Grombus

The War of the Three

discord link?

The War of the Three

Maen

Maen stepped tentatively through the portal, hesitating only slightly at the strange magic. He arrived and staggered as vertigo caused the world to skew in his vision. He steadied himself and looked around. The weird little not-human was talking with another... he was hesitant to call it a human. It had the same general shape, but it reminded him more of the girl he had just met.

Not in their forms but in the way they carried themselves. Both stood self assured like they owned the ground they walked on, and they looked like they had the power to back up the claim. The other demon was bleeding slightly, and he dodged aside as flaming hounds roared fire. He did something and a different portal opened up which shot dangerous looking flames to cancel out the dog's torrent of fire.

Maen had nearly forgotten why the little lady had invited him here, when he remembered the promise to destroy one of the human's powerful allies. Maybe the man in front of him was human after all. Either way, he needed to die. If for nothing else than to get Maen his best friend back.

Shadows rolled off Maen's body in waves. Thousands of shards of silent glass appeared from nowhere around him, arrayed like the setting sun. The light before the dark. The shards twisted and moved erratically, glinting in the light, and leaving the strange black scars in the air. Maen thrust his hands to the side and summoned the Dark.

It bubbled out from his palms like oil and coated his hands completely before dripping up his arms like viscous snakes. They coiled all the way to his elbow before stopping.

"Human, can you sing?" The hints of a smile curling his lips.

@Kol @floodtalon

The War of the Three

Maen

The girl laughed at him, and told him in no terms, that she was anything but human. Maen's mind raced as he thought over his newly acquired knowledge. Not human... Angel? Demon? He had no reference to base his conjecture, and so it fell flat. As he was thinking of the figure's origin, she disappeared. Maen looked around to see if she had gone for a smoke break or something.

When the small not-human appeared in front of him again he looked at her confusedly. He tilted his head and listened intently as she told her offer. She'll help me kill wretched humans, and I get to hang out with bat buddy? He smiled brightly, his flat teeth sharpening and elongating as she watched.

"As the humans say, 'sign me up'..." Maen paused as he thought of a form of address, "Little un-human?"

He grinned at bat buddy, excitedly awaiting their return to glory. They would have a great time playing chase again. Maybe bat buddy would even want to team up and chase someone else. Who knows... maybe the little un-human would join.

@KoL

The War of the Three

@KoL Sure send him out to the worst possible place. Sounds like fun, and it could lead to a cool encounter. Doubt he'll outright die though, but who knows.

The War of the Three

Maen

The vampiress's words rung out in the dim underground room. Dusty bones littered the floor like refuse, and an ancient skull crumbled under Maen's foot as he stepped forwards. The shadow bat, his best friend, soared through the air and lay in the lap of the figure in front of him. She sat on a throne that brought her level, if not a bit higher, than Maen himself.

Maen frowned as he recognized her human like figure. She was smaller than many he had seen, perhaps still young, but her words were dark and powerful. She claimed to be the mother of the wolves he had consumed. He wondered if she thought him stupid, even he knew that humans could not birth wolves. It was ridiculous.

Maen's face took a harsh cast as he looked at the human in front of him. His lips were pulled down into a dark scowl, and his eyes squinted. He pointed at her and said. "Humans do not have wolves for children. You must think me a fool. You are a wretched thing, kin of the song-breaker, and now you will release my friend. He will come to me so we can go play, or I will find out how much blood humans bleed."

He crooked his finger harshly and took a step forward to snatch the shadow bat. It fluttered lightly away and landed on her shoulder. Maen growled inhumanly and looked about ready to pounce when she spoke.

@KoL

The War of the Three

Maen

Strange words echoed in Maen's mind. They voice was feminine and higher pitched, and it threatened him with pain and slavery. He answered the first part of her question.

"I was hoping for a good meal. Maybe a nap."

He flinched back slightly as a shadowy bat swooped into view. It flew in erratic patterns around his head. He wasn't all that worried about the enslavement, and the thousand agonizing deaths, he trusted in his power enough to believe consuming her blood couldn't be all that bad. Though he had no way to really tell.

"What do you want little buddy? You hungry?" Maen asked the bat, and reached out for it.

The bat dodged away and Maen followed after it. He jumped up towards it and swiped out with his hand to catch it, but the bat flitted away again. He giggled childishly and continued to chase after the fluttering creature like a boy chasing a butterfly. He pursued the bat doggedly, never using any real speed or strength, and the bat led him further away from the bloody splotches in the snow.

The bat picked up speed and so did he. It swooped between some branches and Maen careened after it, twisting his body unnaturally thin to fit between the boughs of the tree. He landed face first in the snow but his body twisted again, head became legs, and legs became head like some sort of twisted carnival contortionist.

Snow puffed out from under his feet as he ran, and he ignored several undead in the distance. He couldn't bring himself to care, this was just so fun. He decided he had to do this more often, chase things, even if they didn't fight back. There wasn't really any satisfaction in tearing apart the weak undead, especially when he destroyed them before they really had a chance to fight back.

Things that ran away, things that gave sport, were much, much more fun. He grinned widely as the bat soared through the entrance of one of the many tombs, or crypts, he couldn't remember what they were called. He dived into the pitch dankness of the stone structure and his eyes shifted to see in the dark. The pupils elongated sideways like a goat's, and the green shined lightly.

He saw the bat hovering in front of him as if waiting. "Thanks for waiting little buddy! Let's go." He ran forwards again and the bat turned and flapped away.

He liked his new friend, he hadn't ever really had one, and he only understood the concept from memories that weren't his. They played together, and the bat was waiting for him, so he must be having fun playing too. He though that meant this bat was his friend. His bare feet slapped against the stone and the sound echoed down the dark halls.

The bat flew further, and Maen chased. Not stopping until the bat alighted on the ground in front of a door leading off. It raised it's wing and pointed, as if telling him to enter. He saw no reason not to trust his greatest of pals, so he did.

@KoL

The War of the Three

@KoL Yeah, definitely not the best idea to consume some vampire wolf blood fragments. But barely any of it was consumed, so it shouldn't be too bad of a time for Maen. He took the tiniest little pieces, just the little areas where the blade carved up their skulls. Who knows though, might be interesting. :)

The War of the Three

I got this in my head, and was wondering if it made sense to everyone, or just me. Maen, so far, has only met 'humans' in two scenarios. One, with the random farm dude who tries to kill him, and who he thinks maliciously stopped the music, so when it wouldn't come back after the guy attacked him, he despised the man to his core. And then he learns that guy is a human, so he grows the irrational hatred for ALL humans. And then the only other time he interacts with 'humans' are the mindless undead that attack him and that he hunts.

So does that make sense why he hates humans, or is it convoluted and bad. It makes sense to me, but I keep wondering if I should change it.

The War of the Three

Maen

Maen stretched his arms languidly, like a cat, and stepped away from the mound of eviscerated undead. The dark scars in the air slowly closed behind him, and he quickly scrambled on top of a nearby tombstone. From his vantage point he scanned around for more undead 'humans' to kill, and quickly noticed the lights that he saw earlier were flaring even brighter. He swore he could even feel the heat from where he stood far away.

He decided that he definitely didn't want to go there, and was that a dragon? Whether or not that was indeed a dragon, it didn't change his decision to stick with the enjoyable wholesale slaughter of undead. Though he had to admit to slight dissatisfaction, none of the 'humans' he had slain even put up a real fight. Maybe he should go towards the burning lights, if only t-

The lights flared again and a heat wave blasted by him. His skin tingled and he nodded. Not worth. Maybe some other time.

Maen set off in a different direction, his eyes peeled for any more enemies. The landscape shifted slightly and more barren trees surrounded him. Crypts and tombstones littered the ground like so much refuse, and still he hadn't seen a single undead. Movement made him turn his head. Something dark and low to the ground had shot from one tree to another.

Maen smiled, this was new. It would definitely be more interesting to fight dirty 'humans' when they actually put up a fight. And whatever these were, they were taking the initiative. He remarked on the shame that they weren't sneaky enough. Maen condensed the winds behind him and rocketed towards where he saw the movement.

He burst past a small copse of leafless trees and barreled directly into a pack of things. They were definitely not human. Maen took a moment to pass through his stolen memories and search for whatever they were. Dogs? No. These were more dangerous than mere hounds. More like wolves. But from the memories, wolves most definitely did not have glowing red eyes.

There were four of the wolves, and while Maen had been standing still and dumb, they had arrayed themselves around him. He was surrounded. Maen held no hatred for wolves, strange looking or not, and he quickly tried to extricate himself from the situation. He put his hands in front of him, as he had seen the first humans he had killed do, it was supposed to mean surrender.

One wolf cocked it's head at him curiously at first. But the moment Maen turned to leave the way he had come, it growled deeply and menacingly. The sound echoed unnaturally well in the open air. Maen thought quickly about how to leave, there was no need to kill the hounds, and he would rather not do so unnecessarily.

Maybe the music that calmed him would work on them as well. He opened his mouth and sung the wordless music that the moon had sung for him what felt like years ago. It was lilting and strange, with no seeming melody or reason for the notes. He felt some of the tension in his shoulders melt away, and he assumed it was working for the wolves as well.

At least until they pounced. Whether they just don't care for the song, or if magical hounds are just immune to magical music, he didn't know. What he did know was that all of them flew through the air unerringly, and crashed in a whirl of biting fangs and tearing claws. Any normal man would have been shredded to bits, but for a thing like Maen, the wolves landed on him and passed through in a puff of smoke.

His body disintegrated and released a formless black mist. The smoke rose into the air quickly and hovered above the wolves below. The wolves scrambled and disengaged their tangled limbs before looking around for the missing man. Maen scowled internally and shot down towards one of the wolves.

He shrunk slightly and poured himself into the beasts mouth and nose. The wolf shook it's head trying to remove the unwanted intruder when a blade shot out from its skull. The blade was black as the space between the stars, and it cut through the hound like paper. The blade spun once, twice, three times, and separated the skull into segments.

Without waiting another moment, the shadow mist entered one wolf after another, and soon the pack lay motionless on the ground. Maen left the last slumping body and stretched himself back to his human shape, waiting a bit as skin and hair layered them self over his gaseous form. The bodies of the wolves melted to blood and slowly flaked away.

He stretched lightly and flexed his toes in the snow. He smiled a small smile and lay down against a tree. The dark blade had taken tiny fragments of the hounds, and he was slowly consuming them. They were too small to give him anything, no matter how long he spent refining the pieces and integrating them into himself. But the warm feeling where his gut should be lulled him into a light daze.

He closed his eyes and waited for the feeling to disappear. Or for something interesting to happen, maybe some humans would come. Maybe they would even put up a fight.

The War of the Three

@KoL My bad, I was trying to describe that the lights were in the sky and far way in the distance. Also I'll make sure to show that the undead he thinks are humans is because of his delusions. Sorry about the messy description, made sense to me, but then again I got the whole thing in my head. Editing it now.

EDIT: Alright I finished an edit. Changed the description of when he first sees the undead and calls them humans so it now says he says that because of his delusion. Changed the description to show that the battle with Zac and Henry is far away. And changed the description so it now says he landed in The Graveyard when following after the guy's soul. Anything else you think needs changing would bee good to hear. Trying to make it as good as possible.