Post by RaptorsTalon on Jan 5, 2015 13:22:42 GMT
The Black Pharaoh
The hawkers and marketers were already swarming the streets when the fog began to fall across the city. As the sun rose across the rooftops, the fog began to billow out of the river, crashing across the pavements and engulfing the carriages which clattered along the roadway. Horses reared and whinnied as the dark mist consumed them. Higher and higher, deeper and deeper, it soon began to tower above the roofs of the buildings, flowing into open windows, down alleyways and across the thresholds of the homes and businesses lining the riverbanks.
Hot and cold at the same time, tasting sweet and sour in equal measure, the sensation of the fog on the skin of the people was like nothing they had ever felt before, driving them into an almost euphoric state. People poured onto the streets, desperate to find the source of the mysterious miasma that now drifted across much of the bankside area. Soon, a huge crowd had formed, pushing against the railings that marked the edge of the embankment and the steep drop into the river below. All in the crowd peered curiously into the mist, searching for an explanation. The noise had almost reached cacophonic levels by this point with hundreds of people driven to fury in their need to approach this ever growing cloud.
Suddenly, and without warning, the noise dropped to silence as, to the utter amazement of the crowd, a figure emerged from the smoke, pacing out into the air as easily as the common man walks upon the earth. Dressed in black robes and crowned in gold, the figure carried with it an ornately carved, ivory staff, topped with an airy blue gemstone which seemed to pulse, roil and resonate with unnatural energy. As the figure emerged from the mist, its form became clearer, like a pharaoh from the ancient world, his dark robes adorned with twisted symbols embroidered in gold thread. His visage, however, was the most striking; his face was dark, sunken, and deathly, more bone than flesh, sand adhering to it as moss does to the bark of an ancient tree. Behind him came the dust, a storm of biting grains swirling and crashing like the winds of a furious hurricane. They whirled and flowed, emerging from the mist just as he had done moments before, but never passing his black shoulders as if warded from him by the staff he carried, a staff he now raised above his head in a powerful, almost threatening gesture to the silent and unending crowd assembled before him.
Guttural, sharp and tainted words leapt from his mouth as he began to chant in a tongue unknown to any who walked the earth, his ivory staff whipping around his head in intricate, disturbing patterns. The eyes of the crowd remained locked on him, on his staff, on the smoke, as if bewitched by it, acting as a single entity. Their breathing soon became unified, their blinking, the rhythm of their heartbeats all acting as one, in time to the spinning of the Black Pharaoh’s staff.
From amongst the assembled crowd, that shapeless flock of conforming people, a single dissenting voice lanced forth through the fog.
“We… Shall… Not…. Submit…” The pain and effort of this defiance clearly evident in the strained, barking voice, as it struggled for purchase on the churning fog. From his knees climbed the form of a man, swathed in a grey cloak and brandishing a large service revolver. He raised the gun, pointing its gleaming muzzle towards the hovering, dark form before him. The great enchanter suddenly stopped in his chanting and snapped his neck round, staring directly into the eyes, into the very soul of the man who dared defy his will. His piercing gaze bored into the man’s flesh, into his very being, and found it wanting. With a most disturbing scream, the man jerked forwards as if something within him was trying to get out and then, with a final, bark of defiance, pulled the trigger as his body fell to the floor, limp and lifeless. The bullet whizzed forth from the mouth of the revolver, spinning as it flew, cutting a path through the fog, the eyes of the pharaoh locked on it. Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl as the black prophet examined the bullet, head tilted like a curious child. Then, all of sudden, it fell to dust, a faint smell of searing metal the only hint that there had ever been a bullet there. The pharaoh returned to his chanting, more furious than before, and even more disturbing to the ears of those who listened.
And then it came, the Crawling Chaos, emerging from the cracks in the buildings and the roads, oozing from the damp walls along the banks of the river. Spiders and rodents, beetles of all kinds, the creatures of chaos responded to the call of the Black Pharaoh. Scuttling across the floor, a dissonant rumble of tiny legs as thousands of servants of the darkness emerged from their lairs, gushing across the ground towards their hypnotic master.
The fog still rolled and bubbled across the street as the Swarming Chaos fell upon the entranced masses, climbing upon their bodies, through their hair, beneath their clothes, the formless mass of infinite darkness consuming the humans held in rapture by the mere sight of the Dark Priest. Gnawing and biting, stinging and scratching, the flesh of the humans quickly fell to the insatiable hunger of the darkness.
Above it all, the Black Pharaoh cackled manically, his staff still spinning above his head, as the street began to run red with the blood of the assembled crowds, their eyes still locked on the spinning staff as their flesh was rent asunder. The odour drifting on the still wind grew worse by the second, the falling bodies decaying as they dropped to the ground, leaving nothing but a field of bones where once a thousand people stood, in awe of this Dark Overlord.
And as the last of the skeletons fell to the floor, the bones cleaned of all flesh by that swarm of deathly creatures, the Black Pharaoh stepped back once again into the depths of the mist, melting away as quickly as he came, his vile swarm fading away once again into the cracks and voids of the worlds...
The hawkers and marketers were already swarming the streets when the fog began to fall across the city. As the sun rose across the rooftops, the fog began to billow out of the river, crashing across the pavements and engulfing the carriages which clattered along the roadway. Horses reared and whinnied as the dark mist consumed them. Higher and higher, deeper and deeper, it soon began to tower above the roofs of the buildings, flowing into open windows, down alleyways and across the thresholds of the homes and businesses lining the riverbanks.
Hot and cold at the same time, tasting sweet and sour in equal measure, the sensation of the fog on the skin of the people was like nothing they had ever felt before, driving them into an almost euphoric state. People poured onto the streets, desperate to find the source of the mysterious miasma that now drifted across much of the bankside area. Soon, a huge crowd had formed, pushing against the railings that marked the edge of the embankment and the steep drop into the river below. All in the crowd peered curiously into the mist, searching for an explanation. The noise had almost reached cacophonic levels by this point with hundreds of people driven to fury in their need to approach this ever growing cloud.
Suddenly, and without warning, the noise dropped to silence as, to the utter amazement of the crowd, a figure emerged from the smoke, pacing out into the air as easily as the common man walks upon the earth. Dressed in black robes and crowned in gold, the figure carried with it an ornately carved, ivory staff, topped with an airy blue gemstone which seemed to pulse, roil and resonate with unnatural energy. As the figure emerged from the mist, its form became clearer, like a pharaoh from the ancient world, his dark robes adorned with twisted symbols embroidered in gold thread. His visage, however, was the most striking; his face was dark, sunken, and deathly, more bone than flesh, sand adhering to it as moss does to the bark of an ancient tree. Behind him came the dust, a storm of biting grains swirling and crashing like the winds of a furious hurricane. They whirled and flowed, emerging from the mist just as he had done moments before, but never passing his black shoulders as if warded from him by the staff he carried, a staff he now raised above his head in a powerful, almost threatening gesture to the silent and unending crowd assembled before him.
Guttural, sharp and tainted words leapt from his mouth as he began to chant in a tongue unknown to any who walked the earth, his ivory staff whipping around his head in intricate, disturbing patterns. The eyes of the crowd remained locked on him, on his staff, on the smoke, as if bewitched by it, acting as a single entity. Their breathing soon became unified, their blinking, the rhythm of their heartbeats all acting as one, in time to the spinning of the Black Pharaoh’s staff.
From amongst the assembled crowd, that shapeless flock of conforming people, a single dissenting voice lanced forth through the fog.
“We… Shall… Not…. Submit…” The pain and effort of this defiance clearly evident in the strained, barking voice, as it struggled for purchase on the churning fog. From his knees climbed the form of a man, swathed in a grey cloak and brandishing a large service revolver. He raised the gun, pointing its gleaming muzzle towards the hovering, dark form before him. The great enchanter suddenly stopped in his chanting and snapped his neck round, staring directly into the eyes, into the very soul of the man who dared defy his will. His piercing gaze bored into the man’s flesh, into his very being, and found it wanting. With a most disturbing scream, the man jerked forwards as if something within him was trying to get out and then, with a final, bark of defiance, pulled the trigger as his body fell to the floor, limp and lifeless. The bullet whizzed forth from the mouth of the revolver, spinning as it flew, cutting a path through the fog, the eyes of the pharaoh locked on it. Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl as the black prophet examined the bullet, head tilted like a curious child. Then, all of sudden, it fell to dust, a faint smell of searing metal the only hint that there had ever been a bullet there. The pharaoh returned to his chanting, more furious than before, and even more disturbing to the ears of those who listened.
And then it came, the Crawling Chaos, emerging from the cracks in the buildings and the roads, oozing from the damp walls along the banks of the river. Spiders and rodents, beetles of all kinds, the creatures of chaos responded to the call of the Black Pharaoh. Scuttling across the floor, a dissonant rumble of tiny legs as thousands of servants of the darkness emerged from their lairs, gushing across the ground towards their hypnotic master.
The fog still rolled and bubbled across the street as the Swarming Chaos fell upon the entranced masses, climbing upon their bodies, through their hair, beneath their clothes, the formless mass of infinite darkness consuming the humans held in rapture by the mere sight of the Dark Priest. Gnawing and biting, stinging and scratching, the flesh of the humans quickly fell to the insatiable hunger of the darkness.
Above it all, the Black Pharaoh cackled manically, his staff still spinning above his head, as the street began to run red with the blood of the assembled crowds, their eyes still locked on the spinning staff as their flesh was rent asunder. The odour drifting on the still wind grew worse by the second, the falling bodies decaying as they dropped to the ground, leaving nothing but a field of bones where once a thousand people stood, in awe of this Dark Overlord.
And as the last of the skeletons fell to the floor, the bones cleaned of all flesh by that swarm of deathly creatures, the Black Pharaoh stepped back once again into the depths of the mist, melting away as quickly as he came, his vile swarm fading away once again into the cracks and voids of the worlds...