The Confessor
08-20-07, 09:27 PM
The Fiend of Felwhar: A Tale of Slop, Gore, and the Occasional Biscuit
as dictated to the offices of J. S. Snivelsworth & Flaherty, LLC.
Alright, I'm only going to tell this story once, so write fast, Snivelsworth.
Yes, every word.
No, I don't care what pen you use, just write. Stick your finger in the pencil-sharpener. I don't care.
Herrrhghurgmhm.
Don't ask me how to spell that. I cleared my throat. More jackassery like this, and your face will be stuck to my boot. You figure it out - you're the stenographer. To continue...
---
Mud stained its legs. Circling the recently exhumed corpse, its feet sucked into the fresh mud as it paced. The bloated body of a streetwalker lay stiff, gaping eyes awash with jaundice and already eaten of worm and decay alike. It paced. It's hot breath played over the woman's pallid skin, already wracked with clot-stiff veins—
Are you writing?!
Good.
Clot-stiff veins—bulging and black. It savored the moment, the sights, smells; it took it all in. Its hunger not abated by the act of dragging a shabby whore from a shallow grave, it needed to taste what was once sweet and tender.
No, Snivelsworth, I don't know why whores are buried in shallow graves. Ask your mother.
It tore the belly, spilling the insides— viscera hanging heavy like wine grapes. The liver was scraped out like a rotten oyster from its loose shell, yellowed and hypercholic. It reveled in the tackiness of wrecked beauty, drew its head back, and then gorged itself on the necrotic flesh.
That's what the Vickar thought, at least. The ponce. Had he not been too busy with his attendants' backsides, he may have even caught on to the obvious: none of the other graves were touched, so why this one? Ranulf stood back a ways, suspicious of the Vickar's intentions. A priest of the Mark as he was, Vickar Drennag hadn't exorcised a spirit or performed a banishing for decades. He was washed up. His wealth of knowledge had run dry years ago. Status quo was all that held Ranulf's tongue.
The day wasn't so overcast as to be dreary, but the world seemed awash in grays and sepias. Stone markers jutted like crooked teeth at all odd angles, not well kept by any stretch. Weeds grew spidery and thick over bronzed plaques, all honoring forgotten memories. Someone's uncle's son-in-law lay buried for a few hundred years, and all the consolation he received for not having sired any sons to carry on his name was a slab of chiseled metal. The whole place had been overgrown. Ranulf grimaced at the shoddy work the groundskeeper had done with the cemetery. It was this kind of carelessness with the dead that made his job harder; honor your dead in their afterlife, and you've got a better chance of them staying in their graves. A comfy corpse is a happy corpse, they say.
They don't?
They should.
His stomach hadn't been well ever since last night, but after seeing some foul thing's idea of a late night snack, his guts were ready to roll up his throat and into the muck. He let the Vickar prattle on about all manner of unholiness and purging. All sound and fury. Ranulf borrowed a pen and began to write the details of what he saw before the graveyard was put under ward and watch.
"Young, approximately early 30's. Most likely wealthy, or upheld the appearance of wealth," he wrote, marking the healthy roll of fat at the woman's belly. "Genitalia intact. Artfully disemboweled, but viscera have been discarded nearby. Other abdominal organs missing: liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach. Full presentation of anterior lumbars 1 through 5," he noted. Her abdominal cavity had been emptied to the point that her spine was visible through her belly. He was used to performing autopsies on destroyed creatures and and slain beasts, but at the end of the day, if you've seen one eviscerated corpse, you really have seen them all.
He became ill in a cluster of nearby bushes. Death was no new thing to Ranulf, being a direling himself. Battle was their way, in truth, and he had spent many years simply coaxing descriptions of monstrosities from dying warriors. He wasn't a healer by any means, so he did not waste his energy by trying. All he could do in most cases, was ensure that the next stalwart warrior didn't meet the same fate. To see a human robbed of a butcher's pluck, however, was more foulness than he could stomach.
as dictated to the offices of J. S. Snivelsworth & Flaherty, LLC.
Alright, I'm only going to tell this story once, so write fast, Snivelsworth.
Yes, every word.
No, I don't care what pen you use, just write. Stick your finger in the pencil-sharpener. I don't care.
Herrrhghurgmhm.
Don't ask me how to spell that. I cleared my throat. More jackassery like this, and your face will be stuck to my boot. You figure it out - you're the stenographer. To continue...
---
Mud stained its legs. Circling the recently exhumed corpse, its feet sucked into the fresh mud as it paced. The bloated body of a streetwalker lay stiff, gaping eyes awash with jaundice and already eaten of worm and decay alike. It paced. It's hot breath played over the woman's pallid skin, already wracked with clot-stiff veins—
Are you writing?!
Good.
Clot-stiff veins—bulging and black. It savored the moment, the sights, smells; it took it all in. Its hunger not abated by the act of dragging a shabby whore from a shallow grave, it needed to taste what was once sweet and tender.
No, Snivelsworth, I don't know why whores are buried in shallow graves. Ask your mother.
It tore the belly, spilling the insides— viscera hanging heavy like wine grapes. The liver was scraped out like a rotten oyster from its loose shell, yellowed and hypercholic. It reveled in the tackiness of wrecked beauty, drew its head back, and then gorged itself on the necrotic flesh.
That's what the Vickar thought, at least. The ponce. Had he not been too busy with his attendants' backsides, he may have even caught on to the obvious: none of the other graves were touched, so why this one? Ranulf stood back a ways, suspicious of the Vickar's intentions. A priest of the Mark as he was, Vickar Drennag hadn't exorcised a spirit or performed a banishing for decades. He was washed up. His wealth of knowledge had run dry years ago. Status quo was all that held Ranulf's tongue.
The day wasn't so overcast as to be dreary, but the world seemed awash in grays and sepias. Stone markers jutted like crooked teeth at all odd angles, not well kept by any stretch. Weeds grew spidery and thick over bronzed plaques, all honoring forgotten memories. Someone's uncle's son-in-law lay buried for a few hundred years, and all the consolation he received for not having sired any sons to carry on his name was a slab of chiseled metal. The whole place had been overgrown. Ranulf grimaced at the shoddy work the groundskeeper had done with the cemetery. It was this kind of carelessness with the dead that made his job harder; honor your dead in their afterlife, and you've got a better chance of them staying in their graves. A comfy corpse is a happy corpse, they say.
They don't?
They should.
His stomach hadn't been well ever since last night, but after seeing some foul thing's idea of a late night snack, his guts were ready to roll up his throat and into the muck. He let the Vickar prattle on about all manner of unholiness and purging. All sound and fury. Ranulf borrowed a pen and began to write the details of what he saw before the graveyard was put under ward and watch.
"Young, approximately early 30's. Most likely wealthy, or upheld the appearance of wealth," he wrote, marking the healthy roll of fat at the woman's belly. "Genitalia intact. Artfully disemboweled, but viscera have been discarded nearby. Other abdominal organs missing: liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach. Full presentation of anterior lumbars 1 through 5," he noted. Her abdominal cavity had been emptied to the point that her spine was visible through her belly. He was used to performing autopsies on destroyed creatures and and slain beasts, but at the end of the day, if you've seen one eviscerated corpse, you really have seen them all.
He became ill in a cluster of nearby bushes. Death was no new thing to Ranulf, being a direling himself. Battle was their way, in truth, and he had spent many years simply coaxing descriptions of monstrosities from dying warriors. He wasn't a healer by any means, so he did not waste his energy by trying. All he could do in most cases, was ensure that the next stalwart warrior didn't meet the same fate. To see a human robbed of a butcher's pluck, however, was more foulness than he could stomach.