Early in the fourth age...
@Mnkn10 @ToastyThief @ValidEmotions @Rocwylde @SaucyHorse
Eonwatcher stood above Sornieth, their familiar flying around the World Pillar with a screech. Eon had heard a call of their name and left their Time Loom with a curious air. When Eon had emerged, there was no sign of the caller and they tilted their covered head. They called upon their favored guise, a Tundra named Agrius, and began picking his way down the shattered pillar. Agrius’ fur ruffled in the strong winds and Orphanim glided down as his owner descended. As thickly-furred paws padded onto Dragonhome’s dry earth, Agrius heard the call once more.
“Eonwatcher, I have need of you.”
The Tundra shook himself from the dust and sniffed the air. Disease coated the voice calling him and so he turned towards the Scarred Wasteland. He felt an annoyed spike go through him. The land was going to get caked in his fur, roiling and squishing underneath his paws and he despised it. At least dust was easy to remove. Agrius twisted time around himself, speeding his pace as he travelled. His Slight Eyewing cawed once as he entered the loop; Orphanim’s own loop easily joining with the deity’s magic.
As his paw sunk into the fleshy earth of the Wasteland, Agrius ended his loop with ease. His mouth twisted in disgust, fangs showing, as he raised his head. Of course his summoner was deep in Plaguebringer’s murk. With a sigh, he looked to Orphanim.
“Go to the Loom and preside over the threads. This may take a while,” his voice was sardonic. The Eyewing nodded slowly, its halo trailing behind, before taking to the darkening skies once more. Agrius turned towards the Wasteland as the avian familiar twisted back to their home. “Now then. Time to find you in this domain.” The Tundra squelched past clans and quarantines without pause; their calls of ‘halt’ and ‘explain yourself’ ignored. The Wrymwound called; Plaguebringer’s rasping voice whispering his deictic name. At the rim of her festering cauldron, bubbles bursting in horrid stench, Agrius transferred back to his true form, gem eyes glittering in their hide as they stepped into Plaguebringer’s true domain. Eonwatcher plunged into her pool of rot without fear, emerging in her own throneroom, her Cauldron. “What has you requiring my services, Sister of the Septic?”
Her skeletal face lifted at their entrance, claws clutching a long bone stirrer above a noxious mixture. Her eyes glowed through the fumes, delight flickering in the eerie light, and her smile widened impossibly.
“Dear cousin, I have discovered a dragon posing as our fellow deity, one of your siblings, in our lands. An interloper in my domain. A necromancer of horrifying caliber,” her voice bubbled with unseen liquids and then rasped dry as bone as the Plaguebringer spoke. Spines clacking together with anger, she leaned over her creation boldly, uncaring of it’s spattering landing on her maroon scales, “You can remedy this with a suitable punishment. She wishes to escape death? Allow her something fitting.” Eonwatcher blinked calm in the face of her sudden vehemence. They had seen nothing in the threads of their Loom, so they were nonplussed.
“Explain your findings, cousin. You know I do not act unless needed,” they answered. Plaguebringer’s sigh was heavy and annoyed.
“That’s why you’re sequestered all alone, no creature even aware you exist; you’ve no initiative or drive to prove you are in control of Sornieth,” she hissed. Eonwatcher drew back, denying the hurt that she’d caused. They hadn’t needed attention as his cousins did, subjects and sacrifices to bolster themselves. It was lonely, Eonwatcher could admit, but not a reason to end a misguided dragon.
“A true reason, Plaguebringer, or you have wasted precious time.” Eonwatcher’s voice was frigid and venomous as they answered. Their cousin sighed once more, glowing eyes rolling as she did. She dipped a claw into her cauldron; the liquid shifting into an image of a large Guardian, or what seemed to be one, decaying and spiked in a way similar to Plaguebringer’s own body. As the deities gazed into the vision, the creature paused in its travels, raised its tail, and Eonwatcher reeled back in sudden fury.
As the thing’s tail raised itself, something clawed its way from the ground, writhing as an Emperor does as it pulls itself together. Eonwatcher hissed at the vision, at the perversion of their domain, and glared at their cousin. “You have hidden this abomination from me.” Plaguebringer leaned away from her Runic cousin, voice dripping with apology.
“I hadn’t, dearest. That thing had done it themselves,” her voice was sickly sweet, skulled visage smiling with delight, “But you can fix that quite neatly. I’ll separate the parts if you seal each away. Perversion solved and everything’s back to normal.” She reached a paw into her cauldron, withdrawing it with dripping green and black claws. “Seal the deal with a shake?” Her twisted claws were hovering before Eonwatcher, who hesitated. His cousin’s concoctions were not to be trifled with, but they always sealed their deals with a pawshake, a physical agreement.
Sands of time beginning to twist around their claws, Eonwatcher carefully reached out, clasped his cousin’s with combined magic, and Eonwatcher knew no more.
Spiritsearcher smiled as she looked at the crowd gathered around her in the town square. Eyes of all different colours stared up at her in amazement and adoration. She loved them all. Most of them boasted the half decayed flesh of a Kavvaket, the mark of devotion to her and to enlightenment. A few had yet to complete their first life, or had had their spirits anchored to a constructed form of bone, ash or earth. She loved them too.
The assembled dragons sung songs praising her and their own achievements, and threw scraps of bone and feathers at her as offerings. The Spirit deity collected a talonful of the bones and imbued them with magic, and life. The bones formed themselves into a Spirit Sprite. The crowd roared in joy and cheered. The newly formed creature looked up at its creator before flitting off into the sky.
But their exultation was not meant to last. A great rumbling shook the town, and Spiritsearcher looked around in concern as her people began to murmur nervously. The shaking continued, and distantly Spiritsearcher heard a great, rolling bellow. Shaken, she fanned her wings, shooting into the air, and those of her people that could joined her, their offerings clutched in hand as they sought to find the source of the noise. Spiritsearcher scanned the lands, and her magics froze in her chest.
A great army approached her little haven, dragons of all sorts slavering excitedly at the thought of battle. The prominent feature, she realized as her eyes narrowed angrily, was the brilliant green pustules littering the dragons' hides. “Plaguebringer!” The Spirit deity shouted. "Flee, my precious ones, whilst you still can!" She roared, and her people scrambled out of the square, grabbing what they could in their mad rush. Some grabbed weapons. Others grabbed ancestral relics. Others still grabbed fledgeling creations, new yet to their life and forming the connection to their body. At her cry, the army broke into a run, Mirrors cackling and whooping with the blood haze as they raced ahead of the larger dragons girding the army. In the center of it all, was the one who hated the Spirit god the most.
“You!” The Plaguebringer hissed, recognition, and hatred, flashing in her blood red eyes. Her head reared back, skeletal featured pulled in a snarl. "Take the city! Leave none alive!" She bellowed as her troops streamed past, wings fanning. The two gods stared each other down as their peoples met in a frenzy - Mirrors slammed into Guardians, and Ridgebacks girded the defenses as the smaller, lither dragons darted forward to stall the army. Perhaps emboldened by the attack on the town, the Plaguebringer took to the skies, wings working with the sickly sound of torn flesh to propel her forward.
They clashed as only gods could. Blinded by the magic pouring off their bodies, reanimated and plague-touched alike retreated, those still with eyes shielding them in a desperate bid to keep what sight they had. Spiritsearcher’s magic battered the landscape, oddly revitalising in the face of Plaguebringer’s draining, oppressive aura. Circling each other when one broke away, the two deities lapsed into snarls and roars, whipping around the few spires poking above the city, frantically ripping at their foe.
“I will not have you tainting my good work!” Plaguebringer bellowed as she kicked Spiritsearcher away, raking thick lines in her abdomen as the younger god tumbled back from the wicked fish hooks, wings fluttering as she fought to right herself. “The rot belongs to me!”
“They deserve life you heartless beast!” Spiritsearcher snarled back, flipping and finally righting herself mere wingspans from the ground. Before she could alter her path, Plaguebringer slammed her into the ground, cracking the lovely stones and sinking her claws into her shoulders.
“They deserve nothing but eternal torment,” Plaguebringer spat, bringing her head down to Spiritsearcher’s and glaring from one baleful red eye. The putrid scent of sickness warred with the equally potent smell of death as Plaguebringer hovered over Spiritsearcher, her bony spines arching as she drew her head back. Spiritsearcher’s eyes widened, and she began to thrash, kicking at Plaguebringer.
“You can’t decree such a thing!” She shouted as she tried to dislodge the god, and Plaguebringer hissed between her crooked teeth with a devilish grin.
“Oh, but I can.” With that, her tail cracked down on Spiritsearcher’s ribs, knocking the god senseless as she released a shuddering wail. Plaguebringer rammed her head into Spiritsearcher’s jaw, and she reeled back with a quavering mewl, reflexively curling to cradle her aching head. Stepping off the young Spiritsearcher, Plaguebringer released a roar, undead wings fanning in victory as the pustules lining her body began to glow, magic collecting in the pus-filled aberrations. They swelled, bit by bit, bloated on Plaguebringer’s very essence, and when they burst the magic contained inside slithered up to Plaguebringer’s jaws, dripping in a ghastly greenish ode to the rot. “Goodbye, you little pretender,” she hissed, a drop of magic splattering over Spiritsearcher’s pale flesh as the Queen of Plague leaned over the downed god, and she arched with a frantic cry as her skin immediately began to bubble, forming unsightly swelling that quivered with a life of its own.
“Please!” Spiritsearcher screamed as Plaguebringer reared back, wings fanning menacingly. “Mercy, sister, I beg of you!” She tried to squirm away, and Plaguebringer laughed, a booming, wicked sound that shook the earth.
“There is no mercy in the sickness,” she rattled, and Spiritsearcher shrieked. Plaguebringer’s fangs sank into her shoulder, ripping through god-flesh and sowing the magic of plagues into Spiritsearcher’s blood. Writhing in agony, Spiritsearcher howled, her back arching off the ground as she clawed wildly at Plaguebringer, her skin contorting in unnatural ways as the magic wormed deeper into her being. Plaguebringer ripped her teeth free, prowling away with a sadistic gleam in her eyes, circling the howling god. As the pustule formation and abnormal skin movement rose into a frenzied beat, Spiritsearcher released a final, haunting screech, and then the streets were painted with the sickness as her form split into thousands of glittering pieces, snatched from reality as soon as they appeared.
“Eonwatcher, I have need of you.”
The Tundra shook himself from the dust and sniffed the air. Disease coated the voice calling him and so he turned towards the Scarred Wasteland. He felt an annoyed spike go through him. The land was going to get caked in his fur, roiling and squishing underneath his paws and he despised it. At least dust was easy to remove. Agrius twisted time around himself, speeding his pace as he travelled. His Slight Eyewing cawed once as he entered the loop; Orphanim’s own loop easily joining with the deity’s magic.
As his paw sunk into the fleshy earth of the Wasteland, Agrius ended his loop with ease. His mouth twisted in disgust, fangs showing, as he raised his head. Of course his summoner was deep in Plaguebringer’s murk. With a sigh, he looked to Orphanim.
“Go to the Loom and preside over the threads. This may take a while,” his voice was sardonic. The Eyewing nodded slowly, its halo trailing behind, before taking to the darkening skies once more. Agrius turned towards the Wasteland as the avian familiar twisted back to their home. “Now then. Time to find you in this domain.” The Tundra squelched past clans and quarantines without pause; their calls of ‘halt’ and ‘explain yourself’ ignored. The Wrymwound called; Plaguebringer’s rasping voice whispering his deictic name. At the rim of her festering cauldron, bubbles bursting in horrid stench, Agrius transferred back to his true form, gem eyes glittering in their hide as they stepped into Plaguebringer’s true domain. Eonwatcher plunged into her pool of rot without fear, emerging in her own throneroom, her Cauldron. “What has you requiring my services, Sister of the Septic?”
Her skeletal face lifted at their entrance, claws clutching a long bone stirrer above a noxious mixture. Her eyes glowed through the fumes, delight flickering in the eerie light, and her smile widened impossibly.
“Dear cousin, I have discovered a dragon posing as our fellow deity, one of your siblings, in our lands. An interloper in my domain. A necromancer of horrifying caliber,” her voice bubbled with unseen liquids and then rasped dry as bone as the Plaguebringer spoke. Spines clacking together with anger, she leaned over her creation boldly, uncaring of it’s spattering landing on her maroon scales, “You can remedy this with a suitable punishment. She wishes to escape death? Allow her something fitting.” Eonwatcher blinked calm in the face of her sudden vehemence. They had seen nothing in the threads of their Loom, so they were nonplussed.
“Explain your findings, cousin. You know I do not act unless needed,” they answered. Plaguebringer’s sigh was heavy and annoyed.
“That’s why you’re sequestered all alone, no creature even aware you exist; you’ve no initiative or drive to prove you are in control of Sornieth,” she hissed. Eonwatcher drew back, denying the hurt that she’d caused. They hadn’t needed attention as his cousins did, subjects and sacrifices to bolster themselves. It was lonely, Eonwatcher could admit, but not a reason to end a misguided dragon.
“A true reason, Plaguebringer, or you have wasted precious time.” Eonwatcher’s voice was frigid and venomous as they answered. Their cousin sighed once more, glowing eyes rolling as she did. She dipped a claw into her cauldron; the liquid shifting into an image of a large Guardian, or what seemed to be one, decaying and spiked in a way similar to Plaguebringer’s own body. As the deities gazed into the vision, the creature paused in its travels, raised its tail, and Eonwatcher reeled back in sudden fury.
As the thing’s tail raised itself, something clawed its way from the ground, writhing as an Emperor does as it pulls itself together. Eonwatcher hissed at the vision, at the perversion of their domain, and glared at their cousin. “You have hidden this abomination from me.” Plaguebringer leaned away from her Runic cousin, voice dripping with apology.
“I hadn’t, dearest. That thing had done it themselves,” her voice was sickly sweet, skulled visage smiling with delight, “But you can fix that quite neatly. I’ll separate the parts if you seal each away. Perversion solved and everything’s back to normal.” She reached a paw into her cauldron, withdrawing it with dripping green and black claws. “Seal the deal with a shake?” Her twisted claws were hovering before Eonwatcher, who hesitated. His cousin’s concoctions were not to be trifled with, but they always sealed their deals with a pawshake, a physical agreement.
Sands of time beginning to twist around their claws, Eonwatcher carefully reached out, clasped his cousin’s with combined magic, and Eonwatcher knew no more.
Spiritsearcher smiled as she looked at the crowd gathered around her in the town square. Eyes of all different colours stared up at her in amazement and adoration. She loved them all. Most of them boasted the half decayed flesh of a Kavvaket, the mark of devotion to her and to enlightenment. A few had yet to complete their first life, or had had their spirits anchored to a constructed form of bone, ash or earth. She loved them too.
The assembled dragons sung songs praising her and their own achievements, and threw scraps of bone and feathers at her as offerings. The Spirit deity collected a talonful of the bones and imbued them with magic, and life. The bones formed themselves into a Spirit Sprite. The crowd roared in joy and cheered. The newly formed creature looked up at its creator before flitting off into the sky.
But their exultation was not meant to last. A great rumbling shook the town, and Spiritsearcher looked around in concern as her people began to murmur nervously. The shaking continued, and distantly Spiritsearcher heard a great, rolling bellow. Shaken, she fanned her wings, shooting into the air, and those of her people that could joined her, their offerings clutched in hand as they sought to find the source of the noise. Spiritsearcher scanned the lands, and her magics froze in her chest.
A great army approached her little haven, dragons of all sorts slavering excitedly at the thought of battle. The prominent feature, she realized as her eyes narrowed angrily, was the brilliant green pustules littering the dragons' hides. “Plaguebringer!” The Spirit deity shouted. "Flee, my precious ones, whilst you still can!" She roared, and her people scrambled out of the square, grabbing what they could in their mad rush. Some grabbed weapons. Others grabbed ancestral relics. Others still grabbed fledgeling creations, new yet to their life and forming the connection to their body. At her cry, the army broke into a run, Mirrors cackling and whooping with the blood haze as they raced ahead of the larger dragons girding the army. In the center of it all, was the one who hated the Spirit god the most.
“You!” The Plaguebringer hissed, recognition, and hatred, flashing in her blood red eyes. Her head reared back, skeletal featured pulled in a snarl. "Take the city! Leave none alive!" She bellowed as her troops streamed past, wings fanning. The two gods stared each other down as their peoples met in a frenzy - Mirrors slammed into Guardians, and Ridgebacks girded the defenses as the smaller, lither dragons darted forward to stall the army. Perhaps emboldened by the attack on the town, the Plaguebringer took to the skies, wings working with the sickly sound of torn flesh to propel her forward.
They clashed as only gods could. Blinded by the magic pouring off their bodies, reanimated and plague-touched alike retreated, those still with eyes shielding them in a desperate bid to keep what sight they had. Spiritsearcher’s magic battered the landscape, oddly revitalising in the face of Plaguebringer’s draining, oppressive aura. Circling each other when one broke away, the two deities lapsed into snarls and roars, whipping around the few spires poking above the city, frantically ripping at their foe.
“I will not have you tainting my good work!” Plaguebringer bellowed as she kicked Spiritsearcher away, raking thick lines in her abdomen as the younger god tumbled back from the wicked fish hooks, wings fluttering as she fought to right herself. “The rot belongs to me!”
“They deserve life you heartless beast!” Spiritsearcher snarled back, flipping and finally righting herself mere wingspans from the ground. Before she could alter her path, Plaguebringer slammed her into the ground, cracking the lovely stones and sinking her claws into her shoulders.
“They deserve nothing but eternal torment,” Plaguebringer spat, bringing her head down to Spiritsearcher’s and glaring from one baleful red eye. The putrid scent of sickness warred with the equally potent smell of death as Plaguebringer hovered over Spiritsearcher, her bony spines arching as she drew her head back. Spiritsearcher’s eyes widened, and she began to thrash, kicking at Plaguebringer.
“You can’t decree such a thing!” She shouted as she tried to dislodge the god, and Plaguebringer hissed between her crooked teeth with a devilish grin.
“Oh, but I can.” With that, her tail cracked down on Spiritsearcher’s ribs, knocking the god senseless as she released a shuddering wail. Plaguebringer rammed her head into Spiritsearcher’s jaw, and she reeled back with a quavering mewl, reflexively curling to cradle her aching head. Stepping off the young Spiritsearcher, Plaguebringer released a roar, undead wings fanning in victory as the pustules lining her body began to glow, magic collecting in the pus-filled aberrations. They swelled, bit by bit, bloated on Plaguebringer’s very essence, and when they burst the magic contained inside slithered up to Plaguebringer’s jaws, dripping in a ghastly greenish ode to the rot. “Goodbye, you little pretender,” she hissed, a drop of magic splattering over Spiritsearcher’s pale flesh as the Queen of Plague leaned over the downed god, and she arched with a frantic cry as her skin immediately began to bubble, forming unsightly swelling that quivered with a life of its own.
“Please!” Spiritsearcher screamed as Plaguebringer reared back, wings fanning menacingly. “Mercy, sister, I beg of you!” She tried to squirm away, and Plaguebringer laughed, a booming, wicked sound that shook the earth.
“There is no mercy in the sickness,” she rattled, and Spiritsearcher shrieked. Plaguebringer’s fangs sank into her shoulder, ripping through god-flesh and sowing the magic of plagues into Spiritsearcher’s blood. Writhing in agony, Spiritsearcher howled, her back arching off the ground as she clawed wildly at Plaguebringer, her skin contorting in unnatural ways as the magic wormed deeper into her being. Plaguebringer ripped her teeth free, prowling away with a sadistic gleam in her eyes, circling the howling god. As the pustule formation and abnormal skin movement rose into a frenzied beat, Spiritsearcher released a final, haunting screech, and then the streets were painted with the sickness as her form split into thousands of glittering pieces, snatched from reality as soon as they appeared.
@Mnkn10 @ToastyThief @ValidEmotions @Rocwylde @SaucyHorse
