(Dream) Amaranthine (Ronin)

by **Mercury** on April 10th, 2011, 3:11 am

8th of Spring, 511 AV

Blur the lines of real and unreal; seeing is believing.

The eternal sky was a crimson red, juxtaposed with swirls of murky blue. Filled with dozens, hundreds of dozens, of immobile figures, so familiar, yet so upsetting in uniformity, lined up perfectly into rows, the Courtyard of the Sky was packed, hidden deep within the bowels of Mount Skyinarta. It was strange in its construct, so changed, yet feeling of the same. The raised expanse, of perfect stone terraces, so characteristic, was true, yet warped were the walls; gone were the arcs that led through to the many caverns of Wind Reach. Smooth and barren, the walls reached impossible heights, ending only to reveal an oculus to the sky: an inescapable, somber prison.

Rumbling from deep within, starting from nowhere, came the sound of an indistinguishable roar. So low, so yawning, it was impossible to understand. Opened the mouths of the faceless mass, to join in the clamor, crescendoing to a sound that filled the air, consuming all possible thought, they chanted. Within the endless sea, of soulless creatures, clad as Deks, staring into the distance, into the nothingness of the sanguine sky, stood one, only one of a different make. His façade, too was ashen, but livelier than those surrounding him. Within the throng of the second army, his form wavered, still trying to gain a solid balance in the unreal, unmoving, yet shifting valley of pressing bodies. He was supported, unwittingly by the stiff, figures around him, their faces indistinguishable.

It continued to grow, the noise; still clamoring, a war chant - filling the crevices, invading the spaces threatening to crack the walls. Pebbles, from high up, first slowly, rained upon the heads of the countless, covering them with a fine blue dust, then faster, till it misted the air with soft sapphire mist.

SILENCE

To the bones, a stillness, a quiet so dull, so empty it pulled, dragged upon all living energy. The figures, the endless Dek, hunched, in mock pain, caving in their nightmarish, skeletal chests, dirty rags hanging from their jutting bones. From a far corner, too far, unknown, came a shiver. A shudder, more like, a shadow, fleeted to and fro, nimbly through the slender spaces between the bodies of the Deks. It came to stop before the lone figure, floating, as if contemplating, before swooping in, a ghastly mist, right through him, fading back into the nothingness.

The moment was broken.

A clashing of shields, the Dek were armed, to the teeth; faces contorted into savage grimaces, of agony and anger. Ronin was forced on by the surging of the armies; the battle cry returned, no longer the lurid trembling to the heart, but a true, an earthly, base cry of war.

OOC :

by **Ronin** on April 11th, 2011, 9:32 pm

In his hand, Ronin held the talon sword he owned but rarely used. Suddenly immersed in this strange world so similar to reality but having such obvious and sobering differences, he was chilled to the bone. It was like someone had taken his life and turned it on its head. Everything looked familiar, but the blood red canopy above him and the scenario that seemed to play out before him were so foreign that Ronin could not comprehend how they occupied this room he knew so well.

Event seemed to occur in slow motion, but if Ronin tried to remember what had happened even moments before they played through his mind at a dizzying speed. The voices of the army of oppressed were powerful in a way beyond sound. They not only threaten to deafen Ronin, but they also felt as though they might tear right through him and leave him in pieces. The sapphire haze only added to the confusion. Ronin's lungs filled with the unbreathable air and he choked, while his eyes were blinded by the mist. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Ronin, the chanting stopped and the air began to clear. Once again he could breathe, and as his wiped the dust from his eyes he was able to see again.

Sight, however, might not have been the sense that Ronin wanted at the moment. He could see, with a clarity unattainable by natural means, the vest army of tortured creatures. That is, if one could call them that. Their eyes were empty, there was no soul, no passion, no fear, nothing. Their piercing pupils ripping wholes through Ronin's idea of mind. Such strong emotion, brought on by the emotionless. He couldn't help but pity them. Not once did he question if what he saw was real. Everything seemed more real than he had ever known, as if he had awoken from his life, being a dream, and found that this strange world was the true reality. However, his acceptance of this as real did not come with such rationality. It was a feeling, a passing thought, a guttural knowledge, that convinced him of this.

As the smoky shadow approached Ronin, he stood firm. He was armed and facing a horde. His greatest fear was not of a mystic ghast, but standing against an army that he knew was hellbent on killing him. This knowledge didn't come from their aggression, because they had not yet attack, but by the dark sense that filled the air. Like impending doom was written on his heart, Ronin knew that he should be afraid. However, as the shadowy creature came nearer and finally stopped in front of him, Ronin couldn't help but wonder if this was to be his end. Was this death come to take him away? The darkness thrust toward him, and instinct was the only thing controlling Ronin's hand. He knew that if this darkness was here to kill him, it would succeed whether he resisted on not. Regardless, his hands came together and lifted his sword in front of him. It had no effect on the black mist as it simply passed through the sword and through Ronin himself.

Ronin found that he had clenched his eyes tight, not wanting to watch his fate consume him. But to his surprise, he stood alive, and the shadow was nowhere to be found. For the smallest moment, Ronin saw the Courtyard of the Sky as it had once been, a happy place for festivities and joyous occasions. But it was a passing memory, broken by the sound of battle and the war cry of countless foes. Letting go of his reservation about dying, Ronin charged forward into the mass of bodies. He slashed and fought his way into them until he was surrounded entirely. His tactics were poor and his skill with a sword match them, but he did not care. He was cast to die on this day, and he would not delay his part. He thrashed the sword about wildly, hacking away at his foes without regard for the damage he did to them or how badly he exposed himself to their attack.

The greatest thing haunting Ronin's mind was that he would die in a battle against a foe he did not know why he was fighting. He would die a meaningless death.

by **Ronin** on April 23rd, 2011, 4:34 am

As Ronin swung haphazardly, the horde of well-armed Dek backed away. Some absorbed blows with their shield or even their bodies, but the ones that were injured were dragged back with the rest of the group. The frail looking warriors continued to back away from Ronin until there was a large circle surrounding the weary looking red head. Whenever Ronin would move in one direction, the entire circle would follow, so that he couldn't make it to any side. It didn't matter whether he walked or was in an all out sprint, he couldn't make any progress. He wished he had his bow, but it seemed that it was not on him. Ronin thought this strange, as he would not likely show up to a battle without his favorite weapon. Regardless, he would have to find some way out. The room around him seemed as endless as the crowd of heavily clad fighters around him.

Ronin was almost ready to give up and see if they would accept some form of surrender, when he saw something stirring in the distance. Just behind the line of warriors to his left there was some commotion. Dek were climbing on top of each other to form some strange tower. However, there was something even stranger than that. As each one would reach a certain point they would stop and clasp there arms tightly around the rest of the people in the tower. When they would do this, their body seemed to lose it's exact form and become like a pliable clay. As more and more Dek piled into the tower it began to take a strikingly familiar form. It was a man. A giant man, yes, but it looked human in the sense that it had two and and two legs and stood upright. The rest of it looked disturbingly foreign. The faces of each member of the giant creature were still visible, and the later additions to the tower used them as they scald it's legs and chest. The eyes of all the faces were wide open, but covered in a black sheen, darker than the night itself. This was in sharp contrast to the face of the giant creature, which had no recognizable features. Instead, it seemed that they eyes of the countless Dek were what saw for the mammoth being.

Once it was finished assembling itself, it stepped forward through the crowd. It towered over everyone else by almost ten meters. As the giant creature walked forward, Ronin notice something huge being passed through the crowd toward the beast. Just as the giant reached the edge of the circle, the giant object, which Ronin was still unable to identify, arrived at the same spot. In one, earth-shaking motion, the creature stepped forward into the circle and grabbed the object at the same time. It now came into full view for Ronin. It was a giant flail, each link in the chain the length of Ronin's arm. The mighty beast swung the gigantic weapon over it's head a couple times as it approached Ronin. Once it was within range, it brought the ball down toward Ronin at a dizzying speed. It was all Ronin could do to launch himself forward and out of harm's way.

Now about thirty feet away from the giant, Ronin decided that he would take the one shot he had at fighting it. He broke out into a full sprint, sword in hand, and with all his strength he thrust the sword forward. It broke easily through the skin, much more so than he expected, but what happened next shocked him more than anything. The mouth of the face nearest the spot where Ronin had stabbed his blade opened wide and let out an inhuman scream. The sound was nearly unbearable, but Ronin found a slight glimpse of hope in it. As the mouth of the face closed, the shinning black eyes also closed. Ronin was convinced he had killed the Dek that had made up that section, and he decided to thrust his sword in again in another nearby spot. They same thing happened. If he was to win this fight, it would be in this manner.

by **Mercury** on May 1st, 2011, 5:08 am

Like the sea during a waning moon, the rushing wave of Dek faded away, back into the shadows, emptying the field. Then the light in the plateau dimmed, spotlighting Ronin and the towering monster, wielding a menacing flail, pointed ends crusted with crimson blood.

He killed dozens, maybe hundreds; his sword thrusting, slashing, and killing indiscriminately. It made no difference to the monster who chuckled at Ronin’s futile effort. It even watched, not even trying to kill him anymore, as Ronin struggled to climb and kill at the same time. Blood would gush at every cut, every gash he made, drenching him with warm, spurting blood. The black, soulless eyes watched on with ennui as their brethren died. It didn’t take long before Ronin’s dripping, desperate hands slipped on the cold, distorted limbs of the endless dek.

A figure convulsed, its leg, or was it its arm, as it was reabsorbed into the giant; Ronin’s footing faltered, dropping him several feet. His left arm frantically reached out, desperate for anything, anyone. He was blessedly cursed, for he was saved, from falling the twenty feet he had climbed in the timeless void, but he was saved by it. Wrapped around Ronin’s arm was a grip of relentless death; a dek’s hand with cracked, yellow nails digging into his flesh, held him, forcing all of his weight onto his shoulder, nearly ripping it out. The monster chuckled from the depths of its form as the many dek opened their mouths, releasing a fleeting, high pitched synchronized cackle.

As soon as Ronin regained his footing his arm, his left unarmed arm, began to sink, dragged by the Dek into the form: first his hand, then his forearm, to his shoulder, slowly consuming him. It was a feeling of living yet decomposing abyss within. A feeling of ecstasy began to burn the tips of his fingers, gradually rising up his exposed flesh…. His cheek was pressed against the face of another, eyes locking onto the endless night within its gaze. It opened its cracked lips, as if to speak to him, as if to apologize for the pain, as if to beg for help, for mercy.

By the time Ronin got his arm out he barely had time to register what had happened. He pulled it out with a sickening pop. What remained was bone, shiny and pale. He flexed his fingers, watching numbly as they creaked, forming a claw. All the muscles, nerves, and even blood had been stripped all the way down to his elbow; the flesh around his elbow had been cauterized, as if by a blazing flame. There was no pain, only numbness.

Time was up. Ronin had fought well.

The featureless face looked down. Ronin had only reached the thigh of the mammoth being. It dropped the mace; screams erupted from the ground, fading into an ear splitting squeal. With its right hand now free, it reached over at leisurely pace. Its hand, formed of writhing Dek, had five emaciated figures screaming and clawing, as the fingers. Riveted from their thighs to the mass of other deks, they undulated with violent passion. Their glassy black eyes bore down onto Ronin as they reached for him, calling his name with unintelligible howls. As they got closer to the worn down man, they flailed with passionate violence, foaming at the mouth with eagerness, their pale, sunken cheeks, flushing from fervent hunger. To them it was an eternal wait, but soon, so soon, their pain would be quenched with new life. Descending slowly, as soon as one was in reach, the thumb, tore Ronin’s sword from his grasp. Before Ronin could fall, from losing his grip yet again, the others caught him, cradling him in their skeletal arms. It wasn’t long before they encased him completely with their flesh: consuming his form, burning him away in the darkness, in the abyss of the nightmare.

The last sound, the final note, was the deep sound of a satisfied laugh, reverberating incessantly in the dark.

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