Post by Mammon on Sept 15, 2017 3:56:38 GMT
| On A Cold Day In Hell |
Mammon's PL: 146,860 Mammon's current PL: 146,860
GAIN BONUSES: 60x GRAV CHAMBER + AL PL MULTIPLIERS: N/A
He heard it as the pitter patter of rain, not the kind of light shower you look out your window and say ‘boy ain’t it beautiful’, this was the kind that fell in heavy sheets like God was empty the bathtub and he didn’t care who accidentally drowned in the run off, ‘boy ain’t it beautiful that I’m not out there’.
He looked out on the blasted hellscape from the lip of his cave, he had secured a small base of operations a small hole in the wall with a few furnishings he had found or borrowed from other residents, and yes it was the kind of borrow you’d use heavy quotation marks to describe, with a slight hint of a ski mask and a brick. He now looked out to see the dried landscape covered in bright red water that filled the ruts and holes in the ground, making the expanse pocked with deep puddles like the welcoming embrace of puberty, with acne and all. It looked much like the metaphor, ugly.
And then he heard it as a slight high pitched sound, it made his ears twitch it was like the chirping of birds it hummed high and it went low, then there was the squelching of boots on muddy ground, it was a wet sound full of noise, the impact of the foot, the sucking of the mud as it pulled and threatened to remove the shoe with the next step, and the final suckling sound as the boot was removed from its oozing prison.
And he saw him, he had the ruddy deep complexion of brown dotted with freckles and a pepper white beard on his face, he had wrinkles upon wrinkles marking him out to be ‘old as hell’, which fits because he was in hell. He wore a dark suit only slightly more dark than the pigment of his skin, with a white undershirt poking out near the collar and most curious of all a wilting dandelion in his breast pocket, it seemed to draw the eye like metal to a magnet, maybe it being the only true colour on him maybe cause in all his time in hell he hadn’t actually seen a single flower, whatever the reason it drew him to this man.
He fingered at the weight on his belt, a heavy cavalry saber that was like a lover’s hand comforting and familiar, and not to mention deadly.
“Poor time to be out?”
“Yes.”
And then it happened, he walked right up to the mouth of the cave wiped his feet on the welcoming matt that he had so expertly ‘borrowed’ a few days back, and sat down on a moldering couch. Usually Mammon would’ve tossed this old bum and shoved his head under the mud until there was more soil than air in his lungs, his hospitality wasn’t to be relied on at the best of times, but he didn’t do that he just looked at him and followed sitting on a leather recliner with more holes in it than leather.“How about that weather.”
“Yes.”
He looked him up and down again, he was curious more than anything, who was this old man to walk into the lion's den so confidently, now that he looked at him more closely there on his belt tucked into a sheath was some kind of short sword, a wandering swordsman he thought to himself.
“So what brings you out here.”
And then he opened his eye’s, he hadn’t really noticed until then that his eye’s had been closed this whole time, and when the lids slid back to reveal two milky white eye’s like that of expired milk he spoke, his voice was a deep resonant basso that commanded attention, “you” and that frightened Mammon, he had seen strength in all its forms, from great hulking power to the honed pin point accuracy, but in this old man he felt something totally different, the utter confidence devoid of any need to boast, and when you wanted to truly fright someone you didn’t roar you whispered.
“A man of few words.”
And Mammon only had a moment to withdraw his own sword, getting it half way from his sheath catching the point of the man’s own, now that he looked at it it was a double edged sword with a heavily knobbed hilt, a gladius and he looked like he knew how to use it.
“Let's talk-”
It was pointless he was thrown back barely parrying the sword as he was forced out into the rain, the dulling ringing of steel could be heard as they met steel on steel, the mud and the ground sucking at his heels.
“You don’t know who you’re messing with old man.”
“Yes I do, Mammon Crudelis Angelus.”
‘how-’ no one should know that name, not even his own father knew it. To explain names have power, you can be tracked by your name, order things with your name, do things with your name, your name has a life all of its own and that life is closely linked with your own. But when you speak a certain type of demon's true name it gives you power over them, after all by their nature they’re magical in nature, you could bind one to your service or trap one, and this old man he had never met in his life knew his name.
Mammon screamed long and raw and came on swinging, the length of metal coming screaming through the air putting the dark skinned man on the defensive. “How!?” he didn’t answer he just expertly dodged and parried all his blow like a leaf in the wind, always bending and moving with the current never going against it but never being harmed by it.
Mammon was growing tired of this, if he wouldn’t answer him his secrets would die with him, he tossed his sword away the blade hitting the ground and bristling to attention as the demon changed, first was the horns they grew out long and made his head droop with their weight, then came his chest growing round and barrel like, and next was a thick coat of fur followed by a snout that stretched and warped his jaw.
There stood in the rain two figures one far more smaller than the other monstrosity, a demon goat hybrid with two sets of eyes a terrible mouth full of sharp teeth, and yet the smaller of the two did not back down. Mammon came at the wizened little man throwing swipes with his long arms hoping to catch him with his superior reach, he did not, however. The small short sword lashed out sending arcs of pain through him as the sword hit him with glancing blows that left red hot lines on him that bubbled and oozed dark blood.
“Why-” He was struck again this time on his nose, making his bestial voice almost thready and high with the pain. “-can’t-” And he received a cut above his eye that made him squint and look around wildly as his vision was clogged up with liquid life, also known as blood. “-I-” And another. “-hit-” And another. “-you!”
Again and again, until he was covered in them, he let out a wail that could shatter glass putting any would be Viking opera singer to shame. He just wanted it to stop but this man- no this thing would just not stop. “You are sloppy, weak. And you want to rule it all, you are unfit.”“I’ll end you!”
“No, no you won’t.”
And this happened until he was bloody from head to toe, he wanted to collapse but he knew it would not end there if he did, after all he would show no kindness to a downed opponent, far more easier to kick them while they were down after all. “I’ll-”
“You’ll what?”
That was a very good point, what would he do against an opponent that outclassed him at every turn. “Surrender?”
“No.”
Maybe just maybe he could overpower him, use up all his strength and wipe this annoyance from hell as if he had never been, yeah that was he needed to do. “Win.”
“Yes.”
And he filled as much body with power as he could stomach and then more, he let the dark magic rest like a stone in his belly piling more and more rocks atop it until there was a landslide of power in him. It hurt, it burnt. And he was on fire, he picked it up as the scent of burnt flesh wafted into his nose his nostrils flaring than there was the pain, he thought it couldn’t get much worse but it did.
“Y-ess.”
The flames bubbled up like molten rock, or more accurately molten flesh. Bubbles of pink skin flared up and popped painfully with a pinkish red liquid, his fluids were mixing and he couldn’t help but shriek, but no sound came out. his throat had already collapsed into so much fleshy goop. It was like someone stuck a stick of wood into the camp fire, watching it char and turn black and flake into ash. Where there had stood the demon now there was a mound of ashes bigger than a man.
‘Am I dead, can I even die in hell?’ and he felt it like a soft heat, not like the flames that had crisped him but like the distant sun on an early morning, he moved closer to it until it had wrapped him in its warm embrace. He floated there amongst the sensation before he felt it, the dark magic he had pulled into him before, he thought it had consumed him, no it was still there.
Transformation: Destruction King x18 Mammon's current PL: 2,643,480
The mound of ash shuddered and erupted soot flying up in great bands of blackened earth, and in the midst of it a towering figure with a pair of flame seared wing’s with eyes that smolder like embers, he stretched out his wings and crossed his arm’s getting a feeling for this new form. ‘Now where was that little old man’, then there was silence, the rain had stopped and the man was nowhere in sight only his lonely gladius stuck in the wet earth. ‘I’m losing it’ he thought to himself folding his wings around himself like a grotesque cloak.
“Was that real? I need to get out of here, I'm losing my mind.”
"Or did a hallucination kick my ass."
I’ve been given permission by Somatrope to use his Gravity Chamber, and have flavored it during this thread.
