DegSep Sheol Ficlets
Ficlet #1: Guathor
Warnings: Pain and hurting.
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Guathor, the Nine-Fingered King, stood in his scrying cavern. A pool of lava cast a lurid red glow over him, revealing black skin and black steel armor. He was a massive orc, almost eight feet tall, every inch bulging with muscles. The black half-plate seemed to constrain him at times, but it was the best armor in all of the hell of Sheol. Too many of the deleted eschewed armor, realizing too late that they could still be hurt.
In this place, though, suffering could be power. He brought his hands together, the claws of the left piercing the fingertips of the right. He bent his will towards the strangers treading on his soil, unwelcome but unhindered. Who came onward and why? He drew his hands apart and let his blood fall into the lava.
The lava roiled and erupted upwards violently, splattering him with molten droplets. His skin melted and scarred over in an instant, trapping the lava beneath his flesh. It burned agonizingly as the lava cooled in his blood.
His armor was also scarred by the splash, but for this he would not allow any permanent damage. He exerted his power, and the metal flowed liquidly as it returned to its previous shape. There was no finer armor in all of Sheol, and he would never allow there to be.
As his geokinesis faded, an old scar opened and a dark pebble dropped to the ground and rolled into the lava.
The pool grew unnaturally still until it resembled a pool of blood. Then an image shimmered above the lava, wavering in the heat. Four programs and something that was neither fully program nor fully human picked their way through the broken plain south of his fortress. Two of the programs were orcs, and one resembled an orc. The fourth, though, was Persephone.
"You make Orpheus's descent, Kore." Guathor laughed and the image wavered at the sound. Lurking under the sound of his voice ran the crackle and roar of a forest burning.
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Ficlet #2: The Queen of Air and Darkness
Warnings: Trippiness.
---
An eternal summer clung to Sheol, it's heat grown oppressive. Long ago under its rule, the ground had baked hard and cracked open. Parched vegetation trembled and crumbled to dust when a breeze dared to stir. The dead brown plains stretched from horizon to horizon, broken in only three places. In the center of all, a volcano loomed high, holding up the heavens.
Miles of emptiness lay between it and the gray city that dominated the southwest. The city sprawled organically, a mishmash of architectural styles united in gunmetal gray.
East of the volcano, a shadowy forest curled over the plains.
The trees of the forest shifted, marching with a stately elegance, wavering in and out of existence, and slouching towards the end of the world. The trees did not matter so long as the forest remained, eternal as the summer.
In the depths of the forest, where the trees lurked so close that no light came in, three great burial mounds lay uncovered. No tree dared to obstruct the view of the sky, not while the sound of dark reveling rose up to pollute the air. The sounds were horrifying in their muffled perfection. No one came nigh the woods for fear of hearing them clearly.
At the tip of the longest mound, one of the people from under the hill sat. Every inch of her blazed with an impossibly perfection, save for her empty eyesockets. She was a lithe maiden, her skin pale as moonlight and her hair brown as chestnuts. An inhuman grace suffused her movements as she stretched out upon the grass.
A great stag approached and lowered itself down next to her. A red stain ran in phantom droplets down from each of the many points on its rack of antlers. It lowered its head to nuzzle at her breasts, and she flung her arms around its neck.
In an instant, the stag became a man clad in buckskin. He resembled her only faintly, for the look of the stag was still about him. Antlers still grew from his head, and his ears belonged to a deer. His aspect was bestial; perhaps he had been like her once, but now he was the stag shaped like a man.
He kissed her hungrily, and the trees fled in terror. She tangled her hands in his mane of hair, and the mound of earth vanished from underneath them. The sound of dark revelry faded between one breath and the next. Air and darkness and the eternal summer surrounded them.
Warnings: Pain and hurting.
---
Guathor, the Nine-Fingered King, stood in his scrying cavern. A pool of lava cast a lurid red glow over him, revealing black skin and black steel armor. He was a massive orc, almost eight feet tall, every inch bulging with muscles. The black half-plate seemed to constrain him at times, but it was the best armor in all of the hell of Sheol. Too many of the deleted eschewed armor, realizing too late that they could still be hurt.
In this place, though, suffering could be power. He brought his hands together, the claws of the left piercing the fingertips of the right. He bent his will towards the strangers treading on his soil, unwelcome but unhindered. Who came onward and why? He drew his hands apart and let his blood fall into the lava.
The lava roiled and erupted upwards violently, splattering him with molten droplets. His skin melted and scarred over in an instant, trapping the lava beneath his flesh. It burned agonizingly as the lava cooled in his blood.
His armor was also scarred by the splash, but for this he would not allow any permanent damage. He exerted his power, and the metal flowed liquidly as it returned to its previous shape. There was no finer armor in all of Sheol, and he would never allow there to be.
As his geokinesis faded, an old scar opened and a dark pebble dropped to the ground and rolled into the lava.
The pool grew unnaturally still until it resembled a pool of blood. Then an image shimmered above the lava, wavering in the heat. Four programs and something that was neither fully program nor fully human picked their way through the broken plain south of his fortress. Two of the programs were orcs, and one resembled an orc. The fourth, though, was Persephone.
"You make Orpheus's descent, Kore." Guathor laughed and the image wavered at the sound. Lurking under the sound of his voice ran the crackle and roar of a forest burning.
---
Ficlet #2: The Queen of Air and Darkness
Warnings: Trippiness.
---
An eternal summer clung to Sheol, it's heat grown oppressive. Long ago under its rule, the ground had baked hard and cracked open. Parched vegetation trembled and crumbled to dust when a breeze dared to stir. The dead brown plains stretched from horizon to horizon, broken in only three places. In the center of all, a volcano loomed high, holding up the heavens.
Miles of emptiness lay between it and the gray city that dominated the southwest. The city sprawled organically, a mishmash of architectural styles united in gunmetal gray.
East of the volcano, a shadowy forest curled over the plains.
The trees of the forest shifted, marching with a stately elegance, wavering in and out of existence, and slouching towards the end of the world. The trees did not matter so long as the forest remained, eternal as the summer.
In the depths of the forest, where the trees lurked so close that no light came in, three great burial mounds lay uncovered. No tree dared to obstruct the view of the sky, not while the sound of dark reveling rose up to pollute the air. The sounds were horrifying in their muffled perfection. No one came nigh the woods for fear of hearing them clearly.
At the tip of the longest mound, one of the people from under the hill sat. Every inch of her blazed with an impossibly perfection, save for her empty eyesockets. She was a lithe maiden, her skin pale as moonlight and her hair brown as chestnuts. An inhuman grace suffused her movements as she stretched out upon the grass.
A great stag approached and lowered itself down next to her. A red stain ran in phantom droplets down from each of the many points on its rack of antlers. It lowered its head to nuzzle at her breasts, and she flung her arms around its neck.
In an instant, the stag became a man clad in buckskin. He resembled her only faintly, for the look of the stag was still about him. Antlers still grew from his head, and his ears belonged to a deer. His aspect was bestial; perhaps he had been like her once, but now he was the stag shaped like a man.
He kissed her hungrily, and the trees fled in terror. She tangled her hands in his mane of hair, and the mound of earth vanished from underneath them. The sound of dark revelry faded between one breath and the next. Air and darkness and the eternal summer surrounded them.