Osiris Open 2020: Round One (Storm Veritas vs Aure Drakshal)

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

It was the tolling bell that finally drew him in from the wilds.

Though, he reflected bitterly, calling them ‘wild’ was a bit of a generous misnomer. The rolling fields and simple farmsteads that made up the surrounding area had blended into one disgustingly bland smudge of banality that had almost driven the tiefling to the point of irritation over the past few days. He could feel his teeth squirm softly in his jaw as he chewed, making him tense against the alien sensation with a contemptuous snort. He tried to push the discomfort to the back of his mind and waited for the feeling to recede.

Takin’ longer before it does now though, eh cutter? smirked the little voice in his head; That too was violently repressed as his boots continued to assault the hardpacked earth of the road.

It had become easier over the past few days to ignore things, as most of his attention was taken up by the various insects crawling over the exposed flesh around his wounds and newest piercings. They darted over his worn and bladed leather, probing the sticky, hot flesh around his cheeks and neck. More still frolicked in the braided strips of skin intricately stitched around his arm. Drawn by the hot air and the abundance of crops in all bloody directions. The older incisions were barely recognisable anymore. His ragged fingernails had tried to tear away the prickly heat and the bastard flies, but he’d had more luck tearing away his own scabs as they tried to form. Over the smell of blood and opium that clung to him like a lover no matter how far his wanderings took him from home, his keen senses had started to pick out the sweet hint of rot.

More than once he had been forced to stop and scrape the grit of the road and the wheat chaff from the fields around him from his eyes. With his own lids pinned back to the meat of his face, the tattooed deviant was picking up on how the minor inconveniences weighed heavier than the actual pain. At one point the fleshcrafter had even attempted staring at the sun to make his eyes water. It had been well over an hour before he stopped grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes; it wasn’t so simple to get over the sensation of his newly grown eyelids sliding in horizontally across the parched orbs. It had been two before he had finally managed to will them away.

Something nagged the tiefling, more than the buzzing swarm, more than the sonorous peals from the quaint little church he had spied from the foothills. The sun was beating down above the meagre cover offered by the scattered copses of trees, already potent before it hit its apex. Not one cloud marred the dome across the world. But the thought was lodged in his mind like a shard of glass in an intestinal tract.

You’re wanderin’ into a storm.

It had been following him for the days he’d been circling the town, looking for some of the locals to keep himself entertained. Instead of his playthings though he’d found nothing but empty homes, barns with the animals stolen away somewhere. Pantries cleared quickly, valuables left behind. The smell of horse shit, and rich loamy earth. Scythe blades left un-oiled and unused. It had been curious at first. Slowly, a lack of sleep and the pain from his various wounds dulling his wits more than he’d care to admit, he had tumbled to the answer with his usual smile.

Collateral.

The bastard running this so-called tournament Aurelianus had signed up for was clearly determined to limit his artistic vision.. as well as raw materials. It was a canny move, he admitted, but as he had closed in on Whitevale, it had not improved his temper any. He needed distraction more than anything else. He reached into a pouch at his belt and withdrew a gnarled, fleshy root. With his serrated teeth he snatched a mouthful and started grinding it into a fine red paste, ignoring the rivulets of burgundy saliva dribbling over the new rings in his chin. The steel hoops held his ashen skin together around a vicious looking gash that went from his lip to his high collar. He wasn’t entirely sure when they had been done, rapidly becoming lost in the catalogue of work he’d been doing on himself for the past year or so in his cave. With a shake of his horned head and a click of his forked tongue against the roof of his mouth, Aurelianus cast the idle musings aside as irrelevant – it had become another mere necessary evil. The fourth of the ringing chimes sang out over the silent stretch of open ground around the wooden wall.

A sneer curled the tiefling’s lips as he let his eyes roam momentarily over the settlement’s outer façade. The defenses didn’t look like much, and if there was a more sickeningly charming little township gracing Corone’s arse than the one visible through the open entrances ahead, the half-breed guttersnipe had yet to clap eyes on it. Deep ruts were worn in the dirt roads leading to the township, the mark of many moons of labour and agriculture. As he came closer, his slit-pupils flickered across the rooftops. A frown tore at his features, wondering what had drawn his attention, before finally they alighted on a small weathervane mounted above a squat, slate-roofed building.

It sat unmoving in the still, cloying air, but still it seemed to taunt the addle-minded devil. Trying in vain to wipe the stinging sweat from his eyes the image of a storm once again flashed through his mind. What the little flashes of intuition were, the warlock didn’t know. Whether it was a lingering effect of the divination magicks he’d been dabbling in or whether the root he was chewing had more entertaining properties than first thought, it added up the same way.

The shambling figure, bedecked in his usual asymmetrical attire and carrying more knives than an abattoir worker on a busy day, finally left the last patch of shade cast by any tree between here and the pitiful walls ahead. A few startled birds took to the air screeching, circling above and keeping a hungry eye on the tiefling. Whatever breed they were, all Aurelianus could see were buzzards circling a dying animal. The mental image soured his mood and as he dragged himself down a small grassy verge to walk alongside the main road, he weighed the pros and cons of using the feathery little bastards as target practice before his bout began. At least a few of the names he vaguely recalled seeing on the roster for this little shindig had been familiar, so he soothed himself with the knowledge he would either hear the latest chant from round the burgs, or he would have a chance to wear some familiar faces. With a thick, tarry chuckle, the half-breed admitted to himself he didn’t much mind which. It was just nice to get some time out of the House.

But with how out of touch he’d been in the past.. well, Aurelianus wasn’t entirely sure quite how long he’d been away from the world at large, but he needed to get his feelers back into the water. So to speak, he added to himself, ignoring the squirming sensation behind his temples with a grimace. Whatever was coursing through his veins was slowly trying to reshape the fleshcrafter, always struggling to slip through when his mind was distracted. And as his ruined flesh and self-inflicted tapestry of mutilation could attest to, there was only so much he could do to his own body to keep it at bay. His own proclivities for delving into the sorry sods who came across his path were well-documented back at the House of Sin, but when it was happening to his own body? That sat decidedly less sanguine with Aurelianus.

So here he was, staggering through the shorter stubble of one of the fields imprisoning the small town, keeping himself alert for any sign of movement. Dipping his toes back in to see what had become of things in his absence, that’s all today was. Aurelianus splayed his fingers and dragged them over the plants, savouring the feel of the jagged stalks and the wire biting deeper between his fingers. Even as he wandered under the quickly approaching peak sun, sweat beading along his exposed skin, his ambling course started stalking closer and closer to the yawning iron gates. It was too tempting a prospect for his fever-addled mind to resist, potential trap or not. As he finally passed into the opening in the simple wooden palisade, the teeth-itching hum of flies around him surged in volume, before the final dull metallic note from the church belfry boomed out over streets stripped of their usual life.

The only sign of habitation beside the odd wisps of smoke were the slowly fading echoes of the ten rings. They echoed around the inside of his head for much longer, keeping the warlock chewing his already raw and bloodied nails, his brow throbbing in time with the knells.

His spare hand rose almost distractedly to a mouth that was lined with cracked and ragged lips, as he tore away another mouthful of the bitter red root. It occurred to the half-devil that he couldn’t remember where he had come across the stuff, but eating it seemed to dull the all-consuming burning itch that coated the tiefling’s ravaged frame and so into his mouth it continued to go; he swore to himself it had nothing to do with not knowing where his coat or tobacco were at the moment. His gaze wandered in jumps and starts up and down the thoroughfares before him, but no sight nor sound nor scent betrayed the presence of the crowds he had been hoping to have around for the spectacle today.

With his hobnailed boots crunching across the cobblestoned streets, Aurelianus made his way toward the source of the summons. It didn’t take long to find his way. Not enough of a pikin’ town to get lost in he began to smirk, before feeling the lacerations along the corners of his mouth peel open fractionally more. Fingers probed at the edges of the incisions, coming away with less blood than the white-skinned devil would have expected. His face jerked and twitched as he reflexively tried to blink.

Soon enough he emerged in the small opening before the church, eyes alight with an unhealthy gleam stabbed across the ground, marking the flowers spread out like tumours in a lung. Something shifted deep within his own chest, wetly, and for a slow second the tiefling was seized by the unshakable knowledge that it was a tongue; but not how he knew. The sensation robbed the simile of his usual delight. Instead, he let his focus coil around the only other person he could see in this anthill of a town. No attempts at stealth were made; with his hooked and barbed attire and the plethora of weapons, piercings and chains hanging from his frame, he caught every stray flicker of sunlight. Not to mention his occasional fits of flailing and swatting at the insects determined to make him a walking nursery.

With a friendly nod of his sweat-laden and horned brow, Aurelianus stopped a short distance away and ran a hand through the red quills emerging from his scalp in a patchy crest. He didn’t seem to notice the small spikes that fell out to litter the ground like pine needles, or the soft furrows he had started to work through the flesh across his head with every pass of his too-long fingers; it almost made the tattoos there appear to squirm with a life of their own. A few larger blutflies buzzed angrily into the quiet meadow air, dislodged by the movement.

“’ello cutter,” he grinned, ignoring the rings lining his chin pulling taut, his cheeks splitting slowly. He forced down the soft writhing he could feel worming through his body. Now he had something to keep his attention, even if only briefly.

“There was me, wanderin’ down and ‘opin’ for a handful of the ‘faithful’ come for the old bent-knee beseechin’ bollocks,” he nodded towards the dilapidated church looming above them both. “A nice little foreplay before things got underway, jig? But instead this burg’s about as lively as a deader’s stem and all I can find is you.”

It came out as an accusation, delivered with a fevered smile.

“But since you’re not one of the yous I’m parkin’ my eyes for, can’t ‘elp but feel like some sod’s pissin’ on my sunshine.”

He noticed the man’s eyes regarding him and offered a conciliatory shrug. “Not blamin’ you, y’understand. Not your fault you’re you, eh? But I’m an amiable bloke, don’t mind getting my ‘ands dirty in you. Sure we’ll ‘ave ourselves a right giggle over it after.”

Turning on his heel amid another burst of enraged flies, Aurelianus’ let his worn boots carve a path through the crabgrass and the dandelions towards the crumbling edifice of worship. There was a vague shiver up his spine as he felt minute touches of pollen landing on his bared eyes. Throwing his head back and swallowing the last vestiges of the vile tubers, Aurelianus smirked over his shoulder.

“May as well ‘ead in and make a mess of their kip,” he gestured vaguely heavenward. “Not as if any of those celestial wanks are usin’ it. Shame, really, lettin’ that big 'ouse go to waste.”

For a heartbeat, he was tempted to find out if the place was for sale. His imagination ran away with him as he finished closing the distance between himself and stairs leading within the cool, dim interior. The things he could do with a little place like this, the expansion opportunities for his House of Sin… no, now was not the time to be adding yet more distractions.

As he set his heavy boot on the weather-worn stone of the bottom step, he let his attention wander over the field again with a soft smirk. So far it was shaping up to be a good day.