ORIGIN
Before misinterpreted tales birthed the stories of modern day religion, there were occult kingdoms. Kingdoms with shadowed domains of undead cannibal assassins riding oversized and white eyed salivating wolves. Gothic cathedral like towers housing elegant and dangerous dark arts priestesses. Realms of towering gods of death and malicious soul devouring witch kings. Kingdoms spreading across vast stretches of land with forbidden forests and valleys of night housing not only gypsies and mystics but also oversized centipedes, mischievous ethereal feral cats, poisonous plants and wise yet carnivorous vultures. It was and age of witch craft and sacrifices, unclaimed souls and the gods that would fight to claim them and shape the fates of men. So this is where our story begins, with the escape of a imprisoned malicious witch king from the underworld, seeking to consume the souls of the sacrificed to regain his power and enslave the underworld in a fiery hell and those who dare to oppose him.
CASTLE
The night air chilled her sweat covered body, only given relief by the warm crackling beside her. As she regained consciousness the fires warm light filled her eyes as. Splintered remains of bone twisted beneath the flesh of her swollen leg. her teeth clenched and muscles winced.
She put one hand to the ground, “you can do this”. She lifted her dirt covered face from the soil, soil now muddied with crimson. she pulled the weighted leg along the village street with muffled screams. Collapsing once more into the dirt, unready for the pain, her face fell back to the warm wet ground.
The tree line was close, and she knew if she didn’t make it shed be dead by morning. “You can do this!” came through her clenched teeth, teeth pressed as if to break them. Clawing towards the safety of the trees, moist handfuls of ash and dirt filled fingernails and stained her hands red.
The frost bitten grass of the tree line, was a harsh contrast from the warmth of her crackling piled friends and family she had woke up beside. Propping her self up to look back from the trees , her dry throat let out a choked whimper. Flickering embers and a twisted smoke, the houses of her village led like fiery lanterns to the mouth of the black canyon. A canyon that before that night had only been legend. Legend like the castle and creatures that lie within in. Creatures with soulless glowing eyes like the three girls that had destroyed her town.
Thick snaps of sturdy branches broke the silence of the dark woods behind her. All muscles froze except convulsing shivers. With heart pounding, and short frost filled breaths, she turned her head to the dark depths of the unwelcoming woods.
Horns broke branches twenty feet in the air. Its smile thin and hungry filled the darkness between them. It had their eyes, the same soul consuming eyes of the girls from the canyon. A predators eyes, and they were fixed on hers. In that moment she knew two things. The castle was real, and only her soul would see it.
SEAMSTRESS
Known only as the seamstress, she is introverted and seldom seen, of which was not always the case.
Her once home was a beautiful and glimmering kingdom, rich with gems of the world and cloth fit for royalty. Here with the help of her sparrows, shears and young daughter, she created garments for the kingdoms and their rulers, mortal and enchanted.
Upon the delivery of a garment to a greedy ruler of a different realm, he felt the quality fabric and traced his fingers over the precision inset jewels. The ruler decided that none other then himself should be able to wear those garments from that point on.
He went to the glimmering kingdom of the seamstress and talked of peace and exclusivity to him alone. She denied. Feeling justified, the entitled ruler had his awaiting armies storm and pillage the city, for if he should not have it then no one would. The seamstress prayed for salvation as soliders stormed and killed every last one of the cities inhabitants, man, women and child. This included a child whos small hands had helped her since birth, her daughter. Feeling satisfied in his retribution for her unwillingness of obedience, the ruler pushes a blade into her heart and leaves her to die.
Where prayers failed, with her last breaths she made a promise. If darkness would allow her vengeance then it could have her soul. Hexus heard her call. Reanimation and mythical powers were promised in exchange for her services. Pushing up from the floor her dead limbs moved and her heart caused her pain, a pain unnecessary for vengeance. Thin slices and a small tug, she held her pierced heart in her hand. She discarded it along with all sympathy for people it had potentially once held.
Along her path for vengeance her dead body decays and her victims fresh limbs became regular replacements as she would attach and reanimate it, sewing them to her own. Overtime she creates her ideal image from the flesh of queens she has seen along the way. Eventually she realizes she can leave her own body and reanimate any dead and soulless corpse, even those of her own creation.
Finally, vengeance is complete and the greed filled rulers death came by her hand. The seamstress then finds herself at the valley of shadows and domain of hexus to fulfill her promise. Working for hexus, among many things she creates the blind virgins. Removing eyes in place of jewels and binding them with magical rope, she creates hollow dolls of the once virgin women they were. These possessed doll like vessel’s contain the evil of the 3 queens of the valley of shadows, and allow the queens to act out their will outside of their imprisonment in the castle.
Over time the seamstress starts to make life sized elaborate dolls and an assortment of creatures of which she can embody, transferring life to. Dolls lead to houses and houses to worlds. The seamstress now inhabits a realm of endless bodies and a singular consciousness.
DEMELZA
One of two children, Demelza and her sister were raised by a ruthless warlord whos only loves were the challenge of a worthy adversary and his daughters. The warlord raised his daughters with an iron will. They became ruthless and fought in battles beside their father even before their teens.
Later after their fathers eventual death, the sisters were left to lead his kingdom. Demelza led the armies with her oversized wolves and spiked chains. Her sister ruled the kingdom with her wit and tactical planning. Slowly Demelzas sister became political and poisoned by the influence of a new and fast growing religion that had taken hold in her city. The leaders of this new religion manipulated and brainwashed demelzas sister. They had convinced her that Demelzas blood lust had grown to great and was threatening the future reputation of the kingdom. Demelzas death was ordered.
Through gurgled cries, Demelzas would be assassin, unable to carry out his task, gasped through tortured breaths as he explained what had happened. Demelza returned home and upon remorsefully killing her sister, became the sole queen to the kingdom. She appointed a trusted friend and official to the head seat of the kingdom, so she could remain on the red stained front lines where she felt most at home.
People said after the death of her sister, Demelza became unhinged with an evermore insatiable bloodlust. She blamed her sisters death on the new found religion that had poisoned her sisters mind. Demelza and her legions followed any trace of the religions whereabouts and killed all armies and citizens in their path.
Demelza and her warriors became so formidable that it took several opposing kingdoms to band together in a effort to kill her which they eventually achieved. They made a tomb for her amongst the rubble of her destroyed city. Melting down Demelzas chains and weapons they poured it over top of her, filling the tomb to encase her and her soul so that she could never be brought to life again. The metal melted flesh and bone and she became part of it. Her soul unable to cross over to the underworld was trapped in limbo.
Karaba found her soul in the now black and poisoned land that surrounds her tomb and crumbled castle remains. Karaba offers her a chance to once again fulfill her bloodlust and get revenge on those who killed her, if in exchange she would fight for him and the evil that had brainwashed her sister. Demelza agrees. Endowed with a life, power courses through her entombed conscious. Metal turns and twists, particles move and restructure like a liquid sand, a body forms. Her eyes open to a flesh covered form, however there was more. With Karabas provided magical energy she pulled the metal from the reminants of her encasement as if it was a smoke or weightless sand. Chains formed and obeyed her commands as if alive. Movement shifted the ground ahead, as from the ground two enormous undead wolves pulled themselves out from beneath the rubble and came to stand beside her. The power of her wolves and chains would be derived from the collected souls of their victims. A collection that would know no bounds.
STEALTH ASSASSIN
In the deserts of the eastern world lived the stealth assassin Khana. Better known as the poisoned crown. She toppled both king and kingdom with her poisoned edged blades and control of venomous snakes.
As a child, warriors of faith and a self appointed prophet of god, laid siege to her village. Stolen and enslaved, families were divided. Her father was forced to fight, while her mother became a womb for the tainted needs of their new leaders. Lastly she would serve as tender food for the poisoned tongued priest in the high tower of this place.
One night the quick-witted child narrowly escaped the castle, only to find death awaiting her in the blistering sands of the surrounding endless desert. Picked up and nursed to back to health, she found her self at a warrior monastery in a place unknown. Trained with weapons and wisdom, she became formidable in both, even as a child. Learning the difference between leadership and control, she despised all rulers of dictating, self appointed power. Once ready, she took her vows to help those under such oppression, and was given the blades of the warrior monk.
No matter the task her blade found flesh, leaving a stained trail of red on the monasteries name. With vengeance in her heart she disobeyed their faith, as she searched for clues to her mothers whereabouts. Cast out, she became a righteous blade along the throats of oppressors and all those who supported oppressors. Their red rivers spread as quickly as her legend did. So the poisoned tongued priest of the high tower from which she had escaped devised a plan.
Word of mothers and daughters being trafficked to a specific castle spread quickly. Quiet towns and abandoned road side dolls led a ominous path. A path, the gargling last breaths of her victims had told her to follow.
Entering the castle, limp bodies of guards trailed behind her as she went deeper and deeper into the depths. Past one last barred door, she walked into a stone walled room, across a glistening black wet floor and towards scared and shaking figures. “Clink” as the door shut behind her she turned to see the form of the poisoned tongued priest holding her battered mother on the other side of the bars. Tears poured from Khanas face as she watched the priest draw out and consume her mothers soul. “This is my fault”, her mothers limp body hit the ground on the other side of the bars with a small splash. Kneeling, Khana reached through to hold her mothers limp body. Through tear filled eyes she watched as the priest lifted a torch from the wall and threw it to the ground. “Splash” screams from the women and children behind her filled the air as flames rippled across the grounds wet surface.
Karaba, the god of death found Khana walking in the plane of limbo, as the souls of many warriors do. Warriors filled with guilt or unresolved issues unable to let go and pass to the underworld. Karaba explains to her that her mothers soul is just one of many that the priest had consumed and only with the creatures death will her mothers soul be free. He continues that these creatures are a plague to the world of the living and its balance. He proposes a deal, that he would place her soul and strength into a body of use, if she would use it to find and kill the priest and all those like him, until balance has been restored. She agrees.
Cold metal on dead flesh, she was glad to have her daggers back. As her foot steps left the black forest, soul consuming snakes, undead with white eyes swarmed in obedient anticipation of the meals to come. She would have her vengeance.
HEXUS
The old man with fragile bones, spit as he spoke of power, calling himself king.
Hexus patiently waited as he allowed the withering creature to boast of its delusion.
Hexus stared at the so called king, king of what? King of the soil and stone you claim as yours? Soil that knows not of your existence, soil of which your rotting corpse will soon be part of. King of people? People who don’t know or care for you, people whos names
you don’t know or lives you don’t care to be a part of?
The kings volume increases a he continues “this land bears my ancestry and I would not give it up to the likes of you sorcerer! my children will pass on my name, my…”
Hexus can feel the dying mans remnant’s of lingering soul energy clinging
desperately to the decaying tissue of his body. Politics with cattle, Hexus found it to be tiresome. However harvesting a calm and willing heard was more fruitful in the end. All that was required was to let the head bull gasp and groan, as they guard their spot on the hill, their patch of grass or watering hole.
King “ my armies surpass any other and my men are willing to die for the kingdom, you shall not take these lands or riches so easy”. The king out of breath, falls back into his gold throne, wiping his spit laden lip.
King “so what is it you’ve come for? Speak before I cast you out!”
The king looked appeased in his display of dominance, he had shook his horns well at
this new approaching bull.
Hexus paused, silence gauged patience well. The silence held heavy for only a moment before the king broke it.
King “guards!”
Silver men in ornately pressed armor clanked forward in unison. Hexus looked at them as a bear might look at the shimmering scales of an approaching fish. The threat of the armored men was near comical.
Hexus “ my liege” Hexus lowers his head to the mortal king, “I mean no disrespect, nor do I seek your lands or riches, nor your crown or title.” “On the contrary, your kingdom is so vast with people thriving”, “it seems a wrong, for it to be lead by
another”.
The king squints, his lips purse in mistrusting intrigue. With a small gestured
hand wave from king, the guards clank in unison back outside the doors.
King “you are correct, my absence would be a disservice to the kingdom” “what
would you do to fix this travesty sorcerer? and what would the cost be to me?” Hexus arises.
Hexus “A prolonged life with youthful power would be your gift as long as you
allowed me to guide and develop the infrastructure of your kingdom,” “you would keep your title and I would not be known, any riches plundered are yours to keep, and your children would inherit the kingdom when you saw fit.”
King “ what of my people? Will they…”
Back and fourth the two of them discussed the proposition, but slowly the
suspicious bull took small steps into the fenced pasture and as he does the other cattle would soon follow their leader.
Hexus was one step closer to gaining the strength needed to combat Karaba in the
depths of the underworld. Soon, this kingdom too would be another profitable pasture of souls.