There came a series of knocks at the door and then, without waiting for an answer, a thick, purple-black smoke began to slowly seep from beneath the door and clung to the floor. As the smoke continued to seep in, filling the room, it began to swirl and gather in the middle of the room, slowly building a swirling pillar until all the smoke had been committed.
The pillar swirled slowly for several long seconds before slowly fading to reveal the figure of a giant skeleton, bones as black as the smoke. The proportions of the skeleton were grossly incorrect, as if the entire thing had been stretched and pulled on some horrible rack; mere threads of flesh that hung tight to bones like sheets stretched taut held the thing together. A heart, small and black beat slowly, the sound was like a deep drum and filled the room with noise.
But above that were loud whispers of a dozen voices, speaking three dozen languages, the voices came from everywhere and nowhere, and there was one voice filled with anger and malice that could be heard above it all.
“JIUK!” it screamed, it’s voice filled with a hysteric anger.
The voice emanated from the skeletons hands, which were cupped together gingerly as if it was cradling something fragile and delicate. In the hands was a mask, cracked and broken, a long scar running from one corner nearly to the next, a small trail of smoke continued to seep from the wound.
“HEAR ME JIUK!”
Josh was somewhat surprised that they were inside a house again. With Jiuk you really never seem to know where one would end up. They still were in the conversation about them ever getting married, she had not heard and answer from the god of insanity when the guest that Jiuk was expecting came in rather dramatically. What was it with these entity's and using doors the proper way? Was it their inability to use them? Were they all in secret actors that practices their entries on a daily bases? Josh could not help herself from wondering all these things as she stepped back watching the smoke, bones, and the black beating heart.
As the voice seemed angry, the creature made her feel nervous but she pushed that deep deep down where all her anger, fear, sadness, and nerves went. A festering pool of emotions that she had collected over the years. There was no time to be scared, to grow nervous or any other nonsense. She had to be on her toes around these things. As the voice screamed Jiuk's name, and angrily so she could not help but to show the faintest of smiles. An enemy of Jiuk? How lucky was she? She could get these things to fight it out and be done with this nonsense once and for all.
She pointed straight towards Jiuk, and took a very deep bow towards the new creature inside the room. "Dare yer man is me mucker, chucker whatever yer want wi' 'imself. oi 'ill in me brown stan' in yisser way." She said politely and stepped back from Jiuk, her smile growing as she looked at him. God.. how lucky she would be if he died!
Jiuk looked back, his sudden teleportation brought on by the presence of whatever grotesque creature stood before them. He had felt this poor wretch and immediately pulled himself and Josh to where it was. He tilted his head as it made such a noisy mess. The thing in its hands, however, was very familiar to him. The God of Insanity sighed as Josh seemed to smile at the thought of presenting him to an enemy that would slaughter him. What a stupid wife she made.
"Bah! Enough with the crying Lizzy, you're causing me to think sane violent thoughts. Come come, who did this to you? I was waiting for a guest, you know? Certainly not...you. You look a mess." He reached forward and grabbed the mask, his hand turning pitch black upon contact, and his eyes following. "Whatever happened to you...you're certainly in no state to be wandering around." He turned the mask this way and that before the skeleton crumbled to dust.
Jiuk scowled and looked at Josh "Ah yes, this is The Ferret, she is my wife now. Wife, this is Lyz, my most...annoying...slave. I do have to give him praises though, if it weren't for him, your silly little Emperor would be a street rat somewhere instead of the ruler of Strophya as it stands." Jiuk touched the mask and ran his fingers along the eges before licking the crack on it and laughing "Mmmm, delicious dark magic, of the old kind too. Oh how I miss the taste." The crack immediately began to close, and the mask to change along with it. "Ah yes, we must give you a new body! But until you find your own, how about we keep it simple! Come come, we'll put you in one of The Ferret's cats!"
Jiuk reached down to grab one of Josh's cat and stuck the mask on it. The cat let out a painful yowl as the miasma from the mask engulfed its body, leaving it twitching upon the floor as Jiuk dropped the feline. He looked back at Josh and growled "Your stupid pet is resisting! Does it not know the gift I am giving to it!?" He kicked the cat away and it hit the wall, a very audible crack was heard as its spine broke from the impact. It laid still, the mask consuming the body fully and digging into the face of the dead pet before dark purple eyes stared back at both of them. "Now Lizzy...you will tell me...who did this to you?"
"Edward Macaroni Fork" came a whispered reply from L'y'zeal, there was a calm, matter-of-fact tone to his voice. The mask's 'eyes' changed to from purple to black and back again.
Jiuk gasped and ran behind Josh, making himself smaller behind him "No...not the Lord of the Fork!!! No no no!! He is rabid and timid and foolish and cruel!! I shan't believe it!" He turned Josh around and shook her "Do you understand what this means woman!?" Jiuk ran to one end of the room and picked up a cat looking at it before throwing it aside "I must get my things! We have to get out of here! Now!" He stopped and looked at L'y'zeal "You..need a new form! What kind? I need something strong and nice to protect me and the wife! Wouldn't want anything to happen to my future fuck puppet!"
The God looked around and sighed "The Lord of The Fork...you came upon him and he cracked that whip on your sweet supple skin, my poor Lyzzie. I will grant you whatever form you want! I promise it!"
It was pure rage she felt when she watched Jiuk kill her cat, acting like it was a normal thing to do and above it all his god given right. She snarled at the being that took control over the corpse of her beloved Nibbles. She had to keep her anger in check, she could not lash out to a being like Jiuk for it would be a foolish thing to do. She had seen only the tip of the iceberg of his magic and she knew that he was capable of destroying her with no trouble at all. The more she looked at him, the more she desired to kill him, make him cry out in pain as her beloved Nibbles had done.
She did not notice her tight grip around her swords as she looked at Jiuk, he turned her around quite violently as he talked about this 'lord of the fork'. She snarled as he called her his fuck puppet and pushed him away with both hands, wanting him to keep his distance from her. "Stay de feck away from me!!." she roared, not even noticing that she was holding the hilts of her swords again. She knew she could not best Jiuk, properly not even in his sleep. She took in a deep breath, felt her hands resting on her hilts again and slowly took them off. Flexing her fingers as she crossed her arms over her chest and gave the Liz-Nibbles cat a deadly glare. God.. how she already hated this person. " ... .. who is dis lord av de fork. sum demon wi' a trident? An' why wud yer man be dislikin' yisser mucker 'ere?"
"Fluffes" L'y'zeal screeched with gleeful malice.
Jiuk sneered and picked L'y'zeal up and looked at him "Fluffles? Fluffles!? We're gonna need a much more ample room for this then...Come come.."
In an instant, the three of them were deep within a forest, the only light through the canopy was sunlight, and even that came in small beams of light. Jiuk dropped L'y'zeal and soflty scratched behind his ears before moving unto his stomach and looked back at Josh "You know, if you were just a little more sensitive, things would look up for you. But you're the wife of the God of Insanity, so no...things won't be going fine for you." A purple smoke surrounded L'y'zeal and Jiuk took a step back "You know, I was going to kill him once...but really he's so pathetic having to live off of other beings to survive. He's a parasite, a creation of chaos and insanity to only drive the world towards my purpose and my desire. I cannot meddle with the affairs of mortals, but he can...and he does."
The body of the cat began to bubble and dissolve, the same purple-black smoke that had filled the room now poured from the body of the dead feline. The mask floated upwards, held aloft by thin wisps of smoke. The mask too began to bubble and warp rapidly changing in shape and form until it resembled a simple, smiling, drama mask. As he was transforming L’y’zeal spoke.
“I’ve been too valuable to you. I found your precious human plaything, your Theysilon, I whispered your words and promises in his ear and lead him to you. I carried your words in that drow, and worked to free you. I have been more than valuable to you, killing me would be killing a part of you. I do not forget that I am a dozen and one voices of your truest glory .”
As L’y’zeal said those last word, the mask tripled, making two copies of itself, though the expressions were vastly different, one representing any angry, malicious mask, and the a sad and sober mask. The copies tripled once more, and then doubled, until there were a total of dozen and one masks, each representing an emotion, each help aloft by thin wisps of smoke.
Then there came the whispering, a dozen voices all loudly whispering in a dozen different voices, speaking of happy things, sad things, angry things, depressing things, evil things. The voices filled the forest with noise.
The smoke filled each mask and pulled them together forming a head, with the original mask face front and then the smoke solidified into a torso, purple and black in color, the lower half of the body was left as smoke. There L’y’zeal floated, once again in his djinn form.
“Aaahhhhh,” L’y’zeal said gleefully, a dozen and one voices spoke at once with him, his words just audible over them. “It feels good to be back in my own body. Now Jiuk, we must discuss the fate of the Lord of Fork.”
Jiuk raised an eyebrow as L'y'zeal underwent his transformation, and for a second the gleam of insanity in his eye disappeared. As the Djinn materialized in front of him, the God of Chaos lost his crazy smile and his crazy glee. There was only a serious look in his face as he mentioned The Lord of Fork. He walked towards L'y'zeal and looked up as he floated slightly above them. His mouth opened and from it dark energy flowed out, slowly crawling towards L'y'zeal's trail of smoke beneath waist and starting to consume it. The smoke turned black and soon the energy completely engulfed the smoke, pulling L'y'zeal down, a black cloud of energy making up his lower body.
Jiuk nodded and the black cloud disappeared, leaving only a pair of legs similar to those of a horse. Jiuk looked at L'y'zeal "Legs, for your convenience." He walked around and looked from L'y'z to Josh before pressing his hand against a tree and sighing "The War Ancient does not like our offer then? I suppose that means we must pay him a visit."
He walked around some more before looking at Josh "She's my actual vessel. She's THE vessel. I didn't think I had one, but I suppose with Evergreen closed the Austari must be getting things ready for when all of the Pantheon comes back. I suppose that means they meant to liberate me....Or they already know I am out." He opened his tunic and faced them. His chest and stomach were swirling masses of black, burnt flesh. Dark energy seemed to pour out from the skin, but it would quickly find a hole to go back into. He closed up his tunic and looked at L'y'zeal "If the Austari know that whatever Vessel I choose other than her will be unstable, then they know that she will not allow me the power to enter and become one with her." The forest seemed to be completely silent, not even the sounds of the wind reached this deep into it. Jiuk turned to look at Josh "Will you?"
He shrugged as he walked towards the border of the clearing, not waiting for an answer "No, they know that my unstable psyche would either drive her away, or cause me to kill her....Yet, why do the Austari feel the need to give me a Vessel unless they know that I would escape? Why even give me an option? I can only assume that they are scared of something. Something big. Perhaps I did not escape...but I was allowed to believe I did. L'y'z we must find the Vessel of War and enter Evergreen...I must become a proper God if I am to enter this woman and twist this world to my command...as I stand I am weak...and I won't be able to do much if indeed there is something coming. We must hurry."
He looked at Josh and L'y'zeal, his eyes reflecting how heavy the situation was, and just how urgent his needs were. They were almost pleading as he closed them. When he opened them back up, the insane gleam was back, and his smile returned, almost as if everything he had said was only a joke, a prank for them to fall into "But but but!! First we have to take care of this pesky little Emperor of yours, don't we Wife!??"
Josh munched away the last bit of her beef Jerky as she looked at Jiuk giving L'y'zeal horse legs. She was pretty much used to magic. The Theysilon loved to show what they could accomplice with the use of their magic, and she herself was gifted with the magic of soul bending. She could make anyone do anything she wanted by touching them. But as Jiuk started to show the true purpose of him dragging her along she got a bit nervous. What in the world was he talking about? Why did he want to 'enter' her and calling her a Vessel. The word Austari she understood, it was something the dwarfs worship but the rest sounded a bit to much like fiction to her.
As he asked her if she would let him she could not find the proper words to say "hell fuck no" but just sat there staring at him like a demented monkey. She did not fully understood what was going on, but she was drawing a picture in her head, and it was not looking all to pretty. Demented monkey face or not, she was a pretty clever girl. Not as smart as she was deadly, but she knew what was wat... or she could pretend that she did pretty well. She could see that Jiuk was worried sick about it all, wondering why his vessel.. herself.. was to exist and he was out.. out from where?
She started to place the information into the right folders in her mind, she started dotting the i's and crossing the T's and let out a small demented monkey sound when she thought she realized what was going on. Right at the moment she wanted to get on her feet Jiuks whole posture changed into that crazy ass fucked up cracked up insane smile. She rolled her eyes and shook her head as she fixed her raven black hair. "Not yisser struggle an' strife jiuk, focus!" she said as she walked over to him and placed her arm around the god of insanity as if he was one of her closest friends. She pressed her finger against his chest and smiled the friendliest smile she could possibly show. Making her look rather horrifying than friendly, but at least she was trying to look nice. "Oi don't mind killin' yer paddy, though oi wud bloody 'ump 'imself 'til oi can not walk for a week. cause yer paddy is blu as feck! but if yer are gonna kill 'imself, oi nade ter be payed a 'efty sum av coin me mucker. josh don't work for free. naw sir." She patted him on his chest and looked at his insane looking face. "But first yer are gonna tell me what's goin on. yer nade me ter let yer enter me 'oy? an' waaat is dis aboyt de austari an' evergreen. lassy gotta nu paddy, canny 'elp yer if yer keep informashun from me."
L’y’zeal sighed and then looked at Jiuk, the masks on his face shifted and one with an expression of great sadness and agony looked at Jiuk.
“The Lord of Fork and the Duke of Marmalade had a quiz of wet noodle cheese barbeque sauce and. . .Lord Fork was true false but. . .the Duke. . .he congealed and trophied Lord Fork left through his cardboard box.” L’y’zeal had meant to whisper this somberly, but there were laughs and giggles and every two words was shouted at the top of his lungs, so that it rang through the forest and scattered the birds sending them flying.
The masks on his face shifted through out his speech, going from an the somber expression to that of a happy, and laughing one, to an angry, murderous expression, and then ending with a blank expression, with eyes that store into Jiuk, piercing through him like a reflection of himself.
Jiuk listened to L'y'zeal speak, nodding here and there. He listened intently as he described how the two members of royalty had done each other in. His smile slowly faded and formed into a scowl, a very deep and perhaps even comedic scowl. Jiuk crossed his arms across his chest and stomped aorund "No, no, no. NO!! They did not! Dukes and Lords do not just have contests like that and end up disqualified!! Do you not know the rules of the games!? I'm sure they're merely waiting for their next turn, watching their cards until they roll the dice again. Perhaps. Perhaps they truly are disqualified! But that would mean new Royalty is in place! If new Royalty is in place that means the place of Great Wonder has opened up....but that's impossible without the Lord of The Fork, therefore...."
A great set of screeching pierced the forest and Jiuk stopped talking. He looked around, his scowl disappearing and his face returning to the more serious tone it had had before. He looked at Josh and pulled her behind him "The Undead....The grunts of the Demon Army....The Grunts of the Grunts actually...Demons have risen." He looked at L'y'zeal and nodded "We must go...We can't let Demons sense me or else it could be disastrous." He quickly rushed away, an arm around Josh as he kept looking back.
Demons, even to the Gods, were bad news. A race born from the scorn of the Gods to the mortals below, Demons were the connection between the Otherworld and Evergreen. Almost completely Immortal, Demons had something that even Jiuk was incapable of controlling, an ever expanding soul that was dark beyond darkness. Jiuk knew he had no control over the insanity held within the Demon souls, it wasn't insanity, after millenia of being alive, it was just wisdom. Jiuk knew, and he was afraid. They could capture him and use him to revive their own twisted version of the Gods. Even Jiuk, who was an outcast and the black sheep of the Gods, knew that this was a bad idea.
He whispered softly as they moved through the forest "We move through Ghrithalla, and go away from Shuduk. We get close to Tenriel. To Evergreen." They weaved through the forest, his arm firmly around Josh, almsot as if protecting her from something. L'y'zeal following close behind them. The dark forest began to grow lighter and lighter. Jiuk looked ahead and saw sunlight, his mad grin came back "Sooo...we have escaped them. GOOD! Come come Wife, we have things to get, people to meet." Jiuk walked forward, letting go of Josh and feeling something burn on top of his forehead. He pressed his fingers to the forehead and felt something wet. His hand, covered in blood, move down and as Jiuk saw it he looked towards Josh and L'y'zeal. "I've been marked! Branded! COPYRIGHTED!!" He screamed and ran around scratching his forehead. Tears welled up in his eyes as he went towards the closest tree and beat his head against it. "NO! NO! NOOOO!! I CAN'T BE BRANDED!!" He beat a branch against his head and sobbed before falling to the ground, his back against a tree. In his forehead stood a circle, with demonic symbols within it. Jiuk cried, and in the forest, only his two companions heard the mournful cries of the God of Insanity.
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