- Invitation Status
- Looking for partners
- Posting Speed
- 1-3 posts per day
- Multiple posts per week
- One post per week
- Slow As Molasses
- Online Availability
- On fairly regularly, every day. I'll notice a PM almost immediately. Replies come randomly.
- Writing Levels
- Adept
- Advanced
- Preferred Character Gender
- Primarily Prefer Male
- No Preferences
- Genres
- High fantasy is my personal favorite, followed closely by modern fantasy and post-apocalyptic, but I can happily play in any genre if the plot is good enough.
OOC
A crowd of people had gathered in the streets of Nervarus. They hummed and jeered in equal measure, maintaining a careful distance from each other lest the light-fingered in the crowd reach into an unwary pocket, or someone take the opportunity to slip a knife between unguarded ribs.
There was good reason why Nervarus was known as the Dark City, or the City of Evil Gods. Those who roamed within its walls were all but lawless by the standards of any civilized culture. Blood filled the streets, assassins roamed through shadows, and strength determined all. But that did not mean that Nervarus did not have rules. The High Priests of the Evil Gods laid down the rules, and those who chose to dwell within Nervarus had to follow them, or face the consequences. And no one wanted to face those consequences.
But that did not mean that the rule-abiding, or those who had the power or guile to fake it, did not get some twisted pleasure at seeing the bill come due for those who had stepped over the line. Whether it was due to simple schadenfreude or some twisted sadistic pleasure, the citizens of Nervarus gathered in droves when a cry went up that an execution was imminent.
Today in particular, those who took pleasure in such things found themselves blessed. Some strange combination of timing and coincidence had brought five people to be executed at once, all of whose crimes were so heignous that the God of Blood deemed their blood unfit to touch the streets of the bloodsoaked Nervarus, and the God of Massacre had proclaimed their souls unworthy of the touch of a weapon from any of his executioners.
To them had been sentenced the worst of all deaths, an execution reserved for those who had directly offended the gods themselves, who had broken the highest order of rules in the city of Nevarus. They were to be cast down into the Abyss, to be hounded by the Voidlings until their souls gave out and they were torn to shreds. They were given the sentence of believing escape might be possible, only for that hope to be inevitably torn from them when their essence was rent to bits and devoured by the Void, never to return to the gods they worshipped.
The people gathered on the inner edge of Nervarus, where the city had been built right up to, and occasionally just over, the cliff that marked the edge of the Abyss, a black scar that sundered the land into fragmented pieces. Green eyes blinked up from its depths, surrounded by masses of midnight purple tendrils that reached up from the edge, only to draw back at the touch of black divine light that protected the edge of the city.
Five cages were hung over the edge of the Abyss, each containing a person, and each one surrounded by a bubble of black light that was the only thing to fend off the feelers that reached up from below. Trapped in the man-sized cages were three women and two men, each expressing their reconciliation with their fate in different ways. Two of the women spat and swore, rattling the bars of the cage or taunting those on the outside. As though in direct contrast to their noise, the final woman stood as still as a sentinel, one hand clasped in a death grip around the hilt of the sword hung to her waist, while a grimace warped her scarred face into an even more twisted visage. Her eyes seemed to skate over the hoards that had gathered at the edge of the cliff to watch their execution, but even she couldn't completely ignore the feelers that rose up from the depths, lashing out in agitation at her cage. Every time they moved, her knuckles would witen on her sword, as though hoping she'd somehow be able to fight her way out of this face.
The two men in the cages seemed even more resigned to their fate than the third woman. They didn't even bother to stand, instead slumping against the metal bars, heads buried in hands, eyes vacant and defeated. They ignored the jeering of the crowd in the way the crowd ignored the crude or provocative shouts of the two women, with bland indifference.
When the crowd of onlookers had grown to its peak, a woman dressed in black with a feathered red cape appeared from nowhere in a swirl of smoke, perched on top of one of the beams that held the cages suspended over the Abyss. The woman in the cage below her screamed in frustration, throwing herself at the top of the cage in a futile attempt to clasp one clawed hands around the woman's polished black boots. Every time she got close, a haze of black light, exactly matching the glow that blocked the tendrils from below, would appear to obstruct the woman's hand. No matter how hard she tried, she was incapable of penetrating it.
The woman perched on top of the cages surveyed the gathered crowd, and the people seemed to unconsciously fall silent under the weight of her gaze. Within only a few moments the rumble of conversation had faded into perfect silence, broken only by the continued shouts of the two restless women, who seemed immune to whatever effect had silenced the crowd.
Marielye, High Priestess of the God of Crime, spread her arms wide, the red cape billowing out behind her like a river. She seemed to well understand the crowd that had gathered before her, because she didn't bother with a sermon, or explaining what crime her victims had committed to be sentenced to such a gruesome fate. She stepped immediately into the action.
"You have broken the rules of Nervarus," she proclaimed, her voice seeming to cut right through the shouts of the caged women, easily reaching the ears of all listeners. "And now you shall face the punishment for your wrongs."
She laughed lightly, an airy sound that seemed in contrast to the blackness that had gathered around her. "I dare you to hope!" she told the caged people, still laughing. With a wave of her hands, the black film of light that had surrounded the cage shrunk inwards, wrapping around their forms and crushing their arms to their sides. "The Blessing of Darkness shall keep you safe for three days. Find a way to escape your fate, we dare you! We shall enjoy your struggle, destined to inevitable failure."
Then, with a stomp, the bottoms of the cages fell open, sending the five people plunging downwards into the Abyss.
Last edited: