PlaneShift
Fan Area => Roleplaying (Communitive Storywriting) => Topic started by: Suno_Regin on November 20, 2007, 10:12:57 pm
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Part One
Retribution
A dark figure leaped from the mountainside, landing further down the base and continuing to run down after hitting ground. His scythe gleamed from the small light given off from the lava flowing down the mountain beside him. His long black hair streamed gracefully in the air as he ran, and his legs kept their pace for as long as he remained on the mountainside. Leaping one final time, he raised his scythe and slashed into the crowd at the base of the mountain, instantly slaying one of them, knocking others on the ground with the shaft. Quickly, the Diaboli on the ground backed away, and looked in terror at the dark figure that had just appeared after gaining distance. Their friend lie dead, and this mysterious figure stood over the corpse, looking down at it as his scythe was held high in the air with both hands. His pure black eyes then glanced at everyone in the area, the purple markings on his flesh pulsating like a bloodstream, and his dark armor shined as the lava finally reached the base of the mountain.
No movements were made, only observations and cowering...when suddenly, the dark figure stabbed the scythe's shaft into the ground, and his arm began to light the area with dark electricity. It circulated for a few seconds, then he dashed at the nearest person, holding his normal arm in front as the one filled with the electrical current flew behind his back as he ran. The man he was after tried to stand up and run, but the dark figure grabbed him by the horn, and as he thrusted back to look at his death, before even a second passed, the creature held his face in his palm. The electricity circulated faster, and suddenly an explosion knocked the man's body back a few yards as it was ignited with a black flame, blood gushing from the hole in his neck.
The dark figure looked at his hand, a grin coming across his face...then he looked back at everyone else. A few of them began to scream, others tightened the grip on their blades and charged at him. The creature jumped back and grabbed his scythe from the ground, and charged at them as well. Before clashing, he hit the ground with the tip of the scythe's shaft, launching himself in the air above the crowd. They looked back at him when he landed, but were not fast enough to react as he sweeped them down with the scythe. Three of them were beheaded, the fourth lie on the ground cowering...she tripped and fell before being hit. She rolled around and looked up at the dark figure, seeing that he was now looking down into her eyes. She realized that he didn't look like a native demon...but instead more like a Diaboli upon closer inspection. He had horns and a tail like the rest of them, his skin was the same color as theirs, the only difference being his unusual eyes and the markings across his body. She looked at the scythe as it was slowly rising over her body, and she screamed as the scythe began to come down upon her with great force. The last thing she saw before her death was the purple spiral drawn on the scythe pulsating like the markings on the flesh of the Diaboli.
He turned around and realized that everyone else had abandoned their friends, and noticed that the lava was slowly catching up with him. He quickly ran from it, and after a few steps reached a river that had a strong current of blood flowing downstream...without hesitation, he jumped into it and disappeared...
-
Life Changing Experience
In the wasteland of the Diaboli homeworld, there was a promise made to the inhabitants that they would find a peaceful land where they could live happily, far away from where they are now. Vodùl said that he would made a portal to a place called Yliakum, dubbed the 'promised land'. At that time, Nalkorash, an ordinary Diabolo, was happy that he and his family could go somewhere away from all of the demons and thieves roaming around the land.
"What are we going to do once we get there?" Nalkorash asked his elderly mother.
"Hm...well I suppose if we're being offered this chance to move away, they'll show us how to adapt once we get there. I'm sure we'll know once that time comes."
They walked down the path, smoke clouding the sky from a volcano that had just erupted a few kilometers away from where they were. They were carrying a wagon full of supplies. Nalkorash's little brother and his mother were riding in the wagon, while he and his father helped pull it to the location of where the portal was going to open.
"Where are we going Nal?" his little brother asked him.
"To a place...where we can be happy," he replied with a smile on his face.
They setup a fire after they started to get weary, and fell asleep next to it. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, Nalkorash heard a scream. He woke up and saw that his mother had been slain...and thieves were raiding their camp. Nalkorash watched, taking deep breaths trying to figure out what he was seeing. A man saw him staring, and walked up to him, grabbing his chin and looking into his eyes.
"Where's the food, huh?" he asked, his breath smelling like rotten fish. He was unable to reply, just staring into the eyes of the thief and trying to keep from making too much sound with his breaths. The thief spit in his face and pulled out a dagger, stabbing him in the arm. He let out a shriek from the pain, and fell to his side grabbing his arm where he'd been stabbed. It throbbed heavily, and he couldn't stop the bleeding.
He looked over to see that his little brother and his father were already slain as well, and the thieves were walking off with their cargo toward the portal...the man who'd stabbed him turned back around and looked at him, wondering if he was going to die or not. Not waiting too long to find out, he stabbed Nalkorash in the chest with the same dagger, and picked him up as he was unconscious from losing so much blood. He threw him into a nearby river filled with blood, and ran to catch up with his gang.
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Contamination
Nalkorash blinked, and suddenly thrusted his head in all directions, looking around trying to figure out where he was. He felt something pushing against his legs, and he realized that he was waist-deep in the river of blood. He quickly pushed himself out and ran a few steps backwards, tripping and falling on his back. He layed there and tried to recall what had just happened to him, images of his slain family, and the thieves coming to mind...he started to cry heavily, tears pouring from his eyes, and his breathing was so distorted from the pain of loss that he made loud yelps trying to regain himself.
Just then, his head began to throb heavily, and he shook rapidly with pain. His eyes lost their color, and faded into black. He held his head in his hands and screamed as something began to penetrate through his skin from the inside. The feeling stopped once whatever was inside of him reached the surface. It appeared to be a full-body tattoo that had a rough feel to it, and crawled on his skin like a parasite. It started to grow up from his arms and legs. Once the parasite reached his chest via the legs, it began to crawl into some sort of symmetrical shape. They shot downward in opposite directions upon reaching his breasts, and when reaching the side of his torso, they circled off and came to a stop. At the point where they curved on his breast, they rose up to his neck, another parasitic marking growing down from where it started to continue up his neck and forming a V-shape in the middle of his chest. Right before crawling on his face, they parted and went around his neck, then stopped...then it continued up to his face and on his cheeks, and began to spiral around his horns, stopping at the very tip of them. The parasite's markings on his arms cut off when forming a circle on the back of his hands, and when reaching the neck, they connected with the parasitic marking that was already formed there. Suddenly, it began to sink into his flesh, losing its rough feel, but keeping the markings on his body.
He could do nothing but make sounds of terror, his skin was itching and burning from what had just happened...he opened his eyes and noticed that everything looked different to him now...everything was black, and hard to make out. He looked back into the river of blood and noticed that it was also black...when looking at his own hands, the only thing that had color to him were the markings that had appeared on his flesh. As he began to examine his body, he noticed that the markings sort of...pulsated. The feeling had disappeared now, but he saw something flow through them...it looked like blood, but of a different color. Suddenly he screamed again, and fell back down to the ground trying to figure out what happened to him...was something in that river? He wasn't sure, but after about an hour he stood and blinked a few times to try and fix his vision, but to no avail.
He started to walk alongside the river, remembering that he'd heard tales of slain demons being tossed into these rivers...that's probably why it was filled with blood. And with the open cuts that were on his body, that blood got inside of him and...a realization came over him just then. His wounds were completely healed...and that demon blood was now inside of his body...he closed his eyes and could do nothing but shake with terror, not believing all that happened in such a short time...was he now a demon...?
In a few seconds, his thoughts slowly died, and his body moved itself back down along the river, looking around for something. He was no longer himself...
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Recovery
His feet were dragging across the ground as he walked. He was completely lifeless, the darkness in his eyes being a void. All he could hear was the sound of the ground shaking from another volcano getting ready to erupt, and the sound of the blood from the river smacking against rocks along the riverside. While walking, Nalkorash heard strange noises coming from his own body. He looked down and realized that there was electricity circulating all over him...however, he could feel nothing from it, and continued to walk. He didn't really care, either...he had no more feelings of fear or anguish, as the demon inside of him was mostly in control now. He'd lost so much blood from being stabbed, that the demon blood took place of all the blood he'd lost, and filled his veins, giving him new life...that may be the reason why he wasn't dead.
Demons were hard to kill, as their wounds healed quickly. The only real way to kill them that the Diaboli knew of, was chopping off their limbs and drowning them in the rivers. This was not easy, but some warriors were able to do it. Some demons were intelligent, and the Diaboli were able to speak with them, but most were barbaric...Nalkorash had been given a mix of different bloods. The "parasite" that was in his skin, was really the demon blood clashing, and trying to find the proper veins to flow through in his body...with them not being provided, they created their own veins, and sunk back into his flesh to meld with the others once that was completed. Some of the more intelligent demons carried magical aptitude, and it was apperant that Nalkorash had more blood from intelligent demons than barbaric ones from the lightning circulating around his body...
The portals were beginning to close, as those who wished to go to Yliakum were already there. It would be a few days yet before they were sealed off completely, though. Nalkorash completely forgot about them, and continued to walk down the riverbank, making a moaning noise while doing so. His nervous system was much more complicated now that the demon blood was inside of him...this made it hard to use his brain correctly. He found a home built near the river, and walked right through the door, finding an aged Diaboli sitting in a chair looking in the direction of the portal...the old man looked up at him, his eyes widening.
"You...are you a demon?" he asked curiously. Nalkorash could not answer, only make a louder moan, "I see...hold on, I'll be right back, let me get something."
The old man returned shortly after, carrying a knife. Nalkorash stood there and watched him as he raised the knife to the markings on his body, and poked at them. Suddenly, he slit them in certain areas, purple blood gushing out. The electricity that had been circulating his body died down, and his thoughts started to return to him...he blinked, and looked at the old man, standing there trying to figure out what was going on. He slit another vein, and Nalkorash winced, now feeling slight pain, but let him continue. The veins suddenly shot back up from his flesh as they did when they first appeared, and began to refill the areas that were bleeding. The old man kept cutting down at them, and he lost much of the demon blood that was contaminating his body...
"That should do it...can you talk?" he asked.
"Ugh...what? What'd you just do...?" Nalkorash squinted to look at the old man, his vision no longer blackened, but it was still a little blurry.
"I don't know what happened to you, but it seems your veins were pumping demon blood. That's dangerous, you know? With that much demon blood contaminating your veins, you could have really become a demon," the old man laughed, knowing that wasn't true.
"What are you talking about...?"
"Seems you don't have your memory back yet. Rest here for a while, let me take care of you..."
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Preparation
Nalkorash opened his eyes and saw the old man hovering over him.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Better...do you have anything to eat?"
"Oh, yes, hold on," the old man said, and walked into another room to go get some meat.
Nalkorash rested his head back against the floor and looked up at the ceiling, recalling what happened to his family once more. However, he couldn't cry, and he didn't even feel bad...it was strange to him. After a few minutes, the old man returned.
"Here, try this," the old man said, handing him meat that was stretched out and wrapped around some sort of stick. He took a bite and smiled.
"I love it!" Nalkorash said, feasting on it like an animal...or rather, a demon. "Do you have anymore?" he asked excitedly.
"Yes, yes...hold on," the old man said with a smile, walking back into the other room, returning a few seconds later carrying a makeshift plate with much more meat arranged on it. Without hesitation, Nalkorash grabbed all he could fit in his arms and wolfed it all down hastily. When finishing, he tossed the leftover sticks and even part of the plate back...on the plate. He didn't realize that he accidentally ate part of the plate, too. The old man laughed as he sat there with his hand on his stomach.
"I guess you have a big appetite with that blood inside of you. I'm surprised you're adapting to it so well."
"I don't know what you're talking about, but that was delicious," Nalkorash said. The old man laughed once more.
"You know, the portals are closing soon...you'd better hurry if you wish to go to Yliakum. I'm sure you won't want to stay here."
"What do you mean?" Nalkorash asked. Suddenly, he remembered that when this all started, his family was ready to go through the portals and live peacefully in Yliakum, "Oh...I still have something to do here..." Nalkorash said uncertainly.
"Oh? And what might that be?" the old man asked.
"I need to get back at the people who did this to me...do you know how?"
"There's something you should know about demons," the old man said. "Do you know where their weapons come from?"
"I've never seen a demon up close...so no, I don't."
"Their weapons are created from their essence. Depending on the strength of the demon, they could make nasty weapons of war...of course, only intelligent ones knew to do that. I'm curious now, since you're in control...do you think you can do that?"
"How.?" Nalkorash asked again.
"Do you remember the electricity that was circulating your body earlier?"
"I think so...why?"
"Try to summon it again. Just remember the feeling of it."
"Alright, I'll try." Nalkorash raised his arm in the air. In no time at all, it grew stiff, and the lightning circulated wildly around his arm.
"Good, good! Now, take it and try to focus it into your palm," the old man said, impressed.
Nalkorash did pretty much the opposite of that. He closed his fist, leaving a medium-sized hole between his fingers and his palm, and the electricity somehow magnetized the flesh on his arm, dragging it slowly toward the hole in his fist.. Along the way, it picked up bone marrow as well. Nalkorash couldn't move his arm at all, and as the flesh and bone crawled inside of the hole in his hand, it began to form itself into a large weapon; a scythe. The blade was dark, like his skin, and had markings like the demon blood veins that were on his arm. Quickly, his arm began to regenerate the flesh and bone marrow he lost to make the weapon, and the electricity stopped circulating.
"Amazing!" the old man said in awe.
Nalkorash took many deep breaths to regain himself, then stared at the blade.
"Did I...make this?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, you did! That was exciting to watch. You didn't look like you'd live through that!" the old man laughed.
"You just let me risk my life to do that...?" Nalkorash said as he glared at the old man, annoyed.
"Well, you said you wanted to get revenge...that's risking your life too, isn't it?"
"I suppose..." Nalkorash said, looking back at the blade.
"Now, I'm going to give you something to help you out. Wait here." The old man said, running up the stairs and into a room that was cold from the holes in the tethering composing the ceiling of the house. Nalkorash stared at the spiral stairway, then all at once a huge trunk began to tumble down from the second floor, sounding like it would make a hole in the floor any with each thump. Nalkorash lifted himself up and pushed on the trunk before it could hit the bottom of the stairway, lowering it slowly until it was safe where it sat. The old man walked down and looked at him with a dumb grin on his face.
"Oops...dropped it," he said with a chuckle.
"You idiot...this is your house, you know?"
The old man looked down at the chest, "Open it...you might like what you find."
Nalkorash shrugged, and without much hesitation opened the chest, finding that there was dark plate mail armor inside of it, along with worn robes that the sleeves had been torn off of, "I can have these?" he looked up at the old man and asked.
"Of course, you have more use for it than I do."
"Thanks..." he said, a smile finally creeping upon his face as well.
"With your amount of strength, you should climb up the mountain over there," the old man said, pointing at a mountain from the doorway. "You'll get a good view of whatever you're looking for from up there."
Nalkorash looked outside, then looked back at the old man.
"Guess this is goodbye then..." Nalkorash said, already putting on the armor and stuffing the robe inside.
"Oh, before you go, take this..." the old man said, handing him a vial of purple liquid.
"What's this?" Nalkorash asked.
"It's your blood. It was quite overpowering not being fully focused, but if you drink it like it is now, it should give you back some of the power you lost from when I slit your veins."
"So...you want me to drink blood?" Nalkorash said to him questionably.
"Yes, trust me...you won't regret it."
"Alright..." Nalkorash said with a shrug, drinking the blood in the vial.
"There, feel better?" the old man asked.
"I don't know...am I supposed to?" Nalkorash said after finishing.
"You will with time, I suppose. You'd better get going, the people you're after might have gone through the portal already."
"Alright...I can't thank you enough for what you've done for me. Take care of yourself..." Nalkorash said, racing out of the house after putting on the rest of the armor.
He stared up at the peak of the mountain, realizing that it was actually a volcano. He sighed, knowing he'd probably regret climbing. He shrugged off the feeling of nervousness, and began his ascent. Halfway up the mountain, he began to feel strange. Even though the mountain wasn't steep at all, he felt dizzy like he'd fall. But he regained himself and continued, and eventually a strange craving overcame him. He wasn't sure what it was, though. The electricity began to shock more rapidly, but he shook it off, trying to focus only on reaching the top. He was glad the volcano wasn't very tall or steep, as he wasn't used to this feeling he was having, and he was afraid of falling. The electricity died down when he reached the top, and he looked around for the bandits that killed his family. Almost instantly, he spotted the wagon and grinned wickedly. As the blood he drank began to take its full effect, he returned to an emotionless state like before, but he could still think clearly. He ignored the volcano's rumbling, which was a sign it was about to erupt. His only focus was retribution...
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Avenged
Nalkorash crawled out of the river after hitting a rock while being washed downstream, growling. He got on both feet, slouching down with his scythe held in both hands, looking around fiercely for those who escaped. The people he killed, he did not even remember seeing the day he was thrown in the river...but in his new emotionless state after drinking from the vial, he was determined to kill everyone who was near his family's murderers, regardless of who they might be. However, after an hour of searching, he still could not find the wagon. He could vaguely remember the old Diaboli he met earlier telling him about the portals closing soon...but he could not find the urge to rush to them...he was having so much fun. He grinned wickedly, and kept on searching, realizing that they might have left the wagon behind when he ambushed them. He began searching out individuals, finding it hard to do so as the area was nearly abandoned...he began to think that everyone might have gone to the portals to get away from this place. He couldn't let that happen...he searched out the volcano that he climbed earlier. He ran opposite the direction the river he crawled out of was flowing, eventually finding it. From there, he saw the old man's hut, and remembered that from the holes in the tethered walls, he was watching the portals. Simply gazing in that direction, he could see many people still walking down the roads in that direction...seeing one group traveling with his family's wagon.
He grinned as his blood boiled with excitement, sprinting in the direction of the wagon, dying to kill the remainder of the thieves. Reaching them in a matter of minutes, he leaped in the air and landed on top of the wagon, the ones carrying it looking up at him with a terrified expression on their faces. He grinned down at them, and leaped from the wagon to the ground in front of them, sweeping them with his scythe and killing them in one slash. From the light shriek they made, the man who Nalkorash remembered had stabbed him and thrown him in the river emerged from the wagon. He stepped onto the dirt and looked him over, laughing as he unsheathed the scimitar that was hanging on his belt. Nalkorash widened his eyes, and sprinted at the man with great force, swinging his scythe uncontrollably. The man tried to parry him, but he was completely overpowered and sent flying in the direction the scythe was being swung in, dropping his blade and crashing against a tall rock. One of his horns got stuck, and as he tried to pull himself out, Nalkorash was already a few feet in the air, scythe raised, ready to end his life. The man thrusted his head to the side, his horn being ripped out of his head, still stuck in the rock. Nalkorash's scythe missed, and instead cut the rock halfway down the middle, and he turned fiercely to the man running backwards in another direction trying to reorient himself. He completely ignored the pain of losing his horn, and he pulled out two daggers that were hanging on each side of his belt, one being next to where the scimitar used to be.
The man dashed at him as fast as he could, daggers flying behind his back, in a few seconds being raised in front of his body to stab Nalkorash. He simply stood and let the daggers hit, one in his back, the other in his side. He looked down at the wounds for a few seconds, then grinned and looked into the eyes of the thief. Nalkorash took his right hand off of his scythe, and it began to emit electricity. The man quickly backed off, and Nalkorash's wounds boiled back to normal.
"What the hell are you...?" the man asked with a scared look on his face upon seeing the wounds recovering.
"You bastards ruined my life. Now you'll pay by offering me a little...fun." Nalkorash said with laughter in his voice.
The man started to run away, but upon turning around, Nalkorash was standing behind him, his scythe gone and both arms now emitting electricity. He grabbed both of the man's arms, and in an instant they exploded, the man shrieking with pain and being blasted to the ground, his shoulders and soon the rest of his body igniting with a dark flame. Nalkorash returned to the rock and grabbed his scythe, then walked to the man's smoldering body, which was still screaming. He lowered his scythe to the man's neck, and with the word, "goodbye," ended the man's life by impaling the scythe in the side of his neck.
Looking back to the wagon, Nalkorash began to walk slowly over to it, the grin still plastered on his face. With one swipe he ripped the wagon's tethering, two people cuddling with each other while asleep sat inside of it. They did not wake up upon his arrival, and he crouched down to them both, breathing heavily and laughing with anticipation. The woman woke up and looked at him, screaming, waking the other person up and having him fall over on top of Nalkorash's scythe which was held with the blade pointing up at him.
The woman screamed louder as the man was now dead after falling onto the scythe, tears pouring from her eyes. Nalkorash recognized her as the woman who was standing next to his mother's corpse when she'd been slain, and moved himself closer to her, his face being but an inch away from hers. He raised the scythe and it was snugly wrapped around her neck, the blade being dangerously close to her as the shaft was on the opposite side keeping her from escaping. Her screaming stopped, and she made light moans of fear as her tears still had not stopped flowing. Nalkorash laughed with a high-pitched tone, thrusting the scythe to the side, ripping her head clean off her neck...
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Corruption
This was it. He killed those who'd slaughtered his family, but...now what? Nalkorash wondered this upon walking out of the wagon after slaying the girl. He wasn't satisfied; he had a craving to kill...not because he wanted to, but because it just gave him a nice feeling.
He walked in the direction the wagon was originally going, seeing more people walking along the way. He looked them over, his scythe still in his hand, and found it hard to resist the urge to leap at them and cut them. A few people looked in his direction. Children hid behind their parents, some who were carrying luggage hid behind or inside of it as it was being moved, and others were giving him angry looks, reaching for their weapons, thinking he was a demon. Actually, they weren't far off, since with Nalkorash's emotionless state and strange powers, along with his craving to kill, he closely resembled a demon. Nalkorash looked amusedly at those who were reaching for their weapons, and changed directions to walk directly at them, walking faster with each step, soon running, then sprinting.
He reached back with his scythe, and began to swing, but all he did was destroy their caravan...these were no ordinary people. They jumped over the scythe before impact, and all three of them surrounded him, their scimitars and rapiers drawn. Nalkorash looked around at each one of them. After swinging, his stance was standing on both legs with his hand to the ground, scythe raised in the air diagonally.
They charged at him, but before making a move, Nalkorash thought about what might happen when fighting warriors of their skill. If he tried to swing at all three of them at once, they might jump again when he's vulnerable and try to slay him. He couldn't run, as they were covering most of his possible choices of directions thoroughly. His only choice was to dodge, and that's what he did. Before impact, he jumped out of the way, and landed behind one of them, their backs face to face. Nalkorash didn't have time to turn his scythe around, so he jabbed the man in the back with the tip of the scythe's shaft, disorienting him as the other two charged at him once more, yelling, "die, demon!" and other such phrases.
They were no longer surrounding him, and this gave Nalkorash more choices of action. He could charge at them and do what he did back at the volcano, or simply sweep them down. However, he was getting ahead of himself, and ran out of time to think as they drew closer. He rolled out of the way, then lunged at one of them with his scythe, barely making contact, but ripping his jacket slightly, and leaving a small cut in his side. He easily shook it off like nothing happened, and Nalkorash drew back his scythe, jumping out of the way of the third man who just regained his balance that was charging at him.
Shaking his head to get rid of his thoughts, he relied solely on his instincts now, and made a high-pitched laugh as sprinted at the man who he'd just avoided, his scythe held with both hands behind his body to his right, and with one sweep before the man could turn around, nearly impaled him in the side, but before that could happen, one of the men jumped in front of the scythe and parried it by the shaft, the blade held close to his left side. The man grabbed the shaft, and they began to play a dangerous tug-of-war with each other. Either the man loses his grip and gets cut, or Nalkorash loses his weapon.
As they were pulling, the other man began to rush at Nalkorash from behind, and glancing to his back, Nalkorash slid to the ground and kicked the man's legs, tripping him and having him hit his head on the shaft of the scythe while they were still pulling. The man gained a little distance with the scythe, but Nalkorash decided to end it, and he swung the scythe to the side, taking the man up with it, and launched him with great force into the smashed caravan, making him lose grip on the scythe, but Nalkorash losing his chance to slay him then and there, instead only knocking him out.
The man on the ground that'd just been tripped was regaining his balance, but could not get up in time to avoid the scythe already being forced down upon him. In an instant, the man laid dead, and the only one who remained standing was the one who just regained himself after his friend parried the blow for him. It was he and Nalkorash now, standing parallel to each other, looking each other in the eye as they walked sideways in opposite directions in a circular motion. Nalkorash held his scythe out with one arm running against it, the other hand holding the tip of the scythe's shaft. The other man was slightly crouched down, his scimitar held out with one hand, the other making the same motion but without a weapon.
Finally, they charged at each other, Nalkorash now having his scythe drawn back, the man holding his scimitar with both hands now, similar to Nalkorash's position with his scythe, as he ran. They both swung at each other once they got close, but Nalkorash had the obvious distance advantage, and impaled the man in the side, lifting him up with his scythe as the weapon dropped out of his hands, and flung his corpse toward the wrecked caravan, his body landing near the man who was just now waking up from being knocked out earlier. He shook his head, and looked up at Nalkorash who was now standing over him. He got a good look at Nalkorash, and realized that he wasn't a demon, but instead Diaboli...
"Why are you doing this!?" the man asked. "Our kind don't do this to each other! We're getting ready to enter the new world, why would you start all of this now?"
"Maybe I like it here...maybe this is how I choose to live my life," Nalkorash implied, raising his scythe over the man's body, ready to kill him.
"Well, I guess this is it then...I hope the new Gods rid the life from your body," the man said, going into a laugh as a tear ran down his cheek, releasing his last breaths. Nalkorash hesitated no longer, and ended the man's life, looking around at the other bodies, and then looked up at the wrecked caravan, excitement returning to his face...
-
Part Two
Justice
A demon's blood spilled onto the ground, the corpse falling soon after. The figure of a woman stood valiantly behind where the demon once stood, returning her blade to the loose fitting on her back, and picking up the demon's remains before they could heal themselves, tossing them into the nearest river she could find. Wiping her hands clean with a piece of cloth from her sack, she followed the river's stream, looking around for other signs of demons. Her long hair swayed from side to side as she walked, her body making a slightly similar motion. Her skin had strange purple markings streaking across it, but her eyes, though pitch black with no pupil or iris, had much kindness showing in them. She put the cloth away, and reached for the handle of her blade as two demons began to approach her from the opposite side of the river, snarling at her fiercely. She drew her blade and leaped across the river at the demon on the left, her blade held with both hands around the right side of her body, getting ready to slit the demon's neck. Before impact, the second demon sharply smacked her body away with its hand, disorienting her slightly, but she stayed on her feet upon landing a few seconds later.
She took a calming breath, and put her sword back into the fitting, her arms giving off a strange glow. Rune-like markings began to spin around her elbow and wrist, and the palms of her hands began to emit a light that stretched out into what looked like a hexagon. She wrapped her hands into fists, and charged at the demons, with no weapon held in her hands at all. The demons made a strange high-pitched shriek, and began to charge at her as well. The arms of the demon on the left emitted another strange light, its arms having electricity circulate around them instead of runes, and at a rapid rate to where the demon beside it had to turn its head away slightly. The right demon held a small cleaver in the opposite hand at which it smacked the woman away, using that same hand to help move itself along with its legs as it held the cleaver high in the air. The woman swayed her body in a circular motion gracefully as she jumped high in the air before the demons made impact with her. The demon with the electrically-charged arms missed as it tried to throw a punch, the electricity circulating slower now, as the demon with the cleaver slid across the ground and tried to turn itself around, being slightly disoriented. The woman turned around after landing behind the magic-using demon, and opened her hand to smack the demon on the back with her palm, the rune that was once on her hand being branded on the demon and soon growing around the demon's body, emitting another kind of electricity that paralyzed and soon killed the demon.
As its corpse lie on the ground, the other demon was now charging back at the woman, stepping on the corpse violently to reach her. As it tried to smash its cleaver down upon her, she made a thrust to the side to avoid it, then used her other hand that still had a rune shining on it to smack the demon in the side. The rune once again grew around the demon's body as it did before and paralyzed it, then killed it with an electrical charge.
She took another breath and stretched out her body a little, then proceeded to carry the demons to the river. She held them both by the arms firmly and dragged them across the ground with much ease, throwing them in the river once reaching it. She pulled the hair out of her eyes and looked around once more for more signs of demons...
-
New Friend?
Eliura walked down the dirt roads of a village, seeing houses burnt to the ground and ripped clothing lying everywhere. She sighed with disgust, and looked around for signs of life. She tightened her grip on the dagger she had in her hand as she heard growling from behind a crumbled wall. She hid her fear and kicked down the wall, the crash causing the demon to startle and look over its shoulder at Eliura, blood dripping from its maw. She took a gulp and charged at the demon, her free hand holding the fist that the dagger was clenched in, hoping to lunge the demon in the forehead and end its life. She didn't know if it would work or not, but she had to try something. The demon stood up and raised its hand to block Eliura's path, the dagger sticking in its palm. Eliura jerked furiously to remove the dagger, but the demon simply lifted its arm and threw her to the side, pulling the dagger out and tossing it in the opposite direction. She fell to the ground, and lifted her head to look at the demon slowly walking up to her. She couldn't hold it in any longer, and screamed with panic, scared that the demon was going to kill her. She looked over at the ground behind the demon from between its legs as it stood over top of her, seeing that it had been feasting on another demon, not an inhabitant of the village. She squinted confusedly, and then looked up at the demon, which had already bared its fangs and began its decent to Eliura's leg.
She screamed once more, but before it could bite, a strange sound made the demon look up in a random direction, focusing its attention on something Eliura couldn't see. It let out a shriek and ran in the opposite direction of where it was looking, Eliura once again left puzzled at what was going on. She shook her head and tried to stand, just now noticing that she'd landed on a torn wooden plank, splinters stuck in her leg. She let out a moan of pain, but didn't pay much attention to it, brushing her leg and tearing a little skin. She walked over to her dagger, and after picking it up, turned her attention to the corpse lying on the ground. She kneeled down beside it, her knee falling in a small puddle of blood. She slowly started to raise her hand to touch the demon, unsure what might happen if she did so.
At once, the demon's blood boiled and splashed all over her, and it began to move its arms and one leg furiously, letting out a loud growl. The missing limb slowly began to materialize, and the demon widened its eyes at Eliura, who had thrusted backwards on the ground with fear after the sudden stirring. It could do nothing much but sit there, as it could not yet walk with its leg healing itself. The demon tried to pick itself up with its arms, and try to walk with just one leg, but fell back down, looking back up at Eliura, who was slowly regaining herself after being so startled. She looked down at the demon after standing, but not with a terrified expression. Instead, she had a look of pity on her face.
She kneeled down beside it once again, trying to hide her fear again, holding her hand beside the demon's head. It squinted at her, the growling lowered, as she slowly brushed her hand along the side of its face. She reached into a sack that she had slung around her back, pulling out some sort of potion. The demon sniffed it and began to growl loudly, not liking what it was smelling. She quickly thrusted the potion right in front of the demon's face with the open lid pointed toward it, the liquid spilling out of the vial into the demon's open mouth at a slightly great speed. The demon began to shake out of control on the ground, rolling around as its leg began throbbed with pain. The skin and muscle around the bone began to heal much quicker, almost shooting down its leg.
The demon closed its eyes after the pain went away, moving its leg up and down, trying to figure out what happened. Eliura smiled, and walked into the demon's view once it opened its eyes to look at the newly-recovered leg. She lightly threw the vial to a random spot over her shoulder and leaned over right next to the demon's face. She gazed at it for a while, while the demon tried to avoid her gaze and turn its head to a random direction, unsure what she was doing. She giggled, and straightened herself to walk back outside. Upon doing so, the demon picked itself up and started to follow her. She smiled at it as it looked down at her while breathing heavily. Its leg was fully recovered, and it almost seemed like the demon had never been attacked in the first place. They walked down the dirt road together now. The demon was showing no more hostility toward her.
-
Pfft, that was pathetic of her to go from some demonslaying gender-confused Chuck Norris to a damsel in distress. Ruined my respect, Sumo.
Good writing so far. :thumbup:
But that blue text is murdering my eyeballs.
-
Early Goodbye
The demon winced as a strange light protruded from a point on its body for a few seconds. Eliura was standing on the opposite side, and tried to lean over to see behind the demon's body, but it turned around to hide the light, trying to keep her from seeing. She sighed with disappointment, and the light disappeared. They continued walking. Eliura knew that the demon wouldn't be able to understand her, so she couldn't just ask what that was. She thought for a while how she could get the demon to do it again as they left the village from which Eliura met it. She decided to give up on the idea, but in the process she came up with a name for the demon.
"Fang!" she blurted out with delight, looking up at the demon with a grin smeared across her face. The demon squinted at her, unsure what she just said, and why she said it. She giggled, and they kept walking as she sang the name aloud.
From the distance, Fang could see a demon charging toward their location. No, not a demon...two of them. Eliura looked at Fang, wondering why it stopped walking. Fang looked down at her, giving her a strange nod, and began to run toward the demons that were coming toward their location.
"Wait!" Eliura yelled, trying to chase after Fang. She couldn't keep up, however, and lost sight of it as it was already far away in the distance. She sighed sadly, and turned to a walking pace, tired from all the running.
A few hours later, she found Fang, along with two other demons, fighting brutishly. Fang had many holes in its flesh, bone showing through its left arm. The other two demons had blood all over their faces, along with weapons held in their hands. One demon had a crude axe the same color as its skin in its right hand, the other demon had a large four-bladed weapon in its left hand, which had a long slanted shaft with spikes protruding from the bottom of it. Fang had no weapon but its claws, and was holding its own against these two demons. The demon with the axe lifted its arm high in the air and charged at Fang with a savage look on its face, getting ready to impale the weapon into Fang's shoulder.
At the same time, the demon with the strange weapon leaped high in the air, holding the weapon so that the blades pointed toward the ground as it fell down to Fang's location. Fang rolled away from the axe, tripping the demon as the other impacted with the ground, its weapon getting stuck far underground. As it jerked ferociously to get the weapon out, Fang slashed the demon's eyes with its claws, while the demon with the axe got up and hurled its weapon at Fang. Fang was completely distracted with trying to kill the other demon, and the axe stuck in its neck, making it let out a shriek of pain. The other demon fell to the ground, while the one that hurled the axe was charging to Fang to retrieve its weapon and end Fang's pain...by killing it.
Eliura screamed, and ran to help Fang, but got in the other demon's way, and it smacked her with great force back where she was running from, its claws piercing her flesh and nearly killing her. She layed there on the ground in pain, not able to do anything but try and breathe, hoping now that she wouldn't be killed, completely forgetting about Fang...meanwhile, the demon jerked its axe from Fang's neck, and held it with both hands as it impaled the gash that was left from before, cutting the demon's head clear off its neck...
-
Demonification
The demon that had its eyes slashed tried to pick itself back up, still unable to see, and fell forward onto its weapon, the spikes sticking through its chest and out its back. The other demon walked to Eliura, who was unconscious from being slashed, and shrieked as it smelled something on her. Instead of eating her, it picked her up by her torn shirt, her torso barely being held inside of it, and threw her into a river of blood, her sack loosening and spilling out various potions she was keeping. Her body washed downstream, as the demon returned to Fang's corpse, getting ready to devour it.
Eliura tried to breathe, but inhaled a strange liquid, and tried to look around, but found that her eyes were sealed shut from something. Her body felt strange, and she then realized that she was floating in a river. She couldn't scream, but not because of being in the river of blood, but simply because she couldn't; she didn't know why.
She tried to swim above surface, barely being able to fight the current pushing her down, and hit her head on a rock that was about to be washed away from the ground it was sitting on. She did a flip in the blood, but immediately grabbed onto the rock, ignoring the pain she felt in her head, and pulled her head above the stream, finally able to open her eyes and breathe again. She looked around, not seeing much except the river she came from, and small hills blocking her from seeing further.
She pulled herself out of the river, the rock she was hanging onto washing away right after she let go. She wearily crawled up a little further from the river and fell to the ground, putting her hand on her head. When she did so, she felt something protruding from her flesh, but then suddenly sinking back inside...she ran her hand along the rest of her body, feeling similar things sticking out then sinking back into her flesh. Just exiting the blood river, she was now feeling her skin itching and burning, along with her eyesight being a little cloudy...
She shook her head and blinked, but couldn't restore it. Just then, she took a quick breath and lifted the remainder of her shirt, remembering that she'd nearly been killed, seeing that blood from the river was spilling through the gashes left by the demon right before they boiled themselves back to normal, similar to how Fang's leg recovered. She blinked again, and her eyesight seemed to be a little better after the blood spilled. She observed the gashes, then suddenly felt another burning sensation in her skin where the gashes had just disappeared, purple markings protruding from her skin and seeming to crawl across her chest to connect with the other purple markings she had just now noticed on the rest of her body. She still couldn't scream, though, being more confused than scared at the moment. When she thought of Fang, she couldn't produce tears, even though she knew that the demon was now dead, and when she thought of other things that had happened in her life that terrified her, she didn't get the same feeling she used to...
Eliura decided to think no more, and picked herself up after the burning stopped and the strange markings sank back into her flesh, wanting to get revenge for what the demons did to Fang. She walked up one of the hills next to the river, and looked downstream from where she was tossed in the river, being able to see Fang and another demon's corpse clearer than she could see when she was looking at her own body. She sprinted in that direction, and after about an hour reached the location she saw earlier, everything looking the same as it did from when she looked at the place from the river.
She instantly ran up to Fang, and kneeled down by its corpse, noticing that most of its flesh was gone now, and it was mostly skeleton sitting in a puddle of its own blood. She couldn't cry, and when she went to touch Fang's skeleton, the blood around it began to draw to one of the markings on her flesh, the marking protruding through her flesh once more and almost opening up, taking in the blood, while another color of blood escaped from a hole close to the one that was just made. She jerked back her hand, and the blood that was being drawn to her fell to the ground. She could see a little more clearly as the other blood left her body, and she hesitated to put her hand back on the skeleton.
After a few minutes, she gave in and did it again, the blood once again being drawn into her hand, and pushing itself through her veins as the blood that she now knew was from the river poured out of her. The markings were actually veins, she found out, and they appeared to draw in blood. But why not her blood? Is her normal blood still flowing through their respective veins, or are they too inside of these strange purple veins created on her body? She didn't know, but a smile creeped on her face as she felt she was closer to Fang now with its blood coursing through her new veins, instead of that from the river.
After the blood around Fang's skeleton was drawn in, and the blood from the river dripped down her arm, strange rune appeared around her elbow and wrist, and began to spark with electricity. She winced and grabbed her arm, unsure what was going on, and her flesh and bone began to draw toward her fist. Finally she was able to scream, as she was scared what might happen to her from drawing in the blood. As they crawled through the cracks in her fist, and forced a hole between her fingers and her thumb, they formed into a strange weapon...Eliura stopped screaming, and looked at the new sword created from her own arm, which was now recovering after just losing so much flesh and bone, and let out an awe.
"...Fang?" she asked, gazing up and down the blade. She began to think that this was a gift for her from Fang, the demon's way of saying thanks for what she did for it.
She pulled the sack from her back, and noticed that most of her potions were gone, but that was not what she was looking for. She pulled out cloth tethers, and began to patch them into her ripped clothing. She also wrapped them around her back in a way so that they could hold her sword, and she put the sword inside of the holes left in the cloth, noticing that she didn't quite size it correctly. She adjusted them, and put the sword back in, it now fitting snuggly inside of the cloth as she lifted herself from Fang's skeleton. She closed her eyes and nodded, thanking Fang for the gift, and went to search for the demon that killed her best friend...
-
Potential Discovered
She searched for days in this seemingly empty wasteland, finding no signs of the demon that killed Fang. Even though she hadn't known Fang for long, she grew attached to it, as it was the only friend she had in this world since her family had been killed. She found she couldn't cry because demons didn't have very strong feelings. Fang was different though, and at least had some feelings, so Eliura could feel sadness, but nothing more.
She heard a strange noise, similar to the one Fang made when it rushed off to fight those two demons, and looked around at her surroundings to see a demon charging at her. The demon looked very familiar, and Eliura quickly deduced that this was the one that killed Fang. It was holding an axe as a weapon, and ran in the same way the other did when it was charging at Fang. She let out an angry snarl and drew her sword from the cloth tethering, then charging at the demon with her sword held out with both hands behind her back. The demon lifted its axe and tried to force it down on Eliura, but she rolled out of the way and cut the demon's arm off completely, its hand dropping the axe as its arm landed on the ground.
The demon shrieked with pain, but jumped out of the way of Eliura's second slash, not wanting to feel pain like that again. As its arm slowly recovered, it charged at her holding its free arm back, trying to punch her. She held her sword in front of her and waited for the demon to come close, and parried the demon's fist, knocking it away and disorienting the demon as she kicked it back and jumped at it with her sword held high, wanting to end its life quickly. The demon jumped to the side, but couldn't land on its arm as it was still rebuilding itself, and fell to the ground in a roll.
Eliura picked herself up after landing on the ground and sprinted at the demon as it stopped rolling and began to lift itself back on its feet. She raised her sword once more, wanting to smash the demon with it, but it knocked her sword away with its fist once she got close, and kicked her away, making her drop the blade. She moaned with anger, and tried to remember what happened earlier. She tried to recreate the feeling she got when she created her sword, and the runes once again appeared on her arm, but this time they didn't create a weapon, instead they began to spin and create a similar rune in her palm. She wondered what it could be, but couldn't stare at it long enough, as the demon was but meters away from her. The demon was about ready to punch her, and she sloppily moved out of the way and slapped the demon, not sure what else she could do.
The rune from her hand disappeared and marked itself on the demon's flesh, and it started to grow and wrap itself around the demon, paralyzing it with an electrical shock. The demon had a strong will, and fought free of the paralyzation, but couldn't do it fast enough as Eliura had already recovered her sword and slashed the demon right down the middle...
-
Strange Demon
Eliura kept walking down the river, hoping to find more demons. Not only was this slightly exciting for her, but she realized that Fang despised other demons, and justified herself in doing all of this that it was for Fang.
There were screams coming from Diaboli in the distance, and Eliura raced in the direction they were coming from, thinking that there may be more demons around the area. She saw many common Diaboli walking down the roads, carrying wagons and other such supplies, also looking in the direction of the screams, but in too much of a hurry to see what was going on. Eliura wondered what everyone was in a hurry to do, but shook the thought off as she wanted to focus more on finding out what caused the screaming.
She found a wagon with many corpses around it, more inside, one of them being headless. She looked at them disgustedly, almost not wanting to find out what caused all of this. It didn't seem to be the work of a demon, else it would've just ripped through the wagon's tethering instead of enter through the normal way. Also, it would've left a longer trail of destruction, and more people would have noticed it.
Eliura thought about it for a few minutes, but decided it'd be better off to find out where whatever caused this went to. Walking in the direction everyone else was heading to, she found that off to the side of the road was a crowd gathered, and behind that crowd were four people fighting each other...no, three people ganging up on a demon.
Meanwhile, back at the wagon, shady figures were collecting the corpses Nalkorash had left in his wake. They proceeded in the direction of the old man's hut with many corpses slung over their shoulders. What business do these men have with dead bodies? Is the old man dead as well?
Eliura watched the figure closely. It didn't look much like a demon or a Diaboli from the back. The figure killed off all three of them with its quite unusual weapon. She deduced that this really was a demon, just smaller than normal ones, since it had a weapon the same color as its skin, pitch black eyes, and a bloodthirsty nature. She approached it, drawing her blade and going from a slow walk to a quick dash...this demon was no different from the rest. If it would willfully make people suffer, she will end its life like she did the rest...
-
Part Three
Destiny
Nalkorash lifted his scythe from the corpse, noticing that the blood was being drawn to his scythe. He let it sit there and absorb the blood, not sure what it was doing. Just then, he heard something move behind him, and he jumped out of the way of a sword that was being forced down on him. He pulled back his scythe and looked at Eliura, who'd almost accidentally slashed the corpse of the man who Nalkorash had just killed. He looked at her interestedly, as he'd never seen a demon up close before, not knowing that Eliura was actually just like him. They were both confused, thinking each other were both demons. They both stood still looking at each other, Eliura debating whether Nalkorash was demon or Diaboli, and Nalkorash gazing upon what he thought was a demon and smiling, knowing he was in for a good fight.
Without further hesitation, Nalkorash lifted his scythe behind him and sprinted at Eliura, hoping she'd block him and give him a greater challenge than the men he'd just slain. Eliura was unsure how to fight against a weapon of that magnitude, and held her sword up to try and block the attack. Nalkorash impaled her in the side, and sent her flying back toward the wrecked caravan, but she recovered, and her wound healed itself quickly.
"Ah...you truly are a demon," Nalkorash said, a laugh following soon after. "This should be an interesting fight...I hope I don't kill you too soon."
"You can talk!?" Eliura asked with a surprised tone, ignoring the pain she felt as her wound was boiling shut.
"Hey...it talks," Nalkorash muttered to himself, "now I'm certain this'll be fun." He raised his voice, "Get ready, demon! I'm coming at you with all I've got!"
Nalkorash sprinted at Eliura again, holding back no longer, getting ready to kill her this time. Eliura was still trying to figure out how to parry the scythe, and decided it'd be best to try and jump toward Nalkorash, not away, so that only the shaft hits her and not the blade, then she'd have her opening. Nalkorash did not follow suite, and instead of hitting her the same way he did before, he hit the scythe's shaft into the ground and held onto the middle of the shaft as he was sent in the air, getting ready to kick Eliura in the face.
Eliura shook her head to remove the thoughts, and quickly ducked as Nalkorash spun around and missed her, then removed the scythe from the ground while she was crouched and proceeded to smack her with the shaft. She lifted her sword and parried the shaft, but then she saw the blade coming at her with great speed, and she could think of no other way to avoid it than jumping in the air, which she did. She flipped backwards to try and propel herself away from Nalkorash a little ways so she wouldn't be landing on the blade when she descended, and reoriented herself upon hitting the ground, thinking that she now has Nalkorash's pattern.
"Nice moves," Nalkorash said with a grin. "How long can you keep it up, I wonder?"
"Your tricks won't work, demon! Your head is mine now. All of your kind shall die!"
Eliura charged at Nalkorash this time, now thinking she knew his attack pattern, and wanted to see how he defends himself. Nalkorash didn't even bother to protect himself from the sword. He instead focused only on harming Eliura, lifting his scythe high in the air to smash down upon her. Eliura was astonished, and rolled out of the way of the scythe, her sleeve being ripped by the sharp edge of the blade. Nalkorash kicked her before she could recover, and sent her sliding across the ground, his face now showing boredom.
"Come on now...is that the best a demon can do?" He asked, disappointedly.
"I'm...not...a demon," she said, lifting herself back on two feet.
"Then what are you?"
"A Diaboli who's seen enough suffering caused by your kind. I'll be the one to rid this world of all of you!"
"You look like a demon to me," Nalkorash said with a laugh.
"As do you...tell me, how does a demon like yourself learn to talk?" Eliura asked.
"Known how to most of my life," Nalkorash replied, accepting that she called him a demon, thinking it had a nice ring to it.
"Are certain demons born with the ability to talk?"
"I don't know, but I do know that if you talk anymore, the first thing I'll do when we're done is cut off that annoying tongue of yours," Nalkorash said impatiently, already charging at Eliura once more.
Eliura leaped out of the way as Nalkorash tried to sweep her down with his scythe, and did a forward flip in the air before landing on the ground behind Nalkorash, turning around upon landing and trying to cut him from behind by thrusting her sword backwards to the side with one hand. Nalkorash spun around quickly and grabbed the blade with his hand, holding it there with an equal power she was trying to hit him with. At the same time, he thrusted his scythe behind Eliura's head, and drew the blade closer to her neck as he pulled her toward him with the shaft. She looked in his deep, dark eyes with a sorrowful expression, while Nalkorash discarded his excitement and grew a serious look on his face, studying Eliura. He kept the blade wrapped around her neck, but loosened his grip on the shaft as they started at each other, unsure what was going on.
"You're not a demon," She finally said, "you're...just like me."
"No, I AM a demon," Nalkorash exclaimed angrily.
"You must have suffered as well," Eliura said with a pitiful smile as a tear ran down her cheek. Nalkorash remained silent, not sure what to say to her comment and her expression. "Why are you doing all of this?" she then asked.
"I told you before...I'm a demon, and this is how I choose to live."
"Doesn't it hurt, though?"
"You must have noticed it, too. My feelings don't matter anymore, I can do whatever I please and not get hurt or anything from it."
"You're wrong! I knew a demon that had feelings, you just have to create them...don't live like the other demons you claim to be, live as a pure-hearted demon...like Fang." She said, more tears dripping down her cheeks now. Nalkorash didn't bother asking about Fang, and drew the scythe closer to her neck.
"What's the point? Do you really want to suffer more than you have already? Discard the feelings, and live as I do. You'll never suffer again."
"I bet you're feeling bad right now, and you simply choose to ignore it. You have to feel something from all of this killing..."
"The only thing I feel is excitement! This is fun for me, and I'm sure you enjoy it too, it's -"
"I've NEVER killed an innocent person in my life! How do you think I can enjoy doing something like that!? I've only killed demons, and that's all! If you really feel that way, then maybe you're a demon after all." Eliura yelled angrily, interrupting Nalkorash.
"That's what I've been trying to say. You're one too, you know? Realize that soon, you can't change it..."
-
more! more! \\o//
-
Yliakum
Nalkorash removed his scythe from around Eliura's neck.
"You're not going to kill me?" she asked.
"It would be pointless," Nalkorash said, turning around and walking in the same direction as the crowd.
"Where are you going?" Eliura asked again, running after him to close the distance gap.
"The portals are closing soon. If they go, so does my prey. I can't allow that..."
"Portals?"
"You didn't hear? They are our chance to escape this world. My family said that we could live peacefully there...before they died."
"Oh...I'm sorry to hear that," Eliura shook her head. "I'm still not going to let you kill those people! There's no reason to do these things!"
Nalkorash was already a great distance away from Eliura after she got done talking. She ran to catch up with him again, keeping a jogging pace to prevent losing him a third time.
"Why are you following me?" he asked.
"I'm going to keep an eye on you."
"I could have killed you back there. You should at least value your life." Nalkorash said, slightly raising the hand with which his scythe was held.
"It doesn't matter if I die or not...I just don't want anymore suffering! If we're leaving this world, and escaping the demons, the only person who could cause suffering would be you." Eliura said with a determined look on her face.
"What will you do about it, then?" Nalkorash asked with a smile.
Eliura hesitated, "Nothing, yet..."
They reached the portals, which had a steady stream of people entering through them. Nalkorash sighed and closed his eyes, thinking of his family once more, and opened them again to stair straight into the vortex before him. Eliura's jaw dropped with amazement, not even being able to speak.
"I guess this is it," Nalkorash said, looking back at the wasteland behind him. He stepped through the portal, not sure what might happen.
Eliura looked around, trying to find Nalkorash, "Hey...where'd you go?" she asked, the possibility of him already walking through the portal hitting her a few minutes later. She clumsily ran through the portal to chase him, not even looking back at what she was leaving behind...
-
Coincidence
Nalkorash opened his eyes and blinked many times, looking around at his surroundings. He was propped up against a wall, Eliura a few feet away from him, in some sort of makeshift house. Eliura was out cold, and his own body felt like it was numb.
"What happened?" he asked, leaning his head back against the wall.
A familiar face walked through the open door of the house, covered in a strange white powdery substance while carrying something in a wooden box.
"It's cold out there! Who said this world would be a paradise?" the old man asked to himself, looking down at the awakened Nalkorash. "Oh, I see you've recovered. That's good...I was afraid you might have died from what happened back there."
Nalkorash shook his head and looked up at the old man, "What are you - nevermind," he drew back his question. "What happened?"
"You must be careful in this place. Unlike our world, this one may purify demons such as yourself, especially in the presence of one of the Gods themselves."
"Gods?" Nalkorash remembered one of the men he killed speaking of Gods. "They abandoned our world, so why make us migrate here just to face a fate like that?" he asked.
"We are not the only kind of people here. In our world, we shared the land with our forsaken brothers, the demons. Here, we share it with a wide variety. They do not fear being purified; they did not have demons in whichever land they came from..."
Nalkorash raised an eyebrow, "Wait, so...why did we pass out?" he asked.
"These Gods are reckless. One came to see us through the portal, but we were all in jeopardy in him doing so. Thus, we left. As for you two, simply being in the presence of a God knocked you out. You are more demon than Diaboli..."
"So in other words...I simply have to watch out for Gods?" Nalkorash asked jokingly.
"If they really make that many public appearances, then yes, as stupid as it may sound."
Nalkorash observed the old man's clothing, noticing that the white powder had disappeared.
"You said something earlier that I couldn't understand, and you came in here covered in that strange powder. What was that?"
"You must be referring to the snow. This world has a cold substance that falls from the crystal every so-often. It doesn't feel very good..."
"Snow? And what do you mean by 'the crystal'?"
"You were out for a few days, so these explanations are going to take a while," the old man said with a sigh. "The crystal, or Azure Sun as they call it, is this world's version of our sky. This world is much different than we imagined it to be. Despite the cold that fills the world every once in a while, it is a very peaceful place to live."
"Peaceful? Not for long." Nalkorash said with a wicked grin.
"Oh? And what do you plan on doing?" the old man asked curiously.
"Exactly what I did before I left: hunt them down and show them our world once more."
"Interesting. Tell me, did you happen to kill three people on your way here?"
"I killed more than that, I -"
"They were in a group. I don't care how many innocents you killed, I just want to know about them."
Nalkorash closed his eyes for a few seconds, trying to remember. The old man placed the box he was carrying against a wall and sat down in a sturdy chair.
"There was a group of people," Nalkorash said, "that gave me quite a fight. I enjoyed it."
"Did they mention something about Gods?" the old man asked.
"Yes, they said something. They wanted me to die by the Gods or something like that." Nalkorash said with uncertainty in his voice.
"Ah, I thought so," the old man smiled. "They were a part of my family. They formed their own religious sect. They wouldn't take my advice to heed what happened to our world because of Gods, and lived foolishly until you slayed them. I'm sure their followers will hunt you down now. That should give you your 'entertainment'."
Nalkorash grinned and asked, "Are they strong like the last three...?"
"They will have an advantage in this world. By now I suppose they have accepted the new Gods and purified their weapons. Be careful around them."
"They won't even touch me."
The old man looked over at Eliura, who was still out cold, "Who is this girl?" he asked.
Nalkorash looked back at her, "Oh...I don't really know. I met her after I killed those three. She tried to fight me and lost, then she just tagged along up till this point."
"You haven't killed her yet?" the old man asked curiously. "Why not?"
"I don't know...I guess it's because she's like I am. Except, she won't accept that she's a demon."
"That can't be the only reason," the old man said with a smile.
"Enough. Where are these people you told me about?" Nalkorash demanded.
"I have already informed them that you've arrived in the new world. I won't be here when they come, so I hope you're ready. They will hunt you down soon enough."
"Why are you helping me? I AM killing your family, after all..."
The old man put his fingers on his chin and ran them down his beard as he spoke, "I'm not really sure. I think you deserve life more than them. They have no reason to worship these Gods...they're being too forgiving."
Nalkorash smiled, "Whatever you say...I suppose I can wait, then..."
-
Wow, I really hate Nalkorash now... He's an overconfident, annoying arse.
Goojub. :thumbup:
-
:P He sounds just like me. I only like him more \\o//
-
Suno, is Eliura even a character? Never seen her around.
-
Yeah, but she has problems running the game. ;(
-
Suspicion
A few minutes later, the old man was pacing back and fourth worriedly.
"What's wrong with you?" Nalkorash asked, raising an eyebrow.
"What was I thinking? If they come here to fight you, the place will be trashed! I can't leave this home yet, I have nowhere else to go." the old man replied, keeping a steady walking speed.
"Why can't you just tell me where they are, then?"
"They..." the old man walked faster, "might think that I captured you."
Nalkorash sighed, "Just pretend to be dead, I'll walk a few steps outside and wait for them, they'll think I killed you."
"No, no...that will never work."
"Why not?"
"...It's nothing."
"That reminds me. How did you carry me and this girl back here, anyway?" Nalkorash asked, stepping closer to the old man.
"It's not important," the old man looked outside through the door as he spoke. "Hey, here they come!"
Nalkorash shoved the old man out of the doorway and looked outside, not seeing anything. H turned back to where the old man was standing, noticing that he disappeared.
Eliura slowly opened her eyes and looked around, seeing Nalkorash standing close to her. She jumped a little, but then remembered that he wasn't going to kill her.
"Good morning?" she said weakly, unsure of what was going on.
Nalkorash looked down at her and sighed, "It's about time you woke up," bending down and picking his scythe up from the floor.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"A friend's house. He's not here anymore, though...and we're about to get a little company."
"Huh?" she sat up and looked at him confusedly. "What do you mean?"
Nalkorash smiled, "More prey..."
"Not this again!" Eliura stood up. "I told you I'm not going to let you kill anyone else!"
"They're coming to kill us. Do you think I'll just sit here let them?"
"Why are they trying to kill us?"
Nalkorash smiled, "Not important. Just make sure you don't drop that sword of yours."
A group of around twenty people marched up from the distance, arriving shortly at the house, drawing their weapons and readying for the task at hand...
-
Ellipses... too much... urrgg.
-
Army of One
Nalkorash stepped outside after hearing the grunts and laughter of the men outside the door. Eliura tried to peek over his shoulder to see them, but his body hid most of the open doorway. He smiled, and leaped out the door over the stairway into the middle of the crowd, kicking down two men and swinging his scythe in an arc at the people standing closest to the doorway. Eliura ran outside to see what was going on, watching as the men Nalkorash tried to kill bounded over his scythe and were ready to come down on him with their weapons. Nalkorash jumped into the space below them, now being outside of the crowd, turning around to face all of the men that came to kill him. He laughed wickedly, now holding his scythe in only one hand.
"Come on now, is that all they could send at me?" Nalkorash taunted.
"You'll pay for killing our masters, demon!" one of them shouted.
"How did a demon get here, anyway...?" a man in the far back of the crowd asked another man.
"I'm not sure...but we hold the responsibility of subduing him. We can't let this world fall into demon hands like ours did."
Many of the men backed away so that only three were left standing in front of Nalkorash. Two of them sprinted at him, their swords held at their sides, while the third, who was wielding a bow, seemed unfocused, looking in three directions, but having his bow raised at the direction Nalkorash was standing from him. Nalkorash readied his scythe, holding it with both hands, ready to take on both men at once. As they came at him, Nalkorash rolled out of the way, then turned around to slay them both at the same time. Before a second passed, Nalkorash felt a sharp pain in his side, looking down to see an arrow stuck in him. He fell to one leg, looking up at the two men who were now standing over him, their weapons looming around his head tauntingly.
"Come on, is that all you've got, demon? It's ashame...I really thought you'd be more of a challenge." the man on the left said, laughing soon after his words.
Eliura was about ready to step out to help him, but retracted her foot as she noticed something strange happening to Nalkorash. The veins that were spiraling around his horns began to draw themselves back, and repositioned through his hair around the tops and backs of his skull. The arrow in his side began to boil out of his skin, and his body circulated incredible amounts of electricity.
"Kill him, now!" a man in the back yelled, apparently being one of the generals.
The men stopped quivering at the sight of Nalkorash's changed, and readied their holy weapons, raising them in the air, ready to subdue the demon. At that moment, Nalkorash bolted out of the way, and reappeared behind the two men, growling fiercely. He wrapped his scythe around the left man's neck, separating the two with the blade, and his right hand was latched brutally on the back of the other man's head, circulating electricity so fiercely that his body began to shake, and in less than a second and explosion blasted his now-headless body through the wall of the house, forcing Eliura to run outside as it crashed down on top of itself, not being very sturdy to begin with. He beheaded the other man with his scythe, and let out a high-pitched noise, which Eliura recognized as the sounds demons she'd met in the past made, and she raised her arm about midway in the air, wondering what was going on.
Nalkorash turned to the man with the bow, which was aiming another arrow at him. Nalkorash bolted at the man, being so fast that he did not have enough time to aim by the time the scythe had already been impaled in his body, leaving a half-body length gash in his side as the scythe was hastily removed from him. Blood gushed from the cut, and he fell to the ground, letting out a moan of pain. Eliura covered her eyes, unable to watch what was going on.
"Ready the -" Before the general could finish speaking, Nalkorash was standing behind him, his scythe wrapped around his neck. He tackled through the unfocused crowd of men in but a few seconds, and ambushed the general unnoticed. The man began to shiver in fear, begging for his life, when Nalkorash pulled hard and jerked the scythe back, ripping off the man's head. Everyone turned around and saw him, yells and screams of fear coming from all around. As the man's body fell to the ground, Nalkorash stood scarily behind him, growling once more and letting his scythe soak in the blood of the slain man. In about a minute, the men repositioned themselves, being ordered by the second-in-command to stay focused.
Three men ran up to Nalkorash, weapons readied, one wielding a polearm with three blades sticking out of the end of the shaft, the other two wielding scimitars that shined with a holy light. Nalkorash's scythe pulsated rapidly, as it almost seemed to change its shape. He sprinted at the two men, his scythe held to his side, ready to slay them. The two scimitar-wielding men crouched down to avoid the slash, the third parried the scythe with his own polearm, standing to make sure that the blade couldn't impale him. Nalkorash jerked the scythe back, the broad side of the blade thrusting the man straight at Nalkorash with a small cut in his back. Nalkorash swung his scythe away to the side, and grabbed the man's skull with the palm of his electrified arm, an explosion knocking him back at the men standing stationary, knocking a few of them down. They shrieked once more as the headless corpse rained blood on them, and the black flame that engulfed its body began to light their clothes and skin.
The two men with the scimitars turned around and saw their dead friend, along with the others that were also about to die from the flames. They turned back to look at Nalkorash, who was now gone, and they looked around for him, seeing that he was now behind them when they turned around once more to see how the rest of the men were doing. In an instant he'd slain them both where they stood, letting his scythe soak in the blood of the headless corpses once more, as he watched with wicked excitement as others ran around with fear. The second-in-command stepped up to him, no longer concerned with the organization and safety of his men, readying his large battleaxe. Nalkorash stood still as the man made his moves, leaping in the air to smash his axe down upon him. He let go of the scythe with one of his hands, grabbing onto the axe's handle before it reached him, throwing it, along with the man, to the side.
The man got up hastily and yelled, "I'm not a pushover, demon!"
Nalkorash lifted his scythe after the blood was dried, and looked at the man scarily with his deep dark eyes. The man sprinted at him once more, his axe held high in the air. Nalkorash ran forward under the axe's handle before it was all the way down, thrusted himself a little to the side to avoid the handle, and cut the man down the middle with his scythe, ending his life quickly.
All but two of the other men remained, gaining their distance from the black flames that engulfed the now-dead bodies of the rest of the army. They screamed with fear as Nalkorash slowly walked up to them, his scythe pulsating rapidly and dripping blood. The scythe sprouted a smaller blade from the one already on the end of the shaft, and the men could do nothing but back away as Nalkorash got closer to them. In a few seconds they bumped into Eliura, who had her sword readied, and she'd slain the two before they could turn around, slitting her sword down their necks. She backed away from the blood, and looked up at Nalkorash, who was now examining her, wondering what he might do to her...
-
Newfound Powers
The veins that extended themselves around Nalkorash's skull returned to their normal positions spiraled around his horns, and Nalkorash fell down into Eliura's arms, dropping his scythe. Eliura threw her sword down to try and catch him, almost dropping him in the snow by accident. Nalkorash blinked and shook his head, looking around at all of the corpses, and his scythe, which was still pulsating darkly. He looked over into Eliura's eyes, then quickly jerked himself out of her arms, not wanting to be close to her.
"Well, well...looks like you pulled it off." a voice said from behind the wreckage of the house.
"Huh?" Nalkorash looked over and saw the old man walking up to them.
"It appears you've figured out how to force the demon blood to your brain. I forgot to mention that earlier."
Eliura looked around at the two, not even knowing who the old man was, taking a few steps back so that she wasn't right in the middle of them.
"What are you talking about?" Nalkorash asked.
"You don't know? Guess it was a fluke...won't hurt to explain everything to you now, though."
Nalkorash stabbed the scythe's shaft into the ground, not wanting to hold onto it any longer as he shivered from the cold. The scythe slowly started to drip blood once more.
"Forcing demon blood to your brain...by doing so, your brain is then controlled fully by the demon. Your brain sends neurotic signals throughout your body, so having demon blood being pumped into it, you will act like any demon would. I have to say, you acquired the blood of a quite powerful demon. I've never seen speed like that before in my life, even in my -" the old man cut himself off there.
Nalkorash looked at the smaller blade sticking out from the larger blade on his scythe.
"What about this?" Nalkorash asked. "How did this happen?"
"Oh, so you've found out about your bloodlust, too...you're a quick one."
"You're not...explain it to me."
"Very well. Your weapon can draw the blood of your enemies, and make it stronger depending on what's in the blood. If it will weaken your weapon, the blood is forced out, like what is being done now."
Nalkorash looked at the weapon, which was now pouring blood at a quick rate.
"Their blood was probably purified, so your scythe won't get much from them. It may even be hurting the blade."
"Hurting my blade? This isn't a living thing, you know?" Nalkorash asked confusedly.
"Oh, but it is...that scythe is you. It came from you, it is your essence. As it can draw in the blood of your enemies, so can you. Though, I must say, where you are now, I don't think any type of blood could possibly make you stronger." The old man smiled.
The scythe's second blade began to retract itself back inside of the larger one. Nalkorash stared at it strangely, but shook his head and looked back at the old man.
"How do you know all of this?" Nalkorash asked.
"Oh, I've been around. Let's leave it at that."
"Very well." Nalkorash turned to Eliura. "Why are you still here? You clearly failed in 'keeping me from killing innocents'."
Eliura shook herself out of her state of thought and looked at Nalkorash, "Those people weren't innocent...they attacked you first. You had every right to -"
Nalkorash sighed, "Their weapons were a nuisance. That arrow was almost enough to put me down. If the demon blood hadn't done whatever it did, I might have died."
"You didn't make it do that?" The old man asked, looking confused.
"No, it just...happened."
"That's strange. Perhaps the blood is a little too strong. Well, no matter...you made it out of that state unharmed."
"Unharmed? What would have happened if I'd stayed like that?" Nalkorash asked.
"You would have probably killed the person nearest to you. That's why I stood behind after I saw you started using it. If you want, I can tell you how to change the flow to your brain if you wish to use it in the future."
"Of course, that was exciting!" Nalkorash said expectingly.
"Very well. Take your finger tips and run them from the tip of your horns, all the way down along your veins. Your horns aren't really skin for veins to flow through, and since you had a little too much blood, that was the only place they could go to keep you from being in a permanent demonic trance. Doing this will force them to flow through your forehead to your brain, which will -" the old man looked up and saw Nalkorash already trying to do it "Stop you fool, you're going to kill us all if you use it now!"
Nalkorash pulled back his hands, smiling, "Isn't that the point? Oh well, I'll do it later."
"No you won't!" Eliura said sternly. "I'm not putting up with you in that form!"
"Oh now I'm just dying to do it."
"Very funny." Eliura said with a sigh.
The old man laughed, "You two seem to be getting along well."
"What are you going to do about your house?" Nalkorash asked.
"Oh, don't worry about that, I can build another one in no time -" the old man covered his mouth quickly.
"Now how the hell is an old man like you able to build a house that quick? And hey...how did you build this first one? You've been acting a little suspicious lately. Mind filling me in?"
"It's nothing to concern yourself with, just run along somewhere, we'll meet again soon."
Nalkorash shook his head, "Whatever you say." Nalkorash looked at Eliura. "Come on," he said, walking off in a random direction.
Eliura jumped with excitement after being addressed, "Coming!" not looking back at the old man.
-
I know who that old man is... I know it... It's Dumbledore.
^Spoiler warning.^
-
I know who that old man is... I know it... It's Dumbledore.
^Spoiler warning.^
dumbledore? xD
Lol :P
-
Bonding
Eliura walked extremely close beside Nalkorash as they traveled through the snow, often looking up at his face, a smile growing across hers every time she did so. Nalkorash would avoid her stare and focus on the path ahead, or what path could still be seen, trying to find others he could fight...others he could test his newfound powers on. He often thought of the old man, and how many things were strange about him. The fact that he had armor and robes stashed away in a chest, his knowledge of demons, his ability to build a house in such a short time, how he carried him and Eliura to that house by himself, and how he was connected to a large religious family that he seemed to despise. They were all too strange to come to a conclusion as to who, or what, the old man really was, so eventually Nalkorash dropped the subject in his mind, and finally looked down at Eliura, who was now tripping on her own feet as her only attention was Nalkorash.
"What are you looking at?" he asked.
"Even though you're a little more violent, you remind me of someone," she said with happy tone.
"Is that why you're always following me?"
"You asked me to follow you, didn't you?"
Nalkorash looked away and focused his attention back to the path ahead. He simply couldn't stop thinking of the old man for some reason. Was he just over-analyzing him? Or was he really keeping a secret? It wouldn't really matter now anyway, as he was far enough from the house that he probably wouldn't ever see the old man again unless he tried to seek him out, which he wasn't going to do now that he had a power he'd been dreaming for. Eliura moved closer to Nalkorash and rested her head on his shoulder, and Nalkorash jumped out from under her, almost forgetting that she was there, thinking he was about to get in a fight. He looked over at her disappointed face and raised an eyebrow at her.
"Why are you acting so strange lately?" he asked.
"It's so cold out here," she replied, "but you still feel warm."
"Just ignore the cold and keep walking, you'll get used to it."
They returned to their normal positions, Nalkorash walking blindly, and Eliura walking close to his side, almost to the point where she was touching him again. Eliura knew what Nalkorash was going through. He'd lost everyone close to him, and tried to fill the void in his life with excitement. Ever since meeting him, she'd taken an interest in him. Despite his appearance and the way he acted in public, he seemed to be deeper than that. He just needed someone to help him fill that void in his life so that he may show his other side.
Also, he was much like Fang. He accepted her, though he didn't act like it. He didn't kill her when she thought he would, and stayed beside her even though she knew she was annoying. Was Nalkorash some sort of reincarnation of Fang? She did meet him close after Fang died, and he resembled Fang in a few key ways. Violent but caring, brutal but protective.
When she was born, Eliura had nobody in the world to care for her. She lived as a thief for a while, taking whatever necessity she could find, and hanging out with people that really didn't care at all for her life. Before meeting Fang, she'd been cast out of her gang for trying to protect someone that they were stealing valuables from. She'd believed in only taking what she needed, and leaving enough for the other person to be alright parting with, not stealing something precious to the person and trying to kill them afterwards. She'd wandered for days after being cast out, with nothing but her clothes and her dagger, looking for something to eat, or someone to care for her, as she was before she was taken in by the ruffians. She found the demon, Fang, and bonded with it, but that bonding broke apart after Fang's death...now Nalkorash may fill her void, as she may fill his. She knew this could work, but she had to be the one to put things into fruition.
As they walked, they found a large mound of snow that stood out from the rest of the ground. Nalkorash eyed it for a few seconds, and when walking right next to it, he brushed the snow off, only to find a crumbled wall. He shook his head and kept walking, but Eliura grabbed his hand.
"I'm tired, can we rest?" she asked.
"Keep walking or I'm leaving you behind," Nalkorash said firmly.
"Think about it," she said with a grin. "If we rest now, when we're not fighting, you won't be fatigued if you find another battle. It works to your advantage."
Nalkorash paused for a few seconds to consider it, "Fine." He rested his back against the wall after kicking the snow out of his way.
Eliura sat down beside him, resting her head on his shoulder once again.
"Stop doing that," Nalkorash told her, annoyed.
"We'll keep warm this way. Just deal with it," she replied with a smile of satisfaction.
Nalkorash snickered, and as Eliura closed her eyes, he found himself stuck between her head and the wall, unable to move without either falling over. He sighed, and after a few hours he accepted her, resting his head back against the wall, and putting his arm around her after finally feeling the cold, closing his eyes and drifting into sleep...
-
X-/ VIOLENCE! Then you can have your sex. But... VIOLENCE!
-
Part Four
Secrets
Nalkorash opened his eyes, noticing small puddles in various places on the ground. Others places were dry, but the rest were covered in snow. Eliura awakened from Nalkorash's motion, as he still couldn't remember she was leaning on him and shook when he awoke. She looked around, noticing what he did, then looked back up at him.
"How long were we asleep?" she asked.
"I don't know." Nalkorash replied.
"Oh well, not like it matters. It's a new world! We're free of responsibility; free to start over," she said with a smile.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Nalkorash asked, now looking down at her.
"Oh, nothing! Don't worry about it," she said with a sheepish grin.
Nalkorash sighed, "You tricked me into doing this..."
"Come on, it wasn't that bad was it? Most of the snow disappeared, and we're not frozen."
"It's not that," Nalkorash said, trying to stand up with Eliura clinging to his arm, "I just don't want you to think we're closer or anything."
"Admit it, you loved it," she giggled.
Nalkorash lifted his arm into mid-air, Eliura dangling on it, her feet a few inches off the ground. She giggled louder, tightening her grip, not wanting to let go.
"Do I have to drag you?" Nalkorash asked, annoyed.
"I'm never letting go, no matter what you do!" Eliura cheered.
Nalkorash sighed again, "Why is it so hard to kill you...?" he said in a whisper.
Nalkorash began to walk, lowering his arm with Eliura walking a little faster trying to keep her balance. She shifted her hands higher up on his arm so that she could walk normally while still clinging to him. As they walked, Nalkorash occasionally looked down at her in thought, a strange new feeling arising in him. He shook his head and looked straight in the direction they were walking, not able to remember where they were originally walking.
Their footprints in the snow were melted away, and they'd been asleep so long that it was hard to keep track anymore. Eliura looked around, recognizing the area as a place near the old man's former home. She looked up at Nalkorash, who had already gotten the same feeling. However, it looked strange. Part of the ground was a different color than where they were before, different shades of brown. This new color seemed to form a shape, and outside of that pattern was the normal colored ground that they were walking on before.
Nalkorash squinted, "Do you hear that?" he asked.
"Hear what?" Eliura asked back, looking around.
Faint sounds of bubbling and clanging were being made, but the direction of where it was coming from could not be found, even after the many minutes they spent looking around.
"Hey," Eliura spoke up, "where's the old man's house?"
"What do you mean? It was -" Nalkorash took a quick breath. "No...it's gone. The rubble disappeared...along with -" Nalkorash looked around fiercely, "all of the corpses..."
-
New Foe
Suddenly, something shot out of the dirt. It appeared to be the figure of a Diabolian man with his face masked, only his horns apperant. His arms were covered by thick leather sleeves, and from those sleeves protruded dark blades that looked almost like a demon weapon. The man landed, and without hesitation charged at Nalkorash and Eliura. Eliura let go of Nalkorash, jumping back out of the way as he raised his scythe with his other hand, quickly connecting it with the hand Eliura was clinging to. The strange man raised his right arm in the air, ready to impale Nalkorash with the blade, but Nalkorash ducked and punched the man, forgetting about the second blade. The man didn't even flinch from the punch, and shot his second arm right through Nalkorash's chest, the blade soaking in the blood that it gathered in its short time inside of him. The man retracted his arm, Nalkorash falling on the ground gagging with the sudden but fatal injury.
The man turned to Eliura. At that moment, two identical men, both having their faces masked, charged at Eliura from the same hole made in the ground, grabbing onto her arms and restraining her. One of the men had a halberd strapped to his back, the other didn't appear to have a weapon. She thrashed around wildly while screaming, looking at Nalkorash in horror as the two men had to try and avoid getting cut by the sword dangling freely on her back as she moved around. The man that stabbed Nalkorash sprinted up to Eliura, stopping right before running into her, hitting her firmly in the stomach with his elbow, as the other two men pulled her arms in a cross behind her back, having a better grip on her now. She was bent over now, unable to move with her arms being held, not even able to stand up straight without nearly falling to her knees. She looked back at Nalkorash, who showed faint signs of life. She sighed with relief, but then looked back up at the man who hit her. All of the men removed their masks, and Eliura's eyes widened as she noticed something familiar about these Diaboli. She recognized that one of them was a person that was slain by Nalkorash back in the Diaboli home world. The other two were from the army that he fought off a while ago.
However, they looked different than before. They all had demonic traits, including the eyes and veins. They also had stone-cold expressions that almost looked artificial. They didn't even breathe, they just stood there lifelessly holding her down. The only movement visible was the blood flowing through their veins.
"What are you!?" she asked fiercely.
They didn't respond, but instead tightened their grip on her and began to walk her toward the hole in the ground. She thrashed around once more, only to be smacked again to keep her still. As they walked, she looked back at Nalkorash, who was now looking up at her, a small tear forming in his eye as he raised his arm in her direction, soon collapsing lifelessly. She screamed out his name, unable to do much else as her body was now so tight in their grips that the only part of her she could move was her head and toes. Eliura closed her eyes as tears streamed down her cheeks, opening them again once standing right next to the hole. It wasn't a hole at all...more of an extremely wide tube.
This tube was buried until the men shot out of it, and it seemed as though part of it was still buried, as the ground around it created a jagged border that could've been brushed away to widen the tube a little more. All of the men worked together to send Eliura down this tube, and while doing so she used all of her strength to try and break free of their grip, but to no avail. They dropped her, and before her feet were completely inside of the tube, one of the men ripped her sword away from the tethering on her back, since it was too wide to fit. The tube was wide enough around that it could fit two people at once, and that was still while it wasn't completely uncovered.
Eliura smacked the ground down below hard, laying flat on her back. She looked up, and her eyes widened with amazement once more, as what she saw was otherworldly...
-
Artificial Demons
The walls were made of a strange material, similar to that of Diaboli horns, and along those walls were many large green tubes. On the right, there were comatose Diaboli floating in a strange liquid. The Diaboli looked familiar...they were all people that Nalkorash had slain in the past! She quickly looked to the left, and saw that there were parts of demons contained in the other tubes. They weren't in a liquid, but instead they had large wires circulating their blood into the Diaboli tubes via some sort of flexible tube attached to the ceiling of the strange room. She looked back at the Diaboli tubes, and quickly realized that the liquid they were floating in was demon blood.
She watched for a while, as the wounds that Nalkorash caused to their bodies were recovering rapidly, and their physical appearances were changing to that of her and Nalkorash. Deep black eyes, purple veins stretched across their skin, and other such features. They had been dead for some time, though...could they possibly come back to life? She wondered this, as she slowly turned her attention straight ahead and noticed a very large tube, where a strangely familiar man was being contained. All of the demon tubes were circulating blood to this one man's tube, while all of the rest of the Diaboli only had one demon circulating blood into them. She squinted, her eyesight being a little bad from the poor lighting in the room, and realized that this was the old man from before...this was the secret he was keeping!
She began to crawl back, and she had good timing, as the three men that dropped her into that room fell through the same tube she did. They came in an orderly fashion, and they all began to walk toward empty tubes along the right wall. They all opened a door next to the tube they were about to crawl inside, and a few seconds later, an opening slid from behind the tube, where the men walked inside. Upon sliding that door shut again, demon blood began to pump from the other side of the room into their tubes as they slipped into unconsciousness.
Eliura stood up straight now and looked around desperately for her sword. She walked a few steps forward, and looked up the tube she dropped down from, seeing that her sword was stuck in the wall of the tube, unable to fall all the way through. One of the men must have stuck it there upon coming down. She jumped up a few times but was unable to reach it. After seven tries, she managed to jump high enough to grab the handle, but instead of pulling it down, she hung there. The sword wouldn't budge from her putting her weight on it, so she pushed her back against one side of the tube, pressing her foot on the other side, and she managed to pull the sword out, falling flat on her bottom again once freeing it from the wall.
She stood up again and sighed, then looked around for some way to destroy this strange operation. She walked closer to the tube the old man was in, noticing that he wasn't so old anymore. The only familiar part about him was his beard. His skin lost its wrinkles, and he looked much younger now than before. The only problem was, that along with those features, he had so much of a mix of demon blood that he was losing his Diabolian appearance. She stepped closer to the glass cylinder, placing her palm on it, and she looked up at the man floating in the liquid. Immediately upon touching the glass, his eyes shot wide open, almost forming perfect circles. She jumped back scared, noticing that one of his eyes was black, and the other was red. His arm lifted up slowly, and in an instant he punched the glass with a force so great that the demon blood shot out of the tube along with most of the glass. He stepped foot onto the metallic flooring, his claw grabbing what was left of the tube to help stand up without falling over. He looked up at Eliura and laughed wickedly.
"This is it, dear," he said in a heavy voice that didn't sound anything like him, "this is how I gained my knowledge of demons..."
"You -" Eliura stuttered.
The demonic man put his other foot onto the ground and let go of the tube, now able to stand straight.
"Nalkorash has helped me so much...I can't think of a proper way to thank him," he said as a wicked grin sprouted across his face.
"You used him!" she screamed, holding her sword up, ready to fight.
"Yes...I suppose I did," he said more calmly now. "He was just so willing to do it for me. All I had to do was inform a few people that their enemy was here, and all of this started."
Eliura bursted into tears, "He's dead! That isn't any way to thank him, he -"
"Fool, he isn't going to die!" the man shouted. "He has demon blood...do you think he would die so easily? He's just passed out...don't underestimate him."
Eliura fell to the floor, relieved. She was still crying, but she was much calmer now, taking breaths to keep from getting overworked.
"Now, it's time to figure out what I'm going to do with you." he pondered.
Eliura looked up at him, getting a much clearer view now that the green tube isn't blocking her vision. His skin was a dark red color, and his horns were very large and black. There were spikes protruding from his arms and his back, seeming to be made of the same material as his horns. His body was much buffer than before, and he towered over his previous height now. He had large fangs, and had trouble keeping them hidden. He tried to remain calm, but would oftentimes burst into growls and vicious expressions. He was very unstable.
"Why are you doing all of this?" she asked.
The demonic man hesitated, apparently having trouble speaking in this form, "I reached the end of my life. I've lived long, and with so much knowledge, I couldn't let it go to waste. From seeing Nalkorash, I knew that my theories were correct about demons and Diaboli mixing their blood. I'd been researching for a while now...and I'm glad it only took me one try to perfect myself and this facility. He killed the Diaboli, you killed the demons...you both helped me make this wondrous dream a reality!"
"We wouldn't have done it if we'd known!" she screamed.
"I'm aware of that. That's why I didn't tell you," he said, baring his fangs in a wicked grin. "I can rule Yliakum now...challenge the Gods themselves! I have demonic minions and the blood of so many different kinds of demons flowing through me. The holiness of this place has no effect anymore. We've overpowered it and there's nothing that can stop us at this point. I have to thank Nalkorash for being merciless in his killings. Being dead already, their soul has left them, and I can control these people as I please. All it takes is this..."
The man walked back to the tube he emerged from, ripping it from the wall. From there, he stuck his claws in the wall, and ripped it apart, revealing something behind them that looked like a normal Diabolian man in a tube that had a soft gum-like substance holding him in place inside of it.
"This man has amazing empathy. He can communicate to demons without even talking to them. He uses his mind, which is a gift that came at birth, and he's the reason I know as much about demons as I do. Overpowering him and forcing him here was easy. He sees my thoughts and transmits them to the demon minions. If he doesn't, then I kill him. It's a pretty nice deal..."
"You're insane!" Eliura screamed again.
The man smiled, "I'd already had demon blood in my system when Nalkorash met me, I just hadn't had a chance to test it."
"What do you hope to accomplish by taking power from the Gods?"
"My curiosity of Yliakum has been at its pique for such a long time...this is my best chance to see what the life of a God is like. Even if I have to take it by force, the effort is worth it."
"I won't let you do this!" Eliura charged at the man, her sword raised, rushing to her death...
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Close to the end. ;)
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:'( :'( :'( Wow, good story, but the end? "rushing to her death..." Meh. C'mon! You can do better! Eliura dies!? Ok, fair enough, but rushing to her death doesn't work as good as a heroic stand and the a dark ending. :P :P :P
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That's not the ending. :P
There's a lot more, trust me.
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:oops: :-X :-[ :P \\o// \\o// \\o//
GREAT! I new you would do it| :sweatdrop: :whistling:
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Degenerate
Nalkorash's eyes shot open, awakening to find that he was once again borrowing the power of the demon blood, the veins that normally stay dormant inside of his horns now pumping blood to his brain. He slowly stood up, the wound in his chest bleeding heavily. This wasn't demon blood though, it was his own blood, which was why he'd been forced to rely on the demon blood to awaken from the heavy wound. It started to recover itself, as do most wounds demon attain, but the skin that returned to him felt strange. It was slightly leathery, and a lighter color than his normal skin. He payed no attention to it and took a few steps forward, looking around and trying to remember what had happened. The image of Eliura being carried away came to his mind, and he fiercely looked in all directions, trying to find where she'd gone. He wasn't awake when she'd been cast down into the strange room, but he could remember that the men that'd attacked them had shot out of the ground. He ran to the hole, looking down inside to hear the clanging and bubbling sounds much more loudly than before. He quickly jumped down, holding his scythe above his head so that it wouldn't get stuck while making his descent.
Landing on the floor below, he looked up to see a bald demon covered in blood, standing over the unconscious body of his new lover. Without saying anything, he screamed in anger, charging at the demon with an extraordinary speed, hardly giving him time to move out of the way before Nalkorash's scythe came down upon him. The demon stuck his wide palm out, letting the scythe stick in his hand as Nalkorash drew in some of the blood that the scythe found digging around in his arm. Nalkorash lifted his feet to grab hold of the demon's arm as he pulled his scythe out and jumped back down to the ground. As Nalkorash's scythe grew in size, he stuck it inside of the cloth sheath on his waist Eliura had made for him, and his arms began to circulate electricity that made the tubes hanging near the ceiling wave back and fourth, and he charged at the demon once more, his tightened fist aiming straight for the demon's head as he threw a quick punch. The demon looked more concerned with protecting the man in the tube behind him rather than his own life, and he swayed to the side, grabbing Nalkorash's arm as it flew past him, throwing him across the room into the wall near the tube he fell down through, the material cracking slightly with Nalkorash's body slamming against it.
"Awake and feisty as ever!" the demon said with a deep laugh.
Nalkorash picked himself back up after falling off the wall, charging once more, his arms circulating an even heavier amount of electricity. The once-old man quickly picked up Eliura's body and held it in front of him to block the attack, Nalkorash recoiling his attack and jumping back as to not harm her. The demon threw her body to the side and his arm began to emit a green aura, attacking Nalkorash's senses as the air grew thicker with it. He closed his eyes and began to growl, his nose pickering and his body thrashing around wildly as he was being subdued by basic demon magic. The air subsided, and before Nalkorash could even notice, he was thrown back into the wall by the demon's fist. He coughed as he looked up at the demon, recognizing him as the old man he'd seen before, but with a severely changed physical appearance. Borrowing the power of his demon entity, he was unable to think very well, and being that he never liked the old man much to begin with, he decided to keep his attacks coming, then giving up his thoughts completely as the blood pumped harder to his brain.
He jumped to his feet and threw another electrified punch at the demon, his attack coming faster than before. Unable to dodge, the demon got punched hard in his bare chest, an explosion causing him to slide across the room on his feet. Quickly he tried to regain his balance as Nalkorash sprinted at him, his body almost fading away as light as he ran, his hair being the only way to track his movements. Nalkorash threw another punch, the demon unable to see where it was coming from as it'd hit him almost instantly, knocking him off his feet this time and mid-way into the air. His body hit the ground hard, and Nalkorash jumped on top of him, punching at his face brutishly. The demon managed to dodge the four punches that came at him, and as Nalkorash threw his fifth punch, his fist was grabbed and thrown to the side as the demon rolled over and stood, Nalkorash jumping at him to try and disorient him. The demon grabbed both of Nalkorash's arms as he leaped and threw him into one of the tubes behind him.
Before impact, Nalkorash spun around and kicked his feet off of the tube, flying at the demon with another incredible speed, his arms circulating even more electricity now. However, his arms were grabbed once again as he was thrown back into the wall beside the opening in the ground he'd fallen through. Instead of smashing against the wall this time, he slowed his movement backwards with his feet, managing to bump into it instead of slam into it as before. He raised his foot up and kicked off of the wall after coming to a stop, sprinting at the demon once again with an even faster speed. Suddenly, Nalkorash disappeared, and the demon searched frantically to find him. Just then, he felt a sharp pain in his back, and was then kicked into the ground a second after. The demon quickly spun around to see another demon standing over him...no, this was Nalkorash. Nalkorash raised his scythe and slammed it down on the demon once more, but he spun out of the way to avoid it and stood to his legs.
"I understand now! You're not strong because you acquired the blood of a strong demon...your body was already devolving into one before you came into contact! I had no idea it would have this much affect!" the demon yelled, fright showing in his heavy voice. "Now I know I need your blood to rule this world! You've shown you can help me even more..."
Nalkorash had actually changed into a demon. His skin was lighter than it was before, being tough and leathery. His arms had two spikes protruding from them, his back had four. His fangs showed even with his mouth closed, and his hair was much longer than before, adding to the frightening look as it fell in front of his face. His knees had spikes protruding from them as well, and his body overall was much larger. Even his scythe looked different, being larger with a dark, purple-tinted blade. Nalkorash growled as he charged at the other demon once again, disappearing and reappearing behind the demon as his torso shot to the ground. Nalkorash returned his scythe to the cloth sheath, and stood over the corpse of the demon as the demon blood it carried spilled out, making him slowly revert back to his normal form as the old man. Only, his beard didn't grow back, and he looked quite sickly.
Nalkorash stepped on the skull with his large demon foot and looked over to Eliura, who's eyes were wide open staring at him...
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Hibernation
Nalkorash looked over to see the man that was controlling the demons in the tubes. As the man opened his eyes, Nalkorash sprinted up to him and impaled his neck with his claw, keeping him from calling the men in the tubes for aid. Nalkorash pulled his claw out of the tube, the gum-like substance covering his arm. He brushed it off with his left claw as it seemed to dissolve when it hit the ground. The artificial demons inside of the tubes fell forward, unable to completely fall down with the tubes holding them up. Nalkorash walked by and looked at all of the men, snorting as he saw one who was slightly taller and different-colored than the rest. He was wearing a strange red suit that had multiple weapons attached to it, seeming to be created from demons, but before Nalkorash examined any further, he killed that man the same as he did the other, impaling his neck with his claw as the tube broke and the blood poured out onto the floor of the room. Nalkorash went around the room and broke all of the tubes, the bodies smacking against the floor and the demon blood pouring out of the tube and soaking into the strange substance making up the room. He then walked over to Eliura and slung her over his shoulder. She was completely lost in thought, thinking of Fang, and how Nalkorash closely resembled him.
Nalkorash walked toward the entrance to the room, throwing Eliura up through the tube, making her do a roll as she hit the ground outside. She looked down as Nalkorash raised his claws straight at the other side of the room, his arms circulating a great amount of electricity as it began to form into a large electric ball in his palms. He slowly drew his two palms together as the electricity intertwined, and Nalkorash sent the ball flying across the room as it curved and hit the dead-center of the floor. Nalkorash quickly jumped back through the entrance of the room as a shockwave completely destroyed the contents of the room and shot up through the tube after Nalkorash hit the ground outside. He took a few heavy, grinding breaths as he looked up at Eliura, who was still staring at him.
Unable to speak, or even think clearly, Nalkorash began to wander off somewhere. Eliura followed him as his body dragged wearily across the ground, the Azure Sun's energy beginning to take its toll on him being that he was now a demon. They seemed to walk for miles, until finally Nalkorash collapsed behind a rock, unable to move. Eliura's eyes widened as she ran up to him and kneeled down to see what was wrong. His body started to circulate electricity, and it seemed as though it was hurting him.
"Nalkorash!" she screamed, tears forming in her eyes.
The electricity started to die down, and then completely disappear, but Nalkorash's body sat on the ground lifeless.
"No! Not you too!" Eliura screamed again, fitting herself around Nalkorash's various body spikes to embrace him. She buried her face in his leathery skin, tears streaming from her eyes and down Nalkorash's chest. She didn't know what was going on, and she couldn't do anything to help him. Nalkorash's body began to change, and Eliura pushed herself away to see that he was reverting back to the form of a Diaboli. His armor was completely scrapped from his body expanding and the spikes protruding from it. Eliura went back into an embrace and kissed his lips, thinking Nalkorash was going to wake up, but she was wrong. Nalkorash still sat lifeless, apparently dead...
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Parting
Eliura walked off into the woods, coming back later holding a perfectly carved ring of stone. It had the words 'remember me' carved into it, and she knelt beside Nalkorash's body as she slipped the ring onto his finger.
"Oh Nalkorash...you haven't even aged a day. What's going on...? Are you really dead, or are you asleep? Please wake up..." she said, tears forming in her eyes as she walked away, her body wrinkled and weary; her time had come. She stopped at a rock nearby Nalkorash, and layed down next to it as her age took its toll. Her eyes widened, her body shook, and then...nothing. Her head touched the ground and her eyes closed...she was now dead.
Over time her body decayed, and the wind carried her remains with it, nothing left of her but the ring she had made for Nalkorash. He was still asleep after nearly thirty years, but his body didn't age a day. It may have been because he was an unawakened demon, or that some sort of outside force was keeping him alive. However, all he could do was sit there and rest, the Azure Sun keeping him from moving.
Nalkorash cried as his mother embraced him, the scrape on his leg starting to bleed. She picked him up and sat him down on the table, then walked into the other room, returning a minute later with a few cloth bandages and an ointment. She rubbed the ointment into the wound to clean it out, and then sealed it with the bandages as he winced in pain. He opened his eyes and looked at her after she was done, and looked at his leg, trying to move it around but feeling more pain.
"Take it easy," she said. "Rest a while, it'll feel better soon."
She carried him over to the bed and sat him down in it, covering him up as she kissed him on the cheek.
"Thank you," he said, falling asleep a few minutes later.
Nalkorash hauled the last load of wood to his family's home. He layed the axe on the ground, then dumped the wood out of the wheel barrel. He pushed it over next to the shed, and then walked over to one of the many pieces of wood on the ground, picking it up and placing it flat on the tree stump. He picked up his axe and walked back over to the wood, starting to split it. He proceeded to do this many times, and after splitting the wood he would throw it back into the wheel barrel and dump it into the shed. He got chips of wood in his eyes a few times, and would stick the axe into the wood he was chopping to try and wipe the chips out of his eyes with his sleeves. He loaded the last three loads into the wheel barrel and carried it around to the house, dumping it next to the fireplace.
"Get it done?" his father said, walking into the room.
"Yep!" Nalkorash chanted, slipping around his father through the doorway to the kitchen to get something to eat.
Rumors spread throughout the village. The Diaboli were going to be able to escape this land, and go to a better place. Nalkorash's family heard of these rumors as well, and they had already started packing their things into a wagon to take to the new world. Nalkorash's mother and little brother sat in the wagon in front of the supplies, as he and his father hauled the wagon. Nalkorash's body shook slightly as he dreamt of the pain of losing his family, and being tossed into the river of blood. Then, he dreamt of the excitement he had hunting down innocent people, and meeting Eliura. He couldn't change the events, no matter how hard he wanted to...
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Generosity
A dark light slowly covered the Azure Sun in an eclipse. Nalkorash's his eyes opened slowly, and he saw a little pale-skinned girl standing over him. His head hurt, and he couldn't recall anything that had happened, not even his own dreams. He looked up at her, thinking she was some sort of creature, since he'd never seen someone of another race before. He slowly backed away with his hands and legs, still laying flat on the ground. She giggled and followed him, not scared by Nalkorash's void-like eyes or his scythe. He stopped moving, realizing that she wasn't a threat, and slowly sat up, putting his hand on his head as he winced in pain.
"Come on," she said, "let's go back to the village!"
Nalkorash looked at her again, and shrugged as he followed, his scythe hanging back in the cloth wrapped around his belt. She lured him to her village, where people were holed up in their homes in fear of the eclipse.
Strange creatures began to march toward the village, not appearing to be demons, but instead overgrown animals. Nalkorash shook his head as he watched them approach, something seeming to come back to his memory. As they drew closer, Nalkorash removed his scythe from its makeshift sheath, and charged at the mob. He leaped up and impaled his scythe in the egg sac of a large yellow creature, and leaped off of its back as he spun around and cut another large creature down the middle, its large claws sticking into the ground upon falling.
Nalkorash looked around, seeing many more creatures surrounding him. Another like he'd just slain raised its massive claw to smash down upon him, but Nalkorash side-stepped out of the way and impaled the creature in the back, then ripped his scythe out of it as he kicked the head of another one of the yellow creatures to keep it from progressing toward him. He used his footing to crawl up on the creature, his arm starting to circulate electricity, and he fit his hand around the egg sac as it soon exploded, sending the contents flying onto him and a few nearby creatures. He walked off of the creature's lifeless body, and then proceeded to slay the rest of the creatures.
People watched him from their homes and applauded to his prowess. He walked back into the village, covered in the blood of the creatures he'd slain, and returned his scythe to its sheath. A few of his memories of fighting returned to him, but not clearly since he was fighting creatures instead of people. He looked down at the little girl who skipped up to him and hugged his leg, raising a brow.
"Thank you!" she said with a loud voice.
Other villagers began to walk out of their homes, all being pale-skinned like the girl, and formed a circle around him to cheer. Nalkorash had a problem, though. In his time of being in the village, which wasn't very long, he noticed that he couldn't understand anything that anyone was saying; they appeared to speak a different language. He tried to talk back to them, but they obviously couldn't understand what he was saying either.
With a few day's time, he began to pick up their language. It was like he was a newborn, not being able to understand anything they were saying, and having to repeat their words to find out what each one meant and did. He spent many months there, and in his time he helped the farmers with their work, his scythe making a nice tool. He also played with the little girl, and seemed to be having fun while doing so, even though he still couldn't recall his memories. He had been in a coma for hundreds of years apparently, since this village wasn't here when he had last been awake.
One day while he was with her, she had just gotten done picking flowers, and when she walked over to the village, Nalkorash turned around to follow her and his scythe slipped from its sheath and slit her neck, instantly killing her. His eyes widened, and he looked down at her corpse, trying to come up with the words to say. Before he could, his head started to pulsate, and he started to remember his history of killing. He fell to one knee, taking in all of the images of blood and corpses. He looked back at the girl, a strange grin creeping across his face.
Nalkorash was back...
He walked away from the village, not killing all of them as thanks for taking him in, but proceeded to follow the road to another town...
About a year later, Nalkorash looked up into the sky. The eclipse ended shortly after he awakened so long ago, and the Azure Sun proceeded to take its toll on him once more, but he ignored the pain he felt. His memories of Eliura had returned, and he looked at the ring on his finger, barely making out the words that were carved on it. The ring had decayed since it was first made, and seemed like it could break in half at any minute.
"Goodbye, Eliura..."
A tear fell from his eye as he walked back into the town of Hydlaa to live out the rest of his life.
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\\o// \\o// \\o// Woo-hoo! Great stuff!