The Keepers of Chaos: A Vault of Hell

Herod Westwood: LXXX

"Like someone was trying to pull it out by their teeth." The half-elf finished. 'He knows.' Herod concluded. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity but something didn't let him, he was still so consumed by the sensations and fear that had engulfed him in that vision, that dream.

"Yeah." He muttered in agreement. Markos's eyes were misty and full of thought, like he was trying to shove so many pieces together. "First Asher is missing.. And now this, were dealing with too many fronts, too many enemies."

"We are." The cultist agreed.

'But we'll triumph, it's only whores! And we trample whores- and also eat their chickens!' Vulity gigled on the table like a mad fox. Was she a fox? She looked like it but what was a god's species that gave it three tails and very long ears.. Oh and also glowing translucent blue furr yeah this was a dumb question.

He closed his eyes, he would pray to Puderis in the morning to gain the invocation of the moon, he planned to stave off sleep in its entirety. If he could avoid sleep maybe he could work around the clock, unlocking the skills necessary to conquer his goliath. He felt so very hollow, like the creature had taken its toll on him. 'I need proper rest..' He thought critically. "When he tried, I got the itch to take the dagger, like I knew my dreams could then be accomplished, I could.. Defeat death itself."

"By joining death?" The question sent rolling pangs of pain down his body, Herod had seldom thought of it like that. "The Innocent Murderer is clearly a part of life cutter.. Given a new form, he is an incarnation of that old death god." It was like he'd seen in the Lateracies.. The bony hand dipping a knife into a molten pot of death. Had Puderis shown him the dagger all that time ago?

'He tried to take us over.. To feed on us, use us.' Vulity whispered while she walked on the table going in and out of the drinks like a mere phantom.

"I.. yeah, it wasn't smart." Herod agreed. "You know a lot about these old powers, don't you?" He met his friends' eyes, for so long he wasn't a hundred percent sure what to think of Markos, sometimes he saw the half-elf as a child or an insane maniac. However the more time he spent around the cultist the more he bore witness that it was merely just a being crammed with too much knowledge to stay sane any longer. Herod swallowed a breath pushing out the memories that was the innocent murderer's cold stone against a knife-like voice, a long dull blade trying to keep itself going by pushing an edge to a whetstone which had been rently bathed in blood. It made his skin crawl.

"Yes.." Markos leaned over the table with a sad expression.

"When Vulity stepped in again, he got mad, even angrier than he had gotten the first time. Before his expression changed." The mood in the room darkened with Herod's body getting colder. "He was.. Fascinated, interested by Vulity, by a pantheon he had never heard of before.. He told me.."

"He would kill your god."

"He started to try and study Vulity, study my memories. I think he wants into the Lateracies. Or maybe one of the other dimensions, so I forced him out."

"That's when you casted at him? What did you cast at him when he was fleeing the room?" Herod's ears perked up and he grinned madly.

'Oh tell him, tell him!' Vulity screamed happily.

"Puderis di telum igni fulltea, praesidium ex vobis boni et mali Vul Puderi, bitch." Herod recited again only this time he made the mental note not to cast. "I used protection from good and evil, and then called him a bitch. It forced him out of my mind instantly so I could hurl a witchbolt at him."

"Ha! You looked him in the eyes while he was trying to scan your memories and said; protection from good and evil bitch. Just to push him out! That's great." Markos started laughing, even his familiar Cerdest Herod was sure he called it shook a bit like it was laughing.. Or maybe crying he didn't know. The thing was pretty creepy. Yet he was glad Markos had something to tend with. He couldn't imagine this life any longer without Vulity.