The Hero

The fields of Shagaroth were a vast plain dotted with the cities of the damned. It was barren, blasted black and desolate. It was hot, the air thick and gray in all directions. Random piles of rubble and polished bones littered the ground, slowing travel to a crawl.

The crater still steamed hot white on the plains, a pale pillar of cloud reaching to the murmuring darkness above. In its center a figure lay, obscured by the ash and smoke. Coughing could be heard, and abruptly a hand reached up and outwards, pulling a powerful figure free of the bowl.

The man was giant, with thick corded muscles that drew him straightly out. He knelt for a moment, gasping for breath. His hair was pure white and his naked skin pale, and a light seemed to emanate from him, pure against the oppressive fog, foreign to the empty darkness. He raised his head, startling clear eyes in a young face, much too young for such hair. Looking all around him, the young stranger could see only darkness.

An enormous creature was hunting him. Despite being large enough to be mistaken for a small hill, it moved like a shadow, just beyond the edge of vision in the heavy fog. It snorted its acrid breath as it circled. A great horn crowned its ghastly head, and it loped along on its front knuckles like some demented ape-god. Its fore-claws were long like thorns, and its hind quarters stomped on cruel hooves. Row upon row of quills rattled along its spine.

The stranger peered into the darkness, but could not seem to pinpoint the creature.

Snarling in rage and savage joy, the beast lunged forward, rending talons raised, jaws gaping wide to reveal three rows of serrated teeth.

The stranger was quick to avoid its grasp. The monstrosity snarled in frustration, for the small white being that so tormented its vision had eluded its grasp. Howling it whirled, seeking its prey. It barely registering the small presence atop its back.

The stranger crouched low among sharpened spines that ridged the beasts' humped spine. He hadn't quite been fast enough, and the spines pressed razor sharp around him. He bled from a dozen shallow wounds. Wincing, he grasped one of the spines by its base and pulled. With a sickening lurch the spine came free, dangling gobbets of flesh on its end. The monster howled in agony and reached up to its back, horrid claws grasping, but the stranger had already dropped to the ground, directly below the belly of the beast.

The pale stranger slashed upward with his stolen spine, grimacing as the the rancid entrails dropped around him. The monster howled and trampled around, catching the stranger a glancing blow that sent him sprawling. He barely avoided the huge hoofed feet. A few quick slashes at the trampling limbs, and once again the beast squealed in pain and rage.

Snorting, the huge beast retreated for a moment and whirled, its jaws working furiously, spines rattling, eyes burning red in the gloom. Clicking its talons together, it regarded its prey balefully, seemingly unconcerned by its putrid bowels trailing the ashen earth. It howled once more, a painful echoing scream that rattled through the air, and rushed forward, its great, rhino-like horn lowered.

The stranger met the creature head-on, sliding by the cruel horn like water, somehow avoiding the slavering jaws. He ran up the outstretched arms of the monster and plunging the spine-weapon into one of its eyes.

Its howl before could not match the tremulous wail that erupted from it now, and the pale stranger leaped away, hands pressed to his ears. The beast shuddered once and slumped to the earth. Slowly the burning fire in its eyes faded to black.

After a moments rest, the stranger sighed and walked towards the body of the creature. He touched it gently, murmuring. After a few moments, the corpse began to glow faintly. An image formed of light rose, beautiful as the monster had been grotesque, though it was evident they were the same beast. The image finally faded away to leave only bones.

The great skull, with its prominent horn, some of the smaller ribs and cords of tendon, all could be used to create a passable suit of armor. The weary stranger set to work, before any other monstrosities, perhaps drawn by the sound of the dying titan, could arrive.

The Comet

The bloated, bleeding heart of the world lay shattered. Relentless, pitiless light pulsed from dull veins sprawled across the sky. Roiling dull clouds fought with the harsh illumination, smudges of smog and acrid smoke that hung low. It was thick, but occasionally the source of the light peered through in all their aweful glory: the twisted, wracked limbs of the Tree, sprawling and huge, like the tentacles of some unspeakable terror grasping the entire place in its odious embrace.

They compassed the sky, mountains leaning horribly above the realms, ready to crush out all existence, casting sickening light, solemn and galling testament of damnation. The smog was oppressive, poisonous, but it offered relief from that terrible sight when at last it recovered the limbs. There was an almost solid quality to the thick gray matter. It muffled sound, distance, a solemn tomb for the realm of Ymir, the Fallen.

Abruptly the lurid sky was ripped open with a radiant brightness that cast away the veils of darkness. Plummeting like a fallen angel from the utter reaches of the highest, a streak like silver, brilliant in its purity, sang across the sky. It cast light across the hopeless realms below, and for a moment they were laid bare, naked to each other and to the heavens.

The nine realms of Hell.

There was the broken Gates of Terror. Among its broken columns, a mausoleum of promethean proportions, nightmarish denizens gave flight, their panic-stricken shrieks rending the air like claws.

There was the Carrion Fields, realm of the gluttonous, mounds of flesh cradled in the gargantuan Ribs of Ymir.

There was the Gall of Bitterness, burning in fury and bubbling in bitter bile, its own garish light for once diminished by the dazzling comet streaking across the sky.

There was the seductive mounds and curves of the Garden of Earthly Delights, where temples to hedonistic pleasures trembled at the heavenly force.

There was the Bone Forest, rattled with the sound like thunder, shaken and humbled.

There was the Burning Tower, the streets of Babylon strewn with the bodies of the dead and the cries of the fallen. Here, a miracle, for a moment, just a moment, the endless carnage ceased as combatants paused uncertainly.

There was the Frozen Halls, their tombs and tomes warmed, a chill breath crackling through the streets, the ice and silence broken by light and music.

There was the Middle of Nowhere, and here too a miracle as the listless deoldrums glanced with wary interest at this intrusion to their monotony.

And there, in the middle of them all, was the plains of Shagaroth. There, in the Ninth Realm, the Battleground, where plains were watered with three rivers red as blood- there, in the center of Hell where the ancient city lay, barred by Eia against its corrupted inhabitants, guarding at its very center, at the center of all these forsaken worlds, there was the Tree.

The light of this miracle shined, brighter than the forgotten sun. It burned closer and closer, until at last it pounded into the Ninth, into Shagaroth. Then, gloom descended again across the realms of hell, hiding them.

Something new had come, and in the sky there was the proof.

The comet had nearly brushed one of the limbs of the Tree, and in that place, the gut-wrenching, lifeless light burned softer. Gradually, it was replaced by a soft green light. A sight not seen in this underworld realm for thousands of years bloomed into sight: The Tree, so long lifeless, had leaves, thick and green and cleansing to the smog-choked realm. The angry veins that had cracked its surface, in this small place, were calmed. Nestled among the tender, foreign growth, a tiny bud shone like a brilliant white star.

The demons, in their teaming hordes, in their millions, in their gibbering broods, shuddered in dread. Their doom, foretold so long ago by Eia the Sunderer, had come.