Andre Valias
LanaStorm
Snowdrops
ScreenAcne
Xaltwind
wintersoldier
Estylwen
AThousandCurses
Skyswimsky
Gloved fingers traced ribbed walls, mundane love songs chirping in her ears through cheap earbuds. Some mages preferred to immerse themselves in the crushing quietude of the Labyrinth, as if by preserving the atmosphere of dread and sanctity, they could more easily draw forth from that font of arcane inspiration. Amaya didn’t believe in that herself; music was a pleasant alternative, and it wasn’t as if it was within her ears that her magic dwelt. The Demonsbane drew a thin line through the ground, that lightspun blade parting the red glow with its own light. Her steps were confident and controlled, timed to the tempo of whatever music was in her ears in the moment, and like that, a hundredth halls were traversed.
The heart of the Dungeon stood before her, a graveyard for a single individual. Despite herself, Amaya turned down the music a couple notches, enough to catch, to appreciate this being’s emulation of human suffering. It was no demon, but it was a foreign, incorporeal existence nonetheless. A landbound spirit, perhaps, something not so hostile and cruel as the monsters her blade was the anathema of. And yet, what had rendered it in such a state? Golden eyes traced her surroundings, yet found no sign of battle. She had gotten the sense that it was running away before, but there was no sign of a ‘blood’ trail, nor did the words it rasped out indicate that it was averse to the ending of its existence.
Amaya’s grip tightened upon the Demonsbane, that simple act causing the lightspun blade to become more ‘real’ in response.
Yet, she withheld the coup de grace.
“I know only of demons within the Dark Sphere,” she spoke, slowly approaching the mummy, “So what are you? And what did this to you?”
The creature's head turned aside slightly. It was hard for Amaya to tell if its face -if it had one- was looking her way.
"Only of demons? You have only scratched the surface, I see. An odd one to find her way here." It fell silent to her questions, seeming as though to be resting its voice, but eventually mustered energy to continue. "I am dying," it said, answering her first question with a joke. "I am nothing anymore, that much is certain. What power I wielded has been sapped or cast; it is strongest now only as my domain, which may soon crumble away."
Its head lifted off of the dirt, piqued by something.
"But you now can save me from being forgotten entirely. I am soon to be consumed in every way, unless someone were to give me a different death. To 'erase' me in a manner that is not so permanent."
"And what does that do for me?" The money was beside the point. It wasn't as if this dying spirit was the one funding that card. "Whoever's been eating you wouldn't be pleased that an interloper finished their meal."
"What other reason are you here for?" It's tone sounded genuine -unsure of what her intentions were.
"I don't know enough to come to a decision. So tell me everything about yourself, about why one death is less permanent than the other." A quirk of the lips. "If you're afraid of being forgotten, you can start with your name."
"I am nothing now, but once... was Yusei. A lord of curses, of blood. I am being sapped away by the birth of another. Were this merely the works of a mere mortal such as yourself, it would not be permanent. No mind like yours could fathom and flense my existence so thoroughly as to erase it -only contain or mask. But here and now that is my suffering, inflicted by something that wishes to be, and needs any sort of strength to manifest. It is only poor luck, I surmise, that me and my domain has been selected. Only by 'being dead' can this link be severed. I must be 'gone' to be spared, and thereafter refreshed in time. Think of it like... turning eyes away, if but to redirect them to something else."
Amaya let out a bark of a laugh. Leave it to the Dark City: even gods and spirits not so far gone as demons would end up being associated with subjects as grim as blood and curses. Still, this ‘Yusei’ had been forthcoming, enough. Another spirit, another deity was being born, cannibalizing the old in order to do so. And, like an infected tree, this deity would rather be cut down and given a chance to grow up anew rather than to have such disease spread into its roots. She licked her lips. Another step closer.
"One last question then, Yusei. You were a lord, yes? Who were your servants?"
"I presume you to speak of mortal servants. A House Asher, in your lifetime."
Strange, the way the world worked.
Amaya nodded, then lifted her sword. In that singular spotlight within the chamber, the blade seemed to cleave through light itself, establishing its presence as something separate, something alien to the environment of the Dungeon. Something impossibly real, something that existed before divinity and sorceries polluted the atmosphere, before the world was bent to suit the whims of the sapient. What can be perceived is material. And what was material was meant to die, to decay, to fall to the natural whims of change and entropy.
"Purge false laws, slay false gods."
The Demonsbane cleaved through light, through air, through space, through time, through all that laid before her divine gaze, and declared that nothing laid beyond the ken of Precedence.
Not even a God.
