Punishment

A preview I created for myself, canon and depicting the raw brutality of the lunatic cultist lord, Vorvadoss, when his agents fail him.

[…] The feeble, pale-skinned, short Valderyn approached Vorvadoss almost fearful of his fate. He walked the somewhat chipped, timeworn dark cobblestone paving with small, almost hesitant, and very quiet footsteps - only the blue torchlight radiating from the occasional tilted sconce almost hurriedly placed on the wall by the Cult, bouncing on the arched, antique corridor of dark stones almost too shabbily put together - white-grey murals scattered and embossed on the walls and ceiling of the corridor.

He reached the end, where a relatively large, circular and tall chamber awaited him. The same colours radiated - blue, with a rare tint of green here and there as in the middle stood the Cultist Lord himself, overseeing a, possibly, planetary map of Lux - the ancient planet dedicated to the Starweavers and the Enlightened Ones, inhabited by the Monks of the Hourglass and the great Archons of Daybreak, along with their apprentices whom practised a very pure form of Woskalai that most simply called “Holy” or “Divine” magics. Unarguably the safest place in all of Nitidus, this was a main priority target for the insane cultists. They knew this was, in fact, a very powerful place. The Monks of the Hourglass were elite warriors, whose powers were augmented by the Enlightened themselves - they strike with the fist of the gods, think with the mind of the gods, and defend with the will of the gods. Few made it past the tedious trials of the Hourglass Monks, but those who did, were remembered in history. Their charge was, as probably expected, defending the timelines and timeways, and making sure the future follows a bright path and not a shadowy one. Given these current circumstances whatsoever, even the monks felt overburdened by the growing, seemingly infinite darkness. The Cryptic Whisperers have already turned countless insane via manipulating visions of the future, and the monks could do nothing to prevent it. Nobody could. Nobody will ever stand up against a deity, which stands on similar levels to a Starweaver.

This benevolent planet was a threat to Vorvadoss and the Cult. They wanted its civilisation shattered. Thus, they sent one of their great generals - Heloxis - master shapeshifter and deceiver, to attempt to pour venom into the ears of the Archons, attempting to stir up an internal war. This didn’t exactly go as planned. He was caught, punished, but he escaped - the real question is whether he ran thunder into lightning. Vorvadoss sure was not going to be too happy this infiltration did not succeed - and perhaps what was worse, was that Heloxis was not a nearly ethereal energy bound to a physical plane via a cryptically-enchanted bone mask of esoteric, indecipherable and diabolical runes and magics that gave a forced shape to the cultists’ souls and made them stay on the physical plane. This was only going to end awfully for Heloxis.

Vorvadoss tilted his head up a little bit, already having heard Heloxis treading inside the unearthly chamber. Heloxis begun shivering a little. He lowered his frame, almost cowering a little as Vorvadoss turned around, his hands clasped together and concealed by the draping, torn black, runed sleeves of his rather unnatural looking robe - almost otherworldly, the interwoven, almost silk-like thread weirdly undulating gently and slowly, as if a soft breeze was permanently blowing against them. He then looked down at him with a condescending glare - despite having no eyes, the pressure and intense feeling of being watched in that way echoed in Heloxis’ mind and body.

“Lux is preparing for a full-scale assault. Elaborate.”, Vorvadoss spoke in a very cold demeanour, and seemingly trying to sound human - but not succeeding. Heloxis looked up at the Cultist Lord, fear gathering in his eyes and petrifying his body gradually, in a more or less figurative way. He tried parting his lips to speak, only barely opening - in that time interval, Vorvadoss instantly lunged towards the general and wrapped his skeletal, deformed seven fingers around his throat, power walking with him to the nearest wall and ramming him with unholy force in the stone wall - dust rising from the wall and dropping from the ceiling a little - the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling beginning to gently rock back and forth. “You failed. You are a failure. You have disappointed me gravely. But no more. No more. The Whisperers told me their verdict. You will not die. Mercy is for the weak. You will serve. You will serve and you will suffer. I will make an example of you. You - Heloxis - will be a testament to my wrath, and a lesson to all whom dare fail me. Lux should have been at war with itself now. It is not. It is your fault.” Heloxis lightly grasped Vorvadoss’ hands with his - immediately, ischaemia taking a toll on him - blood no longer flowing in and towards the areas that were in contact with Vorvadoss’ hands.

With his other hand, he grasped his face with the two thumbs of his hands, forcing the rest of five fingers inside his mouth, almost touching the back of it. Black, barbed tendrils grew from his fingertips, slithering down Heloxis’ throat and piercing through the gullet, crawling towards the heart quickly. Heloxis struggled to escape, in severe, unimaginable pain already. Vorvadoss kicked him with his knee in the stomach hard enough to make him stop as the black tendrils coiled around the arteries of his heart, constricting them and preventing blood flow back to the heart. Visibly, his limbs darkened quickly from the lack of blood flow as his heart rate accelerated to the point where it was like a rabbit’s. His heart beat faster and faster, Heloxis’ eyes widening in agony and opening his mouth wide, but unable to scream or produce any sounds, only very horribly wriggle and squirm, until it suddenly stopped - suffering a sudden infarction as his body went limp quickly. Vorvadoss dragged his hand out and let him fall to the ground, observing the progressive bleaching of the skin to a pale, deathly white. He then reached in for the back, grabbing Heloxis’ body and slamming it on the altar table in the chamber. “You will be repurposed… and you will not fail me again.”