Dawning the Mantle

[Zarsies 6795]

“̸Forf̨éi͝tu̸re͟ o̕f uņl̵ife…̛”͢

 

The harrowing clammer of whispers fought against one another, the words uttered in a wretched volumes, and sang through the very stone of the chamber. The skeletal remains littering the ground, their bony limbs woven over one another in a puzzle of knots, laid as supports for two persons. One, clad in drapes of blue and cyan with augmentations of rigid armor; the other stood dawned in a simple, loose robe over his leather straps and survivalist attire. The pairing settled before a third, though one without need for the support of the macabre flooring. As stiff as a hung cadaver from a dreary tree levitated the haunting visage of Mthyul Tlan; face comprised of shifting plates and deep ridges, eyes an intangible mauve among an ethereal form of murky clouds and a vaporous skeleton.

 

Beyond the three was a structure of strangeness. A sarcophagus laid low in the back of the desolate chamber, the coffin comprised of brilliant stonework chiseled into the heavy rock, all decorating the tub interior of smooth aurum. The gold container sparkled just faintly in the pale, green light of the large obelisk in the room’s center.

 

“́R͘e͡íns̵t̕at̛e̡ ͢ųs̶ w̡hen͏ p̸rim͟e.”

 

With a voice of a thousand souls, the Apparition’s demand hummed through the abyssal halls of the fallen dungeon. The two men gave low bows to the spectral lord, the armored and robed man the one to respond; “We shall raise an empire from the bottom of the sea. Your return shall trigger our march.”

 

Mthyul Tlan, the Waking Synod receded from its high place and fell back to float with unfathomable grace to the casket behind itself. The mortal duo trailed after. The fiendish phantom dropped itself to linger just within the tank of gold, remaining erect. Facing the two men from the long side of the coffin, the ghostly beast heaved up its eldritch form, presenting its carapace and odd, shell-like bones and misted flesh to the two. A final hiss reeled from it, shaking the catacomb.

 

“̀Lo ͢a̵n̴d҉ behol͜d;͏ ͘s͢mįt̴e̶ me̸.”

 

Commanded thus, the pairing readied themselves. The ranger-dressed man pulls back the folds of his robes and look a lower stance, spreading his arms outward with his gait. Waving his arms about, splitting veins of dull emerald bled over his skin, tainting his form with its sickly illumination. His skin paled, becoming translucent, and the meat of his body underneath shined through in flickering attachments of decay and ravagings. In bizarre motions he swayed about, his glow feeding outward to encompass the great spirit and its executioner, adding to the sagely gleaming of the stone pillar within the place. The man bound in metal in turn threw his gauntlet back, grasping the handle of a blade sheathed upon his back. Pulling the hilt forth, he drew an aurum sword before him. In a far less progressive and more abrupt rate, the armed man and his weapon took up an eidolic radiance. His skin flashed away in vibrant, crushing waves of his own viridian green seeped out, his skeleton within his body glowing the palest and brightest in the chilled hall. Raising his saber, and in a simplistic motion, the armored mystic stepped forth and brought his weapon into the awaiting spirit. Pulling down, Mthyul Tlan sank down into the tub with a fit of torturous shrieks. Leaning into his blade, the two plummeted into the casket.

 

Nearby lingered a trio of other figures; a ghost and two Gravens slid forth, trampling the bodies littering the floor. With the assisting telekinetic prowess of the ghost and forceful hands of the other duo, the three brought the monstrous and beautiful top of the casket from the nearby wall. The armored man drew back just as the triad slid the gold-plated covering over, sealing in the Apparition within a confining cell of aurum. Woeful and vile screams continued to erupt from the sarcophagus, the sound of countless pieces of the dead crying out as they fell a second time. Nearby, remaining focused, wove the hands of the exuding mystic and his otherworldly luminance. The man in metal lost his sudden, spectral form and faded back into his dark countenance moments after the coffin was sealed. A beat afterwards the first and last gleaming man come to a conclusion. As his rotten face melted away to return to normality, shuddering back into a comfortable form; he then murmured, low and dull after the shrieks had died off, “Uldrivt… did it work?”

 

The four stepped back from the coffin, each looking to the armored man. From his drab and grey lips he ushered: “Yes. The black crawls in.”

 

With a short standing in stiffness, the grouping ventured out from the barren halls. They sealed the great dungeon in their departure, keeping a single key of wroughtferrum to open its shadows; the five left into the frosted tundra, filing through snowdrifts and a embankments before they took a boat from the shoreline and sailed out into frigid waters. Along their journey, after having paddled to their next destination, the armored man fell weak. He suffered no cold nor bite of winter, rather he stood rigid as stone, but frail and decrepit. The pair of Gravens took up their lord and carried him as one does a corpse, hauling him away into their fortress and then deep, o’so deep. Hardening as ice, the Gravens came under strain in their bearing. One, a man in life but now a spectral suit bound in metal and cloth, called from its blue flames, “Heavier.”

 

Nearly half a day passed before the journey concluded, ending with the five striding through an alien hall of elegant masonry and grey ashlar. Waterlogged and drenched, the group came upon a final room in which a crypt lay flat in the middle, prepared heretofore in preparation for the body. The two Gravens, with great tension, lowered their lord onto the slab and stood back. The ranger, shivering and with red cheeks, red from his thick-papered instructions. “‘Lay me to rest and mourn. Return topside and refer to Joe who will find his final directions within Hualthal, beside our dearly departed.’ ...So be it.”

 

The accompanying Gravens and ghost followed the ranger out, making little talk as they left the armored man behind to waste away with the bitter winter brewing within his corpse. Forsaken and abandoned, his body laid petrified and weighted in death. The dark crept in. Below the neat terrace the man’s body rested were the etched characters below:

 

 

 

[[Ripperoni in pepperoni. Also, please don't PM me about the title, I've been messaged by a few people already. I know it's "dawn" and not "don", it's a pun that eludes to the post that will come after this. Q_Q]]

[tilly 5115]

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