@sethlozano location: necro world
Little more than the corner of Leviathan's mouth gave way to the satisfaction that each night brought forth. While the senate and their forces used the night to recoup, it was undoubtedly where they fared the greatest feat of all. Nothing turned the tides worse than fear and lunacy and as Pythia finds him among her coven, she greets him as an old friend, "Once more, I find myself impressed with your progression," August's depth of knowledge had never disappointed, and when she'd instructed Tepiltzin to source one of her own for an upgrade of sorts on his vampiric existence, the seraphim knew they would not be left hoping for more. "You'll be revered as you once were soon enough, we all will."
@adatiiel “You don’t see it as you’re never there at the end of their days, they’re nothing more then collateral damage to you but I am with all of them – there is not a soul that is wiped from this earth that is not known by me” Pythia’s heart had become lost long ago, enshrouded by the darkness that become her being, clouding out what once was good – now she only wanted destruction, darkness and death – Adatiel couldn’t escape her if she tried. The seraphim had been created from the cosmos to fight the first darkness that had blotted out the world and they had been called again to restore the natural order. “I won’t try to convince you to the goodness that exists within humanity, they are flawed and yet they still try to do better – you are not the creator of worlds and we won’t allow you to destroy the world completely” There is only one set of lips that she would listen to an order from, to bring about the end of the world will only be allowed by Ulthar.
The longer she spoke, the more tiring the whole exchange began to feel. The bleeding heart within her sister, however accepting of those she ushered beyond death, surely understood that such a burden could be wiped from her conscience were the mortals no longer upon this earth. Though, neither was Pythia so willing to offer the obvious argument to one who undoubtedly knew as much already. “Blah, blah, blah..” Her nose turned up in impatient disgust at the tirade offered to her, much like all those before. “And their constant attempts for better continue to be a let down, time and time again. How long should they be offered more chances to, as you say, better themselves? Or shall we watch for all eternity as they ponder the gift given to them and you... carry the weight of knowing each of them?” They’re menial, amounting to nothing in her eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve made decisions based on what any of you would allow me to do. It would better ease your disappointment if you simply stood aside.”
@adatiiel
The smiley face was a clever move, one that brought a hitch of a smile to Adatiel's mouth even as their search turned up empty. Being the angel of death meant that she reaped everyone who fell, allegiance didn't matter when their days came to an end. She wasn't to fight, her hands didn't call for violence as she was the result of whatever came to be. Adatiel often satisfied her whims, whenever she wished to see someone she did. It was why she felt that a conversation with her wayward sister was long overdue. "Are you happy with the wraiths that you trapped within your walls? Spirits that remain and grow in vengeance can become a dangerous weapon. The spirits are very angry with you."
_
Was she? Happy? As if to make crystal clear, Pythia's smile grew to maniacal proportions, the feint giggle that slipped between her lips eerie at best, and horrifying in the shape it took. "Sister, don't take it so personally. If anything, you should be rather grateful that I led you right to them. The pesky little things." Those that lingered within the walls, wraiths that screamed endlessly, clawing at every sense of humanity that remained, every ounce of their blood riddled empathy had risen as a symphony in the halls of the Asphodel. "Angry? At me?" The pout that settled against porcelain skin feigned innocence that would never look quite right, "Then consider their anger a gift, in the efforts you and the rest of them should make to try and stop me. I daresay, you'll need it."
_
"I don't need your help to find the dead" what ego but Pythia did always carry one, spirits have always beckoned her and she is the angel that is there in the last moment of life. Adatiel was to not be confused with a guardian angel as she did not protect nor decide who lived and died, merely knew when their time had come to an end, when the hourglass had finally run out. Those that died while being tormented or moments of great emotional impact became wraths. As someone who holds death and life in equal care, it is difficult for the seraphim to accept such cruelty. "I wish to hear it from your lips sister, tell me how you wish for this to all end. Do you really wish for darkness to blot out the world?"
_
“No? You’ll have to forgive me for my lacking faith in your.. abilities.” For a millennia, so many of her kind - their kind had done little more than squalor their potential. Bending to the whims of a father who cared for lesser creatures before his own children. Sighing heavily, something more of contentment than anything else, the Pythia smiled quietly to herself. “And why shouldn’t it?” Tongue clicked against her teeth and the brunette eyed the other with irate mischief, cold and calculating - unyielding. “Because daddy dearest said so? They’ve done little but squander the world given to them. Destroyed and plundered a place they’ve never sought to earn. I say, - burn it all to hell.”
closed starter for @fxllenpythia
The last person he had ever thought he would run into was the Pythia. Serkan had been reluctant to even think about the Asphodel. They had been a part of what had happened to him before. The Pythia was the one pulling the strings though. They always had been. He only wished he had been able to have half the mind they had. If only there was something he could do to fix what had been broken. There was no part of him that wished to be a part of that coven of witches and druids and whatever else they welcomed. He would play nice though, if only to stay on their good side. “You’ve got a lot of plans, don’t you?” He didn’t particularly care what they were as long as he was alive at the end of it. Rome could burn down for all he cared.
“Don’t you?” A meandered response that truly held no weight - and yet, one in which she intended to make the former alpha consider. A leader didn’t fall without losing out on a future they’d envisioned. Change was as much a poison as it was the gift of freedom, it simply depended on which vein it fled to first. “Is this what you imagined the future of the Arno pack would be? Barking at the heels of the eye’s bitch boy?” Truly - she hadn’t yet discovered what methods had been used on the Lupo’s newly crowned alpha, but she had no doubt that they’d certainly made some effort to wield him to their own benefit. Whatever seeds of which she could plant; she would. “And an alliance with the fey?” Her tongue clicked against her teeth sharply as she turned a haphazard glance in his direction, “It’s certainly... questionable.”
“You are not like most.” As much had been clear to her from the moment that August first felt compelled enough to touch fingertips to the art of dark magic and inevitably called to her. So many that wanted would never comprehend what it took to obtain everything, and all of them would fall to the pages of the book for their cowardice alone. To sacrifice to the necronomicon and find anything beyond that too much to handle was comical at best. “He showed me,” she speaks and the tone of her voice emboldens with the hint of a smirk that toys at her lips. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” At least, nothing that drove her as wildly as the very premise he spoke of. “Did you think I’d take us this far and not allow you there for it, August?” She prises with an edge of mock offence in her voice, “I’m not a monster.” A joke that undoubtedly humored her far more than she let on. Monster; abomination, she’d heard it all - conformed to it all out of pure spite. Levithan had long since become all that they’d feared she would, and there was no end in sight as of yet. “We’re so close. Speak to the drow, I want to know what their rodents have discovered. And keep looking for deserters.”
fxllenpythia:
“Everything comes with a price,” an utterance that had gone unspoken for so long between them. Python had never seemingly had to warn August of what would come of his venture with her and the Necronomicon. Even still, it was only ever the stout of heart that remained when the truth of such a statement was embedded into the very marrow of harrowed bones. “They’d claw their way down for the ultimate power and yet refuse to pay the ultimate price. Fooling themselves into believing that being mediocre is a good enough gift in return for mindless servitude and laws.” All that the other side offered in her mind would retain the shape of a cage, no matter how she looked at it. Stemming from the very will of Ulthar himself - and his decree that the seraphim were to allow the humans the world promised to them - to protect and serve from above; entwined by the consequence of free-will being their own undoing.
“More will leave,” she started, “allow some of them to believe they’ve done all they can. The time will come when they will pay what we’re owed.” We; as if everything she’d ever beholden to the world was also given to him. “Were they bold enough to have a single thought of their own, they’d understand that there are other ways.” True death. With no way back - no way to reverse the loss of a soul. A price that none expected, and one she refused to warn them of. She’d needed the numbers to begin with, the souls to grant her the power to invoke such a spell; to bring about the death of a God. Now, their souls belonged to the book - to her, and where they ran, she would always find them. “Narcissus betrayed us. Revealing our location to the Senate. We should pay them a visit.”
-
The fight had taken everything from him, the absence of power that came with the loss of channeling Trivia was palpable to the power-hungry necromancer even now. For someone like him, with everything that he’d become, it was impossible to not miss it, to not crave it. The Asphodel had worked in tandem and crushed a reinforced city under heel, the archdruids had broken, their petty God had broken, and that ichorous blood of the divine that flowed over his fingertips was addictive. That anyone would walk away now felt foolish, stupid even. Weak. “There’s no price I wouldn’t pay,” no price he likely hadn’t paid. “Bastien had a vision of the empty throne of the Gods, of blood raining down over Elysium.” The druids and their paradise, but what was heaven if not just another realm to devour? “I want to be there when it happens.” He wanted to see firsthand the look on the faces of those who’d betrayed them - the lesson that they would learn when they had nothing left but their own despair.
The rise of his voice - a moment of frustration and anger was one of the only flickers of conviction the Pythia had seen of Eric in some time now. Hollowed out by his own discomfort - his choice to stradle the line between this life and the next would be his downfall. Unable to choose until all that remained was the pitiful indecision to return to a world that had already cast him aside once. "You should have spent these months learning to secure your own fate instead of wallowing in self-pity, abhorrence or expecting someone else to do it for you." A serpent's hiss rounded out the snap of her own fangs, the glimmer of hues daring him to test another bark in her presence. Still, she softens - smiles, and shakes her head gently, "I never needed to make you a monster, Eric. You've been one since birth - and everyone, including your mother, knew it." It's flippant, haphazard, the way she speaks. As though every word she spoke were facts well known. "You were exiled long before the pack turned it's back on you, and it seems you're itching to experience that all over again."
"If all you see here is destruction, you've not been looking hard enough." The asphodel - the Necronomicon, was wrought with the creation of all things frowned upon. To stop death in its tracks, open realms beyond this one, and bring about a world that no longer saw those with such an affinity banished to barren lands. Eric had yet to see the totality of the destruction that she could wrought and as she wove the intricacies of power around her finger, the once regaled seraphim condemned the volatile to a life of bridled pain. A shortened life, beyond the safe haven of those willing to do anything - his body would seek to reject the hearts granting - long life, and strength beyond all else. Rue the control he sought being safe - the fire within him deserved so much more. The spark of a flame ignites and the blackened candles surrounding the room cast long shadows across the room. "Your troubles are your own, Eric. I offered you opportunity, and you squandered it. Perhaps the harbinger won't mind another disappointment."
fxllenpythia:
“What difference does a pack of wolves have to a coven? A court?” She waved a hand rather flippantly, the subdivision of species was a rather dull tactic to take when it came to the route of survival. Overdone, overworked and predictable. Centuries could pass among any of them before a spark of change, of life could pass through and reinvigorate the masses. “Do you not heed my voice in your mind as a beta would an alpha? Do you not feel protected? Safe?” Did they not know, that Pythia would burn the world down for those devoted enough to help see her through this? That Lucretia, August, Bastian, Levent, were now the closest thing to family she’d known in centuries - locked within the inferno after being fought and brought down by her siblings and gods alike. She had raised hell on those who’d betrayed her in the past, and she’d been far more forgiving as one of the blessed. “You have a mind, and will of your own. I understand the premise of what the Asphodel stand for, but we are for all those that have never belonged - been cast aside for daring to satiate our own curiosity.” And perhaps, his would be his own downfall this turn. Laughter blossomed on cherry tainted lips, “I don’t need weapons, Eric. I’m one of the fallen, risen from the inferno. There is nothing like me within this realm or the next.” Not yet, “Those that choose to follow me deserve far more than their lot in life, perhaps you believe you’re only ever meant to be one of many.”
She spoke, an effortless command that was fit to seek out reason and not insight fear but it still made the inner child within them tremble. They always resounded that their bark was far worse than their bite, the Exile always falling mercy to sabotaging situations because of their indecisive nature. It was what wrought this collision now, him and a fucking fallen angel turned greater demon and though his jaw was clenched in that spasm of anxiety, Eric wouldn’t wilt under the idea of submitting to this creatures flawed tactics of unleashing evil upon the world they secretly, deep down, cherished. “No, I don’t feel fucking safe,” it was barked out with a rueful laugh, their face scrunched as though the Pythia would smite them for the mere admission, though the statement was paired with a haphazard shrug. One of many, that could resound another hollow laugh, but they bit the action back, instead nodding grimly. It was true that their cowardice had simmered them to this creature which lacked a back bone and only lashed out when backed into a corner; it was how they’d survived so long. “Yeah, I’m certainly more of a follower than a leader, carving out some wicked path of destruction, you got me there.” There was no sarcasm for it bore a sad truth for the lycan, “I’ll be a bit happier keeping my hands clean from all your troubles,” for once they’d stood their ground on an opinion instead of skulking towards what everyone else had done; what August had done. He often thought of the necromancer, their only friend once upon a time who they now no longer recognized as a dull malfeasance took over August’s gaze.
“Then I sincerely hope it plagues you. Night and day.” For fault, in her mind, did not lie with she - nor those who had fallen. Rather with their father and all those who sought to use force against them to begin with. “I hope everything you have, falls to the same inferno that you damned us to.” And truly, she would like to see noone suffer more than Michael himself. Perhaps an eternity before, such a confrontation would prickle emotion hot enough for tears to spring to life, for something to catch in her throat, but long gone were her reservations about how she might feel coming face to face with them once more. “I do, because nobody else is willing to.” Willing to fight for what was rightfully theirs - to carve their own fathers betrayal into the flesh of the world poisoned because he saw greater perfection in creatures no more worthy than the dirt they walked upon. “Everything I have suffered - we have suffered, is because of this realm. These people. These creatures that would have Ulthar turn from us. Betray us so fervently. Do not stand there and accuse me of being a puppet when all you have ever done, is bend to the will of another. When was the last time you considered how this realm, and all others, would be if you hadn’t bent the knee in blind faith to one who would never offer you the same loyalty?”
fxllenpythia:
End this. As if choice were a gift unto herself. No longer did such desire to see the mortal world end offer itself a decision she made on her own. A champion of those long gone who wished for only what they were owed - what was promised. Those cast into shadow, beaten down in borish effort to carve their wishes into the very seams of blasphemy itself. “Does it not ache, to want something that should be so easy, only to have it stripped away from you, Michael?” She asked, rather pertinently. “You do not wish to fight me, and yet you have never stopped. How many of us have you murdered?” The blessed had always held the upper hand. Whatever playing ground the seraphim had raged war on, the fallen never held the favor of their father and in Leviathan’s mind, it was exactly that which should have forced reason into the golden hands of the blessed. “Why? What gives you conscience enough to plead with me now? Does it weigh heavy, knowing you and you alone, have carved what could have been a menial disagreement into the beginning of the end?”
-
“More than I care to count.” The blood of their siblings stained both of their hands, Michael wasn’t alone in his march against the rebellion just as the rebels weren’t alone in the slaughter of their own kin. Lately Michael had thought often to Leviathan - to Lucifer and the others, had he tried harder, pleaded more or used more than just his blade then perhaps things would have ended differently. Now, if he were to wade through the ichor of those divine-blooded that he had slain then Michael would have surely drowned in it. “You don’t have to do this,” Michael searched for the words…. Silently prayed for the sort of tongue that could bend the ear of even a greater demon, but naturally, he came up short. “This realm has done nothing to you, these people, its citizens. Spare them your wrath, abandon this - can’t you see that you’re being used?”
octavianrising:
She made herself known, a foolish choice considering how much hatred he harbored for her. In part, he wanted to unleash the phoenix’s rage on sight, but he had questions that needed answers. So he pulls his wings in, and after bursting into a pillar of flame Octavian changes back into his human form, walking forward with purpose and authority. “Keep my father’s name off your snake tongue, vile creature,” he warns, eyes still blazing. “I only want to know one thing: why now? Why free my sister now? Why chip from my family even more than you already have?” Though those questions were a thinly veiled mask to what he truly was after. Octavian couldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing how the voices in his mind screamed to be united with their progenitor. “The things you’ve done with that book … I should burn you for that alone.”
It’s quite a performance, the phoenix honing in against all the otherworld posed against him now, though she feels no sense of surprise. Pythia knows Octavian to be a force to contend with and one that fluctuates between loyalty and all that she knows if in his mind. As if out of humor alone, a serpentine hiss fills the air as she smirks, perfect teeth elongating only momentarily to mimic those of the creature he spoke of. “You should be more grateful to see her, did you not wish to be reunited with her?” The truth of his sisters demise one that filled Pythia with utter flee, “I did you a favor.” Framed within the concave of irrevocable choice - an olive branch that was only lacquered in the same poison that tainted his thoughts. “You could, of course, but I would merely find a new vessel and we would continue on as we always have..” The tip of her tongue runs the edge of her teeth, before she inhales swiftly and sets about on a slight skip in her step as she rounds him, “or, you could confess your thoughts - the ones that have told you all that I, and the book, can truly offer you. All that it whispers to you.”
“When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death.”
141 posts