Man, I am so sorry about how long these chapters take to post. I got really busy and really just almost forgot about the book, to be honest. But I'm back and bitchin', and hopefully I can start turning out chapters faster.
AN: The above image is Yogg'Saron's true form. He sits within a pool of icy water, his tentacles driven deep into the earth below him. The reason the Titans have yet to kill the Old Gods is because the latter has intertwined themselves so deeply into the planet that their death would tear the world apart. So the Titans settle with imprisoning them deep underground.
October 21st, 2017
12:31 PM
Erin awoke in a cold, dark room, on a hard floor that felt like glass. She stomped, wondering if it was, but it felt as solid as stone. She turned her head and looked around, but it made no difference, for there was not a single photon to provide light. She got to her knees and began to crawl around, using her hands like antennae to feel around. She found a wall about a foot away that curved a few feet up. She followed it with her hands but it went high above her. She could make the conclusion that she was in some kind of huge and smooth stone sphere.
Unsure where to go from here, she layed down and began to cry. Tears of burning hate rolled down her cheek and she choked on her sobs. She flailed and pounded her fists and screamed like a child, her shouts of spite reverberating through her prison chamber. Hate towards what, she wasn't sure, but hate, and lots of it.
Erin rolled onto her back and took deep breaths. She was suddenly overcome with fear, fear so consuming that she couldn't think. She simply sat there, shutting down, totally giving up on herself. She sighed, a morbid sound like a death rattle, and for all she knew, it was. She could die here and that filled her with hate and fear, but also with hope. Her hate fueled her, inspired her to escape. Erin stood and began feeling the walls for any sort of imperfections she could take advantage of, like cracks or dents. She drew her hands across the perfectly smooth, round walls, becoming more and more frustrated and her lack of success. Out of rage she punched the wall, causing an explosion of red sparks.
The sparks illuminated the walls, which she found to be transparent. In the split second she could see her surroundings, she saw she was in a transparent bubble in a... warehouse? She saw walls outside the bubble that were made of ridged metal, but otherwise made not of nothing else. Nothing else besides the reaction she got from her chamber when she punched it.
Erin punched it again, despite the throbbing pain in her fist from the first strike. Nothing happened. She struck again. Nothing. She threw her head back and screamed, hot tears welling up in her eyes, and began to pound at the walls, producing explosions of sparks and sounds like thunderclaps. Finally, she drew back her fist and struck, producing a massive blast that shot her to the other side of the bubble, where she slammed into the wall at a painfully high velocity.
Standing, rubbing her raw fists, Erin walked cautiously to where she assaulted the bubble, and suddenly her prison rippled momentarily beneath her. She stopped dead, and then she was falling. After a couple feet she collapsed on a floor that she immediately recognized as cold, dank concrete. She supposed she was in a warehouse as she stood and dusted herself off.
Suddenly, Erin came to the realization that her handgun, a 9 mm, was still resting on her hip. She removed it from the holster and flipped the safety off. A flashlight attachment on the bottom allowed her to examine her surroundings, and she found she was in a warehouse. She noticed a door of blue metal, and approached it. There was no light from the bottom of the door, so she opened it quickly and quietly.
Peering through the doorway she found that it seemed like nothing but another warehouse. Her light revealed an open door on the other side of that warehouse. Somebody was standing in the doorway, back to her. The person, likely a female, was hunched down much in the fashion Erin herself was, and was wearing a dirty white tank top, like Erin herself was. She decided not to tamper for now and closed the door, but it created a clang much louder than she intended. Behind her she heard another clang, causing her to jump.
Erin whirled around and shined her light at the other side of the warehouse, where an identical door stood. She ran over and yanked open the door, revealing another dark warehouse. With an identical blue metal door, with another prisoner in a grubby tank top shining a flashlight into the doorway they stood in. Erin's heartbeat stopped, then sped up considerably. She pointed the gun behind her while staring ahead, and sure enough, the figure in front of her shone their flashlight at her in the same position.
Well. Shit.
Whatever these doors and this warehouse was, she was trapped. Walking through this door would transport her to the other door, and vice versa. Erin decided to explore the warehouse for possible weaknesses in the structure. She directed her flashlight along the walls, searching for cracks or a closed window. As she searched for faults, a glob of something wet slapped her shoulder. Erin inserted her index into the mass of fluid and found it to be warm and thick, like jelly. She sniffed her fingers and recoiled. It smelled like horribly bad breath with a touch of decomposition.
Shining her flashlight up she found, dangling from the rafters, a massive collection of human-sized egg sacs. They were a pale purpleish, covered in indigo veins and pulsed like macabre hearts, some occasionally dripping the mucus-like substance that they were coated in. Erin's heart began to race, as she saw the egg sac directly above her begin to pulse and writhe faster. It swelled and burst, sending a rain of slime onto the floor and spraying across the walls and, of course, slapping into Erin's face and torso.
Erin tried pushing it off her shoulders and clearing her face, the latter of which she succeeded in completing. However, all she accomplished with the former was covering her hands in slime. It suddenly occurred to her that, following the egg sac bursting, she heard a wet thud a few feet ahead of her. Hands shaking, she pointed her flashlight at the source of the thud, and found what appeared to be a mass of intertwined tentacles that somewhat resembled a humanoid creature. It was unconscious, or at least appeared to be, so Erin flipped it onto its back - if you could call it that - and further examined it. One of its arms was just a long tentacle, generally proportional. The other arm was huge, and appeared to be three muscular tentacles fused together to form an arm with three weird fingers. Its face was round, with two tiny tentacles draping down with a third one in the middle, like a beard that covered its face. Two beady red eyes poked out from the gaps formed by the middle tentacle and the other two. Its legs were lean and muscular, but also appeared to be the only thing not made of tentacles. It even had a couple of weird stone-like toes on each stubby foot. For some reason, she didn't think this thing was very fast.
Maybe she could use the obvious strength of its right arm to get out of the damn place. She knelt and poked the smaller tentacle, and in the span of a couple seconds, found herself inches from an egg sac and then plummeting toward the concrete fifty feet below. Colliding with the floor would have been significantly more painful if she hadn't landed on her side, which was coated in slime. Her arm was crushed instantly, but she slid into a nearby wall which, while it hurt, still stopped her movement and allowed her to assess what had happened.
There was great pain in her lower chest, and she thought she had broken at least three ribs. The creature on the other side of the warehouse had awoken when she tapped it, and launched her across the room with its massive right arm. It was currently trying to stand, but struggling somewhat. After all, it had just been born. Erin wondered how much stronger this thing was once it was fully grown. Already it was almost as tall as Kaldrun, albeit much wider, mostly due to its huge muscle-tentacle-things.
Erin tried to stand. It was almost like a race with the creature to get up first. She put her uninjured right arm, which was also holding the gun, underneath her for support. She then tried to stand, but this send a sharp pain through her abdomen, so harsh that it wrenched a cry of agony from her lips.
Erin collapsed onto her back, breathing heavily, and the thing had definitely heard her. It had had much more success in standing than she had, and was currently walking towards her at a brisk, yet menacing pace.
Erin lifted her gun, with the flashlight, and tried to aim at the beast, but her hand shook horribly.
The beast neared her, but she noticed its eyes were closed. It got into her face and puffed warm air through two slits between its eyes. Through these same slits it sniffed her, somehow deciding she wasn't a threat, and walked off.
With no desire to put in any more effort, she dropped her gun and lay against the wall. The beast went into the shadows and Erin fell asleep. A deep unconsciousness of those that are simply too exhausted to go on.
⇋
Kaldrun walked on, through the wind that sent debris flying around at dangerous speeds. The streets and sidewalks were mostly empty, for there had been a tornado warning that encouraged staying inside. Of all the strange things in this place, he knew what a tornado was. And knew that the storm brewing overhead was nothing so tame.
Kaldrun walked on, brooding, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his ponytail whipping behind him in the wind. His destination was the same huge tower that he scouted for his glaives from. He figured that was the easiest way to get to the storm's eye.
Kaldrun's tattoos were reddening more every minute. The tattoos in the center of his torso had become completely blood red, and the maroon corruption was gracing his shoulders. He wasn't sure what would happen once they enveloped the entirety of the designs, but he knew that it didn't yield a pleasant result, and would likely lead to his being enslaved by the Old One.
Again.
Kaldrun heard a strange whining sound and quickly crouched behind a mailbox. Two of the vehicles that were driven on the black pathways came screaming by at high speeds, red and blue lights flashing on their roofs. Kaldrun recognized these as "cops", and knew they were the enemy. When the sirens had faded away, Kaldrun continued walking. As he went forward, he wondered of ways to make himself less conspicuous. His cascading silver hair and height was clearly not commonplace in this world. The only problem there was that, while his soul could produce its own energy, to change his physical appearance in such a way would require a constant flow of energy. That flow of energy, while nearly negligible normally, would be a strain on him in this ley line-lacking rock of despair.
Kaldrun sighed, getting more and more tense as the moments went on. This ageless elf had been on missions that would inspire many to retire, hang up their cloak, and probably leap headfirst off the nearest cliff. Not one of those missions, however, caused him to be so frugal with his energy consumption that he was afraid to cast even a spell regarded by most to be a silly parlor trick. In his brooding, he hardly noticed that he was approaching a large glass wall. Or, perhaps a window. He stopped just in time to avoid colliding headfirst with a window to a...
What did that say?
In big yellow letters, "McDonald's" was spelled on top of this building, and people inside were gaping at him unsurprisingly.
People here are rude, Kaldrun thought bitterly, and continued on.
Just across the black pathway was the massive structure that was his destination. He strolled across the road, trying to seem inconspicuous and nonchalant. Oddly, there were very few "cars" in sight. Earlier, the multi-colored cabins were zipping around constantly.
Kaldrun grabbed hold of a metal bar on the side of the building and began to climb, trying to ignore the fact that people were still staring at him from the residence of McDonald. He just climbed and climbed, trying to ignore the fact that he was getting closer and closer to very possible death the higher he went, not only because of the height, but also because of the Old Gods' unpredictable personalities.
At last he reached the underside of the massive circular platform that made the top of the structure. From the ladder-like supports of the Space Needle, Kaldrun noticed an actual metal ladder leading to the top of the platform. He climbed through a space in the support beams, and reached out to one of the ladder's bars. Confident in his abilities, he leaped across the space and slammed into the ladder.
Apparently, it was much closer than he initially assumed.
Kaldrun began to fall, and his heel caught on one of the bars, sending him spinning over. Suddenly his feet were in the air and he was diving head-first toward concrete. Thinking quickly, he stuck his legs out. They clanged against several bars before catching on, stopping Kaldrun's downward descent. His head banged against another bar, causing the ladder to vibrate, and a sharp pain to cascade down (up?) his body, all the way to his toes. Suddenly he couldn't remember the English word for "apple", and was acutely aware of the fact.
Taking several breaths, our exhausted protagonist reached up, clenching his abs (at least those still worked), and grabbed onto a bar just above where his knees hooked around another. He let the head rush pass, and then continued to climb upwards. Finally he reached the top, where he sat down to recuperate. Taking several deep breaths, he struggled to remember the word for that crisp, delicious red fruit, before eventually realizing that it didn't fucking matter.
Finally the pulsing in his head passed, or at least subsided to a tolerable level, and he stood to face the needle portion of the Space Needle. He jumped up and began to climb, despite the metallic creaks of the needle under his weight, and the fact that he very well may be struck by lightning.
Looking up, straight into the eye of the storm, Kaldrun felt oddly angry. As though he were cheated, which, really, was quite true. All this effort, all this damned effort to save a planet that hated his people, hated him, even though he was their sole reason for continued existence. It was, as he supposed Erin would say, "bullshit". Not a single note of thanks from anyone, not even his own race. They shunned him the most, even though what he did was completely for them. At that moment, Kaldrun considered letting go and abandoning this ridiculous mission. Letting the Old Ones take over this lifeless rock, and possibly going home and killing a couple towns worth of night elves. Give them a reason to fear him...
"What the hell?" Kaldrun blurted. He shook his head, gaping as his own selfishness. He looked down. The redness of his tattoos had covered nearly every inch, leaving nothing but a purple tinge at the edges.
Kaldrun took a deep breath and looked back into the eye of the storm, and suddenly a massive force nearly knocked him off the needle. Somehow he managed to keep his grip and, even if he wanted, he suspected he wouldn't have been able to look away from the eye.
In his mind, the blaring voice of Yogg'Saron pierced his mind like a titanium blade would pierce his kidney if thrusted in such a direction.
"So, your audacity is as endless as your stupidity, it seems! You wish to give yourself to me?"
Kaldrun knew this next part was unnecessary, but rage was boiling inside him and it was the only way he knew to let it out. He screamed up into the sky, "I want Erin back, you leathery bitch!"
Red lightning crackled through the clouds above him, followed by a thunder that did less rumbling and more cracking the fabric of reality with its shear force.
"Your tenacity is admirable, but will ultimately be what gives you to me. Very well. You want her? You shall have her."
What happened next came very fast, like his first encounter with Yogg'Saron on this world. The metal beneath Kaldrun's fingertips began humming and vibrating, and he couldn't yank them away. Then, his premonition from earlier came true. He looked back up to the storm and a burning red streak of lightning shot from the sky and collided with his chest. In the next few moments, he was living in slow motion. He felt nothing and blackness was rapidly closing in, but the last thing he noticed was that he was plummeting downward to the pavement below and had been launched from the needle at least fifty feet.
His last thought was a word he found at the forefront of Erin's mind when he probed it during their first meeting.
Fuck.
⇋
When Erin awoke, she was being carried. Her shattered arm was dangling in front of her face, and her chest hurt like all get-out, likely the cause of her waking up. Her initial thought was that the weird tentacle thing from earlier was carrying her, but looking around she saw that she wasn't even in the warehouse anymore. She was being carried down an alley, and this made her think bitterly that she should stop spending so much time in alleys.
Looking down again she saw that the back of her carrier was shirtless, a light shade of purple, and very obviously human. At least, humanoid. That very same back was covered in bright red tattoos that seemed to glimmer in a similar fashion as Kaldrun's. Funny, they also seemed very similar in design...
Erin hesitated, before saying raspily, "Kal?"
The one that was supposedly Kaldrun put down Erin gingerly on the damp concrete.
Erin looked up at his face (and he was very obviously a he, as proven by the facial hair) and, despite the purple skin, long-ass ears, and differently colored tattoos, this was definitely Kaldrun. She noticed that a scar ran down his face, as though he were clawed by an animal or something.
"Oh, thank god. I thought you--"
Kaldrun, expressionless, sunk his steel-toed boot into Erin's already shattered rip, wrenching a blood-curdling scream from her throat, and that same blood to drip from her mouth.
"Quiet, wench," he said dryly.
Erin was in too much pain to say anything, so to let out her confusion and fear, she laid down in a fetal position and began to cry. She never considered herself a crying girl, but these past few days she had cried multiple times. This whole experience with Kaldrun sucked serious ass.
In the meantime, Kaldrun simply stood above her, dressed in nothing but Felsteel gauntlets and boots along with armored leggings. His chest was bare, his magical tattoos shimmering. He gazed down on her shaking body without emotion. At least, that's how it seemed. In his mind, a great battle raged on. He fought for control of his body, but Yogg'Saron's control over it was absolute. The Old One did not have a vessel anymore, his previous one having crumbled beneath Yogg'Saron's power. This one, though... Kaldrun's body was enough. More than enough. Yogg'Saron could wreak true havoc in this body, and it could hold his power indefinitely.
Kaldrun screamed in his mind, wishing to be free, but all for naught. Yogg'Saron would not let up. Yogg'Saron knelt before the sobbing girl. "Erin", Kaldrun had called her.
"Erin," Yogg'Saron said gently, in Kaldrun's voice.
When Erin refused to look, the self-proclaimed god of death grabbed the girl's face and turned it to him. He grinned sadistically, his sharp black nails scratching her face, "Look at me, wench. You present yourself to Yogg'Saron, god of death. You will be a fine addition to my army on this planet. Possibly a lieutenant, if you prove yourself. Here."
Kaldrun's/Yogg'Saron's hand glowed a deep, evil purple, one that penetrated and enveloped Erin's body, filling her with dread, and a raging heat. Suddenly the heat was gone, and so was the pain in her arm and rib. Yogg'Saron let go and stood.
"Stand, Erin."
She obeyed, legs shaking.
"I will present you with two choices; you may willingly join my army and be guaranteed god-like power, and a place by my side. You will vanquish your enemies with the snap of a finger."
As if to extenuate this fact, he snapped his fingers, producing red sparks, "Or, you can become a zombie beneath my rule, cannon fodder. You will die a dishonorable death, likely as food for my own armies, or as a human shield amongst millions more that precede the march of my own Faceless Ones.
"Make your choice, Erin Matthias."
Erin really only saw one choice here. She looked to her hand, which was not only healed, but felt stronger. She looked back into the undoubtedly evil eyes of Yogg'Saron. It was at this moment she noticed that where there were previously emerald flames, there were now empty sockets that emitted a malevolent red glow. She sighed and nodded, "Okay. Okay. Fine. I'll join your army, I'll vanquish shit with you, but I want you to promise me something."
Several unidentifiable emotions flitted over Kaldrun's strong, lupine features, and the grin on his face faltered momentarily, but Yogg'Saron simply nodded Kaldrun's head and said, "Go on."
Erin took a deep breath, "I am to be the head general of all your armies, and I will answer to none but yourself. Deal?"
Yogg'Saron cackled, "Ah, of course! An ambitious soldier, we have! Very well, girl. It is done. All my troops are under your command, overwritten by none but myself. We will do great things, Erin."
The last sentence he said while gripping her shoulder in what was supposed to either intimidate or reassure her. This thing just confused her, but she nodded and smiled nervously.
Suddenly Yogg'Saron became serious and squeezed her shoulder harder, before nodding ominously.
"Great things..."