I started this fanfic awhile ago. I decided to post it, if it's liked well enough (if at all) I might continue it. Critiques and comments would be welcome.
Planescape: The Rise of Evil
"What can change the nature of a man?," those words seemed stamped onto his mind, stitched with gold thread as if signifying their importance. The sentence remained hung against the black void, almost seared into his consciousness, until thoughts connected slowly to form an answer:
Hate
The Nameless One's eyes snapped open as soon as the word?s meaning resonated through him, and then he sat up stiffly, his brain on fire with a newly birthed misery. "Feels like I came back from the dead," he nearly growled. A hollow voice suddenly spoke from behind him, as if the owner of it didn?t have lungs.
"Hey chief, you playing corpse or you putting blinds on the dusties? I thought you were a deader for sure," the voice spoke boldly, carrying the annoyance factor of a persistent parrot. The Nameless One slowly turned his head, mentally shaking off that mysterious bleak fog of depression, then responded. "What in the Planes are you?" His tone was incredulous, for what...floated...above him was a cracked, dusty skull, of all things.
"Well, right now, I'm your only friend...and a little courtesy wouldn?t hurt by the way,? the skull seemingly sneered as it talked. The zombie's lips puckered in distaste before it replied. "Really. I'm sure there are more...efficient and less self-damaging ways to get what I want. After a slight pause, then he said "I have another question that needs answering, who are you?" The zombie seemed to have conquered his disbelief quickly enough, and sat staring at the skull with a fierce concentration.
"You can call me Morte," the skull said, somewhat reluctantly, as if the short verbal exchange between them had already created a distance between the two, forced those lost souls on the opposite sides of a great chasm.
The "zombie" nodded slowly, not just processing the spoken information, but the unspoken as well. The short hesitation before Morte spoke, the uncomfortable silence afterward. How a newly-risen man could read an enigmatic, floating brain-box so well was beyond him. It was eerie, and a little terrifying.
"So, what's your name?," Morte asked obligingly. The immortal shouldn't know, not yet.
"I...can't remember," for the first time Morte read confusion in the zombie's eyes. It was something, at least, beyond the uncaring and vague selfishness he had been able to glean from the man. And, it was a consistent trait throughout the incarnations of this same person...bewilderment.
"Geez, the dusties must've thrown you down pretty hard on that slab. Or maybe the banged up head is what brought you here in the first place," Morte made a show of trying to pinpoint the reason, made it look like he was as confused as the "undead" person sitting on that slime-covered slab before him.
"...What is this place?," the Nameless One asked, no emotion in his voice. It wasn?t curiosity that prompted the question, seemingly, but the need for information, to absorb it remorselessly, like a mindful sponge on water.
"Could've been a one-way ticket to your burial. Still could be. The hypothetical aside, this is a gathering place for the dead. You're in a mortuary pal, and I'd get off that slab in a hurry if I were you, before the dusties come back to finish the job," Morte advised with a seemingly forced sense of concern.
"Am I d-?," the Nameless One queried in a low voice, but Morte cut him off as politely as he could, his patience was wearing thin, after all these ages.
"Heh, in this lighting, everything looks like a walking corpse. But I've been in this place long enough to recognize a deader when I see one, and you?re still alive from what I can tell. If a bit..eh...roughed up. By the way, you've got quite the collection of scars there," Morte commented.
"And how long have you been here?," the Nameless One asked, getting up and walking around carefully, the conversation with the skull a blatant afterthought.
"Long enough," Morte said curtly. "Been trapped in here for awhile." Nameless nodded, strolling purposefully through the rows of slabs with decaying bodies lying ignorantly in his wake, running his hands across the muck-smeared walls.
"Trapped,"Nameless repeated absently. "Not quite." Nameless was in deep concentration, pilfering through the corpses. Morte had a feeling this incarnation knew they were imprisoned before he told him, and for some unknown reason, this wrinkled, sour man knew the prison held a key, albeit a hidden one (which was strange). ?Tell me about these scars, are they all over me?,? he asked in a low tone, continuing to work.
"Well yes, but let?s just say those scars are the least interesting parts about your..appearance," Morte almost whispered.
Nameless turned, an iron key in his hand, setting it temporarily on the slab next to him. Then he fixed Morte with a cold stare, full of suspicion. "What exactly are the most interesting parts, then?"
Morte felt he was responding to an eyeless corpse, a mummified face without the wrappings, with dull, lifeless slits put in the place of eye-sockets. As if this person, this being, was a construct of sorts, and not of nature either.
"Looks like you got something written, err, tattooed to your back there," Morte said, shrinking from the man's palpable paranoia.
"How strange," another pause, this one longer, followed by Nameless thoughtfully tapping his rocky chin. "Read it to me then, no paraphrasing, either," the voice that spoke was confidently commanding, like a master shadow whipping the fellow darkness. After the last syllables escaped from his cracked lips, Nameless dutifully turned around (giving Morte a warning glare), flexing his back muscles, allowing the skull an uncompromising view of the myriad of tattoos sprawled across his sinewy back.
Morte's decaying jaw hung open in an unavoidable expression of his deep, chilling thoughts. We're in for another long ride, chief. I can feel it...a long, depressing, misery-filled ride through the Planes. I wonder what band of tormented followers you?ll surround yourself with this time. If they?re lucky, you won?t become a total sadistic monster, and a few will survive. Maybe this time, we can win. Maybe you?ll be able to rest at last. But I doubt it. How many times have you..we..tried? How many times have we failed?
"I'm waiting skull, that's not something I want to become a habit," Nameless seemed to grind the words from his throat. Morte clenched his loose, cavity-ridden jaw. "Err, sorry chief," here Morte pretended to gaze in concentration at the writing on Nameless?s back.
"Hmm, looks like you were in a tattoo artist's wet dream," Morte briefly smiled at his joke, then hastily continued. "It says "You're immortal. And a Lord of the Planes. Don?t get pretentious, though, you?ve died countless times. It's time to change the pattern. You've inherited a palatial estate in the northwestern area of Sigil, known as "Adahn's estate." Use it wisely, and the servants within, to good ends. Show the steward the insignia on your right hand, he will hail you as "master," and your power will be restored."
Morte stopped for a moment, allowing Nameless to absorb the information, then finished reciting the the last segment of tattoos. "Alright, here's the last part, ehhh "Watch out for the sorceress, her wisdom is great, and her deception outmatches all. But she is vital to your salvation. These tattoos, a product of magic, will disappear upon recital. Commit this to memory, and good luck, cutter."
Nameless shook his head, as if coming out a deep trance. As if he had just returned from a lucid memory. His eyes burned with an intense emotion--hatred. Morte moved backward, all at once terrified.
PS--Sorry for any grammarical errors, when I posted this something happened and converted my quotation marks to question marks, and I had sift through and correct what I could.
Planescape: The Rise of Evil
"What can change the nature of a man?," those words seemed stamped onto his mind, stitched with gold thread as if signifying their importance. The sentence remained hung against the black void, almost seared into his consciousness, until thoughts connected slowly to form an answer:
Hate
The Nameless One's eyes snapped open as soon as the word?s meaning resonated through him, and then he sat up stiffly, his brain on fire with a newly birthed misery. "Feels like I came back from the dead," he nearly growled. A hollow voice suddenly spoke from behind him, as if the owner of it didn?t have lungs.
"Hey chief, you playing corpse or you putting blinds on the dusties? I thought you were a deader for sure," the voice spoke boldly, carrying the annoyance factor of a persistent parrot. The Nameless One slowly turned his head, mentally shaking off that mysterious bleak fog of depression, then responded. "What in the Planes are you?" His tone was incredulous, for what...floated...above him was a cracked, dusty skull, of all things.
"Well, right now, I'm your only friend...and a little courtesy wouldn?t hurt by the way,? the skull seemingly sneered as it talked. The zombie's lips puckered in distaste before it replied. "Really. I'm sure there are more...efficient and less self-damaging ways to get what I want. After a slight pause, then he said "I have another question that needs answering, who are you?" The zombie seemed to have conquered his disbelief quickly enough, and sat staring at the skull with a fierce concentration.
"You can call me Morte," the skull said, somewhat reluctantly, as if the short verbal exchange between them had already created a distance between the two, forced those lost souls on the opposite sides of a great chasm.
The "zombie" nodded slowly, not just processing the spoken information, but the unspoken as well. The short hesitation before Morte spoke, the uncomfortable silence afterward. How a newly-risen man could read an enigmatic, floating brain-box so well was beyond him. It was eerie, and a little terrifying.
"So, what's your name?," Morte asked obligingly. The immortal shouldn't know, not yet.
"I...can't remember," for the first time Morte read confusion in the zombie's eyes. It was something, at least, beyond the uncaring and vague selfishness he had been able to glean from the man. And, it was a consistent trait throughout the incarnations of this same person...bewilderment.
"Geez, the dusties must've thrown you down pretty hard on that slab. Or maybe the banged up head is what brought you here in the first place," Morte made a show of trying to pinpoint the reason, made it look like he was as confused as the "undead" person sitting on that slime-covered slab before him.
"...What is this place?," the Nameless One asked, no emotion in his voice. It wasn?t curiosity that prompted the question, seemingly, but the need for information, to absorb it remorselessly, like a mindful sponge on water.
"Could've been a one-way ticket to your burial. Still could be. The hypothetical aside, this is a gathering place for the dead. You're in a mortuary pal, and I'd get off that slab in a hurry if I were you, before the dusties come back to finish the job," Morte advised with a seemingly forced sense of concern.
"Am I d-?," the Nameless One queried in a low voice, but Morte cut him off as politely as he could, his patience was wearing thin, after all these ages.
"Heh, in this lighting, everything looks like a walking corpse. But I've been in this place long enough to recognize a deader when I see one, and you?re still alive from what I can tell. If a bit..eh...roughed up. By the way, you've got quite the collection of scars there," Morte commented.
"And how long have you been here?," the Nameless One asked, getting up and walking around carefully, the conversation with the skull a blatant afterthought.
"Long enough," Morte said curtly. "Been trapped in here for awhile." Nameless nodded, strolling purposefully through the rows of slabs with decaying bodies lying ignorantly in his wake, running his hands across the muck-smeared walls.
"Trapped,"Nameless repeated absently. "Not quite." Nameless was in deep concentration, pilfering through the corpses. Morte had a feeling this incarnation knew they were imprisoned before he told him, and for some unknown reason, this wrinkled, sour man knew the prison held a key, albeit a hidden one (which was strange). ?Tell me about these scars, are they all over me?,? he asked in a low tone, continuing to work.
"Well yes, but let?s just say those scars are the least interesting parts about your..appearance," Morte almost whispered.
Nameless turned, an iron key in his hand, setting it temporarily on the slab next to him. Then he fixed Morte with a cold stare, full of suspicion. "What exactly are the most interesting parts, then?"
Morte felt he was responding to an eyeless corpse, a mummified face without the wrappings, with dull, lifeless slits put in the place of eye-sockets. As if this person, this being, was a construct of sorts, and not of nature either.
"Looks like you got something written, err, tattooed to your back there," Morte said, shrinking from the man's palpable paranoia.
"How strange," another pause, this one longer, followed by Nameless thoughtfully tapping his rocky chin. "Read it to me then, no paraphrasing, either," the voice that spoke was confidently commanding, like a master shadow whipping the fellow darkness. After the last syllables escaped from his cracked lips, Nameless dutifully turned around (giving Morte a warning glare), flexing his back muscles, allowing the skull an uncompromising view of the myriad of tattoos sprawled across his sinewy back.
Morte's decaying jaw hung open in an unavoidable expression of his deep, chilling thoughts. We're in for another long ride, chief. I can feel it...a long, depressing, misery-filled ride through the Planes. I wonder what band of tormented followers you?ll surround yourself with this time. If they?re lucky, you won?t become a total sadistic monster, and a few will survive. Maybe this time, we can win. Maybe you?ll be able to rest at last. But I doubt it. How many times have you..we..tried? How many times have we failed?
"I'm waiting skull, that's not something I want to become a habit," Nameless seemed to grind the words from his throat. Morte clenched his loose, cavity-ridden jaw. "Err, sorry chief," here Morte pretended to gaze in concentration at the writing on Nameless?s back.
"Hmm, looks like you were in a tattoo artist's wet dream," Morte briefly smiled at his joke, then hastily continued. "It says "You're immortal. And a Lord of the Planes. Don?t get pretentious, though, you?ve died countless times. It's time to change the pattern. You've inherited a palatial estate in the northwestern area of Sigil, known as "Adahn's estate." Use it wisely, and the servants within, to good ends. Show the steward the insignia on your right hand, he will hail you as "master," and your power will be restored."
Morte stopped for a moment, allowing Nameless to absorb the information, then finished reciting the the last segment of tattoos. "Alright, here's the last part, ehhh "Watch out for the sorceress, her wisdom is great, and her deception outmatches all. But she is vital to your salvation. These tattoos, a product of magic, will disappear upon recital. Commit this to memory, and good luck, cutter."
Nameless shook his head, as if coming out a deep trance. As if he had just returned from a lucid memory. His eyes burned with an intense emotion--hatred. Morte moved backward, all at once terrified.
PS--Sorry for any grammarical errors, when I posted this something happened and converted my quotation marks to question marks, and I had sift through and correct what I could.
