Gathering in Defense of Darkshire

[Okor]

The slums were sequestered down a sidestreet, rotten planks and worm-eaten canvas serving to protect the scum sheltered within. The omnipresent rain within the Moors poured down, rivulets running into the gutter, their path obstructed by the itinerants attempting to eke out an existence by sifting through the flowing sewage. Jewelry, coins, and other trinkets joined the waste matter, waiting to be freed from the stinking slag by one desperate enough to pry a diamond from the reeking rough.

It was for that purpose that Okor found himself drawn to this purgatory, this half-life where men neither lived as men, or found peace in death. Nurgle’s influence waxed strong here, the Plaguefather’s willevident in every sore, wasted limb, and bloody cough. Each soft plea for respite was the meat and drink of Nurgle, silent prayers for succor sustaining the Gangrenous God.

A peal of thunder accompanied the lightning strike that silhouetted him against the stone of the alleyway, his hulking mass clad in darkness as a blazing eye glared at the destitute dredgers, swaddled in filth and rags, eyes too fixed on the cobblestones to notice the Champion.

This blissful ignorance lasted until the next thunder crack. A bedraggled woman glimpsed her visage through the eye left uncovered by a dirt stained rag, her limbs twitching, aching for the stimms that had come so easily to her back before she made her admiration for Darkshire known on the upper tiers. She screamed, her voice still hoarse from her prior evening of begging, yet still enough to rouse the runaways and vagabonds lurking within the shanty.

A man, arms thick with corded muscle and coated in scars, emerged from a shack forged from shattered shields, the hook replacing his right hand and the fury burning in his eyes having driven him from the guard long ago. Another joined him, unfurling from a roughspun hammock strung between a pair of rainspouts. The madness emanating from his grinning mug was palpable, a mind broken by years of constant warfare reforged into a barely passable human being, etiolated flesh evidence of a life spent shrouded in shadows.

More cowered in the darkness, their humanity hidden beneath shitstained rags. The muscled miscreant approached, roaring as they drove their hook downwards, angling it towards the corroded gorget of Okor’s armour. The secondary struck true, their pointed prosthesis burying itself into mummified flesh, a wild whoop escaping their bloodied and cracked lips, only to be silenced as a rusted gauntlet impacted with their already battered face, sending them and their teeth flying in opposite directions.

A gurgling laugh escaped Okor’s throat, looking upon the two yet standing, scavenged shivs clutched in a hand far too steady, and a hand that never stopped shaking. ”At… Ease. Had I wished to end your lives, I would have done so.” The survivors shifted, their hardened eyes unwavering, blades clutched tight as they guarded the huddled masses from the wasted warrior. “Then why have you come, to this damned slum?” Spake the maddened one, his song-like speech simply another chain wrapped around the shattered remains of his mind, one more method to keep him from gnawing off his own fingers.

”I have come for you. The dead march upon the walls of this city. They feel no pain, know no fear, and have no desire but to feast upon your flesh.

I’m here to even the odds.”

“What does that entail?” Questioned the addict, her broken pride and dependency upon Coruscant’s chemical cocktails adding an uncertain quaver to her voice.

”Look at yourselves,” said Okor, spreading his arms wide. ”You have allowed this realm to control you. You have been broken in mind, broken in spirit, and broken in body. Now, dead men who know nothing of your struggle, know nothing of what it’s like to suffer, come to end your lives on a brown note.”

“And how the fuark do ya propose we stop that?” Said the brute, resetting his jaw with his only hand as he began to stand, a pair of broken tusks indicating his parentage.

”What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Throughout everything this ‘verse could throw at you, you survived. You may not have… lived, but you have endured. Tell me, what do you believe your purpose is in this existence?”

“Is it not to enjoy all the pleasures of life, to best forget the strife?”

“Ta hear your name cheered with every raised tankard?”

The woman’s response came later, an upper-class Coruscant education serving her well. “... To exist?”

Leprous laughter greeted her answer. ”Exactly. All that life grants you is a chance. What you do with that chance is in your hands. And for how long have you been told you’ve never had a chance? That you’d never crawl your way out from the gutter, that you’d never be able to be considered worthy again. I’m here to let you reclaim what you have lost, to prove to man and monster alike that you are deserving of respect.”

The hulking half-orc attempted a laugh, stymied by a rasping in his throat. “And what in the nine hells makes you think we can do shit? I’ve got more sores and scars than a bedridden streetwalker, Damien’s nuttier than a fuckin’ pecan pie, and Jess ‘as been looking for a fix for years. The hell makes us so special?”

”Because you are scarred. Because you have been beaten, bent, and never entirely broken. Every wound is an attempt on your life that failed, scar tissue upon your soul that makes you strong. Darkshire needs that strength to survive, it needs… heroes, who will make what sacrifices are necessary to protect it. I can show you how to break the chains of fate, how to spit in the face of fear itself. I can give you the chance to save this land.”

“And will you take it? This is your opportunity, your shot to rise from the mire and muck, and take your rightful place among the lords of Darkshire. What say you?”

The maimed mauler stepped forward, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, gimaching. “Keith, d-” they raised a hand, silencing Jess as she attempted to warn him off. He took a deep breath, looking up at the gangrenous giant. “I’ve been treated like shit my whole life. That sure as hell didn’t get any better when my hand got lopped off. Now, we’ve got the largest horde approaching, and some rotting bastard’s here promising me a chance to do something with my shitty life. And you know what?

It really couldn’t get worse. So fuck it all, I’ll drink your damn kool-aid, if only so I don’t have to get fucking eaten alive by the dead.”

A gingivitis-ridden grin spread beneath the rusted helm as Okor proffered a bare wrist, veins filled with toxic corruption.

A twisted hook pierced the skin, setting free the sanguine sacrament.

Diseased blood dripped from the wound, an erratic rhythm of stops and starts, the binary nature of Asherah apparent.

Cracked, parched lips supped at the syphilitic solution, a hefty host shuddering as his heart stopped, and his eyes closed, a hook reflexively driving itself towards his chest as they panicked.

His eyes opened, seeing the rot and pain that infested the world, the festering wounds upon reality. He saw the cruelty inherent in nature, the inevitability of the end. He saw that it wouldn’t be today. It would never come today, but tomorrow. You made whatever sacrifice it took to survive the day, and fought like mad for the chance to see tomorrow, knowing full well that you merely delayed death. But what choice did he have? To die?

Life was a drug. Every breath you took addicted you, and it was a habit that was notoriously hard to break.

His eyes opened, seeing the rot and pain that infested the alleyway. His skin crawled, shifting as his newly acquired infections ran rampant, killing nerves and quieting the agony that had plagued his existence.

”Nurgle…” He whispered, coughing as a smile spread across his fanged face, freed from pain, from fear, from mortality.

Okor raised his hand higher, blood flowing freely from his wound.

”Come forth, and fight for your future. Nurgle asks for nothing more, and demands nothing less.”