In the darkness...

Light didn't exist in this wicked place. What feeble flames arose from charnnel piles provided no light, they burned green from the thick and strange maleficience that prevaded the air, making the darkness only become dirty and not pure inky abyssal dark.

But voices and forms danced and screamed and shouted idiot gibberish none the less. Twisted by the corruption they reveled in, made impure by the darkness. Corruption can hide for so long, it could be observed. A beautiful mellon, split open, could be a mass of twisty seeping tunnels squirming maggots and festering rot. So to was the creatures which gathered here.

Far beneath Cordor the cultists gathered, bringing the dead and the dying to have their throats slit and thrown to the rubbish. But more then corpses lined its stinking court, the pit was filled with all manner of dead plants, festering garbage, the contents of cesspits dredged and tossed in, fish guts animal skin organs and rotted fruit. The smell created an almost sentient miasma and the air that was allready thick and oily was all the worse from the countless trillions of spores that covered everything in a blackish green pall.

Atop a great edfice scripted in maddening runes of languages that could not be spoken, words that if read could cause the very death of their imbider, stood the kobold. Or more the vessel. The Dark One spoke through the simple but receptive mind, using it as a conduit to infect and corrupt. They where angry. Desperate. When one has nothing to face but death, any savior can become one you would worship. Words was all the Dark One needed. The shaman spoke them and wielded the power it was given, the desperate flocked to him. The Dark One liked the non humans. Humanity was harder to corrupt, if any would belive it. They had so much only their greed could drive them for more. These kobolds, these ogres and goblins and twisted infected lycantheropes..they where at deaths doorstep allready. They could only gain, all had been lost well before the Master of Lies began to enshroud them in his ebony webs.

The shaman called out to the dead one, the rotting god. He directed the blood, the rot. He was mad. He attempted to sacrafice Cordor itself to the thing. He succeeded, in a manner, and took immense personal satisfaction that not only had his taint ripped the city asunder, but when it grew again allready the seeds of rot and the mark of entrhopy was inscripted within.

This site was seen by none other then Cordor Himself. The Dukes eyes reach far. Farther then many now would belive. While blame was shifted, he looked down. And what he found repulsed even his old soul. For some things are worse then mere evil. Some things could sicken even the cruelst of men.

With a silent word he became one with the current plane, no longer able to simply stand by. His gleaming white cloak and ivory staff where enshrouded with strange whirling semi ephempheral phlostigion, atop his brow rested the supposedly lost Crow of Adavar the Kind. The chanting ceased, the ulidation stopped as sudden as it had began as the horrors turned to face this gleaming effigy, shrouded in light and air in a world of earth and rot and suffucation. They hesitated.

The shaman spoke first, hissing and cracking as he tried to bring his only semi cognient mind to grasp this thing. The Dark one whispered to him. He understood.

"So you come!" he cackled, spitting and gnashing his teeth. "You think your clever...human filth! Even the stinking dwarves and wretched elves could somewhat respect balance..but not your kind! You take and take...we'll take now! We'll rot the world to its start and grow from the muck anew!" he crowed this, gesturing with a gnarled hand to send his minions to tear asunder the politican.

Duke Motgomory d'Cordor waved a single hand, Index And fore finger held straight, thumb far from the hand and others curled. A wave of flame, white and pure as heaven itself swept from his hands. The creatures didn't even burn, they didn't even feel pain. They felt their rot leave...they felt..alive. to alive. And then nothing, ever again.

He Spoke, words he had thought long and hard to say."I cannot appologize for Humanities mistakes. But you cannot simply dwell upon a fault. To punish fro sins but deny rewards for kindness? You Speak to me of corruption, when you yourselves champion it. No dear little creature....I am your Judgement. Light Cannot fade, Light Cannot be hidden from, Light shall never, ever fail."

He closed his eyes and spoke in words of creation, wraping light and shadow and energy together. A great lance formed in his hands even as the kobold began to summon up his foul magics and darkest curses, striking the impurity. There was flame, but flame unlike what could dwell on earth.

For just an instant...for he had only an instant of life after the great blast of positive energy, it occured to Nibblet that prehapse he was as foolish as the 'false druids' he loathed....Symbiosis could...but he had no thoughts from there. If there is a fate in this realm, if the gods are truely kind, if any true light does exist, then it would be prayed upon that the dark forces from his mind left before his death, for prehapse then and then alone, he would have had a momments peace and purity before his soul was sent screaming to the netherworld.



Many months later cordor citizens commented on the abduence of crops where before they where sickly. The flowers of spring smelled all the sweeter and the waters and skies seemed all the more beautiful. A few more artists found reason again to pick up brush and easel or chissel and hammer. A few more songs where sung.

Prehapse the greatest victory isn't noticable. But light is easy to not notice, it doesn't need to be seen to be felt in the heart.

// Moved here as it shows closure to a DM plot.