SepticGentleman — Roleplayer Guild

Vorris and Nahargu’ul

Somewhere out in the ocean

They had traveled a ways. For them, it was not too long a swim at all. But they had stopped seemingly out in the open. Nagargu’ul, still quite formless, had been halted. In the water. Vorris and his new colossal mount simply idled by his presence, waiting for him to speak. The feeling in the air, it could be sensed he was… thinking.

“Hagers…” Nahargu’ul finally spoke. Vorris simply listened, staring into the watery expanse. Something was different from this point onwards. The water, shifting into a putrid green… rejected them. Ahead, they could see the wilted corpses of all sorts of sea life. Merfolk, leviathans, even a handful of human sailors, some freshly dead… many more, now but heaps of water-warped bones. No wounds, no signs of simple old age… they had been poisoned, by the water. And this water, it was not made by Nahargu’ul’s will. It, in and of itself, was a transgression against him, spread in his absence.

And it was coming from the old, violated fishing village of Hagers.

“I expected pollution only from mortals… I should have known better. She is still alive. She is awake once again.”

She? Vorris didn’t know whom his god spoke of.

“She has strayed her accursed, ethereal hands too far.” Said Nahargu’ul, shifting into his physical form behind Vorris, who turned to face him. He simply waited for the order he knew he would receive. “Vorris…” The Sea-Fiend began, “The waters we behold here are no longer mine. They have been seized by… by an abomination, risen from the past. From before the Silence, before the Cataclysm. You, not even I, may tread further beyond here. Thus, even so soon after your awakening… I must task you this most crucial of ventures.”

Vorris made no remarks or refusals. He was ready for whatever his god commanded of him.

“Hagers is nestled into a far-strung cliff ridge, and the waters around it are too virulent to cross. You must plant your feet on the mainland. You must find your way there, and quell she who would so infect my domain.”

Vorris nodded. Yes, he would do this, but still… who was this ‘she’ he spoke of? All this death and decay looked the work of Yigzavath, or even Kulorerstus… but they had both been just as absent as Nahargu’ul. It was someone else entirely. Someone who would dare transgress against the Sea-Fiend with this terrible aquatic blight. And whoever was causing it, Vorris would put an end to her.

“Once again, I would have you as my arbiter amidst the mainland.” Nahargu’ul said, “Do this for your god. Go to Hagers. Kill everything you see there. Stop this.”

And Vorris would.

She stands on gray sands, littered with the corpses of her loved ones.

She runs her hand on the rough, crimson surface of her hooked spear.

She stares out into the vast, open waters, still beneath the fog she herself has breathed into existence.

And she speaks.

“I will be ready.”

As soon as Kilgarrah’s rousing farewell speech came to an end, Yigzavath shot up from his position at the table and made his way towards the Hall’s exit, not even bothering to return an insult at the dragon god. No inclination to stick around, it would seem. No one was surprised by this.

Though Nahargu’ul, too, decided not to stay any longer. He turned to Iuppiter and said to him, “I, too, will take my leave. Let’s speak again when we are both away from here.” He stood up from his throne, and followed after Yigzavath at a distance.

Vorris and Nahargu’ul

Somewhere out in the ocean

Four hundred and ninety-three years.

Four hundred and ninety-three years of undisturbed slumber, deep down in the bedrock of the ocean. The mariner, Vorris, his name. He sleeps still, his body enveloped by the watery elements, encased in coral and various oceanic plantlife.

But his rest would not go on another year longer. In the recesses of his mind, Vorris heard the sounds of ripples in the ocean. Unnatural ripples, signalling not just any passing leviathan, but something commanding attention. His fingers twitched as the ripples intensified, more and more smaller ones joining in, until suddenly, he heard the voice of his god.

“Rise.”

His black, shielded eyes shot open, and his body began to break itself free of the coral bed. At his side, his chitin-encrusted, half-alive catch pole rests, and he promptly takes it in hand. Its pincers twitch slightly, as if it too is waking up. The last bits of coral float away from him, though some remnants cling to his body. Even after all this time, he is as alert as he’s ever been, as though his nearly five centuries of slumber were just a passing forty winks.

Then, he laid his eyes on what the rest of the ripples were coming from. Merfolk, leviathans, even a scarce few krakens, were all barreling past him, congregating around a barren clearing just ahead. Vorris swam forward, the waters propelling him at his whim. He pushed through the crowd of merfolk, who watched in veneration of their reawakened hero, gently placing their hands on his person as he went by. He emerged into the clearing, planting his feet down on the bedrock. The creatures around him continued to move and watch, as the rumbling began.

A great plume of rubble burst from the bedrock ahead, though Vorris kept his footing, watching as a massive, humanoid arm emerged. It reached for the thin lights hanging above the water’s surface. It came crashing down, pointed fingers digging into the rocks, pulling up the rest of the colossal figure. Blackened tentacles followed, rising from the depths, occupying the space around the swarming creatures. The glow of the behemoth’s six crimson eyes signalled its triumphant rise above the bedrock, standing prominently in the dim waters, as the creatures continued to clamor.

But Vorris, he simply dropped to one knee on the bedrock, head bowed before his god. Nahargu’ul, the one true sovereign of the great and vast oceans of Gaea, had finally returned to the mortal realm. He looked to his subjects, and unleashed a rallying bellow that shook the waters around them. Even with his divine status, it felt good to signal his return in such a way.

Nahargu’ul turned his gaze down towards the kneeling mariner.

“Vorris. My old champion.”

Vorris raised his head in response to the words. They sounded less as though they were coming from one source, and more as if the water around him itself was uttering them.

“The pleasure, to behold you again. After five centuries of that abhorrent Silence, obscuring my vision…”

He raised his arms, motioning to the expanses beyond.

“Ah… The waters are breached by my echo once again. I can feel the vessels… the riches... the wreckages… and…”

He paused for a moment.

“What… is this filth I sense? It is familiar… It… it is coming from…”

Vorris said nothing. He just listened. Nahargu’ul stared off in one direction, past the creatures who were just beginning to settle upon his return. He was… eerily silent. After a moment, he said to his champion, “Vorris... something… something is wrong. We must see to it. Come.”

There were no questions. Nahargu’ul’s very form vanished, becoming one with the waters around him. Vorris swam alongside him, clinging to a massive, eel-like creature’s nape. He commanded it to follow the invisible trail of his god. Off they went, in the direction of whatever disturbance the Sea-Fiend had sensed.

Something in the back of Vorris’ mind told him he already knew full well what it was.

Isabella and Yigzavath

The Infested Workshop

A mess of old candles placed about.

A heap of parchments and bindings, scattered on a wooden table, surrounded by the candles.

Isabella, simply clothed and out of her normal, orchid attire, was seated in a wooden chair before the desk, once again jotting down word after word, sentence after sentence, on some grand itinerary that went through a wave of revisions almost every week. They were plans on where to find one thing, what to combine it with another, annual inventory management, grocery lists that she’d failed to act on time after time…

This was the very definition of squalid.

It was like this most days, unfortunately. Just planning. Never taking action, simply planning. Compulsively taking notes to break the monotony of living in a cave. Isabella was always putting the consequences before the results, an unpleasant habit she’d inadvertently adopted during her stay within the Infested Workshop. She always came back to the thoughts of, what can I really do on my own? What if I’m caught in the act, taken away or, burned at the stake? What if they find me?

Quite the unfavorable mindset. She resented herself for it. She sighed, putting down her pen after finalizing an addendum on how she’d have to go searching for more bovine excrement to sate some of the Workshop’s smaller inhabitants. She wiped her hand on her face in defeat, drooping some… until she heard a noise.

She never hears a noise.

She lifted her head up, looking off in the distance past her desk, towards the multitude of coarse glass jars containing innumerable insects, separated from dead to very much alive, illuminated by hanging lanterns she’d put up herself. Nothing was there, no change in the norm - the little creatures were still scurrying in their hovels. She kept her vision peeled for a moment more, before deigning to look in the opposite direction - only to come face to face with a hulking figure’s stark, misshapen mask.

“Yigzavath…” Isabella said under her breath, after a moment of pregnant silence.

“What. Are you doing here.” The Filthmonger said, in his horrible, clicking voice that most mortals would detest. Isabella did not respond. Her eyes were wide, her mouth agape. This suddenness of the encounter left her at a loss for words.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE.” The God shouted angrily, lurching forward, causing Isabella to stumble back into her desk, knocking over a few candles onto the cavern floor. Yigzavath reached forward with one of his gangly, human-esque arms, grabbing the woman by her torso, wrapping his fingers around to her back, and hoisting her up before his vision. “WHO ARE YOU.” He said aloud, pressuring her. “I-I’m…” Isabella stammered, struggling to get her words out, “An… A-Acolyte!”

Yigzavath’s arachnid appendages reeled back, refraining from burrowing into the woman’s head. He dropped her onto the floor. Isabella landed on her fours, gasping for breath. The Filthmonger simply watched her, waiting for her to get back on her feet. As she began to recollect herself, she went on to say between breaths, “I… I’m your last… Acolyte… I’ve been… tending to the Workshop… in your absence…”

Yigzavath did not respond. He simply turned his attention towards the glass jars, full of his long abandoned work. Still sitting there, after five centuries of nothing. He moved towards them, his centipede-like lower half skittering along the ground behind him. He paused, slowly grabbing a jar of dead locusts from a shelf, staring at it. A moment passed, with Isabella still watching him intently. She was still in awe that her God had just… appeared, out of nowhere, at such a random time. No grand entrance, no welcoming swarm of insects. As she always thought it would be, though she’d always been uncertain if it would be in her lifetime. Yet, here stood the Filthmonger himself. Yigzavath returned the jar to its spot on the shelf and looked back at Isabella. “You... are the last?” He questioned.

“The last... that I know of.” Isabella replied calmly, but with confidence, almost as if she was a troop commander’s confidant.

“What is your name?”

“Isabella. Loyce.”

Silence, after her answer. The pestilent deity turned his head back towards the jars, his arachnid appendages tapping a few of them gently. After another bout of silence, he said to his Acolyte, “Leave me. I will call upon you later.”

“Yes…” Isabella replied, bowing her head, and stepping away from the Filthmonger. She returned to her desk, quickly picking up the toppled candles, dousing the lot of them. She picked up her papers, and retreated into another section of the Workshop. Yigzavath hovered his hand over the shelves, finding a small stack of parchments resting beside a jar on the lowest level. He picked it up, flipping through it. A log of… all his past creations, with notes of which ones were long dead, recently dead, and still alive to this very recorded day. Feeding preferences and appropriate times, with little in the way of errors. Fine work, for a mortal in his place.

He took the papers with him. Saved him some busywork.

SepticGentleman Member

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