[Prologue] - Blood Rites

“Blood is Life!

Blood is Power!

Blood is Salvation!”

The ritual words repeat neigh endlessly to the beat of drums, as one by one the people of the village walk through the crowd and up onto the wooden stage. An altar had been built in the dead center, made of shiny black stone that seemed to drink in every bit of light that flickered onto its surface. The ornate silver and gold bowl set in the depression in the center of the altar is already half full of red liquid, the scent of which is so powerful that it can be smelt even by the crowd standing around the stage.

The people who come up onto the stage invetiably bow before the altar, and the black robed man standing behind it, offering themselves in subligation as they mouth the ritual words themselves before holding out their left arm. That arm is covered in scars, the wounds of multiple blood sacrifices they’ve endured at least once a month for the whole of their lives. From the very youngest, barely six months of age to the oldest of them, they all give of themselves as their gods had commanded.

Blood for the altar of sacrifice.

“Blood is Life. Blood is Power. Blood is Salvation.”

The black robed priest holds out the black sacrificial blade, made of the same shiny material as the altar itself is. With a deft, sure stroke, he carves a shallow gash across the offered arm of the next supplicate, and allows the blood to leak into the bowl which seems to swirl with wanton greed. Not a single drop mars the rest of the altar, and indeed the bowl never seems to fill more than half way. As if the gods themselves were drinking from it so that it never overfills.

At the same time, the same thing is happening in every single village, town, city, castle and cathedral across the world. Thousands upon thousands of peasants, nobles, priests and blood mages scar themselves for the sacrifice that keeps their world functioning. They all know the lesson that resistance would bring. They can all see it, only miles outside the protective walls of their homes.

Blood must flow, or the Miasma will take them.

According to the scriptures, the Miasma is a curse placed upon the world by the gods in the far forgotten past. The mortals had become corrupt and arrogant, and challenged the right of the Gods themselves. Their resistance to the natural order brought about utter devastation and destruction, and nearly ended the world itself.

But the gods are merciful, and halted the destruction.

That peace came with a warning, and a price. The mortals were to give up their life’s blood in order to fend off the Miasma, and any who declined would not be suffered to live. Thus was the Blood Rites created, and an black altar was set in every place where a grouping of mortals could be found. The Rites were to be followed, at least once a month for the rest of time… or death would be the end result.

Even with the frantic, fearful obedience and devotion of the mortals, life was not assured though. War, famine, plagues… conflicts of all sorts still rule the mortal world. As of late, it has grown even more increasingly perilous, as the beasts of the fields and forest and mountains have come out of their natural abodes to attack any number of places upon the map.

The rare travelers and adventurers claim that these beasts have been driven from their homes by even darker things… but no one knows the truth about them.

The only thing the people know is that the gods continue to demand blood in return for their lives. No one, from the richest king to the meanest beggar is allowed to refuse.

Blood must flow in return for their continued lives.

Too bad that none of them realize that the gods themselves are powerless to truly stop what they themselves have wrought. Where once the blood of millions and billions flowed through the altars, now only hundreds of thousands attempt to fill the void. And like an avalanche, the lessening of blood has caused the destruction of the world to slowly creep along, all but unnoticed.

Until it is far too late.

Still, the people pray and their blood still flows.

“Blood is Life!

Blood is Power!

Blood is Salvation!”

All they can hope for is a stay of execution… An execution that they all know is coming. Even if they never admit it to themselves, they all know it to be true. The gods have abandoned them, and their blood no longer brings the salvation that it once promised.

Still, they pray.

[Chapter 1.1] - Slumber For Eternity.

“Slumber, my Father;

Slumber, my Lover;

Slumber, my Enemy;

Slumber, and be no more.”

Curse of the Gods.

I’ve been asleep… for how long, I have no way of telling. Waking up is not a natural thing for me or my kind, for we really have no need to sleep. Instead, we tend to fade into meditation, where awareness and consciousness continue to flow.

Still, coming awake is a slow, gentle process. One that rightly could have been going on for years or even decades. Even though I knew this, and could even feel it, my higher consciousness did not come awake until the very end.

It was a very abrupt transition.

Like waking up from a bad dream, startling yourself into wakefulness. Bolting upright from the cold stone upon which I was laid, my head strikes the hard stone of the low ceiling, causing me to curse and clutch at it. Even for a god, that fucking hurt.

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The pain and my cursing brings my attention back to the here and now, and away from the idle wonderings of whatever had induced my previous feelings of fear and agitation. It brings the world into focus, although there isn’t anything for me to see. I’m under the earth, and there isn’t a light at all to be found.

Indeed, outside of the cold stone of the floor I’ve been laying upon, there isn’t anything to be found at all. I’m in a stone box, or perhaps a casket, which has been sunk into the bowels of the earth. I can feel the pressure of the surrounding rock and stone upon my skin, and even though I do not need to breath the air tastes far too stale for any living thing to have survived in this place.

Thankfully my senses are far better than most, and I’m able to reach out and check my surroundings with but a flicker of my will. I don’t even require my God’s Sight to do so. What I find however is more of the same. Cold stone, hot stone, and only this single void space inside which I find myself.

Up above and as far below as I can reach, there is nothing but rock and metal and crystal. The minerals of the earth each have their own feel and texture to them, regardless of which substance they represent. Iron, copper, gems or the various layers of stone. I can all but taste them with my senses.

Of course, being the creature that I am, I lay back down in the dark and quiet while continuing to stretch my senses out into the world beyond. Some would claim that it is simply because I am lazy… But as for myself I simply believe that I get the best results by letting my body rest while my mind is busy. Or vice versa. Although there is rarely a need to use my body for much.

I was always more cerebral than anything else.

Still, it takes me quite a while to figure out where I am, although the news is not all that heartening. I’m buried under the deep roots of a mountain. How utterly unoriginal. You’d think that a conspiracy perpetrated by an entire pantheon of gods would have found somewhere more creative to stash me.

Then again, most of them had more balls than brains anyway.

The fact that they managed to seal me into sleeping for ages does show that they at least found a way to counter my power. Not that it did them much good. They never did manage to kill me.

And they did try. Even I can tell that. The clothing I’m wearing, which were once my most favorite robe and trousers, are torn and ripped and scorched. I can feel all the damage to the thin, nearly impossible to damage material against my skin.

I am, however, not going to bother commenting about the big hole in the bottom of my trousers. I know that ass jokes were all the rage during that time, but I’d still rather not think about what those idiots tried to do while I was unconscious and unaware.

So to me it didn’t happen. Haha! Eat that, idiots!

Still, being buried in a mountain is effective, if unoriginal. It’ll take quite a while to dig myself out of this hole, and probably even longer to actually make it to the surface. The distance is so far that I’m barely able to feel the open air with my senses.

Although I should be able to sense things even further away, but for some reason I’m unable to.

Perhaps this slumber had dulled my power.

Well, not that it matters. What does matter is the utter lack of energy I feel. It was like every drop of energy had been pulled from the substance of the world. So dry that it almost makes my nose itch. It is like being in a desert without water.

Utterly annoying.

Thankfully I don’t have that problem, nor does the rock surrounding me. My very presence has allowed a tiny bit of that energy to seep back into the world, although it is far from enough to keep it from going into decay.

It just slows the process down a bit.

Which is why my little hole hasn’t collapsed after whoever knows how long it has been. Usually the earth would fill in a perfect rectangle of empty space within itself with a cave-in or the like. From what I could tell, there aren’t any caves or tunnels anywhere within quite a distance from me.

For a while, I just lay there, not really doing anything or even feeling inclined to do anything. I will admit that it is part of my inclination to just want to lounge around, and once I am secure in the knowledge of my rough location… why would I even bother trying to change it?

It seems like too much of a waste.

After all, my own family, wife and children conspired to put me in this position. Really, I must thank them now that I’ve had time to lay back and enjoy it. Do you know how much work it is being a god? Keeping magic flowing through the world, dealing with those who pray to me, and all the politics and squabbling that comes from being a single massive family?

Before now, the Hells were considered a vacation spot! In fact, I used to visit the pits once a century for a few days just to have the excuse to get away and lounge around for a while. At home it was always “Honey, I need this”, or “Father, I want that!”, or “As the King of the Gods, you need to do this!”.

I almost never had a day off! It was annoying as all fuck.

Shit. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back to sleep. It is quite sad that I cannot though. The seal is broken, and I’m not sure how to go about recreating it. As a god, I don’t sleep.

No matter, I can always meditate. I haven’t done that in ages, but now seems like as good a time as any. Yeah, I’ll do that…

ZzzZzzZzzZzz…