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Post by The Dementist on Jan 24, 2005 17:03:25 GMT -5
Called the Divide by its inhabitants, the 1,492nd layer of the abyss is just that, divided into three sub layers. The upper two are massive floating continents, and the bottom one is a enormous continent surrounded by a sea full of fiendish creatures. Between, around, and above the sub layers float numerous smaller floating islands inhabited by demons and demonic creatures. Each continent has its own system of rivers and lakes, but one large river, known as the falls, connects the three sub-layers. The Divide holds very little of interest to most Abyssal powers. Its environment is fairly tame, comparable to your average Prime although rather hot, and it does not have a wealth of natural recourses, like some abyssal layers do.
What the Divide does have is an abundance of life. Not organized, not even in the rough, brutal sense of demons, but life nonetheless. There are numerous demonic life forms that exist no where but in the Divide. Some of these creatures are very powerful. Some of them are simply unique. However, their presence is part of the reason there is no lord of this layer – and part of the reason only a select few individuals are interested in it.
The Divide has a few creatures that style themselves minor lords. A cabal of Balors (One a Wizard, one a Sorcerer, and one a Fighter) hold a chunk of the uppermost sub-layer, called Topreach, but they do not control even the majority of Topreach. Midground, the second sub-layer, is dominated by a vast jungle who’s closest thing to a lord is a creature of great power and ferocity (a Half-Fiendish, Half-Black Dragon Paragon Tyrannosaurus Rex) who desires much more power than he has. The bottommost layer, called Lowstrike has no major power, though numerous smaller ones, led by Balors, Mariliths, and occasionally even lesser demons, do exist here. The sea around it home to numerous aquatic demons, but non major one of particular import, except for a demonic creature that might have once been a Kraken that holds a large swath of the sea. Lowstrike has its own intricate system of caves and tunnels that is more complex than any Prime’s Underdark, and a few cities of Draegoloths and Beholderkin can be found here, along with other, more dangerous creatures.
On the other floating Islands, there is absolutely no organization whatsoever. A long abandoned Citadel hangs from the ‘ceiling,’ the bottom of the layer above. No creature dominates this structure due to the numerous guardians it possesses. It is rumored an artifact of great power lay hidden there, one that would give the possessor complete control of the Divide – if they could survive the Citadel’s defenses. While these rumors are likely not true, what is true is that anyone holding the Citadel would have an immense tactical adavantage in any war waged in the Divide.
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Post by The Dementist on Jan 25, 2005 16:53:02 GMT -5
The initial incursion was quick and brutal. The portal had opened at the perfect place, chosen well in advance, a peninsula on the edge of Topreach that was about a mile from the lake that served as the headwaters for the Falls. From here, the river would wind its way across Topreach before falling onto Midground. The Slanjot and the forces that followed encountered minimal initial resistance, though there were a few interesting incidents that prevented the invasion from being a walkthrough:
Bakral slithered across this area of Topreach. She was a marilith, and a loner by nature, preferring to roam this part of Topreach and hunt some of the more exotic creatures up here. It was an unusually silent time, and she was wondering what new prey she would find, when the first of them burst out of the bushes ahead. It was a creature that would make a dretch look pretty, with a emaciated frame and four arms, the upper two which had disproportionably large forearms and the lower two being too atrophied to be on any practical use. It had two thick, short tentacles, each one ending in what looked like a shrunken human mouth, and its own head possessed a wolf like muzzle.
Upon seeing at her, it began gibbering in some tongue alien to her. A flick of one of her six wrists sent a javelin into the creatures gut, and it screeched in pain. Grasping the javelin in its stomach, it actually ripped the javelin out and tossed it aside, while its stomach closed before her eyes. Interesting, Bakral thought. Perhaps this…thing would make interesting prey. It lunged at her, gibbering incomprehensibly, and she rose up on her serpentine torso and, being a sorceress of some small skill, sent a bolt of lightning leaping from her fingertips into the creature, which fell and lay there, twitching. Not that difficult, it seemed.
From the bushes infront of her, however, more gibbering came. She readied her weapons, a halberd held in two hands, a greatsword in one other, and a spear in yet another, with her bottom two hands free to cast spells. Electrical energy crackled along the weapons as she prepared for them.
They came, dozens upon dozens of them crashing through the forest. She fought them viciously, using her spells and weapons to cut them down. To her credit, she fell nearly three dozen of the Slanjot before she was overwhelmed, dragged down to the ground by sheer weight of numbers. A voice shouted, a command of some sort, though again in that alien tongue. She tried to teleport away, too late, for some force held her fast, Anchoring here. The creatures that held her down did just that – held her down, none of them moving in for the kill. Exhausted and beaten, she was helpless as a creature that looked like a human rode a creature that was a cross between hydra and wolf over to her. She thought of him as a creature, not human, for no mere human could radiant sheer power the way he did. His hair was the color of fire, and he spoke into her mind.
<I am Didrik Pendrell. I have come to conquer this layer in the name of the dementist. You shall serve me.>
And everything went black.
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Further away and later on, as Bakral was dragged to the base rapidly being assembled on the peninsula by Slanjot slaves and insect like Drudges, another fight was occurring. A Nalfeshnee was set upon by a group of Hjol. The Nalfeshnee was old, and had existed n the Divide for numerous millennia. Like Bakral, he was a loner. Unlike Bakral, he was not going down.
The Hjol were tougher opponents, but they were fewer and Vrongoth was powerful. They used hit and run tactics to wear him down, Hjol running by him using their heightened speed and throwing javelins at him, while others were bursting from the ground below to strike him before diving back underground and burrowing away. He had slowed them, called lighting to strike them from the air, but some force countered his magic, working against him. The coward would not show himself, and Vrongoth was becoming angry. An attempt to flee to fight another day showed that he too was Anchored, and that only enraged him further. He lashed out with fists at the Hjol, but they were quick and agile. More Hjol joined the other, firing at him with longbow from beyond his range. Slowly, he felt his strength begin to wane as his flesh was pierced. He fell down, barely able to move, barely alive. He snarled as he watched what looked like a human – a weak, pathetic human riding some sort of crossbreed, perhaps wolf and serpent or wolf and hydra. The humans voice suddenly sounded in his mind like fire in water.
<I am Didrik Pendrell. I have come to conquer this layer in the name of the dementist. You shall serve me.>
And everything went black.
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So it went, all along the peninsula until they reached the part where it joined the mainland of Topreach, at which point Slanjot and Drudges began assembling a wall. This would be where they made there base. All across the peninsula, demons were killed, brought down by Slanjot and Hjol and Rataya and more. They fell, but the most powerful of them were visited by a creature that looked like a human and rode a creature that looked like a cross between wolf and hydra. Everytime, his words would sear their mind, and every time, they would be the same. He collected the six strongest demons he could find, and dragged them to the base where they, like the fortress they were to be placed in, would be built to serve the Dementist.
And this was only the beginning.
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Post by The Dementist on Jan 27, 2005 8:29:03 GMT -5
The Fortress was nearly complete. Slanjot and Drudges had been working tirelessly on it, and with the help of the Drudges sticky resin that they secreted, along with their abilities to create walls of iron, it was coming along quite nicely. It looked like a massive insect hive in many ways, squatting over the land and hugging the ground below it. Its center had intentionally be designed to resemble a twisted bee hive, and from that structure radiated eight “arms,” each terminating in a smaller version the main hive. Overall, the entire complex covered a square mile and, at its peak, was twenty five stories high.
Much smaller hive structures, combinations of resin and iron, dotted the peninsula, each one thin and tall, looking like towers crowned with bowl shaped platforms large enough to hold a single Mablach or a flight of Sjack’gix, who were busy ferrying troops across the peninsula. Their army had nearly doubled, filled with dretches, baubu, hezrou and other demons that had been forced into service, those of them with teleporting abilities given collars that stripped them of that power. The dretches were too stupid to know to do anything against their new masters, and the other demons were smart enough to know not to fight back at this point.
Along the end of the peninsula, a wall had been constructed. It was, like so much else, made of iron and resin. It stood fifty feet tall, and every hundred feet along its length was one of the tall tower hives, a bit shorted and with a smaller ‘bowl’ at its top. A few demons had come, inspecting the wall curiously from the other side, and those that had escaped with their lives were undoubtedly reporting to some of the self-styled ‘lords’ of the continent. The Falls ran through the center of the wall, and an elaborate water gate made swimming upstream into the area possible, if you did not mind being shredded by countless whirling blades.
All this, Ysarlin watched magically from the war room at the top of the fortress hive, while Didrik sat in a chair, going over their magically made maps of Topreach, plotting their next offensive. The Falls were the key to victory – the primary mean of transportation along the Topreach and the lower layers, it neatly bisected the floating continent. Holding it would mean holding Topreach, and would provide the key for attacking the lower sub-layers. The door opened, and a Rataya walked in, giving them a bow.
“My lordsss, I wasss sssent to inform you that the Marilith isss finissshed, and they are awaiting your inssspectionsss.”<br> Didrik looks at Ysarlin.
”You deal with it, Ysarlin. If she truly is finished, send her up to me so I can use her.
A slight nod of his scaled head and Ysarlin limps out of the room, leaving the scrying stone glowing for Didrik to look out of it at his leisure. Didrik continues going over the map, planning, always planning.
Ysarlin fallows the Rataya who delivered the message deep into the bowls of the hive-fortress, until they come to the dungeons. The magical energies of this place are nearly palpable, mostly from the experimenting on the six powerful demons they captured, as well as a few lesser ones. Bakral, the first one captured, was the first one finished as their ‘engineers’ sought a way to perfect the various demon forms. This was their first experiment on a Marilith. The dementist that greeted them was grinning, though if that was because of his accomplishment or because of his madness, Ysarlin could not tell. No one ever could with this particular dementist, a personal student of Xealaz’s named Dreads. He had great potential, and his handy work showed it.
Bakral rose up. Her time under the knife had been nothing but pure agony, and her life before it was jumbled and disjointed. She knew that the pale human before her, the one wearing long black dreadlocks in his hair, was responsible for her pain, but she felt no anger, no malice for the pain. In fact, she felt…powerful, more so than ever before.
Ysarlin took stock of her. She was indeed an impressive creature. Her entire form was black now, seeming to actually suck at the shadows around her, drawing the light and darkness both in. Her upper arms had been removed, replaced with two much large arms, each one ending in a pair of claws like a scorpions. Her head had hair now, which floated around it as though she were under water. She could feel that, if she wanted to, she could take to the air and fly with perfect grace. Also, beneath her fingertips, new powers crackled, raw energy she could unleash with a thought. She did so, striking a wall and sending resin and iron flying away with a bolt of pure dementia energy. A deep laugh escaped her lips, and she turned to Ysarlin.
I will serve the Dementist.
Ysarlin bares his teeth in the Ratayan approximation of a grin. Oh, Bakral was well made, well made indeed. He looked over at Dreads, who was admiring his creation with the look a normal human might give a beautiful woman he had just made into flawless sculpture that was more beautiful than the woman had been.
Excellent work. Continue on the others, if you will.
Dreads only nods mutely and lets out a giggle. Speech is not an art he had mastered, and not one his occupation required him to, beyond the verbal components of spells. He begins to wander off, ready to start on the next of the demons. Ysarlin motions to the Marilith.
If you would truly serve the Dementist, come.
He heads off, and Bakral follows, smoothly flowing over the floor.
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Post by The Dementist on Jan 27, 2005 16:07:51 GMT -5
Didrik sits bolt upright from the map and closes his eyes, which begin to move rapidly under his eyelids. Ysarlin and Bakral enter as he sits there, and without opening his eyes he motions for them to take a place to the side. His brow furrows, then smooths, all the while his eyes moving furiously. They snap open, and he turns to Ysarlin.
You shall govern her for awhile. Do not attempt to expand the borders. Continue to experiment on the creatures we have. Everything not needed for defense will be taken. Is that understood?
Ysarlin can only nod his head. He knows better than to ask why. It is almost like Didrik is channeling his father. Didrik’s eyes are steel and ice, cold and unyielding. Arguing, questioning at this point would be tantamount to suicide. Barkal’s eyes, on the other hand, show respect. She had never before followed anything or anyone. It was not the way of the Tanar’ri. At this point, however, she would follow Didrik to the gates of Mount Celestia. The fact that Dread’s modifications were working on her never occurred to her, which showed how well they worked. All she knew was, for the first time, she had a Zealots devotion. Didrik noted it.
You shall come with me, Marilith. Ysarlin, you have your orders.
With that, he turns and leaves, Barkal following.
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