01-14-2017, 05:59 PM
Returning to Coxley, I crouch down to retrieve his corpse from where it lies crumpled in the road. In the shadow of blasted and blackened trees, with flames crackling nearby, I hold it aloft by the collar of his chainmail, the links bending and twisting beneath my golden grip as I pull his mortal shell up to where I can look it in the eye.
The dead man's gaze is wide, staring at nothing in sightless shock, and his face, formerly so animated, is slack and pale. There's a smoking hole in his torso the size of my thigh, bounded by melted mail, charred meat and flaking ashes.
"You thought you were clever," I tell him. "But in the end, you weren't as smart as you thought. Still, other thinking creature's looked up to you - you had ambitions, and you inspired followers. You were a part of the tapestry of life here, and now that you're gone, you leave a Brock Coxley-shaped hole that nothing else can fill."
I pull the body close, the head lolling against its shoulder as I hiss in his ear:
"Thank you for that."
Then, I take him apart.
I focus on my Omnilium, feeling it calling to its muted echo within Coxley. His body begins to glow softly, whispy rainbow streamers rising from his skin, and from the wound that killed him. Slowly, deliciously, the glow spreads, and his features begin to blur, his form softening at the edges at it dissolves into a mass of prismatic light! He spirals down my arm in probing, serpentine coils, and minute by minute vanishes, melting into the shining scales upon my chest, becoming one with the glorious golden expanse that he foolishly mistook for armor.
With the possible exception of the mega-pyramid garden-cities of ancient Venus as they sank beneath fouled, boiling seas and choke on their blackened sky, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
In very little time at all, not a trace of the bandit leader remains, except for a deep sense of satisfaction on my part, and a sizable addition to my Omnilium reserves.
I bare my teeth, grinning viciously, unable to stop. Today, I've become more than just a destroyer!
I am now an un-maker, and that knowledge, coupled with the lingering, vibrant desolation of extinguishing an individual, keeps me laughing all the way to the forest's edge.
The dead man's gaze is wide, staring at nothing in sightless shock, and his face, formerly so animated, is slack and pale. There's a smoking hole in his torso the size of my thigh, bounded by melted mail, charred meat and flaking ashes.
"You thought you were clever," I tell him. "But in the end, you weren't as smart as you thought. Still, other thinking creature's looked up to you - you had ambitions, and you inspired followers. You were a part of the tapestry of life here, and now that you're gone, you leave a Brock Coxley-shaped hole that nothing else can fill."
I pull the body close, the head lolling against its shoulder as I hiss in his ear:
"Thank you for that."
Then, I take him apart.
I focus on my Omnilium, feeling it calling to its muted echo within Coxley. His body begins to glow softly, whispy rainbow streamers rising from his skin, and from the wound that killed him. Slowly, deliciously, the glow spreads, and his features begin to blur, his form softening at the edges at it dissolves into a mass of prismatic light! He spirals down my arm in probing, serpentine coils, and minute by minute vanishes, melting into the shining scales upon my chest, becoming one with the glorious golden expanse that he foolishly mistook for armor.
With the possible exception of the mega-pyramid garden-cities of ancient Venus as they sank beneath fouled, boiling seas and choke on their blackened sky, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
In very little time at all, not a trace of the bandit leader remains, except for a deep sense of satisfaction on my part, and a sizable addition to my Omnilium reserves.
I bare my teeth, grinning viciously, unable to stop. Today, I've become more than just a destroyer!
I am now an un-maker, and that knowledge, coupled with the lingering, vibrant desolation of extinguishing an individual, keeps me laughing all the way to the forest's edge.