The Primeval Dark (IC)

[Mornings]

He lay twisted upon the floor. It was so cold. The foul smell choked him, the rancid buzz of decay, waste and fecal matter all stirring together to create a disgusting brown haze which drifted in the air. It was so potent it burned the eyes and stung the throat with each breath. The miasma clung to the skin and befouled everything it touched with its humid smog. He would have covered his face were his hands not bound behind his back, he couldn't even be sure what held them but the wilting pain from his shattered leg was more certain. They had beat him. Thoroughly. That old man... Haugen he called himself. He said he 'had questions', but he never asked them. Instead his henchmen beat him nearly to death, and when they finished they took a sledge to his leg for good measure. The old man watched the whole thing without ever speaking. Then they left him. Left him here, wherever here was. It wasn't just dark, the entire dungeon-like expanse was filled with the thick brown miasma. He was certain they had to have been either in, or close to the sewers.

---

Three Years Ago...

Asiresh had returned to Magnimar. The City of Monuments held a special place in his heart. In another life he had come to this city with his master and seen them lay its first stones. The nostalgia had motivated his steps to be sure, but that was not the sole reason he had come. He sought another, Luka Heidmarch. Once she had been perhaps his only friend, his only companion lifetimes ago. She would have still been a child, but he couldn't resist the urge to find her once again. Once upon a time, he'd seen her grow into an adult and stand at his side against abominations which threatened to end everything. While she might have still been young, if she was still in this world then without a doubt she would have still harbored the spirit of the Queen of the Hunt. Even if she slept, where she went so too did the Maw of Winter. Now that he had returned, the memories of lives long past dimly glowed like cinders in his heart. More than an oath bound them now, for like them, he was also Elil. The lord of the Dalhar D'Inlé would speak to him, if he could be found.

It had been a sound and reasonable plan. Yet, things had gone awry. When he arrived at the Heidmarch Lodge he had found the girl to be missing. Rumors. A suspected kidnapping. Like any Pathfinder, you took the job to bring the girl home. Clues dragged the chase on and on, but confirmed at least that Luka was still in this world. A fact which brought a great sense of relief. Unlike her worried parents he didn't share their sense of worry, for he knew Luka's greatest secret. She was the Emerald Gale, a fearsome vigilante protected by the two most powerful Relicuum this side of reality. There wasn't very much which could threaten her short of his own brother, Sino'fel, or his sisters. He severely doubted that a small child would have come to odds against the Children of the three Houses. He would never find out. Entering Underbridge alone had been his first mistake. He knew she had come this way, tracking her movements by scent, but he couldn't have known what waited for him.

Darkness was brewing beneath the city, festering. It had gone unchecked for too long. The scent had brought him beneath the Irespan, beneath the city, to Uderbridge's darkest depths. Strange men and even stranger creatures had been laying in wait for him. Creature's without faces, and dead-eyed men armed to the teeth. They violently subdued him... and it was then that he had the pleasure of meeting the old man, Haugen.

---

This hell hole was filled with rot and decay, the air stagnated and coated anything which remained in here too long with a thick brown sludge. The side of his face was pressed down in the very thing, it permeated his clothes and soaked him in the nauseating filth. The claustrophobic halls were not quiet nor empty. Young children, some in chains, dragged corpses out of the room while others scrubbed the stone tiles and attempted to clean the floors and walls. An impossible task. A large man who wore a crude leather mask lumbered through the room every few minutes. He stood over six feet, donned only in scum covered pants and a butcher's apron. He was frequently dripping with blood when he passed, dragging a violent bladed chain behind him. The young ones wouldn't look at him. Too afraid to acknowledge the beast. Sometimes he would come into Asiresh's cell just to hack at him with the well-worn cleaver which hung from a steel hook on his belt. Then he would simply shamble away. He beast never spoke, only gestured and grunted like an animal. Eventually a child would come to his cell to stitch his wounds closed and patch up the holes. He was left in a constant state of pain and suffering.

Within the endless state of agony, he saw things. Visions. His mind would constantly drift in and out of consciousness, and with it came the strange dreams. His soul wound find itself drawn back into that familiar darkness. Within that realm of silence, that void of emptiness, he would see things - sometimes even hear things. Whispers.

His head reeled. Between the blood loss and his broken incorrigible state, he was a sad wretch wilting in the muck and gelatinous decay. For once it was quiet. There was no light, but he had been left within the depths of this place for so long he couldn't be certain if he could even see should light find him. He laid motionless upon the stone like a corpse. It hurt to move anymore. The old man saw to that. A glint caught his eye, something he had never seen within these walls before. He dared not hope. Yet the small blue glimmer bobbed off in the distance moving closer. He had been left in the dark and silence so long, without even imaginary words to ease his suffering, he had begun to think only the whispers within his terrible visions would hear him. The light finally slid through the rusted steel bars of his cell, though there was no door to the chamber. It was a small winged ball of blue light. The fairy bumped into his head a few times like a moth drawn to flame before speaking in a nostalgic high tone "Hello my friend. It is I - P'yii, Teller of Truth!"

---

Main Quest: Goodnight World
They had crushed your very existence. Scattered your soul across the realms and existence and cast you down into the filth of the mortal's world. Yet still you remained, still you struggled. Still you lived. A few hundred million years had found you in perhaps the worst state you had ever been, feeble and old. Even the body which you found yourself inhabiting could not be called the original. You've suffered chilling nights and blistering mornings, tortured and mangled, waiting for this chance. The devil which once haunted you many lifetimes ago had vanished, never to be seen again it seemed since you came to this world. It had been the first time in a long time you had ever been truly alone. Now it was time to destroy those who plotted against you, reclaim your birthright, and set the Cycle right. You were coming home.
Difficulty: Moderate | Status: On-going | Profit: Unknown | Time: None
Progress: (0/2)
Primary Objective: Escape
Alternate Objective: Find your brother, Sino'fel

---

Caught between his own delusions and the situation at hand, he tried to stave off the blackness of his fading consciousness. He had been waiting for so long for this moment, this chance, he had feared that it might not ever come at all. Though even the muscles in his face were pained by it, he couldn't help but smile. He'd saved this world once. Abandoned it another, and left humanity in the hands of their of their own gods. Their choices, their failures, were not his own. This needless Spite, this unjustifiable suffering... There could have been another way. If this world didn't exist, if they didn't remake it, rebuild it, corrupt it. Things would have been different. This wasn't his home. This wasn't his world. This time he wouldn't stop, he'd force his way out by any means. Reclaim himself, reclaim his spirit, reclaim his wife and the life that was stripped from him. Now all of the pieces were here, in this room. He would need that devil, the Exiled Son.

Days in Captivity: 673

Spoiler: Status

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Asiresh HP: 7/28
✦ Asiresh's hands are bound (Escape Artist DC 15 | Disable Device DC 15 | Strength Check DC 15) - (requires 5 minutes)
✦ Asiresh's equipment is scattered about the room, not on his person
✦ Asiresh is nauseated while he remains in the smog (DC20 Fort to resist for 1d3 rounds)


✦ Spited: 50 (Exiled Son)
⭍ Severity of spited effects increased (1)
⭍ Severity of spited effects increased (2)
⭍ Severity of spited effects increased (3)
⭍ Severity of spited effects increased (4)
⭍ Severity of spited effects increased (5)

✦ Wounds: Asiresh
⭍ Land speed reduced to 10 ft - Cannot run (Broken Leg | Heal DC 20)
⭍ Strenuous actions deal 1 point of damage (Broken Bones | Heal DC 15)
⭍ Strenuous actions have a 10% chance of causing bleed 1d4 rounds (Lacerations | Heal 10 hp or Heal DC 15)