Completed Fatal faux pas

[Nak'Ehim Akanamar]

Nak'Ehim and his men rode hard to the Valley of Kal'Daarin. There the vizier's path lead him astray, deeper into the ruins, where he had no doubt by now long since been captured. They would be upon them by next morning, and already the sun was soon to set on this day. He was eager to feast his eyes and ears on the secrets Ashuanar held. Despite what many thought, there was much the sorcerer desired from the mind of the vizier. He had the culmination of information crucial to the Empire's entire army, and no doubt many secrets about his comrades he did not share.

He wanted it all. By the time this was finished, he would instil his own vision upon the empire with his own God-Emperor as his avatar. His pawn. While to many much would appear the same, the truth of the matter would be that a true Abtati would rule over the deserts once more and bend it into utter submission. Then unto the whole of the world...

He snickered. It was all almost too easy with that blundering Ashuanar and his distractions. Affection. Why pursue such... irrelevancy?

As they rode on he continued to think about just how easy this had all been...

His eyes shot open, and immediately he knew something was wrong. Desperately he tried to recall how on earth he had gotten where he was. They hadn't stopped for camp...

His eyes cast down. There he lay with his legs and arms bound. He was gagged - to prevent him casting spells. But worse yet, which make him groan and writhe, he beheld in the dark of the night an innumerable swarm bulbous shimmering scarabs. They wriggled and scurried all over yet another, and another layer of the wretched things, which had sank their gnarled teeth into him and began to drain him of his power. His eyes searched frantically for a sign of anyone. Anything.

It was then when his head turned toward the light of the moon, he beheld a lithe and frightful shadow looming over the trembling heap of one of his men. He crawled backward from the figure, drawing his hand up waving her away and crying out with a broken voice, "that's all I know Fieravene, please!"

Oh no... the terror in his eyes only heightened as his eyes fixed on the figure.

Fieravene​

 

[Fieravene]

That stark figure was blacker than the darkest desert nights. The stark ridges of shaed armor peeled like abyssal silk through the air, swallowing all measure of light and energy around it into the voids of Oblivion. From within the void only two eyes of glowing red shown any proof of life, suffused by powers far beyond the realm in which they walked. They stared quite keenly down at the retreating abtati, scarlet embers burning with silent intent.

Fieravene uttered no words and made no sounds as she approached the man, turning the point of her sword towards him and letting it hover over his head. Dark ochre dripped from the end, platting onto his face. He would have wiped it away if his hands hadn't been bound. He stuttered, he pleaded, he looked over towards something just beyond Nak'Ehim's peripheral view.

"No...no...NAH-AAAAHH-" an elegant swing of the blade took his left leg, splattering blood on the upswing and spraying it across Nak's front.

One by one she took each limb in silent precision, walking each to where the man had been looking before, out of view, before returning for another. When the deed was done and he was naught but a torso staining the sands beneath him she turned to Nak and began her approach.

 

[Nak'Ehim Akanamar]

"No...no...NAH-AAAAHH-"

No, no, no. This... this cannot be.

His eyes slammed shut and his head quickly turned as the spray of blood shot toward him. Nervously he turned back to see, and watched as the darkness moved out of sight, and then returned. He couldn't watch. But he had to listen. Finally he looked back to see her once more standing over his dismembered comrade. He groaned in agony, and though he faded, it was a grueling sound which droned on and on.

He prayed it would stop.

His eyes grew wide as the shadow turned. Those red eyes peering down at him, tgey struck fear into his heart that rattled his very being. He trembled. He writhed and wormed to free himself as she drew near.

No. Not like this... I was supposed to rule this land...

Then she was over him. He froze, terror drained his face. His cheeks sank. If his teeth could chatter they would. As he looked up at her he realized that it was over... he was powerless, and even when it was not so, this reaper had undone him.

She was darkness itself. She was death.

And she had come for him - but he feared that she came first in the name of another.

Agony.

Fieravene Medja

 

[Fieravene]

The figure stopped just well enough away to leave breathing space between them. There she bent into a stoop before the trembling, sweating elf and set her heinous gaze upon him. Those red eyes pinched in veiled delight as she lifted a black armored hand to gently stroke across his cheek and jaw. What should have been an intimate touch instead turned into a ghastly feeling of dread.

Black tendrils coiled off her form like snakes, arching, writhing, eagerly reaching into the man's metaphysical self and siphoning away what precious life essence he still claimed. The gentle touch on his chin shifted to a clawing grip on the side of his face, a merciless vice upon his soul, enacting hours - days - years of torturous agony upon his mind in mere moments.

Oblivion seized his soul, peeling away the ages he'd lived and the ones he had not. Existence shivered, the moon shattered and bled, the world sprawled in agonizing holocaust.

Then suddenly it was over and he was staring at those red eyes. Fiera lifted that same hand again and offered him three silent digits. Perhaps three chances to live. His guess.

 

[Nak'Ehim Akanamar]

A spiraling dark took him, and consumed him. Silently he screamed out in terror and anguish, and though his body lie motionless - frozen by this tormentor's cold and terrible grasp - within his spirit flailed for freedom.

It felt like an eternity, and unending gnawing that ripped his spirit to shreds and obliterated his will. It drove him wild in his heart, shattering his mind. At some point through it all, he surrendered to what he finally believed to be hell.

And then, it all stopped. The wretched terror. The broken sky. All... a taste.

Crazed eyes looked at the elf's raised fingers, and counted them carefully. Then, through the muffling of the gag came the a sound like a laugh, sharp and abrupt.

A hesitant nod...

what... now...?

Fieravene

 

[Fieravene]

Fieravene drew a dagger from a sheath at her calf and tipped a blade so sharp it was nearly painful to look at toward the elf's face. The point slid broadside along his cheek before swiping upwards and cutting through the linen gag. The material fell from his mouth and the woman eased back where she stooped before him, resting her elbows on downturned knees to wait, patiently, for him to start talking.

She'd prod him with the point of her dagger in the chest between two fat and softly glowing beetles if he needed inspiration for words.

 

[Nak'Ehim Akanamar]

He flinched when she moved to swing her blade.

Then he peeled one eye open, and then the other. And then again, the sharp laugh of a broken and tormented soul, then an abrupt halt.

Somehow, he stayed the trembling in his voice, "you... you are a monster... ho-how that molten mut could trust such a creature..." he shook his head as memories of what had just transpired flooded him, and then he shook, only to freeze still and cry out at the prod of the dagger, "what do you want!?"

Fieravene

 

[Fieravene]

Such things he said. Sweet little nothings...

Fiera punctuated the man's outburst with another jab of her dagger, this time at the shell of a beetle on his chest. The creature writhed against his skin, sinking clawed digits deeper in gluttonous obstinance. He would feel this the same way he would feel a branding iron sinking into his skin - painfully. Ashuanar had not been wrong when he'd declared Nak'Ehim to be a powerful mage - her little beetles were positively gorging themselves and glowing with their bounty.

Taking that blade point up before his eyes, a gesture was made once she had his attention again. One his gaze was following the dagger, she reached down to draw a symbol in the dirt. Ashunar's symbol - surely the Vizier's second in command would recognize it.

 

[Nak'Ehim Akanamar]

Nak'Ehim let out a wretched cry as the beetles claws sank deep. His vision whirled and spun - his strength all but drained. These blasted things... but how did she ever...

Despite everything else, the fatigue, the pain, the horror of what was happening to him. Even for all the gnawing scarabs, the sorrow of his ultimate and utter failure - the blade point before his eyes - his eyes followed it. Diligently. Finally his eyes fell to Ashuanar's sigil, drawn perfectly for him to see.

The realization fell upon him hard. That this, was it. It was hopeless now... but perhaps if nothing else...

"The valley!... the Valley of Kal'Daarin... there is a temple there... I'm sure you know..." he explained the way, shakily, hesitantly... painfully.

He did not want to lose... but more than that...

He did not want to die...

Fieravene

​

 

[Fieravene]

Well that was easy - provided the elf wasn't lying.

She held up her free hand, producing those same three fingers from before and slowly curled the ring finger down, leaving two. Once he seemed to understand, that same hand then gestured for him to continue speaking. More information. The dagger conveniently stabbed at another beetle closer to his heart to help him understand the urgency of his situation.

 

[Nak'Ehim Akanamar]

He writhed in his place, unable to move. Unable to run. The second agitated creature caused him far greater agony than the first. He cursed her. They were empty but they were vile all the same. Rage took him and he wished to lash out. He tried, and he quaked to summon his strength, but the harder he drew the more the beatles' iridescence did grow, feeding from it.

He roared at her, "you will be but dust under our feet! You will want for death, but it will not find you!"

He bit and clawed as well as he could, thrashing and groaning. He ignored the pain it caused him for a time, before he managed himself to his side and gave one final howl before descending into a sob.

The beatles drove him mad. Their endless gnawing, their clawing and digging. Endlessly. Over every inch of him. And her, and her sickening, frightening silence.

He screamed, "that's all of it! They are there, the rebels!"

He would not mention...him.

Even if Nak'Ehim were to die, Iesha would have several weeks to find a suitable sorcerer... provided he was not discovered. Or her for thst matter...

Gerra had to die.

But he wanted to live...

Fieravene​

 

[Fieravene]

The free hand returned again, middle finger curling down to leave but one little armored finger left. The blade whisked through the air and pointed one last time to the Vizier's symbol, striking profoundly against the ground. A sound resonated from the point hitting a stone - it was the sound of a world cracking in half.

That same point then returned to the prone elf, but instead of moving to poke at him again it sliced through the air just past his head and took his ear clear off.

 

[Nak'Ehim Akanamar]

It was like a pain he'd never felt - just for a moment. Then he felt the warmth of the blood as it ran and began to pool. He looked at her, and spat his final words to her. He knew this was it.

"My creature will crush this false idol, and take his place... and dominate these sands..."

He began to laugh.

"Haha... and the best part of it all..." he looked down at the scarabs, up to the sky. It all was spinning now, "no matter what you do... when he comes... you'll never know the difference!"

More, crazed laugher. He took comfort that at least the harbinger of his doom - he could at least comprehend.

"And that fool! Undone by his own sister!"​

 

[Fieravene]

My but this elf was full of piss and whinge. She almost admired him for it, pity it would go to waste. Clearly Nak'Ehim was a thinker, a doer, a get'er'done'er. Fiera appreciated that, but she also appreciated not having her time wasted, especially after providing him with three separate chances not to do so.

His second ear joined his first on the ground, in a growing puddle of dark ochre. The dagger that had done the deed was wiped across his tunic and gently returned to its sheath. The dark elf stood once more, gesturing to him with one gloved hand, materializing purpose through the blood left still in his veins. He'd feel it simmer throughout his body, pulsing angrily against his will, driven by unseen chords of magic that brought him from his prone position on the ground to drifting through the air in a rather terrible impression of an otherwise lovely and graceful Ragashi Courtesan.

Fiera exited the small cave, beckoning his body along, and it followed without formal complaint but with plenty of agonizing pain.

Out beyond the stone walls, across an open plain of dried land, Nak'Ehim would be granted at last the answer to his earlier curiosity. What had become of his followers? Why, they had become a rather morbid work of artful landscaping. Dismembered limbs lay arranged in a curious pattern, far too obtuse to understand from so close. Aside from the horrific stench of death, he'd glean little meaning other than wanton yet faintly poetic evisceration of his comrades.

At the center of it all he was greeted by a massive cactus, one he would be intimately familiar with as a local and Abtati. Known colloquially as the Sun-Stalker, this particular cactus was as infamous for its heinous backward-barbed quills that were particularly difficult to withdraw from the skin as it was for its agonizing-but-not-lethal poison. Enough of a deterrent to keep even the most tenacious desert creatures at bay from the bounty of refreshing juice stored within.

Fiera stepped aside and gestured with that same hand, conducting him across the ground. His feet shlepped overtop numerous severed limbs, some he might recognize by tattoos or scars or armor, before pausing over someone's head. Might feel his toes dandle over exposed teeth of the gaping mouth as he slowly rotated mid-air and then, without ceremony, was pressed back-first onto the spines of the cactus, arms splayed out to either side.

The poison would hit immediately following the untold pain of the thousands upon thousands of tiny barbed spears now sunk into his flesh. It burned like the unforgiving sun through his muscles, causing spasms and eventually surface scorching.

Fiera walked a short distance away to where two swords were stuck point first into the ground and pulled them both out. The first she used to skewer his left hand into the cactus, the second his right. All without a word. All without a sound. All without a blink to whatever noises he made.

As a parting gift she moved next to a nearby box on the ground. Removing the glove from her right hand, Fiera then reached into the box and very delicately removed a long, softly glowing grub-like creature. This she lifted before her own masked face, turned toward Nak, and walked it over. It writhed in her grip, clicking angrily, and struck out with a maddening hiss. Rising to stand on her tip-toes to reach, Fiera dropped the thing on Nak'Ehim's head and stepped back to watch as it crawled through his hair. For a few moments it seemed to search about, draping over his face until it caught the scent of blood at the side of his skull. There, with a keening sound, it quickly slithered across hair and flesh and plunged its spiny head into the opening of a missing ear.

Medja​

 

[Nak'Ehim Akanamar]

Nak'Ehim almost feinted when his second ear was lobbed. But the shock of it all kept him hyper-aware, but the feelings that welled inside him became unbearable. As she went about committing her unholy acts, he screamed out sporadically sometimes angrily, sometimes frightened. Truly he felt his mind slipping into chaos, and truly he really had no where else to go. But, as hard as his mind urged him to dissociate, something pulled at his consciousness to remain. It felt as though he would be torn in two.

Somehow floating now, he found himself to be the puppet of her sickly games. His face curled into something like rage mixed with horror, and try as he might he was powerless to achieve any gain. He dug, and dug with every fiber of his being. He thought of those long told stories of heroes, who tore themselves free from the bonds of their greatest enemies - in their darkest hours - and defeated them to come out victorious. He begged for that to be him. But alas, it would not be.

A final, sinking feeling set in as he was lazily turned about and then forcefully flung into the gnarled cactus he knew far, far to well. In fact, it was almost poetic. He had done something very similar to what she did to him now to a great many a heretic. A sickly laugh escaped him as the irony flooded his mind. His laugh continued as she went about her final trick - delving into the case and revealing the wretched, ghastly looking grub. Nak'Ehim knew not what terrors it would hold.

She came near, and his eyes widened into a crazed smile as he laughed. He pulled at his hands but they would not move. For as hard as he tried himself free the cactus pulled back harder - their needles well sharp enough to dig, and malicious enough to cling on. He felt the thing hit him, and his laugh slowly but surely descended into an agonized scream as fear took him, and then finally the creature drove itself headfirst into the gaping wound on his head.

He writhed and whimpered as it dug, watching as the dark elf carelessly strode away from him - offering him not another glance. As she climbed atop her horse, and began on her way he screamed out at her... his words were anything but coherent.

Fieravene Medja ​