To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

The stories and lives of the Grim. ((Roleplaying Stories and In Character Interactions))
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Ulrezaj
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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The troll's red eyes were now covered in a white film. The warlock's hands reached near the ground, but something broke his focus.

"Ptah," Arax-Ithak ridiculed, "You are clearly only sub-par."

Ulrezaj sneered at the Wrathguard, his eyes returning to their beady red color. "Musta be dis red thing oveh here," an accusing finger went to Raziel the Carver, "Ah think if we needed Hakkar we woulda joined Jin'do."

The Wrathguard's nostrils flared at the summoned avatar.

The soulbinder glanced uneasily, "Dis thing going to kill de Warrior, ah jus' know it."

"...And? Are there not many Orcs? We are literally on their homeland."

Ulrezaj spat, "Now, lissen good, we ain't going to battle wit' baby Khorvis on our team. Dis be a time fo' Orcs from our age to fight der greatfathehs. Let us give him dis chance. Away from me, you almost be as detestable as dis thing ah helped to summon forth."

Shrugging, the Wrathguard contentedly left the chamber. The soulbinder stared at those around him. Akorharil was managing his pet, Borghul evidently got caught up in practicing Shadow Council swear words, Greebo was rubbing his hands together, and the unmet Warlock - Pincus the Archivist - appeared to be having a pleasant, wayside chat with his speed-talking Imp. Ulrezaj grinned, perfect! He thought. Let us in our harmonious, tranquil state serve de Mandate ... when we get around to it! Sleep well, Khorvis. Ulrezaj grabbed his serpentine staff, the Legacy of Arlokk, and gently layed it outward over the chest of the unconscious Orc. A slight chuckle escaped him. Now, now, Khorvis, be wise as a serpent. The soulbinder's eyes grew the white film back over them. Full concentration this time - even the mad cackling of Imps and untamed Orcs could not stop him - he began to mutter ritual incantations reserved previously only for the Farraki Shadow Hunters who went too deep into Un'goro crater.

Ulrezaj's mind drifted on thoughts of Draenor, contrasted them with Outlands, and found a world ripe for proper containment. If these machinations failed the other Warlocks, then there would indeed be a safety net to keep Khorvis in working order ... and a contract, of sorts. Ulrezaj's mind merged with Khorvis's in his unconscious state.
Khorvis wrote:The warmth of Draenor's sun beat down on Khorvis's dusky skin. Passing its zenith, the great golden orb watched over the fishing village of Zeth'kur and heated the Devouring Sea in a pleasant summer. Youthful indolence wrapped the orcs in a cocoon of carefree play while they floated upon their backs in the lazy surf. As a far flung holding of the Blackrock Clan, the dockyards saw a moderate amount of trade, especially in the sturgeon that migrated to the nearby isles every winter to spawn, and yet the land was not particularly valuable. What poverty the local clansfolk felt in possessions, they made up for in a wealth of tranquility.

Khorvis kept his eyes shut against the bright sunlight and relaxed in the rhythmic rocking of the waves. He had no fear of where they would carry him - all of the tides led away from the Skeletal Coast and the Shadowed Seas had not seen the great Abyssal Gulpers since long before his great-great-father had joined the ancestors. Time slipped away and over a distant red Spire.
Peace! Peace! Ulrezaj cried out. Peace for de Horde, peace fo' Draenor!

Khorvis snorted. "Felmancer," he stated dryly. "What are you doing here? This is an improper moment."

"Oh, but you're so wrong," the soulbinder laughed, "Dis be de time to realize full potential! Aha!"

Khorvis shifted uneasily, observing the tranquil environment all around him. "...No. The battlefield is ripe for potential."

"Peace through annihilation."

Khorvis blinked, "Always."

The troll took his hands and lifted them to the sky, he drew an unnaturally perfect image in Nagrand's dirt: one of a moon with stars, one of a moon - shattered and ruined - and one of a full moon, but the grass was burnt and shriveled up. In the final image, the sun never quite set all the way.

"What is the meaning of this," Khorvis asked.

The troll went to full height and cleared his throat. "Each represents a different reality. De firs' reality, de moon wit' de stars, is no more den peace fo' Draenor. De Alliance have been eliminated. De second reality, in which de moon was shattered and ruined, be what happens if you let dem acquire any remnant o' dis land. De humans, especially de humans, lack discipline. Reckless manipulation kin wreak havoc. Dis is why de Forsaken encourage discipline: to conjure predictable results. De third reality, in which de grass be burnt up, dis be what happens if you do not fight de Iron Horde. De Iron Horde is essentially guaranteed to lose, so what dey lose from dis point on - Highmaul, de Blackrock Mountains, Industrial complexes, all o' dat is simply made to go. Dey may barrage all o' us wit' Iron Stars as a final act o' retaliation. How do I know dis? Simple, dey don't have Warlocks. De Iron Horde jus does not have de right edge. Finally, de sun never sets, dis is de reality if you die during ye procedures. Ah will bind you."

"Enough," Khorvis roared, "I do not need you. You need me. The Horde is built on Warriors, not Felmancers."

Ulezaj knelt and extended his arm. A nail went into the dirt to depict an image of a battered, unconscious Khorvis who lay dying on a table around the Grim's gathered shadowcasters. "You will die." Ulrezaj did not glance up at the Warrior for a reaction, "Dis be what is at stake. On dese terms, you need us. What ah'll be doing is providing you some comfort in on all o' dis, think o' it as witch docteh therapy." The soulbinder returned to full height, his metaphysical eyes drifted to the top right corner of his face as he rubbed a tusk thoughtfully. "Your session begins," he stated smoothly, "Now."
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Akorharil
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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The Orc rubbed at his aching eyes as he spread his surgical implements before him, taking a silent inventory. Scalpels, sutures, clamps. Forceps, bandages. It wasn't much, he thought, but it would have to be enough. Khorvis Bloodstar lay atop a rough-hewn stone table before him, his breathing slow, shallow, and barely perceptible to the naked eye. Any one of the Grim would have been forgiven for mistaking the once robust warrior as a fresh corpse. At his side was the Excruciarch, Raziel the Carver, plucked not an hour ago from the flaming bowels of Avernus. The Baatezu hovered silently above the body of the fallen warrior like a massive ghoul -- her long, bloody hair still obscuring her unholy face from the world.

"Now then," she rasped, her voice like nails on a chalkboard, "Let's see what we have to work with..."

Two hands grasped either side of the massive orc's breastplate while a third sheared through its fastening straps with fingers like living scalpels. She gave a firm tug, but the armor stuck fast. Akorharil had suspected it from the smell, but now his suspicions were confirmed -- the steel had fused completely to his flesh. The poor bastard must have taken a fireball square in the chest.

"My my, complications, complications. Fear not, plaything, Raziel has mended far worse. Cut and repair, cut and repair. Always the Carver cuts and repairs..."

The Orc shuddered involuntarily at her words. Excruciarchs were the torturing caste of the infernal Baatezu hierarchy; their sole responsibility was to bring their 'client' to within a screaming inch of its life before nursing him back to health to start the process anew. Many of them had honed their craft over a thousand mortal lifetimes. They were exceedingly talented at what they did.

She worked a daggerlike finger beneath the charred breastplate and began to saw back and forth with the practiced ease of a fisherman filleting his catch. A final tug removed the chestpiece with the nauseating sound of tearing flesh, for she had taken the majority of Khorvis' torso with it. What little flesh that remained clung to him in charred ribbons.

The Baatezu clicked her long, serpentine tongue before chewing noisily on a hunk of bloody viscera scraped from the steel. Thus was the endless charm in a career of Warlockery.

"My, my...extensive graft-work required for this one..."

Akorharil was on the verge of enquiring where they were going to obtain a square foot of orcflesh that wasn't currently being used by an orc when the Excruciarch tore a torso-sized hunk of flesh from her own back and laid it neatly across Khorvis' exposed chest. She didn't so much as wince.

"Would your comrade approve, Warlock?" she teased, running her bloated tongue along the torn and bloody edges. The flesh bubbled and popped, then knit together with the edges of the unconscious warrior's wounds. "What would he say, do you think, were he aware of what you were doing to him?"

The tired Orc snarled, distracting himself momentarily by digging the broken tip of a spear from Khorvis' thigh. He didn't have time for hypothetical moral posturing, he rationalized, but he knew. He knew what Khorvis would say.

"My comrade will never know what happened here tonight." he spat, annoyed that he had allowed the demon to goad him so. He would never admit it to anyone, but he enjoyed the warrior's company. In many ways he admired him. Bah! He was simply tired...

He sutured the wound closed and moved on to the next as Raziel turned her attention to the warriors ruined face. The left half of the orc's head was missing much of its flesh -- in several spots there was naught but exposed bone. Curious, she thought to herself. The flesh was ruined, but the skull was perfectly intact. How odd for a battle wound. She peered closer, drumming her talons casually upon the stone table, drawing sparks. Several careful, upward carving motions with a small blade. Such wounds would realistically be impossible to inflict in battle unless someone had the orc's head held firmly in a vice. Behind her bloody, matted hair, Raziel the Carver smiled.

"What secrets do you hold, plaything..."

The excruciarch slowly snaked her bloated tongue into Khorvis' ruined eye socket, probing, tasting. Something was amiss here...

A piercing, horrible laugh erupted from seemingly every corner of the hidden sanctum at once. The assembled warlocks, each engrossed in his own task, spun immediately to face the Carver -- for no other being on the material plane could have possibly produced a sound so soul-rendingly horrible. Akor could feel one of his tusks chip as he involuntarily clenched his jaw at the terrible sound.

"Oh, playthings," the Baatezu chided them, apparently amused with herself. "The plot does thicken, yes it does..."

She stabbed a syringe-like talon in the direction of the fallen warrior, her shoulders still shivering with barely contained mirth.

"I taste fear, my beautiful little toy soldiers. I taste shame. I taste disgust. The flesh holds no secrets from the Carver! Your companion..." she drew the sentence to a close with obvious relish, "Is a suicide!"

Again she loosed her terrible laugh.

"His soul, upon death, is consigned to Avernus for his deeds!' She shook her head slowly at the assembled in mock sadness. "Baator gains nothing if this puppet lives. We gain his soul when he dies!

She turned to face Akorharil, her red eyes blazing beneath her matted hair.

"The Pact Primeval takes precedence over our agreement, Warlock. Our contract is void!"

The room was plunged into sudden darkness with her announcement. As the candles slowly flickered back to life, all that remained of the Carver was a hint of brimstone and a pool of bloody footprints.

__________

((I realize this ends rather abruptly, but I'm awfully, awfully tired. Further edits to come tomorrow.))
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Khorvis
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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[[ Excellent writing. I am not sure I follow the link between D&D cosmology and Warcraft lore, but it works in a ephemeral sort of way. ]]
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Akorharil
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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((Hey, if Leyu'jin gets to use real Voodoo Loa, Akor gets to use D&D cosmology :p))
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Awatu
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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Staring at the spot where the she-blood-demon once occupied, Bor'ghul wheezes out a cough which has a spattering of laughter mixed within.

"Yer all full o' shit! Specially whatever that thing was!" His laughter fell to coughing, a deep scowl taking over his features.

"Especially you!" he said, pointing a finger at the rapid-fire mouth imp.

"And especially you!" he growled, gesturing at the limp form of Khorvis.
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Ulrezaj
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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Sweat drenched Ulrezaj's face. The paint was beginning to melt as an increasing amount of concentration forced him to keep at least a solid portion of Khorvis' consciousness from returning to reality. Raziel the Carver was doing an excellent job at pinching the sensitive nerves, so that required increasing the ritual incantations to keep the warrior from regaining full consciousness.

"You shitface," Bor'ghul snapped at his Imp, as they had both been bickering about various topics over the past hour or more.

Ulrezaj's concentration drifted partly back into reality, some of Khrovis' consciousness was clearly split between the spirit realm and the physical. Unaware of the debacle between the Orc Warlock and his pet, Ulrezaj retorted, "Did ye want to lend a hand, by any chance?"

"Fel no," Bor'ghul remarked flatly. "I'll let you practice whatever felcrap mysticism you always gloat about."

"Well, den, looks like we have an agreement, let us be at peace so ah do not hafta worry about dis realm."

Bor'ghul rolled his eyes with moderate irritation, "Riiight. Do you even know what you are doing?"

Ulrezaj glared angrily, "Of course ah do. We jus' practice dis method to reanimate Zul'farrak's defenses, unless de spirit was weak anyway, so den we jus' take de mojo ta fuel de wards."

The Orc's eyes grew wide with shock, "Fel you! Do not dare take someone with such sense as Khorvis and install him as some sort of magic barrier in the real world."

A smug look crossed Ulrezaj's face, "Lissen, Bor'ghul, we gotta come to an agreement on dis. We kin keep Khorvis up and running wit'out de optimal features as before, o' we can throw in all our cards and lose ourselves an opportunity."

Bor'ghul sneered distastefully.

Ulrezaj's attention returned to Khorvis, the white film returned to his eyes, a hand went to the sorcerer's staff, and then he plunged back into the state Khorvis had been in. The soulbinder's face was a mixture of associated yellow and green pigments as the teal skin's sweat merged all of the usual paint together.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Khorvis stepped through Nagrand's Spirit Woods, observing in silent awe the majesty of Oshu'gun's unnaturally unique design.

"De Warsong near here," Ulrezaj warned from behind the warrior.

Khorvis turned in surprise, "Felmancer, the Warsong are a good clan. We fought with their kind in the Gulch."

"Yes," Ulrezaj snarled at the thought of Grom's self-conceited exploits in Orcish history, "Bes' not to consider that too deeply."

Khorvis' brow furrowed inquisitively, "Why mention it?"

"Potential threat," Ulrezaj remarked.

Khorvis peered at Oshu'gun, "Nonsense. You don't know where we are, do you?"

Ulrezaj's eyes narrowed, "Big white rock, Warsong wind shaman, and all sorts o' Orcish tribal heritage. No, ah don't know, but ah kin say it has dangers implied fo' my overall well-being."

The warrior chuckled at the troll's uneasiness. "You are at Oshu'gun. This place is the most sacred place in Orcish history. It was here that the Na'aru, Ku're, gave us the ability to commune with the earth, wind, water, and flame. We learned peacefully the ways of the ancestors, so we would not fully depart. That was two-hundred years ago, Soul Eater, and it was no light undertaking for development."

Ulrezaj's toes peeled at the grass beneath his feet. He began to dwell on the implications of a ritual site for Orc heritage. "All of dem?"

Khorvis took a moment to breathe in the rich, undiluted air, and then stared at the puffed clouds above, a thoughtful gaze went to observing a flock of Windroc's take flight away from the canopy of trees surrounding the white mountain. "Yes," he said without second thought, "We all learned from this place. It was here Ner'zhul united all of our clans against a common enemy: the Draenei. He foresaw a devastating future in which they destroyed us."

The troll was now intrigued by the idea of the white-mountain's significance in a fully consumed state-of-mind that did not dwell on the ritual, but on the uniting factors applied by the Horde spiritualists. "Amazing," he spoke in a low voice, "And... and you jus' took his word for it?"

Khorvis folded his arms and shook his head, "Everyone's account of the gathering unanimously voted against Ner'zhul, but other Shaman began to pour out a common fear. Many chieftains wanted nothing to do with the Horde at first."

"Hard heads. You had no purpose den. Dis way be much betteh fo' you."

The warrior glared, "We burnt the grass, drained the rivers, and destroyed the world. You make me sick when you suggest Warlocks are in any way helpful."

The troll felt his stomach flop. He no longer was as confident in being able to persuade the Warrior about the necessity of the Grim's new undertaking. "Well," Ulrezaj sighed emptily, "Dis Iron Horde hates everyone, seems like Orcs kin be persuaded in more den one way."

Khorvis beamed hatefully, "Go. I consider myself at peace when your ilk is not around."

The troll turned away from the orc, furrowed his brow, and glanced at the ancient orc monument one more time. "How did they lissen in de firs' place?" Ulrezaj's spirit faded out of sight in Khorvis' mind. He would have to return with a more convincing position.

Khorvis fixed his gaze on the soul-bending warlock until he fully vanished. Finally, Khorvis thought, Out of sight. Out of mind. Naturally, the warrior would usually let out a snort followed by a slight laugh at his triumph, but instead a heave and gripping pain in the chest overtook him as he fell knee first into a muddy waterhole.
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Khorvis
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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A rank stench filled the vaulted chamber and the sound of various fel instruments bounced off the old stone walls, gurgling, whining, and hissing. Sickly green lights flared warning sigils against dark smoke. It seemed that the whole room was in a panic as Khorvis's body thrashed on the operating table, clearly reacting poorly to the demonic flesh-graft.

Ulrezaj had since retreated from the patient to commune with his wraithguard and frantically scan various scrolls that had been dug up from the Grim archives concerning orc shamanism.

Reaper Akorharil sat slumped upon a wooden stool and wheezed heavily with exhaustion while Bor'ghul paced in front, cursing and berating the orc warlock.

"You daft gnome-lover! Look at the mess! Commander Stonespire is going to decorate the bloody Frostfire garrison with OUR. PISSING. HEADS!" The garrulous old orc continued his tirade, explaining in gory detail just how many feet of warlock entrails it would take to weave a new Grim banner to lay over Dreadweaver Bloodstar's funeral pyre.

-----

Khorvis wheezed and clutched his chest. The sing-song chirping of Nagrand wrens were a searing siren in his ears and the trickling sunbeams that shot through the canopied branches speckled the warrior in a dizzying kaleidoscope.

He fell face-first into the muddy waterhole and drifted downwards into an impossibly deep abyss. Time shifted, thoughts bubbled, and a new sun - this one a murky orange - sprung gaily upwards over a silhouetted march of red peaks.

Thrashing and vomiting up an antediluvian sea upon the banks of Lake Everstill, Khorvis struggled to his feet and gazed upwards upon the tiled roofs of a quaint country estate in the farming foothills of the Redridge Mountains.

[[ Edited to be more coherent with Pincus's past. ]]
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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[[OOC: Moved Below]]
Last edited by Malhavik on Sun Feb 01, 2015 12:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Akorharil
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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"--six feet of our large intestine! Probably our small intestine too! He's going to rip our heads off and shit down our..."

Akorharil sighed heavily and rubbed at his temples in exasperation. Bor'ghul had been describing their impending execution for the past ten minutes now. He almost admired the crotchety bastards endurance. Almost. He was a heartbeat away from snapping the old orc's neck when Khorvis started to violently spasm upon their makeshift operating table.

"Shit!" The exhausted warlock bolted from his stool and rushed to the Lashers side.

"Shit down our shit? Wha-" the elder warlock was on the verge of launching into another tirade when he noticed the convulsions himself. "SHIT!"

"Grab his feet!" Akorharil barked, pressing down hard on the warriors shoulders in an effort to calm his thrashing. "Fuck, he's going to tear open his wounds! Hurry!"

Bor'ghul was surprisingly spry for an orc of his age, and flung his arms across Khorvis' legs an instant later. He threw his entire weight into holding his body steady, muttering the entire time about how utterly screwed they were.

Akorharil was on the verge of panic. Khorvis' skin was burning hot to the touch -- his immune system was obviously rejecting his recent graft. If they didn't find a way to lower his body temperature fast, his brain would cook inside his skull.

"Fuck! Water! We need water!" He scanned the sanctum, his heart racing. There wasn't so much as a bloody chamber pot in sight.

"PIZLOZ!" Bor'ghul nearly blew a blood vessel as he screamed. "PIZLOZ! GET YOUR FELCRAP ASS OVER HERE AND FIND US SOME WATER!"

The Imp bolted from the room in a panic, obviously terrified. "Okayokayokayokay! Waterwaterwaterwater!"

Akorharil cursed under his breath. He trusted that incompetent Imp about as far as he could shot-put an Ogron. He dug frantically into his belt pouch and produced a broken piece of chalk.

"Keep him still, dammit!"

He dropped to his knees and frantically started to sketch another summoning circle...
Malhavik
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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Malhavik stood staring blankly down the winding halls of The Grim. He had come to seek out a fellow warlock he could trust with a delicate matter, but found them nowhere. "How very peculiar..." He rasped seemingly to himself. He was alone having sent off his demon to search another hallway. He slowly wound his way through the twisting corridors of the halls seemingly rarely used. There were no braziers lit, the only light an eery putrid green emanating from the twin soulstone's hovering over the decrepit warlocks shoulders. The chill of the air felt unusually grimy against his exposed tendons, a faint hint that dark magics were used recently.

Malhavik sat down in the middle of the dimly lit hall, he closed his eyes and began to meditate. He focused his mind on the empty space in his chest where his heart once was. With his bony skinless fingers he reached between his robes and under his rib cage and felt the void in his chest. It was an empty cold hole, yet it had texture. Where the tips of his fingers brushed the void in his chest, a black inky substance clung to them. He slowly withdrew his hand, with shadowy tendrils following behind. With a quick flick of his wrist the tendrils shot out and began slithering across the floor, walls and roof down the corridor in search of dark magics. Malhavik tasted the faint magics lingering through the tendrils protruding from his ribs. After a few moments he tasted a faint demonic energy rapidly scurrying further down into the depths of the massive structure. His eyes flicked open and the tentacles of shadow dissipated to nothing.

"Where might you be going little imp?" He asked curiously to himself. He stood up and briskly ran to after the demon. After several twists and turns he caught sight of the imp. It was running frantically with a bucket of water sloshing all over the place. Malhavik recognized the demon to be one of Pincus' minions.

With a grin, Malhavik shadowed the demon. "Take me to what ever delicious proceeding is happening!" He thought to himself.
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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Malhavik followed the imp to a crude opening in the wall. It looked as though some great magic had melted its way through the mortar. From the opening he heard two voices like grating gravel. He couldn't make out exactly what was being said... something about a life nearly lost... ...narrowly skirting disaster...

Malhavik stepped into the room and his eyes went wide. Before him stood Akorharil, and Bor'ghul staring equally wide eyed at him. It was what was behind them though that caught his eye. It appeared to be a grievously wounded lump of flesh loosely resembling one Khorvis Bloodstar, with a small water elemental perched upon his chest.

"MALHAVIK!" Akorharil boomed, "You specialize in afflictions. His immune system is rejecting our work, if you can suppress it do it now! We will talk later."
Malhaviks eyebrows arched. "Dear me... My Unstable Affliction spell will suppress his bodies resistance significantly. However the primary objective of the spell is to corrupt flesh. I will have to remain beside him until he is stable to ensure that part of the spell is suppressed."

Malhavik quickly approached the twitching orc, summoning the black worm-like tendrils from beneath his ribs. They wrapped gently around the orcs chest, with the tips disappearing into his flesh towards his heart.
"I'll drain most of the affliction with these, leaving just enough of the magic left to suppress his bodies immune system."
In a cheery voice he looked toward the two orcs and asked, "If he happens to wake up while I'm working, would you gents kindly throw me as far away from him as possible?"

With that the warlock closed his eyes and let loose his affliction into the orcs body.
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Pincus
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To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

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"That beast will be the end of me someday", he muttered under his breath, "it is unwilling to follow even simple directions." Pincus stopped as he heard another howl of despair echo through the empty halls. He froze for a moment, then walked with a greater purpose towards the chamber. Not out of fear, but out of concern that his chance may be missed.

Pincus entered the chamber and quickly inspected the situation. Is beady eyes saw his fellow practitioners and Pizloz working on the orc. Blood and water stained the floors and walls. The orc himself was convulsing, with a clump of fleshy material where a hole once was.

"Hmm. You have made some...interesting decisions in how to proceed. However, you have failed to completely stabilize it." Pincus produced an ebony box from under his robes. "Those who follow The Mandate may have heard the name Maledictus, but only in whispers. He was the genesis of our cause. What many do not know, or may not care to remember, is how we would obtain those goals." Pincus's bony fingers scratched along the surface of the box, seemingly triggering a mechanism. A satisfying metallic snap, and the box lid sprung open.

Pincus carefully placed the box down besides the orc. "Maledictus, like myself, were practitioners in the RAS. We had done quite a bit of research on brought us to our...state of being," Pincus explained as he eyed Malhavik. "One would have assumed that work was...ended by the betrayal of Putriss. However, not all work was lost." Pincus removed a small notebook from the box, as well as various small vials. "We experimented with the Plague as we would with any alchemical work. Some strains did nothing...others were quite...lethal." Pincus's fingers touched each vial, looking at the labels written in flowery Gutterscript. He finally came across a vial which seemed to pique his interest. He opened the notebook and rapidly flipped through pages, and the slightest hint of a smile crossed his face.

"As I had mentioned, some were quite deadly strains. Some others were weaker, but seemed to have some characteristics which would be useful in our current endeavor." Pincus picked up the vial and uncorked it carefully with his other hand. "This strain, in particular, is an interesting derivatization. It keeps the regenerative properties whiich aids in...holding us together, but does not spread from host to host. Useless as a weapon, but could be put to good use here." Pincus reached into his robes and pulled out a small needle. "I said this does not spread, but for those who do not want to become...perfect...I would advise you to step back," Pincus said with a wry smile.

Pincus carefully dipped the needle into the vial. The black ichor in the vial stuck to the needle like sap on a tree. He let the contents drip back into the vial, drip by slow drip. When Pincus seemed satisfied with the work, he jammed the needle into the neck of the orc. He left it there while the orc convulsed wildly on the table. He calmly collected the notebook and vials back into the box, and sealed it shut. Next, he removed the needle from the orc's neck, and dropped it to the floor. As it fell, Pizloz snapped its fingers and the needle was incinerated before it hit the floor.

"Hmm. You are not completely useless, imp."
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Khorvas stood in front of a small estate in the Redridge Mountains. The cool air off the lake blew at his back, the warm sun beating down on his face. The gate to the estate was swinging in the breeze. Something felt...right...about the estate. Peaceful. He opened the gate and walked along the path towards the main house.

As he was walking, he noticed two young humans working in the fields. The wind filled Khorvis's nostrils with the sweet smell of various herbs. Khorvis stopped to watched as the two were harvesting the plants. He then noticed something odd; one of them, the boy, had what appeared to be burn marks on his clothes. The girl seemed to be riddled with scar marks, as if she was scratched by a beast, on her face.

The girl looked up and saw Khorvis. "You, you there! If you're the new student, Lord Dorian is expecting you. Hurry up to the house." "Yes, he does not like tardiness!" shouted the boy. Khorvis found this interaction odd, did they not see that they were talking to an orc?

Somewhat bewildered, but curious as well, Khorvis made his way to the front door of the estate house. There was nothing interesting about the place; grey stone walls, heavy wooden door, no sign of fortifications. Something did disturb Khorvis, however. There was no clan markings on the walls. No sign of the family who lives here. This was odd to Khorvis - orcs were proud of their heritage, and he knew humans were as well. Here you have the home of a Lord, but no signs as to who he his, or his family.

Khorvis opened the door and stepped inside. The entry hall was simple like the exterior. No portraits, no tapestries, nothing. Just empty. Through an entry at the end of the hall, a human voice echoed, "Come, you do not want to be late."

Khorvis rushed through the entryway, fearful for being late, but he couldn't sense why he should be afraid. He had entered what appeared to be an office, but its decor was unlike that of the rest of the building. The floor was a polished marble, and the desk at the back of the room was a simple, but elegant, polished wooden desk. The four walls of the room were made entirely of bookcases, at least fifteen feet high. Two wheeled ladders, one on each side of the room, were there to access the upper levels of the bookcases. Standing behind the desk was a human male. The man was tall and thin and impeccably dressed in dark flowing robes. He had a full head of brown hair, and a full beard. Another man stood in a corner, wearing well-worn clothes; covered in dirt and slightly baggy. This man, however, wielded two weapons, a mace and a longsword. Khorvis recognized the look in the man's face, the look of a battle worn soldier.

"Please, come forward, and demonstrate what you can do. I believe you wish to become a student, no?"

Khorvis stared at the robed man for a bit, looking dumbfounded.

"Can you please show me some of your skills. Tell me what you specialize in."

Khorvis replied, "Uhh, I'm good at breaking things."

"Splendid." the man said. He waved his hands and from out of thin air, a wooden attack dummy appeared. "Please, demonstrate your skills to me."

Khorvis cracked his knuckles, and started walking up to the dummy. He clenched a fist and was ready to take a swing when the man shouted.

"What do you think you are doing? You said you can break things - I was hoping to see your skills. Instead you are starting a bar room brawl! What are you, some kind of ignorant beast? Why do you come here to waste my time, did they send you to mock me?"

The man snapped his fingers, and the dummy disappeared as quickly as it came into being. The man snapped his fingers again, and Khorvis felt the floor underneath him get hot. He started dancing around to prevent his feet from burning, the leather on the soles of his shoes beginning to smoulder.

"Stop Lord Dorian. I do not believe he was sent in jest. He is just confused, he did not know this was not a place for his type. He may still be useful to us."

Lord Dorian looked over to the man in the corner and stroked his beard. He snapped his fingers, and the floor became cold again. "Prove me wrong, Richard. Show me that this ignorant hunk of flesh is worth saving."

Richard stepped between Khorvis and the door. He tossed the mace at Khorvis, then drew his sword. "You'll either kill me and escape, or die trying, you lazy peon."

Khorvis wielded the mace and started to attack. He charged Richard, trying to use his size as an advantage to knock him off guard. Richard, however, was quicker than he looks, and spun out of the way, letting Khorvis run headfirst into the bookcase.

"I've seen drunkards in Stormwind fight better that that, fool!"

Khorvis stood up and turned towards Richard. In the back of his mind, there was a small spark, a whisper that sounded like someone from long ago.

Khorvis charged to make another strike, but the outcome was the same.

"Fool! I've killed prisoners who had more fight in them than you."

Khorvis stood up and stared down Richard. The whispers spoke louder in his head: "Kill him, my brother! Strike him down!"

Khorvis grabbed his mace with both hands, and attacked with more determination this time. Instead of trying to knock him off balance, Khorvis squared off with the warrior, parrying and swinging. Richard skill matched that of Khorvis, matching each blow with a well-timed parry. Khorvis noticed out of the corner of his eye Lord Dorian watching quietly, but intently. He got the sense, however, he wasn't watching the fight.

"Brother! Remember what these people have done to you! Humiliated you! Taken your dignity! Defend your honor, brother!" The voice, Khorvis realized, was that of his brother. Enraged, Khorvis's attacks became harder, more reckless. Richard was struggling to keep up with the orc's brute strength. Lord Dorian was beginning to grin a bit as the battle progressed.

"Kill him! Bathe in his blood! Let your bloodlust guide you, my son!" Khorvis heard his father shout. The attacks got more relentless, more fierce. Richard was faltering; his brow covered in sweat and he was beginning to pant heavily.

"Let yourself go and crush these two!" Now the voice had morphed from his father into the raspy sound of a devil, burning in his mind. Khorvis felt the bloodlust ringing in his ears, his head cloudy with rage and hate. Khorvis was swinging the mace faster and faster, determined to define this man's corpse and hold his entrails above his head as a sign of dominance.

Then a quick flash of light from the edge of the longsword. A quick, sharp pain, and Khorvis felt himself collapsing to the floor. As he was falling, he saw Richard, longsword dripping in blood. Khorvis hit the marble floor hard with a thud. In his reflection off the floor, he saw his face sliced open. The voices in his head subdued, his head becoming heavy from the trauma.

As the world faded to black, he saw a pair of feet approaching him. The footfalls echoing from the marble floor got slower, and slower. The voice of Lord Dorian echoed: "See Richard, while his anger gave him strength, it was also his undoing. Now do you understand what I teach here? The importance of self-discipline?"

Just before completely passing out, Khorvis heard the hissing sounds of a Forsaken speaking in his mother tongue. Oddly enough he understood what the voice was saying.

"Patience."

"Discipline"
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Greebo
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Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

Unread post by Greebo »

Greebo sat in the corner of the room, hunched over a ritual table of sorts. He'd had to clear several demon's worth of summoning wax off before reaching a stable surface to work with before finally being able to arrange the results of many years of experimentation before him. Several devices were scattered about, humming and clicking as various energies trapped within them charged, or drained, or simply spun. He had a jeweler's loupe screwed down over his left eye, peering at a purple gem held in a clamp before him but try as he might to ignore the havoc going on behind him, a flying gobbet of flesh spun onto the table and nudged a micro-generator out of alignment and his concentration was broken. "Sooner rather than later I suppose" he sighed to himself. He pushed his stool back from the work in progress and unfolded to his full height and clapped his hands together one on top of the other, rubbing them together to generate a hint of warmth. His fingers angled just so, the rubbing stopped and thin strands of muscle tightened and twitched under the parchment skin. Drawing his hands apart slowly he gritted his teeth and seemed to shrink and shrivel slightly. Between his hands a faint mist appeared and began to coalesce. It grew more solid with each shiver and shake of his body and finally a smooth opalescent sphere dropped onto an outstretched palm.
He turned to a scene of controlled chaos and, waiting for a gap in the pattern of lunging orcs and scurrying imps, limped over to the shattered head of his friend. He patted the ruined skull and issued a few soothing and encouraging noised, tucking an errant lock of hair tidily behind a messy stump of an ear. Massaging his leg as the drained energy slowly seeped back he looked up and around. "It seems we are mmmmm scattered-brained? We always wait for the word lest the ahhhhh angry voices of our leaders wash uncomfortably over their audience." He popped the opal into Khorvis' mouth through a convenient gap in the burned cheek and broken teeth. It nestled there for a few seconds and then evaporated, indigo wisps dissolving into his flesh. "At least his soul is mmmm safe? For a short while." He ran his eyes over the assembled mass and stuck out a talon at Malhavik. "You supplicant, his soul is in your hands. If he dies it will be yours that is shredded to graft and repair. Ahhhhh understood?"
Patting his robes for pockets he remembered in irritation that in his haste he had left his normal pouches behind in his room. "Errr, would any of you have a healthstone about? I need a ahhhh sample." He didn't meet anyone's gaze as he picked one at random from the collection that they all offered him. Standing near the broken remains of Khorvis' head he shifted his weight from foot to foot, watching the orc's breathing, listening to the troll's whisperings. He held the stone in his left hand, clenched tightly into a fist, just over the well broken nose. His right hovered over the right eye, fingers twitching in an intricate dance and then stopping, dead still. He waited for several seconds, and more, until his unnatural silence spread over the room and the others began to notice and wonder. At last Khorvis' body gave up a desperate gasp and arched wildly, nearly knocking his holders back. With a swift crunch the stone was shattered and sucked into what remained of the once-heroic visage but before the healing energies could spread a thin braid of light climbed up out his eye socket and danced about the waiting fingers. It flowed along paths illuminating uncomfortable patterns and necrochemical facets. The last edge closed a few seconds after the stone was exhausted, draining a few more ergs of what remained of the near-corpse on the table.
Holding the tracery in the air before him he turned and shuffled carefully back to his work space and slid the template gently in beside its more solid twin. He snapped his fingers and waved them toward the body. Tarnam stepped out of whatever pocket-dimension he'd been waiting in and trundled a bunch of rods and sticks into the middle of the room. His arms began to blur and the collapsed structure was assembled in a few short moments. It hunched and loomed like its designer, a long armature reached out grasping at nothing, sharp spike were driven deep into the stone (and oh would he here it from the coin-masters when *that* was discovered) and with a final click it was ready. Greebo carried a number of devices over to the frame and began to attach them to various sockets and flanges. Some of the technology was familiar, heating coils, nether extruders, probes and sensors to measure the warp and weft of various realities, but others had a distinctly hand-made appearance and had wires leading nowhere or invisible power sources. Several of them bore the familiar BS maker's mark but the more esoteric all had a compound BS (tm) etched somewhere. Bloodscream would be incredibly angry if he knew that his work had been extended to harness Fel energies but he might grudgingly accept that Khorvis' life was worth it. Greebo returned to the table and then gingerly carried the clamp assembly and hooked it into place directly over the burned eye-socket. He looked up at his fellow fel-mancers. "Direct access to the ahhhh retinal nerve and the deep neural structures, you see." He flicked a switch and the various hums and whirs began to grow louder, less synchronous, and more disturbing. Intermittent flickers of pale lightning coursed back and forth from the orc to the tracery extracted earlier but the angle of the instrumentation forced them the pass through the solid soul gem that he had created in another place and time. "From a pre-extisting template, you understand, for the mmmm filtering?" He stood watching for a minute or two but once everything seemed stable (for a given definition of the word and not in a sense that the sane would accept) he started to breath again and, stretching his frame in preparation for another long and pain-staking task he looked about the room. "If anyone has any experience with hypoallergenic nano-threads, now is the moment to speak. We will need to root the curtain into his mind. The gem will obviously provide the necessary translations and I think we can all imagine the power source, but the maxillofacial mimicry will require extensive penetration. Unless you imagined something as simple as a mirror!" At this he guffawed but an instant later any trace of amusement was gone. "I think we can all agree that the High Inquisitor requires considerably more than a childish scribble of a face. Fear and dismay can, of course, be guaranteed but his work with the supplicants requires more mmmm finesse?"
Grisbault, Twice-Made.
The p, s, l, and t are silent, the screams are not.
Malhavik
Posts: 46

Re: To Rebuild. To Bridge the Fel. [[Closed]]

Unread post by Malhavik »

Malhavik strained to control his magic. The unstable affliction was appropriately named, and proving very difficult keep under control. His energy was draining fast, and he had brought no soul shards with him, save the two he kept with him at all time. The two containing the souls of his closest friends, the friends he killed, Tahma, and Folak. A wave of sorrow washed over the warlock, distracting him and nearly causing his draining spell to falter. With a grunt he quickly regained control, feeling the strain of his exhausting mind.

Greebo's words echoed in his head. He had no doubt his dark brethren would rip him apart should he falter. A new mana supply was going to be required to keep this up. He had vowed long ago to keep his former companions souls with him to forever remind him of what he had done, and he immediately threw the idea of using them out. He thought briefly of stealing the imp pizloz' soul, but couldn't afford to break concentration to collect it. Let alone what the demons master would do in retaliation... He would just have to bear the strain. Malhavik concentrated on his work, and prayed Ulrezaj kept the Lashers mind at ease. Any more fuel for the affliction to feed on and Malhavik would have to make a serious decision, less his own soul be burned for mana.
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