02-21-2017, 10:46 PM
Cold.
Cold and shadow.
A lone figure, hulking over the bodies of his slain comrades. A snowy battlefield gripped in an eternal night. The suns light blotted out by the grieving plume of a distant volcano. A thousand screams from the earth itself as it was torn asunder. Here stood that lone figure; Gamil. At this point in time he was just a lowly man-at-arms. He cast his gaze back towards an immense keep to the west, and then down at Tearen. No...not Tearen. This was one of Ilthiax's memories. Did the cyborg demon and Gamil know each other from some distant world?
Searching. Clawing. Sift through the refuse for the next link. Ilthiax's mind was like someone had disassembled a car and shaken the box of parts. Steam and fire. Listless piping from beyond the star. Dammit, that wasn't one of the demon's thoughts, that was one of Tearen's own. Stay focused. There, beneath a layer of mental steel. A flicker of a face named Gamil.
It was older now. Wizened and pitted by the harsh winds of the Underverse. This thought was distinguished from the rest. Both Gamil and Ilthiax had been re summoned by Diablo when the Underverse had been created. All those years ago, Ilthiax was still whole, not an amalgamation of steel and infernal flesh like he was now. Yet, there Gamil stood, an ancient human covered in bony armor. It didn't make sense. To who didn't it make sense? Focus. Trace the emotions. Yes, Gamil had originally been Ilthiax's enemy, back on that snowy plain under the shadow of the mountain. Mount...Arreat. Apocryphal. Return to the start.
Two secondaries standing, overlooking an ocean of boggy trees. A repeated mantra; Fouling of the Moors. Ah, so these two were there. Ilthiax looking up at the immense human as a figure of comfort amidst the hordes of Diablo. Why this feeling of attachment? That memory from the Battlefields of Arreat...find the thread. The common thread. Pity. Mercy. Yes. Gamil had shown Ilthiax the Demon mercy. Was it out of a sense of justice, Tearen wondered? Apparently Ilthiax himself had never received that answer, but it had left enough of an impression that the portly hellspawn had bonded intensely with the human.
This was all well and good, but what was Gamil capable of?
Rapid marching through the Moors, under the mist-soaked trees. A golden sky hung overhead, traced with veins of dark power. It was the mark of Diablo; a hell-storm. Irrelevant. Fighting now. Fighting the people of Darkshire, back when the town was clean and new. Gamil sat back in the chaos, watching his warriors die. Odd. The man wielded an odd weapon, like a giant, skinny plow. Tactically useless in a duel, but it had a strange power. Yes. The human dug the blade into the earth and channeled some sort of energy through the dying bodies. No, not through them. Into them. Gamil was a necromancer then? Indeed. The places where the fresh bodies lay blossomed with blue-green power, and their phantom silhouettes leaped into the fray.
A sudden rush of adrenaline. A blast of heavenly light sliced through the hordes of Diablo. Ilthiax's last vision of this moment were the shadow of holy wings standing over him. A hooded warrior. El'druin. Tyrael. So, this was the great and legendary warrior that had ended the war against Diablo. Ilthiax and Gamil, half dead, hanging in a great cavernous space. Grooota. Omnilium recycling. Did that make Ilthiax and Gamil weirdlings, then? The memories jumped around great gulfs in time. More sifting was necessary. There had to be more to Gamil than this. Fresh memories were easier to put in order.
Gamil had been one of Grooota's primary gladiators before Tearen had come to the Underverse. There was pain here. Betrayal. Gamil had...abandoned Grooota. Abandoned his friend. Was Ilthiax actually Gamil's friend, though? Did the ancient human actually care for the demon, or had the seedy cyborg simply decided to cling to Gamil's heels like a fat flea? From the demon's perspective, he certainly thought highly of Gamil. Perhaps there was a way to exploit this. Focus. It was bad practice to begin plotting while in someone else's head; there was a chance Ilthiax might skim some of these thoughts, even subconsciously.
Excitement. Anticipation. Tearen saw himself through Ilthiax's eyes; battered and bandaged after his fight with The Ripper. Opportunity. A chance to track down Gamil. The Traitor. The Knight of Hatred. It seemed odd that a human that had been perceived as benevolent by even a demon had been given this title. Ilthiax had known that Gamil might be entering himself in a tournament in the Azgradurg area. Was Tearen to be Ilthiax's indirect weapon of revenge, then? Indeed, there was more to this than-
Tearen jerked back from Ilthiax's slumped body with a gasp, withdrawing his mind from the cyborg demon's conscience. Some sort of mechanism installed in the fat hellspawn's body was capable of automatically rousing the demon from slumber. Tearen shuffled, still half-dazed, back over to where he had been sitting previously. By the time that Ilthiax came around, the ex-enigma was slumped in his seat exactly as he had been previously. Ilthiax yawned loudly, the gears in his respirator grinding steadily. Eventually his beady eyes came to rest on the Shadow's expectant form, and a look of suspicion crawled across his features.
"You...what did you do?" Ilthiax hissed. Tearen offered no response. He still had the appearance of aloofness to maintain. A cold moment passed between agent and gladiator before Ilthiax growled sullenly and smacked his drink off of the table next to him. Pale light filtered through the bars of the waiting area, tracing long blocks along the filthy floor. In relief against the illumination, Ilthiax's augmented bulk seemed to appear larger than normal. It was possible that tracing the contours of the demon's mind had led Tearen to begin perceiving the cyborg more how he wished to be seen. It was a risk that came with the territory of telepathy, but it was something that Tearen couldn't worry about right now.
"Fine...well, let me go over the details of your opponent." Ilthiax grumbled, adjusting his fat mass. The bench he sat on groaned in protest but held fast as the demon proceeded to tell Tearen things that the Shadow now already knew...
Cold and shadow.
A lone figure, hulking over the bodies of his slain comrades. A snowy battlefield gripped in an eternal night. The suns light blotted out by the grieving plume of a distant volcano. A thousand screams from the earth itself as it was torn asunder. Here stood that lone figure; Gamil. At this point in time he was just a lowly man-at-arms. He cast his gaze back towards an immense keep to the west, and then down at Tearen. No...not Tearen. This was one of Ilthiax's memories. Did the cyborg demon and Gamil know each other from some distant world?
Searching. Clawing. Sift through the refuse for the next link. Ilthiax's mind was like someone had disassembled a car and shaken the box of parts. Steam and fire. Listless piping from beyond the star. Dammit, that wasn't one of the demon's thoughts, that was one of Tearen's own. Stay focused. There, beneath a layer of mental steel. A flicker of a face named Gamil.
It was older now. Wizened and pitted by the harsh winds of the Underverse. This thought was distinguished from the rest. Both Gamil and Ilthiax had been re summoned by Diablo when the Underverse had been created. All those years ago, Ilthiax was still whole, not an amalgamation of steel and infernal flesh like he was now. Yet, there Gamil stood, an ancient human covered in bony armor. It didn't make sense. To who didn't it make sense? Focus. Trace the emotions. Yes, Gamil had originally been Ilthiax's enemy, back on that snowy plain under the shadow of the mountain. Mount...Arreat. Apocryphal. Return to the start.
Two secondaries standing, overlooking an ocean of boggy trees. A repeated mantra; Fouling of the Moors. Ah, so these two were there. Ilthiax looking up at the immense human as a figure of comfort amidst the hordes of Diablo. Why this feeling of attachment? That memory from the Battlefields of Arreat...find the thread. The common thread. Pity. Mercy. Yes. Gamil had shown Ilthiax the Demon mercy. Was it out of a sense of justice, Tearen wondered? Apparently Ilthiax himself had never received that answer, but it had left enough of an impression that the portly hellspawn had bonded intensely with the human.
This was all well and good, but what was Gamil capable of?
Rapid marching through the Moors, under the mist-soaked trees. A golden sky hung overhead, traced with veins of dark power. It was the mark of Diablo; a hell-storm. Irrelevant. Fighting now. Fighting the people of Darkshire, back when the town was clean and new. Gamil sat back in the chaos, watching his warriors die. Odd. The man wielded an odd weapon, like a giant, skinny plow. Tactically useless in a duel, but it had a strange power. Yes. The human dug the blade into the earth and channeled some sort of energy through the dying bodies. No, not through them. Into them. Gamil was a necromancer then? Indeed. The places where the fresh bodies lay blossomed with blue-green power, and their phantom silhouettes leaped into the fray.
A sudden rush of adrenaline. A blast of heavenly light sliced through the hordes of Diablo. Ilthiax's last vision of this moment were the shadow of holy wings standing over him. A hooded warrior. El'druin. Tyrael. So, this was the great and legendary warrior that had ended the war against Diablo. Ilthiax and Gamil, half dead, hanging in a great cavernous space. Grooota. Omnilium recycling. Did that make Ilthiax and Gamil weirdlings, then? The memories jumped around great gulfs in time. More sifting was necessary. There had to be more to Gamil than this. Fresh memories were easier to put in order.
Gamil had been one of Grooota's primary gladiators before Tearen had come to the Underverse. There was pain here. Betrayal. Gamil had...abandoned Grooota. Abandoned his friend. Was Ilthiax actually Gamil's friend, though? Did the ancient human actually care for the demon, or had the seedy cyborg simply decided to cling to Gamil's heels like a fat flea? From the demon's perspective, he certainly thought highly of Gamil. Perhaps there was a way to exploit this. Focus. It was bad practice to begin plotting while in someone else's head; there was a chance Ilthiax might skim some of these thoughts, even subconsciously.
Excitement. Anticipation. Tearen saw himself through Ilthiax's eyes; battered and bandaged after his fight with The Ripper. Opportunity. A chance to track down Gamil. The Traitor. The Knight of Hatred. It seemed odd that a human that had been perceived as benevolent by even a demon had been given this title. Ilthiax had known that Gamil might be entering himself in a tournament in the Azgradurg area. Was Tearen to be Ilthiax's indirect weapon of revenge, then? Indeed, there was more to this than-
Tearen jerked back from Ilthiax's slumped body with a gasp, withdrawing his mind from the cyborg demon's conscience. Some sort of mechanism installed in the fat hellspawn's body was capable of automatically rousing the demon from slumber. Tearen shuffled, still half-dazed, back over to where he had been sitting previously. By the time that Ilthiax came around, the ex-enigma was slumped in his seat exactly as he had been previously. Ilthiax yawned loudly, the gears in his respirator grinding steadily. Eventually his beady eyes came to rest on the Shadow's expectant form, and a look of suspicion crawled across his features.
"You...what did you do?" Ilthiax hissed. Tearen offered no response. He still had the appearance of aloofness to maintain. A cold moment passed between agent and gladiator before Ilthiax growled sullenly and smacked his drink off of the table next to him. Pale light filtered through the bars of the waiting area, tracing long blocks along the filthy floor. In relief against the illumination, Ilthiax's augmented bulk seemed to appear larger than normal. It was possible that tracing the contours of the demon's mind had led Tearen to begin perceiving the cyborg more how he wished to be seen. It was a risk that came with the territory of telepathy, but it was something that Tearen couldn't worry about right now.
"Fine...well, let me go over the details of your opponent." Ilthiax grumbled, adjusting his fat mass. The bench he sat on groaned in protest but held fast as the demon proceeded to tell Tearen things that the Shadow now already knew...
And, we dream of home I dream of life out of here Their dreams are small My dreams don't know fear I got my heart full of hope I will change everything No matter what I'm told How impossible it seems We did it before And we'll do it again We're indestructible Even when we're tired And we've been here before Just you and I
Don't try to rescue me I don't need to be rescued
Don't try to rescue me I don't need to be rescued