In dreams I walk with you
Corrupt vs Psi-Stalker (The Western Owl)
The Western Owl.
The sky was grey and dim yet in the distance Shalon could make out plumes of smoke rising over the distant plains and could hear the thunder clap of explosions echoing through out the entirety of the region. It would be only a matter of weeks before the fight, a fight that was neither hers, nor her friends concern, was upon them. Rain lightly misted on her hairless head and sighing forlornly she looked around at her people and their encampment. Or rather was left of them. Shalon was a Psi-Stalker of a small tribe called the Pale Skulls. The Pale Skulls had lived nomadically for many generations in relative isolation in the open plains, their only significant contact being with their some times friends and sometimes rivals, the Gursallu, a tribe of Simvan.
Two years prior a strange sickly man came from the east sowing disease and ruin. He passed through heading north by north west leaving a trail of sadness and wasting death. Before any Psi-Stalker or Simvan could retaliate he was gone as were the majority of both their numbers. Psi-Stalkers and Simvan are both very proud and tough people, but their toughness is forged directly from the ugly brutalities of survival which call above all for pragmatism. With both camps equaling less then fifty adults both together they did what had to be done and joined forces.
Yet more trouble came from the east. A war between Wizards and Men in high tech armor was raging. Strangers passed through their lands causing trouble and frequently black vehicles screamed across the sky. A few men left to the east to hire their services as scouts or warriors and never returned. Including a man named Skylo, whom Shalon was to marry. Skylo was the only man her age that was not a direct blood relative. Her customs forbid her to marry or bare a child with her father, an uncle, a brother or a half brother. To her now the east was death and the east was getting closer. The east had taken her tribe, had taken her man and taken away the chance at having a child and rebuilding her tribe.
Nursing a bottle of moonshine a few feet away was her Simvan friend Derok. Derok was a bit small by the standards of his people and his peers bullied him for it. Sensing that the Psi-Stalker men often treated him poorly as well. Not that he wasn't as tough as of them, he was just the runt and had to deal with twice the grief. Derok, like Shalon, knew that their time was short and was repairing to leave. They knew that too many people lay to the south, that the north, while an option, was already territory claimed by other Simvan and Psi-Stalkers, and yes that the east was death. While Derok knew it wasn't quite like that. Unlike Shalon he had more contact with outsiders. Being the runt he was forced to handle all the trading and negotiating with outsiders. From that he knew there was even more wilderness beyond the ugly cities of Wizards and Men in black armor and that beyond their pathetic war was another cradle of land they could live a good life in. But who wanted to wade through a war? Very little was known of the west, but no war was west and if only be default the west was not death.
Shalon walked over and took Derok's bottle from him. "How many days before were equipped enough to leave?", she asked. He was about to reply when the sky exploded above them.
Huge plumes of fire shot forth from the mouth of a vast red-scaled flying reptilian creature that was being chased and shot at by men in flying black armor. Missiles rained downed on their encampment, leaving many of the few Simvan and Psi-Stakers who were remaining a steaming vapor of red mist and charred debris. The journey west began quicker then they thought.
************************************************************
Whatever name it once knew itself by was a long forgotten memory. It didn't need to call itself anything. It had very little sense of self or identity, it merely was and it merely DID. What it did was hunt and kill. But others had millions of names for It, some names that were screamed in terror and other names spoken in awe struck whispered tones. It was a dreaded presence periodically emerging through out the deep south and magic zone like a earth quake or flash flood that wipes out whole communities.
It was one of the Corrupt, an unholy barely structured cult of killers in the willing service of a demonic god the called the Liberator who in turn transformed each of them into beastie killing machines. Yet even among the Corrupt it was singular. Amongst the corrupt it was a creature of fear and envy because it was the most brutal of them all. Some of the Corrupt envied it, seeing it as the epitome of the liberation offered by their hidden master, but all of them certainly feared it. To the Corrupt it was called Hyrzaku, a word in the language of demons meaning freedom, and to the Corrupt It was seen as a demi-god or avatar with-in their grim numbers.
Yet this was not true. It was merely one of them, but what it once was before turning to the Liberator was far greater then what the various Corrupt were before hand individually. It simply did not care to explain, or even remember. It did not care about or even acknowledge its fraternity. It merely hunted and killed. It would seek out were ever violence was and join in the fray in one manner or another. After a few years even the dark excesses of the magic zone would not tolerate its feral, aimless, wanderings. A unit of Mystic Knights lead by the notorious Lord Kalki, called from retirement from his Los Alamo fortress, was assembled to drive the thing into a rift and lunge it into the middle of Coalition held territory during the siege on Tolkeen.
For weeks It killed Tolkeenite and Coalition solder with equal disregard. It was like a pig at a troth, and gorged itself amongst the violence and gore, haloed in a garland of ruins, waste and entrails. During one of its indulgent, opportunistic days crashing the war it was hunting down a dog pack squad that was patrolling a ruined building on the outskirts of Tolkeen. Ensorcelled in shadow it stalked the biggest dog boy, a massive mutant wolf and pack leader into the basement. As It got to the basement It saw the Wolf across the interior of the open floor and the Wolf laughed. The hunter had became the hunted and the Coalition lead it here to bury. All it remembered was the whining roar of SAMAS jets, the cry of missiles and a black sea of rock falling upon It.
With its ruin womb It fell to further insanity as with in a few days of being trapped by the weight of the building its mind retreated into a nightmare of hallucinatory visions from its dark god. Briefly it recalled something of his former life. It could see its old hands, very strong, powerful scaly green clawed hands. It was a HE and He was proud of himself. It/He stood in a chamber lined with skulls of countless monsters and humanoids. Even though It/He knew that It/He had killed them all they were all still laughing at him. The view of the once proud trophy chamber grew to a tiny, warblely pin poke that seemed to be fractal and misty at the edges. He was lost in waves of paranoia and multifarious, distorted senses of self and reference. Then It/He was looking down at his old body before the transformation, bloody and mangled adrift in some unknown desert waste. That wasn't right, it didn't happen like that It knew, but one thing was true. The proud hunter was once hurt, and hurt more then its dying body was its vast hubris that was unwilling to drift calmly into death. It/He pleaded out of its bloated sense of entitlement to endure further to anything, to any sense of God, meaning or macrocosmic context. The hunter must hunt, and so the Liberator who saw in this creature a unique chance to create one of his most enduring and powerful expressions of his liberation yet heard his pleas. It/He saw and remembered how it was and It/He was It again.
Like any hunter It was patient. The kill took grace, poise and timing. It lay in its rock hell for weeks until one day it had a vision of a giant white owl soaked in blood and covered in ash. In the roar of the great bird wings flapping Its trap was being clawed away. Much to the shock of a unit of Coalition personnel bulldozing and leveling the area it clawed out of the rubble and slaughtered them all in a matter of minutes. It then saw the great bloody Owl once again and it was flying west. It followed.
************************************************************
Weeks passed sense they Derok and Shalon had abruptly fled. No one had followed, neither survivors nor the eastern fighters. Derok hoped some of their friends and family just escaped in another direction. They hadn't seen a soul sense and were grateful. They rode ever westward upon their Ostrosaurous steeds with grim memories and desperation pounding in on their hearts. Worst of all Derok had quickly ran out of liquor shortly into the trip and spent a few days with the shakes. He dreamed of getting as far west as he could and building a still as soon as possible. "Shalon, what does it mean for us to do this really? I'm mean were too separate races going into the unknown and for what? To grow old alone with children and tribe?", Derok asked. Shalon gave him a dirty look, then pulled a rock out of her boot and threw it at him. Laughing she said, "Derok my boy I'm surprised at you. We move because we are alive, this is what we do. We move, hunt and fight. We'll do this until death is no longer from the east but from all around us as is only fitting to both our great peoples".
After many great trials the two friends eventually found an area they thought could only be heaven. It was a vast wilderness of huge red-hued trees so massive one couldn't see their tops that was in turn filled with more game to hunt then the open plains ever boasted. They built themselves a tree fort and Derok went quickly to building a still. Shalon found that the area to the north of them was filled with little winged creatures of magic that she adored to hunt and drain. They were easy to find, always look for huge toadstools that they'd live in. These mushroom houses in turn were edible. In short order Derok had gathered a large assortment of beasts to their lair, from a stable of wild boars, to a few birds of prey he thought not likely natural to the world, but with in his means to subdue none the less.
Nearly a year had passed when one day Shalon was chasing the mushroom dwellers far to the south. Hiding in a tree she snatched one floating by and bit its head off. She absolutely hated how weak and dainty these creatures looked. Their colorful butterfly wings were too much for her to stand. She didn't care that they talked or pleaded with her. They dripped with the energy she needed to eat and they had so much of it she only had to eat two of them a month. Feeling bloated Shalon took a nap in the tree. She awoke to see a huge giant white covered in blood flying over head. Startled, she leaped to the forest floor and followed it. Pressing far more south then she had ever gone before she followed the great white bird to a little cluster of ruins around a small lake. The ruins had signs with language on them but she couldn't read. Though she saw that the signs also had the design of owls on them. Then all of a sudden the hair on neck stood up. This place was humming with energy and drove her on edge. Prying deeper she found a giant owl effigy at one end of the lake and before lay a gore stained and ash caked altar. This place was evil and so was this owl. This was magic and there for not of the natural order of things. She hated the place in a way similar to why she hated the mushroom dwellers, but the mushroom dwellers were clearly contemptibly weak. They existed as food for her to eat. She knew then and there however that the owl was not food but a fight. Maybe even it could kill her. She wasn't going to find out that day however. Shalon ran quickly back to Derok.
************************************************************
It traveled on westward where the owl went regardless of time or conclusion. Visions from the Great Liberator drove it further. It knew that in the western most reaches, with a vast an ancient forest, dwelled with in a grove a place of foul worship where the men of power of this world would gather for centuries to sacrifice their sense of caring. This was sacred to the Liberator and It understood its hidden master much further. He was the Great Annihilator, which gives Liberation by destroying concern, care, purpose or meaning. Meaning was delusion in an uncaring megaverse. Things simply did. The strongest things did best and did so for longer. That was that and that is what It also did.
It found the Grove and used magic to reveal the language of men written on signs about the place. One read, "Weaving Spiders come not here", which It dismissed though mainly because it confused him. Something only important from before Men shared the world with other creatures It figured. Pressing on It found a small lake and a giant owl effigy stood in view. It curled up in a ball before the statue and the giant bloody white swooped down in a loud buzzing roar like insects and flames, grabbed It in it's claws and took off upwards. It was torn in half and dropped from the sky. Crawling back to its missing lower half It frothed in agony as both halves reattached themselves and It knew that once a year It had to come back to this place. The other Corrupt who fawned over It in fear and awe thinking It was an avatar of the Liberator were mistaken, the white owl was. He would return east in a few more days and force them all to the western grove.
************************************************************
Upon reach the tree fort Shalon cried out to Derok, "Ready the Lizards and grab all the guns!". Confused as he may have been Derok did so with hesitation. A moment later he was coming to her both of their mounts and carrying to two plasma cannons they had in case of heavy-duty monsters. Derok look happily excited as he approach and Shalon didn't like it. "There's a place of devil worship and a giant ******* demonic white owl a few hours south of here, we have to kill it before it kills us", she said matter of fact way as she checked everything on her gun.” I guess then we ride", he responded and they both were off.
The two reached the lake and they very easily saw the Giant White Owl standing in front of the giant owl statue. Both statue and owl seemed obscene to the two, but such thoughts quickly left Shalon's mind as she could sense something moving in the trees but couldn't make it out. Panicing she cried out for Derok. He came to a halt, and then was knocked off his Riding lizard. In a quick abrupt burst an unseen force stuck Shalon and for her all went black.
The first thing that she could sense again was the smell of burning flesh. Her eyes opened to find Derok eviscerated and aflame before the statue. Next to it was a humanoid creature of muscle, claw, horns and full body black leather armor that cleaning off Derok's skull with its index finger claw. Screaming she pulled out her sword and ran towards It. Not immediately bothering to notice or react to Shalon's attack, in one simple seeming, subtle nonchalant fluid motion It grabbed her arm with one hand, drew his hulking rune cleaver and ran her through with the other. It then popped her head off and placed it before the giant owl effigy. It was to be the first two of many yet to come.
Death was the west after all.
Corrupt vs Psi-Stalker (The Western Owl)
The Western Owl.
The sky was grey and dim yet in the distance Shalon could make out plumes of smoke rising over the distant plains and could hear the thunder clap of explosions echoing through out the entirety of the region. It would be only a matter of weeks before the fight, a fight that was neither hers, nor her friends concern, was upon them. Rain lightly misted on her hairless head and sighing forlornly she looked around at her people and their encampment. Or rather was left of them. Shalon was a Psi-Stalker of a small tribe called the Pale Skulls. The Pale Skulls had lived nomadically for many generations in relative isolation in the open plains, their only significant contact being with their some times friends and sometimes rivals, the Gursallu, a tribe of Simvan.
Two years prior a strange sickly man came from the east sowing disease and ruin. He passed through heading north by north west leaving a trail of sadness and wasting death. Before any Psi-Stalker or Simvan could retaliate he was gone as were the majority of both their numbers. Psi-Stalkers and Simvan are both very proud and tough people, but their toughness is forged directly from the ugly brutalities of survival which call above all for pragmatism. With both camps equaling less then fifty adults both together they did what had to be done and joined forces.
Yet more trouble came from the east. A war between Wizards and Men in high tech armor was raging. Strangers passed through their lands causing trouble and frequently black vehicles screamed across the sky. A few men left to the east to hire their services as scouts or warriors and never returned. Including a man named Skylo, whom Shalon was to marry. Skylo was the only man her age that was not a direct blood relative. Her customs forbid her to marry or bare a child with her father, an uncle, a brother or a half brother. To her now the east was death and the east was getting closer. The east had taken her tribe, had taken her man and taken away the chance at having a child and rebuilding her tribe.
Nursing a bottle of moonshine a few feet away was her Simvan friend Derok. Derok was a bit small by the standards of his people and his peers bullied him for it. Sensing that the Psi-Stalker men often treated him poorly as well. Not that he wasn't as tough as of them, he was just the runt and had to deal with twice the grief. Derok, like Shalon, knew that their time was short and was repairing to leave. They knew that too many people lay to the south, that the north, while an option, was already territory claimed by other Simvan and Psi-Stalkers, and yes that the east was death. While Derok knew it wasn't quite like that. Unlike Shalon he had more contact with outsiders. Being the runt he was forced to handle all the trading and negotiating with outsiders. From that he knew there was even more wilderness beyond the ugly cities of Wizards and Men in black armor and that beyond their pathetic war was another cradle of land they could live a good life in. But who wanted to wade through a war? Very little was known of the west, but no war was west and if only be default the west was not death.
Shalon walked over and took Derok's bottle from him. "How many days before were equipped enough to leave?", she asked. He was about to reply when the sky exploded above them.
Huge plumes of fire shot forth from the mouth of a vast red-scaled flying reptilian creature that was being chased and shot at by men in flying black armor. Missiles rained downed on their encampment, leaving many of the few Simvan and Psi-Stakers who were remaining a steaming vapor of red mist and charred debris. The journey west began quicker then they thought.
************************************************************
Whatever name it once knew itself by was a long forgotten memory. It didn't need to call itself anything. It had very little sense of self or identity, it merely was and it merely DID. What it did was hunt and kill. But others had millions of names for It, some names that were screamed in terror and other names spoken in awe struck whispered tones. It was a dreaded presence periodically emerging through out the deep south and magic zone like a earth quake or flash flood that wipes out whole communities.
It was one of the Corrupt, an unholy barely structured cult of killers in the willing service of a demonic god the called the Liberator who in turn transformed each of them into beastie killing machines. Yet even among the Corrupt it was singular. Amongst the corrupt it was a creature of fear and envy because it was the most brutal of them all. Some of the Corrupt envied it, seeing it as the epitome of the liberation offered by their hidden master, but all of them certainly feared it. To the Corrupt it was called Hyrzaku, a word in the language of demons meaning freedom, and to the Corrupt It was seen as a demi-god or avatar with-in their grim numbers.
Yet this was not true. It was merely one of them, but what it once was before turning to the Liberator was far greater then what the various Corrupt were before hand individually. It simply did not care to explain, or even remember. It did not care about or even acknowledge its fraternity. It merely hunted and killed. It would seek out were ever violence was and join in the fray in one manner or another. After a few years even the dark excesses of the magic zone would not tolerate its feral, aimless, wanderings. A unit of Mystic Knights lead by the notorious Lord Kalki, called from retirement from his Los Alamo fortress, was assembled to drive the thing into a rift and lunge it into the middle of Coalition held territory during the siege on Tolkeen.
For weeks It killed Tolkeenite and Coalition solder with equal disregard. It was like a pig at a troth, and gorged itself amongst the violence and gore, haloed in a garland of ruins, waste and entrails. During one of its indulgent, opportunistic days crashing the war it was hunting down a dog pack squad that was patrolling a ruined building on the outskirts of Tolkeen. Ensorcelled in shadow it stalked the biggest dog boy, a massive mutant wolf and pack leader into the basement. As It got to the basement It saw the Wolf across the interior of the open floor and the Wolf laughed. The hunter had became the hunted and the Coalition lead it here to bury. All it remembered was the whining roar of SAMAS jets, the cry of missiles and a black sea of rock falling upon It.
With its ruin womb It fell to further insanity as with in a few days of being trapped by the weight of the building its mind retreated into a nightmare of hallucinatory visions from its dark god. Briefly it recalled something of his former life. It could see its old hands, very strong, powerful scaly green clawed hands. It was a HE and He was proud of himself. It/He stood in a chamber lined with skulls of countless monsters and humanoids. Even though It/He knew that It/He had killed them all they were all still laughing at him. The view of the once proud trophy chamber grew to a tiny, warblely pin poke that seemed to be fractal and misty at the edges. He was lost in waves of paranoia and multifarious, distorted senses of self and reference. Then It/He was looking down at his old body before the transformation, bloody and mangled adrift in some unknown desert waste. That wasn't right, it didn't happen like that It knew, but one thing was true. The proud hunter was once hurt, and hurt more then its dying body was its vast hubris that was unwilling to drift calmly into death. It/He pleaded out of its bloated sense of entitlement to endure further to anything, to any sense of God, meaning or macrocosmic context. The hunter must hunt, and so the Liberator who saw in this creature a unique chance to create one of his most enduring and powerful expressions of his liberation yet heard his pleas. It/He saw and remembered how it was and It/He was It again.
Like any hunter It was patient. The kill took grace, poise and timing. It lay in its rock hell for weeks until one day it had a vision of a giant white owl soaked in blood and covered in ash. In the roar of the great bird wings flapping Its trap was being clawed away. Much to the shock of a unit of Coalition personnel bulldozing and leveling the area it clawed out of the rubble and slaughtered them all in a matter of minutes. It then saw the great bloody Owl once again and it was flying west. It followed.
************************************************************
Weeks passed sense they Derok and Shalon had abruptly fled. No one had followed, neither survivors nor the eastern fighters. Derok hoped some of their friends and family just escaped in another direction. They hadn't seen a soul sense and were grateful. They rode ever westward upon their Ostrosaurous steeds with grim memories and desperation pounding in on their hearts. Worst of all Derok had quickly ran out of liquor shortly into the trip and spent a few days with the shakes. He dreamed of getting as far west as he could and building a still as soon as possible. "Shalon, what does it mean for us to do this really? I'm mean were too separate races going into the unknown and for what? To grow old alone with children and tribe?", Derok asked. Shalon gave him a dirty look, then pulled a rock out of her boot and threw it at him. Laughing she said, "Derok my boy I'm surprised at you. We move because we are alive, this is what we do. We move, hunt and fight. We'll do this until death is no longer from the east but from all around us as is only fitting to both our great peoples".
After many great trials the two friends eventually found an area they thought could only be heaven. It was a vast wilderness of huge red-hued trees so massive one couldn't see their tops that was in turn filled with more game to hunt then the open plains ever boasted. They built themselves a tree fort and Derok went quickly to building a still. Shalon found that the area to the north of them was filled with little winged creatures of magic that she adored to hunt and drain. They were easy to find, always look for huge toadstools that they'd live in. These mushroom houses in turn were edible. In short order Derok had gathered a large assortment of beasts to their lair, from a stable of wild boars, to a few birds of prey he thought not likely natural to the world, but with in his means to subdue none the less.
Nearly a year had passed when one day Shalon was chasing the mushroom dwellers far to the south. Hiding in a tree she snatched one floating by and bit its head off. She absolutely hated how weak and dainty these creatures looked. Their colorful butterfly wings were too much for her to stand. She didn't care that they talked or pleaded with her. They dripped with the energy she needed to eat and they had so much of it she only had to eat two of them a month. Feeling bloated Shalon took a nap in the tree. She awoke to see a huge giant white covered in blood flying over head. Startled, she leaped to the forest floor and followed it. Pressing far more south then she had ever gone before she followed the great white bird to a little cluster of ruins around a small lake. The ruins had signs with language on them but she couldn't read. Though she saw that the signs also had the design of owls on them. Then all of a sudden the hair on neck stood up. This place was humming with energy and drove her on edge. Prying deeper she found a giant owl effigy at one end of the lake and before lay a gore stained and ash caked altar. This place was evil and so was this owl. This was magic and there for not of the natural order of things. She hated the place in a way similar to why she hated the mushroom dwellers, but the mushroom dwellers were clearly contemptibly weak. They existed as food for her to eat. She knew then and there however that the owl was not food but a fight. Maybe even it could kill her. She wasn't going to find out that day however. Shalon ran quickly back to Derok.
************************************************************
It traveled on westward where the owl went regardless of time or conclusion. Visions from the Great Liberator drove it further. It knew that in the western most reaches, with a vast an ancient forest, dwelled with in a grove a place of foul worship where the men of power of this world would gather for centuries to sacrifice their sense of caring. This was sacred to the Liberator and It understood its hidden master much further. He was the Great Annihilator, which gives Liberation by destroying concern, care, purpose or meaning. Meaning was delusion in an uncaring megaverse. Things simply did. The strongest things did best and did so for longer. That was that and that is what It also did.
It found the Grove and used magic to reveal the language of men written on signs about the place. One read, "Weaving Spiders come not here", which It dismissed though mainly because it confused him. Something only important from before Men shared the world with other creatures It figured. Pressing on It found a small lake and a giant owl effigy stood in view. It curled up in a ball before the statue and the giant bloody white swooped down in a loud buzzing roar like insects and flames, grabbed It in it's claws and took off upwards. It was torn in half and dropped from the sky. Crawling back to its missing lower half It frothed in agony as both halves reattached themselves and It knew that once a year It had to come back to this place. The other Corrupt who fawned over It in fear and awe thinking It was an avatar of the Liberator were mistaken, the white owl was. He would return east in a few more days and force them all to the western grove.
************************************************************
Upon reach the tree fort Shalon cried out to Derok, "Ready the Lizards and grab all the guns!". Confused as he may have been Derok did so with hesitation. A moment later he was coming to her both of their mounts and carrying to two plasma cannons they had in case of heavy-duty monsters. Derok look happily excited as he approach and Shalon didn't like it. "There's a place of devil worship and a giant ******* demonic white owl a few hours south of here, we have to kill it before it kills us", she said matter of fact way as she checked everything on her gun.” I guess then we ride", he responded and they both were off.
The two reached the lake and they very easily saw the Giant White Owl standing in front of the giant owl statue. Both statue and owl seemed obscene to the two, but such thoughts quickly left Shalon's mind as she could sense something moving in the trees but couldn't make it out. Panicing she cried out for Derok. He came to a halt, and then was knocked off his Riding lizard. In a quick abrupt burst an unseen force stuck Shalon and for her all went black.
The first thing that she could sense again was the smell of burning flesh. Her eyes opened to find Derok eviscerated and aflame before the statue. Next to it was a humanoid creature of muscle, claw, horns and full body black leather armor that cleaning off Derok's skull with its index finger claw. Screaming she pulled out her sword and ran towards It. Not immediately bothering to notice or react to Shalon's attack, in one simple seeming, subtle nonchalant fluid motion It grabbed her arm with one hand, drew his hulking rune cleaver and ran her through with the other. It then popped her head off and placed it before the giant owl effigy. It was to be the first two of many yet to come.
Death was the west after all.