Seed Of Evil II

A Story by Jason Damstra

The second in a series of conceptual scraps exploring the possible origin of a "big bad" in a fantasy setting. WARNING - This one is not for the queasy!

The pool lay innocuously enough far to the east of our humble ___________. It bubbled gently from some deep spring. The cool if-slightly-muddied waters nourished the fertile long grass around it and this in turn fed the large beasts that roamed sedately over the plains.

This was of course, until the event that much changed the land. The far reaching effects even now threatening the borders of our small town. What transpired exactly remains a subject open to much speculation, however the widely accepted version of events that led to the corruption of those sweet waters state that it was caused by a single drop of black and odious blood from some previously divine entity as it was cast from the higher realms.

At first, the waters turned dark. Gradually developing into a shiny inky black from which nothing submerged could be seen. The village elders, upon hearing this, immediately ordered people not to near the pool, fearing some act of poisoning or magical influence to be at work.

As the days passed the water appeared to grow sluggish - that's not to say the waters grew thicker in any physical sense, but rather, the ebb and flow seemed different, as though the waters themselves roiled on their own accord, with a steady rhythm in the depths of the pool.

It was at this point that the plants began to die.

A withering disease that at first affected only the plants around the pools lip soon spread outwards. The blight caused any surrounding plants to shrivel and decompose, forming a mushy brown-green blanket that sent stinking fumes high into the air. A choking miasma that danced on the wind like some sickly herald of death.

It was not long after this that the creatures of the fields began to perish... The mindless brutes being too dull witted, or indeed under some other effect, merely remained in the radius of the poisonous blight, gently kneeled over to their deaths. The bones and sinews of lizards and other small creatures littered the ground alongside those of much larger beasts...

It was in this field of rot that the agents of decay found a fetid paradise.

Fat flies and their bloated, puffy offspring reveled in the visceral decay... Maggots, beetles and worms scuttled, slithered and crawled their way through the moldy sludge to grow rotund on the blood of the dead things. Carrion and offal where stripped away by legions of vermin; leaving stark white bones and yellow teeth littering the soft, mulchy ground. Rats scurried in droves to that foul place, attracted as they where to the veritable feast it offered. They perched and gamboled in and amongst the network of wasting matter, piles of bone became their haunts - from these macabre necropoli faint tittering could be heard at all hours.

The blight also became a home for both raven and crow. Like the rats these opportunistic birds found easy meals between the waste and the waste eaters. They gorged themselves on flesh fattened grubs and other carnal things. The skies around the sickly pool where always thick with vast flocks of these intelligent avians.

The feast appeared to provide these creatures with a sort of unnatural audacity. They stalked the borders of the blight, crouching in legions amongst the outskirts. Protecting their new home they watched patiently for any who sought to enter the corrupt land; before pouncing on them with unnatural ferocity not ceasing until the unfortunate escaped or added to the piles of bone and gore.

The elders, having never dealt with the likes of this unnatural pestilence sent forth a desperate plea of help to the grand wizard __________. The kindly fellow immediately set out to give our small town aid. He brought with him two acolytes, hoping to teach them the value of magic in the field.

Little did our brave wizard realize the dangers of such an expedition, and it is with much sadness to record that only one of his poor students returned to us. More dead than alive, the youth was bleeding from a multitude of wounds, caked in decay and filth he lay in agony the whole night. Yelling loudly that he could still hear them. The cries of the birds, the screeching rats and the maggots, he could hear the maggots writhing about, hundreds, thousands... Flopping and wriggling over the soft bodies of their kin.

The youth died in those quite hours that precede the morning. He was to be given a proper burial the following day, after our coroner could take a better look at his wounds - hoping to discover something more about the blight.

To the coroners disgust as he opened the body of the deceased a multitude of worms and fetid gunk flowed to the floor. Covering the table with a sticky rotten fluid. It was inconceivable that the youth had lived as long has he did with these foul things present within.

Of course, this was not the most terrible discovery made that day. For you see... As the doctor worked the body of the youth began to twist and convulse in vile spasms. In fright, the doctor stepped back from the body that lay on his table. Suddenly the youths eyes sprung open! The doctor affirms that he will never forget those eyes, those feral hungry eyes that stared at him from bloodied sockets. The thing that sat before him rose with an unnatural speed and it was only the doctors sudden cries for help that saved him that day. The brute was clubbed to pieces by four sturdy men.

It was agreed that the blight be left alone. However, that sickened spot appears to be growing, and even now I see the flocks of the fell birds on the horizon. I hear the tittering rats and, to my dismay, I hear a garbled yowling cry, so bestial and strange in pitch, yet beneath those chords of agony and hunger, I hear tones that were once so damnably human.

- the final entry in the journal of one Barrow Matrilome, scholar of the town of ___________.