Dealthagar/For Her Sins

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For Her Sins (MATURE)

"Skumps and fair dawn!"

There was a cheer and a crash of steins in response to the toast. Edward grinned and elbowed Robert. His cousin grinned back as they reveled in their good fortune. The Hallows had brought a good pumpkin harvest, and the merchant at the head of the table had been covering the tab for everyone who joined him. A half-dozen women fawned over the affections of the gaunt, red-haired man, as if he were an Adonis. Edward had "known" two of them, and he was fairly sure Robert was a regular distraction of the one sitting in the merchant's lap.

Late fall in Occlo was one of the few times of the year the city ever saw visitors. Since the great sundering, Occlo had become little more than a ghost town that served to distract the local farmers and their farmhands. Edward and Robert had come here two summers ago after Robert had an unfortunate run of bad luck in a series of dice games in Britain. It was boring, hard work, but the alternative was far worse.

When the blue velvet and silk swathed merchant had arrived earlier in the evening, it looked like he was intent on enjoying the charms of one or two of the Knotted Root's regulars. A few fistfuls of gold and a dozen pitchers later, Edward was sure the man was open to a lot more.

Robert leaned in and whispered into his cohort's ear. "How much more do ya think it'll take?"

Edward smiled and shook his head knowingly. "Nae much. Then we'll take a walk."

Being a farmhand was boring. It also paid like dung. Over the last two winters, when work was light, the two cousins had made a good bit of money nicking a few tools from around the farms and selling them for scrap to a travelling tinker. Drunken merchants were notorious for losing small bags of coins. The two had learned their lesson in Britain; nothing big, don't draw attention to yourself.

Angus, the burly barkeep and innkeeper walked over to the table and picked up the remaining empty pitchers. "Finish yuir tankards, I need tae go tae bed."

The drunken girls booed and jeered at the barkeep but the merchant shushed them gently. "No, no it's quite alright. We'll finish up here and be on our way."

"So will ye be needin a room fer the night?"

The merchant shook his head. "No need. I was here for the company." He reached into his belt pouch and tossed Angus a fist-sized bag of coins. "For your trouble and hospitality." The barkeep nodded and returned to the bar.

The two would-be thieves looked at each other. If they were going to get a good score, they would need to work quickly. Robert turned to the merchant and raised his cup. "It's a shame it has to end sir. I wonder though, there's not a moongate here, and this is the only inn in town. Where will you sleep?"

The merchant roared with laughter. "Sleep? Don't tell me you boys are already done?" The merchant put his face with a growl into one of the women's bosom as she giggled. Looking back up to the cousins, he continued. "I'm a mage. A quick gate and we can return to my manor. I've got all the food, ale and room we could want!" He squeezed the waists of the two closest women. "Are you ladies up for it?"

Edward and Robert gave each other a knowing grin. Once out cold, they could have their pick of the place! A merchant with this much coin to spare certainly had a few things of value lying around. The cousins lifted their mugs and toasted the merchant. "We're in, friend!"

Slowed by drink, the merchant rose from his chair and opened a Moongate, ushering the pack of party-goers through. The cousin's eyes widened seeing the grand staircase at the front of the immense manor house. They turned to their host in awe. "This is..."

"Aye. But lonely." Putting his arms around the shoulders of two of the women, the merchant led them all up the stairs. "I had my servants arrange the main hall, hoping I would be able to bring the party home. A keep like this needs the sounds of joy from time to time."

The merchant flung the doors open. All the furniture in the great hall had been removed, save a few candelabras. The floor was littered with mounds of pillows of every discernable size and shape. Among the pillows sat small raised trays, bearing exotic foods, bottles of wine and spirits, ornate water pipes and hookahs, braziers filled with incense, giving off a sweet tangy smoke and small silver bowls filled with a milky green fluid that small greenish cubes sat in, skewered with toothpicks. "Enjoy my hospitality. Tonight there are no rules, no limits. Despair for the dawn, for tonight, you will live like you never have before!"

The merchant disrobed and laid down among the pillows, offering cubes of Saerelai Cactus flesh to each of his guests, who hungrily accepted them. Between the Drow wine, Absinthe, Saerelei laced incense, smoke and flesh, the gathering quickly degenerated into a writhing drug-fueled orgy, the guests an incoherent mass of lust and excess.

Edward awoke, his head throbbing from the night's activities. He had fallen asleep, which had not been part of the plan, but what he could remember of the night made it worth it. He tried to get to his feet, and found that he couldn't move at all. His head throbbed, he could feel the cold marble his arm lay on, where it had slipped off the pillow, but he could not move. He tried to speak, but his mouth held silent.

The smiling face of the merchant appeared in his vision. Rather than the opulent blue velvet robes of the night before, he wore a simple medicus' cassock, except instead of white, it was black as coal. "You're awake! Good morning." The merchant sipped a dainty tea-cup. "Although, truthfully, it is nearly four bells in the afternoon."

The merchant smiled as Edward's eyes darted around in terror. "As you may have guessed, I am not a merchant lord of Skara Brae. I am Dealthagar, one of the Necromantic Ancients of Umbra." Edward's eyes widened and his heart began to race.

"Kalja tanzhelath!" A pair of harpoon-like chains shot from the ceiling and buried themselves into his shoulders right above the collarbones. The pain was agonizing as a clanking began and he was hauled to a standing position, like a macabre marionette.

He felt his blood run cold as the room came into view. Instead of the opulent den of pleasure from the night before, he was looking at a chamber of horrors. One of the women had been impaled on a jagged spiked column of bone and obsidian, which tore her nearly in half. Another hung from the same sort of hooks that he now hung from, except she had been gutted and dressed, like a deer or a cow. His cousin lay underneath her, and from the look of it, his inability to move had made him drown in her spilled entrails that sloppily covered him and floor around him.

The two women Edward had known best had been ground together in a horrific mockery of brass and black stone that looked like a cross between a flour mill and a cider press. The "juice" that ran was filling a vat; several racks of wine bottles, stood by, ready to accept the diabolic liquid. The last two party-goers lay in a pile of hastily and clumsily dismembered parts, some of which were chewed to the bone. Both faces had been carefully flayed from the skull, and lay stretching on drying racks, like a trapper's hide, waiting to cure.

"What to do, what to do?" Dealthagar drained the tea-cup then let it go. It shattered on the floor, and the slivers crunched under the necromancer's bare feet, leaving behind a trail of dark red footprints. He brought himself nose-to-nose with Edward, his hands clasped behind his back. "I've already satisfied my anger. The sting of her denial of me has grown numb."

The red-haired necromancer turned, continuing the pretense of holding a conversation with Edward. "Denying me twice in a single night. I could not believe she had the gall to do that." Dealthagar spun on his heel, and the illusion across his face faded. "I am the Herald of Oblivion! How dare she deny my charms?" A flick of his wrist and an arc of purple lightning shot from his hand, scorching Edwards’s chest. The agony was nearly unbearable, yet Edward could just hang there limply. "To offer myself is gift few are worthy of!"

Dealthagar turned away again, and slowly walked towards the obsidian spire. Pulling an impossibly sharp surgical knife from his hip pouch, he finished the ragged split up her abdomen, throat and jaw, and the mutilated corpse fell to the floor. "Then for her to come back to me, entice me, attempt to seduce me..." Dealthagar drew the golden blade across his palm, cutting it to the bone, and a stream of crimson poured from the wound. The necromancer turned back to Edward and put the bleeding palm against Edward's chest. "Vuliklath'dakt rikatlath'de!"

As a child, Edward's father had worked in a forge, shodding horses and forging plows. An ember of molten steel had once jumped from the hammer and landed on Edwards’s foot. His screams had been heard from several shops away, and he carried the horrible purple scar to this day. The burning he felt in that moment paled to the white hot pain that lit every fiber, every nerve in his body.

Dealthagar removed his hand from Edward and the pain subsided. "For her to bring me to that point, just before ecstasy, and then walk away, thinking she has control over me. Me! The Oracle of Control!" Dealthagar drove a finger into one of the harpoon wounds in Edward's chest. "Endaizhu!" Edward flailed as his muscles spasmed uncontrollably as his body rebelled against the pain.

Dealthagar took his finger from the wound and put it in his mouth, his eyes closing as he savored the taste. "She should consider herself blessed that others can suffer to redeem her wronging me." He sighed. "I can't let you go. You've seen and heard far too much. If I had her skills, I'd pull you into a chair or a nice end-table." Dealthagar shook his head and drew the golden surgical blade again. "At least I'll have a dish to pass at Moonglow's Hollows Festival."


Original Post Date: Tue Nov 03, 2009

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