03-23-2018, 05:35 PM
The manacles clasped down on his wrists. A beat later, a metal casing clamped down over his head. Gilgamesh had been briefed on the restraints—they were designed to nullify even the most supernatural of senses. From what he had been told, it wasn’t a matter of secrets being spilled. After all, the location of the Chaos Sanctuary was not a secret to the denizens of the Underverse. If anything, the associated superstructure loomed higher than any manmade structure in this or any parallel universe.
Many days outside the colosseum, Gilgamesh had glimpsed up at the foreboding structure and its impossible height. He saw the massive, sun-like orb of hell fire that constantly shifted. Legends said it was some sort of cosmic eye that could let Diablo see for thousands of miles in any direction he desired. People had called Gilgamesh a tyrant, but even he could never be capable of such monumental feats. To personally lord oneself over a space that likely dwarfed Mesopotamia in scale?
Phenomenal.
Or, as the plebs would call it…
Terrifying.
Because he had heard the story, Gilgamesh stood tall as the restraints were locked around him. He knew this was a mental game—a ploy designed to weaken minds and coy even the strongest of resolves. Even when he got shoved a few times and handled a little too harshly by his demonic escort, the gilded king did not falter in the march from the Colosseum gates to the Chaos Sanctuary. He spoke no words, although he was asked a handful of times whether or not he ‘felt ready’ to meet the sovereign of the Underverse. Even when it felt as if they had been marching him around for the better part of an afternoon, he held his tongue despite the growing ire he felt.
They play games.
They came to a stop, and unlike the other times they had ceased movement, this time was the last. Gilgamesh felt scaled fingers scrape at his forearms and legs. The heavy, enchanted irons slipped from his extremeities as he felt some nails slip from the headgear and purposefully lacerate one of his shoulders.
Mongrel demons.
When the helmet was removed, the king wore a sneer on his face, even though his eyes wanted to blink fiercely to adjust to the foreboding crimson light that bathed the church-like chamber. Gilgamesh would show no such weakness. He was a king, and he would be damned before he showed weakness to some hellspawn.
Leave us.
The dark, heavy voice spoke echoed all around them, and despite his best efforts, Gilgamesh caught himself glancing at the shadows of the massive church.
Without a word, the demons who had transported the gladiator retrieved the rest of the restraints and slunk their way from the room like scolded cats.
When Gligmesh heard that booming voice the second time, it was much closer. “You come a long way from the deserts above.”
The sovereign of Nippur scowled, but the momentary discomfort had been replaced by a growing indignation. “I had no choice,” he growled as he lifted his head up to try and locate the supposed Lord of Terror.
“Because you are weak.”
Had he been feathered, Gilgamesh would have ruffled at that remark. For his part, the blonde-haired king clenched his fists. “I killed your best gladiators. I put them under heel and des—”
Clawed fingers wrapped around the man’s shoulder and squeezed. There was a moment of steel resolve, and then the bones groaned as they were crushed. Before any lasting damage was given, the gladiator was thrown like a piece of garbage across the floor of the Chaos Sanctuary. At the end of what felt like a blur of agony, Gilgamesh found himself wrapped around a stone obelisk.
“You…” the king of Nippur shoved away from the monument and rose to his feet. Whatever else he had planned to say fell silent when the nine-foot form of Diablo strode out from the shadows. A living mountain of spikes, claws, scales, and muscles, the Prime Evil saw the hesitation in Gilgamesh’s face—that momentary waver—and knew how this situation would play out.
“Yes, me.” Diablo bellowed as, suddenly, blood-red chandeliers and wall sconces flared to life throughout the Chaos Sanctuary. “Your Lord and Savior, Gilgamesh.” The king, for his part, ignored the pain radiating from his injured shoulder and kept his eyes locked on the molten orbs of the demon. “I know that look, would-be king. It is the look of someone who thinks themselves above their station.”
“I am a king,” Gilgamesh spat back before he was suddenly hit by a wave of force that drove the air from his lungs. Instead of oxygen, it was almost as if ash and soot flowed into his body, for the gladiator immediately could not breath. After hacking for several seconds, he planted a hand on his chest and another on his throat, hoping to find something there. The edges of his vision blackened, and the world started to tilt and shuffle around.
His legs gave out, and with a thud, Gilgamesh landed on his hands and knees, but then it all ended. Whatever the mirage had been, it faded almost as quickly as it had happened.
The question was in his head, but Diablo didn’t need to hear it asked.
“I am the King here, slave, and you will know your place before me.”
Gilgamesh tried to stand, but the moment he tensed the muscles in his arms and legs he suffered a horrible burst of electricity through his body. He couldn’t stop the scream that violently tore itself from his maw as he fell sideways to the ground. His hearing, initially robbed from him by the assault, returned just in time for him to hear the laughter of the monster.
Laughter!
“You defeated a toy of mine, and you think yourself a demigod. You are a fool.”
“I am… a king,” Gilgamesh groaned from his spot on the floor of the Sanctuary. At once, another oppressive burst of electricity blanketed him internally, and this time, he momentarily lost consciousness. When he revived, he saw that he had been lifted up into the air by the Lord of Terror.
“Do you remember?” Diablo asked.
“Re-remember what?”
The Prime Evil snickered as it took its bladed index finger and started to twist the tip into the man’s breastbone. “Do you remember your demise?” Blood began to sputter and ooze from the deepening wound, but the demon did not relent. “Remember your fall from grace? Your legacy and the war it wrought upon you?”
“The mouse.” Gilgamesh rasped as he felt blood on his tongue. At some point over the last few minutes, he must have gnashed apart the insides of his mouth. “Defeated me. S-s-sent me here.”
Diablo smiled a molten, fire-laced grin before dumping the broken king back onto the ground. “Quite the king you were… beaten by a pseudo-child and his pet.”
“I will destroy them both,” Gilgamesh growled as he slowly tried to right himself. His vision was still doubled, and his muscles weren’t responding as he would desire them to do. “The armies of Nippur will sweep over the Dunes… we will destroy them.” Gilgamesh, his head throbbing, took a laborious moment to push himself up to his feet. As he reached his full height, his legs caved out beneath him.
“What armies?” Diablo replied. “Do you know how long you have languished down here?”
The banished sovereign made it to his knees and lifted his head. “W-weeks?” He slurred. When had he split his lip open?
“Nearly two years,” The Lord of Terror remarked.
“Y-you lie!” Gilgamesh gurgled. He then saw a brief flash of red before realizing that his left hand had been literally [ii]crushed[/i] into the ground. There was just a blood sputtering stump and a spike of bone where a wrist had been.
“See how frail you are, Gilgamesh?” Diablo’s voice boomed as his massive shadow fell over the hobbled gladiator. “Your legacy was just as fragile as your ego and your body. Crumbled to pieces. Your people turned on themselves in the power vacuum, and those that didn’t murder each other feast off the corpse of their civilization like carrion vultures.”
He couldn’t pass out.
He couldn’t lose.
Gilgamesh squeezed at the severed limb and tried to focus on the anger that burned in his veins. Two years? Two fucking years? The mouse-child had taken two years from him and reduced his city to squalor?
“That rage will get you through the sleepless nights,” Diablo boomed as he reached down and wrapped a hand around the man’s neck. After lifting up the broken gladiator to his look him in the eyes, the Lord of Terror sneered. “How far are you willing to go to assuage that anger, Gilgamesh? What price will you pay to rise, stronger and madder, to reclaim that which should have never been lost to you?”
“Anything.”
There was no pause before the response…
Just as Diablo had known.
The Lord of Terror nodded his head. “You will return to the surface, Gilgamesh. You will do so, however, as my vassal. Do not fret, for you will have all illusions that your actions are your own and your decisions are yours. But know that I will watch you, and when you are called upon, you will respond to my commands. If you violate this oath, you will suffer eternal… Do you understand?”
Rage was all that kept the battered and destroyed body of Gilgamesh from failing. “Yes,” he growled.
Diablo reached a hand out and pressed it against the king’s left breast. The clothes vaporized, and then there was a searing pain—too much and too fast.
Gilgamesh blacked out once again.
When the king regained consciousness, he quickly realized that he was standing on his feet. More than that, his left hand was where it should be—attached to his arm. All the cuts and bruises and shattered bones were gone, as if they had been figments of his imagination.
“It was real,” Diablo spoke from behind the king, who spun on his heels. “I trust you will carry those memories in the event that you ever decide to cross your Sovereign.”
He intended to answer, but the gladiator felt a warmth on his chest. He lifted his shirt and saw the brand seared into his flesh.
“A more visual reminder of the cost of your oath.”
Gilgamesh spoke no words as he let his clothes fall back to their normal spots. He merely lifted his head to look upon the demonic countenance of his new overlord. “When do I leave?”
Diablo smirked as he pointed a blade-like finger to the ground beneath the man. “Go now, Vassal.” Something started to shift underneath Gilgamesh’s feet. “Go now and have your revenge on the Omniverse.”
Like many other times in the recent past, the blonde king could not respond because the world around him reacted faster. As he opened his mouth, the ground collapsed as a portal opened up beneath him. He was gone in the blink of an eye as the floor returned to its normal state.
Diablo grinned.
“Spread Chaos and Terror, my Little King.”
Many days outside the colosseum, Gilgamesh had glimpsed up at the foreboding structure and its impossible height. He saw the massive, sun-like orb of hell fire that constantly shifted. Legends said it was some sort of cosmic eye that could let Diablo see for thousands of miles in any direction he desired. People had called Gilgamesh a tyrant, but even he could never be capable of such monumental feats. To personally lord oneself over a space that likely dwarfed Mesopotamia in scale?
Phenomenal.
Or, as the plebs would call it…
Terrifying.
Because he had heard the story, Gilgamesh stood tall as the restraints were locked around him. He knew this was a mental game—a ploy designed to weaken minds and coy even the strongest of resolves. Even when he got shoved a few times and handled a little too harshly by his demonic escort, the gilded king did not falter in the march from the Colosseum gates to the Chaos Sanctuary. He spoke no words, although he was asked a handful of times whether or not he ‘felt ready’ to meet the sovereign of the Underverse. Even when it felt as if they had been marching him around for the better part of an afternoon, he held his tongue despite the growing ire he felt.
They play games.
They came to a stop, and unlike the other times they had ceased movement, this time was the last. Gilgamesh felt scaled fingers scrape at his forearms and legs. The heavy, enchanted irons slipped from his extremeities as he felt some nails slip from the headgear and purposefully lacerate one of his shoulders.
Mongrel demons.
When the helmet was removed, the king wore a sneer on his face, even though his eyes wanted to blink fiercely to adjust to the foreboding crimson light that bathed the church-like chamber. Gilgamesh would show no such weakness. He was a king, and he would be damned before he showed weakness to some hellspawn.
Leave us.
The dark, heavy voice spoke echoed all around them, and despite his best efforts, Gilgamesh caught himself glancing at the shadows of the massive church.
Without a word, the demons who had transported the gladiator retrieved the rest of the restraints and slunk their way from the room like scolded cats.
When Gligmesh heard that booming voice the second time, it was much closer. “You come a long way from the deserts above.”
The sovereign of Nippur scowled, but the momentary discomfort had been replaced by a growing indignation. “I had no choice,” he growled as he lifted his head up to try and locate the supposed Lord of Terror.
“Because you are weak.”
Had he been feathered, Gilgamesh would have ruffled at that remark. For his part, the blonde-haired king clenched his fists. “I killed your best gladiators. I put them under heel and des—”
Clawed fingers wrapped around the man’s shoulder and squeezed. There was a moment of steel resolve, and then the bones groaned as they were crushed. Before any lasting damage was given, the gladiator was thrown like a piece of garbage across the floor of the Chaos Sanctuary. At the end of what felt like a blur of agony, Gilgamesh found himself wrapped around a stone obelisk.
“You…” the king of Nippur shoved away from the monument and rose to his feet. Whatever else he had planned to say fell silent when the nine-foot form of Diablo strode out from the shadows. A living mountain of spikes, claws, scales, and muscles, the Prime Evil saw the hesitation in Gilgamesh’s face—that momentary waver—and knew how this situation would play out.
“Yes, me.” Diablo bellowed as, suddenly, blood-red chandeliers and wall sconces flared to life throughout the Chaos Sanctuary. “Your Lord and Savior, Gilgamesh.” The king, for his part, ignored the pain radiating from his injured shoulder and kept his eyes locked on the molten orbs of the demon. “I know that look, would-be king. It is the look of someone who thinks themselves above their station.”
“I am a king,” Gilgamesh spat back before he was suddenly hit by a wave of force that drove the air from his lungs. Instead of oxygen, it was almost as if ash and soot flowed into his body, for the gladiator immediately could not breath. After hacking for several seconds, he planted a hand on his chest and another on his throat, hoping to find something there. The edges of his vision blackened, and the world started to tilt and shuffle around.
His legs gave out, and with a thud, Gilgamesh landed on his hands and knees, but then it all ended. Whatever the mirage had been, it faded almost as quickly as it had happened.
The question was in his head, but Diablo didn’t need to hear it asked.
“I am the King here, slave, and you will know your place before me.”
Gilgamesh tried to stand, but the moment he tensed the muscles in his arms and legs he suffered a horrible burst of electricity through his body. He couldn’t stop the scream that violently tore itself from his maw as he fell sideways to the ground. His hearing, initially robbed from him by the assault, returned just in time for him to hear the laughter of the monster.
Laughter!
“You defeated a toy of mine, and you think yourself a demigod. You are a fool.”
“I am… a king,” Gilgamesh groaned from his spot on the floor of the Sanctuary. At once, another oppressive burst of electricity blanketed him internally, and this time, he momentarily lost consciousness. When he revived, he saw that he had been lifted up into the air by the Lord of Terror.
“Do you remember?” Diablo asked.
“Re-remember what?”
The Prime Evil snickered as it took its bladed index finger and started to twist the tip into the man’s breastbone. “Do you remember your demise?” Blood began to sputter and ooze from the deepening wound, but the demon did not relent. “Remember your fall from grace? Your legacy and the war it wrought upon you?”
“The mouse.” Gilgamesh rasped as he felt blood on his tongue. At some point over the last few minutes, he must have gnashed apart the insides of his mouth. “Defeated me. S-s-sent me here.”
Diablo smiled a molten, fire-laced grin before dumping the broken king back onto the ground. “Quite the king you were… beaten by a pseudo-child and his pet.”
“I will destroy them both,” Gilgamesh growled as he slowly tried to right himself. His vision was still doubled, and his muscles weren’t responding as he would desire them to do. “The armies of Nippur will sweep over the Dunes… we will destroy them.” Gilgamesh, his head throbbing, took a laborious moment to push himself up to his feet. As he reached his full height, his legs caved out beneath him.
“What armies?” Diablo replied. “Do you know how long you have languished down here?”
The banished sovereign made it to his knees and lifted his head. “W-weeks?” He slurred. When had he split his lip open?
“Nearly two years,” The Lord of Terror remarked.
“Y-you lie!” Gilgamesh gurgled. He then saw a brief flash of red before realizing that his left hand had been literally [ii]crushed[/i] into the ground. There was just a blood sputtering stump and a spike of bone where a wrist had been.
“See how frail you are, Gilgamesh?” Diablo’s voice boomed as his massive shadow fell over the hobbled gladiator. “Your legacy was just as fragile as your ego and your body. Crumbled to pieces. Your people turned on themselves in the power vacuum, and those that didn’t murder each other feast off the corpse of their civilization like carrion vultures.”
He couldn’t pass out.
He couldn’t lose.
Gilgamesh squeezed at the severed limb and tried to focus on the anger that burned in his veins. Two years? Two fucking years? The mouse-child had taken two years from him and reduced his city to squalor?
“That rage will get you through the sleepless nights,” Diablo boomed as he reached down and wrapped a hand around the man’s neck. After lifting up the broken gladiator to his look him in the eyes, the Lord of Terror sneered. “How far are you willing to go to assuage that anger, Gilgamesh? What price will you pay to rise, stronger and madder, to reclaim that which should have never been lost to you?”
“Anything.”
There was no pause before the response…
Just as Diablo had known.
The Lord of Terror nodded his head. “You will return to the surface, Gilgamesh. You will do so, however, as my vassal. Do not fret, for you will have all illusions that your actions are your own and your decisions are yours. But know that I will watch you, and when you are called upon, you will respond to my commands. If you violate this oath, you will suffer eternal… Do you understand?”
Rage was all that kept the battered and destroyed body of Gilgamesh from failing. “Yes,” he growled.
Diablo reached a hand out and pressed it against the king’s left breast. The clothes vaporized, and then there was a searing pain—too much and too fast.
Gilgamesh blacked out once again.
When the king regained consciousness, he quickly realized that he was standing on his feet. More than that, his left hand was where it should be—attached to his arm. All the cuts and bruises and shattered bones were gone, as if they had been figments of his imagination.
“It was real,” Diablo spoke from behind the king, who spun on his heels. “I trust you will carry those memories in the event that you ever decide to cross your Sovereign.”
He intended to answer, but the gladiator felt a warmth on his chest. He lifted his shirt and saw the brand seared into his flesh.
“A more visual reminder of the cost of your oath.”
Gilgamesh spoke no words as he let his clothes fall back to their normal spots. He merely lifted his head to look upon the demonic countenance of his new overlord. “When do I leave?”
Diablo smirked as he pointed a blade-like finger to the ground beneath the man. “Go now, Vassal.” Something started to shift underneath Gilgamesh’s feet. “Go now and have your revenge on the Omniverse.”
Like many other times in the recent past, the blonde king could not respond because the world around him reacted faster. As he opened his mouth, the ground collapsed as a portal opened up beneath him. He was gone in the blink of an eye as the floor returned to its normal state.
Diablo grinned.
“Spread Chaos and Terror, my Little King.”
Quote:Gilgamesh receives +1 Brand of Diablo
Gilgamesh is dropped into the Void, please make sure you read the Void Info Thread