The Relentless Slaughter [Round 3: Tormentorland]

The Relentless Slaughter [Round 3: Tormentorland]
#28
Re: The Relentless Slaughter [STARTING SOON]
Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

If someone had told Dorin she would die by noon today, she would have believed it completely, which made it all the harder for the young girl to accept that she didn't.

First, of course, came the realisation that her body was covered in golden rings, almost emitting beams strong and bright enough to plainly pierce through the shading being cross-hatched across the castle walls in dim red and black.

The girl looked around in a tense panic, shaking her body heavily and barely holding her head in one place long enough to stare at her every limb and mouth the word “No.” It seemed as if any moment she could lose focus and spin straight to the ground. That was why the Tormentor slowly started adding bilestained spikes beneath the dirtfloored façade she was chucked upon. And soon more through the façade she went to lean against.

Then during the flailing and dashing at the walls she noticed the floating shimmering crystal that followed her around. As far as it could manage, it wore a worried gaze.

She cried. She cried like she was six years old and left everyone she had grown up with insofar one could call her life growing, and had to live below ground for the rest of her life. She cried like way back at that moment, the only other time she felt truly helpless and abandoned by everyone. She cried like the time she had tried to run away, like the countless times she had tried to run away which had only bore the fruit of countless days alone and afraid in a small, white, solitary cell made of immaculately white bricks, sobbing away her days crouched into a cramped sadness she knew only she could feel.

But then came entirely different tears. Then came the tears she narrowly managed to hold back when she had said goodbye, the tears of knowing that this time there would be no “Talk you you later” or “See you again sometime,” and then seeing that person again. They were tears for Shik'skara, her friend and guide. She didn't care whether or not is was possible to hug a Shard, she did it anyway. Calmly and slowly and her hands covered in radiant light and lambent teardrops, she simply held the little crystal in both hands, still sobbing.

And after fully coming to terms with being a portal to, or rather from a distant realm, and reuniting with Shik'skara, silence helping the conversation along like a parent teaching a child to ride a bike, completely tuned to each other and its hand in theirs every step of the way, then she started truly understanding exactly her situation. And only then did the words of that horrible tormentor sink in.

Dorin was on a very good track here with her train of thought, but suddenly crashed and derailed into the burning wreckage of her throat simply dying. There were no other words for this pain. It died.


From between her body and head drilled a small dragonlike spirit, head with little horns and grinningly fuming white smoke out of its nostrils, but a snakelike body, slender and without limbs. The excruciating pain was just as much something stabbing into her as something crawling out, and spread through her entire body at the very moment it only so much as poked through one of her golden holes. And when she collapsed to the ground after the exertion, and almost lost consciousness due to the sheer pain she had experienced, not even by the hand of this so-called fear elemental, it began anew, only much more acute.

From every part of her body escaped several of similar being to the first one. Spirits of nature and water and victory flew through the synthetic, white air, murmurs spreading in the castle, yawns of at least a hundred beasts of transcendence having slept for years on end. The whispering tone grew both in joyfulness and volume, growing into a true cacophony of noise. Ticklish feet crawling over her arms and legs and her dress flitting in the draft of spirits flying out from underneath it were both suppressed by the immense terror and pain coursing through her veins.


And then she remembered what that god had said: She had failed.

Dorin was in pain and tired and definitely not in a situation to suddenly jump up, but she couldn't help herself as calamity grabbed her by the throat, as if about to suspend her in the air and choke her against the metal tips of slowly creeping spikes. The torture she was experiencing, the battle she was chucked into and the god berating her of her actions, it all made sense. She hadn't died, but why? There had to be a reason. There has to be, there's a reason to everything!

First, she decided the most logical thing to blame was that impious glass of water. She soon decided after feeling another small lizard stab through her leg and escape that such a punishment was to fierce for drinking water.

Next, she looked more broadly, trying desperately to run by her entire life in little over twenty seconds. Needless to say, she didn't exactly find anything at first glance. Were it her constant objections to her fate while she was young? Did she bring this upon herself by sneaking Corban into the guild?

When facing a punishment without any idea what you did to deserve it, it's hard to not freak out.


Perhaps silence didn't exactly do the past situation justice in retrospect. While communicating through the unspoken is rather poetic as a symbol of a strong bond making a silence say “Calm down, the Tormentor is probably lying to get to you, this is all part of the process” is a smidge too specific. As it was, it was pretty obvious Shik'skara had to cut in and snap her out of it, because she was losing her mind alarmingly quickly.

“Dorin, please relax! Nothing bad is going on!”


“You call this nothing bad? Look at me, Shik, I'm a lightbulb!”

“Yes, but... That's supposed to be.”

“You mean... I didn't fail?”

“I mean I don't know. I do know that the Tormentor we shouldn't trust him.”

A small, white feline crept from under her collar and introduced itself. On its own it was already a strange sight, but combine it with the girl doubling over in agony while it popped out its adorable head and you truly get an incomprehensible situation.

“Eske, skara'ets! So'o Kanteron!”


“Eske, Kanteron'ets. Veki'iks pfaitei mai'o?”

“So'e paskai tra'iks. Meki so'a, schafai? Tikai so'a skam-ontai?”

“So'a.”

“A. So'a schafai-tischai-ei.”

“Ki.”


“What're you saying, Shik? Can that cat help me?”

“Not in the meaning you mean. He is the god of the water. He can give you powers if you want.”

“Great. Just great. First that thing crawls out of me, and nearly kills me – “ Dorin was clearly overreacting a bit by now. The pain had subsided for the most part. “ – And now it's gonna help me using the power of water? What's that gonna do to help us? We're in a dungeon!”

“Well, water's over there.”

Dorin saw the young guy she had been introduced to as being a demon get attacked by some alligator equipped with two flamethrowers. Okay, what?!

In the same graceful fashion the cat had without much ado left Dorin's body – and admittedly with her constant cringes and spasms such a feat was rather hard to pull off with any grace at all – it lifted its front paw and a shield of water raised before Samael. Searing flames the devices spat out collided with the sudden surge to create a troubled smokescreen, but even that proved little an impediment for Dorin's lucent body. It soon dissipated, clearing up the area, and revealing to Samael his supposed saviour.

quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur.
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Messages In This Thread
Re: The Relentless Slaughter [STARTING SOON] - by Woffles - 02-16-2011, 11:37 PM