Post by SYREN IS BEST on Feb 2, 2014 2:55:48 GMT -5
There are dark places, unseen places, and then there are the places between places; rips in the fabric of everything where men may slip and fall and come to be enveloped in a mass of writhing tentacles, devoured by creatures so horrible they must dwell in the cracks between dimensions, for they cannot even exist in the most depraved reality. Or, perhaps, to simply disintegrate to dust and blow away on a dark wind, scattered to the corners of emptiness in the voids between the voids between universes.
Or, they may slip so far through the cracks that they come out the other side in another place.
This is another place.
This is an other place.
Here, the remnants of walls and buildings lie scattered along the edge of the blood-red sea, no sense to their placement, like bones strewn across a table by some blasphemous prophet who would claim to see the destinies of men.
But men create their own destinies, in this or any other version of reality. The patterns of bones on a table are as meaningless as bricks on a beach ten thousand years removed from their purpose.
Dead things left behind.
Whatever war left this rubble is lost to time. The ghosts who weave through these ruins in the shadow-hours howl to one another in a language known only to a handful of old, dead gods. Whatever happened here, it was so long ago that even the ghosts no longer remember why they haunt this jagged forest of wrecked brick. They know not why nor what nor how.
They know only the hatred and terror burning eternal in the space where once they kept souls.
As for the brick, it knows nothing. And with each harsh season, each blast of weather from this cruel sea, it remembers less still; the once-proud shapes of keeps and castles wear away to meaningless stacks of stone. Until, one day, it is all worn away to sand.
But, oh! What is this on the horizon?
One structure yet stands. A gleaming tower of blackest obsidian rises from the place where sea meets sand. One door. One long flight of stairs.
At the top of the tower, a hooded man is seated in front of a circular portal. Something like liquid lightning swirls inside the circle, deeper than any ocean and yet flatter than the most delicate vellum. The man will never leave. Daggers of gold pin each hand into his wooden seat, not to mention the powerful sorceries that bind him to this place.
A second man kneels in front of him. This is a beast of a man, wearing a shimmering suit of full-plate armor, and a sword enchanted with the power of lightning. You cannot see his face.
The man in the chair speaks. “Have you not wondered why you never age? You have fought and lived through a thousand wars, been villain and champion to races that no longer exist, seen nations rise and fall by your hand. Yet you age not a minute.”
The man in the armor seems uncertain. “Some enchantment, I always assumed.”
“No. It is because you do not belong here. By rights you should not exist. When you first stumbled into this world, you were nearly dead, your mind and sense of self all but destroyed from powerful poisons. Since that time, you have surpassed all expectations; risen to heights I never dared dream.”
“I but fight to give the world balance, as all men strive to do.”
“Your modesty is wasted on me. I grow weary. It is time for you to return to your own world. It is time for you to finish the Ultimate Quest.”
“Which is?”
“I cannot tell you. I have total faith that you will remember in time.”
“I cannot simply leave. I've been hired by Lord Rammingshire to clear Overlook Pass of vampires, and--”
The hooded man shakes his head disdainfully. “This land has other heroes. You must go now and attend to your own destiny. Return to your own world. Recall what you have been, and what you must become.”
“Who are you?” the armored man demands.
But the hooded man is done speaking. Maybe forever. Maybe he is dead, or maybe he does not exist at all.
The man in the armor rises. With one hand resting on the hilt of his lightning sword, he steps forth into the portal.