That Night...?

[Okor]

The prime Pyrrha walked through the haunted hills of the Moors, black, deadened trees rising through the pervasive mist, like blackened claws wrapping themselves around the very heart of this forsaken ‘verse. The sun glimmered through the fog, the myopic eye of a forgotten god failing to see just how far his creation had fallen. She subconsciously clutched the sack of curatives closer to her cuirass as she travelled the decrepit road as wolves howled off in the distance, dreading damage to the vials more than any wounds she herself may suffer.

The Moors was a harsh and unforgiving place, seemingly taking any attempt to sustain oneself within its toxic environs as a personal affront. The huntress could practically feel the eyes upon her back; only Diablo himself knew what lurked within the deadwood forests. Her aegis hung from her back, while her multipurpose tool of murder was clutched in her right, green eyes, a colour all too rare in what passed for the wilds of this realm, wide and alert for any threat.

Her vigilance was rewarded. A hunched figure swaddled in stained robes hobble forward across crackled cobbles, a twisted spar of gnarled wood supporting its weight. Insects flew through the air surrounding him, born aloft briefly on diseased breezes before scurrying back beneath the tattered cloth.

Phyrra’s footsteps resounded throughout the silence, stopping a few meters short of the man, his hooded face peering up at her, a stained bandage wrapped around his eyes, a grin forged from festering gums and cracked teeth at odds with his diseased frame. Desiccated lips split apart as he spoke, a soft, wet, deep voice like graveyard dirt issuing forth from the ruined man.

“My, my, my. Judging by the click of your heels, the lack of shouting, and how few weapons have been pointed in my direction, I must have made the acquaintance of a young lady,” the man chuckled, his laughter quickly transforming into a series of coughs, clutching one clawed hand to his mouth.

“Are you sick?” Asked the huntress, her tone compassionate, reeking of the discipline and nobility that her short life had instilled into every ounce of her being.

“Aren’t we all?” Laughed the man, his mirth only interrupted when he coughed up a lump of flesh, slick with a whitish fluid that seemed only tangentially related to blood. “Some of us just wear it better than others.” The elder grinned through rotting teeth, leaning against his staff as sightless, cloaked eyes stared into Pyrrha’s soul. “But, I could talk about my impeccable sense of fashion all evening. I don’t suppose you can spare a few coppers for an Old man? What few boutiques left in the Moors charge a premium for such finery as this,” he grasped at his robes, displaying the filthy hemp with a prideful look upon his festering face.

“Ah! Yes, of course!” The huntress clutched her hands together, remembering the ever-smiling sovereign of this realm’s words. Iridescence coalesced within her hands, raw potential refining itself into golden circles stamped with the heraldry of Remnant. Half a dozen shining coins passed into an outstretched pestilential palm, the entropic elder raising them to his nostrils as he used what senses he still possessed to inspect them.

A tainted tongue ran over shattered teeth. “Is that… Omni’s blood, I smell?” He slipped the shining coins into a stained pocket. “My, my, my my my. I haven’t caught that scent since I was born old into this world.” Insects skittered out from beneath his hump, spreading chitinous wings as they took flight. “Perhaps I’ll hear you later, little prime.” The man laughed, seemingly standing a little straighter as he began his journey once more, staff rapping against the flagstones.

Miles away, a man covered in black furs, decrepit jawbones, and fang necklaces rested his rusted axe in the mire, chewing most of a beetle, the remainder gently spasming in his hand. His gang shambled through the mists after him, clutching heavy blades and chains in gloved hands. Before Hell had come to The Moors, they had been hunters, loggers, marsh-men who preferred the fog and fens to Darkshire’s walls. After Diablo had destroyed everything they held dear, they found a much more cathartic prey: The trophies of their hunts displayed with all the hate they could muster, reminding monsters and men alike who they faced.

For all their strength, they had nearly fallen to the Moors itself: disease, hunger, a thousand little things they could not solve with an axe.

But then, a Miracle occurred. A man had come from the mist, his veins laden with venom, his mind feverish with faith. He had opened his veins and offered his tainted flesh, and in their starvation, the hunters partook, preaching the tenets of taint to his newfound disciples, even as they blinded and hobbled him with their hunger.

They ate what they killed, now. The corruption of Dracula’s minions could find no purchase in their purified flesh. Others shared their burden behind walls, beneath the earth, in every shadow man would not dare to walk without God at his side.

The hulking hunter grinned beneath his Wolf’s-head cloak, pulped bugflesh anointing his teeth. A voice from behind him called, thick with phlegm, twisted into a low growl by scars upon the throat. “What’s the prey, Gudrun? Or are we hungry enough to start eating brainy-beetles just for the Underverse of it?” Half a dozen gathered cultists chuckled, arranging themselves into a loose formation behind their master.

“Prime. Bring ‘em to be butchered beneath the walls.” He hefted the axe up from the swampland, its blade soaked in mud impacting against a fur-coated shoulder.

Skins strapped to bulky, leather-clad forms shifted from flayed men to wolven hides beneath the light of the full moon as the men moved, slayers of beasts, turned warriors of the faith, in pursuit of the scent their plagued patron had gifted them.