, am I wrong?” He asked.
“No no, you’re right.” Setven declared. “Just sit man.”
Aeron complied at last and sat down. “If I grew up listening to the stories I tell - if the Maker hadn’t just, I don’t know, snapped his fingers and made us as we are - I would have been the bravest, the most dashing, the noblest, the cleverest (in fact, I’m still the cleverest, Mair has nothing on me) voiran in existence. But hey, things just didn’t work out that way, and so I tell stories to make sure no one turns out like me. Is it so bad of me? I don’t think so. You don’t think so, Petors, I know you don’t you big oafish mammoth thing.”
“Well, Vare’s been talking about some evil spirit.” Setven said, returning the conversation to more important matters. “Apparently attacked them or something, I don’t know. I’ve never heard of a spirit that attacks people.” The others murmured in agreement and frowns spread around the fire.
Aeron scratched his head and shrugged. “Maybe she, uh… was exaggerating a little? Exaggerations always makes a heroic tale better. I’m all for exaggeration. In the name of good stories and morals, of course.”
Petors gave him an icy stare before saying, “Vare doesn’t lie, because she’s a good kid.” Aeron shrugged and nodded in agreement. “Still, I’ve a bad feeling. Everyone has a bad feeling. It’s weird.”
“There’s this heaviness in the air, I’ve never known anything like it.” Setvens added, and the others whispered words of agreement. That was the sentiment everyone echoed for days afterwards.

When Vare was well enough, Aeron decided to take Voia and cheer her up a little, since everyone who saw her noted that she looked especially sad. He found her parents, Baella and Mirtan, sat sullenly by their tent with young Von lying lethargically at their feet. “Well aren’t you a cheerful lot.” Aeron grinned, getting only a long sigh from Mirtan in response.
“What d’you want Aer? Haven’t you someone else to wind up?” Baella managed after a few moments of silence.
“Thought you’d be happier to see me, little man,” Aeron said to Von, ignoring the miserable grown-ups.
“I’m booored.” The boy said, rolling over, “Vare just sits inside and won’t go exploring again with me.” Both Baella and Mirtan perked up at this, and stared daggers at Aeron, who smiled awkwardly.
“Exploring… can be done anytime.” The entertainer enunciated. “You, uh, have better things to do. Like cheering your mum up. Look at her face, I could make a speartip just from the point in her eyes!” Baella’s gaze softened and she looked down at Von after that. “Anyway, I’m going in to see Vare.” He walked past them.
“None of those ridiculous stories, Aer,” Mirtan said warningly.
“Me? Ridiculous? Rats would sooner talk, Mirty!” Aeron laughed, then ducked into the homely tent.

It was dimly lit inside, with the only light sources coming from under the entrance flap and faint traces underneath the furs covering the tent’s structure along the ground. The structure was as small as could be, just enough to house Baella and Mirtan’s family. Vare sat at the back of the tent, where only the faintest of light touched. In fact the only thing that could really be seen, and so marked her presence, was her pale skin. It seemed far paler than it ought to have been, and her expression was one fixed in the muck of depression. Her silver eyes fared no better as they bore into his soul.

“Hello… Aer.” The girl said slowly, if not perhaps deliberately. Her voice was of loss, nothing at all like she had sounded before. “What brings you…” She began to ask but her words faded as her eyes snapped up, past his face, to look at the nasnook sitting on his head and blanketed in his long white hair. Voia had been moving around tensely the moment Aeron entered the tent, but he had not seemed to notice until Vare’s eyes grew fixated on the nasnook.

The spirit, having taken on the earthy form of a polecat, leapt down and approached Vare with tail raised in alarm, hissing and baring its icy fangs. “There now Voia, there’s no need for that.” Aeron said, bending down and scooping the nasnook up. She twisted easily out of his grasp and leapt up, shedding her physical form and sending the furs and tent flying as she screeched and unleashed a small blizzard within herself. Raising a hand and backing away with a frown, Aeron shouted for the nasnook to be calm, but it was to no avail.

Vare shrieked, eyes never leaving Voia as the wind whipped at her air. “Don't let that Nisshi hurt me, Aer!” She cried out, backing away on her hands and legs, and even in the face of the wind Aeron cocked his head in confusion at her words.

“Nisshi?” He muttered bemusedly, running around Voia and looking at Vare. “What the hell’s a nisshi?” He looked from Vare to Voia a few times, and then something seemed to click in his mind. His eyes began to glow a faint blue as he looked at Vare, and he saw beyond the veil of life and death, spirit and flesh, what is known and what is unknown. In seeing what he saw, he understood. “Voia! Calm yourself Voia!” He hurled himself between the nasnook and the girl, then brought Vare to him roughly, his brows furrowed. “Hey, look at me.” He pinched her chin and turned her face side to side as if trying to understand what he was seeing. “Who are you? How did you get in here? Is that even possible? What do you want?”

Vare’s demeanor morphed into something else. Where once there had been a scared girl, there was now something else, something darker. She stood straighter, arms dangling lifelessly at her side as she forced her chin out of Aeron’s grasp. Her lips curled into a frown as she looked up at him, eyes beginning to flicker from silver to crimson. “How stupid of me.” She said in a quiet voice full of spite as the wind whipped at her hair. “Of course you wouldn't call them Nisshiniek. A pity.” She spoke to herself even though she looked at Aeron still, veins of black spreading from her eyes. “The girl did that trick before with her eyes but what did you see in the space between spaces?” She asked, unwavering in her gaze as her eyes became engulfed in red.

Aeron did not answer, but backed away. Their breath became visible as a chill air descended, spreading an unnatural darkness that began to creep into the corner of Aeron’s eyes and his surroundings. With the tent now fully blown away by Voia’s blizzard, Vare’s family stared at them with a mix of confusion and horror. Others stopped to look at the spectacle, curious to see what was going on. Baella called her daughter’s name, but she did not answer. Aeron made to speak, but paused and frowned. Voia raged behind him for a few seconds more, and then was at his shoulder, beneath his chin, and distance simply grew between Aeron and Vare as Voia expanded there and engulfed the girl utterly. Baella screamed out behind Aeron, but everything seemed oddly silent and slow, and Aeron watched as though he was merely a passing bird - mostly because the entire affair was so bizarre that he could not really comprehend it.

Vare was flung at him from inside the maelstrom that was Voia, and he just about managed to catch her, but the nasnook never turned her attention to the girl and kept fighting something else. Vare gasped and groaned and when she opened her eyes, they were silver and full of fear. Her lips quivered as she held tight to Aeron. “R-Run…” She said in the weakest voice he had ever heard uttered, before her eyes spasmed and closed.

“Voi’s head, Vare,” he muttered, and in front of him the maelstrom of blue and white became tainted with darkness. How quickly it spread to subsume Voia entirely as the two forces whipped up a mighty and terrible wind. They collided with nearby tents and people screamed as they were thrown about or hit with flying debris. Then the forces halted as the darkness took over completely and hovered before them for a split second… and then Voia was flung out. She was now naught but a tiny, wispy thing that fell before Aeron. A shade began to form from the coalesced mist, revealing a woman wreathed in a gray flame that ate at the light, and her face seemed centred around two horrible, crimson eyes that bored down into him. All grew breathtakingly quiet as the woman raised a hand into the air.

Ignoring the crimson-eyed demon, Baella was immediately above Aeron, dragging her daughter up out of his arms and rushing off. Mirtan grabbed Von and followed her, and all about the camp the people grabbed what little things they held precious and got to putting as much distance between them and the demon. Aeron sat where he was, Voia rolling about by him. Grabbing her, he shot to his feet and stared right into the demon’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, paused, glanced around at the chaos all around, then chuckled awkwardly. “You- uh- you’ve got a great look going. Except for maybe those eyes, I think your pretty face would frame them just right if you toned down the whole red look.” He grinned with as much confidence as he could muster. “And I would be happy to offer my services if you so desi-” halting abruptly mid-sentence, he leapt to his left and bounded off as fast as he could. “What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck-” he mumbled to himself as he put every ounce of strength into his legs.

The demon watched him go. An inverted flame grew in her outstretched hand, calling to itself in a deathly song. Flame’s extinguished, then the land buckled- crumpled like a dry leaf. Its life force yielded itself to the unflame, the nonlight, like streams of smoke. Yet it was not smoke that was ripped from the earth and the trees, and plants and the animals; it was their souls. And as they lost their souls, their very being, they withered and died. It was worse for the Voirans, especially those closest to catastrophe, for their souls were cut so clean from the vessel that the body imploded from the pressure, bathing the ground in red. And when the unlight of the demon grew to twice her height, she threw it at the earth beneath her feet.

Thus did day become night; sorrow become suffering.

The explosion of deathly forces tore apart any that lingered, those that ran were flung or outright eaten, turned to but an after-image of what they once had been. Most faces were of agony, others only fear, all showed the final desperate moments of a confused people. Those further out were hit with the shockwave of the blast, cut to pieces or torn apart by debris. Only the lucky would escape that bloody and blackened field of sorrow. Only so few would they be.

Something strange happened, however, in the aftermath of the terrible death she unleashed on those nomadic voirans. Driven to insanity by her dark powers, or to grief-driven fury and madness by the sudden death of so many loved ones, the voirans rallied en masse and returned in small groups wielding spears and stone axes and daggers - and more lethal still, wielding blue murder in their eyes. The first such group was led by an enormous man hefting a great wooden club, and he came charging ahead of the others towards the demon while roaring murder and death and fury.

She sat unmoving, eyes shut in the center of that broken ground. Even when he swung his club down upon the demon, she was unmoving. The club struck the earth where she sat, cracking apart as her decay took root in it. It went through her, as did the next swing and the next until there was no more club and the others arrived to see the same. But their anger was great and so too were their fists. It was only then did they learn that the demon could not be harmed, but they could. Her red eyes opened and her hand tore through the enormous man, leaving him hollow with blackened eyes as he fell over dead.

Many fought on. Many fled in panic, but it did not matter. The demon caught them all and ate upon their souls. Only one escaped her, a woman who she had nearly killed but whose face now held her mark. It was not luck or strength that saved her, but an act of love. For a man threw himself into the demon and as he withered away the demon let go of the woman to focus on her lover. Thus she was saved and the shrill crying of the baby she held faded into the distance as more voirans came, fewer now. Most tried to run at that point, their rage broken as they looked upon the hollowed out eyes of their kin around the demon’s feet.

In the heavens above, a single white raven - grasping a wispy creature in its talons - circled and bore witness to it all. Its eyes shimmered with blue light and what dripped from them was neither blood nor rain - and could not be tears, for ravens did not cry. It watched until everything below had died - the greenery that had thought spring was come, the trees, the soil, the air; all things - and yes, the voirans too.

The last thing the raven saw was the demon, kneeling amidst a field of white and black, with her hands covering her face.

In Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk. VI → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Mish-Cheechel the Avenger



Deep in the loins of the earth, where no bjork had ever ventured alive, lay Mish-Cheechel. The earth pressed heavily on his form and had he need for breath he would have choked; but he had learned how to live without breathing. He had struggled at first, thrashed against the darkness smothering him from all directions. He bit into earth, attacked it with his great buckteeth, but found that only brought the dirt to the lips his teeth shielded. He shook his great shoulders - such blows he landed on the earth as would have shattered the jaws of gods. The earth took it all, however, silent and unmoved.

It was a long struggle before he lay back at last and was still. His thoughts returned to Zima - in his savaging of the earth that bound him she was all he had thought of; what had that Voi done to her? Had she managed to escape? Was she safe? He had to find her. But now as he lay there with no way out, his thoughts turned to the eagle god - or rather, returned to the eagle god, for it was always there; it was a great shadow that pervaded his every thought and memory and was in all that he saw or heard or felt. He grit his teeth as rage boiled within him and he pounded with his great broad head at the earth above. Had he been of those who could know sleep he would have lost consciousness, but he was not of those and so he simply lay there staring liquid fury into the nothingness. He closed his eyes then and tried to find some calm, and before he knew it he found himself whispering words that had been carved into his being.


Mish-Cheechel finished the recitation and lay in silence for a few seconds. Then he started again from the beginning. He recited it repeatedly in the darkness of his grave and all thought of Zima left him. Only the eagle god remained, only the Green Murder. He continued reciting it even as he raised a hand - serenely - to the pounded earth above him and power pulsed through his form. It was a great and familiar heat - bereft of rage or anger. There was only purpose there now. He was still, feeling the heat building up in his palm, still whispering the Warpath. He did not release it, but held it there like a child and was filled with a small amount of wonder at how such a thing could exist.

He looked up - almost lazily - into the darkness, and released the heat. Warmth spread through his form and permeated the small grave, and above him the world rocked gently and all pressure disappeared. When the heat had dissipated, he found that not far above him was light. The charred earth was perfectly smooth, but here and there remnants of rocks jutted out and he was able to climb his way out of the hole.

Spring was in the air and the world was silent where his blast had rocked it. His body was bare - no spear or saddle; they were all likely buried deep in the earth where no one could ever find them again. It was no matter, however. He looked skyward, his eyes as liquid steel. "I'm coming for ye, Green Murder."

In Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk. VI → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


The GREAT BEARER of LANDS | EARTHHEART| CHAMPION of the MONARCH

&


ROSALIND

RAGING ROSA | THE DANCE-DEMON | FEVERFOOT | LEAPING LINDA

&

Arvum


Voligan searched for Rosalind’s essence across Galbar, speeding quickly across the landmasses of Orsus and Termina. He reasoned that it would not be hard to find her. As far as he knew, she had not created anything of her own beyond those fish and the bangles the Monarch had given her. Unlike himself and several of their siblings she had not spread her essence through various things. That made it easy to find her, for once he found a trace of her essence it would be simple enough to follow it to the source.

He passed by more than a few things of note on his search; there wa an island that radiated the healing light of the god of Cultivation; there was a wall that his sister Homura had built, presumably to defend her remaining humans; there were the hivelands of the parasite god, spreading inexorably; there were humans wandering the devastated lands where Ashevelen had died; there were Rosalind’s dancing islands, which had fostered civilizations, and the north had filled with life without his knowing. He would have to visit these places, but for now he needed to find Rosalind.

He soon found the trace he was looking for and was quickly following it when he abruptly pulled himself to a stop. He was on a beach, sand composing of his form. He paused, looking around for the source of his sudden stop. There was another stench, overpowering her essence. Consuming it. Voligan did not recognize this starving, desperate essence personally, but as soon as he stumbled upon it he knew who it came from. The god of Parasites had been here. Voligan moved faster, through the beach and then through trees as he followed the path the Feverfoot had taken. His form changed smoothly from sand to dirt as he raced along, hurried by worry. He found the path their chase had taken, passing through the Rivulet that shone with power and reeked of Rosalind’s essence.

Finally, moving through a bog of blood, he reached what may have once been a grove but was now a lake of golden-red ichor. In the centre was an odd barkish structure - almost human in form - and Rosalind was reclined against a tree at the grove’s far end. His normally stoic exterior cracked, a great sorrow filling him at the sight of Rosalind alongside empathy for her pain. He did not bother questioning why he suddenly felt as such, letting out a cry that shook the ground.

Voligan was at her side in an instant, arms lifting her still body (save for her dancing feet, a relieving sign that she yet lived). “Rosa. Little Feverfoot. I am here. I know where you can be fixed. Hold on, little Dancer. You will be healed soon. I swear it.” Water from the River of Blood and Flowers ran down his face like tears, shining with her blood. She shifted ever so slightly in his great arms, sighed something inaudible, but remained unconscious.

Voligan raced across Galbar, Rosa in his arms, heading straight for the island he had passed. He did not care if the god of Cultivation was planning on restricting its access. He would make his kin share the healing power that had been created if necessary. He was the Champion, and he acted with the Monarch’s will.

As they reached the island, Voligan did not even give the courtesy of following set paths. He simply willed the earth to move as he raced past the superficial healing meant for mortals. Hot springs and medicinal herbs would not help Rosalind. Only the source of power he felt at the bottom would, and he could not waste any time. The dirt and rock of the cave parted as he made a direct line towards the lake. He knelt and held her in the strange liquid that seemed to be the source of the power of the island. Moments passed, then minutes. Voligan finally broke the silence as he held Rosalind in the fluid.

“It should be working. Why isn’t it working.”

The goddess’ gold-red ichor oozed through the sacred wellspring and her black hair drifted in every which way, its dark tendrils spreading endlessly. But neither her wounded neck, where the Exile had bitten her so long ago, closed up nor did the flesh - or arm that Yesaris had cleaved from her form - return.

A voice emanated through the cave, “Greetings.”

Voligan whipped around, looking for the source of the voice. The earth around them shuddered, responding to his increasing frustration and desperation. “Who is there? We do not have time for games, show yourself.”

Arvum walked forward from the caves above, his pace faster than any mortal could manage, “I merely wished to welcome you to my sanctuary, the Eternal Bastion.”

Voligan paused, looking at Arvum. Another god, this one he had not met. But he could still sense the divine power and identify its source. “Hmm. God of Cultivation. I apologize for my directness through your sanctuary, but our sister is dying. The God of Parasites attacked her, and I sensed the healing nature of this place. It is not working, however, and she does not have much time. Why is your Bastion not working as it should? Did I miss a process, a step?”

Arvum approached the lake and carefully observed the biological matter composing it as it joined together and broke apart, as well as the entity submerged within it. “The lake is functioning as intended, however it is sad that divine wounds are not easily mended.” His gaze shifted to the tunnel that Voligan had bored, “I have not had the opportunity or strength to sanctify this region such that it could easily restore a god to proper health. And I have been warned that had I done so, I would have drawn the attention of a shard-bearer that would seek to oppose it.”

“Do you have the strength now? If so, do it. Fear is no good reason to let our sister die when you have the power to save her. As Champion of the Monarch, I will ensure that it is protected from any of our siblings who seek to do it harm. I will protect you as well, if you so desire it. But you must save her.”

Arvum’s true attention did not turn itself to Voligan, “I do not know.” His attention hyper-focused on the pool’s resident.

“Either you have the strength, and can do it, or you do not have the strength, and I will have to help you. Whichever it is, you can’t just sit here staring at her. Something has to be done, and quickly.” Voligan rose, the ground beneath Rosalind’s unconscious body rising to keep her held. “Which is it? Can you do this on your own, or do I need to help you?”

Arvum’s intention pulsed forward, “Leave.” . He composed himself, “I will tend to her.”

“No.” Voligan's voice was forceful and uncompromising as he took a step towards Arvum, his form shifting to iron. “Either you help her with me here, or you help her with my aid. I am not leaving her alone. If you refuse, I will do what you either cannot or will not.” He glanced over at Rosalind, making sure that she was still breathing, before facing Arvum once more. “Make your choice, we have no time for your games.”

“The subtlety of my words seems to escape the others. Excuse me for being brutally clear. If you were capable of what you claimed, then you would not be here. You either remain and she will remain as she is, or you return to the surface and I might yet restore that which should have festered and withered away.” Arvum said, his attention still focused on the pool.

Voligan's form shifted back to dirt, and he returned to Rosalind.

“No. If you were truly offering help you would not hide it from sight. I will heal her myself, one way or another.” He lifted her up and began to leave through the tunnel he had made. “I bid you goodbye, God of Cowards. May you receive the same aid you gave today.”

Intention echoed through the caverns, “My help is genuine, and the offer remains.” There was a deliberate pause, as Voligan kept walking, “I do not wish to see another shardbearer to be lesser. If you must, I shall permit you to watch my healing should you swear upon your truest nature that you shall not infringe upon my most sacred places.”

Voligan stopped and slowly returned to the healing pool, laying Rosalind in it once more. “You have my word that I shall not infringe upon your sacred places, so long as you heal her.”

“As I said, I do not know if it is something I am capable of. But I will try.” Arvum retrieved the Asclepius Orb from his cloak and placed it upon its pedestal. The lake of life responded, but it still struggled to mend the wounds of the divine. He focused and imbued the trinket with his power. When it was saturated with divine will, Arvum lifted his hands from the orb and began to rhythmically sway them. The greenish liquid began to ripple and sway following his motions.

Still motioning with his arms, Arvum took three steps back and then three steps forward. His pace was slow, however he kept repeating those same steps each time slightly faster than the last. With each step, the healing lake’s movement hastened and became more complex.

Spiral waves swirled around the surface of the green, now mixing and joining with the reddish divine ichor. The god’s steps escaped their simple pattern and started to emulate the dance of the lake, for while Arvum was no natural dancer the lake was. As his motions became more and more fluid and his movement took on a flow utterly foreign to the god of cultivation, the goddess in the divine pool disappeared beneath the surface.

The water rippled and its flow became a whirl. Here and there the liquids moved, now up and now down and now side to side - movements foreign to any natural liquid body. As Arvum moved, the liquid sent out flowing tendrils which arched across the cavern and twisted now about the dancing Arvum and now about the tense Voligan. The waters whirled and rose, flowing in every which direction - and at their centre, surrounded by sprawling onyx hair that twisted with the water and danced - but never touched it - was the unconscious Rosalind.

The scar on his neck closed up before their eyes - not perfectly or prettily, for it left a great mass of twisting scar tissue - and the flesh Yesaris had taken out of her upper body slowly regrew. It was again not perfect, there would forever be a marked lack of meat on her left shoulder and the writhing scar even greater than that on her neck, but it was healed. Her arm seemed to regrow for seconds, but then the flesh jolted and closed up on itself, leaving a short stump just off her shoulder.

Her hair retreated as Arvum continued to flow with the water, and she descended to the ground before him and crumpled in a small pile there. Almost immediately, the dancing fluid fell and splashed everywhere - on Voligan, on Arvum, across the cavern and back into the lake. Then everything was stillness once more.

By Arvum’s will, the escaped fluid returned to its basin. He removed the orb from his pedestal and returned it to whatever nebulous space upon his person he had retrieved it from. His voice addressed Voligan, “Function has been restored to the god-form.”

Voligan knelt and gently touched Rosalind’s shoulder and shook her. “Little Dancer, are you awake? It is Voligan. Are you okay Rosa?” She did not respond, but her feet kicked. A short silence followed before a moan escaped her lips and the stump of her right arm moved.

“Goodby…” she muttered, “Earohana… Voi.” Her head fell to the side and she pressed her eyes together (and stifled a yawn) before she opened them. She took Voligan in, who was staring down at her, and then Arvum. “Uh. Earthheart?” She asked in confusion.

“Hmm. Yes, the Earthheart. I am very glad to see you awake, Little Dancer.” Voligan rumbled, pleased. “I found you after the attack by the God of Parasites, and took you to the God of Cultivation’s healing pool.” Voligan gestured to Arvum. “He helped bring you back from your coma.” She looked at Arvum bemusedly.

“I… that feels… like a very long time ago.” She took a short breath, “I was in a coma?” She asked as she attempted to get to her feet. Forgetting that she had no right arm, however, she leaned to the right and inadvertently planted her face in the ground. She flailed like a child until she could right herself and tap the dirt away. “Thank you, Earthheart, I would probably still be in that forest if you had not found me. And thank you, Arvum. I don’t think I would have been able to come back if my body was not healed.”

“He was not able to fully heal your body, unfortunately.” He raised a hand, pulling the moonstone he had given her to him. “I can help with that, however.” He reached his other hand out for her stump, and pressed the moonstone against it. The stone began to glow with divine power. The stone melted and began to flow like water over her stump until a new moonstone bicep, elbow, forearm and hand molded into place and cooled. “There. That should be just like new.”

The goddess brought her new hand to her eyes and looked with no small degree of wonder at the strange colours - now blue, now green, now black - that shimmered through the pale stone. “It’s…” she smiled up at Voligan as she flexed her new fingers, “incredible.” She could not stop looking at it as she got to her feet and ran a finger across her new forearm once she was stood up. “I bet no one will be trying to eat this one anytime soon.” She chuckled at last, then moved towards Voligan and embraced him. “Thank you.”

“I very much doubt that anything will try to eat that.” Voligan chuckled, returning the hug. “I am glad that you are okay Little Dancer. Now that you are, I must go and find the God of Parasites. He must answer for his attempted murder and cannibalism.”

Voligan stood and nodded towards Arvum. “I thank you again. I may call upon you as a witness for the Parasite's trial".” Rosalind looked from one to the other in confusion, and opened her mouth to speak.

Arvum was focused elsewhere and replied before she could, “You are welcome, Voligan and Rosa. I must ask that you mend my island. It would be inconvenient for myself and the denizens of the island if the hole were to remain.”

“I will fix it as I leave. Worry not.” Voligan looked over to Rosa. “Do you wish to come with me, or shall you find your own way out of this island?”

The goddess looked at him with a small frown. “I’ll uh- I…” she paused. “What did you mean about a trial for Yesaris? You’re… you’re not going to hurt him, are you?” She grasped Voligan’s shoulder. “You mustn’t. He didn’t mean what he did. He’s in pain, that’s why he did it. He’s got a terrible illness and there’s nothing he can do about it but… but eat.”

Voligan was unmoved. “That will be taken into consideration. Pain or no pain, he cannot attempt to eat his kin without consequences. He will not be killed. We didn't kill Yudaiel or Iqelis for murdering their kin, we will not kill Yesaris.” Rosalind’s frown deepened.

“Yudaiel did… what?” She glanced at Arvum in disbelief. At the mention of Yudaiel, Arvum turned his attention elsewhere. He walked over to the pool and focused on it instead. Rosalind looked after him in confusion, then back at Voligan. “When? And… why?” She raised her moonstone hand to her head and looked rather unsteady on her feet. “Yudaiel wouldn’t…” she managed, descending to her knees rather than suffer the embarrassment of falling. Realising that Voligan was looking at her, she raised her hands in embarrassment. “Oh- I- uh. I’ve caused you enough trouble, Earthheart. I- I’ll be okay from here. Don’t trouble yourself with me.”

“Some time ago. From what I was able to ascertain she killed the Goddess of Luck with a mountain. I do not know why.” Voligan looked at Rosalind for a few moments longer. “If you say so, Little Dancer. Remember you can always call upon me if you are in need of help.” He nodded once again to Arvum. “Goodbye, and I will call upon you later.” Voligan began to leave, closing the hole behind him as he did so..

“Are you certain you do not require assistance, the path to the surface is long and dangerous and your god-form has not been completely restored.” he said, his head still facing toward the pool. Rosalind considered him for a few seconds, then walked beside him and looked into the pool also.

“There’s something you’re not saying. Are you alright? It’s… it’s about Yudaiel, isn’t it? You know something.” The goddess’ black eyes were on him and she brought a hand to his shoulder. “Tell me.”

“I have noticed a portion of your essence has remained within the pool.” he said, attempting to change the subject. Rosalind cocked her head and pursed her lips, then looked back at the pool.

“Is that bad? I would fix it, but I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Arvum paused to study the changes to the pool. He seemed to relax slightly, “No. I believe it shall be a boon to those who are also restored within it.”

“Oh,” Rosalind murmured, a small smile spreading on her lips, “well, that’s good. I’m glad I could do something to help, for once, even if by accident.” She considered the pool. “You made this to help people, then? Why did you put it here? You said the route to it is long and treacherous - surely those in need of it would never be able to reach it, no?”

Arvum paused to consider his words, “The island above provides many mundane sources of healing. The liquid partially retains its healing properties when removed from the bastion, but even that should not be taken lightly. Much less the kind of healing you received.”

“So people aren’t actually meant to come down here?” Rosalind asked.

“I would not punish anyone for doing so should they treat the bastion with care.” he replied. Rosalind nodded and was quiet for a few moments.

“You’re the god of cultivation, then? You must be greatly loved.” She bent down and placed one finger into the still pool, and twirled it. The motion spread throughout and when she withdrew it did not stop but continued moving with a life all its own.

“It is irrelevant whether I am loved or hated.” he said, staring out into the waves. Rosalind looked up at him thoughtfully.

“I don’t think that’s true.” She said slowly. “You try to help, and people love those who help. If you are hated perhaps it’s a sign that you wronged people in some way. Love and hate don’t come out of nothing.” She paused for a few seconds and returned her gaze to the lake. “The normal response when somebody looks at something like this is to be grateful that it exists, grateful to the one who made it exist. And gratefulness is just a kind of love, really. Or at least that’s what I think.” She kissed her lips and stood back up. “So, why did you make this then?”

Arvum turned his attention to the god-form, “Mortals and gods are fickle creatures. There will be those who curse my name during the plant season, when they toil against the earth under the oppressive heat of day. There will be those who praise my name during the harvest season, when they feast upon the rewards of their labor. We all have our obligations. I know what mine are.” he paused and gestured forward, “This is a sacred tool for my divine duties.”

Rosalind considered him for a few moments then sighed. “Duties…” she murmured. “What is your duty, Arvum?” Realising that she sounded almost stand-offish, she hurriedly continued, “I mean - I don’t know mine- I’m sure I have one… but I haven’t worked it out. So maybe if I, uh, knew yours then it’d help me know mine.” She smiled sheepishly at him.

“To learn. To grow. To craft. To mend. They are all expressions of the same grand concept; to improve. I believe this is the obligation of all, but we all have our own means to do so.” Arvum answered. Rosalind scratched her head.

“That’s a lot of duties. Our father tasked you with all that? It seems very… unspecific.” She glanced at the lake. “I guess this… relates to mending?” She looked at Arvum uncertainly.

“Perhaps you do not understand at the moment, but I believe that one day you will. There are some things which must be experienced.” he said. “Have you had a chance to walk among mortals as if you were one? I believe that would aid your understanding.”

“As if I… was one?” She furrowed her brows, then chuckled. “I’d rather work out how to be a god first, in truth. It hasn’t come very naturally to me. I don’t know how to make things like… like this,” she gestured to the pool, “or tunnel through the earth like Voligan. Or fly about or any of that.” She sighed. “You know, when I was dead there was this one shade who took one glance at me and… well, he said I wasn’t a god. I told him it wasn’t true but… I couldn’t prove it. I couldn’t do anything.” She exhaled. “To know my duties I should be mortal. To do my duties I should be divine.” She cocked her head at Arvum and chuckled. “It sounds very wise, doesn’t it?”

Arvum considered her words, “We all have our obligations and labors. You are wise in understanding that they are not always simple.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it that.” She chortled. “Have you met any of our other siblings? Who of them is best at doing their duties?”

“I have met several other shardbearers, but I must admit that I have not had time to worry about their work as well as my own.” Arvum answered.

“Shardbearer?” Rosalind asked with a raised eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

“Someone who possesses a shard of the Monarch of All.” he explained, “A reminder of our common origin.”

She smiled at the mention of their father. “I didn’t know that. Shards, huh?” She looked upward, but there was only the cavern. “We’re literally part of him.” She looked back at Arvum. “I’ve not seen him in a very long time. I wonder how he is.” Her eyes became thoughtful. “Not that he would need anyone to worry about him though, right?” She chuckled and scratched her cheek.

Arvum noted her reaction to the mention of the Monarch, “I believe you are correct.”

She stared at him for a few seconds, as though expecting him to continue, but when he did not she cleared her throat. “Uh. Thanks… I think.” She looked around and the silence - she had not noticed it before - seemed to press down on both of them. “Well- that rock- uh,” she started speaking if only to fill the sudden vacuum. “It’s a… pretty rock.” She finished lamely. “You… design it yourself?” She grimaced as she finished and avoided looking at the other god.

Arvum paused, “I had not thought about it, but this is a part of the original earth of the Galbar. I would presume that rock would have been created by the Monarch himself.”

Her eyes lit up with pleasant surprise as she considered the rock. “My goodness,” she breathed, “that’s a bit… mindblowing. So everything that you and our other siblings didn’t make was made by our father? Isn’t that a lot of things?” She approached the rock she had gestured to and inspected it with newfound fascination. “What’s the rock made out of?” She glanced up at Arvum. “I mean, like, I know it’s made of earth. But… what’s that made of?” She rushed across to the pool. “And the liquid there, what’s that made of? You made the pool, but what’s it made of? Did you make that too?”

“I presume Voligan would know more about the composition of rock than I. As for the pool, I had created its contents. It is composed of the materials which compose life, but imbued with divine intention so that is constantly shifting and rearranging. If we were to define existence as smaller and smaller composite parts, there would reach a point where I could not express what I understand with words.” Arvum answered.

Rosalind looked at him curiously. “But… when we get there - to those smallest things that you can’t express with words… did you make those too? Is everything made of them? If they’re the smallest thing then surely…” she scratched her head and turned back to the rock, “then surely… even this… even,” she glanced at her two hands, “even this…” she threw Arvum a confused glance, “no?”

“I do not know if there is one universal smallest component or not. I do not know if I am converting divine energy into these small components or conjuring them from elsewhere. It is unimportant. What is important is the meaning imparted into that substance, the possibility for it to be improved.” Arvum replied.

“Oh,” Rosalind murmured, looking back at her hands, “you seem so adept at making things- I thought you’d surely know. It’s like… if you want to make a boat- like Yudaiel once made me a boat - you need to know about wood. I guess to shape wood that way you’d need to understand it - where it comes from, how to get it. From trees, I know that much. But then when you want to make a tree - and I have no idea how to make a tree - I imagine you need to know everything about how a tree works. You probably know about this stuff. You’d have to know every little thing if it is to work - because if even one thing is out of place then surely the tree just wouldn’t work. And then those littler things in the tree - things I don’t even know about - you’d have to understand how they function and what makes them tick so that the greater whole works. I’d think you’d need to know everything about it until you get to the thing that has nothing littler. If you don’t understand how the littlest thing works and where it comes from and how even it is made, then how can you create anything? I mean, I don’t know about any of that and I can’t make anything. That’s probably why I can’t, actually.” She scratched her head and turned to Arvum. “This is hurting my head. Why don’t you walk with me?” She extended her stone hand to him and took half a step towards the route out. “We can walk and talk.”

Arvum reached his hand out towards her - finding the stone surprisingly warm - and they walked together out of the Eternal Bastion.



In Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk. VI → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


LORD of the DEATH-ROAD | WATCHER | DEATHDART | SHEPHERD of SOULS | MASTER of the SCALES of JUSTICE
SOVEREIGN of the AFTERWORLD | LORD of SOULS

&


ROSALIND

RAGING ROSA | THE DANCE-DEMON | FEVERFOOT | LEAPING LINDA


That is how hell was on Rosalind. While some may be immediately put off by its ghastliness and consider it an altogether unpleasant thing, or perhaps drive themselves into the doldrums thinking how terrible it is that such a place should exist, that is all by the by. It remains one of the least studied and explored places, and is naturally of great interest to the avid cosmologer. While the ethical and moral virtues of its existence are to some suspect and to others self-evident, it is not an area of enquiry into which I would now like to delve. No matter the position one seeks to take regarding it, there can be no other position regarding its existence except acceptance of the truth of it.

Now Rosalind, as mentioned, got to sobbing her eyes out right where Kohshello had left her, by the entrance to the Grey. This inbetween-place, a waiting station that is neither hell nor paradise, is interesting only insofar as its introspective qualities go. It does not appear to have any special features as such, but appears to its denizens as a plain - I would not say shabby - place. It inspires neither joy nor sorrow, but only introspective reflection. All who leave are made more aware than they have ever been of their great failure when it comes to the ultimate purpose of life.

Consider Rosalind, who eventually was ushered in by the strict and matronly Simsillia, the vahura charged with wardenship of the Grey. Rosalind’s sobbing came to a halt almost as soon as she stepped through the grey door - all feelings of sorrow, suffering, fear, terror and whatever remained in her of hell, simply vacated her mind and chest, and a blankness overtook her and her eyes dried.

The Matron sat her on a bench, dressed her in a plain white robe, and left her staring blankly across a field of black grass - not grass, when Rosalind looked closely, but twilight hair. She did not question it, did not consider it ugly or beautiful. It simply was. There were no hills and there was no horizon. The plain simply stretched on eternally, and she saw eternally. And here is the thing about eternity: in eternity we see how the material becomes the conceptual. Now mortal minds cannot comprehend this, but as Rosalind looked on across that eternal plain, she found that somehow, though she did not know where, that plain stopped being material and became conceptual, and she was suddenly staring not across the plain but across infinity; she was staring across and into a concept. I don’t want to ramble on, I understand that many may not quite comprehend this, and it is not an important point really. Just know that Rosalind looked into this incomprehensible conceptual thing.

I have mentioned that the Grey inspires only introspection, and this is exactly how it does it. When you are staring into an incomprehensible concept, your mind immediately wanders off to the only thing in all that stuff that it can comprehend: itself. So yes, Rosalind found herself staring into herself. Her life played out again and again before her. That’s all that happened. She saw her birth, saw Iqelis laughing at her, saw herself whirling off into space, saw herself collide with Yudaiel, saw the terrible dance that resulted and the merging of their beings, saw the coming of her father and his words of reprimand, how he gifted her the bangles, saw how her unconscious body wandered off, saw how she collided with the moon and how Yudaiel forgave her, saw the boat she was gifted and her descend to Galbar in it. She saw it all, again and again. A thousand times perhaps, ten thousand - as many times as is required for true knowledge. She became, to use our own terms, an expert on matters Rosalind, something of a rosalindologist.

That kind of introspection is difficult. She lay herself bare before herself and saw herself for all her beauty and ugliness, for all her vices and virtues, stripped of all the illusions of the world. That’s how. That is the sort of stuff that drives people insane if done in the material world, but the Grey is not the material world and so such things are possible there. A mortal can go their entire life and never cast an inward glance, never know who they are at all; in the Grey all things are laid bare and there is no escape from oneself. Now I don’t know what others think, but I don’t know if what we saw of hell is worse, or this. If we consider that Kohshello attested that hell existed inside Rosalind long before she entered hell, then what is the Grey but a venture into the truest hell of all?

Anyhow, it is a very odd place the Grey, and all we can say of it with certainty is what I have said here. Rosalind’s memories are so garbled and unreadable beyond this; make of it what you please.

She did not stay in there eternally, of course - the Grey is but a stopping station before mortal reincarnation - so in time the Matron Simsillia returned and took her by the shoulders. Rosalind moved in a daze at the vahura’s bidding, and eventually found herself standing in line before a cloaked figure. He was not so dissimilar to the shades she had seen before - hooded and dark. But he differed in grandeur, and had two pinpricks of blue beneath his hood of darkness. He inspected the lined souls one by one, and sent them out through a white gate with his blessings, until he came to Rosalind and looked down at her.

He paused and his blue eyes narrowed. Rosalind stumbled towards the door, but his hand descended gently on her shoulder and he walked her from the door. “You have been to hell, have you not?” He asked her as they crossed the eternal plain of black grass-hair.
“Y-yes.” She said simply, as he walked her even across the sky she had not known existed in that odd grey plain.
“And on entering it, what were the joys of life to you?” He asked.
“Joys?” She asked in confusion. “What joys? Hell taught me that I never tasted joys.” He did not respond, and they finally arrived at a vast lake of iridescent splendour. Rosalind looked at it and thought she saw people inside it, thought she saw fields, thought she saw bliss. She glanced up at the shade. “What is this place?” She asked.
“That there is paradise, Rosalind.” He said.
“Paradise?” She repeatedly dumbly, not understanding. “Why are we here?” The shade glanced at her and gestured for her to come to him. She obeyed. He placed his hand on her head and she found herself suddenly in his grasp - her body had shrunk and he held her between his gloved thumb and forefinger. Without a word, he dipped her into the lake for the shortest second, then brought her out. She sat in his palm and was still.
“Have you ever known sorrow, Rosalind? Have you ever known misfortune or pain? Have you known any of that?” The shade asked. The twilight-haired woman looked up with a contagious bright smile.
“I’ve only ever known bliss,” she laughed, “in my whole life I never knew suffering or woe!”
The shade nodded. “Yes. That’s how it is. That’s how it is.”

They left the lakeside and he took her with him until they emerged out of a massive tree, and he placed her down - whereupon she returned to her normal size - and sat before her in the tree’s hollow. She sat by him - for the hollow was wide enough - and looked on the green plain before them. “This isn’t paradise.” Rosalind stated plainly.
“No. This is but a waystation on the way.” The shade said.
“Are you a god?” Rosalind asked, turning her head to him.
“I am. And you are too, Rosalind.” The shade said. Rosalind chuckled incredulously.
“No no, I’m not a god. I thought I was - a very long time ago it feels like - but now I know.” There was no pain or loss in her voice.
“It may be as you say, but it remains the fact that despite all that - perhaps because of all of that - you are a god. You are our sibling. You emerged from the Monarch of All. You are a god, Rosalind.” The shade told her.
“I don’t understand how that can be. I’m not like the gods, I know that now.” Rosalind mused.
“The gods are not alike for you to be like them.” The shade said simply. “You are a god in your own way. And our sister in every way.”
“Then… why am I so weak?” She asked, her brows furrowing. The shade looked at her, his eyes of blue faint and wide - warm, even.
“You are not weak, Rosalind.”
“Why am I so cowardly?” She continued.
“Many cowards pass through my court; you are no coward, Rosalind.” The shade told her.
“But I failed - I failed the trial. I went to hell for it.”
“That was due to an oversight on my part. It is clear to me that hell should not be a consequence of failing the trials - it creates injustice. There must be judgement for all. I will have to rework things. You have made me aware of this, Rosalind, and I thank you for that. Forgive me for all that you suffered.” The shade glanced at her with quiet contrition. Rosalind only smiled.
“It’s okay, all sorrow and suffering seem so small after paradise. I feel dumb even calling it suffering - that’s such a serious word.” She paused. “But you know, don’t you think people should know? I’m sure if everyone knew how wonderful paradise was they’d all want to go. And if they knew how awful hell was they’d want to avoid it.”
The shade cocked his head at her. “You raise a very good point there, sister. I… didn’t really think about it. Perhaps it would be fair to make mortalkind aware of the existence of these places and tell them how they can gain one and avoid the other. But I would hate to leave these my domains to do such a thing.” He cast his blue eyes across the plain.
“Well, you could just send someone instead of you. Like an envoy or a delegate. In fact-” Rosalind got to her feet suddenly, excited, “how about I choose someone. Someone who will be your envoy to all mortalkind, forever!” She looked at the shade, who rose and nodded.
“That’s agreeable to me.”

They watched together, then, as the souls of mortalkind wandered through the underworld on their way to judgement. Sinners and saints passed by, but Rosalind’s eye was not drawn to any, those who had been male and those who had been female, those who had died young and those old, those who had been killed and those who had perished in accidents; all sorts passed. At last, however, a little soul came crawling by - an infant - and Rosalind immediately jumped out and brought it to her chest. It had been a boy in life and when it looked at her there was curiosity and dignity only, and perhaps a smile. “But he’s just a child.” Rosalind said, kissing his ethereal brow.
“Hmm,” the shade mused, “killed, it seems.”
Rosalind looked up at him in shock. “Killed, bu who-”
“Zima…” the shade whispered with a sigh, more to himself than to Rosalind.
“I- I don’t understand, is that a-”
“No matter, it’s no matter. So you think this one is fit to be my eternal delegate?” The shade considered the child, and Rosalind looked down at him too, then smiled.
“Yeah, I like him.” And even as she spoke the child’s white luminescence took on a golden-red hue, and his light became something altogether divine.
“Then he shall be our delegate. He will go to mortalkind, warn them of hell and tell them the good news of paradise, and he will tell them how to avoid the Asheln Plains and gain the Elysian Fields. Is that fair to you, sister?”
Rosalind looked at the shade with a broad smile and nodded. “They’ll love him.” She brought him to her and rained little kisses on his brow, cheeks, lips, and held him tightly to her bosom. The shade looked at her quietly, but if he thought otherwise he did not say anything.
“Give him to me, I will take care of things from here.” The shade said at last, and Rosalind looked at him uncertainly.
“Can’t he stay with me?” She asked.
“If he is to be our envoy to mortalkind, he must go out as one of them; he must gain their trust and live among them, and he must then warn them. They will trust someone who grows among them more than a stranger who comes with wild claims.” The shade explained.
“Oh… that makes sense, I guess. But I’ll get to see him again, right?” She looked at the shade with furrowed brows.
“Of course, there is nothing to prevent that.” He assured. Somewhat contented, Rosalind handed the golden child over to the shade. The child giggled and kissed his cheeks at Rosalind as she passed him on, and the woman could not help the joyous grin that spread across her face. “I will return you to your body now, sister.” The shade said, stepping away from her.
“Oh, okay. But you’ve not told me your name.” She looked at him expectantly as he raised a hand and drew a doorway for her, then cast it open.
“Names are an odd thing.” The shade mused. “But I’m Voi, if you like.”
“Oh,” the woman gasped, “I… knew that.” There was a happy sort of realisation on her face. “But it’s good to hear it from you anyway. Look after my little Earohana.”
“Earohana?” The divine shade asked.
“Yes. My beloved one.” Rosalind affirmed. The shade nodded silently and placed a hand on his chest in farewell.
“Until the threads of time bring us together once more, sister.” Voi said.
Rosalind nodded. “Goodbye, Voi.” Her eyes not leaving the golden Earohana, she disappeared through the doorway.



In Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk. VI → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
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ROSALIND

RAGING ROSA | THE DANCE-DEMON | FEVERFOOT | LEAPING LINDA

in
A First Account of Hell


Now I do not wish to begin this melodramatically, but when Rosalind the Feverfoot died she found that she went the way of most dead things in those days; the gods are not as special as they think. She hovered above her still-bleeding corpse, half-swallowed up by the tree she had died against, and was in all ways dumb and useless. But the attentive reader would know that this was hardly unique to that particular moment of her mediocre existence.

She wandered in a befuddled daze around the Blood Grove of the Empathy Dance - which, I will reiterate, had become a rather revolting lake of divine ichor at this point thanks to her incessant bleeding. She circled that grove perhaps thirty-thousand times, give or take some, until her circumambulating soul was discovered by a passing vahura. The great spirit, with the naked upper form of a bewitchingly beautiful white-haired woman of almost ebony complexion and the lower body of a golden falcon or hawk, did not take its predatory yellow eyes off Rosalind as it circled lazily above. Rosalind watched the spirit and the spirit watched the soul, and then without warning it plummeted and struck right for the dancer, who stumbled back and scrambled away just as the vahura swooped by and ascended again, coming to rest in the branches of a tree and folding its wings.

“Now my girl, I mean you no harm,” the vahura crooned maternally, smiling down at Rosalind from beneath her hawk-like eyes. The twilight-haired spirit of Rosalind cowered by a tree and glanced nervously at the odd bird.

“Who are you? Where did you come from?” Rosalind asked hesitantly, her eyes sweeping across the sky in case there were more like the strange being, but she found only the one siren.

“From above, from the clouds, from the sky,” the bird-woman sang back, “where else? Tell me, little one, have you ever wanted to see what it is like up there? Come along, and I can show you.”

Rosalind could not help but smile then. “Oh, I was born up there. I know what it looks like. I know what heaven looks like unobscured by the lens of an atmosphere. I know what the innards of clouds are like and I’ve rowed across the sky. I know all about that.” She spoke it with the slightest hint of pride and happy abandon. The siren looked startled for a moment before she turned her head like an owl to examine Rosalind more closely. Whatever it was that the siren saw (or didn’t see) in her appeared to calm her, so her poise relaxed as Rosalind babbled on. “So I’m happy to wander down here instead, though thank you for the offer.” She glanced heavenward again to once more check that there were no more of the sirenlike bird-woman up there. “What’s your name? Are you on your own?” Rosalind asked curiously, relaxing somewhat against the tree.

With a haunting smile, the siren leapt to find a perch within the boughs of another tree that was closer still to Rosalind. “You conjure enchanting little tales, child. Melusine is my name, but call me Mother. I’m one of many, just like you, and it is a delight to finally meet you. Eventually I meet all of my children, see. Would you let your mother hold you, Rosalind dear?”

The avian talons loosened their grip on Melusine’s perch as the siren ready herself to hop down at last to the shallow lake of ichor. Only bafflement was written across Rosalind’s face, however. “Mother? What do you mean?” The soul asked. “I…” her brows furrowed at the sudden realisation, “I don’t have a mother.”

Upon hearing trepidation in Rosalind’s voice, Melusine froze - leaning forward on the branch in anticipation of hopping down as she was . Still, she didn’t settle back; she leaned forward and was deathly still - in such a manner that she seemed to almost float in defiance of Galbar’s pull. “Of course you do,” she insisted, “you have me, and I’m right here. A mother bore you into this world, and a mother must likewise bear yo– well, nevermind that, Rosa dearest. I ask again: would you let me hold you?”

The twilight-haired woman stepped forward timidly, walking on the surface of the blood lake as though it were solid ground. She took in Melusine’s form again; her snow-white hair, her ebony skin, the captivating, unearthly beauty of her face, the way powerful muscles rippled beneath a layer of softness, which in turn was enveloped in velvety skin (Rosalind could tell as much even from afar, even without touching it) which gave way at the waist to feathers and the forceful torso and talons of a hawk. As her gaze drifted across Melusine’s form, she was caught quite suddenly by the siren’s piercing yellow eyes and could not look away. “But if you are a mother - my mother, then why do you have such terribly predatory eyes, Melusine?”

“Why, the better to see with,” the siren patiently explained. “There are dark things out in the world, my sweet Rosa. I must always be vigilant and ready to protect you, and all of my children, from their clutches.”

Rosalind nodded slowly. “Well, that makes sense.” Her gaze fell on the vahura’s resting wings; they were great powerful things that seemed to have been cast from pure gold. “But if you are a mother as you say - and my mother at that - why do you have such great powerful wings?” She asked curiously, leaning forward even as she kept one cautious hand on the tree behind her.

“Why, to travel the world and find all my children, to bear them to safety when the dark ones come. Would you like to see, dear Rosa? I could carry you up, up away from all this blood and muck. You could truly see the clouds from up there.”

Rosalind’s eyes seemed alight, then, with a certain child-like wonder at the thought, and she let go of the tree and took a single step forth. Her eyes caught on Melusine’s talons, though, and she stopped. “But,” she said hesitantly, “if you are a mother like you say - and my mother at that - then why do you have such wickedly curved talons on your feet?”

Something in Melusine’s hawkish eyes - not that Rosalind noticed - suggested that the siren’s patience was thinning, and yet Rosalind was so close. Almost close enough. The vahura leaned further forward, and came to rest completely horizontally. Her smiling face stuck out right in Rosalind’s, and its beauty and the feathery bulk of her lower body now completely obscured the sight of those fearsome talons.

“Why, don’t worry about those. They’re not for hurting you dear, I promise. So please… forgive.”

Slowly, tenderly, she extended her womanly arms out as if to caress and hold Rosalind. The twilight-haired dancer’s eyes widened in momentary fear - for this had every appearance of her run-ins with Yesaris and the Exile before him. But she was utterly still - why, not even her feet moved. In fact, her feet had neither trembled nor shaken at all since she awoke. The tender fingers of Melusine caught her and Rosalind allowed herself to be embosomed against the diaphanous skin of the vahura. It was warm and safe and protective, and it promised that no harm would touch her ever again.

Rosalind released a pent-up sob and allowed her arms to circle her mother, and she held on tightly and released what little pains and complaints about the world she held in her chest. At last she leaned back and looked up at Melusine. “You said… there are dark things - what dark things? And you said something about forgiving - forgive what? And you were saying something about bearing in but stopped - what were you going to say? Tell me.”

“Why, my dear, you’ll understand it all soon. There, there. Let’s fly away from here. Those dark things come for lost and vulnerable children, and they destroy them. But I promise you child, I won’t let them take you away,” Melusine whispered soothingly, looking deeply into the woman’s eyes of twilight even as her arms continued to envelop Rosalind, curling around the soul’s back. Rosalind could not break the siren’s mesmerizing gaze so long as she spoke, but when the bird-woman finally grew quiet for a moment, she glanced down and realized that the siren had already lifted her up. These were not the lowest hanging branches of the trees behind her now, but rather their highest boughs! And before she could say anything or even realize it, they had crested the crown of the tallest oak and ascended above the point of the greatest pine.

Rosalind held onto Melusine as tightly as she could, and pleaded that she not let her fall. But the vahura had no such intention, and she flew higher and higher into the sky, so high that Rosalind saw - for the second time in her life - the wondrous bow of the horizon and the the luminous line where the light of her father’s palace disappeared over the side of the world. Small inadvertent pearls formed at the edges of her eyes as she beheld the sight, and dripped one by one from her long dark lashes and plummeted like raindrops away and then disappeared. “It’s beautiful,” Rosalind mumbled, and pressed her cheek into her mother’s soft chest and was at peace for a time.

Melusine ascended through the clouds, beating her golden wings and holding Rosalind near, and the great wispy things roiled and parted about her until - like a whale breaching - she surged from the final layer and the white-red ocean of clouds spread endlessly beneath them; and before them - spreading almost from horizon to horizon - was a Gate of Nebel. Melusine set Rosalind down, and the woman found that there rested beneath her what was, to all extents and purposes, solid ground. Darkness swirled before Rosalind and the shadows formed up until a hooded figure made of pure tenebrosity stood by her.

“You have arrived at the Gate of Nebel,” the shade declared. “Only the worthy dead may pass.” Rosalind looked at the shade with undisguised fear, then turned to Melusine.

“I don’t want to go, Melusine,” she mumbled. She glanced upward. “I… I want to go higher. I want to be as high as the sun. Then I will go, I promise.”

“Oh but dear child, here we are at the top of the sky. The sun that you know and speak of is far, far away; a whole life away from us now. Why, do you think my eyes so sharp as to find another sun? Why, do you think my wings so strong as to carry us even above the sky? Why, do you think my talons strong enough to keep hold of you long after these arms give out?”

But her child mewled and stammered and nodded, and so with a weary sigh, Melusine the Mother acquiesced. “Very well, Rosalind dearest,” she finally spoke, “but I will hold you to your promise!”

So while the umbral shade just stared impassively, the siren once more picked Rosalind up. She bore the soul higher, higher, and ever higher. The night sky above looked so much like a sea! The stars were little bubbles and minnows swimming around in its darkened water. The currents of water were cool to Rosalind’s skin as they dove ever deeper into that strange celestial sea, but Melusine’s warmth never left and it kept the shivers away. Here and there Rosalind even thought she spied a laektear!

“Wait,” she breathed once to her mother, but the siren did not seem to hear. In truth she was panting from exertion, fatigued as she was from having to swim so far through the sea with her wings. How a soul can be fatigued, ask not! But eventually the cool currents grew stronger. In Melusine Rosalind felt not panic or fatigue so much as relief – the currents were conveying them where they needed to be, and so the siren’s wings beat slower even though their flight did not slow.

Made drowsy by the long journey - how a soul can be made drowsy, ask not! - Rosalind finally blinked her sleepy eyes and suddenly Saw that they were drawing nearer to a great whirlpool.



In the eye of that vortex was a great maw of light and color – Melusine had done it! Her mother had found another sun. But this one, indeed, was not so much like that mighty fire that blazed across Galbar’s sky. It was not cold, but neither was it terribly warm or welcoming. As they came to land upon the lukewarm surface of this alien sun, Rosalind beheld a great black gateway nearby that looked terribly familiar. And despite this strange sun’s gentle glow, she still cast a shadow; that shadow soon evaporated, though, and from its inky steam there coalesced an altogether familiar figure.

“You have arrived at the Gate of Nebel,” the shade declared. “Only the worthy dead may pass.”

A weary siren at last murmured soothingly to her child once again, “So you see, dearest Rosalind, we have come a long way and found for you a sun, and yet here we are at much the same place. Do you understand now, child? You have died, and yet your journey is not over; through the darkened gate you still have a ways to go, and yet I cannot take you any further. These shades will guide you.”

The vahura shook a bit, droplets of water falling from her rustled feathers. And realisation dawned then on Rosalind. ‘No…’ she thought. Her mother was preparing to leave, to fly back.

“You see, my dear,” Melusine crooned, “a mother bore you into the world of the living, but you knew that I was not that mother. I am a different sort of mother, the kind that must bear her children away from that place, to the next world. So here we are, see. I would so much like to cradle you for longer, to soothe and comfort you, but I cannot, for I have many more children that I must look after, see. That’s how it is.”

Rosalind looked from the silent shade, who gazed at her with unseen eyes, to the gate and then back to Melusine. Sighing, a dissatisfied pout lined her mouth as she looked beyond the strange vortex, which held no Palace and did not feel like home. Her eyes scanned the endless void but saw little sign of the planet she had left behind or even her father’s sun. They had come a long way and the only path left was ahead, through the tenebrous gate. Sadly, but without tears, she held onto Melusine’s hands and bid her a subdued farewell, then turned and followed the shade towards the towering gate. She paused before it, tears now bubbling from her eyes and now a small scowl spreading over her face - tears of frustration, scowls of anger; it was unfair, she thought, that she would not be able to see her father once more before leaving. Then she stepped forth, shimmered briefly in the gate’s dark maw, and wandered in the world of the living no more.


And that was how Rosalind the Feverfoot died. Now I don’t mean for this narrative to grow long and unwieldy - I know well how frustrating it is to read narratives that seem to be going nowhere - but I considered it of some importance to detail these happenings if only for the historical record. Reluctantly walking through that Gate of Nebel, having reached such distances from the Galbar as no divine before her ever had done, Rosalind found herself - once the darkness had dissipated - standing on the white cobblestones of the Death-Road. It is of note that the Death-Road has at times been reported as being of unbroken white marble, at other times as white jade or jasper, even white coal. Some have found it to be tiled, others cobbled, others perfectly unbroken. Whatever the case, in all reports its colour alone is unvaried.

When Rosalind the Feverfoot set foot on the Death-Road, she found it crawling with spirits. Souls streamed in by the hundreds, ambling on in a daze. And yet no matter how many were on the road, at no point did it strike her as being crowded. There was always ample space to step forth, to look around and look ahead. The sky above was of nighttime and the stars, and yet the road was awash with a soft white light - as though the road itself was alight. It was not blinding in any way and washed over all things, until it gave way at last to the darkness that lay beyond the edges of the road. In that stilly darkness there seemed to now and again be movement, the glittering of a single eye, a waving hand, a welcoming smile, a greeting and a call. Ever-curious Rosalind found herself drifting closer and closer to the road’s edge, watching - searching - for those captivating movements and sweet-sounding calls.

A sparrow landed ahead of her, on the cobbled side of the road, and the woman walked slowly up to it. It turned its head to reveal the visage of a viper with fangs bared, and she flinched away in shock. It hissed and and leapt forth warningly, causing Rosalind to scramble away from the edge of the road and the dark shapes and their cooing calls. She continued along the Death-Road, glancing every now and again off into the calling wilderness beyond, and did not wonder why it was so alluring or question why it called and pulled on her so.

At last, a gate rose up ahead and a shade exploded violently into being before her, causing her to stagger away. “You have arrived at the Gate of Rosalind,” it declared, “alone you have walked, though throngs swirled about you, and alone will you be tried.” The soul of the woman took the shade in for a few confused moments.

“The Gate of Rosalind?” She asked. “That’s… that’s me, isn’t it?” She pointed at herself and the shade considered her for a few moments.

“That’s your name, but…” it leaned forward, the darkness beneath its hood swirling, “you are no divine. A shared name, nothing more.” With those words, it leaned back and gestured for her to go on.

“I’m… not divine?” She asked, a frown lining her face. “But… but my papa… and Yudaiel, she’s my sister. And Iqelis. And Voligan. They’re my brothers and they’re gods. So… so surely I am too. You’re wrong, I’m a god.”

The shade’s unseen eyes bored into her and it took a single step and brought the darkness of its face right up to her nose. “If that is so, Rosalind, then save yourself. Call on your powers. Weave the world to your will. Surmount the Death-Road.” The woman was still, her eyes wide and frown deep. “Well, go on.”

“I… I can’t. I… don’t know how. I’m not like the others.” She stammered.

“You are not like the gods, you mean?” The shade asked.

“I… guess I’m different.” She trailed.

“Not a god, perhaps?” The shade spoke slowly.

“I- I am!” The woman insisted with a frown.

“Human… all too human, perhaps?” The shade asked with finality. Rosalind blinked, tears leaping to her eyes.

“I’m… I’m not. I’m a god.” The shade wrapped an ethereal arm around her and tapped her shoulder comfortingly.

“There now, Rosalind. There is no shame in having been human; all souls are alike in the end. Even the gods, when they die, come here. The Death-Road is wide and withstands the ambling of mortalkind and the march of gods alike. Step forth now, it matters not what you are; here your mettle alone is tested and who you chose to be.” Still frowning and eyes yet wet, the slightest pout on her lips, she tramped off with a sigh and melted away into nothingness. The shade watched after her for a few seconds, muttered, “well, how curious,” and with a puff was gone.


I will not bother with suspense here and will say it outright: Rosalind the Feverfoot failed her trial. If one were to summon up one word, one characteristic, with which the entirety of that hapless woman’s personality could be defined - if we, for a moment, put aside some of the virtues she learned vicariously in becoming Mamang - then the word most suited to her would be ‘coward.’ Rosalind the Coward is by far more apt than Rosalind the Feverfoot ever was. It is therefore to be expected, and stands to reason, that such an ill-famed coward would fail any trial of courage. There is little of historical value in the substance of that trial and so I will spare the gentle reader the tiresome details. Suffice to say that she failed most ignobly and so was consigned to the depths of hell.

And here we arrive at something singularly unique as far as the chronicles of history and natural philosophy are concerned: an eyewitness account, or as close as we can get, of hell from mortal eyes. It is one thing for a divine to wade into that plane and observe the suffering of its denizens, quite another for a mortal inhabitant of that unholy plane to give an account. They are quick in forgetting, are mortals, and no sooner is their punishment complete before they are reborn and all their previous memories confined to the fields of forgetfulness. And what is mortalkind but an endless cycle of forgetting? But that is by the by. Here begins an account of how Rosalind arrived in hell and what horrors she witnessed and punishments endured while there.

As the Gate of Rosalind closed before her and the Death-Road melted away, the shade stood above her and the darkness of his face was cold and judging. “You have failed,” it stated, the slightest tinge of disappointment in its otherwise flat and monotonous tone. Countless failed, and countless passed. “You could not demonstrate your courage, and so your journey ends here.”

She did not attempt to defend herself and instead allowed herself to wallow in self-pity. But that timeless shade had no patience for such folly or even for her anymore; her stolid guide had already consigned her to the Ashen Plains and promptly dissipated. The ground underfoot vanished and she was falling. She fell a long, long way through miserable darkness. Flakes of hot soot pressed against her suddenly sweaty face, and the air grew warm, and then stiflingly hot, and then at last torrid. The darkness all around was maddening, and yet it was her shield though she did not know it.

An infernal red glow emanated from somewhere far below to cut away at the umbral gloom that wreathed and shrouded her. Tormented screams and howls echoed up from the depths below, louder and louder, and then before she knew it she had fallen into some horrific pool, or lake, or sea… it made no difference since it was so wide that she could not fathom whether it was bounded or boundless. It was inky black and made of broiling, fetid sludge. She could not swim in it – she would not have been able to even if she knew, for it was too thick – and so she began to sink into that searing ooze which burned her flesh.

In great bubbles it burst up and covered her face in a layer of grime even as it slowly, ever so slowly, pulled her further into those forlorn depths. The putrid vapours forced their way into her nose and mouth and eyes; the nauseating odour and taste were acrid like bile, metallic like blood, rancid like soured milk, in all ways fouler than mere words could hope to describe. She wanted to scream and vomit, but when her mouth gaped open to gag she only swallowed the rancid substance. Bits of hair and bone churned in the mass too, scraping against her skin and forcing their way into her mouth and indiscriminately down her gullet and up her lungs. She should have suffocated and drowned, but she did not. She was already dead, and so now not even death could offer her any escape from this suffering.

It felt like a slow eternity in there. The haze of insanity gnawed at her then retreated, then returned just when she thought herself lucid before retreating again with a laugh, and again and again with any signs of ceasing or mercy. However, before that terrible cycle, and those horrible teeth of madness, could chew and pulverise her mind into gruel, she was freed.

Salvation came in the form of a seeking hook, whose cruel iron barb slid between her ribs. It yanked and it pulled, slowly and yet violently jerking her bit by bit until her head once again crested the top of the fetid water. She gasped and choked, heaving up ooze, what must have been faeces, and then blood. The hook viciously ripped through her innards, and it was a snake in there, writhing like a knife slowly twisting inside a wound.

The hook was on the end of a long chain and she was being winched up and out of that rotting pit of tar. She found herself flopping and choking, dragged onto a shore of skulls. But it was no hero or angel or vahura (that she knew of) that had pulled her out; instead, it was a grinning fish operating that winch. Oh yes, in that inferno it was a fish who was the angler, and the unworthy and the sinners and the cowards was who it caught. Now whether that is ever the case, or whether it was unique to Rosalind is difficult to know. It is awfully suspect that one who spent much of her life prior this at sea should find herself tortured by fish, and so I would advance that hell is rather more personal than uniform narratives about it suggest, though a single account like this can hardly be concrete evidence of such.

“My, my, what a fine catch,” the pleased fisherfish purred. He had the biggest mouth that Rosalind had ever seen, and his grin spread from ear to ear (for it was a strange fish with something like humanoid ears). His smile stretched even around and above those beady little eyes of his, which glowed with an inexplicable hunger. His smile bared six rows of giant yellow teeth that looked more like wicked stalactites and stalagmites in some vast cavern than teeth in a maw.

With a rag as rough as gravel, he scraped off the ooze that clung to her face as well as what little bits of skin and flesh still inexplicably clung to her skull before he tossed the rag aside, down by the great big barrel where all of that day’s catch lay. Naked, gutted bodies filled that terrible vessel, and yet Rosalind had no eyes for it, just for the angler. Even after she had been boiled in the sludge and should have been little more than bits of ooze clinging to a blind and bare skeleton, she was somehow whole again - perhaps just so that she could see and feel as this monster’s claws caressed her cheekbone.

“A pretty one, too!” He cruelly laughed. “Once.” A sharp claw poked into her breast, and when he pulled it back crimson blood dripped free. He licked his finger and gave off a satisfied moan. “Ah, I taste your soul. It’s sweet… so sweet. Better than milk! Almost like… tears, hah! Like tears!”

For a moment, a weeping and wailing Rosalind - she did not know when she had started doing that - saw a beautiful laektear before her, which was then overwhelmed and replaced by that cruel blue-eyed Exile. Her tears spilled out like rushing waterfalls as she sobbed in endless misery and despair. The angler laughed so hard that she failed to so much as hear the snap as his jaw came unhinged and he swallowed her whole, his teeth tearing her into a hundred ribbons and shreds.

He swallowed her, and then she was falling. She fell a long, long way down her tormentor’s gullet. Bits of meat and half-chewed food stuck to her sweating face, and the air grew warm, and then stiflingly hot, and then at last torrid. The darkness all around was maddening, and yet it was her shield even though she did not know it. An infernal red glow emanated from somewhere far below to cut away at the umbral gloom that wreathed and shrouded her. With a splash, she finally fell into a pool of viscous, liquid fire.

She shrieked and howled and burned, until a harpoon skewered her and she was wrenched out. “My, my, what a fine catch,” an exuberant fisherfish crooned. But then he pursed those great big blubbery fish lips of his, and frowned. “Ah, but you’re not so pretty,” he spat with disappointment. “Half chewed already. Whale food, perhaps. Hah! Well, let’s see if you can at least dance!”

Still skewered by the harpoon, Rosalind was helpless as the monstrous fish used it like a great big lever to fling her over his shoulder. The harpoon’s wicked barbs kept hold of half her guts and flesh even as the rest of her was wrenched free by the whipping motion. With an undignified and agonied splat, she landed face-first on a searing rock. She sizzled there and felt every cut and burn, the weeping of her organs and cooking of her meat. Her flesh and body regenerated, but slowly, too slowly for her to flee as that great torturer plodded from his fishing spot to the edge of the burning rock. She cooked and cooked for a while, until the fisherfish impatiently gestured for her to stand up, and she found herself doing so. He started rapping his harpoon against the stony ground to a beat, and she felt herself compelled to dance, but the half-molten rock underfoot burned her worse than the Fever ever had. She could hardly even step on the ground, much less find her feet, and so she tripped and fell over and over until the fisherfish at last called her a worthless bit of chum and left her there.

The dark ocean of burning ooze receded and all around her the smouldering rock grew. Flames erupted all around her and then she was no longer alone, for her cries mingled with the cries of unknown thousands. Flames of blue and purple and darkest black licked at her form, and she burned and wilted away before reforming, then burned and wilted away and reformed, then burned to a smouldering husk before flesh cauterised itself back together and flesh wept its way across her form. The denizens of the hellish plains raised their hands upwards, and Rosalind did so too and saw, as her eyes exploded from the severity of the heat and then regrew, that above them flew a great multitude of black fiery beings. When the gaze of one of them fell on Rosalind it was as though liquid fire was poured into her eyes and across her face, and she screamed out in maddened pain and fear.

“Kohshello!” the people cried, “Kohshello!” The most tremendous of the flying beings descended from above - a thousand glaring eyes of blue, a thousand arms of fire and thousand legs, a thousand wings and a thousand mouths; in all ways as ice and in all ways aflame, in all ways headless and in all ways a face, in all ways impossible and in all ways inevitable. Simply beholding it was more agony than Rosalind had tasted in her hapless existence, and a gaze from one eye piled screams on her screams and tears on her burning tears. Where he turned a blizzard of poison cut across the hells, and where he looked the fires burned brighter and flaming waters poured on hell’s denizens. He did not speak, but opened his thousand mouths as if to do so, and a singular cry rose up from those whose punishment and torture was his purpose. “Don’t speak, Kohshello, don’t speak!” They cried. “But intercede for us with your lord, plead with your lord, let him annihilate us! Let us be destroyed, Kohshello; let this end!”

He said nothing, that Kohshello, but spread his thousand wings of flame so that all the world was poison and pain and ice and flame, and ascended with the cacophonous beating of those ten hundred impossible appendages. The flames flayed them and the creatures of torture - which, Rosalind realised after an eternity had passed, were vahuras, terrible vahuras - descended on them and gave them festering waters of flame to drink. Rosalind drank, and her lips burst and tongue evaporated and throat sizzled into nothingness and stomach opened so the waters ran right through her. They gave her ground and broken glass to eat as her lips and tongue and body reformed, and it was like swallowing a thousand hacking blades, which cleaved her up from mouth to belly. And then she found - to her horror - that her hunger only grew and she could not help but eat more of the cursed glass and drink the fetid flames that destroyed all they touched.

They wailed, those denizens of the Ashen Plains, they screamed tirelessly and screeched without ceasing, and they tore at what hair they had and clawed at their skin and eyes and bit their tongues and lips in regret. “Woe to me!” they crowed in unison, “woe to me!” And Rosalind wept and screamed it too - “woe to me!” she cried with all who cried, “woe to me!” she wept with all who wept. And the vahuras of black flame, those Wardens of the Ashen Plains, would now and again descend and sweep a group of burning sufferers, and Rosalind would watch as now they ascended a far off cliff and threw the group into smouldering cauldrons of lava, or ascend and hang them on hooks which tore away skin and flesh, or launch them into pits of burning tar.

In time - or rather, after an unknown eternity had passed - the giant Kohshello, that greatest and most terrible of hell’s Wardens, returned; the denizens of hell cried out in increased pain as he looked on them and they beheld him, and their screams came louder and more desperate and they clawed at their eyes that they may not see, tore at their skin that it may not burn, and ripped at their nostrils that they may no breathe in the poisonous gales which circumambulated Kohshello like cackling death.

“The lord has spoken,” Kohshello said, and Rosalind’s form disintegrated and reformed with every word, “and he has decreed that you shall abide,” came his verdict and promise of ceaseless punishment. Then Rosalind wept and was joined by all in weeping.

Something strange happened then. In all the eternity that the Ashen Plains had existed, there had never been something even akin to harmony in it, but that great wave of weeping that Rosalind led was a great symphony, a strange harmony, a sudden peace that if for a moment quietened the pangs of pain and eased the striking of hell on its people. It was not a harmony for too long - just as eternity stretches infinitely, that harmony did not last long enough for an eyelash to tremble.

Great Kohshello’s retributory eyes were on Rosalind at once, and in that moment all the weight of hell - in its eternity of suffering - was upon her; she wilted and she sobbed and she groaned and she could not even begin to claw at herself or wail. Kohshello took her up on a wing, and above her a single blue eye gazed into her and below her a single mouth spoke. “The coward dies a thousand deaths; the valiant dies but once.” The gaze bored into her, and all of hell disappeared so that only Kohshello was - Kohshello and her. “You are not of the valiant, Rosalind.”

She looked into the eye and her lips trembled and eyes flooded. “I…” she sobbed, “I’d like to be.” The gaze of Kohshello seemed to soften on her then, and his fingers prodded her and weaved her back together.

“Cowardice aside, yours are little sins, Rosalind. There is a seed of anger and spite in you, but it is not grown. In all other ways…” his single blue eye considered her. “All that you have tasted here, Rosalind, is but the seed of your cowardice. Hell was inside you long before you were tossed into it. Meditate on this, and perhaps when next you live you will extinguish it in you before you are flung in again.” The terrible vahura placed her down by a small grey door and disappeared without another word. She stood on shaking legs for seconds and then collapsed to her knees and buried her face in her hands and hair, and she stayed like that with no intention of ever being any other way.


In Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk. VI → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
AERON


Aeron was not doing his job. In fact, Aeron had never done his job. Voi had no sooner left him and his sister to their devices before the lanky lad declared that he was going to go find the other Voirans. His sister had objected, of course. It was not what they were meant to be doing. "Eh, we'll go exploring later Mair, later." He had told her. Everything could be done later, Aeron knew, and as his sister had pleaded with him (for she was the diligent sort), he had laughed off her pleas and told her, "c'mon Mair, why should we go exploring today when we can do that tomorrow? Relax." She had not relaxed, but had left him there. He still wondered how far she had gotten, sometimes. Sometimes he even thought to go looking for her, but at just such moments he would stretch, rub his nose, and decide to get to that task later.

Aeron was immediately popular with his fellow Voirans. They were the very diligent and careful sort, all of them, and the few thousand of them had rather quickly organised themselves into a strict hierarchy with a rotating 'Council of the Nine' at the helm. It came almost instinctively to them and Aeron had no doubt that their lord and creator had something to do with it. Aeron was different though, and in the humdrum of daily duties - that was how they lived, those poor Voirans, from duty to duty and task to task - Aeron brought something different. He joked with the men, accompanying them on their hunts and fleeing as a raven the moment trouble started "Ah, you're a useless coward Aeron!" They would joke afterwards as they carried off whatever moose or deer or mammoth they had caught.

"A coward, sure, useless now that's a lie." He would protest. They could not deny that. He brought something no one else quite knew how: smiles, laughter, lighthearted joy. The ladies liked it too, loved his swagger and charm and poor attempts at wooing. He had no chance with any of them, of course - they knew it and he knew it too - and perhaps that made it most humorous of all. Everyone called him Laughing Aeron; that was all he was good for.

Now as he was lazing about a near a river one day - the Voirans were a nomadic people, and it so happened that they were camped by one that winter - he was startled by one of those curious snow spirits the Voirans had taken to calling the nasnooka. He shot up on seeing it and dashed for a nearby tree, and the spirit - drawn by the sudden movement perhaps - chased after him. He yelped at this and darted away, but like a cat playing with a mouse the nasnook tailed him until he hid behind a tree. It stood on the other side - he could sense it - and whenever it made to move about he moved just enough to remain hidden. Realising his trickery, the creature expanded its form and circled the tree from both directions so that Aeron had no choice but to dash away. And so the chase continued.

When it became evident that the nasnook had no intention of leaving him be - though Aeron could not fathom why it was so hellbent on chasing him - he morphed into a raven and flew off. The nasnook gave off a cry of disbelief behind him and he quite suddenly felt it explode after him in a blizzard of ice and hail. Giving off a squawk of frustration, he disappeared into the tree canopy and stealthily darted from branch to branch. He would freeze amongst the leaves and branches for a few moments, watch out for the nasnook, then dart elsewhere speedily. Perhaps if he was a black raven he would have been successful, but a white raven could not hope to remain hidden long in greenery.

Leaves and small branches were blown out of the way as the nasnook descended on Voi's chosen eye, and Aeron dashed downwards and zipped from tree to tree as the nasnook followed closely behind. Exploding into his Voiran form at a run, he screeched profanities at the thing. He swept a rock up and turned to it at last. It came to a grinding halt right before him, hovering side to side in what could have been excitement. He threw the rock right at it, and it went flying with it before returning and depositing the thing at his feet. He picked up a nearby branch and flung it its way, and again the nasnook went hurtling after it and brought it back. He clutched dirt - there was nothing else within easy reach - and dashed it. He did not know what exactly that was going to achieve, but he reasoned that it was better than doing nothing. The nasnook spread out in every direction and - rather unlike with the rock and branch - disappeared.

Aeron looked around in surprise. He turned, eyed the ground suspiciously, then the trees above. All was quiet and still. "Well," he grinned, "that worked." And he sauntered off. "Bet Bertha will be impressed by that. Watch out, ladies, here I come." He had no sooner said that, however, before his feet disappeared beneath him and he fell with a resounding thud onto his bottom. "FFFFFFFFFFF-" he managed before his eyes caught on a weird ferret-like thing of soil circling before him. It rose on its haunches and considered him eyelessly - expectantly, even. Aeron pursed his lips and frowned. "You're some fella, you know that?" He told it warily. It leapt up and down in what might have been agreement.

He got up carefully, his eyes on it. "Alright, you got what you wanted - whatever it is you wanted. You humiliated me, proved your power and tenacity. You, my friend, have won. I applaud your stubborn stupidity in pursuing this useless chase. You have earned my abiding respect and I will teach your ways - nay, I will preach your gospel - to the Voiran race. I salute you, ferret thing. And now, fare thee well and all that." And giving it a wide berth, he walked right past it and jaunted off with half an eye behind him. While he did not see it, he could hear it scampering after him. He ignored it and just kept going.

By the time he had gotten to camp it had made itself comfortable on his head. "Aeron!" One of the hunters, Herlow, approached while giving the thing a strange look. "You've got a weird thing on your head!"

"Well, aren't you just the smartest." Aeron snapped crabbily, which only engendered guffaws from the hunter and giggles from some of the women cooking nearby.

"What is it?" Herlow asked. Aeron gave him a wide-eyed, haunted look.

"It is Voi." He said sombrely. Herlow blinked. "His enemies proved too great and have trapped him in this unspeaking, ferrety form." Herlow furrowed his brows and looked at the creature closely.

"Looks like some kind of slug to me." He mused as a crowd gathered around Aeron and stared at the odd creature on his head. It darted now from shoulder to shoulder, scrambled down his back or round to his chest, before darting back up - across his face - to rest on his mop of white hair.

"That's so cute!" Bertha laughed. "Your wily tongue actually worked for once."

He was the butt of jokes all winter after that, though he took to them with his characteristic good humour. Though his wily tongue had little to do with it, the nasnook (who was not believed to be Voi by anyone though the name Voia stuck anyway) seemed to have taken to him so strong that it was clear from early on they were going to get along. For one thing, it was rather the clever sort and took to all sorts of tricks very quickly. Old and young alike would watch in captivation as Aeron displayed the latest clever trick they had mastered, and on occasion the Council of Nine itself would have him perform at certain ceremonies or marriages. But there was no doubt that the children - the little ones, of whom there were already many running about - loved his displays most of all, as well as all the clever little stories he regaled them with about his exploits (all lies, of course, not that his tiny, wide-eyed listeners knew).

In all ways, Aeron was enjoying life. And Voia was too.

In Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk. VI → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
gentlemen it will soon be time for me to take my new year's weekend

i trust that no one will make any 'posts' during this period


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