Reed stared at the depiction of the powerful… thing that currently resided beneath his very feet. He was just about to continue up the stairs when a lull in the wind allowed for a sound to reach his ears. It was faint, but the noise was unmistakable. It was the sound of fighting.
Reed slammed himself up against the wall, preparing for whatever was at the mountain’s peak to come for him. His back pressed against the engraving of the mysterious being and blades began to emerge from his palms. As he did so, Reed’s eyes darted back and forth between the rising stairwell to his side and the top of the wall above him. The faint sound of conflict sporadically made its way to him, but it never seemed to get closer.
As time passed and still nothing changed, he peeled himself off the wall and began to ascend yet again. With every step Reed took, his eyes continued to frantically dart between wherever the perpetrator might choose to appear. While climbing, he passed more engravings within the wall. These were no longer the portraits that he had grown accustomed to seeing, but for the moment, Reed passed them by. There were only but a few of these dissimilar engravings, after which the stairs finally came to an end.
The mountain peak was entirely leveled. Through a dense covering of discarded blood, flesh, and bone, he could make out a surface of the same bone-white consistency that seemed to adorn so much of this world. Ivory columns rose from the ground, holding up nothing but the flesh-colored sky. At the far end of the mountain’s peak, three large hands, stationary and constructed out of the same bone-white material, rose from the ground. Despite the considerable size and reach of the limbs, they would have been unremarkable and easily missed in the monochrome structure if not for what each hand clasped. Two of the three arms of bone grasped a piercing red light.
The red lights flickered in Reed’s vision as two figures fleeted across the structure. He still stood upon the staircase, peering over a small portion of the wall, and the conflict he spied on did nothing but affirm his decision to observe from safety. Two figures were engaged in a tumultuous fight, clashing all across the structure in what appeared to be a futile bout.
Both combatants wore the same gray robes Reed had gotten an eyeful of on his path up the mountain. One of the figures had three masses of flesh sprouting out of their back. Each mass resembled something of a bulging whip, covered in shards of bone that were flung with vicious speed every time one of the tendrils thrashed about. The other figure had no flashy permanent additions, but in every exchange, its body would warp into unimaginable abominations of reality before snapping back just as quickly to a plain robed form.
The tendril-spouting figure rushed towards its opponent with a speed that put even Reed’s best efforts to shame. One of the flesh whips swung as it ran, sending a wave of shards at the other figure while more bone fragments protruded from the tendril immediately after the deed was done. As the flurry of bone shards approached its opponent, the unadorned figure did nothing to evade. The projectiles made contact and passed straight through the robed denizen, but in the blink of an eye, it was back to full form robes and all. Reed couldn’t tell whether the robed figure had opened up holes in its body beforehand to allow the bone to pass through, or if it had just taken the hit and healed afterward. Although he supposed it wouldn’t matter, requiring the same incredible prowess either way.
The tendril-bearing denizen was in front of its opponent in a flash. All three of its appendages whipped forward in a frenzy as it barreled towards the unassuming denizen. What can only be described as a wave of blood, flesh, and bone crashed into the charging figure. The extra appendaged denizen’s advance was halted as it was speared through with bone and subsumed within flesh and blood. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the supernatural cascade stopped. It froze in the air as if time itself had stopped, the other robed figure still inside, before exploding in a burst of erratic movement that tore its captive into pieces.
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The tendril bearing denizen was thrown across the regal mountaintop in chunks, joining the sea of remains that already littered the floor. The inhuman mass responsible for the attack violently churned and twisted, swiftly taking the form of the robed denizen, and as the figure regained its original appearance what remained of the wave of flesh fell to the floor in a heap.
As this took place, a particularly large chunk of the obliterated denizen writhed on the ground. It too rapidly transformed, warping back into the denizen’s original appearance in only a moment. It had only been an instant since the two combatants clashed, and they had both already returned to full form.
Reed watched this all occur from the safety of the stairwell. He observed as the two robed figures displayed their power in one bout after another. The combatants would clash, the plain-robed denizen always decimating the other, and then both would immediately regenerate to their original state. This happened again, and again, and again. Despite the clear disparity in power, there was no victor; And by the looks of things, it appeared there wouldn’t be one.
Reed crept back down the staircase, doing his utmost to avoid the notice of the two warring entities far beyond what he was capable of. He descended to the first of the engravings that he had been forced to neglect earlier, and while attempting to ignore the sound of conflict echoing above, tried to glean something from the picture.
The engraving closest to the top of the staircase was that of a mountain. It wasn’t the most remarkable image, portraying only said mountain and an object far above that most likely represented the sun. The only thing of note that Reed could see was the fact that the mountain depicted most likely wasn’t the same as the one upon which he was standing. The engraving depicted a tall landform with steep elevation and a peak so sharp it seemed to pierce the sky, whereas what he currently stood upon would better be described as a massive hill of gravel.
Reed moved down to the next engraving only to see the image of the same mountain. The picture was identical to the one before it, with the small exception of the object in the sky. The ball-like mass had been drawn larger and was now much closer to the mountain. He descended again. Once more, the only change in the image was that of the vague object. Again it was drawn larger and was now placed directly above the tip of the mountain.
The next engraving showed the mountain exploding. Countless fragments were carved into the wall, shown being scattered in all directions as the unknown mass continued downwards. Next, it was shown that the debris from the mountain settled across the ground, depicting the image Reed knew well of rolling dunes of stone. Carved underneath the surface was the unknown object.
The following engraving depicted a large number of people arriving within the stone desert. They were clearly shown to be the gray-skinned, long featured race that Reed had come to know. He walked further down the steps, enraptured in the art portrayed on the wall and the prospect of finally learning something about what was going on.
The next etching took a turn. Rather than showing any more of the group of inhabitants, engraved on the wall was a familiar face. Or rather lack thereof, as a figure with its head wrapped in cloth was seen kneeling. What it was kneeling for couldn’t be discerned, as the scene was depicted facing the genuflecting figure. However, Reed had a guess as to what it was worshiping.
He continued down the mountain to see that the next picture contained the entity with the head wrappings as well. It stood to one side of the engraving with both hands raised like some sort of messiah. On the other side was carved the city of stone that lay off in the distance. Reed descended further down the steps, hoping to see something that gave some manner of explanation for the past several scenes, but was met with the portrait of the crimson-wrapped figure again. There were no more engravings.