West Behest

[Swgrclan 2682]

 

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
and with strange aeons, even death may die.”


 

The murk shifted and stirred amidst a cloudy gray day; waves folded over endless waters that displayed only an abyss below the surface. The sky rumbled with the coming of a storm, and the sun was blotted in visage as shadow claimed the heavens. Droplets of rain scattered across the western shores of Vailor- shores that presented an ocean which did not end, which rippled and shifted with an inclining urgency as if the very waves were a sign of coming omens. Fishermen who sought to stake their claim toward supper or merchandise drawn from the seas were sullen and few, though even in but a handful’s worth of numbers could easily be spotted alongside the beach- limbed dots upon a tract of sand that expanded ever north and south alongside the western edge of the isles. The fishermen had found only frothing water and timid fish that day, for even the beings of the deep seemed agitated by the stirring murk. If only the fishermen swam the seas and lingered its darkness -- then they would truly know of the coming storm.

Thunder cracked overhead in further warning of harsh winds and rain. What was once droplets was now a hail of water, pouring from the sky as if God wept and sought to fill the endless basin of the ocean as He had endless times before. Some shoreborn folk were warded away from the sandy beaches by this unnerving upheaval of the depthless waters, yet, others dwelled the shoreline still. And then, a blackness appeared -- a blackness darker than the endless depths themselves, a blackness that snuffed what blue of the sea still remained that storming day. The fishermen that remained squinted past a visage of pelting rainfall to look upon the enroaching dark, to see an anomaly most alarming; fish rose from the waters to limply float along its buckling surface, dead or dying from the darkness that came; as if the storm took away their very essence.

As if the storm drained them…

...and then it rose.

(0:48)

The blackness amidst the waters accumulated into an abyss so intense it assumed its own definitions. But even through the tempest, the height of a man could be seen; tall and rigid and soaked in dead waters, shrouded in woven shadow, headed by a crown of dark iron rusted by the deep that birthed it. This was no man, for amidst the sodden robes, and the rusted plates that crumbled from it, and the crowned helm that rested atop its shoulders, only a gloom dwellt within; rising from its umbral form in a foul, tainted mist that rose toward the heavens, and that which ensnared the shore in shadow before. The fishermen cowered, and their cries could not be heard amongst the cracking of lightning above - yet, above all sounds, a horrible note could be heard; a cocophany of many voices, some furious and some joyous, all ringing together into a single, wretched laugh.
 

And then it stalked forward, ignoring all sparse cowering men that either stood frozen, or fled in fear to warn others of what antediluvian horror escaped the depths. Gravelord Nimdravur had come again; having crossed the very seas from a land devoured by the Enemy, having met the darkness of the deep to once again meet the burn of the sun above.



“H̡̛͢a͟z̴͝k͞ ̸̛nąl ̛X͘i̢͠o͜͝ņ̶,͡”

called the Gravelord of Ashes and Embers, its many-voices cutting through the pelting of rain and the crash of waves and the drum of thunder; a revelation to the truths of the dark, only cowled by its foul rhetorics and dialect, barely heard in ones’ fleeing. The dark lord passed from shoreline to forests’ edge; silhouette melding in with its’ darkness as if one with it, and thus quickly fading from sight so soon after it came. Those that witnessed the rapid event would be spared some small mercy, beyond beholding He-Who-Came-West.

~:;:~

Sparse few men, ragged and soaked by yester-hours’ rattling storms, spread across toward the western nations to spread their tale of the Drowned Lord -- he who rose from the very oceans, crowned and spectral, and spoke prophetic words which bore no discernible meaning , only to disappear into the dark of the wood beyond.

[ Prior thread:

https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/133188-east-beheld/ ]

 

Edited September 3, 2015 by Swgrclan

[Rig 17580]

Mithras had slumbered, a book titled 'The History of Hanseti' lying atop his chest as his skin quickly began to sweat, and he awoke in a flurry of motions, flailing his limbs from the nightmare haunting his mind.

His eyes snapped open, as the realization dawned.

He was drowning, he was suffocating.

And he had a bad feeling about what was to come.

[Mephistophelian 977]

"Three, assembled."

"Indeed."

"And so?"

"We wait. We watch. Soon there will be four."

"Soon."

A hook, empty, is cast into the tremulous waters whence the wraith had risen.

"We are not fearful?"

"Not yet..."

[Birdwhisperer 1174]

The storm that ravaged the waves did not reach the Dove Druid in her nest, yet her sleep that night was dark and disturbed. Shadowed memories haunted her dreams and her solitary bed offered little comfort. When morning came at last she was greeted with only clouds, the sun grown dark and cold.

[Aura 4]

Caldarin watched the waves as the rain poured overhead from the walls of Laureh'lin. He frowned, watching the odd activities of the waves, something seeming rather odd about them.

The next morning, a lone mali from the shores returned to tell of the 'Drowned Lord.' He assures the fisherman, telling him that he will inform his superiors in the Order of Sirame about the dark figure that supposedly rose from the oceans. "I've never heard of such thing as a Drowned Lord, though I will ask around." 

[Elad™ 560]

Moved to the Archive. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.