More stuff I wrote
So I haven't posted in forever, but that was (partly) because I was working on this draft. It's more of a teaser, really - a taste of things to come...
***
Shara'na rose slowly from her restless sleep as the door to her cell creaked on its ancient hinges, and a blood-red light filtered through to sting her eyes. She squinted, seeing a silhouette in the door: a slender dark figure, like a graceful young woman, except that the legs were goat-like, furry and cloven-hoofed, and a pair of glistening bat-wings hung folded from the shoulders. Two tiny horns sprouted from the forehead of Ithis, Shara's jailor, a sadistic little tart whose taste for pain was extreme even for a Succubus. Shara's fists clenched involuntarily, but she could make no more threatening gesture; for she was shackled to the wall, hands and feet, as she had been for the better part of her 500-year life.
Ithis giggled, seeing Shara's muted defiance, but she said nothing; there was nothing left to be said, not after 300 years of on-again off-again torture. The demon's eyes ran over Shara's nude body, her gaze probing every scar, every mark made permanent by careful, systematic maiming over hours, days, months. Ithis's gaze seemed to brighten with nostalgia as the succubus found a memory for each scar. Shara just gave Ithis the most withering gaze she could muster; it was all part of the routine, ever since Ithis's master had ordered her to switch from direct torture to starvation and solitary confinement as the primary method for tormenting this particular prisoner. The succubus didn't like it, that was plain enough. Shara couldn't find it in herself to take much comfort in Ithis's displeasure, since Shara still couldn't decide which was worse - the demon's constant ministrations, or being left alone and hungry with herself for a week at a time.
"What do you want, you bat-winged parasite?" Shara growled, growing impatient. Ithis took one step into the cell and crossed her arms over her ponderous breasts, the barbed whip in her right hand dangling down to coil about her hoofed feet.
"Gorgorel wants to see you," said the succubus, her voice husky, laden with contempt.
"Well then why didn't he come here himself-gggrrgghhkk!" Ithis flicked her arm, and the barbed whip was suddenly tight around Shara's neck, biting into her skin, and the succubus's crushing will flowed down it and into the base of Shara's skull, so that she had to obey. The shackles popped off of her wrists and ankles, but she was too overwhelmed by pain and the bludgeoning of the demon's mind to find any joy in the momentary freedom. She felt herself yanked bodily through the cell, and she shut her eyes reflexively as Ithis led her out the door and into the red light of Hell.
***
"I would've thought you'd thank me for the change of scenery," said Gorgorel, his voice seeming to resonate from the stones beneath him, a deep, primal voice filled with subtlety and power. He sat on his throne, an ostentatious seat made entirely of bones. Two humanoid skulls formed the ends of the armrests, so that as he sat at his ease he seemed to be clutching them with his massive claws, crushing them in his sinewy grip. Gorgorel himself was an impressive specimen: twice as tall as a tall man, he had no wings, though he did have a pair of curling black horns spiraling out from the sides of his huge, wolf-like head. His chest, arms, and legs rippled with muscle; his only clothing was a short skirt which may in fact have been stitched together out of tanned human skin.
When Shara declined to comment on the demon's greeting, Gorgorel sighed, and continued.
"I would've thought you'd thank me," he said again, gesturing out over the glowing red expanse of his domain, "but such a notion may have been too optimistic of me. Though you are certainly no longer the young Drow house-mistress who first contacted me all those centuries ago, and although we have taken many, many things from you in payment for your failure during your time here, one thing you still have not lost is your obstinate bloody-mindedness. There are many lords who would simply have given up and done away with you at this point, one way or another, my ersatz-Valsharess. But I do admit that I have long enjoyed the challenge you present me. Yes, you have screamed under the whip and the knife and a hundred other things; yes, you have confessed every shameful thing you ever did, as well as a lot of rubbish you made up just to get Ithis to stop her games; but you persist in this facade of pride so doggedly that I cannot help but applaud you in some small way." The demon clapped his massive hands together in a short display of mock-adulation.
"What do you want, Gorgorel?" Shara could not help letting just the tiniest bit of the incredible exhaustion she felt creep into her voice. Not only was she coming here after three hundred years of torture, but she had not even stood on her own two legs in more than a month. Whatever Gorgorel might infer from her face and voice, she was tired. Tired as no mortal can ever know when walking in the world of the living.
"Want?" he said, and a note of anger crept into his voice. "Gorgorel the Flayer wants for nothing. Look!" The demon pointed out to his right, and Shara glanced down: as far as she could see, there was a land of fire. Slaves with bodies blackened by centuries of flame toiled endlessly. Black towers rose over stone-washed fields; spouts of fire surged from gaping chasms accompanied by echoing moans. Hellish overseers flitted to and fro, whips in hand, drawing strangled cries from the tormented. An endless empire of pain she saw; but her lip curled in a smirk.
"What do you have, Gorgorel? A thousand, a million slaves and playthings, toiling endlessly to no end. Dead soil, empty mines, towers rising to the red sky, and nothing within but more dungeons."
"You see not with my eyes," growled the demon. "What I have here is paradise. The mines are not empty - merely devoid of precious gems; every day my slaves bring new ore to the surface, to be forged into the tools of war; every day my legions march upon a new material world ripe for conquest. I have turned fruit-laden fields to ash on a hundred verdant globes; I have burned a thousand kingdoms to the ground, with no one strong enough to gainsay me. There is power to be had in the material planes, though my kindred may be too blind to see it. And there is pleasure to be had as well. You have spent too much time with dear Ithis to be yet ignorant of the joy my kind take in simple destruction, in the increase of misery." He pointed again. "Down there is my paradise, and as more worlds become mine, paradise spreads."
"I see you have turned to new methods - you will now torture me with vapid speeches," said Shara. The demon gazed on her, eyes burning; then suddenly he laughed, a low, rolling sound that made the hairs on her neck tingle and dance.
"You see what I mean?" laughed Gorgorel. "This is part of why I have done what I have done to you: because now, you have nothing left to lose. There is not a scrap of deference in your entire being - no begging, no scraping. Why, I fancy even that you are attempting to goad me into destroying you with your insolent talk." He sighed. "For better or worse, that is not an outcome I am going to allow yet. I have called you here because I have a mission for you."
She stared at him. "Why would I do anything for you?"
"My dear priestess, did I say anything about it being for me?" said the demon, hand to chest, eyes wide with mock-innocence. She didn't bother to contradict him; the gleam in his eye told her he was well aware that she knew there was not a scrap of altruism in him. "Besides," the demon continued, "once I tell you about this task, I know you will not hesitate to pursue it; there is too much potential gain for you. Yes, gain: first of your freedom from me, and second, if you prove strong and resourceful enough, a rise to the power you used to hope for. You see, I have found Mordincaradon."
Shara's eyes went wide. When she found her voice again, it was to say: "If that is true, why would you offer it to me, the one who lost it in the first place?"
"I am not offering it to you," sneered Gorgorel. "It has been found just where you lost it - on the Prime Material Plane, where my minions and I are still barred from going." He licked his red lips absently. "It is in the possession of this creature," he continued, and gestured with his hand. The air in front of him shimmered, and a three-dimensional image appeared: a young, blonde-headed halfling, a cocky grin on his face, clad in leather armor. "He is called 'Na'than'. That is all I know. I am sending you back to your native plain, Shara'na. You have given me much amusement, but in all honesty I grow tired of you; and you do not threaten me. Go, and perhaps something of the purpose I had for you in the beginning will be accomplished."
"But this creature is a halfling, a surfacer," Shara hissed. "How will I track him down? His kind would kill me on sight; diminutive as they are, there are many of them, and my skin would have been easily marked even before...even when I was young," she stammered out.
Gorgorel gazed down at her, eyes lidded, a lazy smile on his face.
"Yes," he said, "we will have to do something about that skin, won't we?" Suddenly his eyes popped open, the smile turned into a sadistic snarl, and his claw lept out in a gesture of command. Shara shrieked as an invisible force gripped her and wrenched her from the ground; her back arched, and she screamed even louder as she began to feel the flesh peeling off her bones, and her screaming became an endless wail, and the hideous pain went on and on, and she could not even grasp the refuge of unconsciousness.
***
End of Last Story Segment, Plus All Previous Segments
***
Shara'na rose slowly from her restless sleep as the door to her cell creaked on its ancient hinges, and a blood-red light filtered through to sting her eyes. She squinted, seeing a silhouette in the door: a slender dark figure, like a graceful young woman, except that the legs were goat-like, furry and cloven-hoofed, and a pair of glistening bat-wings hung folded from the shoulders. Two tiny horns sprouted from the forehead of Ithis, Shara's jailor, a sadistic little tart whose taste for pain was extreme even for a Succubus. Shara's fists clenched involuntarily, but she could make no more threatening gesture; for she was shackled to the wall, hands and feet, as she had been for the better part of her 500-year life.
Ithis giggled, seeing Shara's muted defiance, but she said nothing; there was nothing left to be said, not after 300 years of on-again off-again torture. The demon's eyes ran over Shara's nude body, her gaze probing every scar, every mark made permanent by careful, systematic maiming over hours, days, months. Ithis's gaze seemed to brighten with nostalgia as the succubus found a memory for each scar. Shara just gave Ithis the most withering gaze she could muster; it was all part of the routine, ever since Ithis's master had ordered her to switch from direct torture to starvation and solitary confinement as the primary method for tormenting this particular prisoner. The succubus didn't like it, that was plain enough. Shara couldn't find it in herself to take much comfort in Ithis's displeasure, since Shara still couldn't decide which was worse - the demon's constant ministrations, or being left alone and hungry with herself for a week at a time.
"What do you want, you bat-winged parasite?" Shara growled, growing impatient. Ithis took one step into the cell and crossed her arms over her ponderous breasts, the barbed whip in her right hand dangling down to coil about her hoofed feet.
"Gorgorel wants to see you," said the succubus, her voice husky, laden with contempt.
"Well then why didn't he come here himself-gggrrgghhkk!" Ithis flicked her arm, and the barbed whip was suddenly tight around Shara's neck, biting into her skin, and the succubus's crushing will flowed down it and into the base of Shara's skull, so that she had to obey. The shackles popped off of her wrists and ankles, but she was too overwhelmed by pain and the bludgeoning of the demon's mind to find any joy in the momentary freedom. She felt herself yanked bodily through the cell, and she shut her eyes reflexively as Ithis led her out the door and into the red light of Hell.
***
"I would've thought you'd thank me for the change of scenery," said Gorgorel, his voice seeming to resonate from the stones beneath him, a deep, primal voice filled with subtlety and power. He sat on his throne, an ostentatious seat made entirely of bones. Two humanoid skulls formed the ends of the armrests, so that as he sat at his ease he seemed to be clutching them with his massive claws, crushing them in his sinewy grip. Gorgorel himself was an impressive specimen: twice as tall as a tall man, he had no wings, though he did have a pair of curling black horns spiraling out from the sides of his huge, wolf-like head. His chest, arms, and legs rippled with muscle; his only clothing was a short skirt which may in fact have been stitched together out of tanned human skin.
When Shara declined to comment on the demon's greeting, Gorgorel sighed, and continued.
"I would've thought you'd thank me," he said again, gesturing out over the glowing red expanse of his domain, "but such a notion may have been too optimistic of me. Though you are certainly no longer the young Drow house-mistress who first contacted me all those centuries ago, and although we have taken many, many things from you in payment for your failure during your time here, one thing you still have not lost is your obstinate bloody-mindedness. There are many lords who would simply have given up and done away with you at this point, one way or another, my ersatz-Valsharess. But I do admit that I have long enjoyed the challenge you present me. Yes, you have screamed under the whip and the knife and a hundred other things; yes, you have confessed every shameful thing you ever did, as well as a lot of rubbish you made up just to get Ithis to stop her games; but you persist in this facade of pride so doggedly that I cannot help but applaud you in some small way." The demon clapped his massive hands together in a short display of mock-adulation.
"What do you want, Gorgorel?" Shara could not help letting just the tiniest bit of the incredible exhaustion she felt creep into her voice. Not only was she coming here after three hundred years of torture, but she had not even stood on her own two legs in more than a month. Whatever Gorgorel might infer from her face and voice, she was tired. Tired as no mortal can ever know when walking in the world of the living.
"Want?" he said, and a note of anger crept into his voice. "Gorgorel the Flayer wants for nothing. Look!" The demon pointed out to his right, and Shara glanced down: as far as she could see, there was a land of fire. Slaves with bodies blackened by centuries of flame toiled endlessly. Black towers rose over stone-washed fields; spouts of fire surged from gaping chasms accompanied by echoing moans. Hellish overseers flitted to and fro, whips in hand, drawing strangled cries from the tormented. An endless empire of pain she saw; but her lip curled in a smirk.
"What do you have, Gorgorel? A thousand, a million slaves and playthings, toiling endlessly to no end. Dead soil, empty mines, towers rising to the red sky, and nothing within but more dungeons."
"You see not with my eyes," growled the demon. "What I have here is paradise. The mines are not empty - merely devoid of precious gems; every day my slaves bring new ore to the surface, to be forged into the tools of war; every day my legions march upon a new material world ripe for conquest. I have turned fruit-laden fields to ash on a hundred verdant globes; I have burned a thousand kingdoms to the ground, with no one strong enough to gainsay me. There is power to be had in the material planes, though my kindred may be too blind to see it. And there is pleasure to be had as well. You have spent too much time with dear Ithis to be yet ignorant of the joy my kind take in simple destruction, in the increase of misery." He pointed again. "Down there is my paradise, and as more worlds become mine, paradise spreads."
"I see you have turned to new methods - you will now torture me with vapid speeches," said Shara. The demon gazed on her, eyes burning; then suddenly he laughed, a low, rolling sound that made the hairs on her neck tingle and dance.
"You see what I mean?" laughed Gorgorel. "This is part of why I have done what I have done to you: because now, you have nothing left to lose. There is not a scrap of deference in your entire being - no begging, no scraping. Why, I fancy even that you are attempting to goad me into destroying you with your insolent talk." He sighed. "For better or worse, that is not an outcome I am going to allow yet. I have called you here because I have a mission for you."
She stared at him. "Why would I do anything for you?"
"My dear priestess, did I say anything about it being for me?" said the demon, hand to chest, eyes wide with mock-innocence. She didn't bother to contradict him; the gleam in his eye told her he was well aware that she knew there was not a scrap of altruism in him. "Besides," the demon continued, "once I tell you about this task, I know you will not hesitate to pursue it; there is too much potential gain for you. Yes, gain: first of your freedom from me, and second, if you prove strong and resourceful enough, a rise to the power you used to hope for. You see, I have found Mordincaradon."
Shara's eyes went wide. When she found her voice again, it was to say: "If that is true, why would you offer it to me, the one who lost it in the first place?"
"I am not offering it to you," sneered Gorgorel. "It has been found just where you lost it - on the Prime Material Plane, where my minions and I are still barred from going." He licked his red lips absently. "It is in the possession of this creature," he continued, and gestured with his hand. The air in front of him shimmered, and a three-dimensional image appeared: a young, blonde-headed halfling, a cocky grin on his face, clad in leather armor. "He is called 'Na'than'. That is all I know. I am sending you back to your native plain, Shara'na. You have given me much amusement, but in all honesty I grow tired of you; and you do not threaten me. Go, and perhaps something of the purpose I had for you in the beginning will be accomplished."
"But this creature is a halfling, a surfacer," Shara hissed. "How will I track him down? His kind would kill me on sight; diminutive as they are, there are many of them, and my skin would have been easily marked even before...even when I was young," she stammered out.
Gorgorel gazed down at her, eyes lidded, a lazy smile on his face.
"Yes," he said, "we will have to do something about that skin, won't we?" Suddenly his eyes popped open, the smile turned into a sadistic snarl, and his claw lept out in a gesture of command. Shara shrieked as an invisible force gripped her and wrenched her from the ground; her back arched, and she screamed even louder as she began to feel the flesh peeling off her bones, and her screaming became an endless wail, and the hideous pain went on and on, and she could not even grasp the refuge of unconsciousness.
***
End of Last Story Segment, Plus All Previous Segments