Madgod Options

[Colonel Mustard]

Hey everyone.

This has been rattling around my head for a while now, and I figure I might as well get it started with and continued while I've got the drive to write it. As you might have guessed, the following is based off the Shivering Isles, but I'm doing my own thing with it somewhat, so I should probably say now that, while there are bits of this that you'll recognise, there are a lot of parts that you won't; I'm bringing in a lot of new character ideas and so forth, and there will be interesting things done.

Anyway, I'm not very good at this whole introduction business, so I'll just let you get on and read it. Do enjoy!

Madgod

Chapter 1-The Champion

Sing deep, sing low, sing the song
pay the piper to play it on
to his tune you must dance
and slumber in eternal trance
for deep within its secret dreams
madness desperate plots and schemes
the gauntlet breaks the chain of snakes
and its bloody bounty it finally takes
the starving serpent eats the tail
consuming slowly as a snail
but patient, hungry, it awaits
the cyclic feast it anticipates
will we be free or forever slave
hear the siren call of ‘obey’
or will Madgod rise and strike down
mercury tide that would Isles drown?

Do not be here when it will come. It is hungry. It is angry. It has plans. Your nice little world which you’re reading this in won’t be all that nice if they come to fruition. Oh no. You lucky, lucky things. You honestly have no idea. Must I explain?

Very well. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

Let’s step back. Right now, we are at the end. To begin at the end is impossible. Not impossible, no, not here, nothing is impossible here, but to begin at the end here is implausible. Is that the word I want? No. Unnecessary. It is doing it wrong. Sometimes it works, but here it does not. So let’s take a step back from here.



His fished crashed down, crunching bone. A scream rang out.

“Mercy! Please, mercy!”

“Mercy?” he asked, gauntlet raised above his head, his scarred, battered face contorted with rage. “You want mercy? That’s just too good.”



No, not far enough, further back we go. We need to get to before that. No context. That’s too close to the end for what we want.



He and Her Ladyship turned around on the glass platter as it rose above the city, stepping around one another’s feet as they danced.

“See,” she said. “I told you you’d be good at this; it’s all about the rhythm.”

He nodded, glancing down at their feet self-consciously as they moved.

“Relax,” she said, steering a hand gently down his back, guiding him along. “You’re learning fast, my dear.”

The world spun below them as they danced on their rotating glass platform, hovering in midair.



No, further back still. Is this it? Is this the place?



He pulled himself up the top of the ladder, through the trapdoor, into the great glass globe at the tower’s very top. He stared at the figure sitting cross-legged a few feet from him on a cushion, and the eyes of the man stared back at him.

In a voice as thick and rich as Felldew, Sentinel said; “Ah, you’re here. I saw you coming, you know.”



Not here, no. No, no, where is it? Where do I start?



The Angel of Rage slammed down before him in a landing that sent a cloud of ash blossoming around her. Wings of flame and lightning pinned themselves to her back, and a mace of fire materialised in her hand. Her ruined face twisted into a grimacing snarl as she beheld the intruder.

“Why are you here, mortal?” she demanded. “Why should I not destroy you?”



Not yet. She comes partway through. This is all too late, nobody will understand it, you fool!



They opened with a creak, and he saw it spread before him. A twisted landscape of gnarled roots, growing upwards into the air whilst leafy branches clawed at the ground. Rock formations of shimmering, rainbow stone formed bizarre shapes, ones that seemed to gain form as you looked at them, moved, grew, reached towards you. Faces grew from the scenery, hungry mouths and gasping maws, clawing talons.

He blinked and glanced away, setting off for the city in the distance.



No, not quite. Nearly there, nearly there. Here we are. Here, we begin.



He was drinking to the death of his best friend.

He getting slapped on the back, cheered, toasted, hailed as a hero, bought drinks, and all for the simple reason that he had just killed his best friend.

The night was a blur of tankards, one swallowed after another. There were yells of encouragement, the crowd urging him on once more, their favourite, their hero, their champion. He could only remember them being quiet from earlier, when they had all fallen silent right after that moment.

The taste of ale, the smell of smoke, the offensive eye-watering blur of flaming torches. He couldn’t focus his gaze properly, he noticed, and his tongue felt numb. He was getting drunk. Good.

“’nother drink!” he slurred out, swaying as he did so. Behind and beside him, the rest of the Blue Team cheered their approval and assent, ordering another round. He wasn’t paying tonight. He didn’t know who was paying tonight, and he didn’t care. What he wanted right now was noise. What he wanted right now was cheering. What he wanted right now was distraction.

His head was numb, spinning, buoyant. He managed to grin as complete strangers approached him, shook his hand, and grinning was good. Grinning meant he was happy, and he knew that it was important that he felt happy, that everyone expected him to be happy. He thought he was happy, so he was. He had the ale down the hatch, and that was good. That was a good way to get happy, get happy quickly.

“That’s our Carnius. Ain’t that something? Our Carnius, of all the people.”

That was one of the boasts. One of the favourites

“Waterfront boy, he is. Knew him since he were a kid.”

And there, another. He could pick the threads of conversation out as the Waterfront locals boasted about him, their Carnius, who had grown up around here. A real local hero. Something to boast about. Something to be proud of. Just went to show.

He stood, the sudden movement sending him swaying. There was a chorus of questions about what he was doing, where he was going and he answered them with; “Goin’ out back. Be back in a minute.”

He stumbled outside, moving through the inn, the crowd of blurry faces parting before him. He caught snippets of detail, a grin from an admirer, an alluring look from a hopeful wench, a torch burning in a bracket, a knot in the wooden surface of a table. The din of the tavern muted as he entered the back alley. It was a good tavern, that one. Good stories there. That time he and Agronak had nearly got arrested for brawling, only for the Watch to recognise who they were and haul everyone else off but leave them be, shaking their hands as they did so. That was one of the good ones. One of the favourites.

He urinated down the back wall, in the quiet, concentration taken up by the task at hand, before he finished relieving himself. And then, for a moment, in the quiet that followed, he was drawn back to earlier that day, in the hush that had come. The hush that had come when the battered, broken corpse had slumped to the floor of the arena, armour clattering, as Carnius had stepped back from the body of Agronak Gro-Malog, the Grey Prince. The hush that had come as he had limped away, down to the bloodworks. The hush that had come as he had done so without acknowledging the silent crowd, with the cheering only rumbling into his range of hearing as he had splashed chilly water from the Basin of Restoration onto his face.

And for a moment, the clarity and the harsh reality he had been avoiding since then hit him like the blow from a warhammer. Agronak was dead. He had killed him.

Carnius Hackelt, new Grand Champion of the arena, leant forwards against the wall and quietly wept for what he had just done.

[Colonel Mustard]

Nah, never heard of any of those.

New chapter alert, by the way, introducing a scary new villain character! Eek!

Chapter 11-Altar

“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” Carnius asked as they looked at the entrance of the ruined building. From their viewpoint, they could see two guards loitering around a few broken columns, the white stone pillars jutting to the sky like bared ribs. The rest of the building complex, one of tumbled walls, half-fallen roofs and overgrown courtyards, sprawled out beyond them.

“Because they’re a bunch of Heretics,” Salyan replied, crouched as she was in the shade of a mushroom tree next to Carnius. “They’re making trouble for the people over at Backbite, and they don’t like my music.”

“To be fair, music isn’t everyone’s thing,” Carnius said.

“I can understand if it isn’t to everybody’s taste,” Salyan said, tugging the cloak of tanned Swattle skin she wore on her back forwards a notch. “But I refuse to be called a bad person simply because of what I am and what I do.”

There was a look of quiet anger eyes, as Carnius glanced over at her, but that evaporated a moment later as she added with a grin; “Besides, you wouldn’t want to leave a girl like me all alone to deal with a bunch of dangerous sorcerers like them, would you?”

“Fine,” Carnius said. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

He glanced over at the two sentries, before he asked Salyan; “You know any frenzy spells?”

“Yes, I know one,” she said.

“Good,” Carnius said. “Hit one of them with it, then the other.”

“You realise his friend will just dispel it, right?” Salyan asked.

“Not if you hit the other one right away,” Carnius said. “One kills the other and then we finish him of before he can come to his senses. And it’s hard to cast spells quickly when you’ve got someone in your face trying to kill you, after all.”

“Good thinking,” Salyan nodded. She raised her lyre, fingers finding a certain string, and as she played spoke what Carnius could only call a note of power.

An angry dischord sliced through the air towards one of the Heretic guards, a thrown dagger of harsh sound. The man turned with a snarl towards his Dunmer companion, raising his hand and calling upon some kind of arcane energy, and with the sound of ripping leather some whipcord-thin creature of jutting ribs and claws appeared from thin air. The Dunmer gave a yell of alarm as he called together magic to stop what he guessed was a frenzying spell, but a second arrow angry noise from Salyan’s lyre halted that; the dispel turned into a crackle of lightning that hit the other Heretic’s summoned creature in the chest.

It stumbled back, but the Mer’s efforts were in vain as the other Heretic drew a mace from his belt and swung for him; it slammed into the side of the Dunmer’s head with a crack and a squelch and the unfortunate Dark Elf collapsed to the ground.

By then, Carnius was moving, bursting from the undergrowth towards the remaining Heretic. He ignored the summoned beast, who was clutching a badly burned chest and wheezing with pain, and he felt arcane energy sent from Salyan’s lyre speed past him and strike the Heretic. The man in question raised his hands to cast a spell, but his fingers just waved uselessly at Carnius as the gladiator approached.

Spitting a curse, he swung down with his mace over his head as Carnius came into his reach, aiming to crush his skull in one blow. Carnius crossed his arms before him, catching the haft of the mace on the vambraces of his gauntlets and halting its path. His front arm pushed up and across over his other wrist, pushing the mace away and leaving the Heretic open, before his back hand lashed out, cracking into the Heretic’s face. He stumbled back with a curse, clutching his broken nose with a free hand and swaying as blood dripped from it.

“Kill him!” the Heretic yelled at his summoned creature. “Kill him, I say!”

The creature charged with a pained shriek, one of its arms extended to strike and the other clutching its injured chest, and Carnius stepped into its reach, jarring it with his right shoulder and sent its swing off-target. He jabbed his elbow into its thin chest, and a moment later swung the back of his fist up and smashed it into the funnel that occupied where its mouth should be. It stumbled away, and he turned his attention to its summoner.

Seeing where Carnius was facing, the Heretic managed to raise his mace in a crude guard, blood still dripping from his crushed nose, and Carnius moved. Three steps covered the distance between them, and he slammed the back of his fist upwards into the haft of the mace, knocking it away before the spiked knuckles of his other gauntlet slammed into the cartilage of his throat. The Heretic collapsed, gagging and choking as he clutched his ruined windpipe, and the fading of the summoned creature that he had called into being marked his passing a few moments later.

“That was bracing!” Salyan remarked as she drew near to Carnius. “We make a good team, you know.”

“Guess so,” the Imperial remarked with a nod. It was true; without that silence spell, dealing with that Heretic and his pet would have been a lot trickier, not to mention that fact that Salyan’s frenzy spell had dealt with the Dunmer who had also stood guard. “Thanks for the help, by the way; reckon I needed it.”

“Pleasure’s all mine,” Salyan replied. “Now come on, let’s go and kill these people.”

They made their way through the half-ruined entrance of the building, footsteps echoing on the cracked flagstones that paved it. The right wall had tumbled in on itself, allowing sunlight and plant life to interlope on the building’s innards, but the left one was still intact.

“What are those?” Salyan asked suddenly, and from his position a few paces ahead of her Carnius turned around to see the bard examining the still-intact wall. There were carvings on it, weathered and indistinct figures in movement. Carnius squinted at it for a few moments, sensing that the savage swirl of combat was depicted in them, figures wielding weapons, all made faceless by the wearing of time. Many of them seemed to be footsoldiers of some kind, holding swords, shields and bows, while winged figures duelled with what looked like flocks of dragons. Across the top, a pattern of rings was linked together in a long chain that ran along the cracked and water-stained wall. Faint indents that were carved along the bottom of the stone suggested writing of some kind, and Salyan crouched next to them, running her fingers over the carvings with a frown.

“I wonder what that says,” she murmured.

“We can look into it later,” Carnius said. “There’s still a whole group of Heretics around here, and I don’t want to get caught unawares.”

“You’re right,” Salyan nodded, standing up. Her lyre shifted into a different hold in her hands as she stood once more, gripped in the same way a soldier would grasp a weapon.

Carnius lead the way through the ruin, Salyan following not far behind. On occasion they would skirt tumbled piles of rubble or puddles that had formed in the floor, from which multifarious fungi of every shape and form imaginable would sprout. At one point, Carnius had to all but throw himself away from a patch of mould that reacted to him stepping on it by growing greenish teeth and attempting to bite his foot. The walls were covered in carving similar to the ones found by the entry hall,

“Where is everyone?” Salyan asked as they reached a long-neglected courtyard, now overgrown with plants of all kind. All of them were greyish things that looked halfway to death, rot and fungi the only thing that bloomed in any kind of abundance here.

“That’s a good question,” Carnius said. “You’d think if they had sentries posted up they’d be a big enough group to possibly warrant some attention.”

“Well, I’m sure we’ll find them sooner or later,” Salyan said.

As they continued, the silence of the building began to press on them. It was deserted, graveyard-silent and the only sound they heard for a long while was their own footsteps echoing back at them. The further in they got, the more they expected to run across some band of Heretics, but all they found were more carvings showing some ancient war between unknown antagonists and nothing else. At one point, they came to a room, dominated by a statue of two figures. One, wearing some kind of armour that looked more like it was cut than forged, was standing over a second person who was on his knees and facing away from him; the passage of time had rendered their appearance indistinct, and the only facial features that remained were the faintest impression of a nose and a beard. The armoured figure held a chain in his hands, and it was wrapped around the neck of the one on his knees. Somehow, the erosion that had pervaded the rest of the crumbling building had left the metal of the chain untouched, and as Carnius peered at it he saw that each link was forged to resemble a snake biting its own tail.

“You alright?” he said as he saw Salyan frowning at something.

“Can’t you hear that?” she asked.

“Hear what?”

“That chanting,” she replied, taking a few steps towards a doorway on the opposite side of the room. “I can hear people saying something.”

Before Carnius could stop her, she went through. He followed, hurrying after her as she tried to track the progress of her mysterious sound. Not far along the corridor, the noise reached his ears as well; faint, repetitive noise, too distant and weak to pick up words. As they advanced, that too came into clarity, a cyclic call of some words whose meaning he could not decipher.

They found the source of the noise in a room that sank into the foundations of the building. Salyan and Carnius halted at the top of a stairwell that ran down into a large, square room, one ringed by balconies along either side. At its heart, a group of people were gathered around a solid block of some glowing white crystal, all in the blue robes as worn by the guards outside.

“Let’s get them,” Salyan hissed.

“No,” Carnius replied, voice lowered. “There’s too many for us to fight.”

“It’ll be easy,” she said. “Chuck a few frenzy spells in there and-”

“And they’ll dispel them,” Carnius said. “We aren’t fighting them, not when they’re all together. Besides, I want to see what they were doing.”

He stepped through a doorway to the side, onto one of the balconies where he would be hidden in shadow, and Salyan followed a few moments later. As they did so, one of the Heretic’s number stepped forwards; judging from the fact that her robes were more elaborate and her hair was grey, Carnius guessed she was some kind of leader or elder.

“Jyggalag!” she exclaimed, raising her hands into the air. “Ayat mran zia nasheggorath orotya! Iok threye olorias! Kayan zey yatania!”

“Any ideas what she’s saying?” Carnius asked Salyan.

“No,” Salyan said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that language before.”

“Ikiolyis nethren zayatianis ret!” the priestess cried. She lowered her hands, looking over her congregation. “Bring forth the sacrifice.”

Two of Heretics stepped forth, a third held between them with his hands behind his back. His hood was down, and Carnius recognised him as Lucius, the Imperial’s head held down in an expression of defeat and fear.

“Please,” he managed to mumble to the priestess. “Don’t do this! I’m one of you!”

“I know,” the elder replied, her tone gentle and sympathetic. “This is why you have been chosen for so great an undertaking, brother. Do not be afraid; through your sacrifice, we will help usher in a new age for the Shivering Isles.”

Lucius’ pleas were ignored as other two Heretics forced him onto the altar. The chant began again as the priestess drew a long, straight knife from her belt, the blade cut from the same crystal as the altar, and raised it above her head.

“Ayake!” she cried. “Rathiak kayala Jyggalag zayat!”

Blood spilled upon shining mineral as the blade hit home. Salyan gasped and inched further back into the shadows.

“This is wrong,” she whispered. “Something is very, very wrong.”

The unholy liturgy of words repeated by the Heretics continued, a prayer to some god neither gladiator nor bard wished to comprehend, and spurred on by the unnatural power in the words and blood, the body of Lucius began to rise into the air. His skin began to turn pale and white as his body grew in size and stature. Muscle turned into growing crystalline plates covering a vaguely humanoid figure that hung in the air, turning into a standing position above the altar. In just a few moment, the dreadful transformation was complete, and what had once been an Imperial was now a massive statue of silver-white crystal standing before the armour, the mineral that made it cut to resemble plate armour. In the faceless helm, the blank eye sockets lit up with the dreadful white light of some ancient and cursed star, fuelled by some unholy life, and great crystalline wings unfolded from its back with a ringing, scraping noise, span so great their tips touched either side of the chamber walls. In one of its hands it held a pair of scales, the other a colossal sword, and it gazed upon the congregation before it with a look of dreadful contempt and malice.

Kneel, it ordered in a scraping boom of a voice, and the congregation did as bidden. In their hiding place on the balcony, Carnius and Salyan found their knees sagging on their own accord. Who summons Jyggalag’s Arbitrator of Judgement?

“We are the Heretics of the Isles, my Lord Judgement,” the priestess spoke from where she was on her knees. “Those who reject the lies of the Madgod, who have learned the truth of the Greymarch and Jyggalag and who seek the Prince of Order’s blessing, so that we may spread his will and truth to all the Isles.”

“Greymarch?” Carnius heard Salyan murmured by his side. “I thought that was just a story.”

Blessing? the colossal figure, Judgement, asked. What are you, mortal, to presume to ask for such a thing?

“A mere pawn,” the priestess replied. “A slave willing to serve the Tyrant of Tyrants. We petition with blood and chant and sacrifice, as laid down in the rituals of the Greymarch. We know that the salvation of the Isles is soon to be at hand, and wish to take part in this glorious endeavour, to serve the true ruler of this land.”

The giant took a step forwards, the flagstones cracking beneath its shining boots. The great blade it carried hummed as it whirled in its hand, coming to rest beneath the priestess’ chin, lifting her head so that she saw the terrible aspect of Judgement in full.

You speak your case well, it said. Receive Jyggalag’s blessing. Become priests and priestesses of order.

“Thank you, my lord,” the priestess said, still on her knees. “You have our eternal-”

The words were cut off by a gasp of pain and shock as she began to change. Her skin turned pale grey, as it did with the other heretics, their robes changing from light blue in colour to a deep, dark purple. Chunks of crystal began to grow across the cloth, swelling and linking to form a breastplate and belt as part of some hideous metamorphosis.

“We need to get out of here,” Salyan said. Carnius nodded; he’d seen more than enough of this.

They crept in silence to the entranceway and hurried through the door as the gathering of Heretics cried out in pain at their changing, using the distraction to get away. As soon as they were sure their footsteps would be out of earshot, they broke into a sprint, and did not stop until they were outside and well away from the crumbled ruin.

Carnius leant against a tree, panting for breath after the sprint and swigged from the fatigue potion at his belt, feeling the burn of a stitch that had begun to form fade away and the tiredness from that sprint wash from his muscles. He handed it to Salyan, who gulped down a grateful swig of it and passed it back.

“What in Oblivion’s name was that?” Carnius asked.

“I’m not certain,” Salyan said. “But I think I might have an idea. There’s an old legend in the Isles, of a war against an army known as the Greymarch. There are dozens of different tellings I’ve heard over the years, some of them saying that the Greymarch wins and conquers the Isles, some saying that it loses, others saying that they were locked in a stalemate or kept fighting over and over again, but all of them ended with the promise of Greymarch invading once more in the future. That creature we saw in there was one of the Arbitrators, and according to the stories they were the Greymarch’s generals or champions or something similar. And if they required a sacrifice to bring one of those here, then there’s no knowing how powerful that thing was.”

“So who do we warn about it?” Carnius asked.

“Well, it won’t stay for very long,” Salyan said. “That sacrifice will give it energy to stay here for a while, but not for long. But those Heretics are doing something more dangerous that just defying Lord Sheogorath; if you’re going to see him in person in New Sheoth, you should warn him, have him send a patrol down there to deal with them.”

Carnius nodded.

“I’ll get that done alright,” he said. “I don’t know what that was, but that wasn’t right; killing that man like that…”

“I was talking about that creature they summoned,” Salyan said. “The Arbitrator; that could be dangerous, if any of those old stories are true.”

“And the human sacrifice?” Carnius asked.

“So what?” Salyan shrugged. “The Feasters in Bliss have one every month for that Holy Banquet of theirs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Weepers did something similar too. Then there’s the annual Leap of Flame that the Sisterhood of Immolation have as well. Hardly a big deal, after all. I was talking about the Arbitrator.”

“Right,” Carnius nodded, deciding that was the safest course to take at the moment. “Of course.”

He shook his head.

“Anyway, the road shouldn’t be too far north of here,” he said. “Let’s go find it and then head to New Sheoth.”

This post has been edited by Colonel Mustard: Sep 17 2012, 02:19 PM