Osiris Open 2017 Round 1: Revenant vs BlackandBlueEyes

"The underworld ocean was black under a sunless sky and the fumes rising from the surface were no water vapour; instead they curled and eddied with a silvery-white luminescence . Our eyes became fixated on the wisps as they danced ever closer. In moments our eyes, nose and throat became blistered, closely followed by the rest of her skin. It was a fire that didn't consume, it just kept on licking coldly. The ghost ship, one the size of a galleon, bobbed on toward the sound of laughter, on a shore we couldn't see and never became any closer to. Though we wished to black out, our minds remained sharp and clear. We were given an option- to remain in this ship for an eternity in hell, or take the place of those we'd tortured and killed in the worst moments of the agony we'd inflicted. Instantly we were seeing a green field, cool grass underfoot, and a couple were walking towards us. My heart fell as I realised what was coming. Endless re-runs, only with us as the victims. "

Brotherhood report #015

Everything was darkness and pain.

William was used to utter lightlessness. He’d experienced enough of it in his life. Strangely, he’d found that despite simply being a lack of light, each moment of darkness that he’d experienced had felt unique. Being locked away in lightless isolation had felt sharp and crisp, the darkness around him cutting into him life a knife. Being lost underground without a lamp, on the other hand, had felt chilling but open, the darkness giving him a defined path to follow. Even in the alternate reality of the Plane of Unlife the darkness had possessed a unique feel to it, being alive and hungry to claim him.

This darkness was different though. It was a deeper, more numbing darkness than any that he’d experienced. Or rather, William realized, this darkness seemed to numb everything about him. It bore down on him like timeless inevitability and William felt a growing sense of terror which he couldn’t explain. The only thing that the darkness didn’t dull was the pain.

William’s mind scrambled for the pain, seeking anything firm to hold onto in blind panic. It wasn’t pleasant, but the pain that he felt was solid and familiar. A piece of driftwood in the sea of darkness which he could cling to.
The terror slowly ebbed away as William focused on his pain. The air around him seemed to burn, making every movement feel like a thousand razors dragging across his skin. But the acidic nature of the pain wasn’t eating away at his flesh, seeming only to exist to cause him torment. Surprisingly, William was alright with this. Every moment of his life since his rebirth had been a moment of pain of one sort or another. And as if to prove it to himself, William loosed his mental hold on the molten power within his core, letting that same power consume him from within.

Liquid fire spread through William’s veins in an instant. Bones cracked and grew, working through his flesh and fusing into a rough bone carapace which covered his arms and legs. Skin cracked as the fire tore through him, charring him what was left into thick scales of toughened leather. The air around him pulsed with a vibrant heat in time with his heartbeat, and William was glad to know that wherever he was, he wasn’t dead.

The spell of the darkness shattered under the weight of William’s power. Its oppressive numbness lifted off of him, revealing other sensations which had been denied to him. He could see lights now that the darkness wasn’t complete. Faint silvery echoes of smoke swirled across the darkness, filling the space with a low grade grayness. These fumes originated from an oily sea, atop which William rode upon a gaunt galleon. The lines of the ship were frayed, as if it were nothing more than a memory of the once-proud vessel it had been. Laughter reached his ears, distant and ephemeral enough that he wasn’t even sure he’d really heard it. William’s eyes narrowed in anger at the thought that this was just some sick game that he was being put through for the amusement of others.

“This is to be your eternity,” the words spilled from William’s lips. Surprised, he put all thoughts of revenge aside and clamped his lips shut.

“Are you not satisfied with your reward? A reward for living life in the manner you wanted.”

The words echoed again from William’s closed lips but this time he realized that he wasn’t the one speaking them. At least not in the traditional sense. As his eyes adjusted William saw the ghostly outlines of hundreds of people layered over his own form. They flowed into and out of both each other and William, one after another, in an endless parade.

The realization hit William in the gut. These were the remnants of all the people William had killed, the fragments of their souls torn from them at the moment of their deaths to fuel his strength. Some of them he recognized, most he didn’t. It was a sickening sensation. So much death, all tied intimately to the very core of who he was.

“You have a choice,” the voices of his amalgamated soul continued. “Either remain here forever in the darkness, alone with your crimes, or else choose to relive the pain that we’ve experienced, over and over, until you’ve atoned.”

William saw an ethereal light ooze from the silvery wisps at the other end of the ghost ship’s main deck. It was a portal, he realized, and the changing vistas beyond were nothing but scenes of violent carnage which he knew all too well.

“But only one can make that choice, so don’t tarry,” the voices whispered one final caution before fading to immutable stillness.

“Only one?” William muttered in confusion before seeing another figure emerge from the darkness nearby.

Round 1 is over! Revenant wins by default!

Revenant receives 200 EXP and 15 GP!