Post by Silvarn on Aug 13, 2007 22:53:00 GMT -5
Alright, since lust got a chance in the spotlight, let's see how you guys like this:
Something did not feel right. Not right at all. Sakkettu woke to find himself on a bed. Normally, he would have welcomed this gladly, but considering the bed was fleshy and in some places damp and moist, one could hardly blame him for scrambling off of whatever he had been laying on as quickly as he could. The moon peeked from behind a cloud and illuminated the grisly scene. The beast that had attacked him earlier was sprawled out on a stone floor, with a huge block of solid granite where its head once was. Apparently, the beast’s heavy footsteps had shaken the roof of this subterranean stone structure and caused it to collapse inward. At least Sakkettu felt safe for the time being.
Sakkettu took in the scene once more, making sure the beast showed now signs of life. While looking at the beast’s new head, something caught his eye.
He had believed this to be simply a hollow cube of stone beneath the ground. But instead of solid walls, a small doorway led from the chamber. In fact, there was a doorframe on all four walls. It was the first that held his eye. Above only it was a symbol, and he recognized it instantly. He crept quietly over to it, making sure to skirt around the beast as much as possible while keeping a safe distance from the doorframes as well. Unlike the other exits, this passage was closed by a heavy stone door. Dead center in was an indentation which mirrored the symbol above the door.
Sakkettu turned around and crept back to the beast. Its head had been smashed, but its neck was mostly intact. He took out his dagger and slowly began slicing into the beast’s neck. Foul-smelling black blood oozed out. Sakkettu reached in through the slit and fished around, but all he could feel was bone, muscle, and cooling flesh. He cut open a new slit and tried again. He fished through the beast’s innards, poking and prying as the internal organs gave way. This time his eyes widened as his fist wrapped around something hard and cold. He pulled his hand quickly out, splattering congealed blood all over himself. Shining in the moonlight, the beauty of his medallion was undiminished by the beast’s blood. He swore he would make the Kendurian soldiers pay for this. He hastily wiped the blood clean from the medallion and himself and then returned to the door.
All around it were runes great and small, straight and curvy. This alien text held no meaning to him, but their presence was ominous. With hesitation, he took the medallion and held it up to the indentation. The size was about right. He slowly inserted the medallion into the indentation until an almighty clang! came from all directions.
He jumped back and waited, holding his breath. When nothing came to investigate, he gave the medallion one final push. Another clang! set off a series of other noises, and eventually a thunderous crack came from the bottom of the door. The door slowly lifted upward until the medallion was about to be covered. A blast of ancient, stale wind roared from within, causing Sakkettu to cough and gag and his eyes to water.
When he could breathe without coughing again, he looked into the newly-opened passage. It was completely and utterly dark, almost like looking into a bottomless well. He could have sworn that in the shadows, something manifested and beckoned him forward. He took a step into the other side of doorway, and gently put his weight down. Nothing happened and he breathed a sigh of relief. He took another cautious step and when he put his weight down, he felt the floor give way a little. His breath was instantly caught in his throat. A nearby torch, unseen, suddenly flared to life, causing him to yelp and scramble out of the door again. The flame caught a flammable substance and soon the room was lit in a circle of dim fire.
The circular wall was of dusty stone, the kind one would find in a mausoleum. Faint lines of black looped around the walls, bearing omens of sin in a hand long forgot. Though seemingly random, the lines were actually symmetrical about a line in the very rear of the circle from Sakkettu. He followed the pattern downward from the point of symmetry and found his eyes tempted by something on the floor.
In the very center, Sakkettu could see what looked like a very small and thin statue. He crept closer, never taking his eyes off of the statue. As he came closer, he realized that the statue was a sword, with what looked like dark grey tree roots curled around it. He came closer and the roots began to crack as they moved apart of their own volition. When they stopped, the roots resembled a gnarled, sinister hand, offering the sword to a new recipient. Sakkettu put his hand out to grasp it. He could feel something greater than him beckon his hand toward the blade.
Dark whisperings of deceitful seduction came from all over the room and caressed his ears. Somewhere in the darkness, a sinister organ began playing a frantic, alluring, and murderous melody. A chorus of voices began chanting in a dark tone, augmenting the pressure he could feel building. Something suddenly screamed, then was joined by a conclave of wails and moans. The fire all around the room began to dance and take the forms of hideous creatures who danced merrily around him and the sword. Apparitions of mist began to crawl towards him, reaching out and calling upon him to be their savior. He tried to shut his eyes, but found him was unable. The frenzy of happenings made him want to end it, even if it meant ending himself.
His hand was only an inch from the blade’s hilt when he realized that this might not be a good idea. He retracted his hand, but the gnarled hand seemed to lift the sword to him.
I won’t be taking it; he thought, it’s giving it to me. He grasped the hilt.
Instantly, the illusions vanished, and a series of split-second pictures flashed before his eyes, all featuring people, or what looked like people, with their faces twisted into sheer agony. Blood, darkness, and evil were the only thoughts left in his mind when it was his own again. He breathed deeply, and his eyes went wide with horror as an ominous force began to settle around his thoughts. He could feel it pushing in, filling in the cracks of his conscious. He felt like some hunted animal. He tried to resist whatever was pushing into his mind, but it was futile. He wanted to throw the blade aside, but he found he was unable to do so. He looked frantically over the room, trying to find some sort of remedy.
His eyes fell upon a scrap of metal lying on the ground behind the sword’s former keeper. In complete desperation, he picked up the scrap. Instantly, the thoughts of darkness began to absolve, and sanity reposed itself within him. The scrap, he realized, was a shield. Crude, yes, but the fact that it repelled the sinister thoughts from his mind made him grip it all the tighter.
The shield, he found, had a leather buckle strap and a handle to grasp. He tightened the strap around his right arm and gripped the handle. It was heavy and rusty, but if he found any more of the huge beasts that roamed Shadhew, he figured that the shield could give him at least some protection.
His thoughts returned regrettably to the sword he held in his left hand. The hilt shone with solid, radiant gold. Two gems were set in the pommel of the hilt, both a dull and dreary grey. They appeared to be part of the spherical pommel, not jutting out so as to be inconvenient. He realized that the scabbard still hid the sword’s actual blade. He held the scabbard in his right hand and, using his left, slowly drew the blade out.
He recognized the metal used in the blade. It shone eerily in the fire, the light reflecting off of the bluish silversteel. On both sides of the double-edged blade a line of gold and a line of dark silver entwined one another up the center of the blade, finally coming together near its tip. In other circumstances, it would appear as a benign ceremonial sword, but Sakkettu could feel some sort of dark presence within it.
He looked at the cross-hilt next. It consisted of mirroring, angular pieces that looked more ornamental than serviceable. He lightly drug his finger cross the edge of one and sharply pulled it back, finding the edge was keen. He looked at the entire sword in awe. The entire blade was a weapon, every part meant to be used in battle. A few more breathless moments passed by as Sakkettu gazed at the blade. He followed the twisting colors up the blade and followed them back down to look at the grey gemstones.
With a sudden flare of disgust, he slammed the sword into its scabbard, obscuring the evil from his eyes. He breathed steadily, then left the room.
To him, the moon seemed brighter now. But the moon did not bother him right now. The sword was out in a flash again, not because of what was there, but because of what was not. The beast’s carcass had vanished. All that remained was a large pool of sludgy black blood.
His eyes darted all around the room, around the rim of the gaping square hole that led back to the ground above. The beast was gone, that was for sure. But what Sakkettu could not figure out was how. They had fallen too far beneath the surface that even the beast would not have been able to heave itself out.
Sakkettu looked around, searching for a way to escape. The stone that had fallen did not even come halfway up to the hole. Because of the stone, one of the four entrances in this room had been sealed off. Sakkettu had visited another of the doors. That left only two remaining. To his right and to his left, the two doors stood silent, waiting. They held no knobs, no locks, no visible means of entrance.
He walked over to the one on his left. All he could find upon it was an asymmetric glittering white insignia that reminded him of the sun peeking out over a cloud. At the other door, a black symbol greeted him. This one was a mess of lines, angles, circles and dots, though it was surprisingly symmetrical. He could not figure it out, although he spent some time staring at it. To open them, he tried tapping the doors with the sword, and when that did not work, with the shield. Neither of them gave any sign of opening. He continued to search the open-roofed room for a means of escape, hoping to find some secret passage way or a lever to open a hidden staircase.
Finally, he saw a way out, though it would be difficult. The rubble that had cascaded down from what had been the ceiling was piled in mostly one corner, stopping several feet beneath the lip of earth. The wall there was not stone, but rather soil, albeit coarse, hard-packed soil. It was his only chance, but it would require the use of his new sword, if he could even call it his own. He drew it from its sheath, producing a metallic ringing noise that sounded both pleasant and abhorrent to his ears. His plan was simple: run up the rubble, thrust the sword into the soil, heave himself onto the ground above, retrieve the sword, then run as if the end of the world was behind him. He prepared himself to make the dash, then hung his shoulders in defeat. Maybe not so simple, but it was his only chance.
He approached the rubble at a sprint and his mind screamed at him to stop all the while. Immediately before he leaped, he felt a cold, calm presence seep into his body from the sword. Everything seemed to slow down and sharpen into a painfully acute focus. He saw the wall of the catacomb draw closer, but he did not feel as if he was moving. He placed a foot lightly against the stone wall and pushed off, bounding towards the wall attached to the same corner. He leapt lightly from that, too, and arched his back, bringing the glittering sword back with the tip pointed forward. He drove the sword into the soil and braced the impact with his feet. He pushed off, using the sword as a pivotal point as he flipped backward. As he ascended, he pulled the blade free and watched as the ground came up to meet him. When his feet touched the coarse grass that grew from the soils of Shadhew, the world snapped back into the way he had perceived it before.
He took in deep breaths, his eyes wide with the shock of what he had just done. He looked at the silversteel blade of his new sword with utter confusion. He would not have been able to do that under normal circumstances.
“Give it back, boy.” Sakkettu nearly shrieked with fright as heard the malevolent voice, but managed to contain himself. He turned to face the speaker. “It does not belong to you.” the voice continued.
The full moon was descending for the night, but the three-quarters that remained above the horizon shone eerily. At first, Sakkettu thought it was a cloud in front of the moon, but he realized it was something much closer. It seemed a very incarnation of Famine, horrendously thin and garbed in a cloak with great gaping holes. “You are too young to grasp its full potential. Give it back, boy, before it destroys you.” The voice’s owner was losing his patience.
Sakkettu gripped his new arms in defiance and defense and carefully began to tread away from this new adversary. “Who are you?” he called. It was all he could do to keep his voice from trembling.
“I am no one.” The voice responded cryptically.
“Then what are you?” Sakkettu asked. No matter how far back he went, the apparition never seemed to get any farther away.
“I am darkness. I am bloodshed. I am evil.” The specter suddenly vanished.
Sakkettu wasted no time in turning to run away, but found the phantasm directly in front of him. He stopped, paralyzed with fear.
“I…am …Bæy!” the demon cried as its cloak flared like raven’s wings and two soulless eyes pierced from its perpetually black face. An aura of absolute unholiness flared from it, sucking in what little light existed. It extended an ethereal hand towards Sakkettu, which greatly resembled the root-hand he had taken the sword from, chanting grotesque words in a forgotten tongue.
Fear gave Sakkettu wings as he flew as fast as he was able away from Bæy. The demon called after him, but did not pursue him.
“Beware the darkness you now carry that transcends both time and reality. Beware the true measure of a man’s soul.”
That's about four pages on Word. So, what do you guys think?
Something did not feel right. Not right at all. Sakkettu woke to find himself on a bed. Normally, he would have welcomed this gladly, but considering the bed was fleshy and in some places damp and moist, one could hardly blame him for scrambling off of whatever he had been laying on as quickly as he could. The moon peeked from behind a cloud and illuminated the grisly scene. The beast that had attacked him earlier was sprawled out on a stone floor, with a huge block of solid granite where its head once was. Apparently, the beast’s heavy footsteps had shaken the roof of this subterranean stone structure and caused it to collapse inward. At least Sakkettu felt safe for the time being.
Sakkettu took in the scene once more, making sure the beast showed now signs of life. While looking at the beast’s new head, something caught his eye.
He had believed this to be simply a hollow cube of stone beneath the ground. But instead of solid walls, a small doorway led from the chamber. In fact, there was a doorframe on all four walls. It was the first that held his eye. Above only it was a symbol, and he recognized it instantly. He crept quietly over to it, making sure to skirt around the beast as much as possible while keeping a safe distance from the doorframes as well. Unlike the other exits, this passage was closed by a heavy stone door. Dead center in was an indentation which mirrored the symbol above the door.
Sakkettu turned around and crept back to the beast. Its head had been smashed, but its neck was mostly intact. He took out his dagger and slowly began slicing into the beast’s neck. Foul-smelling black blood oozed out. Sakkettu reached in through the slit and fished around, but all he could feel was bone, muscle, and cooling flesh. He cut open a new slit and tried again. He fished through the beast’s innards, poking and prying as the internal organs gave way. This time his eyes widened as his fist wrapped around something hard and cold. He pulled his hand quickly out, splattering congealed blood all over himself. Shining in the moonlight, the beauty of his medallion was undiminished by the beast’s blood. He swore he would make the Kendurian soldiers pay for this. He hastily wiped the blood clean from the medallion and himself and then returned to the door.
All around it were runes great and small, straight and curvy. This alien text held no meaning to him, but their presence was ominous. With hesitation, he took the medallion and held it up to the indentation. The size was about right. He slowly inserted the medallion into the indentation until an almighty clang! came from all directions.
He jumped back and waited, holding his breath. When nothing came to investigate, he gave the medallion one final push. Another clang! set off a series of other noises, and eventually a thunderous crack came from the bottom of the door. The door slowly lifted upward until the medallion was about to be covered. A blast of ancient, stale wind roared from within, causing Sakkettu to cough and gag and his eyes to water.
When he could breathe without coughing again, he looked into the newly-opened passage. It was completely and utterly dark, almost like looking into a bottomless well. He could have sworn that in the shadows, something manifested and beckoned him forward. He took a step into the other side of doorway, and gently put his weight down. Nothing happened and he breathed a sigh of relief. He took another cautious step and when he put his weight down, he felt the floor give way a little. His breath was instantly caught in his throat. A nearby torch, unseen, suddenly flared to life, causing him to yelp and scramble out of the door again. The flame caught a flammable substance and soon the room was lit in a circle of dim fire.
The circular wall was of dusty stone, the kind one would find in a mausoleum. Faint lines of black looped around the walls, bearing omens of sin in a hand long forgot. Though seemingly random, the lines were actually symmetrical about a line in the very rear of the circle from Sakkettu. He followed the pattern downward from the point of symmetry and found his eyes tempted by something on the floor.
In the very center, Sakkettu could see what looked like a very small and thin statue. He crept closer, never taking his eyes off of the statue. As he came closer, he realized that the statue was a sword, with what looked like dark grey tree roots curled around it. He came closer and the roots began to crack as they moved apart of their own volition. When they stopped, the roots resembled a gnarled, sinister hand, offering the sword to a new recipient. Sakkettu put his hand out to grasp it. He could feel something greater than him beckon his hand toward the blade.
Dark whisperings of deceitful seduction came from all over the room and caressed his ears. Somewhere in the darkness, a sinister organ began playing a frantic, alluring, and murderous melody. A chorus of voices began chanting in a dark tone, augmenting the pressure he could feel building. Something suddenly screamed, then was joined by a conclave of wails and moans. The fire all around the room began to dance and take the forms of hideous creatures who danced merrily around him and the sword. Apparitions of mist began to crawl towards him, reaching out and calling upon him to be their savior. He tried to shut his eyes, but found him was unable. The frenzy of happenings made him want to end it, even if it meant ending himself.
His hand was only an inch from the blade’s hilt when he realized that this might not be a good idea. He retracted his hand, but the gnarled hand seemed to lift the sword to him.
I won’t be taking it; he thought, it’s giving it to me. He grasped the hilt.
Instantly, the illusions vanished, and a series of split-second pictures flashed before his eyes, all featuring people, or what looked like people, with their faces twisted into sheer agony. Blood, darkness, and evil were the only thoughts left in his mind when it was his own again. He breathed deeply, and his eyes went wide with horror as an ominous force began to settle around his thoughts. He could feel it pushing in, filling in the cracks of his conscious. He felt like some hunted animal. He tried to resist whatever was pushing into his mind, but it was futile. He wanted to throw the blade aside, but he found he was unable to do so. He looked frantically over the room, trying to find some sort of remedy.
His eyes fell upon a scrap of metal lying on the ground behind the sword’s former keeper. In complete desperation, he picked up the scrap. Instantly, the thoughts of darkness began to absolve, and sanity reposed itself within him. The scrap, he realized, was a shield. Crude, yes, but the fact that it repelled the sinister thoughts from his mind made him grip it all the tighter.
The shield, he found, had a leather buckle strap and a handle to grasp. He tightened the strap around his right arm and gripped the handle. It was heavy and rusty, but if he found any more of the huge beasts that roamed Shadhew, he figured that the shield could give him at least some protection.
His thoughts returned regrettably to the sword he held in his left hand. The hilt shone with solid, radiant gold. Two gems were set in the pommel of the hilt, both a dull and dreary grey. They appeared to be part of the spherical pommel, not jutting out so as to be inconvenient. He realized that the scabbard still hid the sword’s actual blade. He held the scabbard in his right hand and, using his left, slowly drew the blade out.
He recognized the metal used in the blade. It shone eerily in the fire, the light reflecting off of the bluish silversteel. On both sides of the double-edged blade a line of gold and a line of dark silver entwined one another up the center of the blade, finally coming together near its tip. In other circumstances, it would appear as a benign ceremonial sword, but Sakkettu could feel some sort of dark presence within it.
He looked at the cross-hilt next. It consisted of mirroring, angular pieces that looked more ornamental than serviceable. He lightly drug his finger cross the edge of one and sharply pulled it back, finding the edge was keen. He looked at the entire sword in awe. The entire blade was a weapon, every part meant to be used in battle. A few more breathless moments passed by as Sakkettu gazed at the blade. He followed the twisting colors up the blade and followed them back down to look at the grey gemstones.
With a sudden flare of disgust, he slammed the sword into its scabbard, obscuring the evil from his eyes. He breathed steadily, then left the room.
To him, the moon seemed brighter now. But the moon did not bother him right now. The sword was out in a flash again, not because of what was there, but because of what was not. The beast’s carcass had vanished. All that remained was a large pool of sludgy black blood.
His eyes darted all around the room, around the rim of the gaping square hole that led back to the ground above. The beast was gone, that was for sure. But what Sakkettu could not figure out was how. They had fallen too far beneath the surface that even the beast would not have been able to heave itself out.
Sakkettu looked around, searching for a way to escape. The stone that had fallen did not even come halfway up to the hole. Because of the stone, one of the four entrances in this room had been sealed off. Sakkettu had visited another of the doors. That left only two remaining. To his right and to his left, the two doors stood silent, waiting. They held no knobs, no locks, no visible means of entrance.
He walked over to the one on his left. All he could find upon it was an asymmetric glittering white insignia that reminded him of the sun peeking out over a cloud. At the other door, a black symbol greeted him. This one was a mess of lines, angles, circles and dots, though it was surprisingly symmetrical. He could not figure it out, although he spent some time staring at it. To open them, he tried tapping the doors with the sword, and when that did not work, with the shield. Neither of them gave any sign of opening. He continued to search the open-roofed room for a means of escape, hoping to find some secret passage way or a lever to open a hidden staircase.
Finally, he saw a way out, though it would be difficult. The rubble that had cascaded down from what had been the ceiling was piled in mostly one corner, stopping several feet beneath the lip of earth. The wall there was not stone, but rather soil, albeit coarse, hard-packed soil. It was his only chance, but it would require the use of his new sword, if he could even call it his own. He drew it from its sheath, producing a metallic ringing noise that sounded both pleasant and abhorrent to his ears. His plan was simple: run up the rubble, thrust the sword into the soil, heave himself onto the ground above, retrieve the sword, then run as if the end of the world was behind him. He prepared himself to make the dash, then hung his shoulders in defeat. Maybe not so simple, but it was his only chance.
He approached the rubble at a sprint and his mind screamed at him to stop all the while. Immediately before he leaped, he felt a cold, calm presence seep into his body from the sword. Everything seemed to slow down and sharpen into a painfully acute focus. He saw the wall of the catacomb draw closer, but he did not feel as if he was moving. He placed a foot lightly against the stone wall and pushed off, bounding towards the wall attached to the same corner. He leapt lightly from that, too, and arched his back, bringing the glittering sword back with the tip pointed forward. He drove the sword into the soil and braced the impact with his feet. He pushed off, using the sword as a pivotal point as he flipped backward. As he ascended, he pulled the blade free and watched as the ground came up to meet him. When his feet touched the coarse grass that grew from the soils of Shadhew, the world snapped back into the way he had perceived it before.
He took in deep breaths, his eyes wide with the shock of what he had just done. He looked at the silversteel blade of his new sword with utter confusion. He would not have been able to do that under normal circumstances.
“Give it back, boy.” Sakkettu nearly shrieked with fright as heard the malevolent voice, but managed to contain himself. He turned to face the speaker. “It does not belong to you.” the voice continued.
The full moon was descending for the night, but the three-quarters that remained above the horizon shone eerily. At first, Sakkettu thought it was a cloud in front of the moon, but he realized it was something much closer. It seemed a very incarnation of Famine, horrendously thin and garbed in a cloak with great gaping holes. “You are too young to grasp its full potential. Give it back, boy, before it destroys you.” The voice’s owner was losing his patience.
Sakkettu gripped his new arms in defiance and defense and carefully began to tread away from this new adversary. “Who are you?” he called. It was all he could do to keep his voice from trembling.
“I am no one.” The voice responded cryptically.
“Then what are you?” Sakkettu asked. No matter how far back he went, the apparition never seemed to get any farther away.
“I am darkness. I am bloodshed. I am evil.” The specter suddenly vanished.
Sakkettu wasted no time in turning to run away, but found the phantasm directly in front of him. He stopped, paralyzed with fear.
“I…am …Bæy!” the demon cried as its cloak flared like raven’s wings and two soulless eyes pierced from its perpetually black face. An aura of absolute unholiness flared from it, sucking in what little light existed. It extended an ethereal hand towards Sakkettu, which greatly resembled the root-hand he had taken the sword from, chanting grotesque words in a forgotten tongue.
Fear gave Sakkettu wings as he flew as fast as he was able away from Bæy. The demon called after him, but did not pursue him.
“Beware the darkness you now carry that transcends both time and reality. Beware the true measure of a man’s soul.”
That's about four pages on Word. So, what do you guys think?
' Bloody heck, two jobs and a BUNCH of kerfuffle later, and I'm back AGAIN.