What does it mean to be alive? What is the purpose of existence? Is the world like it is because the gods made it that way? Or perhaps the gods are the way they are because of the state of the world? Existence is but a blink in comparison to the almost eldritch concept of eternity. Eternity, what spine shrivelling concept. For things to continue, to have no end is unnatural, wrong and what we all desperately want.
Every person no matter what class or rank they may be in a spiritual or societal sense, abhors change. Change is an end. The former ending so that the latter can begin. Change is uncertainty, change is the destruction of patterns and the known. Change is a sledgehammer that breaks apart our tiny little box that we have built around ourselves and boldly label it as life. People must sneak back into the terrifying wilderness of the world to gather new materials and rebuild it. This time foolishly thinking that they have made an unassailable bastion which the cruel hammer of change cannot touch.
With everyday proving them wrong.
Ricard despised this quote with every essence of his being. Every single word evoked an almost unnatural annoyance which at some point, forced him to buy a deluxe edition of the book it originated from. He told himself(and frequently others) that it was a joke. A way he can use it as a dart board or to fix the busted leg of a chair. After all it was so ridiculous, so ignorant and pretentious which completely ignored a sizable percentage of the world which didn’t have this problem. This focused on such a hyper specific number of people that it was almost funny.
It was so funny to Ricard that he almost perfectly memorized it. It was so evocative that even as he was about to be murdered again it came to him. Perhaps because the book from which the quote was from currently served as the quite literal hammer which was changing the side of his fish tank from an undamaged one to one with rather stylish cracks originating from the point where the book collided with it.
Once he appreciated the delicate web of cracks which the fish tank somehow managed to bear, he turned towards the kind fellow who just installed the new decorations. A man (or perhaps a very short giant) roughly twice Ricard’s size. Apart from his rather oversized nature there were only two peculiar things about him. Firstly his fists were unnaturally big even for him, as if someone replaced the hands of a toy figurine with one from a toy twice its scale. Ricard became truly ever of their size when he felt the behemoth punching his guts, almost forcing them out of him by sheer power.
The second was the mask he wore. It was a metal death mask in the shape of a human face with holes for eyes and his nostrils. The mask was coloured gold with various spots where the paint was applied a bit too thick. That detail was really obvious now that Ricard had the opportunity to inspect it in great detail as the large man firmly grabbed his throat and pulled him closer. Ricard tried to punch, kick and claw at the monstrous figure. For once luck seemed to have smiled on Ricard as he managed to land a lucky kick right into the man’s liver.
Accompanied by the sounds of agonized cries and grunts was the easing of pressure on his throat as the big man loosened his grip on him and fell to the floor, holding his arm tightly around his side while laying in pain. Trying to quickly capitalize on his sudden upper hand, Ricard swiftly crawled towards the nearest object that could serve as a weapon. As he scoured the remains of what once was his living/bedroom, his eyes quickly turned towards his decorative vase that somehow managed to not shatter when it was pushed off from the coffee table during the scuffle.
He quickly reached for it, trying to grab it as he stood up and turned towards the big invader who started to regain control over their own body ever so slowly. Before he could, however, Ricard felt something cold pressed against the back of his neck.
“I would drop that if I were you, unless you feel particularly suicidal.”
The voice (if one would be polite enough to describe it as such) was strange. The words it spoke were understandable, but they weren’t words. Sounds of scraping metal and chattering gears that somehow carried. The metallic cacophony swirling around in his mind took the form of words as if it was an unfamiliar language that Ricard somehow understood. Seeing no other options and fairly certain that whatever was pressed against him could finish what the big man had started, Ricard slowly puts the vase down and laid down.
“Good... Kry are you alright?”
The big man turned towards the source of the strange voice and nodded with a soft grunt before standing up. Ricard tried to slowly turn his head towards the same direction the was looking at but he quickly stopped as he was pressed down against the stone floor by what felt like a metal pole.
“Easy there... No need to be a hasty little man. Kry make sure our guest here is comfortable, would you?”
With another grunt the giant pressed his enormous hand against Ricard’s back, replacing whatever was holding in place before, yet oddly the behemoth's grip proved to be far more gentle. The figure with the strange voice started to walk around Ricard, their footsteps sounding oddly metallic on the stone floor. Ricard saw their feet first, at first he assumed it to be some sort of protective boots covered in metal. They were unnervingly smooth, like a freshly poured metal sculpture with no real dividers or details. Just a smooth unbroken mass of metal. They looked incredibly unwieldy and uncomfortable. The rest of the figure was hidden behind a worn brown cloak , a pair of leather gloves and a mask identical to the one that Kry wore. The figure leaned down in a swift and eerie motion, clicking into place like the arms of a clock.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Wait... Kry. Didn’t the dead guy who used to live here have a red eye?”
Kry responded with a gentle nod.
“Ah... what’s your name, little man?”
Ricard was tired. Frustrated, hungry, cold, sore, terrified but mostly just tired. He didn’t have the energy to do some clever line that would have certainly earned him a few loose teeth or to think up some clever ploy that allowed him to pretend to be the Blood Lord’s cousin twice removed. He just wanted to lay down and shut off, so with whatever brain function he had left, he decided it was best to cooperate and see where it goes.
“Ricard...”
“I don’t suppose this would be your place now, would it?”
“Something like that…”
“Hmm.”
With the same inhuman motion, it did before, the figure straightened itself. And started to walk towards the door.
“Alright, let’s go Kry. There was nothing valuable here anyways and we have a incredibly fucked idiot to have a chat with. Knows all going on in Vertas my ass…”
Kry walked after the figure, his walking slightly reminding Ricard of a baby that just learned to walk as they walked with comical steps and noticeably struggled not to fall over from the mere action of walking. Before leaving ,they gently closed the door behind them while taking one last look at Ricard.
He was home.
Broken, tired, beaten and his residence ruined, but home.
Now that he had a quiet moment for himself he finally managed to fully take in the state of his apartment. His living room was previously occupied by a small 1 person bed with comfortable but cheap sheets, one wooden coffee table by his bed and another one near the middle of the room surrounded by two chairs that seemingly were more valuable than the apartment itself and lastly Ricard’s prized fish tank that was built into the wall of his apartment. The glass had a distinctive blue swirl in it clearly marking it as work of Barkir. He had no fishes in the tank anymore but instead it was filled with various small decorations.
At the end of the room was a simple bookshelf with an impressive collection of volumes. Ranging from cheap paperbacks filled with cliché stories of days being saved and maidens rescued, to some religious and historical texts. Most of the latter are usually sitting on the highest shelves. There were two doors apart from the entrance, one leading to a modest kitchen with just enough space for one person to cook and store food themselves and the other to a similarly sized bathroom.
Scraps of paper littered the floor as the books and indeed the bookshelf itself was thrown around in the scuffle, the various volumes were trampled , thrown and torn. The coffee tables and chairs were similarly, in splinters in the various corners where they were smashed and thrown. The only survivors of the battle was his bed which remarkably had no damage whatsoever, and the fish tank which apart from the book stuck in it and the cracks covering it was still somehow holding together.
Upon finally taking in the sight of what once was his living room, Ricard couldn’t care. He didn’t have any energy to care. He made sure that his door was locked, gave a quick thank to the gods that his toilet remained unsmahed and collapsed onto the bed. His body shutting off almost immediately, drifting into less of a sleep and more of a momentary coma.
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Life is a disaster.
Whoever came up with the concept of control and order was a fool of the highest regard. There was nothing but chaos. Things had reasons for happening, absolutely but they were a spider's web of conflict interests and happenstance. No one was able to truly see through the resulting mass of contradiction. The various lesser beings under Ulior occasionally made reference to one of gods who (like all of them) were supposed to know all that ever was and will be. When they were still a hatchling it was almost humorous but after a while it started to become vexing. They hoped that with the average lifespan of theirs, they would die out and perhaps forget about those gods of theirs.
But no such luck, in fact it has gotten worse. As the little pests spread, so did their temples and rituals. At some point in the long distant past Ulior was slightly intrigued by these, supposedly, all mighty beings. However after they had the opportunity to converse with one of their so-called heralds, they were less than impressed. In their shredder days they quite enjoyed burning down these temples. The shock and horror on all their little faces when their invincible shrines were melted was rather amusing. But Ulior was in their stone scale age. They learned to be patient and tolerate the ignorance of lesser things.
Still that frustration started to come forth when one of their lackey’s started to swear to one of the myriad pitiful gods that he was telling the truth. That a pair of customers not only managed to break into his kiosk and rob it but that said customers did so due to having bought false information from them.
False.
That word is the death of business. Once the rumour mill starts going no one knows where it will end. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the rumours would be true. Ricard was alive. Which means that either Ulior was lied to or that someone in their employ was incompetent.
Neither option filled the ancient being with much joy. Deep down they knew that the little rat currently soiling themselves in front of them was not at fault here. But it was a rare opportunity to vent out a long building frustration which Ulior seized upon. Grabbing him with one of their many metallic tentacle like appendages that protruded from their reinforced glass prison, and lifted him up then pulled them closer.
Until the man almost touched the colossal glass cylinder housing Ulior. They were clearly visible even through the murky green liquid they were immersed in. While their color has begun to fade over the years and liquid began to get murkier the silhouette of a brain the size of ten people was still clearly visible. A high pitched scream left the man chained to the base of Ulior’s tank as various arcane tattoos started to light up across his naked body. After a few moments he looked up at the poor fellow in the clutch of Ulior and began to relay the message of his master with a volume that no human throat should be able to create.
“You will get Ricard here.
AM I UNDERSTOOD?”