<div style="background-color:#050505; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><div style="background-color:#101010; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><img alt="" src="http://i.imgur.com/0j416N2.png?1" style="float:right; padding:6px;"/><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7b2424"><span style="font-size: 200%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="font-family: Pristina;"><span style="font-weight: bold">A M E R S H A M</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #6b1f1f"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="font-family: Pristina;"><span style="font-weight: bold">One way trip to hell.</span></span></span></span><span style="color: #101010">____________________</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #d6d6d6">There was, despite the quickness and surprise of the Abberith, there was one who managed to react immediately. One of the humans in the car moved to intercept the tainted thing that it had thrown against the wall and proceeded to urge him toward the door. The apparition reeled around, the shadows coalescing and then blooming from the center of its form as it twisted in place a moment before its attention was split on a veritable exhibition of magical essence cutting into reality all at once. The human female spoke at it with an outstretched palm and the Abberith regarded her warily, limbs writhing and thrashing but making no immediate moves to stop her. It was when she stopped talking for herself that the apparition would lurch forward suddenly, one of its twisting appendages striking her across the middle. <br/><br/>The Abberith was confused as, following the duo’s escape to another car, several things happened simultaneously. It felt constricted all at once as though something was suffocating its form from all around and another, invisible presence entered the insignificant domain it had made for itself in this place. Shadows poured in through the windows, bleeding through the glass and flung towards it, unceremoniously colliding with its own presence and, though it could not feel pain, it found itself torn into by this energy, parts of it ripped away into the Aether and lost forever. The thing faltered and spun backwards as the shadowy grip released it. Something spoke to it again, though this was a voice it recognized, and one that it could not disobey. It was being summoned.<br/><br/>Beneath the train car now, there was nothing. Almost at once, the whole carriage began to tilt violently before lurching into a spin. The car turned once, twice, three and four times, accelerating with each turn and the sensation of falling would be obvious. The Abberith stood stagnant, unmoving and unreadable as it observed the Seekers and their struggles to retain their footing as they succumbed to gravity. Suddenly it moved, thrashing itself into the side of the metal behemoth. Glass exploded, shards twinkling against the light of the hallogen bulbs as they drifted off into the darkness. Glimpses of the distance outside the windows would yield views of rushing white dots, like being discharged through space. After mere seconds of this free fall, everything would come to a sudden stop. Time slowed as the car hit surface on an angle almost upside down and then rolled forward coming to rest on its roof, now completely overturned.<br/><br/>The crash, while unpleasant, seemed to be cushioned by something like a lighter gravity and would likely result in little more than bruises and scrapes for those aboard the train, though they would probably find themselves rattled and disoriented, thrown from their positions into various states of disarray around the interior. Silence overtook the scene for close to a minute. The eerie peace may be a clue to some, unsettling to others, but was short lived in its stillness.<br/><br/>The hole the Abberith had left in the train car would serve as a door, opening its patrons to the air and darkness of the realm they now found themselves inhabiting. Moonlight was absent from the place outside the car, though it was decidedly some sort of night time. A long shore swept outwards laden with irregular white pebbles and stones which sunk into a murky sea that stretched out beyond any horizon that could possibly be out there in the Dark. Standing, or rather, existing, outside the immediate eyeshot of the absent wall, was a hulking shape unlike any of the passengers would have likely seen before. A distinctly humanoid shape was protruding from the coast, close to six feet high and surrounded by the same dark aura as the spectre that had torn the train asunder. <br/><br/>Someone's ears would surely pick up the subtle, rhythmic whispering that sounded a little like singing and came in waves as the black water broke against the shoreline, it was an unsettling hymn in a language only the oldest of the dead could even think to remember.<br/></span></div></div><div style="background-color:#101010; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><img alt="" src="http://i.imgur.com/jLcHlUK.jpg?1" style="float:right; padding:6px;"/><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #7b2424"><span style="font-size: 200%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="font-family: Pristina;"><span style="font-weight: bold">P R I S O N</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #6b1f1f"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="font-family: Pristina;"><span style="font-weight: bold">Blood and bones.</span></span></span></span><span style="color: #101010">____________________</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #d6d6d6">A soft breeze rolled through the walless expanse of the Prison, caressing the burnt remains of the bodies that lay strewn haphazardly about the ground. Perhaps having a prison with walls would have made sense. It would have certainly prevented whatever manner of massacre had happened here, in any case. Walls were for security, and security was only for those that deserved it. What happened to these people wasn’t important, and if Deimos was being honest he didn’t care. <br/><br/>The ground made a sickeningly wet sound as the prince’s foot sank into the absorbed blood and gore, flesh that had rotted and liquefied seeping over his boot. It had looked nicer the last time he was here, he reminisced. The Prison was not a conventional prison in any sense of the word - in actuality, it was the dead shell of a world that had long been forgotten about since he’d overtaken it. It was used to house the indigenous people that he’d enslaved, and that lasted for a few thousand years or so before he’d grown bored of it. These days it was used to contain those that couldn’t be contained by the nether. Deimos paused, regarded the scorched bodies dotting the ground and spared them a resigned <span style="font-style: italic">tsk</span> before continuing on.<br/><br/>Pale hands clasped behind his back as he walked. He was close now, he knew. He could <span style="font-style: italic">feel</span> it. He paused, turning slowly to take in his surroundings. The buildings that had once stood tall and proud now lay in piles of rubble speckled across the earth. The sky for the most part stayed a perennial shade of grey, but sometimes it switched things up and changed to an even <span style="font-style: italic">darker</span> shade of grey. The mere <span style="font-style: italic">existence</span> of this vicinity was distasteful and under no other circumstances would Deimos ever be caught here. This was important though, so much so that he actually found himself excited to be here. A smile stretched across his face as he called out to the emptiness around him. “Do you know who I am?” <br/><br/>“Blood and bones.”<br/><br/>The dead sky darkened, and the dead world lying spread-eagled beneath the stoic roof gave answer, in the form of an endless, indifferent silence that could not be drowned out. No matter how persistent the voices grew.<br/><br/>“Blood and bones,” the faceless man repeated, and this time the mutilated woman joined him, hobbling forward on legs that were arms. “Blood and bones,” he added, his tone indifferent, and the woman’s shuffling ceased as she joined him in surveying the destruction that held Dahrc at its center.<br/><br/>“Blood and bones,” she echoed, agreeing with him, and the being standing like a statue between them finally stirred, shifting long locks of colorless hair from in front of eyes that were entirely black and never closed.<br/><br/>“No,” he told them, and they turned to stare, waiting now that they had finally forced him to stop ignoring them. “This world has been emptied. There is no blood, none that has not yet been spilled. There are no bones, for they have all been rendered to ash.”<br/><br/>“Blood and b-“<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">“Do you know who I am?”</span><br/><br/>They faded into shadows as Dahrc forgot them, and the Demon shifted, turning slowly to face the source of the first real voice he had heard since he laid waste to every other inhabitant of the false Nether he had been imprisoned within so long ago. He had no idea of the passage of time, but he knew the speaker was the first visitor in many mortal lifetimes. He also recognized something in the voice, a faint familiarity that rang through him without immediately creating any true understanding. He could feel the power, however, and he could feel the world around him as it remembered the newcomer. There was no warmth in the recognition. Only fear.  <br/><br/>“Blood and bones,” the faceless man reminded him, before fading once more into oblivion as Dahrc forgot him again.<br/><br/>“I do not know. But I feel.”<br/><br/>“Do you?” Deimos asked, looking down to examine his nails in perpetual boredom. He hummed softly in acknowledgement and then looked up - the man stood miles away from him, and yet Deimos could see. What had once been a powerful demon had been reduced to nothing more than the shell of a broken man, doomed to carry out the rest of his eternal existence in the confines of the Prison. “Tell me, Dahrc, is a man who has nothing left to live for and is not permitted to die still capable of feeling anything at all?” <br/><br/>His question was more rhetorical than not, but he humored himself enough to wait a few moments before continuing. His voice raised a few octaves, though he was by no means shouting; if this man wanted to listen, he would hear. “I seem to recall there being a more lively group the last time I had the displeasure of visiting. Did you do this?” <br/><br/>Dahrc felt an unexpected emotion rise up in him; the words were brazen, but it was a good question. Surrounded by the skin of a world that had been turned into a corpse, with only the charred remains of its former inhabitants (and his apparitions) for company, beyond the reach of the claws of death — what was there for him to feel?<br/><br/>“Blood and bones,” the faceless man answered him, and the distant speaker addressed him once again, indicating the devastation currently calling the forgotten world home. Where there had been the shells of buildings there was only an endless procession of rubble piles, and where there had been prisoners there was now empty space.<br/><br/>“Yes,” he replied, and then he was standing only a few feet away from his visitor. The man had come here seeking his death, of that much Dahrc was certain, but he would not deprive himself of entertainment, rare as it was, too swiftly. “They were already dead, from the moment they came here. I merely helped them realize it.”<br/><br/>“Blood and bones.”<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">“I TAUGHT THEM THE TRUTH!”</span> Dahrc shouted, and he felt a heat rising around him as he addressed the man in front of him with a sudden, unstable fervor. His voice was wholly different from the one he’d used before, as if coming from a new source entirely, and his tattered black cloak swirled around him as he took a step closer to his visitor. <span style="font-style: italic">“I SHOWED THEM REALITY!”</span><br/><br/>He stopped, the chaos fading from his mind, but the loathing remained. A small smile, faint but present, took shape on his ghostly pale face. “I feel," he said in a soft whisper that resembled the first voice more than the second.<br/><br/>"And I will teach you what it is that I feel.”<br/><br/>Deimos’ foot twitched back as if to put some distance between the two of them but caught himself, remaining toe to toe with one of the nether’s most dangerous criminals. He could feel their breath intermingling, hot gusts of air rolling over pallid flesh and sending a shiver of excitement down Deimos’ spine as Dahrc screamed. The prince drank up every word, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. <br/><br/>“Yes, <span style="font-style: italic">yes!</span>” Deimos agreed, spindly fingers grasping at the front of the criminal's garb. <span style="font-style: italic">That</span> was the passion that he needed! That untameable rage, that absolutely tangible disdain and disregard for life and all that it entails. Eyes wide and unseeing, Deimos’ hands further tangled themselves in the front of Dahrc’s tunic, stepping even closer still until they were separated from everything extraneous, stripping them down to the pith of what they were as Deimos spoke further. “That’s it! Tell me what you feel!”<br/><br/>Dark eyes regained their focus and Deimos looked at him before pressing their foreheads together. “I feel it too,” he admitted, his voice thin with excitement and adrenaline. This was <span style="font-style: italic">exactly</span> the kind of intensity and utterly, unremittingly steady rage that he required! With one quick shove, he separated the distance between himself and the criminal. The prince and the pauper, he loved it. “Together we could make the rest of the nether feel it. We could make <span style="font-style: italic">all</span> worlds feel it.” He paused then, considering what he was saying only for a moment before throwing caution to the wind. “We could make Abaddon feel it.”<br/><br/>Whatever Dahrc had expected, it was not the absence of fear. The army of ruin all around him that he had created was on the brink of accepting another ashen corpse into its silent ranks, yet this man seemed unafraid. Beyond that, he even looked <span style="font-style: italic">excited</span>, demonstrating an eagerness in the face of his own impending demise that made Dahrc wonder, for the first time in his ancient life, if he was the sane one.<br/><br/>The stranger’s utterances were dripping with promise, but the confusion Dahrc felt overshadowed any instinctual hopes he might have harbored as the being pressed his forehead against that of the imprisoned demon. This man did seem to have the ability to reach the Prison of his own accord, a notable enough achievement, but what could he know of what Dahrc felt? What could he possibly have to offer-<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">“We could make Abaddon feel it.”</span><br/><br/>Confusion faded into a blank, empty mind, and Dahrc’s void-born eyes stared at the other man without truly seeing him. The whispering voices, ever present within his head, ever ignored until they manifested themselves into the apparitions that haunted him, went silent. The world around him faded, and the blackness signifying the absence of all things took over.<br/><br/>“Abaddon,” he whispered slowly, savoring the hatred awakened by the feel of the name on his tongue. “Abaddon,” he repeated, his voice stronger as the quiet in his mind was ousted by the roars of a surging river of rage. It gained in power, its flow threatening to sweep Dahrc away along with everything else inhabiting the dead world.<br/><br/>Abaddon. The accursed king, who had sentenced him to an eternity of solitary torment, who had locked him away to protect himself from the power he knew Dahrc wielded. The power he feared.<br/><br/><span style="font-size: 115%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">“ABADDON!”</span></span></span> he roared, trembling with fury that was mere moments away from engulfing him. Now able to see again, he glared right through the man in front of him, recognizing him for what he was. “You! You are his kin!”<br/><br/>“I am your <span style="font-style: italic">king</span>!” Deimos corrected him, his previous aloofness faltering as his anger grew and swelled inside of him until it was bolstered and dwarfed and <span style="font-style: italic">consumed</span> by something much more than that: vengeance. He exhaled deeply, centering himself though his eyes showed no signs of remorse for his outburst. His voice was steadier now, void of any exaggerated pronunciation which would indicate emotion, which might have actually been more menacing than yelling. “I claim Abaddon as my father no more than he claims me as his son.”<br/><br/>Well, he wasn’t <span style="font-style: italic">technically</span> the king. He was the rightful one. Prince of the Nether was an honorary title at best, but oh was it <span style="font-style: italic">fun.</span> He’d had a grand time for millennia past, torturing the damned and toying with the rest, biding his time until such a time when his father was ready to step away, and that time was nigh. Deimos’ hands still trembled from the subsiding rage he felt as he recalled the moment his father disowned him. <br/><br/>Stop, breathe, continue. <br/><br/>“You will help me.” It wasn’t a question. “You will help me, because you want Abaddon to suffer. You want to make him <span style="font-style: italic">feel</span> what he did to you, for the rest of his pitiful fucking life. I know you do,” Deimos insisted, his grin returning to its place on his lips. Dahrc was wild, but so too was he predictable. He got close, putting his hands on Dahrc’s shoulders, compulsively moving to smooth out the wrinkles in his tunic where Deimos had grabbed it. “I can give that to you, Dahrc.” <br/><br/>“Blood and bones,” the woman croaked, and the faceless man regarded her with eyes that were not there. They had emerged smoothly from the shadows on either side of the man, who Dahrc now knew was none other than Deimos, son of the dark monarch himself, Lord of the Twilight, the Prince of Shadows who had created the very Prison they stood within.<br/><br/>Dahrc’s eyes stared into those of the prince, just inches away, and he wondered if he would kill him. Not the father, not the one he truly wanted, but still, to render the bloodline of his foulest majesty into a scorch mark on a dead world was a tempting enterprise. To reduce the heir of Abaddon to a memory — what sweet joy, and so close to his fingertips…<br/><br/>The demon’s fingers twitched as he pondered the possibility, all while the apparitions stared at him, waiting for what would come next. They were there the last time he lost control, when their logic trumped his arguments and the resulting inferno brought an everlasting silence to the corpse-world; this time they would remain silent, and that was all for the better. He needed no goading or dissuading, not in this.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">But this is not his heir. Not anymore. Abaddon has disowned him.</span><br/><br/>The gleeful smile that had sprouted on his ashen face faded as he realized that the prince would not have visited him, willing to risk his life, unless he was speaking truthfully. What hope could he have alone, after all?<br/><br/>Empty black eyes narrowed, and Dahrc nodded slowly as a different kind of smile appeared. Yes, there <span style="font-style: italic">was</span> hope. Deimos recognized a means to an end, and he was willing to do what was necessary. The king would never do such a thing — <span style="font-style: italic">no</span> coward could. The son could best the father, for united… Abaddon could not stand against them. No one could.<br/><br/>“Blood and bones,” croaked the faceless man, but then he vanished along with his associate as they were forgotten. Deimos knew precisely what Dahrc wanted, above all else, even more than freedom from the accursed rock to which he had been bound for ages beyond count. The imprisoned demon wanted Abaddon, and he wanted him <span style="font-style: italic">alive</span>.<br/><br/>“How will you give this to me?”<br/><br/>If Deimos had been any less in control of the situation, he would have laughed at how easy it was to get a positive response. Something had set itself in Dahrc’s otherwise perpetual glare. Blood lust? Insanity? <span style="font-style: italic">No… You’re desperate, aren’t you?</span> Broken men were predictable, always taking the first opportunity to seek vengeance, grasping at threads no matter how precarious they seemed. <br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Oh, Dahrc, you have no idea how similar we truly are.</span><br/><br/>Deimos leaned forward, eyes gleaming with a playful excitement. “War,” he whispered, clasping his hands in front of him.“I am building an army, the likes of which my father has no hopes but to succumb to. I will do this with your help. The Prison, my father, whatever you should want. It is yours, so long as you swear your loyalty to me.” <br/><br/>That part was important. Left to his own devices, Deimos could live forever. Immortal, for what it was. Deimos was perpetual, ever the same for millennia past and for the unforeseeable future to come. He was not, much to his displeasure, invincible. He could die, and for demons there is no afterlife. You <span style="font-style: italic">were</span> the afterlife, now you’re just dead. That’s why he regarded Dahrc with such a boisterous fervor. Not necessarily a false bravado, but perhaps exaggerated; Dahrc could very well kill him, should he choose to do so.<br/><br/>This was a game, and Deimos would play it. <br/><br/>“My loyalty?”<br/><br/>On Dahrc’s hands was the blood of billions, yet he did none of it in service to any other. He fought under no standards, nor did he recognize any comrades or allies in his long murderous life. He reveled in chaos, ruled only by his whims and his madness, and the thought of pledging his loyalty to another was nothing short of alien to him.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">An army that could conquer all worlds. Abaddon in his rightful place, sniveling on the ground at my feet. And freedom from this place…</span><br/><br/>The words rang tantalizingly through Dahrc’s mind, and his reservations about joining with Deimos became an insignificant wisp of smoke next to the endless possibilities. The two of them could lay siege to all of existence, and the Prison that was once his own endless source of torment would become a tool for his use, as he punished those he deemed worthy of the suffering.<br/><br/>He would be free, free to roam as he once did, to slaughter wisdom into unknowing minds, to silence the cries of the weak with merciful death once more. A laugh escaped him then, a small chuckle, soft like silk gliding over razor-sharp steel, and then Dahrc was bowing, bending his head forward in Deimos’ direction. The prince would free him, and then show him the path to retribution. All he needed was his loyalty.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">My loyalty. Once I am free, who can say what the future holds? But I am a man of my word,</span> he thought, smiling, as the faceless man reappeared next to the mutilated woman. She looked fearful, and watched Dahrc as if expecting to be scorched by his words.<br/><br/>“So be it,” Dahrc replied, and the woman cowered in the shadows as the man beside her spoke.<br/><br/>“The world bleeds.”<br/><br/>Pride and ambition swelled inside of Deimos as Dahrc bowed and swore fealty, but he only revelled in the feeling for a moment before a frown pulled at the corners of his mouth. Dark eyes rolled back as the prince spared nothing but a click of annoyance, turning on his heel in time to watch as a new portal tore open, splitting the very air they breathed apart to make way for a new entrance. <br/><br/>“You’re late.” <br/><br/>The Abberith twisted and writhed in its place, gangly appendages coiling and releasing frantically. Deimos’ eyes widened in surprise, and then clouded over with something darker. “Come, Dahrc. We have visitors.” </span></div></div><br/><br/><br/><div style="background-color:#101010; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><ul><span style="color: #7b2424"><span style="font-weight: bold">Notes:</span></span> <span style="color: #d6d6d6">There will be one round of posting before my next GM post.</span><br/><span style="color: #7b2424"><span style="font-weight: bold">Tags:</span></span> <a href="//www.creativefreedomrpg.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&amp;u=100703">@Fearless Sissy</a>; <a href="//www.creativefreedomrpg.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&amp;u=110975">@Cotton</a> <a href="//www.creativefreedomrpg.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&amp;u=111849">@Sojourn</a></ul></div></div>