ERode

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

_{@Asuras@Psyker Landshark@Rune_Alchemist}

Where was the blood, to grant her her mind?

Where was the shadow, to grant her her flesh?

Where was the goddess, to grant her her succour?

Nowhere. Nowhere. Nowhere.

Her ichor leaked freely from her gargantuan body, a hundred maws heaving with bloody spittle as the air itself was replaced by the searing of her flesh. Whatever sorceries she wove could not compare to the sacrifices of the Silver Saints in invoking the presence of their God, and the purified metal that this mountain had become bore down on her with the weight of a meteor forever in descent. Crushing, pulverizing, offering no respite. Long gone was any thought of escape, any strategy to deliver her from her end, the monster reverting to infantile memories as the demons that sustained her thoughts blinked out one by one, contracts revoked before the brilliance of that mercurial flame.

So she crawled, like a beast. Shadows sloughing off, a snake molting with no hope of renewal. Deeper and deeper, seeking the blood of mortals to stave off agony. Praying, that within dark depths, she could outrace the silver veins. But the hundred maws screamed for a hunger unsated, and the hundred limbs were scorched, reduced to miserable stubs. In caverns, her lament became a newborn’s wail, clawing at its mother’s womb.

But the womb was a prison. And the mother had expired.

…

How long had it been, since shadow was shadow?

Within the embrace of the sarcophagus, Ilena struggled, naught more than a palm-sized bundle of flesh and bone. Memories bloated within her undeveloped brain, and she pulled at thoughts as if they were clouds, pudgy hands opening and closing onto skyborne dew. She remembered her death, and she remembered her life, but most importantly, she remembered her Goddess. Of Vermin and of Blood, the Patron of the Sanguine Cohort. Was this how her prayers had been answered, the last utterances she made before she devolved into a wretched abomination?

What did it matter.

Thoughts became strings, teasing at the material around her, pulling in the darkness that hid her pathetic form. Contracts were re-established, eldritch beings of wit and intellect pulled out from the aether to fill her mind once more. And from a shadow as viscous as mud, she forged her body anew.

And yet, there was resistance there. Limitations unnatural and unbecoming. The child frowned, feeling the putrid blood of her veins struggle, the might of her spirit wane. It was lacking. Her resurrection, by means unknown, had not restored the entirety of her capability, the arcane might she had forged to make up for the weakness of her natural flesh. To push further than this current state would be to gradually exhaust her vigour. So this undeveloped form then, would be what she would have to settle with.

Disappointing. But the Goddess’s will must be done, no matter the current state of her capabilities. So the remnants of shadow wove itself around her vernal form, devoid yet of the monstrosities that once dwelled within, and Ilena pulled herself out of the sarcophagus slowly, testing still the new range of her body.

The two that awaited her was the Death Knight, Dragan Meszaros, the Deathraising Conqueror and the Stain of the Paladins. His visage was noble despite his barbaric armor, though Ilena herself had no right to judge barbarism, especially when that songstress was there to put both of them to shame. Even freshly resurrected, weakened, perhaps, like the rest of them, the charisma of Luna Emeraltide clung as thickly to her as honey would leak from a smashed hive. And as a being of artifice herself, forged once by the buzzing flesh of craven insectoids, Ilena too could recall a time where she was fascinated by this woman.

The memories of her youth disgusted her now, even if her current form was many ‘years’ more immature than when she had ever truly encountered them.

“It appears the Goddess does provide,” Ilena remarked, her gaze turning towards the cries of pests and vermin. “And so, it will do well to oblige indeed. But as for our lesser kin on the path to Her cathedral, will you two slake your thirst or await finer meals?”

The Eiden Lands

Eyes open for this.

Qualia: Mission Sub Rosa

𝔸𝕣𝕔 𝟙 ; 𝔽𝕒𝕤𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟

_{EE 87, May 12 | Morning}

Four days had passed since the anticlimatic end to the du Bourdeaux trial, one that had already been forgotten about by the second day. After all, while Jeanne herself was an individual of infamy, every student in Bermuda had an exceptional story or two dogging their trail, and the Bermuda Triangle’s news cycle continued unabashedly, picking up everything from salacious snippets of the luxuries that old-wealth Polymaths indulged in without the collars of their family, to the highlights of whatever social events that secret societies and student unions hosted. International news was swinging in curious directions as well, with the civil war in the Ottoman Empire slowly drawing in the surrounding nations, vultures who offered funds and recognized sovereignty in exchange for plucking pieces of land out from the decaying carcass that was the Ottomans.

But while all that was fascinating for the well-read, well-educated students of the academic island, on the morning of the 12th of May, there was something else to get excited about. The Chipperfield’s Circus, the world-touring extravaganza that featured performers from all the greatest nations in the world, was coming to Bermuda! Already, space was being made at Docks and Storage to accommodate the flamboyant airships that made up the Chipperfield fleet, replete as they were with exotic animals from both the Far East and the Far West, and from the news article itself, it looked as if their performance would be on the 15th of May, starting early in the evening and ending thirty minutes before curfew! Of course, recordings would be made for those workaholics too occupied to attend, and depending on the tickets one got, purchasing a recording may even be a better experience!

It was funny, perhaps, that curfew was still omnipresent. But it was only funny to those who had not yet plunged into the mists. No major incidents occurred, however, and indeed, while the mist itself still plunged the island in a state where one could hardly see two meters ahead of them, no students who broke curfew ended up amnesiac anymore. Had the problem been resolved, all by itself?

Or was this simply a stroke of good fortune?

It was hard to say, but for the astute observers, for those who made it their work to sacrifice sleep in return for plunging into the fog every night, they would notice something. Substanceless shadows no longer flicked out of the corner of their vision. But…was the fog itself gradually growing thicker?

A circus that travelled the four corners of the world, and a meteorological anomaly that seemed to gradually grow in intensity. Opportunities for rogues’ work and mysteries that deepened. The stage was indeed set then, for the spy’s work to truly begin.

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

The Shadow Sovereign

“Now, shall we do away with this meager pretense?”

Name: Ilena
Gender: Female
Appearance: Pale, cold, detached, a menagerie of monstrosities lays within the girl known as Ilena, and it’s that invisible pressure that grants her a presence far beyond her petite stature or her beautiful, amethyst eyes. A buzzing too high-pitched to be fully audible to even the sharpened senses of her blood-brethren. A physical gravity that could only be felt on an instinctual level, rather than a physical one. Indeed, Ilena is a mere adolescent, with twig-like limbs and a rounded face, her white hair chopped roughly at her shoulder, her eyes like gems glistening within the shadow of her oversized hat.

But while the sound of crying insects and the mass of compressed shadow remain imperceptible, it does not take an astute observer to realise that within Ilena’s garb lies eyes and fangs, claws and horns.

Abilities: She is That Whom Is Birthed From Shadow. The Miserable Maven, the Mother of Plaguebringers, the Sickle of the Crimson Moon. Clad in the darkness from which human fears are made manifest, Ilena closes her eyes and allows the nightmare to become whole.

Whereas others of the Sanguine Bond manifest their might from the source of their connection to the Crimson Goddess, Ilena inspires herself with the fears of her Goddess’s foes instead, drinking deeply from the darkness until her very substance has become substituted by it. And from that primordial substance, one that had manifested ever since the stars themselves were birthed into the world, Ilena calls forth monstrosities as thick as mud and as black as ink, eldritch constructions that corrode the fabric of the world itself, while the innumerable insects that toil away at the mud of the titans’ feet rise at the whisper of their Mother, fomenting chaos and inviting famine unto a stronghold before the Black Tide smashes against its walls.

But that is merely her identity as the Maven and the Mother. The role she plays to bring glory to Ichor’s name. For those who betray and befoul the blood, however, for those who blaspheme Her tenets and break their oaths, Ilena hunts them down personally, eschewing the beasts dwelling within her shadow. For her form is as malleable as the darkness of the night, brought alive by the sputtering of a dying torch. And when the Sickle descends, not even the Moons shall witness the end of those faithless beasts.

Personality: Ilena’s faith is unfaltering! The God of Silver and Light has his paladins, and Ichor has her! For she is the Sickle of the Crimson Moon, the one who seeks out those marked for death with unfatiguing fervour! She is a true fundamentalist, unwavering in her belief in the Goddess, always seeing the greater picture and the greater good for her bloodkin, never hesitating to do what had to be done for the prosperity of the Vampires!

She was.

But she had died and she had come back, to find the world had become a paradise for her kin, and yet to have almost all her kin fallen and slain. Her prayers had been answered, but far too late, and the Age of Blood she once sought feels so shallow now. What was shadow without light? What was rule without rebellion? What was Ichor without her antithesis?

Blasphemous. And yet, the melancholia persists. In a world of eternal night, where the silver of the Hundred Paladins have dulled and the kingdoms of humanity have fallen into naught but miserable hovels, Ilena feels neither a sense of glory nor a sense of superiority in leading them. She feels the burden of charity more heavily than ever now, and sees humans as little more than sheep to be herded, meager little weaklings that can accomplish nothing without the gifts of the gods. To be dependent on such creatures then, to be obligated towards them…it disgusts her.

No. It does not.

Disgust requires a certain amount of effort as well. And Ilena does not have the heart in herself to spare such emotion, nor any heart to fully indulge in carnal pleasures. There is but the work before her, and the night that will never end.

Oh, the wistfulness of the immortal reborn!

Bio: What was an unborn child but a parasite? A leech that threatened the health of its host? A creature capable, instinctually, only of draining the energy and life out of the cord of its mother? And, knowing all that, what could Blight Lord Genereux Estime do but his best to save such delicate little things?

Perhaps Ichor frowned upon such craven indulgences, such a perversion of her tenets, but the still-Holy Man simply couldn’t find it in his heart to refuse, when a human under his protection brought the Lord to a miserable hovel, where the mother had passed away while the infant still kicked within the cooling womb. Even if pulled out from the corpse with a careful incision, the infant would still pass. And so, it was a golden opportunity.

And so, the Blight Lord did as he desired, his particular brand of fealty to Ichor having always taken the form of something nearing blasphemy. The ritual was prepared, and the blood was shared, seeping deep into the umbilical cord and into the bloodied infant who could only absorb it into her own form. The blessing took root, made a bundle of soft bones and softer flesh something else, something different.

She was born a vampire, crying, hungering, desiring something that would never sate her.

And though her father loved her still, hugging her cold, living form, he was no fool of a farmer. He had toiled within the lands of the Blight Lord, and recognized that glint of interest in his lord’s eyes. So it was blessing enough, that Genereux allowed him the right to name his child before relinquishing her to his grasp.

Ilena. His torch in the night.

…

But under the Blight Lord’s tutelage, she would become not torch, but night. The complexities of teaching a child the ways of a vampire was difficult enough, but for an infant, possessed with a mind so undeveloped that there was not even a sense of self-awareness? Genereux continued his experimentations, all for the sake of granting this infant a form that matched her age, an intelligence that matched her station. He fused insects into her flesh, to simulate growth. He called demons into her mind, to simulate wisdom. He drew illusions into her reality, to simulate experience. And, bit by bit, piece by piece, he made an infant into a girl, a girl into a woman. Composed of eldritch knowledge, of buzzing flesh, Ilena could only appreciate the world seventeen years after her birth and her transformation, stumbling about the small, dark cell that had been her cradle for so long. What was she to think? What was she to believe? What part of her body was hers anymore, if it was all the product of something borrowed?

Like all those afflicted by questions they didn’t truly want answered, Ilena found solace from identity in faith instead. The Blight Lord sent her off with his blessings and she departed on her pilgrimage, seeking the deep shadows of mountainous abyss, the astral void of the highest peaks, all for her goddess, her being. And within the suffocating blackness, so similar to her only experience of being human, she began to change beyond Genereux’s boons.

Melding into mud, assimilating with tar. Substituting all the meagre remnants of her flesh into something far more malleable, far more valuable, to the sole reason of her existence. It could not have been faith, in the end. For Ilena, it could only be a simple acknowledgment, that there would be nothing without Ichor.

And when she stepped out, reborn again out of baptismal shadow, there remained only certainty. She shall live for the reason for her existence, for her bloodkin blessed by that same crimson rite.

…

They spoke of a monster within the Valley of the Golden Slopes. One blacker than the night, one that propagated creations that profaned the earth itself. Possessed with many arms. Many eyes. Too many mouths. The Hundred Paladins battled such monstrosity, silver blades like stars against eldritch space, drawing out the viscous essence of evil itself, whilst their brethren were devoured too by the fanged maws that opened without end. But they persevered, with human vigor and divine might, driving the monstrosity deep into the tunnels of the Valley.

And as it lurked, waiting for their advance, the Silver Saints prayed and the Paladins braced.

By the miracle of the Silverlight God, the entirety of the mountain turned to silver, and that monstrosity sealed inside found itself with no escape from the purifying glory of the righteous deity. Its screams echoed long, its form too mighty to be instantly exorcised by godly silver, but its strength too meager after its battle with the Paladins to bore through that same silver.

Weeks passed. The Paladins had long departed. And finally, the Valley of the Silver Slopes was silenced.

Fate/Grand Jackpot - Gamble For Humanity

Naw, give it to Cu. He’ll get the CS up faster than me anyhow.

Ayo

It's like how two negatives become a positive. Funny to see you slap back, Vandal, and welcome to the Guild!

Just don't hijack or necro any actual interest checks, and we're all gooddddd.

Fate/Grand Jackpot - Gamble For Humanity

Would also be good to see what those other slots have been filled with.

Fate/Grand Jackpot - Gamble For Humanity

You can gamble as much as you want to though. Just swipe swipe swipe.

Anyhow, against better judgment and fuelled by Vlad III hopium, I’ll express some interest.

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

The Shadow Sovereign

“Now, shall we do away with this meager pretense?”

Name: Ilena
Gender: Female
Appearance: Pale, cold, detached, a menagerie of monstrosities lays within the girl known as Ilena, and it’s that invisible pressure that grants her a presence far beyond her petite stature or her beautiful, amethyst eyes. A buzzing too high-pitched to be fully audible to even the sharpened senses of her blood-brethren. A physical gravity that could only be felt on an instinctual level, rather than a physical one. Indeed, Ilena is a mere adolescent, with twig-like limbs and a rounded face, her white hair chopped roughly at her shoulder, her eyes like gems glistening within the shadow of her oversized hat.

But while the sound of crying insects and the mass of compressed shadow remain imperceptible, it does not take an astute observer to realise that within Ilena’s garb lies eyes and fangs, claws and horns.

Abilities: She is That Whom Is Birthed From Shadow. The Miserable Maven, the Mother of Plaguebringers, the Sickle of the Crimson Moon. Clad in the darkness from which human fears are made manifest, Ilena closes her eyes and allows the nightmare to become whole.

Whereas others of the Sanguine Bond manifest their might from the source of their connection to the Crimson Goddess, Ilena inspires herself with the fears of her Goddess’s foes instead, drinking deeply from the darkness until her very substance has become substituted by it. And from that primordial substance, one that had manifested ever since the stars themselves were birthed into the world, Ilena calls forth monstrosities as thick as mud and as black as ink, eldritch constructions that corrode the fabric of the world itself, while the innumerable insects that toil away at the mud of the titans’ feet rise at the whisper of their Mother, fomenting chaos and inviting famine unto a stronghold before the Black Tide smashes against its walls.

But that is merely her identity as the Maven and the Mother. The role she plays to bring glory to Ichor’s name. For those who betray and befoul the blood, however, for those who blaspheme Her tenets and break their oaths, Ilena hunts them down personally, eschewing the beasts dwelling within her shadow. For her form is as malleable as the darkness of the night, brought alive by the sputtering of a dying torch. And when the Sickle descends, not even the Moons shall witness the end of those faithless beasts.

Personality: Ilena’s faith is unfaltering! The God of Silver and Light has his paladins, and Ichor has her! For she is the Sickle of the Crimson Moon, the one who seeks out those marked for death with unfatiguing fervour! She is a true fundamentalist, unwavering in her belief in the Goddess, always seeing the greater picture and the greater good for her bloodkin, never hesitating to do what had to be done for the prosperity of the Vampires!

She was.

But she had died and she had come back, to find the world had become a paradise for her kin, and yet to have almost all her kin fallen and slain. Her prayers had been answered, but far too late, and the Age of Blood she once sought feels so shallow now. What was shadow without light? What was rule without rebellion? What was Ichor without her antithesis?

Blasphemous. And yet, the melancholia persists. In a world of eternal night, where the silver of the Hundred Paladins have dulled and the kingdoms of humanity have fallen into naught but miserable hovels, Ilena feels neither a sense of glory nor a sense of superiority in leading them. She feels the burden of charity more heavily than ever now, and sees humans as little more than sheep to be herded, meager little weaklings that can accomplish nothing without the gifts of the gods. To be dependent on such creatures then, to be obligated towards them…it disgusts her.

No. It does not.

Disgust requires a certain amount of effort as well. And Ilena does not have the heart in herself to spare such emotion, nor any heart to fully indulge in carnal pleasures. There is but the work before her, and the night that will never end.

Oh, the wistfulness of the immortal reborn!

Bio: What was an unborn child but a parasite? A leech that threatened the health of its host? A creature capable, instinctually, only of draining the energy and life out of the cord of its mother? And, knowing all that, what could Blight Lord Genereux Estime do but his best to save such delicate little things?

Perhaps Ichor frowned upon such craven indulgences, such a perversion of her tenets, but the still-Holy Man simply couldn’t find it in his heart to refuse, when a human under his protection brought the Lord to a miserable hovel, where the mother had passed away while the infant still kicked within the cooling womb. Even if pulled out from the corpse with a careful incision, the infant would still pass. And so, it was a golden opportunity.

And so, the Blight Lord did as he desired, his particular brand of fealty to Ichor having always taken the form of something nearing blasphemy. The ritual was prepared, and the blood was shared, seeping deep into the umbilical cord and into the bloodied infant who could only absorb it into her own form. The blessing took root, made a bundle of soft bones and softer flesh something else, something different.

She was born a vampire, crying, hungering, desiring something that would never sate her.

And though her father loved her still, hugging her cold, living form, he was no fool of a farmer. He had toiled within the lands of the Blight Lord, and recognized that glint of interest in his lord’s eyes. So it was blessing enough, that Genereux allowed him the right to name his child before relinquishing her to his grasp.

Ilena. His torch in the night.

…

But under the Blight Lord’s tutelage, she would become not torch, but night. The complexities of teaching a child the ways of a vampire was difficult enough, but for an infant, possessed with a mind so undeveloped that there was not even a sense of self-awareness? Genereux continued his experimentations, all for the sake of granting this infant a form that matched her age, an intelligence that matched her station. He fused insects into her flesh, to simulate growth. He called demons into her mind, to simulate wisdom. He drew illusions into her reality, to simulate experience. And, bit by bit, piece by piece, he made an infant into a girl, a girl into a woman. Composed of eldritch knowledge, of buzzing flesh, Ilena could only appreciate the world seventeen years after her birth and her transformation, stumbling about the small, dark cell that had been her cradle for so long. What was she to think? What was she to believe? What part of her body was hers anymore, if it was all the product of something borrowed?

Like all those afflicted by questions they didn’t truly want answered, Ilena found solace from identity in faith instead. The Blight Lord sent her off with his blessings and she departed on her pilgrimage, seeking the deep shadows of mountainous abyss, the astral void of the highest peaks, all for her goddess, her being. And within the suffocating blackness, so similar to her only experience of being human, she began to change beyond Genereux’s boons.

Melding into mud, assimilating with tar. Substituting all the meagre remnants of her flesh into something far more malleable, far more valuable, to the sole reason of her existence. It could not have been faith, in the end. For Ilena, it could only be a simple acknowledgment, that there would be nothing without Ichor.

And when she stepped out, reborn again out of baptismal shadow, there remained only certainty. She shall live for the reason for her existence, for her bloodkin blessed by that same crimson rite.

…

They spoke of a monster within the Valley of the Golden Slopes. One blacker than the night, one that propagated creations that profaned the earth itself. Possessed with many arms. Many eyes. Too many mouths. The Hundred Paladins battled such monstrosity, silver blades like stars against eldritch space, drawing out the viscous essence of evil itself, whilst their brethren were devoured too by the fanged maws that opened without end. But they persevered, with human vigor and divine might, driving the monstrosity deep into the tunnels of the Valley.

And as it lurked, waiting for their advance, the Silver Saints prayed and the Paladins braced.

By the miracle of the Silverlight God, the entirety of the mountain turned to silver, and that monstrosity sealed inside found itself with no escape from the purifying glory of the righteous deity. Its screams echoed long, its form too mighty to be instantly exorcised by godly silver, but its strength too meager after its battle with the Paladins to bore through that same silver.

Weeks passed. The Paladins had long departed. And finally, the Valley of the Silver Slopes was silenced.

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

The update is that it exists!

In my head.

Probably will be up in time thoughhhhhh.