Malcor's Story

by Eric K. Barnum

  The priest smiled and sat down asking for a parchment and quill. “It is true that they will have a different story, but the basics share a common base. Even they acknowledge Pha Rann as the first. You see, one of the key differences between how Pha Rann and Takhissis define good and evil is this.”

  As he spoke he sketched a diagram. “Here, in the center… this is our world, our universe. To the top is the creation force, what we call heaven. To the bottom is the destructive force, what we call hell. All around is chaos, but it is no longer the Chaos the eldar – you – once enjoyed. It has been partitioned and claimed. Benign space we call the ether, or the River; it's that flow of time you can see. Neutral space is the astral. Malignant space is the abyss, where demons lie.” So saying, he drew a triangle around the world in the center. “While creation and destruction and all these are continually moving, one thing remains true.”

  “And that is?”

  “This world, Tehra, is at the center. We are always equally between all. Now, Pha Rann and what our religion calls the “good gods” reside here,” pointing to heaven and creation. “The evil gods and hell and destruction reside here,” he said sketching the area between the world and destruction, but somewhat to the side related to neutral astral space rather than the malignant. “You see, hell and the abyss are enemies just as surely we fight against both in the name of Good.”

  The lich asked a few questions and then the priest continued, “The powers of heaven share in all their heavenly dominions. And all dominions cross through Pha Rann as the creator and protector. Hell on the other hand is divided and claimed. Takhissis has claimed what we call the first plane of hell as her throne plane, but she has never called it home.” He drew a circle and wrote “Dragon Heaven” in it.

  “Morbatten however claims this whole world for Takhissis. Because we spoke of Lolth, lets now talk about the abyss. Truly mighty abyssal beings shape the malignant and destructive chaos around them to suit their tastes. Her realm is probably one of spiders and shadows but she is the absolute dominatrix of her throne plane. Lets say that she is in the middle of the abyss, well maybe not quite the middle,” and drew a circle with her name in it off-center towards the malignant.

  As the priest spoke, the others gathered around, many of them never having heard it explained like this. “Remembering that Tehra is at the center, any creature, any being, any human here may ascend – that is, to cross over into any of these other realms. Likewise, the shortest distance between any of these realms is Tehra. Here in this world, magic is infinite in its power as is the potential of the free-willed creations here. Any of us, even goblins, even dragons, even the innocent and meek may ascend to their respective place in “heaven” wherever that may be. Certain of the creations of Tehra, like you, like dragons, like elves, are so long lived that they are essentially immortal and they resonate and continually pull the dominions in which they move towards Tehra. You sir, as a lich, have in a sense already ascended.”

  He made two circles in the malignant and destructive space labelled the abyss. “This is the gate between Tehra and the abyss. It is claimed by a lord of chaos. As a creature of chaos, it can shape and mutate and reshape creation at will but cannot create. This circle next to it is where the Jade God claims its dominion. Necromancy is neither creation nor destruction. The Jade God is the anti-creative force that seeks to freeze all and lock it unchanging for as long as the creative potential remains. Now this is key…”

  He pointed to each of the circles in turn and then said, “Our world is the closest gate between all of these places. That is why magic exists here. No doubt there are other worlds within, say dragon heaven or Lolth’s demon spider nest, but the magic there will draw directly from the god. Only in Tehra does our using and crossing through dominions add to a god’s power. As servants of Pha Rann, we seek to protect creation, that is our creed and we do it through a doctrine of staying within Pha Rann’s domain as much as is possible. Now you had asked about where Morbatten might be different. Because they see this world as their goddess’ rightful throne plane, they see any and everything in this world as her dominion and freely use it to achieve their ultimate doctrine of achieving this. Their dragon emperor may even be known to you as the mightiest of the eldar red dragons who survived the flow of Time. I do not know his true name but he goes by Alerius here.”

  When the lich said nothing, the priest drew a line and an arrow from the creative to destructive potentials through Tehra. “This flow is Time. It began flowing at some point in the eldar and destroyed most of you. They saw Time as a sickness, a disease. All of this,” he waved his hands over the drawing, “came about because of Time. Surely you feel it.”

  The lich flexed his skeletal hands and nodded, “It is uncomfortable to me.”

  The priest nodded and then said, “Takhissis is a hell lord. Her throneplane is not this world. It is here in hell. The Tanians may mean well and certainly fight evil to great effect. They seek out the mightiest heroes for the most epic of quests, but against all that they do is a belief that this is where their Queen belongs, this world not hell. We therefore fight against them to prevent the world becoming dominion to a hell lord, and supplanting the pure worship of any god based on any creation’s free will.” The priest smiled genuinely at the lich and added, “So far they seem distracted in achieving this end and instead wage war against the Jade God.”

  He drew a line from the Jade God’s abyssal circle to the one by it and then to the world. “There is a way for the Jade God to reach us…”

  “The hellhounds are able to move through to Tehra unnoticed by the chaos lord. I see.” He pointed beneath the destructive circle. “This is?”

  “Shadow, anti-life. The fragments and cast offs of creation when so warped and twisted that it is unrecognizable, are dominionless. We call it simply “the shadow plane”. Eventually, even the undead fall through this into shadow. There is no heaven, no paradise there. Just inert reactive oblivion.”

  The knight of Cuthbert blurted out, “That is not true! We fight the beasts of shadow!”

  The priest looked at the knight annoyed and smirked, “And none of you return. You waste your destinies fighting imagined evil when this world and its gardens go untended. And the innocent die.”

  The knight looked like he would attack the priest but Alan ordered the fanatic to be quiet and still. He turned to the lich and said, “So that is what we know. Is it enough for you to return our party?”

  The lich took the parchment and nodded. “Yes, and as a token of gratitude.” The lich walked back into shadow and vanished. As the room regained its light, the priest and the knight and the daimo’s bodies lay there unconscious. Though all recovered, it remained clear that the lich held onto the daimo’s soul. Monotone and lacking verve, the daimo could understand and respond but had no initiative. Though an improvement, it remained clear to all that the lich still intended for the parties to come and run his gauntlet.

  Chapter Fifty - Orcus' Throneplane

  The executioner, mightiest of the hellhounds, basked in the green sunlight washing down on his vast estate. The entire world basked in that light where the sun rose and set for the world all at the same time, based on their god’s mercy.

  Humans, orcs, and other humanoids toiled in farm fields. They looked healthy and strong, as their creator-god would have them be. Executioner stretched and walked out to see how things fared. At the charnel house, the free-willed vampires waited in the green light of day for blood. Ghouls stood farther back from them. As workers finished in the fields and returned to their homes, they stopped and the vampires fed. Feeding was rapturous and ecstatic because that is how their creator rewarded their hard labor.

  The hellhound laughed at the irony remembering vaguely his own life before he had begun feeding. As he watched a lithe femme vampire feed in a frantic coupling of blood lust, he heard a voice and looked up. The green disk of the sun now held the visage of their god, Orcus supreme lord of undeath. At the sa
me time the Executioner looked up, all beings on the world fell to their knees. The femme tossed the drained corpse to the side and also fell to her knees. The ghouls that waited to feed looked anxiously at the discarded corpse and groveled before the sun. All bowed and the wind and weather and waves ceased their motion.

  “Hellhound, it is your time. Proceed to Tehra. A prize awaits you. My sceptre awaits you.” The god’s voice amplified throughout the world whipped the undead into a near blood frenzy. For the humans and the living, for whom the voice meant eternal fear and darkness, they cried out for mercy but lacked the free will to choose resistance or hope.

  All around the world in perfect unison, all creatures cried out “All hail Orcus!” and then returned to work, to feeding, to dying, to birthing, all exactly as decreed by their god. The hound sniffed the breeze and stood in prayerful reverence as the jade sun returned to normal. When the god had finally left, the hound turned his back on the ghouls tearing into the corpse and walked back to his manor. Already, the voices of other hounds whispered out to him their envy, jealousy, and their hopes that he would fail and die. He sent back to one such voice, “The great god commands you to join me. Come.”

  “No,” the voice came back. “You lie.”

  “Take it up with Orcus then. I will be at the gate soon. Be there.” He cut off the voices with a final challenge daring any of the others to do better. A small part of him nagged that in his life before the Jade God, he had been free to choose more than his preparations to carry out a command. A small choice granted, but one that reminded him of a time so long ago and lost ago that he barely remembered the sun on his face, the wind in his fur, and the leering ram skull sceptre he had seen lying in the shadows by a tree on his path.

  Entering his house’s shrine, he found a replica of that wand floating in a pool of blood, kept alive by the great god’s will, the blood connected to all the creatures living on this world, and kept the wand potent and ready. The executioner picked it up and whispered his prayer to Orcus. As he prayed, blood began to stream out of the eyes, and of this blood, he drank until almost an hour later, the eyes stopped weeping.

  All around the planet he ruled, the living and the dead withered and screamed in agony. The living seized in an agony of torment as they aged years, their hair grew and skin wrinkled. The old died. The young matured. For the dead, it started with a sizzling as those in the green sunlight whimpered and then ran for cover. All around the world, the hellhound fed on their suffering. When full, he entered the pool of blood.

  The pool moved him from the Jade God’s world to another. Blood became something akin to water and he sat up. A desert of insects writhed and crawled seeking food and somehow not dying, so they ate each other. The chaotic powers of this place swirled death into a mass and dissolved millions only to reconcile into millions of different ones. The desert dunes flexed and pulsed moving like waves. The abyss looked a bit self-fascinated today as many of the creatures sported eyeballs, more so than any other shape. All around the hound, flying bugs leapt into the air as they tried to bite and found they could not get near the hound. They fled. Atop a nearby dune, a similar cloud took to the air. The hound walked that way and found his challenger who bowed low and whispered, “I came as ordered Executioner.”

  “Well said Mauler. Orcus wishes us to find a great prize. His sceptre awaits us in Tehra.” He stood and closed his eyes and drowned the sound of the thronging insects. A spider the size of his body leapt at him and fell back stabbing in vain at the magic sphere protecting him. Mauler swatted it aside and then also closed his eyes as roaches and ill crawling things ran away from his giant claws.

  “The Tehran gate is that way,” Executioner stated and keeping his eyes closed began to walk. Mauler followed.

  Around them, the desert rose up in a great tidal wave of chattering mandibles, crunchy legs, and oozing pus. It rose up and punched down at their protective spheres. With their eyes closed, the wave washed over them unable to feed on anything. The hounds continued to walk. Eventually, they came to a stone stair rising up out of the dunes and waves and clouds. Only when they reached the top did they open their eyes. The gate shifted in all possible colors but, as Executioner touched it, the surface rippled grey and black full of lightning. At last, jade green flames flickered through it.

  Behind them, two tiny spiders unlike the other tortured insects of this place, blinked and reappeared unseen in the shadows behind the hounds. The spider’s dark grey and silky, almost liquid metal surface, reflected all around it and made it undetectable camouflage. The two spiders watched the hound called Executioner grab the gate with both hands and strain to bend the two dimensional slice. In a moment it bent, and then the hound spun the gate. The hole in reality burst into light and the hound jumped back rubbing its bloody hands on Mauler. The light scared the insect desert, which scurried back and away leaving the bleached and cracked bones of gods, eldar, monsters, and heroes protruding from the ground.

  Without warning, the portal turned vibrant blue and revealed an ocean somewhere in Tehra. The two hounds leapt through. The spiders knew its master Sai watched through them. A command came to one of the two, “Follow the hounds that I may see where they arrive.”

  Chapter Fifty One - Malcor’s Challenge

  His sword hand broken, Malcor held his sword in his left hand and struggled to keep the ogre at bay. Behind the ogre, a teaming throng of goblins waited with poisoned and rusty weapons. Whenever a clear space opened, arrows snapped at him and he kept struggling to keep the ogre between him and the horde. Though the ogre bore any number of wounds, its bloodlust before a crippled opponent drove it on and on. Mal barely parried a smashing down strike by bouncing it aside. His kick, though it connected solidly, barely registered with the brute who laughed at him.

  The regeneration ring on his broken hand buzzed and throbbed as it reknit Malcor’s wounds but he was taking them so fast, it barely kept up. Then, just like that, his snapped bones mended and though still in excruciating agony, Malcor transferred his sword and masterfully parried and then countered. This time, his sword dug a trench across the monster’s forehead gushing blood into its eyes and blinding it. The scream of frustration followed a series of random attacks hoping to take Malcor, but he dodged and then cried out a taunt at the beast. It whirled on him and then Malcor ran into the horde. Though goblins scattered and arrows raced to him, just as many struck his armor or the ogre. Even more enraged, the blinded and hated boss turned on its underlings killing and maiming far more than Malcor could have by himself.

  For the horde, they saw Malcor coming at them followed by their gigantic boss, with both appearing bent on slaying them all. Morale, which had soared when the ogre looked like he might win, plummeted and many ran away. For the remaining, a magical fireball exploded as Sako and the others attacked. The remaining fighters turned tail and fled. Hiroshi felled the ogre with a deft slice across its throat. Jaga was about to compliment Malcor’s fighting when he turned pale white. Malcor thought it might be from the many wounds and then felt a deathly cold rise up behind him. More instinct and luck than anything else saved him as he drove himself forward.

  The creature facing them had once been a citizen of Ori. The Imperic growled in frustration and cried out its hunger. Finger nail claws, fangs and pale white skin in the torchlit cavern made the vampire’s black eyes seem to glow with fire of their own. Noboyuki leapt forward presenting his symbol of Imperius and rebuked the creature as it readied to claw attack Malcor. The symbol gave the creature pause, who looked up at the priest’s eyes with something like recognition. Its skin began to burn and the vampire shrieked. Lifeless goblins leapt from the ground at the priest and shielded the vampire from the symbol. As fast as they faced the holy symbol, they collapsed into ash but it gave the vampire time to grab and throw one at the priest. Mid-air, the zombie’s body turned to ash that then blew into the priest’s eyes. Sako barely pulled him away just before the vampire could rip Noboyuki’s arm off.


  Malcor had regained his footing and the group turned to face the vampire just as Hiroshi attempted a backstab. Something gave him away, maybe the sound of his pulse even, and the vampire struck Hiroshi to the side amidst the sounds of ribs breaking. The vampire’s eyes danced back and forth between the priest and Malcor as if trying to determine who he should go after. In that moment of hesitation, the priest swung his mace at the vampire. Holy water blessed by Imperius for cleansing leaked out of the mace. Even though he missed, the water splashed the creature with more ear-splitting cries and howls of hunger. Malcor and the others charged. Jaga suffered the thief’s fate and fell to the side. Malcor activated his sword curious to see how the undead would react to its magic-unravelling. His sword cut along the vampire’s arm with a shattering sound but no visible reaction. Sako’s magic struck it and jolted Malcor with electrical energy. They moved to place themselves between their fallen and the monster.

  The next round started with the vampire summoning darkness that fell over them like a blanket. Only Noboyuki’s glowing symbol remained alight creating dark shadows that made it hard to see the vampire. Fearing they would lose any advantage at all, Malcor unleashed a furious barrage of sword cuts looking for a mark. He found it, and grappled the monster crying out his location, “I have it! Here!”

  The vampire bit into Malcor’s breastplate seeking blood and found it, but not very much and Malcor ignored the chilling pain and the allure of its deathsong. Turning his sword for a moment, Malcor began punching into the beast’s torso trying to drive his fists into and through the almost rock-like chest. The pommel of his sword bit slightly deeper but the vampire continued to tear through his armor. Already, a clawed hand ripped through his side plates and gashed him so terribly, a normal person would have died. But Malcor had trained for this and fought through the pain praying for a break. It arrived in the form of Sako who shot silvery darts into the vampire’s face that somehow dodged around him to hit their target. At the same time, the priest struck down into the vampire’s head where it fixated on tearing into Malcor’s heart.