In the Wasteland

Frederigo D'Honaire was not human. He was Thoabath.

But he could be hurt. The Stick Man, the Ghille Dhu, the thing ripped from the Green, it had hurt him. It had battled with him, it had rained down blow after blow upon him, it had tried to rip him apart.

It had failed. But it had hurt him.

Fred wondered if he had killed the thing. He thought he had. But he wasn't sure. He had never met such a creature before and his Masters in the Fire Pits had not prepared him for it. They had not prepared him for many things, and now he suffered for it. But his Masters did not care. Suffering was their pleasure.

His flesh was now torn and broken. It dragged against him, clumsily getting in the way of where he needed to go and what he needed to do. But his ripped and gutted frame did not cause him pain, for his flesh was but a shell, a dead thing risen from the ashen mud of the land of the dead. Still, he did suffer pain as he trudged with halting strides through the endless shifting sands of the Calamari. It was his dark and burning spirit that blistered and twisted in agony. It was his hellborne soul that cried out in anguish, still burning from the stinging caress, the sickly verdant grasp of the Ghille Dhu. Still burning from the creature's wretched and poisonous touch.

If only he could abandon this dead carcass of bone and skin, perhaps his soul could find release. But no, he needed his shell. That was what kept him anchored to the mortal world, and that was all that was saving him from a damned eternity enslaved within the consuming embrace of the cold, black flames of the ShadowRealm.

He had to keep to his task.

His tattered shell would heal in time. He did not have to worry about that. The fires of Hell would make sure of it, their power flowing into him through the brand on his hand His Masters could have mended him in a moment, if they had wanted to, but they were never ones to give out favors. He would have to pay for what little succour they doled out to him, and suffering would be his coin. Oh if only he could find a friend out here in this endless wasteland. Someone he could reach out to, someone who would ease his burden. Ahhh, how he would flay the skin off their bones and strip the meat hiding beneath. Then his broken carcass would be made whole once more.

But there wasn't anyone out here in the midst of the sweeping seas of sand. Fred gazed out at the empty expanse that stirred and moved from one end of the sky to the other. The Calamari was a wasteland, bereft of all life and all that made life worth living. It was a barren ocean of long, cresting dunes that silently rose up and then crashed back down in slowly creeping cascades of dry and barren waves of sunwhite sand. It was a place the living had forsaken.

There was no one here but him.

And those that were his prey. They were here too. Somewhere. Somewhere ahead of him, just beyond the horizon. He would find them, one way or another, and how happy they would be to see that Frederigo D'Honaire was still alive. Fred chuckled. He found the idea funny.

1. And just where were Astra and the others right about then?

Go Back

View Forward Story Tree
View Back Story Tree