I
Icicle
Guest
Original poster
The sound of clanking metal and heavy breathing reverberated through every part of the courtyard. The smell of rot and death permeated every inch of air. The blood-red streams of light from the moon pierced through the grey fog to light a spattered assortment of spots across the ground. And through the spots, through the fog, making the noises, was a heavily armored, dimly radiating, white-skinned knight with sword drawn and shield strapped.
He reached a huge wooden door, reinforced with steel straps and barred on one side. Without pause, he raised his sword. A radiant light quickly and exponentially grew along the edge of the blade as he swung it down into the body of the door. The impact reduced the door to splinters that violently flew throughout the room beyond, slamming into the legion of animate corpses, bones, rocks, metal, ooze, and other atrocities that he strove against.
"Do you not know who stands before you? Relent and be spared my wrath!" the figure shouted, the light of his sword quickly flickering back to nothing.
The creatures before him groaned and charged, unable to oppose the will impressed upon them. With shambling hands, mutilated orifices, various gory masses and other atrocities of nature, they strove against him.
"Ye pitiful creatures. What a mass of wretches, to be driven to such lengths to carry out the will of your master." He readied his sword as the edge started to shine once more, gradually glowing brighter and brighter as they approached. "Meet your end in me."
...
The sound of clanking continued as the figure shot up the stairs, climbing several steps at a time. His sword continued to flicker, blinking dimly at random intervals to cast a dim gleam against the rot and moss splattered throughout the stairs. His eyes narrowed as he reached the top, so once again, he readied his weapon.
With another explosion of light, the door splintered and shot throughout the room, the careening wooden pieces flying every which way and violently meeting the walls, ceiling and ground around them. The figure advanced quickly through the short room, but a feeling met his gut. Why have I not seen any of the guards? Would not the king have attended to himself?
His nervousness and fatigue were suppressed as he strove on, reaching the huge iron doors to the king's throne room. But these feelings immediately returned upon his reaching the doors. The impenetrable doors, those that were said to only be operable by the king of darkness and evil himself - they were ajar.
He slammed into the door, causing it to careen open, and dropped his sword at the sight before him. His jaw dropped as well. As did his mood.
Before him stood a pile of corpses, 10 feet wide and 10 feet high. The corpses were heavily armored, and the blood around them was pitch black - the blood mixture of the goons of only the most elite Necromancers. It didn't take a second look to know that these were the king's guards.
But most shocking of all was that at the very pinnacle of the mountain of wreckage was the head of the king of evil. He was so overwhelmed by emotion that he found himself completely unable to move. A tear came to his eye at the sight - such an atrocious evil reduced to little more than a room decoration. He could not tell if he shed a tear at the realization that his quest was over, or at the fact that he hadn't been the one to complete it.
Soon enough, he regained his senses, grabbed his sword once again, and cautiously made his way around the pile of corpses, steering clear of the blood pool surrounding it. As he maneuvered, he witnessed within the throne a lady. Upon her body was the threadbare robes of a peasant, and within her hand was a plain rock, the likes of which she was analyzing with an amount of interest that even he could not fathom.
He approached. "Hello, fair maiden. May I ask unto you who caused this scene?" As he spoke, he sheathed his weapon in the hopes of being slightly more presentable.