FA+
Shop
564
Views
Views
1
Favorites
Favorites
Category
Story / Fantasy
Species Daemon
Size 120 x 120
File Size 88.5 kB
Report this content
More from dankedonuts
Listed in Folders
A demonic scout spies out a place for her people to join a vast battle, one of many being waged across the multiverse. But her people have a motive for war that lies beyond the destruction her people are going to wage.
This tale is a backstory element for a demon character in an Amber Diceless RPG campaign. It incorporates some of the fanon that has accumulated within my RL RPG group’s campaigns in that ‘verse. Particularly an expansion of powers granted via the Abyss, and the estimation that at the deepest levels of the Abyss lie sleeping Demons of unfathomable power and appetite for destruction not too unlike the Elder Gods of the Cthulhu mythos.
There is a follow-up/ prequel story called "The Lessons Of Et Eqlum" located here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/28340239/
This is a submission to the Thursday Prompt writing group. This week's prompt was the word ‘troop.’’ Check out the group's user page here: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/thursdayprompt/
And the other stories generated from this prompt here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/28042272/ .
This story has headed my FurAffinity page as a Featured Story
<--- PREV| FIRST | NEXT --->
Dream Of This Battle
By: DankeDonuts
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/
Atop an orange foothill, beneath a lemon sky, a cat-man scout lay still amid his cooling blood. The Demon who had usurped his watch station was long and lean and large of hand. Her purple skin was grooved with esoteric lines. Her face was a bone-white mask. Her eyes were pitch black orbs that missed nothing.
Below her hiding stones, a valley vast as a storm. Flooded with bodies, the wagers of war. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of them. The cat-folk to one side, their lines slowly breaking under the force of their adversary. An adversary with disorderly forms that fought with precision and discipline. She recognized the banner these battled under. A red-orange snake, one-eyed. The banner of the Serpent, patron deity of the Courts of Chaos. Some of the symbols flown beneath it on the many, many flags she recognized. Others, she did not.
L’Doth of Clan Ylussahr smiled to herself, with a mouth located behind her chin. If anyone deserved the fresh waves of death that were on their way, it was these usurpers of the Abyssal Maw.
Senses beyond a Shadow being’s comprehension told her that there were more of her kind gathering in the secret places to either side of the valley. More scouts such as herself, of the same form and bloodline as she, although of a multitude of colors. Here to widen the entry points for their clans and ease the crossing that their strengths may be best saved for the kill.
The dreamspeakers of her own clan had been adamant that this was going to be a battle for the ages, one that would be long told at the campfires that pockmarked each endless march to battle. Words now proven true by the presence of four -- no, five -- no six -- other scouts aligned to the Great Work. Somewhere, off in a nearby Shadow, six great living armies waited for the signal. Hearing the charged words of their chiefs and chieftains, receiving the prayers of the shamans. And, perhaps, extending the joys of the traditional pre-battle orgy; shoring up the numbers of those who would survive.
With so many scouts about to open a foothold into this world, the signal to march was going to be a very obvious one indeed!
From behind a wall of stone, L’Doth swayed back and forth, softly chanting a drumbeat’s tune. “Brrra-da da da. Brrra-da da da. Bradaladata dada brrra da.” The swaying became a dance. The dance became half a trance. Longer-than-human arms outstretched, picking up momentum with each spin and turn. The blackened claws of her equally lengthy fingers tingled with entropic power. Energies which she bound, through rhythm and will, on a course towards the incorporeal threads of Entropy that tied this and every World together.
Those Chaosites that could sense what was coming were no doubt charging to put an end to six separate rituals. But they had acted too late. Purple seams came into being up and down the valley. Two at each end, two amid the foothills. The seams widened, showing beyond them glimpse into other worlds. One full of green fire. The second dead grey and honey-sweet. Clinging fog bellowed out of one, howling wind from another. Five and Six could have been leading to the same place, one of solid clouds and singing marsh.
L’Doth’s people came by the thousands. Some marching with long poles in their arms. Some running in on all fours, long arms giving their bodies equal grace on four limbs or two. Others astride personal mounts, more still atop great war-beasts that bore dozens of Demonic warriors on their backs. Some playing thick war-drums, which became bludgeoning weapons soon as they came into range of an adversarial skull. Their countless footsteps shook the world, calling L’Doth out of her trance.
She climbed the rock wall to see the cat-folk lines break utterly. Scattering where they could, but more likely becoming pressed by Demon and Chaosite alike. Her scout’s duty done, there was no longer any reason to stay out of the fight. “Time to put on a show!”
Preferring the strength of numbers, she withdrew behind the rocks once more. To climb and leap her way down to her fellows as quietly as possible. Her bounding trek aided by a sleek tail. But as she drew closer to the thrum and thrust of battler, she could no longer restrain her thrill at what she was seeing in the crags between rocky shields. Howling blades and brilliant claws! Stampeding steeds and leaping legs. Victories large and small!
In the smoking distance, a pack of her own scrambled up the sides of a blue-striped Chaosite war beast, slaughtered those atop it, and took the reins to send its ten-legged bulk screaming into its own lines. Elsewhere, members of Clan P’Guth’Thl climbed atop each other to form a living siege tower -- sucking up many an arrow for their effort -- which approach lumbered a heavily shielded cat-man phalanx and came crashing down upon it. While others still rushed the feline archers assailing their friends. Leaping high to grab arrows and throw them into the throats of their owners. L’Doth threw up her arms in mid-leap, cheering for this display. Truly a deed to be sung about over campfires to come!
Not far off, a dozen of yet another clan surrounded a (presently) red-haired female with an unknown icon on her flag. They swarmed in to her at once. With only an oil-black tendril of pure Disorder, the stranger tore them down two by two, taking not a scratch. L’Doth cheered for these fallen fellows, too. For they had died for something far more worthy of a life’s price than glory, or territory, or petty one-upmanship. She sped on towards the field, faster than before. Seeking the signs of her clan and Chief, but happy enough to get into any crowd.
Her sneaking approach was nearly halted by what came flying her way in the next instant. The headless, spurting body was deftly dodged. It tumbled into the hillside, sliding flimsily downward. Brick-red skin covered in the runic grooves of Clan K’Chirikk.
“I’ll have your head next!” sounded a baritone steeped in rage.
Without missing a step, L’Doth took circled back, took up the corpse in her long, clawed toes, and launched herself upward with the strength of her bare arms. Twisting about in mid-air, she flung it in the direction of the voice. The body split before it hit the ground. Revealing a tall, pale man of almost canine features. A curved sword in his hand, bleeding blue-white steam.
L’Doth landed on all fours, then stood to meet her challenger. Knowing her face, what she had of on in her native form, was inscrutable to most. And how they tended to put many on edge. “Come and claim it, if you can. I did not come all this way to shy away from a fight.”
This fellow was less than impressed by her countenance. With each bold step forward, the Chaosites’s form changed. A stone-armored naga. A vividly-colored origami beast. An upright, winged gazelle. A walking pile of mushrooms. When at last he deigned to speak to her, it was with half a dozen electric mouths. “This was not your fight, Demon.” He spat the word with a fair of acid. “I know your species. Your empty quest. Your soothsayers have made a grave mistake today, and delivered all your clans into the wrath of the House Jurai.”
As if being a True Demon alone wasn’t enough to earn the gaze of the Courts’ pre-eminent slavers. “It’s your own kith’s endless waring that brought up upon you. The Sleepers Must Never Awaken! But you squatters insist upon ringing the dinner bell! Your boundless bloodletting calls to them! Enticing them to rise up and wipe all you presumed to gain here-”
“Speak to me not of your heretical beasts, heathen!” the shifting warrior barked through a gilled throat, crossing his chest with a slithering sign. Now a frosted lizard, the enemy brought the hilt of his sword to ice-blue lips. “May the blessed Serpent make me truly grateful for the victory I am about to receive.”
The Demon allowed him this moment of penitence, for it gave her time to offer some of her own. A prayer offered to the But meant for the benefit of herself, her son and kin, all of Demon kind. Hell, even this soon-to-be-dead warrior before her. Who stood to lose as much as she -- everything! -- should it not be answered. “See me, Sleepers Under The Black. Dream of me. Dream of this battle, and through my deeds let your hunger for death be sated. If only for a moment.”
The man of Jurai drew up his blade. L’Doth of Clan Ylussahr unfurled her stiletto claws.
They ran at each other with murderous faith in their eyes.
Though she had every intention of winning the duel, the purple maiden of war knew its outcome did not really matter in the long run. So long as her gods were pleased enough by the resultant carnage to remain still in their slumber.
<--- PREV| FIRST | NEXT --->
This tale is a backstory element for a demon character in an Amber Diceless RPG campaign. It incorporates some of the fanon that has accumulated within my RL RPG group’s campaigns in that ‘verse. Particularly an expansion of powers granted via the Abyss, and the estimation that at the deepest levels of the Abyss lie sleeping Demons of unfathomable power and appetite for destruction not too unlike the Elder Gods of the Cthulhu mythos.
There is a follow-up/ prequel story called "The Lessons Of Et Eqlum" located here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/28340239/
This is a submission to the Thursday Prompt writing group. This week's prompt was the word ‘troop.’’ Check out the group's user page here: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/thursdayprompt/
And the other stories generated from this prompt here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/28042272/ .
This story has headed my FurAffinity page as a Featured Story
<--- PREV| FIRST | NEXT --->
Dream Of This Battle
By: DankeDonuts
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/
Atop an orange foothill, beneath a lemon sky, a cat-man scout lay still amid his cooling blood. The Demon who had usurped his watch station was long and lean and large of hand. Her purple skin was grooved with esoteric lines. Her face was a bone-white mask. Her eyes were pitch black orbs that missed nothing.
Below her hiding stones, a valley vast as a storm. Flooded with bodies, the wagers of war. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of them. The cat-folk to one side, their lines slowly breaking under the force of their adversary. An adversary with disorderly forms that fought with precision and discipline. She recognized the banner these battled under. A red-orange snake, one-eyed. The banner of the Serpent, patron deity of the Courts of Chaos. Some of the symbols flown beneath it on the many, many flags she recognized. Others, she did not.
L’Doth of Clan Ylussahr smiled to herself, with a mouth located behind her chin. If anyone deserved the fresh waves of death that were on their way, it was these usurpers of the Abyssal Maw.
Senses beyond a Shadow being’s comprehension told her that there were more of her kind gathering in the secret places to either side of the valley. More scouts such as herself, of the same form and bloodline as she, although of a multitude of colors. Here to widen the entry points for their clans and ease the crossing that their strengths may be best saved for the kill.
The dreamspeakers of her own clan had been adamant that this was going to be a battle for the ages, one that would be long told at the campfires that pockmarked each endless march to battle. Words now proven true by the presence of four -- no, five -- no six -- other scouts aligned to the Great Work. Somewhere, off in a nearby Shadow, six great living armies waited for the signal. Hearing the charged words of their chiefs and chieftains, receiving the prayers of the shamans. And, perhaps, extending the joys of the traditional pre-battle orgy; shoring up the numbers of those who would survive.
With so many scouts about to open a foothold into this world, the signal to march was going to be a very obvious one indeed!
From behind a wall of stone, L’Doth swayed back and forth, softly chanting a drumbeat’s tune. “Brrra-da da da. Brrra-da da da. Bradaladata dada brrra da.” The swaying became a dance. The dance became half a trance. Longer-than-human arms outstretched, picking up momentum with each spin and turn. The blackened claws of her equally lengthy fingers tingled with entropic power. Energies which she bound, through rhythm and will, on a course towards the incorporeal threads of Entropy that tied this and every World together.
Those Chaosites that could sense what was coming were no doubt charging to put an end to six separate rituals. But they had acted too late. Purple seams came into being up and down the valley. Two at each end, two amid the foothills. The seams widened, showing beyond them glimpse into other worlds. One full of green fire. The second dead grey and honey-sweet. Clinging fog bellowed out of one, howling wind from another. Five and Six could have been leading to the same place, one of solid clouds and singing marsh.
L’Doth’s people came by the thousands. Some marching with long poles in their arms. Some running in on all fours, long arms giving their bodies equal grace on four limbs or two. Others astride personal mounts, more still atop great war-beasts that bore dozens of Demonic warriors on their backs. Some playing thick war-drums, which became bludgeoning weapons soon as they came into range of an adversarial skull. Their countless footsteps shook the world, calling L’Doth out of her trance.
She climbed the rock wall to see the cat-folk lines break utterly. Scattering where they could, but more likely becoming pressed by Demon and Chaosite alike. Her scout’s duty done, there was no longer any reason to stay out of the fight. “Time to put on a show!”
Preferring the strength of numbers, she withdrew behind the rocks once more. To climb and leap her way down to her fellows as quietly as possible. Her bounding trek aided by a sleek tail. But as she drew closer to the thrum and thrust of battler, she could no longer restrain her thrill at what she was seeing in the crags between rocky shields. Howling blades and brilliant claws! Stampeding steeds and leaping legs. Victories large and small!
In the smoking distance, a pack of her own scrambled up the sides of a blue-striped Chaosite war beast, slaughtered those atop it, and took the reins to send its ten-legged bulk screaming into its own lines. Elsewhere, members of Clan P’Guth’Thl climbed atop each other to form a living siege tower -- sucking up many an arrow for their effort -- which approach lumbered a heavily shielded cat-man phalanx and came crashing down upon it. While others still rushed the feline archers assailing their friends. Leaping high to grab arrows and throw them into the throats of their owners. L’Doth threw up her arms in mid-leap, cheering for this display. Truly a deed to be sung about over campfires to come!
Not far off, a dozen of yet another clan surrounded a (presently) red-haired female with an unknown icon on her flag. They swarmed in to her at once. With only an oil-black tendril of pure Disorder, the stranger tore them down two by two, taking not a scratch. L’Doth cheered for these fallen fellows, too. For they had died for something far more worthy of a life’s price than glory, or territory, or petty one-upmanship. She sped on towards the field, faster than before. Seeking the signs of her clan and Chief, but happy enough to get into any crowd.
Her sneaking approach was nearly halted by what came flying her way in the next instant. The headless, spurting body was deftly dodged. It tumbled into the hillside, sliding flimsily downward. Brick-red skin covered in the runic grooves of Clan K’Chirikk.
“I’ll have your head next!” sounded a baritone steeped in rage.
Without missing a step, L’Doth took circled back, took up the corpse in her long, clawed toes, and launched herself upward with the strength of her bare arms. Twisting about in mid-air, she flung it in the direction of the voice. The body split before it hit the ground. Revealing a tall, pale man of almost canine features. A curved sword in his hand, bleeding blue-white steam.
L’Doth landed on all fours, then stood to meet her challenger. Knowing her face, what she had of on in her native form, was inscrutable to most. And how they tended to put many on edge. “Come and claim it, if you can. I did not come all this way to shy away from a fight.”
This fellow was less than impressed by her countenance. With each bold step forward, the Chaosites’s form changed. A stone-armored naga. A vividly-colored origami beast. An upright, winged gazelle. A walking pile of mushrooms. When at last he deigned to speak to her, it was with half a dozen electric mouths. “This was not your fight, Demon.” He spat the word with a fair of acid. “I know your species. Your empty quest. Your soothsayers have made a grave mistake today, and delivered all your clans into the wrath of the House Jurai.”
As if being a True Demon alone wasn’t enough to earn the gaze of the Courts’ pre-eminent slavers. “It’s your own kith’s endless waring that brought up upon you. The Sleepers Must Never Awaken! But you squatters insist upon ringing the dinner bell! Your boundless bloodletting calls to them! Enticing them to rise up and wipe all you presumed to gain here-”
“Speak to me not of your heretical beasts, heathen!” the shifting warrior barked through a gilled throat, crossing his chest with a slithering sign. Now a frosted lizard, the enemy brought the hilt of his sword to ice-blue lips. “May the blessed Serpent make me truly grateful for the victory I am about to receive.”
The Demon allowed him this moment of penitence, for it gave her time to offer some of her own. A prayer offered to the But meant for the benefit of herself, her son and kin, all of Demon kind. Hell, even this soon-to-be-dead warrior before her. Who stood to lose as much as she -- everything! -- should it not be answered. “See me, Sleepers Under The Black. Dream of me. Dream of this battle, and through my deeds let your hunger for death be sated. If only for a moment.”
The man of Jurai drew up his blade. L’Doth of Clan Ylussahr unfurled her stiletto claws.
They ran at each other with murderous faith in their eyes.
Though she had every intention of winning the duel, the purple maiden of war knew its outcome did not really matter in the long run. So long as her gods were pleased enough by the resultant carnage to remain still in their slumber.
<--- PREV| FIRST | NEXT --->
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Daemon
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 88.5 kB
Comments