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[Mordrys] 'Just Desserts'


Dave ST

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Just Desserts

The fans in Deleshen's Under City roared out and cheered as the set for Death Metal Messiah came to a close. They chanted for an encore, they earned for another song, any song... they hoped for just, one, more. But hope was a lie. They would get nothing else from her this evening. Her set was done and she other business to attend to, like the after party.

Back in her green room as things from the set wound to a close and the people were milling out back to their meager and pathetic lives, she sat in an over stuffed chair, strumming a few chords on her bass as her and the others decided what they were going to do with the rest of their evening. They could all hear the fans outside the room, thumping and cheering and begging to go in 'for just a sec'. The Death Metal Messiah of the Yawning Void however, just smirked and listened to how they were constantly rejected and it brought a slight curl to her lips.

It was only when all the sound stopped and everything fell deathly silent that Messiah lifted her head from her bass and stopped strumming the notes. She knew it wasn't a good sign. A moment later the door to the bands room opened and the brief moment that one could see outside all there was to be seen were standing silent wearing nothing but looks of pure terror as their expression. The man who entered was one that Messiah had not seen in well over three months.

He was tall and toned, but didn't look particularly powerful. He had short white hair, and was dressed in black. Black steel toes, black denim and t-shirt and a leather duster that the coat tails were cut all the way up to his shoulder blades, for some strange reason she never ventured to guess. His name was Winter's Sanguine Shadow or 'Winter' for short, and he was the closest thing to a 'friend' she had among the Deathknight fraternity she found herself a member of not long ago.

“Odd, is it not?” His voice was calm and monotone, devoid of any emotion. “You despise hope, and yet it's exactly what you give them. Hope that they might see you, meet you, hear your songs one more time. For all your effort to dispel hope, you spread it everywhere you tread.”

He looked at the mortals assembled in the room who looked between her and him, wondering what the connection was. “Anyone who wishes to die, by all means, stay.” As the fearful strides of those in the room beat a hasty egress a sadistic smirk grew on Winter's lips. When only the two of them were left, as she knew he knew they would be the only two left, he turned to face her (he often refused to look at mortals directly). “I find it amusing that they all love their 'death' metal so proudly, and prostrate themselves before the anger and rage and oblivion... yet when faced with their mortality they so quickly lack the courage of their convictions. I know not why you waste your time with them.”

He dismissively waved a hand at the door, brushing the thoughts of her hangers on aside. “On to the reason for my visit. You and I have work to do. You are a Deathknight and a mouthpiece for the Void. There is a man of the cloth who needs to be sorted. We are going to be his reapers.”

Spoiler

He's the closest thing to a 'friend', and a tad of a 'mentor', but he's not the nicest of people.  Mingle or get your things and go kill a guy.  The choice is yours.

 

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Mordrys picks up the soft cloth which had been draped over the arm of the chair she was sitting on, and began wiping the strings of her bass, more from habit than from any real necessity. “You would not understand, Winter, the need for that hope the struggle each of them goes through. I will raise them, teach them, give them that hope we both so despise. Then just when their dreams are close enough to touch I will snatch them away and crush them and then, only then, will they understand what I sing of what it means and then they will be mine forever, and we will bring civilization to its knees and feed it to Oblivion.” She stands and places the instrument gently in its hard shell case which she closes and locks. “Where you kill one or a dozen or a hundred maybe even a thousand, we will end millions when the time is right.”

“So,” she said as she slips on her leather jacket while walking into the kitchenette. “This priest you want to kill, he is only a priest?” She opens a drawer and pulls out a meat cleaver, looks at it but shakes her head and sets it aside then pulls two large kitchen knives out. “Yes these will do. So this priest, why do you need me?”

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"To be clear, I do not need you," He corrected her swiftly and with a tone that betrayed a slight hint on his own hubris.  The Dusk Caste was goo at what he did and often worked alone, for him to have chosen to be The Death Metal Messiah's 'mentor' was about as strange of an occurrence as the rumors of the Underworld could have lately.  Why he decided to show her the ropes had always been a slight tapping in the back of her mind.  "You've been in Creation for a half a year, I've shown you much and you've been allowed to do, how do you say it?  'Your own thing'."

He leaned against the wall and folded his arms, only using one of them to gesture while he spoke.  "Your days of guttural mewling into a phallus shaped object for the entertainment of these skin-socks is over.  Our masters have decided you are ready, this will be your test.  If you perform your duties satisfactorily then you will be free to pursue your own agenda as you see fit.  If not, I will destroy you so that your power can move on to one more competent.  However I will enjoy torturing your ghost for eternity until the only thing you have left is the hope that I will allow you to finally move on."

It was no surprise that Winter hated Creation and for some reason he hated what Messiah did with her time, almost as if she were royalty rolling around in the mud with the peasants, but he was also a Dusk and unless it came to war, he wasn't one for the long game, that much was obvious.  "This priest, William Luckley, is a corpse eater.  A cannibal.  Normally that wouldn't be our concern, but he's performing funerary rights to families.  He's extorting money from people to perform rights for a body that isn't in the casket, it's in his freezer.  Without those rights the dead can not rest peacefully, nor can the family offer proper homage to their ancestors since there was no proper burial performed."

He pushed off the wall and his fist was encased in in necrotic essence.    It flickered and dances like a blackish/purple flame before being snuffed out with an audible wisp.  "And that, dear Priestess of the Neverborn, I shan't abide.  We will rectify this problem tonight.  We will give the family's closure and see to it that the cycle continues."

She wasn't sure if Winter realized it or not, but it was in that moment that it dawned on Mordrys that the Abyssals were as much bound to Creation as they were to the Underworld.  Creation needed them.  Without them, or people to properly keep the living in line and the dead in check, one would undoubtedly overtake the other... so, why hadn't the Neverborn allowed this yet if Oblivion was their ultimate end game?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Mordrys paused and slowly her lips bent upward into a very disturbing smile.

"What," asked Winter

"Punishing the cannibal is fine but we must not lose our sense of purpose. His death at our hand must not lose context or it will just be seen as an unfortunate albeit terrible murder in a city overwhelmed by such. No we must show the world and those grieving families that their hope was misplaced in the anointed of their religion. That the hope that they placed in this mortal monster was  misguided and that the only true  respite from the despair of death is the embracement of Oblivion."

She sticks the end of a red twizzler between her black lips and takes a bite. "Shall we?"

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"After you, my dear," Winter said with eloquence befitting a man who may have been royalty before his passing.

They decided to walk.  Nothing screamed 'we did it' like pulling up to a soon-to-be-murder-scene in a damn tour bus with your band's logo on the side.  Winter made for rather boring conversation, as usual, but she took it in stride.  To say she trusted him would have been a lie for the centuries.  She knew he'd sooner save her from a fire than he would toss her into one if it suited his personal agenda to do so.  She knew he heard the whispers of the Neverborn, like she did, although according to him it was nothing near as powerful as her ability.  She also knew the Neverborn cared for nothing, even her or him.  They were tools, slaves to the Whispers despite how much freedom they thought they had, a gilded cage was still a cage.  She had to wonder what they told him...

"...if all goes well The Maiden of the Mirthless Smile should bring Thorns to it's knees in a matter of weeks."  Winter said.  She was half listening, but caught the last part.  "For every soldier that dies, she gains one for her side of the fight.  The Mistress of Pacts Sealed in Blood has already joined her, in an attempt to facilitate communication and terminate hostilities."

He clammed up as they passed an old man walking out of a store front.  He turned up his collar to the chill of the evening and when he saw the young couple he offered them a polite smile and a nod.  They both eyed him suspiciously, after all this was the slums, you eyeballed everyone with suspicion, but he went his way and they went theirs.

Nine blocks later they stood outside the gates to an Immaculate Cathedral.  Home to the worship of the Black Jade Emperor and his sister, the Saint Cecilia.  Winter smirked and pushed the wrought iron gates open and the two made their way across the grounds to the large doors.  It was an elaborate affair of stained glass and gargoyles in the shapes of dragons and demons all being cast below by The One True God, the Black Jade Emperor.  They pushed open the doors and stood in the alcove near the holy water basin.  Before them was a massive array of pews and in the distance an elaborate organ and stands in the back for the choir and a of course the podium where the priest would give his weekly sermons.  The place was massive, like some sports fields, and the intricacy of the carvings and stained glass were enough to warm Messiah's heart and truly appreciate the beauty of what they had created here... until she remembered the guy running the place was a piece of shit cannibal stealing away the offering of the dead so loved one's couldn't rest in peace.

From off to the side, from a hidden alcove deep in the back, the man they were looking for stepped out.  He was older, but not old.  Maybe in his fifties, looked healthy and certainly seemed normal, but didn't they all?  He was in elaborate robes befitting his station and he greeted them with a smile. "I'm sorry, but we're not entertaining guests anymore this evening.  Unless of course it's an emergency.  Are you two alright?  Were you chased in here by the dregs of the neighborhood?  I can call the authorities and have them escort you home."

She looked to Winter who simply smiled and motioned for her to take the lead.  "It's your show.  I'm just here to observe and assist as needed."

Spoiler

It's all you.  This is Exalted, so nothing is ever easy... but please... by all means... pretend like it will be.  :)

Remember, death is a release, not a punishment.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

The look she gave Winter was made of daggers, she didn't like being tested, especially by the likes of him. She faced the priest and started to walk toward him the sway of her hips exaggerated. "Guest? Not worshiper's?" She swayed to an inner music playing in her head, her eyes taking in the details of the church, taking the measure of the man before her. "After all if those who come here are your guests then as such obligation is yours, but if worshipers then obligation is between the god and the supplicant. Odd." She took a step. " Choice." Then another.  "Of." She stopped.  "Word. Don't you think?" The last She asked over her shoulder at Winter who merely shrugged.

Mordrys looked at the priest now that she was closer He didn't look like a monster. She looked into his eyes wanting to find something horrible wanted to see what he was hiding in his dark little mind.

"So you hungry? Who's for dinner?"

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