Slayer's Strife: A Lost Path

[Slayer of the Rot]

Black threads still flickered at the edges of his vision. They weren't harbingers, or threats, as they usually were when they came, soon after drawing a black, dreamless sleep. No, these were passing, drawing away even as he drew his fifth breath, that he had been aware of, in some time. Saliva whetted his mouth; scents wafted into his noise, the heaviest of which was all too familiar. Dan Lagh'ratham settled his back firmly against the wood of the door's threshold, and wondered briefly, how long his awareness had been blotted out.

He pressed his hand against his face, and the smell became incredibly strong.

It had started, shortly after the raid on the bazaar. He'd be moving through Concordia, perhaps, tracking the movement of soldiers in an attempt to discern a pattern, and then, much like flipping the switch of a lamp from his earthen childhood, he would be deeper in the woods, the torn carcass of a bear at his feet. It had only happened once within the first two weeks, but then it begun to occur with a frequency that even disturbed the demon. Twice he'd snapped back into the waking world, his hand wrapped around the broken neck of an Audeamus agent.

His stubbornness kept him from seeing a physician or a shaman about the problem. He had decided that, in time, as with all other things that had ever afflicted him, he would simply rise above it. It was a foolish thing, to blame his spells on karma, as such a thing was nothing but superstition. Letting his knees fold, he slid down the door jam, settling on the back of his heels.

The disorientation was beginning to ebb. Quiet, with a face as unmoving as the mountain range framed in a nearby window, the demon took in his surroundings, and his own well being. He crouched at the end of a short hallway, with two other doors before him, on his right and left. Clean white sunlight poured in from a room beyond the hallway; unseen, as it turned sharply, letting his eyes focus on a fourth door directly in front of him, the light gleaming off a polished brass doorknob. The breast of his shirt was dark, sticky, and damp. His hair was pasted to his skull with sweat, and it hung limply into his face. Blood was smeared in three wide patches on the flesh of his left hand; it was speckled in the floor too, in tiny drops, just beneath the bottom of the door.

More familiar smells suddenly came to him as his senses began to awaken, as though emerging from a long hibernation. He knew this house, this cottage. It was Claire's.

In silence, he rose, opened the door, glanced inside, and turned his gaze to his feet a moment later.

"Meredith!" The word came as a dry gasp from breathless lips, and he moved down the hall, throwing open the first door on the left. Inside, the bright sunlight touched on every detail, enhanced it, made it that much more difficult to bear. The mattress of the small bed had been flung across the room; three ceramic dolls lay on the floor with shattered faces. A pleasant breeze blew in from the open window across his daughter's bedroom, causing her white curtains to dance in its grasp, merrily and carefree, oblivious to the violence that had been carried out within the cottage.

Something flickered between the curtains; caught his eye for just a second, but he was across the room before the thought could try to escape from his mind. It was a ribbon, long, green; his daughter's acclaimed favorite color. Dark spots stained it, ruined the color. Tugging it loose from the window, where it had snagged on a splinter, he held it before him, silent as the world moved on with the brightly burning sun and the carefree wind.

"Welcome home," he whispered, clutching the ribbon close to his chest.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Despite his incredible strength, each passing shovelful of dirt felt like he was struggling to move a mountain. The skin of his hands were worn raw and red with the labor, and when he was finished, he fell back, panting, against the earthen wall of what was to be Claire's final resting spot. Despite the grim implications of it, he felt comforted in the hole he dug; the smell of soil set him at ease. It smudged nearly every inch of his bare flesh in gritty streaks, but he made no effort to clean himself. He was too tired.

With the job finished, the saraelian let himself sink to the floor of the grave, sprawling his legs out across the dirt. Sighing, he let his head fall back while he dug through his pockets for his cigarettes. The sky above him was an inarguably gorgeous, crystal clear shade of blue, without the slight fluff or curl of white cloud to mar it. Its beauty was the very thing that greedy kings sought, for when paired next to the stores of treasure and gold, it paled. With a cigarette smoldering between his lips, the saraelian rested, glad that Claire and Meredith, after the horror he had visited on him, would perhaps be resting in a place whose pleasantness matched the color of the sky he gazed upon.

Soon after he had squashed his spent cigarette, he fell into a fitful sleep.

He awoke some time later the sound of creaking wagon wheels and hoof beats. Groaning softly, he wiped a sore hands across his eyes, and blinked several times; the blue of the sky had fell away to a handsome salmon and violet color. Slowly, he climbed to his feet, realizing the sound of the wagon had stopped, and pulled himself from the grave -- and fell directly back in when his hand touched oak.

It was a problem he would soon have to deal with, but it caused him emotional and nearly physical anguish whenever he touched their coffins. He had toiled painfully for several backbreaking hours to build them, and they were certainly far from perfect. Unsanded and somewhat crooked at the angles, a trained undertaker would wince painfully at the site of them. Though Claire's contained what was left of her body, Meredith's was mostly empty, save for a dress he had been told was her favorite.

Turning towards the other side of the grave, he lifted himself out again, rising up from the ground and doing his best to dust himself off.

"I have come."

Dan's face screwed up into an expression of annoyance and a trace of anger. "You're a little god damn la..." The irritance in his face fell away, along with the color of warm blood, as he looked up and gazed upon the visitor. It was not the undertaker, whom he had tried to notify two days ago, but something intimately close to him. The man was terribly tall, perhaps seven feet upon estimation, wore a wide brimmed hat that cast his face in shadows of the twilight, and held a scythe with a crooked haft of silver birch. The horse that pulled his wagon the left was old and sickly looking; its ribs were apparent it's patchy brown fur. The other was young and vibrantly healthy, restlessly stamping its hooves. Behind the wagon stood two plague-thin men in brown monk's robes, their flesh mottled and gray. Their cheekbones stood out against their skin, and their eyes were sunken. Instinctively, Dan Lagh'ratham knew that what he looked upon was that of Death.

"I am Ankou. I have come," he repeated, lifting his scythe, indicating the two rough coffins, "For them."

Something stirred within the saraelian's heart at the words. A terrible, biting fire. It was however, not the feeling he experienced before the moment he blacked out. "You can not have them." His scowling lips parted, and he practically spit each of the words out. They had already been lost to him once; he refused to let this man take them from him again. At least, when he set them in the ground to rest, he would know where to come to sit, and remember.

Ankou struck the floor of his wagon with the bottom of his scythe. "You would deny me what is mine, Lagh'ratham Mountainslayer? You would impede my duties?"

"I won't let you take them from me!" It had been many a year since he'd felt like this. Fire flowed through his veins, his heart beat with incredible speed. 'Thayne....this feeling...is this what I have sought to have in my blind, murderous quest for power?' Pushing the thought aside, Dan thrust his right foot off to the side, digging a shallow furrow in the dirt road, and set his stance.

"Yes. I refuse you. I would strike down Hromagh himself if he set foot upon this earth and wished to take them from me!"

Again, Ankou struck the floor of his wagon with his scythe. The robed men behind his wagon began to move forward. "Very well, Lagh'ratham Mountainslayer. So it shall be."

[Slayer of the Rot]

Ankou's followers approached with supernatural speed, their feet leaving the ground, and bearing down upon the saraelian like the gruesome specters that they were. Bony claws stretched from the sleeves of their dirty robes, and a great cry burst from Dan Lagh'ratham as he lunged forward, the great curved blade of Bhidyate appearing in his hands. Twisting viciously at the hip, he brought the enormous sword out in a great horizontal cleave, feeling it's edge ripe through dirtied cloth and dross flesh -- and then the followers darkened to black, and burst apart in a great murder of crows, swarming him and scratching at his face and arms with their talons and beaks. When the last black feather had fallen from his blood tinted vision, he spun his blade and drove it into the ground, leaning against its bulk as he sought a moment to catch his breath.

Through the stinging veil of red, he watched as Ankou raised his scythe again. The crippled, broken horse on the left pulling his wagon suddenly thrust its face to the sky, the veins and muscles in its neck bulging with effort. Blood curdling, high pitched shrieks erupted from it's maw as it shook and shuddered, suddenly thrashing violently against the bonds that tied it to the wagon. In a spray of splintered wood and twisted metal, the old horse broke free and charged the saraelian. Grinding his teeth, Dan tore his sword from the ground and began to raise it -- just as the horse passed right through him, vanishing into thin air. He spun to his left, whipping his head back to look behind him, and caught a glimpse of Ankou's followers working diligently to open Claire's coffin."

"Bastards! Don't you...you..." His stomach churned violently, and he felt his gorge, bitter and hot, rise in his throat, and spill out over his tongue onto the ground. The strength he'd felt only moments before was being robbed from him with fatigue and sickness.

The black threads danced at the edges of his vision. Like a slavering, eyeless beast, instinct rose up within him, gripping him tightly and throwing logic and reason to the wind. His thoughts scattered, and he could feel his mind being slowly overtaken by blood and fire, enveloping his consciousness.

"First, the illness of the Plague. Then, comes the fatigue of Famine. Afterwards, you are gripped in the madness of War." Ankou lifted his long hand up, meeting the gaze of the saraelian calmly. His skin was already beginning to lose its color; taking on a corpse's pallor. "Finally, comes the peace of --”

" No." Ankou recoiled at the strength in the man's voice. The muscles he had been so proud of were slowly wasting away by the spirit's spell, but still, the saraelian refused to collapse, lurching forward on shaking legs. It was hard to say if this was the strength of the Saraelian blood in his veins, or simple human stubbornness. The spirit watched him, watched as he fell face first into the dirt, and rose again on thin arms. Finally, Dan Lagh'ratham reached the wagon, stumbling between the horses, and grabbed hold of Ankou's wrist. The flesh was cold, colder than any of the most brutal Salvarian winters. Instantly, Dan's hand blistered and broke open, spilling thick red blood down his arm, but still he would not let go. His mouth slowly opened, and from the back of his throat came the growl of a beast, weak, and soft at first, but growing each second with effort and decibel as his other hand shakily lifted the Bhidyate overhead.

Tied tightly around the pommel of the gigantic sword was a green ribbon, spotted with blood. The wind, playfully oblivious, sent the ribbon dancing upon itself. Ankou looked upon it, and then upon the saraelian, and pushed him away. As though it had been nothing but a dream, Dan found himself standing in the middle of the road, clutching the haft of his sword, it's edge resting on the floor. He felt no stab of sickness in his stomach, not a single spot of gray on his skin, or even a lone black feather from the crows.

"You stand fearlessly in the presence of death, clinging bravely to your convictions...you may keep them, Lagh'ratham Mountainslayer. Until we meet again."

Dan did not question the reality or source of the voice. Drawing in a deep breath, he dismissed the Bhidyate, and carefully settled Claire and Meredith's coffin in the ground. After covering them with dirt, he made crosses with vine and broken sticks, and drove them deep into the ground. After a moment of silence, he returned to the cottage to make coffee.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Despite the horrors that had transpired here only a few days ago, Dan Lagh'ratham felt comfortable in the cottage. He felt not even the slightest instance of irrational anger, and, though he grieved, his heart did not feel heavy. The sun was always bright, though not blindingly so, and the sky always had the wondrous crystal blue shade to it. Clouds, thick and fluffy, had only floated through the sky the day he had spent building the coffins. The interior of the house had only a very faint underlying scent of blood to it, after Dan had vigorously cleaned the blood and viscera up. It was forgotten almost instantaneously, as the wind bore on bright air the smell of wildflowers, sending the curtains into an unchoreographed dance, sweeping through the open cottage.

If he had been pressed at some time to describe paradise, he would describe in length this exact home.

Still, despite the comfort he felt here, it was missing two obvious things that would have perhaps made it paradise. He thrust those two memories out of his mind, for as long as he could manage to keep them away, and turned away from the rolling, grassy green hills beyond the open door into the living room, his posture slumping slightly as he walked further into the house. The earthy smell of brewing coffee comforted him, and as he passed a window, in the hall leading to the kitchen, a cool breeze caressed his sore body. Smiling faintly, he nonetheless moved on, into the kitchen.

The floor was hard wood, lovingly scrubbed and polished, and the walls were a cream color with carefully painted flower and grapevine accents. An oaken dining table of light wood stain sat off to the far left corner of the room, and the north wall was largely dominated by the counter upon which numerous meals had once been prepared. A copper coffee pot sat on it, steaming profusely, and he glanced at it as he walked past, into another hall way. It was dark, and windowless, but he did not stumble or pause, instead moving back to the last door on the left, into what would have been his and Claire's room. A queen sized bed, impeccably made, was the focal point of the room, sitting in the middle, flanked by two end tables, upon which candlesticks sat. Silently, he moved past the bed, brushing the dark blue blanket laying over the mattress with his finger tips, and opened the closet in the back of the room.

He had thrown out the torn, dirt smeared rags he'd called his clothes at one point in time once he'd returned from the burial. There were very few clothes left in the closet, and very few placed in it in the beginning, and most of it didn't even manage to fit him anymore. He did, however, come across a pair of gray denim jeans that managed to fit well, without being terribly uncomfortable, though were a little snug, and a short sleeved black shirt to go with it. Digging through the back of the closet, he emerged holding a leather messenger's bag, and in it, he packed a few changes of clothes, and it vanished instantly in his hands.

Pushing aside the remaining clothes, Dan reached farther into the closet, his hand coming back, clutching a red sleeve. With a tug, it sunk, and fell limp, and he reached in again, lifting up a bundle of red cloth. Sweeping it over his back, he thrust his arms into the sleeves, buttoned it in the front, and adjusted it by tugging on the breast of it; it's high, static collar brushing lightly against his cheeks. Claire had mentioned it in passing, in one of the letters she still stubbornly wrote, after he had stopped responding to them three years ago. The long coat was a perfect fit, and as though relishing its feel, though more so it's symbolism, he stood still for several moments, staring at the blue covers of the bed.

The color red meant many things to many people. It was associated, of course, with blood and fire, but it could mean many other things. In a religion his adopted parents had adhered him to at a very young age; it was of course associated with fire, and theorized to symbolize the presence of their God. One culture he was vaguely familiar with considered it to be associated with good luck and success. Another considered it to be very fitting for a heroic figure. He'd told this to Claire one day, and she remembered it since. Despite all the horrible things he heard that he had done, still she clung to the fact that there was good in his heart.

Dan settled a hand on his left breast, and looked at it placidly. His expression was unflinching, but something pained stirred behind his eyes. Moving through the house a second time, he shut all of the windows and doors, locked it, and left it behind him.

[Slayer of the Rot]

The fire of the sun had burned out some time ago; the progression and position of the stars in the sky told him roughly three hours.

The cabin was several miles behind him, but its memories stayed with him, as they always would. The Saraelian sat with his back pressed against the rough back of a tall oak, the fabric of his new coat managing to soften the pressing, rough texture of the bark enough that he was beginning to nod off in comfort. His legs were folded loosely before him, and his hands rested atop them, gently cooled by the night air. For the time being, Dan Lagh'ratham thrust away the chilling memories and nagging guilt that should have kept him wide awake, until at once he collapsed -- and slept.

Moments later, he opened his eyes.

Some god, perhaps the one called Morpheus saw it fit to lift him up across miles of rolling grasslands to deliver him back before the freshly dug and filled graves of his child and lover. But, oddly enough, another lay to the left of them; unmarked, the dirt settled, but no grass grew upon its soil. Silent, Dan rose to his feet and blinked slowly, rubbing the bleariness from his eyes with the heel of his hand. Drawing in a deep breath, he realized at once that not only did he stand upon the beaten road before the graves in bare feet, but only in a pair of black trousers. The night air, colder than before, stung at his flesh as the wind picked up with sudden ferocity, it's gentle playfulness from the day forgotten, now only bringing howls and moans to his ears as it rushed across the countryside, sending the high grass snapping.

"Daddy, how many people did you kill before you came back? And in whose name?" His vision, just as great as any haughty Raiaeran elf, had failed him. From the murky blackness the trees behind the graves cast, a small girl in a white dress seemed to simply materialize, her back to him, her red hair spilling down her back and over the cross which marked the grave she did not sleep in. His expression shifted subtly; eyes opening a degree wider than before, his jaw muscles flexed -- and nothing. His hand leapt to his mouth to find rough chords had been sewn through his lips. As though he had summoned it, pain bloomed with the taste of blood in his mouth, thick fat rivulets of it dribbling down his chin to splatter on his feet and the ground. The girl turned to him. Her eyes were gone. Instead, her open eyelids showed scabby sockets staring into a greater hell than he could imagine. The flesh of her left cheek had been torn away, giving her a hideous grin.

"And whose name did you kill us in? We all know how fond you are of trying to put the stain of your sins on someone else's hands." What remained of Claire had propped itself up against the crooked little cross he'd made for her grave. The fingers of her left hand were slick bone in the moonlight, and the flesh was peeled way up to the elbow, where sticky red muscle shone. Her body stopped, just above her waist. A few inches of ropey intestine lay limply in the dirt.

"And now, we rot in the Antifirmament. For you...all for you." The third specter, he did not recognize immediately, but the moment her gray eyes gazed into his, he felt a connection that shoot the very root of his soul. The ghoul's form was shrunken and withered, its flesh grayed from many years of rot. Its sparse brown hair hung about its shoulders listlessly, but as it turned its head up towards the saraelian, the dirty hair fell away from her shoulder to reveal a black tattoo of a cross on her shoulder, and axe and saber over lapping each other behind it. It was visible for only a second, and then the cerements fell over it, but it left Dan reeling. Instantly, he fell to his knees, eyes wide with horror. This one was the one who had brought him into this world; his mother.

"What would you have of us?" Their voices joined, harmonized, became as one. He said nothing, could say nothing, and only turned his face to the shadowed ground. The threads in his lips refused to give. They were like adamantite. His answer came in the form of a groan, wordless, meaningless, as he shut his eyes and grasped his head in his hands. The night became darker as he squeezed his eyes tight, wanting the phantoms to leave him.

"We will come for you," said his daughter.

"We will come for you," said his lover.

"We will come for you," said his mother.

Something wooden thumped against the packed dirt of the road, and he felt a great presence loom up behind him. "So be it."

At once, he awoke to the bright white glow of the moon, his lips unwounded, but still, that pain lingered for a moment, before fading, drawing in a deep breath, he looked about. The tree which he had fallen asleep still stood tall, strong behind him. Some thirty feet before him, the path lead down into a thicker section of the forest. In the peace of the cool night, Dan Lagh'ratham waited for his breathing to slow before spending the rest of that sleepless night beneath that tree.

[Slayer of the Rot]

The shifting wind brushed leaves aside and lit the Saraelian's path; bright white sunshine bathed the beaten way, caused each tiny puff of dust thrown from his moving feet to glow like a dirty star. The gentle draft meandered lazily up the pass, whispering over his shoulders and rustling gaily at this day's wardrobe of choice. He looked as something come from the sun burning merrily above; garbed wholly in white; a poncho draped over his form, hiding all but the very fingertips of his hands. A small silver charm hung from its eastern corner; the carved visage of a wolf's head, a present to his daughter he'd sent many years before, that he'd recovered from her dresser.

Its weight was greater than a small charm should possess. It pulled at his left side, tugged him, as though trying to pull him to the earth, to ground him. Dan Lagh'ratham recognized the burden it laid upon him and pressed on through the forest, regardless.

He had been walking several hours now since dawn, the heart of the forest nearing within perhaps forty or so minutes. Most of the night had been filled with nothing but light, restless sleep, leaping away at the slightest fall of a leaf, the tumbling of unsettled stone. The path before him was beginning to peter out, taper at a throat less than one and a half feet wide. The light through there was inexplicably brighter.

Barrens limbs snapped as he pushed through the opening, stepping into a large, barren clearing. In a twenty foot radius, the earth was black, the wood reaching into it as white as stripped and bleached bone. The sunlight cascading into the clearing had a different quality; stark, harsh, and bitter. The wind came rushing through the boughs, rattling them against each other, and the charm and chain at his side twinkled purely, climaxing in swift silence as his hand reached out and grasped it, holding it still. The saraelian had turned his face up towards the sun, eyes closed, and nostrils wide. Exhaling loudly, he gave a sigh and turned his face towards the southern portion of the sterile circle.

"You can bend light as much as you wish; but you can never truly hide from me, Derium."

Before him, where his eyes were cast, something shifted...moved. The salt white trees and bile black earth there seemed to slide, undulate, like an oiled snake. A form became more definite a moment later, the curves becoming sharper, angles appearing like the bent blade of a discard sword. A moment later, a man of similar height stood before the stone faced saraelian; a man of exact features. Though the man lacked the scars across Dan's neck and hands, his eyes paler, a sea green, the resemblance was unmistakable. This man could, and did pass as his twin brother. His face was dressed with a gentle smile; a parallel to his brother's plain, cold expression. Dan's eyes moved a little lower. His twin was wearing a black suit with white shirt beneath, its collar and lapels drawn over. Its featureless smoothness told him it was an arrogant and simple display of power; a gathering and absence of light. "Big brother...I had a feeling you'd sniff me out. It's been a long time, hmm?" Derium settled an unscarred, smooth hand against his carefully shaven cheek.

Compared to his twin, Dan was a filthy, haggard barbarian. Derium held such poise and diplomatic grace that at first sight, so many judged the younger to be the superior. Saraelian genetics proved them right. Throwing out his left arm, the wing of the cloak raising in the air, his late daughter's silver charm glimmering like a brilliant star in the daylight, Dan Lagh'ratham twisted his wrist and to his hand, summoned the black blade, Bhidyate, its tip resting against the coal colored soil at his feet. "Derium...why are you here?"

"I just wanted to check up on my older brother. Daniel, why don't you put the toy away?"

Something hardened in the slayer's face, the sharpness of a knife edge glimmered in his hazel eyes. "Breathe deep, Daystar, and relish it. I'm going to send you the way of those two..."

A grin broke open Derium's lips. "Oh. Do you really want to add physical pain to your grievances, Dak'Arsha? Big brother Mountainslayer?"

Dan Lagh'ratham had nothing else to say. The Bhidyate did.

[Slayer of the Rot]

A few quick movements had closed the gap between the two saraelians, and now long furrows scarred the black soil, where the Bhidyate had bit it, seeking Derium's bones and blood. Light flash, and gathered in a long, cylindrical shape in Derium's hand; then scattered, revealing a long blade, its length engraved with ornate designs and enameled in black. Dodging another wide arc of the buster sword Dan wielded, he darted in and slashed a deep wound across his brother's bicep. Saying nothing; the wound oozed blood as his muscles bunched again, taking another stroke at Derium's body. One blow would finish it...not even his brother could stand up to the force of his strength.

"Too bad it's not the old days, big brother! You'd be slaving in chains and I'd be eating the finest mutton each night in Raiarean silks!" A shadow of pure anger darkened Dan's eyes, and he moved with renewed speed as adrenaline crashed through his veins like an electric hammer, the edge of his sword suddenly taking Derium across the stomach. The saraelian's eyes bulged, but instead of a gusher of blood, light burned, and the body burst in a torrent of flames. Battle honed reflexes forced Dan back, sweeping the flat of his enormous sword in front of him. The blast threw him some ten feet away, tumbling across the ground, his white clothes scorched and smudged with black dirt. A thought and the poncho vanished, its tangling cloth gone, and he sprang to his feet, eyes darting around the barren circle.

"It's strange, huh, Dak'Arsha?"

"Stop calling me that," Dan snapped through clenched teeth, uneasily moving around the clearing, sword resting against his shoulder, neck craning as he sought out his brother.

"It's your father given name. You should bear it proudly! I do, as far as mine goes. You should shuck that rotten name your adoptive human parents gave you. It's so unfitting of something like you." Bellowing his frustration to the glowing sun, Dan lashed out with the Bhidyate, slashing and crushing a grouping of thinned trees close to the area where hid brother had first appeared.

"Our genetic makeup will never cease to puzzle me, big brother. The same mother, the same father, and while twins, we came out so different. You, a Terran, and I, a Solnus. The classic yarn of the Prince and the Pauper. And maybe it was just fate recognized the greatness of father, bestowed such a blessing on me, and erstwhile, recognized the muddy filth of our human mother and designed such ugliness into your abilities." No one else made him feel so helpless, reduced him into a beast. Dragging his sword behind him, snarling, Dan took numerous blind swings as he sprinted around the clearing, desperate to find purchase besides black dirt and white wood.

"I came here to tell you something important. Are you going to calm down long enough to talk? Remember; you started this." The answer came in the form of a particularly rotten and foul obscenity. "Very well. Power of eradication, gather upon the tip of this blade..." The words seemed to sober Dan. Halting mid-stride, mid-swing, blade frozen in the air, it vanished in an instant as his eyes went wide, frantic. His toe caught on something that looked like a black rock. As the atmosphere became heavy with gathering energy, the air suddenly odorless and sterile, his toe caught on the smooth surface of what looked like a black rock. Shoving his boot toe into the ground, a shining blade snapped forth from it, jabbing it against the rock, and kicked upwards. The ground broke and ruptured, and what came out was no rock at all, but a skull. Suddenly, the state of this clearing made a terrible sense to him.

"Hoist yourself to the brightest light, then plunge into the deepest
darkness..." A greater light than the sun now suddenly shown a few feet above his head, where Derium hovered, holding his black enameled sword high. A terrible burning blue glow lighted the tip of the weapon.

"Stupid boy, that's forbidden Saraelian magic! You know damn well you shouldn't be using it!" But the time for warnings had long since passed. Derium descended like a planet-killing meteor with the cry of Omega at his lips, and strength rushed into Dan's legs, coiling and sending him nearly fifteen feet away from the clearing, crashing through thick tree limbs that battered him as he descended before he snatched hold of one and threw himself to the tree's tip. Even as he reached the top, he could hear the explosion of magic, and cyan light rushed through the forest, igniting almost every inch of the wood in a light that would make even the sun above jealous. Squinting, Dan watched as the dome rose, scorched black earth floating in it's middle, his brother at it's top, his blade just on the inside of it. The cry of the spell came to his ears, struggling not to be drowned out by the crashing explosion. Derium hung there for a few moments as the blast dissipated and the light dimmed, and then glanced towards where Dan sat in the tree several yards away. In a wink of light, he appeared, hovering at his side.

"Grand, wasn't it? There were two of mother's family's Exorcist after me earlier, and I slayed them with it." Derium looked at him with the delighted smile of a child, but Dan stared back at him with narrowed eyes and smoldering scorn.

"Using that sort of power will draw hunters, you twit. Besides, that magic is outlawed by Saraelia for good reasons. It shortens your life, especially when used so recklessly. You knew you wouldn't hit me."

"You're right." The amused little light still twinkled in Derium's eyes and it annoyed Dan to no end. "But I figured it would be the best thing to stop your childish rampage. Though the world probably wouldn't mind me killing you, though. Sort of a favor. Like putting down a mad dog, killing Claire and all."

"Claire and Meredith," Dan corrected quietly, the burning anger in his stomach transformed instantly into an icy ball of guilt.

"What?" The look on Derium's face was one of apprehensive confusion. "No, just Claire. Your daughter escaped."

[Slayer of the Rot]

The day had lost its innocence.

The sunshine that had only moments ago been clean, white, and chaste had dimmed as he stared upon Derium's face, as though seeing it through some filter, taking the tint of the soiled blade of a knife. The clouds, which had lain so lazily and carefree across the brilliant azure sky, had began to knot together like lumps of clotted blood, darkening and choking the light. Even the wind, which had been only a breath ago seemed like a playful and charmingly irresponsible child had changed into a roaring beast, howling through his world and pulling sharply at him as he sat perched upon the bough.

The mouth that had spoken plainly and often bluntly to common man and king alike was dry and apprehensive, even as he opened it. For a split second, his blood had run colder than the shore of Salvar, but had boiled up and now surged hot through him. An omen hung in the air, but if it was for him to see it, his eyes could not. "You're lying."

"I'm not," Derium said so simply, shrugging a bit. All irritation with his brother had seemed to melt away, and his view of the world had shrunk to include only him. It had grayed and blurred at first, then faded in darkness until he and his brother hung in abject blackness. His hands lay useless twitching in his lap. He could see her, his daughter, as she had been in the photograph Claire had sent her, smiling wide and without a care in the world, showing her father what she could do by lifting a mining cart over her head like it was a school book. She represented, in one way, the good he had done in the world, but in another fashion, she let bare all of his suns; a survivor of another of his slaughters. A wordless sound rumbled behind his closed lips and he lowered his eyes.

"I'd been keeping an eye on my niece since you certainly weren't. She is, after all, valuable, a continuation of the Saraelian race. But when you came, she raced from the house, and vanished in a swell of darkness. Do you understand what this means?"

Dan shook his head numbly.

"I'll tell you, you thick twit!" Derium's hand lashed out and grabbed hold of his brother's collar and shook him. "You've corrupted the Four Pillars! For hundreds of years it has been the Terrans, the Hydrians, the Fierans, and the Solnus! Thanks to you being incapable of keeping your thing in your pants, you've created some...some...mutant! Thayne only knows what other damage you've made to our pure gene pool, you promiscuous idiot!" The smell of ozone and a crackling noise began to bring Dan back to his senses. The light spilling from his eyes was incredible; he couldn't even manage to look at them, and knew if he did, his own would sizzle and burn. Arcs of golden electricity were dancing across the Daystar's body.

"You ruined everything by being born. Everything. If you had been stillborn, there would have been no embarrassing little Dak'Arsha to drag my name in the mud, even as I stood so tall in the glory of my birthright! I was a prodigy, and you, a peasant! And you can't remember any of the shame you brought to house Xelios. And even now, you muck it all up! Had you been able to suffer the Shift like any before you, you wouldn't have come here and suffered one of the episodes. I would have begun to understand the nature of my niece's mutation. But you've broken the seal early!"

Derium's fury had finally brought Dan back from his shock, and his own arm darted forth, snatching his brother's neck. "What the fuck are you talking about? What seal?!"

"You don't remember anything, do you? A union of Saraelian and other races would produce a hybrid, as would any others. A seal was put on the both of us as child until the time came that we could bear the true brunt of our powers. Our glorious true bodies! We could shuck these grotesque skins of men! And I'm going to let you die that way!" Derium's hand, covered in blazing, pale blue lightning, sliced forward at a speed Dan could never hope to match, and burned a smoking hole in his stomach. Suddenly, voices assailed him from all sides; roaring until they became an enormous, droning hum. The wood of the tree beneath him began to pulse with life, seemed to shake with excitement as, gasping breathlessly, he pitched over backwards and plummeted to the earth below.

"Do something worthwhile in your life Dak'Arsha, and die," Derium spat before vanishing in a blink of light.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Beads of blood marked his sharp downward descent, trickling from his lips. It was choking him, coating his tongue with a retched coppery taste, clogging his nostrils with its syrupy sickness. His breath seized in his throat. It seemed all of his problems, all of his changes, came in a baptism of blood.

The blood of his friends and loved ones as he had changed into a hunter on a ruined world.

The blood of his own when he had discovered the truth of his genetic stock.

The blood of Claire when he finally realized he was a blind, hungry beast.

He was sick of the smell of it by now, after a lifetime of tasting it, shedding it, spilling it, but he knew with Meredith alive, there was going to be so much of it, and by the gallons. No one was going to get in his way of finding that little girl, and that included the one that waited for everyone at the end. In his mind, he could see that figure in his mind from only two days ago. Ankou, his wide brimmed hat hiding his eyes, his lips in a constant, passive frown. But the image was mocking in a way...to be spared by the entity for his family, only to die before he could reunite in life with the one that had survived. The tissues were already beginning to grow, knit themselves together, but the wound was terribly large, and had been cauterized. The regeneration was only breaking open sealed tissues and causing more blood to pour out.

That strange, roaring drone persisted, had grown louder, and the light had taken on a sharper, fiercer quality than before, cutting mercilessly at his eyes. From below, came a tremendous tearing and ripping sound, but he found he lacked the energy to investigate it.

Sand splashed into the air as he struck the ground, dusting him as he fell. Confusion fought out of the fog of fatigue. Two large jagged walls rose at his left and right like the sides of a coffin. His brows knitted together in bewilderment; he should have struck hard, solid earth, and shattered his back. Yet the stone, the dirt, had parted, and formed a cushion for his safety.

Before he could puzzle it out, the dirt walls slammed shut above him with a muffled thump, trapped him in suffocating darkness. A wordless cry escaped his lips, and when he raised his hands to press against the soil, more sand poured in above him, sending a red flurry of pain through his eyes, invading his nose, his gasping mouth, packing tightly around him, wrapping him in an airless cocoon. His body screamed to move, to breathe, starbursts of color blazing across his wounded eyes.

Six feet below Althanas' crust, Dan Lagh'ratham began to die.

[Slayer of the Rot]

The sand began to shift, clumping in his mouth as it sucked up the moisture, and then began to pour down his throat. The muscles in his neck began to contract tightly as his bile rose; vomit met the invader, but it chose a different route; as he struggled to breathe, it charged down his windpipe and filled his lungs. Around his grainy tomb, something pressed. At first, only small pinpoints of pain began to flare, but as the pain intensified, and the blood began to flow more freely, he began to wish for the light, the wind on his skin, the feeling of drawing in a crisp Autumn breath that he had taken for granted, but more so, the light, the -

-amber torch light cast half halos of orange on the scarred and worn soft stone ceiling above him. It winked off of polished brass candlesticks, set on dark wood tables. Behind the tables sat two unfamiliar people in high backed chairs, upholstered with rich burgundy cloth. On the left sat a man whose auburn hair spilled down to his shoulders, bound at his forehead with a jade circlet. Amid the folds of his forest green robe, he could see the sheen of red tinted armor. On the right sat a tired looking brown haired woman in white robes, with hazel eyes. A large, grandly decorated zweihander rested against the wall behind her. She didn't exude the aura of command and nobility that the man did, but one of motherly cares and worries. When she sat forward, casting her eyes at him, the neckline of her robe fell, to reveal a tattoo of a cross with a sword and axe overlapped beneath it in black ink.

'Why do I get the feeling that this...is my mother? That's impossible. I never saw her in my life...' It was then that he realized how calm he was, and confusion immediately besieged him. A second ago, he had been bleeding and suffocating under the earth, suffering a painful death. Suddenly he realized that he could move freely as well, and instead of sand digging into his wounds, he felt fur on a body far too small to be his own. The woman began to wring her hands nervously.

"Are you sure this isn't going to hurt them?"

The regal looking man's impassive face softened with the vaguest traces of a smile, and he laid a large, worn hand gently on the woman's back. "Of course not. All children born of crossed blood have the seal placed in or on them. It's for their own safety. They wouldn't be able to stand their own power; they'd be crippled by it. We'll just have to keep a close eye on them. If it's broken, it'll need to be re-scribed immediately. Without it, they'd suffer psychotic episodes. They'd be crippled with rage and insanity." The woman squirmed under the hand that had brought her absolute comfort a moment before, and she rose, crossing the room quickly. Battle scarred hands slipped under him and lifted him, as though he were nothing more than an infant, to hold her before her eyes.

"I think I'll call him...Dak'Arsha." And then white light flooded in and -

- horrible reality came rushing back in, just in time to feel his bones creak, the snap as blades of stone pressed into his body. He knew what he just experienced was of incredible importance, but soon, it would be all for naught. His knuckles cracked and snapped as he struggled to squeeze his hands into fists. He could almost feel Ankou's boots weighing down above him...

'No! No, no, NO!' A powerful resolve ignited in his dying body. Claire was dead, but he wasn't, not yet, and if he died, Meredith was going to be left alone for the dangers and the psychopaths of the world to prey upon. Madmen would fold her heart in their talons, chain her down, clip her wings, and hold her for a prize. Anger swelled, and he arched his back, nearly healed, and felt stone and earth above buckle and break above him. The sand in his eyes filtered away to show him a small hopeful view; the ceiling of rock, cracked and useless, awash in a strange green glow. A stale breath of musty air rushing into his lungs, swirling the sand as he moved, raising his arm to push against the grave nature had torn open for him, breaking the plaguing stones of spine that had broken his body. The rock, the soil, the sand, it joined his body, absorbed into his being; replacing hat had been torn, broken, destroyed.

A strange hand tore out of the ground above, and moments later, an equally alien face. What had emerged from a sure death was something incredibly different from the man that had been buried.

In wonder, Dan stared at his lead colored skin, shot through with cracks of glowing chartreuse, with eyes glowing the color of vibrant summer grass. Those strange fingers moved across the demon hid that covered his body, to the horns that jutted from his temples; they felt like rough obsidian. He felt changed more than physically; even his soul, his mind, felt calmer, steadier like a firmly rooted tree, as passive as the wind that blew gently around his new body. It had not been the death he had suspected; but an ascendance. He knew that not a single drop of human blood flowed in him anymore. He was purely Saraelian.

But a flame still burned in the Terran body of his.

His daughter was wandering Althanas, scared and alone, maybe sick, perhaps wounded. And he had finally found a path he had thought he'd once lost. As his skin turned back to its normal healthy brown coloration, he swore that no one would stand in his way. Not his friends, not the Thayne.

He would slay the very mountains if they stood in his way.

((Spoils:
I've been writing all day. I hope you'll excuse me if I'm plain about things.

Saraelian Form: Doubles strength, grants natural demon hide. Locks Soul Link and Regeneration, dismisses all weapons currently summoned with Soul Link.
Terramancy: Allows control over Earthly elements (i.e. stone, sand, dirt). As this is an innate ability, he has beetter control than one who is taught, but there are limitations.))

[Witchblade]

I’m not very big on simply giving numbers, but that’s just what you wanted. I will however give you a brief paragraph detailing what I thought of the thread.

This was, by far, the best writing I have ever read from you. It was detailed, descriptive, vivid and dark, very dark. Dan really came to life for me in this story, his personality more than just the raging beast with no path and no goals. Even the storyline just took a hold of me from the very first sentence and drew me in. I didn’t even want to get up and answer the phone the two times it rang. There were only a few things I noticed, constant spelling mistakes. There would be one at least every post and you had a few run-on sentences. Also, I thought there could have been a bit more in the conclusion, but it didn’t feel lacking. I just wished it wasn’t so short and there was more for me to read. And now, for the numbers.

Storyline

Continuity: 9

Setting: 9

Pacing: 8

Character

Dialogue: 9

Action: 9

Persona: 10

Writing Style

Mechanics: 7

Technique: 9

Clarity: 9

Wild Card: 9

Total: 88

Reward:

Dan receives 4,200 experience!

The Saraelian form will be approved when you post your update, since I’ll be approving it then.

[Letho]

Corrected EXP added (3470). Slayer of the Rot, welcome to the next level.