INIQUITOUS: The First War

[Asmodeus]

Men have much cause for hatred
Yet I am not among them
In seven hundred years Lord Arkanos has brought joy and prosperity
Saving ten times the number he slaughtered
He is a good man, the one who succeeded where Messiahs faltered.

But I will kill him all the same

The purest hatred has no cause
It moves without reason and springs from blackest inception

True hatred has no place in Hell
It belongs to something greater​

On the thirteenth night of winter, the peasants of Misengrad Forest were witness to the first omen.

The crow landed near the village well, and in its eyes were blood and noxious water. The children threw stones at it, while farmers screamed and barred their tools. But still the bird remained. It was a priest who first had the courage to strike at it, but though frighted the crow only moved to another part of the village.

For forty nights it haunted them, driven off each time but returning with the dawn to resume its vigil.

_____________________________​

In Edowin City, the second omen was ignored.

During the Feast of St Maritas a hermit arrived at the royal court. He had come in from the wasteland and proclaimed himself a servant of the Dark Moon. With eyes of eldritch fire he called upon the city to surrender its virgin daughters, as tribute to the approaching conquerors.

He was laughed from the court and stoned to death in the streets.

_____________________________​

For forty days, over the waters of the Tyraen Sea, the third omen was seen.

The moon ran red and from the skies rained acid blood. By the second week the sea was afloat with poisoned fish and shipwrecks borne to the surface by coagulate gore. Some were struck with horror and fled to the mountains, whilst others came from far and wide to view the curiosity. Wizards and clerics toiled to purify the waters.

A witches coven was uncovered in the Wiljen Woods and seven women put to the torch. But by then it was too late and a darker shape had slipped in front of the blood moon.

_____________________________​

There was no fourth omen.

Moridemus, Lord of the EverTorn and Champion of the Iniquitous, crashed down upon the pile of corpses, his feet drilling though seven layers of bone and snapping all asunder. The mound convulsed, like a single suffering creature, as it cushioned his descent. And all around him the black wisps of teleportation magic dissipated. Shadows fell away from his armour to reveal an infernal architecture of spikes and ridges.

One hand came out to grip a spear that had impaled a fallen centaur. He steadied himself, then straightened up and beheld the Plains of Baraguld.

Meteors were raining from the sky, each one dark and trailing tendrils of blackest witch-fire. His army was deploying across the plateau and within the cities that defended the plain, landing amidst the ranks of Elves, Men and Sylvans who had united against the invaders. In a dozen places the battle's horizon was broken by lumbering dragons and war-beasts, while the air criss-crossed with the exchange of artillery.

He leapt from the mound, crashing down onto the shields of the city guard. His hellblade bristled and soon was caked in gore as he hacked left and right, felling whole ranks of the beleaguered defenders. Shields were cleaved, armour ripped, flesh and bone mashed into the carpet of the dead.

Then he roared and from his lungs poured virulent fire, a green inferno that seared eyes and melted flesh. The guard were driven back into the ruins of their city and with beastmen and slavering minotaurs Moridemus pushed forward the assault. A swarm of harpies and gargoyles whipped around him, fuelled by his aura, then poured forth into the city to pluck women and children from the streets.

He would drink his evening toast from the skulls of the city lords.

 

[Sir Basil]

In some small corner of the battle field, near a large mound of corpses, sat a tall red-haired man. He was sitting on what appeared to have been a boy, just teetering on the edge of manhood, but at this point, the boy was quite dead. His eyes were cut out, and the burnt grass was stained red. The man sitting on him was cleaning a knife, and whistling what sounded to be a cheerful song. This contrast of cheer and death marked him out as the insane demon Octoberius, well known for being both xenial and belligerent at the same time. He looked pleased with himself, and it wasn't hard to tell why -- the silver of the blade gleamed with fresh, wet blood. He lifted his head as Moridemus crashed into the battlefield, acknowledging the General with a dip of his head. He quickly caught up with the general, leaping up from his place on the corpse.

As he weaved through the battle, he tossed a few odd punches at the fighting mortals. He amused himself by doing so, and laughed at them. Every punch he tossed resulted in a broken nose, jaw, or even being knocked unconscious. The few people he managed to get with his knife were lacerated across the chest, stomach, and limbs, and the knife was quite effective at severing skin from bone. The mad demon smirked, and continued to follow the Father of the Evertorn, as the scent of brimstone filled up his lungs. "Delightful," he said, mainly to himself, but perhaps to everybody and thing that could hear him, "Exciting victory, everybody applaud as you get gassed." He continued to push his way through the crowd.

He saw the dread General Moridemus, surrounded by a cloud of wings and fire. "I'll tell you, that flare for the dramatic is going to get him in the end," Octoberius continued to babble, "And I should know. I know everything, from the assassins to the kids." He beamed a bright smile that showed his missing tooth before lunging ontop of a small enemy, and placing the knife to his throat, "But I suppose that doesnt' mean much to you. Why should it? You probably think I'm lying." He took the knife to the man's face, cutting out and off his various facial features, "But I ask you, is this the mask of an actor?" He slammed the man's head against the city's cobble-stones, rather effectively killing him. Octoberius turned to another terrified solider. He grabbed the man, and stroked his face, almost tenderly. "Poor thing. You want to get out of this battle alive? That's nice. I like puppies. Puppies are nice." He quickly wringed the man's neck, and tossed him to the side, like a useless rag doll, "Ultimately, an irrelevancy."

The demon began to whistle again, and turned his attention to beating whatever happened to be adjacent to him to a bloody pulp with his fists. The childlike song mixing with the sounds of death, dying, and assorted ultra-violence was truly unnerving...

 

[Kitti]

[size=-2]
Alsariel followed close at the heels of Moridemus and the first bite of air from the surface whipped across her skin. She felt alive and she felt powerful; there was nothing in hell or earth that could quell the smoldering hatred of the horde that Moridemus was unleashing upon Arkanos. The screams of the peasants filled her ears. There would be a feast of flesh and blood for all who would partake tonight. There was no time for celebration now, festering anger pulsed with far too much power in the minds of each who sought vengeance.

Alsariel looked with satisfaction on the chaos that had erupted in their wake and she knew instantly what it was missing. Her feral grin split her face as she raised her hand to call forth her flames. Silver flashes sprang from her fingertips and ignited the land and mortals alike. Cries went up as the unquenchable flames consumed the defenders, heating the metal of their armor and eliciting still more terrified howls as the metal began to melt and sear into the flesh of her victims.

"I love that smell" she hissed into the air. The wind had turned hot with the fires and its dry burn over her cheeks comforted her growing frenzy. The acrid smoke of burning hair flooded her nostrils when she stepped slowly towards the fiery carnage that she had created. From the corner of her eye, Alsariel caught sight of one who seemed unperturbed by the mayhem and her eyes narrowed until she saw the blood over his palms. Who was this? Not one of the EverTorn; she would have known if she's suffered with him these years.
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[DoomOtter]

Sammael rode close behing the evertorn father. An honorguard of ten thousand demon-knights followed. They did not take part in the slaughter. Killing anything that moved may work for the rest of the Evertorn, but sammael and his knights desired a different prey. Sammael was already planning his first two steps towards vengeance, he just wished he would be able to take part in it. Moridemus would need him in the bloody war that was about to begin.

 

[Blind Hemingway]

Davkas was no fighter. He was more like the vultures that would surely circle overhead in the days would follow the EverTorn's victory. By his side should shadowed forms of Hellhounds, growling and slobbering drool as they smelt the blood pooling on the ground before them. With their every pant, flames spewed out; giving Davaks an aura of fire.

He moved froward, floating more than walking for he never appeared to have feet anymore just an empty black shadow that eventually formed into a torso. His black eyes darted back and forth. Davkas no longer had pupils but the hell hounds made up for his lack of effective sight. After all, all the souls head stolen did have benefits...

The animals trotting besides him weren't merely controlled by him, but were an extension of his own self. The entire collective was only one being which was capable of manifesting into the form of any of the six hundred and sixty six souls it originally absorbed, and if necessary they could act separately from the collective. Since Davaks no longer had any organs, the only way to feed the ever present hunger within him was to followed the EverTorn into battle...

With a crooked smile, Davaks spoke in his raspy voice, "Eat my children, eat."

The hounds then pranced jovially and began to consume whatever bodies, dead or alive, that they could devour. It had been many decades since Davaks had a feast of this size. The prey in Hell generally liked fighting back...These humans on the other hand, as soon as all hope had been lost they gave up their wills. With every bone chomped on and with every red liquid blood absorbed, Davaks felt his hunger fill; even if it was only a temporary high....

He raised his knobby, broken finger looking hand and the Hell Hounds stopped their gluttonous feasting. They whimpered in protest, for just like their master, they too had the ever present hunger. Davaks was looking for something better than just children and women. These beings were nothing special, after all. His goal was to add more powerful souls to the collective form....

 

[Asmodeus]

It was the fourth day, and the generals had assembled in the ruined palace of Prelemon. The roof had been ripped from the great hall as the king's blade golems were destroyed, a magic discharge that gutted the chamber and killed the Hell Knights sent to slay them.

One of many sacrifices in the days to come.

In the half-ruined hall, the generals looked out upon the great battle that raged across the plain, walls of rolling fire and steel pierced now and then by the black pillars of teleporting legions. The Elven Guard had formed a ring of silver around the second city and were holding as best they could. It would be a battle of attrition.

Moridemus sipped dark wine from the skull of the Prelemon King. The skull had been hollowed out and sealed with the skin of his firstborn, forming the perfect challice from which he quenched his first.

Dark hair hung around his face as a clawed and gauntleted hand ran across the maps he had lain on the council table.

"It is no random act of spite that brings us here," His voice, cracked by centuries of torment, a sound of souls trapped in molten rock, spoke out to his allies. "Twelve times in the Crusade of Arkanos, the Emperor was wounded. He bled, in twelve battles, and his blood fell upon the land. Here, on the Plain of Baraguld, was where the first drop fell."

His gauntlet moved across the maps, sorting through the myriad charts of the Five Planets, littered here and there with prophetic scrawls, paintings and journals... 7 centuries of obscure text. They had been gathered as the palace was stormed, and the bodies of their former owners twitched on spikes around them - librarians, minsiters and mages impaled on the pillars of the chamber.

"We shall fashion a blade from the blood of the Emperor - the blood that knows his sins, despite all the magics of the Soterion Heart. And with this blade we shall cut him from his throne."

Moridemus drunk deeply from the skull, the wine coursing over his lips and dripping on his dragonscale armour. "Somewhere in these cities, the first drop of blood has been held for centuries as a relic most holy. We must find it."

He passed the skull to the next of his generals.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

[size=-2]

This is not a war about justice
It was never about justice, even when Arkanos first fought
No matter what I believed we bled and died for

There are no wrongs to be righted
That was done long ago
There is no tyrant to depose
For Arkanos is a just lord who rules these Five Worlds fairly

This is about vengeance

I will tear down the walls of his cities
I will slaughter his people, every last woman and child
His Five Worlds will burn, his Empire will topple

It is not fair
It is not the right thing to do
But I shall do it regardless

And as he watches his worlds burn
Arkanos will know how it feels
To lose everything he holds dear
And vengeance will finally be ours

That is truly what hatred is
Uncompromising, unfaltering
Merciless​

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[size=+1]Above the Plains of Baraguld the Inquitous waits like a predator stalking dying prey, it's warriors hurtling down onto the surface atop meteors and chunks of the Hell-plane itself, all of them ready to do battle in the name of the EverTorn. The sun has been blotted out by the Inquitous, casting a red haze across the plains where millions of souls do desperate battle against the demonic invaders who seek to destroy them.

Suddenly, a chunk of the floating layer of Hell breaks off from the main body, at first free-falling and spinning through the air but soon swinging so that it's huge, pointed bottom faces the planet surface, aimed directly for the Plains of Baraguld. A few of the defenders look up and cry out in horror as they see the rock approaching them, but there is little they can do to warn their fellow warriors in the chaos of battle surrounding them.

Inside the chunk of the Inquitous, a legion of creatures waits for landfall, at their front a whirling mass of chaos and impossible shapes slowly filtering into humanoid form. My form is one of tattered robes and ancient pieces of armour, all mashed together by my warform to create a swirling mass of insanity. Finally taking what could be considered a coherent form, I spread my arms wide and face my followers.
"Brothers and sisters of the EverTorn, hear me!"

The things cheer and smash their weapons off the rock they stand upon, a cacophony of howls, screaming and metallic scraping. These are my chosen, the followers of the Fallen Prophet. For their crimes they were stripped of their flesh in Hell, becoming the Flayed Ones, and from the depths of our prison it was they who chose to follow me first to the surface to have our revenge. In place of skin they wrap themselves in bandages and other such makeshift coverings, their bodies constantly bleeding but the energies of the Underworld flowing within them refusing to let them die so easily. In place of hands they have grafted blades and weapons, their teeth sharpened to fangs.

Monsterous followers of Mormonai, the Fallen Prophet. My children.

"For millennia we have been held, cut off and denied eternal rest! For our part in Arkanos' conquest we were damned for eternity, as he sat ruling the largest Empire known! We were betrayed, my children, cast out and forgotten by the Five Worlds, nothing more than a bloody history lesson for the young to learn as they enjoyed the fruits of the Emperor's betrayal!" My voice has been that of a ranting holy man, but now falls to a hissing whisper that still somehow is loud enough for the Flayed Ones to hear. "They have forgotten about us, in these 700 years in which we burned. They re-built and prospered as we suffered, but soon, my children, this will change."

The chunk has entered the atmosphere, hurtling at brutal speed for the Plains, and above this racket my voice becomes thunderous once more. "For we have returned at last, children of the EverTorn, to make unholy war upon the people of Arkanos! We will despoil his cities, slaughter his people, tear down everything he has fought to build! And only when all is ruin, and he has lost everything he held dear, will we kill the Betrayer! Only then will vengeance be ours!"

As I finish, the rock crashes into the defenders of the Plains of Baraguld, crushing thousands and killing even more in the shockwave. It shatters from the force, only hellish and dark magicks preserving the piece we stand upon and which now rests at the centre of the ruins. A legion of Flayed Ones, the constant pain they suffer driving them to madness and rage, descend upon the city, with myself leading their charge. The defenders rally to meet us just in time, and we crash together in a whirl of blood, dirt and metal.

I will tear this city to the ground to find the blood my brother shed. Not one of his people shall survive.

Such is the hatred I hold.[/size]

 

[Sir Basil]

Octoberius watched the devils with some amusement, watching them go about with all the pomp and circumstance of some of his family, and other human nobles. Hell, after all, was of the noblest sort of aristocracy; a bueracracy. He stood close to Moridemus, somehow working his way up near the powerful general and Father of the Evertorn. He was not really interested in the flowery speeches made by these devils, demons, and assorted monstrosities. It was like they were quoting something, or performing some ceremony that his decades in Hell could not even shed an ounce of light on. That was okay though. He knew what was going on, anyway, or at least, he thought he did, since he knew everything, or, at least, was confident that he knew everything. Octoberius yawned, and rather impolitely snatched the skull-cup from Moridemus' hand.

"Sins? I suppose the Heart does erase the sins, but never truly. I mean, I have sins so deep I'm pretty sure the thing wouldn't do shit. But that's alright with me, you know? I mean, my sins are what make me human," He looked down at his hands, seeing that they were stained with blood. Blood from innocents, blood from children, his own blood, maybe, intermingling with that of so many other people. Meat and Chemicals, he thought to himself. That's all people really are. "Well, I guess I'm a demon now. But that's not the point. The point is hidden in a kettle of fish from the Elder Sea in the Sky of Tears or something else made of stuff and nonsense. Octoberius pulled out his butcher knife, and began to pick his teeth, taking a swig from the skull cup, not being comforted by the taste.

"This stuff is terrible. Do archfiends and ambiguously powerful generals actually DRINK THIS?!," He spat the fluid on the floor, making a red spray. He gagged a little, and and looked pained, "Don't you have actually....drinkable liquid?"

 

[Kitti]

[size=-2]
Alsariel slid near Moridemus and Octoberius, her sly eyes leaping from face to face. Neither one of them was a man that she would have expected to be paired with. Alsariel had always liked to tip the odds in her own favor, she chose to bet on the strongest horse and then kill all the competitors for good measure. Now, however, the strongest competitor had to be an amalgamation of others because singularly, she was certain that Arkanos was still more powerful than any one of them. Hatred bolstered her resolve in their cause, however, and she was more than willing to add her strength to those that would kill him - she had done so already in helping to pry open the gate that would unleash their plague of horrors.

Alsariel reached for the skull from Octoberius's hands and pulled it away as he rejected it. Trembling with anticipation, she allowed the warm red liquid course over her lips and slide silkily down her throat. The taste was bittersweet and she liked it very much but she pulled away the cup after only one drink and instead cupped the skull almost lovingly between her palms.

"Demonling, Arkanos had no wish to be human. He is inhumane and he revels in the kill but he restrains himself to act as king and the heart allowed him to do so. Don't doubt the power of Soterion's Heart, though. It might as well have washed the blood from his hands but within him, that is were we will find the darkness. His heart knows of his darkness and it sings to the blood in his veins as each drop rushes through it. The blood he shed will know too well the sins and by that, we shall end him. He left us the key to breaking his fortress."

Alsariel licked her lips, which were parched and dry from standing near the heat of her fire and watching the fools burn. Here, she felt out of her element, being forced to work on equal terms with others. She was by nature a loner and it was unusual for her to share her thoughts at length with anyone. She looked defiantly at Octoberius as if expecting him to somehow rebut her words.
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