Saturday Super Stories - Skulduggery Part 3

"Malefactor, Reprobate, Charlatan, Neerdowell, or Gentlemen Thief, names associated with villainy.  I pull from the universe tales of Larceny and Legerdemain focusing on the evil that fills the world."  The Nameless.

Andreas Darkk spoke quietly to the man who lay before him at the bottom of the abyss surrounding Carcass, “I did not start life as the worst villain in the history of the universe, wait that’s not exactly true, while I am a master villain; I am not the worst or even the best.  In truth I am barely adequate.  But let me start at the beginning.”

Saturday Super Stories – Skulduggery 110 Part 3

“My life is hell, if it can go wrong it will.”  Jason said over his shoulder to his friend as they ran through the wooded area on the path cut in the soil by years of travel.

“Quit being so dramatic, it’s not so bad, it could get worse,” then the two friends fell into the multi-verse and landed in a world filled with great darkness, and the two friends lost their ways.

Andreas continued, “I fell in with the wrong sorts of people there and had to sacrifice part of my immortal soul to escape that plane, and that piece went on to become something terrible, but we’re not there yet,” he paused and took a breath remembering as the universe flashed before him in those first moments, so many visions of elseworlds, so little time.  “So I was exiled into the ether and visited many other planes I began to gather friends and allies in each of places I landed, slowly building an army so that I could one day find a way to return to my home plane,” he paused again and took a deep breath, “But that part of my soul that was lost had stolen from me my empathy and happiness, I became bitter and angry at my circumstances and I began to forge a new path.”

“I soon found a temporary home in the future where some of my newest and closest allies found a map that we could use to navigate that universes time stream.  So we moved back and forth plundering the weapons and resources that we believed could be used to return me home but gradually the group began to split apart and settle in different places.  I was once again left alone this time a few hundred years from my home time period and I finally decided to stay and let the map move on without me.”  Andreas stopped and craned his neck to look upwards at the chained island in the sky, barely a dot again the sunlight so far above him.

“It was several years later I ran into a man named Darion Gray who knew me but I did not know him and it was then that I knew my journey was far from over, so I handed over a part of my stash and left him behind searching for the moment I would move on and become the man he had met in his past.  I did not know the person he had met was the remains of my soul in a host body and a true threat to the galaxy.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?”  Chang Woe asked the man bound before him.

“Because I am the Darkness in the souls of man, I am Andreas Darkk and as one of my keepers you are a key to my release!”  Andreas seized the man’s head and squeezed, absorbing his soul into his own.  He sighed and began the long wait, for he knew that he had to gather his energy slowly so that he might travel backwards so that he might be imprisoned here.

“I really hate time travel.”

Sometime later, Super University...

“The villain Andreas Darkk suffers from a closed loop of time.  The day he became Andreas set his path to the loop.  He will amass an army and find three like minded individuals and together they will travel from 2199 to the Event in the mid 20^th century.  Once there he will be defeated and the woman Pandemonium will imprison him in the distant past beneath the city of Carcass, where his energies will be contained.  He will eventually manipulate one of his jailers to sacrifice himself to Andreas and then the slow build until his release in 2199, and then it starts again.  He cannot deviate from this path or the paradox will kill him.  The prison is ingenious.”

“Richie you really are a nerd.”

“SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!!”

TBC in Skulduggery Part 4

Demonology 107 - Part 4

My name is Mercedes Whitman and I'm a hero on a foreign world. I am the daughter of two heroes, and was trapped on this Earth during an Event that sealed the way back home forever. They call me Black Sapphire when I’m out patrolling, and these are my Blogs.

In unison the three people in the throne turned as one and spoke.  “Why have you come to Carcass?”

Sapphire responded after a moment.  “We came looking for a man, and a prophetic vision brought us to the…city?”  Wynn nudged her from behind.  “I’m sorry I don’t mean to be rude, but the Mystic City of Sham’bala is an actual city.  The Dark City seems to lack an actual city.”

They pointed the floor and she noticed a pentagram begin to glow, the fountain at its center, and the top of the star pointed north.  The glow spread to encompass the stone at their feet and she began to make out the carvings set into the walls of the pit below them.  Outcroppings that looked like buildings cut into the bedrock.  “Huh, how about that a city built into the stone.”  Sapphire mumbled.  She spoke up, “We do not know why we were guided to this location.”

“You came seeking one man, but did not find him but perhaps you did?”  The female spoke alone.

“They did not come for him sister.”  The brothers spoke in unison.

“We came looking for Damien Lockheart, this man’s father,” Sapphire gestured to Wynn behind her.

“He was here once, many years ago,” once again in unison.

Demonology 107 Part 4 - “Bled Chaos, Raw Power”

Damien stared up through the blood pouring from the wound over his eye and grinned through the blood, a tooth dropping from his maw.  He chuckled at the man attacking him.  “So an artificial immortal thinks he can kill one of the High Blood?”  He cocked an eyebrow.  “WELL BOY!!  YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN KILL ME!!”  The shadows in the temple darkened and the man shifted his fighting stance.  The three others stood back and watched.

“We are the Four Woes and we protect this place from those who would take the power and use it for themselves.  I am bound as one of the first to kill you to prevent its release.  My name is Chang and I am your doom!”  His fists lanced out and a flurry of attacks came at Damien, but each one was swallowed just before impact and landed on the wielder of those fists.  His flurry stopped almost as fast as it had begun.  “I…what?”  He shook his head to clear the clouds that had overcome him suddenly.

“I came to this place looking for an immortal and I find four, guarding a cursed well, my time has been wasted and you will pay for attacking me with your life.”  He stood to his full height and straightened out his coat and held a hand out to his side, a weapon of solid darkness forming in his palm as his fingers closed around the handle.

“We cannot die,” one of the others spoke.  “We are cursed to remain for all eternity.  We must stand watch and prevent the rising.  You must finish the combat.”  Chang nodded and the battle resumed.

When the dust settled the temple was missing part of two of its walls and several of the stained glass windows.  Chang of the four Woes was missing, lost in the ether of the Chasm of Never-ending Darkness deep in the Abyss of Lost Souls.

Damien turned and walked through the wreckage as the three remaining Woes sat in their thrones to watch over the fountain.  He paused next to one of the stained glass images and puzzled at the spelling of dark with two k’s.  He shook his head and left the Darkk City of Carcass behind him.

Epilogue

Sapphire slide into the alley and continued running after him, he had been leading her through these back alleys for several minutes, always remaining just out of her line of sight, she could swear that the shadows were hiding him.  “I just want to talk!!”  She cried out.

“They always say that.”  His voice echoed back to her.

“You may be the only hope I have in saving my…a man I care about.”  Her speed jumped up and she cut the next turn a smidgen faster then he counted on and she grabbed his speed and he stumbled. 

“Please leave me be.  I’m not the man you’ve been looking for anymore.  Damien Lockheart died years ago.  I’ve put him behind me and I have bigger problems than you do.  Any skills I had back when I was him are gone now.” She stared at the man before him, and the shadows were actually swallowing him.

She collapsed to her knees.  “I need to save him.  He’s the only thing that I have that’s even close to my old world.  I hate this place.  My family and friends are lost to me and they only people from my old life that survived the Cascade closing seem to be enemies.  I found a tenuous link to that life and he is infected by a cosmic evil that I wish to purge from him to restore his soul.  Magick was my only hope.”

“There are plenty of other actual magicians out there in the world that are more powerful than I was.  You should find one of them to try whatever it is that you want to try.”

“I did try them but no one wants to attempt to displease the Entity, he has ignored the Earth since the Event and a few of them said that Spectacular made a truce with him to leave us alone.  So I tried to think outside of the box and hunted you down as my only chance.”  She stared with pleading eyes as the shadows grew so dark that she couldn’t even make out a shape anymore.

“Perhaps you aren’t thinking enough outside of the box at all.  Magick is a solution but ultimately always has a price, you might end up curing him and the curse might end up attaching itself to another, probably someone you care about.  I would go deeper.”  The shadows snapped back into place as they resumed their normal density and the man who was Damien Lockheart was gone.  Sapphire knew she would never find him again.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and blinked at the wall of the alley before her, amongst the graffiti was a huge yellow number three; it caught the light of a nearby doorways overhead lamp just right.  She stood and walked to the lamp and pulled the bulb from its socket and looked it over.  “I think it’s a black light?”  She mumbled to herself.  “Why would someone use a black light to light an alley?”

TBC in Stand Alone 9

Demonology 107 - Part 3

My name is Mercedes Whitman and I'm a hero on a foreign world. I am the daughter of two heroes, and was trapped on this Earth during an Event that sealed the way back home forever. They call me Black Sapphire when I’m out patrolling, and these are my Blogs.

Sapphire moved quickly and quietly across the chain links towards the temple, occasionally glancing backward once in a while to watch Wynn pick and chose his steps carefully. She sighed and continued toward the temple and the fountain, watching the shadows for any sign of movement. The cloud cover broke as she stepped onto the ‘floating’ island, the sun igniting the stained glass windows that could be seen within and on the wall before her.

She looked it over quickly, but couldn't make sense of the images without being within and having the sun lighting the way for her. She turned and waited for Wynn to finish trekking across the links and assisted him down to the ground, motioning for him to be quiet and to follow her to the doors.

They swung open silently and motes of dust swirled in the air, catching the sunlight and further obscuring the windows. Each wall would have held two massive frescoes, but whatever had caused the partial destruction of the northwest wall had knocked at least three of them down. As soon as the dust settled, Sapphire gasped and stared at the north corner, on which was a slanted wall and the largest of the stained glass visions: Pandemonium in all her glory. To her left hand was Discord, in another glass window. Only Jerusalem Walker seemed to be missing from the trinity.

“There is a similar temple in Sham’bala. No stained glass, but there are frescoes on the walls and they are prominently of Jerusalem Walker,” Wynn said from her side.

“Then that implies a third temple, if this one is for Pandemonium and the Sham’balan one is for Walker. Discord is the third, and has no temple.”

“That we know of. But if she was to have a temple or city of her own... where would it be? Sham’bala and Carcass sit on the intersections of the eight major lei lines of Earth and the galactic ninth that runs through them both, linking good and evil like two halves of a coin, as it were,” Wynn replied.

“Pandemonium wasn't evil; she died a hero when she sealed the Cascade.” 

Wynn shook his head before responding, “She was the darkest one of the trinity. Jerusalem Walker embodied what was good in the universe and Discord the neutrality. Each was a representative of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, and when they came to this barren universe they created the balance of the three.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Sapphire asked.

“They taught us many things in Sham’bala. Jerusalem Walker left behind many teachings. He loved to write, and there are hundreds of volumes of text in which he revealed the creation of the universe... and the world from before. He was the real hero of the trinity, and if it had been up to him he would have sacrificed himself to seal away the Cascade.”

“Always with the teaching, aren't you?” Sapphire knelt down and thought back to those last moments…

"But...why does it have to be you?" Tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

"Because of what I represent. When I am gone, the world will be a better place." She turned away and leaped across the void. The Cascade shuddered and snapped back in on itself and ripped and tore at the Universe. The Armada was lost, and the Cascade was gone.

…Sapphire stood and nodded at Wynn. “You’re right. I was with her just before the Cascade was sealed and something she had said hadn’t made any sense to me at the time. But it does now. She was the darkness in the hearts of man, and when she died, that shadow left the human soul, making the world a brighter place. It was why we have had so much peace since that day. It also makes me wonder why the Shrulk broke that peace all those months ago. Why did it come forward when it did?”

“I have no idea, but just to let you know, we aren’t alone in here.” Wynn pointed at four thrones which were facing the fountain, one was shattered and empty, but the other three each held a person watching the fountain, two men and a woman. They stared straight ahead and did not move.

“This can’t be good…”

Demonology 107 - Part 3: “When Walks the Dead”

My name is Damien Lockheart and this is my journal. If found, please mail it to the Raven Estate in New York.

Joanna paged through the book, reading entries that seemed interesting to her, but ignored most of them. The journal had belonged to an occult detective, and he seemed to be searching for his brother, mother and a close friend who were all lost to him some time ago. She frowned at the whorish nature of some of his cases, and smiled when he shared some insights on who he was before he came to this Earth. She was certain he was an alien, and that his real name wasn't Damien, but beyond those facts she was lost.

She had found the book a few outings before she had started to read its contents. It was found during one of the adventures with her cousins, and she had held onto it, fully intending to mail it to the Raven Estate when she had arrived back stateside... but she could not seem to let it go. She needed to meet this mysterious man, and perhaps go on an ‘investigation’ with him, but his cases always seemed to center around clues that he tried to use to find his family.

“Hey, cousin, if you’re done reading that damn book again we need to move out. We got word of a herd of Yetis rampaging through Oregon and Washington,” Barnabus called down to her.

“If they are in the U.S. then they are Sasquatches,” she returned.

“Nope. Yetis. Trust me. It’s going to be awesome.” 

She sighed and closed the book. She was going to find this "Damien" someday, and it was going to be one hell of a story.

TBC in Demonology 107 - Part 4

Demonology 107 - Part 2

My name is Mercedes Whitman and I'm a hero on a foreign world. I am the daughter of two heroes, and was trapped on this Earth during an Event that sealed the way back home forever. They call me Black Sapphire when I’m out patrolling, and these are my Blogs.

Sapphire whistled low.  Wynn came up to a stop next to her.  “We find this shithole yet?”  His breath came in heavy and sweat poured from his face.  She nodded and motioned with her head down the ridge.  Wynn turned and looked for the Dark City of Carcass and only saw the already decomposing vegetation they had been trudging more than a day through slowly.  “I don’t see anything.”

Sapphire sighed.  “Look dingleberry,” she pointed down at the ridge, Wynn turned to look and spotted what she was pointing at, a huge chain link, easily as big as a full sized refrigerator and it wasn’t alone.  “That tribe was right about the location, and the place feels like its eating my soul.”

“It probably is eating your soul.  This place is the counter point to Sham’bala which is a source for life; this place must be death’s house.  The rot is worse as we get closer and I would bet money that if my abilities were stronger I would be puking by now.”  Wynn whispered.

“Alright let’s get a closer look and see what we can see,” she slide over the rotting log in front of her and gradually made her way closer to the chain link.  She whistled again as she saw thirteen identical links reaching to an island suspended over a vast pit.  Three other lines held the island in place and the remains of a fifth hung from the island and the cliff face.

The island held a crumbling temple and even at this distance she could see through one of the fallen walls the fountain that had drawn hundreds of people to this place with the promise of eternal youth.  “I don’t see any remains.  There should be bodies somewhere right?”

“I doubt it; I would think that the rot would consume them quickly.  The rate of decay is amazing and its even eating away at the stone, the only things unaffected seem to be this chains and the island the fountain is resting on.”  He straightened up and began to scan the area around them.  “There should be a village or something here; I know that they teach dark magicks here just like Sham’bala teaches the good.”

“Maybe it’s in the temple?”

Demonology 107 Part 2 - “The Once and Future Queen”

Damien slide to a stop and smiled back at the horde of Orcs.  “Seriously fella’s it was only your queen and it wasn’t all that good or sexy.”

They roared and continued to chase after him.  He laughed and sprinted onwards.

A few hours ago at the Drunken Mule in the Village of Everdale

“So you want me to find this evil queen and kill her and her minions and free some sword from her control so that the kingdom may live in peace once again?”  Damien asked the noblewoman who sat across from him, two pints of mead sat untouched in front of each of them.

“That is correct Sir Lockheart.  Tales of your bravery have reached us even here in the outlands.  The Empress is wicked and drives at the hearts of our people, driving men insane and leaving the women barren.  Her army surrounds her in her tower deep in the Blackmire forest.  We want you to go there and take care of her.”  Damien shrugged.

“Why would I do this?  I’m not exactly an adventurer, I came here looking for someone and thus far haven’t located any sign of them.”  His finger ran across the edge of the mug and he fought the urge to drink, being this close to something that strong was taking a massive amount of willpower but he had been dry for more than a year now, and he was strong.

“You said someone, and then said them which imply more than one.”  The noblewoman responded.

“I am looking for my brother, a friend, and my mother.  We are a long lived people and when I heard rumors of someone that has lived for decades without aging a day I assumed that perhaps one of them had arrived here.”

She frowned, “I do not know of anyone that fits that description.  They say that the Empress is a demon of the highest magnitude and perhaps she has lived here for that long.  But I do not think so.”

He nodded.  “Okay I will take up this quest and see what I can see, but I do not make any promises for murder.  I will attempt to negotiate surrender or an exile, but I will not kill.”

“Agreed.”

Sometime later in the heart of the queen’s chambers

“So that is what the people want.  Do you agree to these terms?”  Damien asked the Queen.  Her skin was ivory, and twin horns spun around the side of her head.  She smiled her teeth perfect beneath her crimson lips.

“I cannot concede to any negotiation Immortal, I am here at the behest of my masters and I need to accomplish my goals before I can move on from this plane.  It is not my concern if my very presence causes mankind ill, I do not make war on them unless they come to me, then I defend myself.”

“Why are you here?  What do you want with this place?”  Damien asked.

“I am here to perform the ritual once the chosen come.  They will be guided to this place and perform the tasks needed to free the masters, they cannot be coerced and must do so willingly.”

“I see.  Is there nothing I can do to get you to leave?”  He said with a sly smirk on his face as the shadows around him seemed to brighten.  She returned his grin and stood from the bed and went to him.

Now

“Seriously guys it was great sex, but Demon’s just aren’t my thing!!”  He screamed over his shoulder and leapt through the portal that had brought him to this place.

TBC in Demonology Part 3