View source for Lay in the Darkness

By: Dortheron
Posted on: October 31, 2011
<pre>A slow chime of a grandfather clock bellows out, striking the hour as Lady Sol fell behind the horizon. Striking repeatedly, counting down the remainder of death and life.
Waking up startled, an older atavian jumps up knocking several books and scrolls to the floor. Looking around and finding nothing, he bends down and picks up the fallen items. Rubbing his sore back, he mutters incoherently, his words slurring together. He picks up his old and tattered manuscripts, roughly stacking them together, before glancing around to make sure everything is in order.
He catches his reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall. Wrinkled, blood-shot, white haired and spotted. He gazes at himself, a haunted look in his clouded blue eyes, a soft trembling of skin. "Who is this stranger" he thought "looking at me?".
He shakes his head, clearing his thoughts of such foolishness. He strolls out of the library, dust covered and heavy with age, and into his laboratory. Clean, sharpened instruments sit on a metallic tray in the middle of a work bench, spotless tiles and sterile walls with diagrams of bodies and dark powers. He goes to a chest filled with ice, pulling out bones and wax bags of flesh.
"We are almost done. Almost done!" he mutters, a glee to his voice. He carefully arranges the bones and packages of flesh, arranging it all together on a work bench, pulling a scroll out and double checking his work, correcting a placement here and there. He then gets out a piece of chalk and begins to carefully draw a circle around the table, symbols of wordless power and eldrich might traced in and around the circle.
Once he finishes his chalking, he gets out blocks of different alchemical metals. The old man arranges each block around the table, careful to balance them according to the scroll he pulls out and checks.
Stepping over the chalk, he reaches up and takes down a jar, tightly bound and covered in soft cloth. Licking his lips, he unfolds the jar, to reveal a heart, torn from the body that held it and preserved. He opens the jar, reaching in and pulling out the heart, cradling it like a child.
Slowly, shaking with age and care, the old man sets the heart down in the middle of table, amongst the bones and chopped flesh.
Seconds turn to minutes, which turn to hours as he stands their silently, his thoughts spinning around as he waits for the clock. A hiss slowly grows, the soft, almost inaudible voices whispering, chanting, praying.
The clock strikes, and he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a jagged dagger, soft glowing marks of various powers scorched into the metal. He lifts it above his head, blade pointing down, and screams out a frenzied chant, syllables of madness and despair. Screams echos his words, pouring out emotions; fear, hate, sorrow, death.
He strikes downward, piercing the heart. An blast of power blows him back into the wall, stunning him. The flesh and bones meld together, sucking up the blocks of metal and mixing, jumbling together, voices flowing into the forming mass.
The screams slows and fails, leaving the dark form expanding, stretching, shaping its self into a young female tsol'aa, wavy black hair, tanned skin, perfectly created. It falls to the table and doesn't move.
The old man stands up shakily, his eyes unfocused from the blast. He looks around with a blank stare, before his gaze settles on the table. His eyes focus and his breath stumbles as he chokes out a single word.
"Gl-gloria?" The female, the girl opens her eyes and turns towards him, brown eyes locking with his.
"Gloria!" He yelled, clumsily staggering forward, falling to his knees as he grabs open of the girls hand. "Your he-here. I did it...I worked years, decades! I worked and worked, nothing! The spirits had to be walking and willing, and the time just right ... Until I discovered Alchemy, I failed. Necromancy, Occultist, Apostasy, useless! But your here, your finally here..."
The old man pulls her close, weeping silently as he pulls her close to him. "Shhh...I'm here now Faust. I'm home" she spoke into his ear as cried.
She pulls him close, wrapping her arms around him tightly. She opens her mouth, a dozen set of polished metal teeth, gleaming in the light. She opens unnaturally wide, and-</pre>

[[Category:Bardic Merit Awards]][[Category:2011 Bardics]]