THE HALLOWCLIFFE OBITUARY

[Witchring 359]

A smattering of blood across pristine marble walls

The heavy clamor of dual onyx soldiers

A fleeing rogue chased by curls of smoke

And a girl with a grudge

 

 

[!]

A missive is attached to a crude head on a pike, available only to residents of Hallowcliffe Hall.

 

 

---

 

 

To the False Star Dakaith,

My father often recites to me a story, how not so long ago a man had learnt our ways under him as a fledgling student. A man who forsook his way of living among the woods for a featherlight promise of prodigy, like the trace of a dream only known in sleep. He says in another life, you were the father your brother failed to be. So he saw fit to expend his gratitude, and you were quickly made an honor to be boasted. A prodigy to be engraved in the bleeding brimstone of the High Hells. But when he speaks of it, each syllable leaves with the rotten cadence of vengeance, the simmering remnants of bygone days where he and I ruled a coven wrought from our very blood and bones.

In our absence, you’ve made your vie for power known. In our return, we observed a new generation of misguided cowards.

What we observed was not the becoming of your prodigal glory, nor something to be revered with pride. Instead, it was a mangled mockery, a canvas of glistening teeth and bleeding gums made an amalgamation that you see suitable to frame upon every wall. A court of imbeciles who cannot discern sky from ground, who lack the forethought to so much as learn the dichotomy of it, and have unwittingly sacrificed our coveted identity to the very Lions who see fit to maul us until we are incorporeal. And, it is among this very court we are rendered outcasts, subjected to a barrage of violence and petty threats by these very leaders you’ve appointed, shameful mimicries of what it is to be False Prince.

My father was not so adamant to pursue war until your intent to relinquish our flame and eliminate us were revealed. After he and I were threatened, shunned as outsiders to the practice we preach, attacked not unlike fetid hounds — you’ve dug your own rut after riding the highs of our coattails.

Threats made must be fulfilled, else the words are hollow. Let an example here show you most succinctly: standing against your betters will be your death.

A head strung on a chain and a bloody box sit in the halls of Hallowcliffe.

Two of your members have been slain at our hands, aided by allies that go vast and far. As a reminder of my benevolence, as a daughter; a mother; I deliver what remains of them to you personally. One of them, unfortunately, did not have much left to give.

 

But many of you know your worth for what it is, the fate that becomes you, and it is not the likes of what you read above. You do not so readily subscribe to such blasphemous ascriptions of infantilism and stolen valor. Deep in your bones, many of you will concur. You hunger for a taste of true vainglory, an innate craving that begets the path we pave with our bare hands, what it means to be proxies of the Pentacle and their will. But you know you cannot find this among the coven you kneel to. Let yourself not be hindered nor subjected to the disaster that you could not have stopped, to the consequences of a coven in need of taming. And rest assured, tamed it will be.

There is no time for negotiation. There is no end but the very one you fear the most. Your pleas will not go unheard, for they will be savored as we burn your dens to the ground. The broken bones of its former inhabitants will be the warning for your successors of what comes with challenging powers outside their comprehension.

Those who stand alongside us shall reap the glory of a thousand justices to be repaid. Those who oppose us will be met with a cold blade.

You gave me an ultimatum. This is my answer.

Signed,

Cordelia and Castiel

 

Spoiler

Thanks to Unwillingly for writing this post at literally 5am (I helped a little but unw is like just way cooler and cool and better and awesome and cooler than me so I let them write it ^-^) And also nectorist for peer-reviewing and re-wording some parts. ((They wrote this credit themselves. Love, Rey))

 

[BobBox 3211]

Spoiler

 

 

 

A lone man drifted through the halls of Hallowcliffe, robes dragging across the floor behind himself as he went. There was much to discuss, much to be said, however now he merely went to his office - the kitchen. After securing a large scoop of sand to eat, he would disappear into the winding hallways so that only the moving gazes of the paintings could track him and reveal his location. 

Eventually arriving at his lab, the man secured some metallic parts so that he could fix himself and his now missing finger. Life would go on - at least for him. Perhaps eating so many rocks truly didn't make his skin any stronger, perhaps he had not eaten enough rocks.

[Unwillingly 11176]

Somewhere in an eastern precipice, a Prince stirs from slumber. What he dreamed was not of haunting leviathans nor ravenous carnivores, sensations and touch that chased in him the day as phantom-pains. Not this time.

Instead, he dreamed of a bygone time, an era of resplendence, a boy and his coveted crown. Too-real effigies and taunting mockeries of his birthright that he tells Cordelia about at night, when the moon shafts strongest beneath the tree they talk under.

It's this very irony that makes it all the more cruel.

[Almenodrim 1338]

A zar’akal ponders the scene with an abundantly crooked cheshire grin forever plastered upon its hideous visage. He stood there letting out only a series of gargled clicks and rattles from its throat before it trudged off elsewhere
 

It was a bold thing to attack someone deemed as a pillar and to bring their head back to the doorstep, but to sign their names upon the missive was a death sentence. A rebellion had been sparked. No, war. How would the Prophet and his Pillars respond to such an egregious attack? How far did the pair’s reach truly go? Questions raced through the ever-plagued entity’s mind.
 

A reminder.
 

“That note, yes. What of that note? What were we meant to do… A letter. Yes. Perhaps we will finally write.”
 

And with that the Prince of Carrion would begin his letter - a response to the once ‘friend,’ Cordelia.

[sam33497 2793]

Lanre Cerusil swings around a severed head.

[Turbo_Dog 1432]

Daal obnoxiously snores on the open window. The smell of blood drifting through the air and hitting his nose like a freshly baked pie. He was lured down the stairs in a sleep driven hunger before realizing where he was and bolting out and leaping out the open window he slept in seconds prior 

 

Edited January 21 by Turbo_Dog

[Azukazi Khuzai 138]

A Mech-Acolyte baptised a new sacred war machine in fire and holy oil... May every unholy thing tremble from the flame of their howitzers... "Oh Owynssiah... Ye who Waged The First Crusade... Bring us the sacred fire to cleanse the impure.."

[CaffeinatedCrow 162]

One remaining gold eye would be left staring into a bucket after cleaning what had been left behind. A disfigured head all that was left behind for her whilst the other was brought elsewhere. The wood had been burned, the chain tucked elsewhere, and the blood cleaned away. 'How much blood will be spilt?' The woman questioned, 'Perhaps a lake-full', a voice would answer in the crevices of her mind, a strange nervous squeaking heard after. Though with that, the disfigured head would be taken outside, the maggots and crawlers free to dig in as flesh and blood became one with dirt and stone. The skull, in time, free to be seen. Time may only tell what becomes of the masses...