Finally, the time had arrived. Shut away in the rickety bolthole that constituted as an inn in that misbegotten haven, he could finally lower his guard, the facade he carried with him everywhere he went. There was no one left he could just be himself with anymore. He had a woman once, nearly ten years before, right before the rise of the Darkness, when the Cataclysm struck home and hearth, obliterating Life-Worth-Living. At least, that was how he looked at it.
She had seen him with all defenses down.
It had taken him years to help people--commoners mostly--where he had lost his sense of self. Now he was finally reemerging as what he was originally molding himself to become. Eyes half-laden, he stared up at the ceiling but only saw his memoirs. He allowed himself those few precious moments of solitude where all he thought about was the haloed-haired hoyden with a smile that could melt and cut and chill all at once.
That was how he had felt now: frozen, imploded, and torn. Likely just a play on words.
Effort and work were his partners now, not some misbegotten love from times shrouded by the Darkness and its omnipotent inertia. With that thought, his time to reminisce was now over. He had work to do.
Still lying prone on his unyielding bed, he looked up and could See. The cities and townships not completely overrun by the Darkness were quickly corrupting from within as the years rolled by and despair set in, like rot, always spreading outward. There were pieces to this puzzle that needed contemplation before being set down, to find exactly their placement where there were numerous options available. This was the ability to be objective and meticulous to every known detail, all while leaving room for change. This shift could be either a growth or shrinking.
The first thing he had done was lead fools around by the nose, especially the wolfkin who prided themselves on extraordinary prowess when it came to detection and subtlety. What they believed uncanny was, in all actuality, nothing more than misplaced arrogance that had been curbed--in not so light a term--like a bitch in heat. Learning quickly about these shifters, he had made the mistake of being openly visible when they spoke their secrets so blatantly in a city center where anyone could hear them should they had passed by.
What got him was their audacity to approach him and did everything, up to and including threatening his life, if he did not keep their secrets to himself. The humor to that is the fact that they are completely incapable of keeping their own private matters private, and yet expect others to do it for them. The initial offense was pure stupidity; no one could blame it on ignorance because they were of their kind and they simply knew better.
One was downsized and malleable--on both ends due to intervention--and now both were in each other's pockets. As he was told, as long as their paths coincided with one another, then they were temporary allies. The trick was to shift the party back in his favor and create (if need be) a common cause. The day and age made that ridiculously easy.
The other was, well, a bit harder on the matter. More forceful and tried his damnedest to force his strength and prowess outward. While a bad situation could have been made much worse, luckily this other mutt was horrendously easy to cast adrift, which ended with a mutt who couldn't control his mouth to offer riches and power beyond the wildest of dreams.
The man had to smile. No, the darklings would all be cast away in a booming echo of light and all would be as it was ten years ago, if he had had the power to do anything. No, he was nothing but a bitch with a penis, over-thinking his boundaries because no one ever got it through to him that he is almost completely useless.
He would have to be handled with caution, nevertheless. Uncontrollable to themselves made for poor bedfellows when it came to unpredictability when cornered.
Vek. There are rumors out there that there are more than one. Just recently, one was condemned and burned by the holy fire of Cymur, and yet all people could do was pray that it would be enough to keep this one down long enough to find a remedy for his kind. Pompous fools. And they questioned why he was not of any faith. If the gods cannot smote even a single Vek without him returning with laughter in his eyes, then how did anyone expect them to do anything but be there, jealous of mankind for its mortality, for its ability to shine far brighter than any god could because each man, woman, and child knew they would one day die.
A careful eye must be placed upon all that had handling in this for the hunt, the kill, and those that witnessed. Yes, there were bloodletters that feared and rebuked the burning of a mass-murderer, and yet they had the gull to claim to be protectors? Already the rot had set in, wrapping itself around the very core of this remaining civilization.
Purity is found in faith, he believed, and he knew that to earn faith, you first had to earn love. To do that, you needed to convince--not prove--the smallfolk that their desires were one and the same. Only then, when they wholly, maddeningly felt that way, would their fanaticism drive them to make the ultimate sacrifice, to give their lives willingly and without qualms.
Certainly he could not have been the only person to readily believe that the reason the commoners would not rise up was because of lack of faith, not courage. Courage was a falsified deity, a manipulated and twisted form of one's will bandied about by travelers and worshipers of gods alike, to goad people to make themselves fodder for the slaughter.
They needed bodies, but they misinterpreted what was truly of value there. They believed that they needed trained hands that could use sword or axe, but they had utterly ignored the fact that if they had devotion, all else was nothing but a mere stepping stone. The Darkness had not moved much in the last ten years, what made them think that taking the time to train devotees would be a poor idea?
That was their ignorance, as a whole. Always trying to rush the inevitable. It looked to him as if they were doing nothing more than killing as many of the darklings as they could before being slain themselves, and hoping the gods favored them enough to bring them back. But at what price, he wondered? To slide into the palm of a god begged the chance to be crushed in their forgetfulness.
He was not going to play that game. He was not going to play by the rules of beings who watched, doing nothing more than a little give and take where ever the whim took them. Especially if they were incapable of handling the Darkness. Even other gods began to rise to challenge their authority. That was a scary thought of its own, and he readily admitted that said fear. It chilled him to the bone, made him go rigid at the thought. Let the gods work out their own kind.
Since the idea to reestablish some form of stability had come to many people, he was a person to look to the ideas and recruitment of others, whether it be for whichever faction decided when the time was right to rise up, and they had the soundest base to both work with and temper that rot before trying to eject it. It was like a cold; you did not have to kill the infected. The body figured out a way to cure itself and to adapt. That was the best course of action in a deteriorating society.
The wheels were already turning and he knew better men than him were the ones to lead these campaigns. Let him do his part and be done with it.
There were five that gave him pause, though, that he knew he had to find a place for before advancing too much further. The skrell of dragon's yawning, the skittish dame, the quasi-siren who was lost founded, the silhouette of a child of the moon, and the cubling that yearned for utter freedom. Each of these had a place of special interest to him because they, he felt, were the ones who held the corporeal keys to either his success or his demise.
Failure was not an option, he knew, but that was a risk that every entrepreneur had to take. Success was only that much sweeter.
She had seen him with all defenses down.
It had taken him years to help people--commoners mostly--where he had lost his sense of self. Now he was finally reemerging as what he was originally molding himself to become. Eyes half-laden, he stared up at the ceiling but only saw his memoirs. He allowed himself those few precious moments of solitude where all he thought about was the haloed-haired hoyden with a smile that could melt and cut and chill all at once.
That was how he had felt now: frozen, imploded, and torn. Likely just a play on words.
Effort and work were his partners now, not some misbegotten love from times shrouded by the Darkness and its omnipotent inertia. With that thought, his time to reminisce was now over. He had work to do.
Still lying prone on his unyielding bed, he looked up and could See. The cities and townships not completely overrun by the Darkness were quickly corrupting from within as the years rolled by and despair set in, like rot, always spreading outward. There were pieces to this puzzle that needed contemplation before being set down, to find exactly their placement where there were numerous options available. This was the ability to be objective and meticulous to every known detail, all while leaving room for change. This shift could be either a growth or shrinking.
The first thing he had done was lead fools around by the nose, especially the wolfkin who prided themselves on extraordinary prowess when it came to detection and subtlety. What they believed uncanny was, in all actuality, nothing more than misplaced arrogance that had been curbed--in not so light a term--like a bitch in heat. Learning quickly about these shifters, he had made the mistake of being openly visible when they spoke their secrets so blatantly in a city center where anyone could hear them should they had passed by.
What got him was their audacity to approach him and did everything, up to and including threatening his life, if he did not keep their secrets to himself. The humor to that is the fact that they are completely incapable of keeping their own private matters private, and yet expect others to do it for them. The initial offense was pure stupidity; no one could blame it on ignorance because they were of their kind and they simply knew better.
One was downsized and malleable--on both ends due to intervention--and now both were in each other's pockets. As he was told, as long as their paths coincided with one another, then they were temporary allies. The trick was to shift the party back in his favor and create (if need be) a common cause. The day and age made that ridiculously easy.
The other was, well, a bit harder on the matter. More forceful and tried his damnedest to force his strength and prowess outward. While a bad situation could have been made much worse, luckily this other mutt was horrendously easy to cast adrift, which ended with a mutt who couldn't control his mouth to offer riches and power beyond the wildest of dreams.
The man had to smile. No, the darklings would all be cast away in a booming echo of light and all would be as it was ten years ago, if he had had the power to do anything. No, he was nothing but a bitch with a penis, over-thinking his boundaries because no one ever got it through to him that he is almost completely useless.
He would have to be handled with caution, nevertheless. Uncontrollable to themselves made for poor bedfellows when it came to unpredictability when cornered.
Vek. There are rumors out there that there are more than one. Just recently, one was condemned and burned by the holy fire of Cymur, and yet all people could do was pray that it would be enough to keep this one down long enough to find a remedy for his kind. Pompous fools. And they questioned why he was not of any faith. If the gods cannot smote even a single Vek without him returning with laughter in his eyes, then how did anyone expect them to do anything but be there, jealous of mankind for its mortality, for its ability to shine far brighter than any god could because each man, woman, and child knew they would one day die.
A careful eye must be placed upon all that had handling in this for the hunt, the kill, and those that witnessed. Yes, there were bloodletters that feared and rebuked the burning of a mass-murderer, and yet they had the gull to claim to be protectors? Already the rot had set in, wrapping itself around the very core of this remaining civilization.
Purity is found in faith, he believed, and he knew that to earn faith, you first had to earn love. To do that, you needed to convince--not prove--the smallfolk that their desires were one and the same. Only then, when they wholly, maddeningly felt that way, would their fanaticism drive them to make the ultimate sacrifice, to give their lives willingly and without qualms.
Certainly he could not have been the only person to readily believe that the reason the commoners would not rise up was because of lack of faith, not courage. Courage was a falsified deity, a manipulated and twisted form of one's will bandied about by travelers and worshipers of gods alike, to goad people to make themselves fodder for the slaughter.
They needed bodies, but they misinterpreted what was truly of value there. They believed that they needed trained hands that could use sword or axe, but they had utterly ignored the fact that if they had devotion, all else was nothing but a mere stepping stone. The Darkness had not moved much in the last ten years, what made them think that taking the time to train devotees would be a poor idea?
That was their ignorance, as a whole. Always trying to rush the inevitable. It looked to him as if they were doing nothing more than killing as many of the darklings as they could before being slain themselves, and hoping the gods favored them enough to bring them back. But at what price, he wondered? To slide into the palm of a god begged the chance to be crushed in their forgetfulness.
He was not going to play that game. He was not going to play by the rules of beings who watched, doing nothing more than a little give and take where ever the whim took them. Especially if they were incapable of handling the Darkness. Even other gods began to rise to challenge their authority. That was a scary thought of its own, and he readily admitted that said fear. It chilled him to the bone, made him go rigid at the thought. Let the gods work out their own kind.
Since the idea to reestablish some form of stability had come to many people, he was a person to look to the ideas and recruitment of others, whether it be for whichever faction decided when the time was right to rise up, and they had the soundest base to both work with and temper that rot before trying to eject it. It was like a cold; you did not have to kill the infected. The body figured out a way to cure itself and to adapt. That was the best course of action in a deteriorating society.
The wheels were already turning and he knew better men than him were the ones to lead these campaigns. Let him do his part and be done with it.
There were five that gave him pause, though, that he knew he had to find a place for before advancing too much further. The skrell of dragon's yawning, the skittish dame, the quasi-siren who was lost founded, the silhouette of a child of the moon, and the cubling that yearned for utter freedom. Each of these had a place of special interest to him because they, he felt, were the ones who held the corporeal keys to either his success or his demise.
Failure was not an option, he knew, but that was a risk that every entrepreneur had to take. Success was only that much sweeter.
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