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Watch out.
The gap in the door... it's a separate reality.
The only me is me.
Are you sure the only you is you?
The gap in the door... it's a separate reality.
The only me is me.
Are you sure the only you is you?
DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL NOW, WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED
Most Recent Posts
<Snipped quote by Cyrania>
In am embarrassing display I didn't even intend to post it, thought I was editing in my PM collab I have with myself haha.
Will clear it out.
Don't let the man get you down. I'm not even going to submit my second CS in the OOC. That shit's going straight into the character tab and they'll bloody THANK ME FOR IT.
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T  _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y _________________________________________________________C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y Danielle Roxanne Ketch _________________________________________________________ 19 | Single _________________________________________________________ Independent | American  A L L I E S & A N T A G O N I S T S A L L I E S & A N T A G O N I S T S - | T H E S T O R Y S O F A R... T H E S T O R Y S O F A R... Danielle Ketch was born Halloween night, 2006, to single mother Roxanne. Her father was out of the picture far before her birth, unable to handle the idea of becoming a father and providing for a family, and his departure had left Roxanne destitute. The poverty and hardship she felt in the months leading up to and shortly after Dani's arrival created an unfair resentment of the daughter who she felt had robbed her of her one proper chance; Roxanne was a cold and distant mother, barely achieving bare minimum for Dani's wellbeing most days, and this subsequently taught Dani how to look after herself, and more importantly, how not to be like her mom. Their differences only widened the rift between them, and as Dani grew, what little relationship they had deteriorated further. Dani would spend days at a time away from home, returning only when no other options for shelter were available - and even then, she'd still occasionally opt for a bus stop bench instead. When Dani turned 18, her mother stopped getting benefits, and also stopped being legally responsible for her wellbeing - so Dani got a day to fill one box with whatever few possessions she could claim as hers, and then her mom told her to hit the road. A lifetime of being unwanted had not instilled Dani with a naturally happy or friendly disposition, and once ejected from her home, she began to wear out her welcome with the few people left in her small nowhere town who were willing to lend futons and couches and floors. When she eventually hit the streets, she ended up getting ticketed for vagrancy, and then arrested for assaulting a deputy, and then spent a night stewing in a cell with nothing to do but sit with her rage and misery and misanthropy; nothing to do but wish for revenge. This was when Mephisto appeared to her, and offered just that. Dani left her little parish of Hicksville in the Devil's asshole of nowhere that night forever, under cover of darkness and on the wings of power far from her own. By the time she woke up from her unconscious escape, the redneck hive she'd left behind was a smoldering inferno on the far horizon. Whatever power Mephisto had lent her had razed the town to the ground as its first act, indulging Dani's thirst for vengeance against a cruel and cold world in a most terrible wreaking of revenge. It left ash in its wake, and worse still it remained within her, residing in her heart, hungry and thrashing for more. Now on the run from forces both mundane and Hellish, Dani spends every sleeping moment reckoning and grappling with this new presence and power that seeks to dominate her completely - and every waking hour fleeing from its consequences. P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) Dani Ketch was a character I tried a long time ago, before my knees creaked, and I have been wanting an opportunity to revisit her. While Constantine has me more isolated, the way I like it, Ketch would be placed in the US, and grant me the ability to interact with Taka's Robbie (naturally) or other characters and even broader events, while still scratching that supernatural itch I love so much and having a plot to pursue in the meantime. I recently discovered some art that reinvigorated my ideas for the character, and I think I have some pretty good plans up my sleeves. P O S T C A T A L O G U E P O S T C A T A L O G U E 1.01 - TBC |
Happy Hellblazer Htuesday. I've killed another pen and I'm nearly at the end of my notebook, but we're maybe 2 maybe 3 maybe 4 posts away from wrapping the whole thing up. Hope you've all been enjoying it so far; if you have, stay tuned! If you haven't, I don't want to hear about it!
Location: Hell
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________#1.07
John had the strong sensation of falling, yet his feet never left the ground.
The world rose up around them, the landscape stretching and bleeding into itself as the night sky shrunk to a focal point somewhere far above them. Building and terraces buried themselves in the clouds, expanding, distending, drawing perspective askew as they curved toward a single shared event horizon. The vanishing point swallowed the architecture and soon they were instead surrounded by tarmac, asphalt, concrete, then soil and dirt and soon the very mantle of the Earth itself, the ground devouring them as still they did not move but everything shifted around them; dark, light, heat, cold, the myriad methods John sensed his world all blended together, synapses firing off in unison and telling his brain every simultaneous and contradictory thing he witnessed and experienced, a great pressure accompanied by a weightlessness inside and out, a terrible silence that drowned out all other noise, a confining darkness that illuminated all to be seen, and still John remained planted, steadfast on the slick metal flooring of the Runcorn Railway Bridge, never to leave, never to return.
The first thing John noticed about Hell was the chill in the air. It seeped through his clothes and latched onto his bones, leeching even the potential for warmth away from him. It did not matter how he gathered his jacket about himself, or rubbed his hands until the friction burnt red-raw, or shivered until his knees knocked together. The cold persisted. But behind this permafrost, there was a second immediate shift, a strange new feeling - or more accurately, the absence of one. Yes, something was missing from this place, and subsequently from John. It stung like a fresh wound, every next moment picking at the scab, inflicting new injury. Such pain enveloped him and came with a solemn truth that it would not end, not ever, no matter the length of the journey or how many steps taken upon it. The agony superceded all other emotion, swallowing hope and love and joy into itself, gobbling up all feelings in search of remedy but finding no success in the debilitating attempt. This was not a place ever meant for man, and he suffered catastrophically for his presence here.
"God," John said, his voice strained and breath heavy from the effort of simply existing, "how do you bear this?"
Nergal raised a single eyebrow, his expression grim.
"I don't."
They stood upon a rocky outcrop overlooking a scattered, blasted landscape, every kind of barren earth and environ imaginable stretching out before them. Their surroundings slowed and finally ceased movement, and out of the corner of his eye John saw Nergal stretch and shake, his previous visage - adjacent to human, but not convincingly so - sloughed off, replaced with leathery, scaly skin, his feet splayed and claw-tipped to match his hands, and now sharp-pointed ears joined a monstrous forked tail and pair of ragged, powerful wings to complete his true demonic facade. He rose to full height, and stood tall and proud as they surveyed the desolation below.
"Where are we?" John asked, keen to get to the matter at hand and spend as little time here as possible. Already this void within him sapped his goodwill, and his urge to find and rescue Cheryl began to shift from a mission of love to one of pragmatism.
"We stand on the precipice of Mammon's fiefdom. The land below belongs to him, and his rule is final."
John chafed as he began to realize what lay ahead. Nergal planned to cheat him.
"You said you'd take me to Cheryl. That was part of the deal."
Nergal didn't look at John, only bearing an expression of mild irritation as he preened, fawning over his wings and tail.
"The bargain struck was to take you to where your dear ancestors are keeping her. They are keeping her in Mammon's domain, somewhere, and so here we are. I would not venture further into his kingdom, and you cannot compel me to do so. Perhaps if you'd had the good sense to be a little more precise in your terms..."
John flushed, angry. "What about the help you promised? Going back on that too?"
Nergal simply provided a loathsome smile, his tone dripping with condescension. "I promised you no such thing. You agreed to a deal for 'some' help, not my help. I have made good on the terms I agreed to. I'm sure at least one soul out there is of a charitable mind." He laughed, a wicked, piercing sound. "Mortals. Such fun."
John took a short pause as he stewed, stung by the trickery of devils. Eventually, Nergal clapped him on the back, and then produced the rosary once more, draping it across one callous palm before tipping his hand and dropping it into John's grasp.
"You may as well take this trinket with you. It shall make it simpler to find you when it's time to collect. Do take care of it, if you wouldn't mind; it is a particular favourite of mine. My, those Sisters of Mercy could have better learned their dogma of clemency..." he trailed off, lost in fond recollection of foul deeds and souls corrupted. John looked from Nergal to the rosary, opting to loop it around his neck. The wooden cross hung from the chain cold and heavy against his chest, and offered no solace.
"How do I...use it? When I'm done?" He asked, and after a stunned second of Nergal staring at him bug-eyed, the demon burst into raucous laughter. Through guffaws, he managed to choke out a reply.
"You- you really think you'll succeed, don't you? Ah, aha, the hubris of mortals! I shall never grow weary of it. How delightful!" He chuckled some more, theatrically wiping joyful tears from his eyes. "No, Johnny, it'll simply call to me when you die, however that happens. 'Use it' - oh, goodness me."
Nergal collected himself, and then unfurled his wings, wafting them wide and slow to feel the air beneath him.
"I'll be seeing you again, John. Rather soon, I imagine. I wish you fair or foul luck; whichever gets you killed quicker."
And with that, his wings beat a hideous rhythm, and he was aloft, soaring away into the endless oblivion. John, for his part, spent little time floundering or faltering, and began to descend into Mammon's kingdom proper.
John navigated his way down the ragged crevasse cautiously, mapping out each move before he made it. The stone was treacherous and jagged, and more than once an errant edge cut at his flesh; by the time he reached the bottom, his palms and forearms were criss-crossed with scratches and slices that stung and leaked blood down his skin. Another agony of Hell. Now returned to solid ground, his feet sunk into a mire, soaking his boots and adding to the bitter cold of the realm. He scanned the landscape ahead of him and paused to take stock, and in doing so could not stop his mind from wandering; he entertained, briefly, the thought of the ramifications and implications of this place. If Hell were real, and demons were real, then was He real? His Heaven and His angels? What of His son? Suddenly John thought of those he knew and found himself weighing their deeds: his father would end up here, surely, if he wasn't already, but what about his mother? What fate had Nergal in store for Gary, with that soft warm glow plucked out and hidden away? Did John narrowly avoid this damnation when he'd been pulled from the Mersey, or was the mere attempt enough, and this was now his inevitable, inescapable doom? The existential weight of it all crashed down upon him, and there was a moment where he considered he may have cracked completely. Perhaps killing Gary had been the final straw. Perhaps his mind had simply rejected the horrible truth and instead created a new narrative, constructing demons and souls and other planes around him to shield John from reality. Perhaps the climb down the cliff-face had in fact been scaling the side of the bridge. Perhaps the muddy water he stood in now was actually the silt bed of the river.
He dismissed such notions. That train of thought served him no purpose. He had to see this through, real or not.
He picked his way across the wasteland. The ground was uneven, cobbled together without logic, land smashed into itself and left to rot. Dessicated trees played neighbour to shattered boulders and heavy, oozing vines snaked across the landscape without rhyme or reason. Every so often he would think he spied movement, something shifting underneath the ground, something else darting out of sight from the corner of his eye; at the same time, myriad sounds of suffering echoed all around him, harmonizing into a symphony of despair, yet no source could be found, no origin rooted out. His arms stung as he pushed through brittle shrubs and splashed himself with and muck and ooze every step, matched only by the continuing vacuous agony of absence within him. This place was raw despondency, and John began to grow lonely, yearning for some, any manner of companionship or partner - yet he also could not bear the idea of subjecting another to the pain of Hell. Slowly he crept forward, no true direction in mind other than one foot in front of the other, journeying ever-deeper into Mammon's fetid domain.
John's wandering daze was shaken off when he stumbled, a stray vine entangling his foot and causing him to trip over, planting himself in the bog. He turned, his jeans soaked through, and reached to release himself, swearing in frustration as he wrangled with the vine; it had coiled around his ankle and held him fast. Try as he might he could not unwind it from about his leg, and instead just sighed, putting a hand down to lean on as he looked around for a stray rock or jagged piece of terrain to sever the vine with - but suddenly his arm was seized as well, something cold and rough wrapping around his wrist and pinning it to the ground. John looked down and struggled, shocked to see a gnarled hand gripping him; the vine around his foot shimmered and then it too was a wood-like claw grasping his ankle. The mud around him erupted, and out of the muck a small group of strange, tree-like creatures dragged themselves up and to their feet, dirt and sludge cascading down their knotted, bark-layered backs. They cracked and groaned like splintering trunks, twigs snapping off them as they hauled their bodies to stand straight and gather around the now-supine John, another dendriform limb seizing upon his remaining free arm and pushing his elbow back into the mire.
Whatever these fiends were, they moved slow and laboriously and had the sheen of parody about them, like their resemblance to earthly trees was a deliberate, mocking choice. Their faces were disorganized messes, bark and faux-leaves and caked-on mud obscuring any recognizable features - except for their eyes, misplaced pits of cold, ever-burning fire, traces of that same flame seen through gaps and gashes across their bodies: a hidden essence, guarded by twisting bark, full of anger and hatred. When they spoke, it was with the noise of a gale ripping through the forest and tearing trunks from the earth, the crackling rush of a wildfire burning and killing the trees it raged through down to the root, the industrial roar of chainsaws and machinery felling log after log after log, acres lost to greed.
"Another to feed the swamp..." groaned one, taking arduous steps closer to John and inspecting him. "Curiously alive. Those that walk this mire are usually dead already."
A second tree-creature leaned over John, joining the inspection and prodding painfully at his body with a sharp limb.
"Hmmm...only the strong dare tread here while living. Yet this one seems...puny. Fragile. Perhaps escorted?"
"Look, there - about its neck. A curious trinket. Perhaps it believed it would be protected?"
The third had lifted something that might have been a hand and extended something that might have been a finger to trace the mud-caked chain of the rosary that hung around John's neck. It tapped against the wooden cross, and then creaked and snapped rhythmically. The noise had the cadence of a laugh, but sounded as far removed from mirth as John could imagine.
"Symbols of Him. Mortals often misplace power in His icons. He will not tend to you here, worm."
John's mind raced. The more he writhed and struggled the firmer the wooden limbs held him down, and soon he could barely twist without the harsh bark cutting into his skin. He needed something, anything to give these fiends pause, some lie to spin - and then he seized upon an idea.
"Look closer!" He called, putting as much gravitas and bravado into his inflection as he could muster. "It is no mere bauble, and certainly not worn in His name."
The first tree-thing peered closer, tracing a careful gaze around the rosary.
"The mortal speaks truth. There is Hell about this relic; if it was once made in His honour, it has been corrupted since."
"It is Nergal's!" John announced, and this caused a stir in the fiends; they looked to one another, moaning and creaking with every motion. Again, the first scrutinized the relic, and then a hole opened beneath its eyes and a thick wet vine snaked out, running across the carved wooden cross before retracting.
"Truth once more. This icon reeks of Shamash. The mud has dulled the scent, but his repugnant taste cannot be masked. How did you come to have this, mortal? The Whore-killer is an ugly, repellant, covetous thing. Have you come as his emmisary?"
A subtle contemptuous tone in the question told John that 'yes' would be a very bad answer, so he switched track, thinking on his feet.
"I have subjugated that odious fiend. This relic was one he was most fond of; an apt trophy of my conquest."
The trees stirred again. This time, the third spoke.
"How did a simple mortal accomplish such a feat?"
And this was the big one that really needed to land.
"I am the Laughing Magician Constantine. I am reborn, and my power is vast."
All three creatures burst into that same rhythmic laughter again, and now John was raised off the ground, held in mid-air level with their eyes.
"It has been generations since the last. If you are who you claim to be, why do you struggle so? Why have you not freed yourself? A trifle, for one with magic so potent."
John maintained a serene expression, putting on the calm face of one with absolute confidence and conviction.
"This is Mammon's kingdom, is it not? His eminence is known throughout Hell, his might and wisdom revered."
The trees murmered.
"It is. You seek our lord? You wish to conquer him as well?"
"No - such an attempt would be churlish. I seek his audience, that we may forge a pact for mutual gain. If I were to wreak havoc upon his land and his serfs - such rash action would be unbecoming, would it not?"
The trees deliberated over his words, and all the while he held strong. They faltered, and John could feel the bonds around his limbs loosen.
"Deliver me, and I would consider myself indebted. I will prove a powerful ally." He said, offering his final gambit. There was a tense pause as the fiends made their final considerations - and then:
"Very well."
The bonds wrapped tighter than before, and all three creatures sunk beneath the mud; John had time to draw a single breath before the roots and vines enveloped him completely, and then he was dragged under as well.
The world rose up around them, the landscape stretching and bleeding into itself as the night sky shrunk to a focal point somewhere far above them. Building and terraces buried themselves in the clouds, expanding, distending, drawing perspective askew as they curved toward a single shared event horizon. The vanishing point swallowed the architecture and soon they were instead surrounded by tarmac, asphalt, concrete, then soil and dirt and soon the very mantle of the Earth itself, the ground devouring them as still they did not move but everything shifted around them; dark, light, heat, cold, the myriad methods John sensed his world all blended together, synapses firing off in unison and telling his brain every simultaneous and contradictory thing he witnessed and experienced, a great pressure accompanied by a weightlessness inside and out, a terrible silence that drowned out all other noise, a confining darkness that illuminated all to be seen, and still John remained planted, steadfast on the slick metal flooring of the Runcorn Railway Bridge, never to leave, never to return.
The first thing John noticed about Hell was the chill in the air. It seeped through his clothes and latched onto his bones, leeching even the potential for warmth away from him. It did not matter how he gathered his jacket about himself, or rubbed his hands until the friction burnt red-raw, or shivered until his knees knocked together. The cold persisted. But behind this permafrost, there was a second immediate shift, a strange new feeling - or more accurately, the absence of one. Yes, something was missing from this place, and subsequently from John. It stung like a fresh wound, every next moment picking at the scab, inflicting new injury. Such pain enveloped him and came with a solemn truth that it would not end, not ever, no matter the length of the journey or how many steps taken upon it. The agony superceded all other emotion, swallowing hope and love and joy into itself, gobbling up all feelings in search of remedy but finding no success in the debilitating attempt. This was not a place ever meant for man, and he suffered catastrophically for his presence here.
"God," John said, his voice strained and breath heavy from the effort of simply existing, "how do you bear this?"
Nergal raised a single eyebrow, his expression grim.
"I don't."
They stood upon a rocky outcrop overlooking a scattered, blasted landscape, every kind of barren earth and environ imaginable stretching out before them. Their surroundings slowed and finally ceased movement, and out of the corner of his eye John saw Nergal stretch and shake, his previous visage - adjacent to human, but not convincingly so - sloughed off, replaced with leathery, scaly skin, his feet splayed and claw-tipped to match his hands, and now sharp-pointed ears joined a monstrous forked tail and pair of ragged, powerful wings to complete his true demonic facade. He rose to full height, and stood tall and proud as they surveyed the desolation below.
"Where are we?" John asked, keen to get to the matter at hand and spend as little time here as possible. Already this void within him sapped his goodwill, and his urge to find and rescue Cheryl began to shift from a mission of love to one of pragmatism.
"We stand on the precipice of Mammon's fiefdom. The land below belongs to him, and his rule is final."
John chafed as he began to realize what lay ahead. Nergal planned to cheat him.
"You said you'd take me to Cheryl. That was part of the deal."
Nergal didn't look at John, only bearing an expression of mild irritation as he preened, fawning over his wings and tail.
"The bargain struck was to take you to where your dear ancestors are keeping her. They are keeping her in Mammon's domain, somewhere, and so here we are. I would not venture further into his kingdom, and you cannot compel me to do so. Perhaps if you'd had the good sense to be a little more precise in your terms..."
John flushed, angry. "What about the help you promised? Going back on that too?"
Nergal simply provided a loathsome smile, his tone dripping with condescension. "I promised you no such thing. You agreed to a deal for 'some' help, not my help. I have made good on the terms I agreed to. I'm sure at least one soul out there is of a charitable mind." He laughed, a wicked, piercing sound. "Mortals. Such fun."
John took a short pause as he stewed, stung by the trickery of devils. Eventually, Nergal clapped him on the back, and then produced the rosary once more, draping it across one callous palm before tipping his hand and dropping it into John's grasp.
"You may as well take this trinket with you. It shall make it simpler to find you when it's time to collect. Do take care of it, if you wouldn't mind; it is a particular favourite of mine. My, those Sisters of Mercy could have better learned their dogma of clemency..." he trailed off, lost in fond recollection of foul deeds and souls corrupted. John looked from Nergal to the rosary, opting to loop it around his neck. The wooden cross hung from the chain cold and heavy against his chest, and offered no solace.
"How do I...use it? When I'm done?" He asked, and after a stunned second of Nergal staring at him bug-eyed, the demon burst into raucous laughter. Through guffaws, he managed to choke out a reply.
"You- you really think you'll succeed, don't you? Ah, aha, the hubris of mortals! I shall never grow weary of it. How delightful!" He chuckled some more, theatrically wiping joyful tears from his eyes. "No, Johnny, it'll simply call to me when you die, however that happens. 'Use it' - oh, goodness me."
Nergal collected himself, and then unfurled his wings, wafting them wide and slow to feel the air beneath him.
"I'll be seeing you again, John. Rather soon, I imagine. I wish you fair or foul luck; whichever gets you killed quicker."
And with that, his wings beat a hideous rhythm, and he was aloft, soaring away into the endless oblivion. John, for his part, spent little time floundering or faltering, and began to descend into Mammon's kingdom proper.
John navigated his way down the ragged crevasse cautiously, mapping out each move before he made it. The stone was treacherous and jagged, and more than once an errant edge cut at his flesh; by the time he reached the bottom, his palms and forearms were criss-crossed with scratches and slices that stung and leaked blood down his skin. Another agony of Hell. Now returned to solid ground, his feet sunk into a mire, soaking his boots and adding to the bitter cold of the realm. He scanned the landscape ahead of him and paused to take stock, and in doing so could not stop his mind from wandering; he entertained, briefly, the thought of the ramifications and implications of this place. If Hell were real, and demons were real, then was He real? His Heaven and His angels? What of His son? Suddenly John thought of those he knew and found himself weighing their deeds: his father would end up here, surely, if he wasn't already, but what about his mother? What fate had Nergal in store for Gary, with that soft warm glow plucked out and hidden away? Did John narrowly avoid this damnation when he'd been pulled from the Mersey, or was the mere attempt enough, and this was now his inevitable, inescapable doom? The existential weight of it all crashed down upon him, and there was a moment where he considered he may have cracked completely. Perhaps killing Gary had been the final straw. Perhaps his mind had simply rejected the horrible truth and instead created a new narrative, constructing demons and souls and other planes around him to shield John from reality. Perhaps the climb down the cliff-face had in fact been scaling the side of the bridge. Perhaps the muddy water he stood in now was actually the silt bed of the river.
He dismissed such notions. That train of thought served him no purpose. He had to see this through, real or not.
He picked his way across the wasteland. The ground was uneven, cobbled together without logic, land smashed into itself and left to rot. Dessicated trees played neighbour to shattered boulders and heavy, oozing vines snaked across the landscape without rhyme or reason. Every so often he would think he spied movement, something shifting underneath the ground, something else darting out of sight from the corner of his eye; at the same time, myriad sounds of suffering echoed all around him, harmonizing into a symphony of despair, yet no source could be found, no origin rooted out. His arms stung as he pushed through brittle shrubs and splashed himself with and muck and ooze every step, matched only by the continuing vacuous agony of absence within him. This place was raw despondency, and John began to grow lonely, yearning for some, any manner of companionship or partner - yet he also could not bear the idea of subjecting another to the pain of Hell. Slowly he crept forward, no true direction in mind other than one foot in front of the other, journeying ever-deeper into Mammon's fetid domain.
John's wandering daze was shaken off when he stumbled, a stray vine entangling his foot and causing him to trip over, planting himself in the bog. He turned, his jeans soaked through, and reached to release himself, swearing in frustration as he wrangled with the vine; it had coiled around his ankle and held him fast. Try as he might he could not unwind it from about his leg, and instead just sighed, putting a hand down to lean on as he looked around for a stray rock or jagged piece of terrain to sever the vine with - but suddenly his arm was seized as well, something cold and rough wrapping around his wrist and pinning it to the ground. John looked down and struggled, shocked to see a gnarled hand gripping him; the vine around his foot shimmered and then it too was a wood-like claw grasping his ankle. The mud around him erupted, and out of the muck a small group of strange, tree-like creatures dragged themselves up and to their feet, dirt and sludge cascading down their knotted, bark-layered backs. They cracked and groaned like splintering trunks, twigs snapping off them as they hauled their bodies to stand straight and gather around the now-supine John, another dendriform limb seizing upon his remaining free arm and pushing his elbow back into the mire.
Whatever these fiends were, they moved slow and laboriously and had the sheen of parody about them, like their resemblance to earthly trees was a deliberate, mocking choice. Their faces were disorganized messes, bark and faux-leaves and caked-on mud obscuring any recognizable features - except for their eyes, misplaced pits of cold, ever-burning fire, traces of that same flame seen through gaps and gashes across their bodies: a hidden essence, guarded by twisting bark, full of anger and hatred. When they spoke, it was with the noise of a gale ripping through the forest and tearing trunks from the earth, the crackling rush of a wildfire burning and killing the trees it raged through down to the root, the industrial roar of chainsaws and machinery felling log after log after log, acres lost to greed.
"Another to feed the swamp..." groaned one, taking arduous steps closer to John and inspecting him. "Curiously alive. Those that walk this mire are usually dead already."
A second tree-creature leaned over John, joining the inspection and prodding painfully at his body with a sharp limb.
"Hmmm...only the strong dare tread here while living. Yet this one seems...puny. Fragile. Perhaps escorted?"
"Look, there - about its neck. A curious trinket. Perhaps it believed it would be protected?"
The third had lifted something that might have been a hand and extended something that might have been a finger to trace the mud-caked chain of the rosary that hung around John's neck. It tapped against the wooden cross, and then creaked and snapped rhythmically. The noise had the cadence of a laugh, but sounded as far removed from mirth as John could imagine.
"Symbols of Him. Mortals often misplace power in His icons. He will not tend to you here, worm."
John's mind raced. The more he writhed and struggled the firmer the wooden limbs held him down, and soon he could barely twist without the harsh bark cutting into his skin. He needed something, anything to give these fiends pause, some lie to spin - and then he seized upon an idea.
"Look closer!" He called, putting as much gravitas and bravado into his inflection as he could muster. "It is no mere bauble, and certainly not worn in His name."
The first tree-thing peered closer, tracing a careful gaze around the rosary.
"The mortal speaks truth. There is Hell about this relic; if it was once made in His honour, it has been corrupted since."
"It is Nergal's!" John announced, and this caused a stir in the fiends; they looked to one another, moaning and creaking with every motion. Again, the first scrutinized the relic, and then a hole opened beneath its eyes and a thick wet vine snaked out, running across the carved wooden cross before retracting.
"Truth once more. This icon reeks of Shamash. The mud has dulled the scent, but his repugnant taste cannot be masked. How did you come to have this, mortal? The Whore-killer is an ugly, repellant, covetous thing. Have you come as his emmisary?"
A subtle contemptuous tone in the question told John that 'yes' would be a very bad answer, so he switched track, thinking on his feet.
"I have subjugated that odious fiend. This relic was one he was most fond of; an apt trophy of my conquest."
The trees stirred again. This time, the third spoke.
"How did a simple mortal accomplish such a feat?"
And this was the big one that really needed to land.
"I am the Laughing Magician Constantine. I am reborn, and my power is vast."
All three creatures burst into that same rhythmic laughter again, and now John was raised off the ground, held in mid-air level with their eyes.
"It has been generations since the last. If you are who you claim to be, why do you struggle so? Why have you not freed yourself? A trifle, for one with magic so potent."
John maintained a serene expression, putting on the calm face of one with absolute confidence and conviction.
"This is Mammon's kingdom, is it not? His eminence is known throughout Hell, his might and wisdom revered."
The trees murmered.
"It is. You seek our lord? You wish to conquer him as well?"
"No - such an attempt would be churlish. I seek his audience, that we may forge a pact for mutual gain. If I were to wreak havoc upon his land and his serfs - such rash action would be unbecoming, would it not?"
The trees deliberated over his words, and all the while he held strong. They faltered, and John could feel the bonds around his limbs loosen.
"Deliver me, and I would consider myself indebted. I will prove a powerful ally." He said, offering his final gambit. There was a tense pause as the fiends made their final considerations - and then:
"Very well."
The bonds wrapped tighter than before, and all three creatures sunk beneath the mud; John had time to draw a single breath before the roots and vines enveloped him completely, and then he was dragged under as well.
I'm actually active enough and have time to make it work but I like playing in my own little weird depresso corner and not worrying about things like 'moving the RP along' or 'interacting with others'.
I have now updated my Hellblazer CS in the Characters Tab with an Allies/Antagonists list and Post Catalogue, for people who care about that sort of thing. Open to pitches on post names.
<Snipped quote by Roman>
Well, hello there.
<Snipped quote by Stormyx>
Just saw this. What's your rank?
Double Diamond Lips, you?
Oh, wait a minute, BJJ. Nevermind.
Generational run from me here. I haven't been this productive in years. Hellblazer Thursdays are the new hotness.
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