Dance of the Dreamers

[Okor]

Blades had been drawn, curses screamed, and battle joined.

In this way, the battle was much like any other.

However, in all his millennia of warfare, Okor had never engaged in battle within the very Aether.

He resolved to commit the experience to memory as the self-proclaimed Psychopath surged forward, a scowl etched across the demon’s fiendishly handsome face as blackened blades burst forth from pale and flawless skin, slick with too-dark blood. Deft footwork brought him in close as the Plague Marine’s mummified muscles slowly acted to bare his own defiled blade, the serrated shards of steel coating his foe’s skin surging towards his stomach.

Kuzuru’s crimson eyes opened wide in surprise a split-second before the skin tore itself apart, jagged fangs claggy with carrion gnashing, hungering for fresh flesh as tainted tendrils tore out from within, barbed lengths seeking to coil around the pre-corpse presented before them. Gagging on the stench of festering flesh emanating from the corrupted crusader, the Ashen Lord nonetheless raised his razor-edged limb, deft movements desecrating Okor’s ever-hungering guts as the hunter hand-sprung off the ground, momentum carrying him up and over his foe, rather than into his lethal embrace.

Carbon-black claws dug into the firmament of this unearthly realm as Kuzuru landed, turning and dropping low into an animalistic crouch, his touch tainting the fabric of unreality, leaving creation itself blackened and burning where his presence marred it.

“So,” the sadistic spirit said with a smile, “You’ve got tricks. Good. I was worried I’d be putting a corpse to rest.”

”Yes. I also have a gun,” Okor said, half-turning as he raised his Phosphex-loaded pistol. Bronze rounds coated with blue-green verdigris and inscribed with verses hand-carved onto the explosive shells. The rusted hammer clicked, a corroded cartridge ignited and sent screaming towards the sadist before him, oxidation flaking away as the rocket-propelled round burnt its way through the aether.

Grandfather, who rules in Chaos, harrowed be thy name.

The Demon was already dodging, lithe body layered with a bladed carapace buoyed by the rush of endorphins and adrenaline all combatants present had grown to love. A savage grin of too-sharp teeth split across Kuzuru’s face as his enhanced perception recognized that the bolt shell would harmlessly graze his perfect face.

He had but a split second to revel in his skill before the round exploded, an arsonistic aerosol engulfing the left side of his visage, pure, white, burning flame turning cartilage and pale skin to cinders. Kuzuru hissed in pain, wisely deciding to allow the fire to dissipate rather than attempt to suffocate it with his yet-unburned hand.

Both combatants were moving again, the surrounding dreamscape warping around the twisted psyches marching forth to do battle. Bloodied blades rose in the Ashen Lord’s wake, a ferrous forest of cruelly serrated edges and carmine dew upon life-ending leaves, iron and blood mingling in the atmosphere, seemingly suffusing every breath the participants took.

Okor answered with a tide of the unliving, the jaundiced bone and festering flesh leaping high, capering through the boughs of blades, rictus grins shattering themselves apart as they followed the sweeping motion of his blade, corroded edge splitting sable hair as it passed over his foe’s skull. Kuzuru responded with a series of rapid-fire jabs to Okor’s lower torso, shredding skin and dessicated flesh as the demon drifted past his festering form.

The pistol rose again, a bladed knee to Okor’s bare wrist pushing aside the alchemical abomination, the phosphex round screaming as it penetrated the ethereal crowds of corpses and carbon-edged copse.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, in this realm, and beyond.

The shell split apart, its perpetually burning payload erupting as a heavy blade adhered to his hunter’s forearm came down upon Okor’s forearm, ceramite splitting apart and malformed bones cracking as the blackened blade severed the limb. Tainted blood flowed from the amputation as Okor grunted, the triumphant smile upon the demon’s burnt face fading as the Chosen of Nurgle advanced rather than avoid further mutilation. A cruelly twisted blade erupted from his stump in a shimmering burst of Omnillium, tainted tendrils wrapping around the rusted iron as his maimed stump began to renew itself. Acidic emissions slid over the cursed cleaver, festering flesh sizzling beneath its touch.

”You have much to learn, Whelp,” he snarled, the ghouls behind him armed with Kuzuru’s assortment of phantasmal cleavers, what few still possessed a face bearing the blade-spirit’s rotting visage.

”A shame Nurgle’s embrace shall take you long before you have the opportunity,” Okor spat as he moved forth, a corrupted claw reaching out to wrap around his foe’s agile frame, while his plague-ridden prosthetic began an unrelenting journey towards Kuzuru’s toned stomach.

801 Words. 1 SP expended to use Septic Shiv. 6/7 SP remaining.

Injuries:
Kuzuru 'bout get shanked.
Kuzuru's had his right ear and some skin thoroughly torched.
Okor's lost his right forearm, but it'll regenerate in short order.
Okor's been ever-so-tenderly stabbed in the abdomen.
A stray phosphex round went over in the direction of Weiss and Andersen, if you wish to use that/