And as I mentioned in the Paradise Fortress update, here's the new story idea. The plan is to once again try to make a shorter story so I can get back to working on PF. Sometimes the ideas just compel you work on something immediately though. Plus, I want to release another story, its been awhile.
Soulless
With nothing to lose, only madness remains
TR 11 (Time of Reaping)
“Hey get up.”
“Go away, I’m fucking sleeping.” you answer.
“No you’re not, you haven’t been sleeping for days you mad bastard, and you’re awake enough to answer me. Now get the fuck up, someone’s screaming. I know you can hear it.”
You get up.
“And take your axe, who knows what the fuck is going on out there.”
You exit from your domicile with your axe in hand.
“Hm, those are some wonderful cries of pain, that really takes me back. Did I ever tell you about the time when that old degenerate Casimir approached me about the Eternal project? The women we had to…”
“Yes and shut up uncle.”
You’re assuming that it’s another undead attack, perhaps the final one given the screams coming from within the compound. You notice that the gates are open, but there aren’t hordes of corpses shambling around, so you aren’t sure what the hell is going on, though a few of your people are already gathered at the domicile where the screaming is coming from.
It’s Marzost’s home so you head over there immediately. Did the glorious leader finally go completely babbling mad? He’s still younger than the rest of you for that to be a major issue even if it can vary from dero to dero.
“Marzost huh? No wonder the screams sounded like a woman. He’s got that cursed svelk blood in him. All those babies you got are gonna be more feminine in general what with all the svelk fucking you lot were doing. I would weep for our future generations of male dero if there was a future.”
Meanwhile you get the pleasure of your dead uncle Marik talking to you all the time. Even though it’s just your mind steadily succumbing to the madness, you sometimes swear that he’s actually talking to you as a spirit.
But of course that’s quite impossible given that your race has no souls. You’re empty shells as it is, no wonder most of your race has already embraced the death consuming the world. Sometimes the madness is about the only way to tell you’re still alive.
“Madness ain’t all bad son, you get lots of insight that you might never have had before. For example, you got me to talk to, your always supportive uncle Marik to give you sound advice since we both know you’re not the brightest.”
You ignore your “uncle”’, after all he’s been dead for decades now ever since he got killed in a troll training accident shortly after he left working for the Empire. If he's so smart why is he dead?
When you finally get to Marzost’s house, you see Marzost on the floor holding on to what’s left of his cock that’s still attached to his body. The rest of it is lying nearby in puddle of blood mixed with other fluids.
He’s currently crying and bellowing something about his mom and doing a lot of apologizing and asking “Why?”
“Well, can’t say I was expecting that, but what an amusing surprise this is! Hah!”
You see Dakzat and a few others standing nearby just shaking their heads.
“What the hell happened?” you ask Dakzat.
“This dumb ass was thinking with his dick and lost it.” She answers.
“What? How?”
“Well considering I briefly saw a naked female svelk running her black ass out the front gate by the time I got out of the nursery, I’d say that Semra bitch did this to him. I knew dealing with her was a terrible idea.”
“Shit.”
“I told you that you should have took the opportunity to kill that bitch as soon as you saw her. Casimir was a fucking idiot for letting her into his inner circle. Looks like so was Marzost. Why the hell did you follow him again?”
Because you’re a rare idealistic dero that THOUGHT you might try to avoid death and he seemed to have a plan of how to do it. You’d chalk that delusion up to your encroaching madness as well, but really it’s just the disease of idiots.
“I’m actually more pissed that he left the fucking gate open the whole time. Damn horde could have marched in here and killed all of us.” Glastilda remarks.
“At this point would it matter? Obviously whatever deal Marzost had with the svelk is over. We can’t get off this world and we can’t survive the endless hordes of the dead. We might as well just go up to the surface and embrace the inevitable, our race is dead anyway.” Girsouk says.
“He’s got a point, but isn’t someone going to do something about that screaming? It was pleasant before, but now it’s just getting boring and annoying.”
“What?! We’ve managed to survive this long, there HAS to still be a way!” Dakzat shouts.
“HOW? Even if we did figure out something, there’s not enough of us left anymore!” Girsouk says.
“We have a nursery full of babies did you forget about them?”
“Yeah, about what twenty or so helpless sprogs that can’t contribute in any meaningful way and won’t get the chance to with death rapidly approaching. Shit, we don’t even know if any of them would be fertile and if they were, who fucking knows if they would pass on more dero blood or the svelk blood coursing through their veins! It was fucking over as soon as we started using svelk bitches as breeding stock.”
“Alright nephew, its obvious these lot aren’t going to take care of the most important thing first, so it’s up to you.”
“Pfft. If you felt that way Girs you sure didn’t say anything when you were enthusiastically volunteering to mate with said bitches on multiple occasions.” Dakzat snorts.
“I was doing my duty for the race, like a good dero! But I can see now that it was fucking pointless. Like I said, even if there’s some way of avoiding the inevitable, we won’t be able to achieve this impossible task with only eight of us left!”
Your axe splits Marzost’s skull in two finally shutting up his screaming as well as everyone else’s arguing. For a moment there’s a dead silence as the rest look at you pulling your axe out.
“Seven of us.” You say.
“Great. So how’s that help us?” Girsouk asks.
“It created a momentary period of silence so I could have clarity to think.”
“And?”
“Good question nephew, do you have any idea? No, of course you fucking don’t. You’re not a thinker. That’s why you always chose more of a warrior’s path like your dumbass father and didn’t listen when I TRIED to instill the importance of SCIENCE into your brain. Well your current situation can’t be resolved by just swinging an axe into its head.”
“And…Dakzat’s right, we’ve gotten this far. No reason now to just give up, maybe we can get that portal up and running somehow. We were the masters of technology on this world. Surely there’s something in one of those old manuals we got that has untested inventions, insane theories and all that shit. None of us has gone completely barmy yet that we can’t function within the time we DO have left, so I say put our heads together and try to figure out how to get off this fucking world.”
With that surprisingly inspiring speech, you manage to give some sort of…well “hope” might be too strong of a word, perhaps rededication to survival for the ones that were ready to just give up.
“Hm, well got beat down this long, might as well go out that way I guess. I’ll start looking through the big book of inventions before the collapse. Maybe there’s something there, I dunno. ” Girsouk says as most start leaving Marzost’s domicile to join him.
Dakzat stays behind to address you.
“Thanks for the assistance there. Pretty sure everyone here just wants to pack it in at this point and honestly I’d probably be on board with it too, but I just feel like with the sprogs…well just doesn’t seem right to not at least TRY to give them a chance at life, even if its going to shitty one.” She says.
“Yeah well, there’s no reason they shouldn’t suffer like the rest of us.” You reply.
“Heh. So…we should probably burn this dickless idiot before he returns as a corpse. I can help you carry him over to fire pit.”
“Yeah okay thanks.”
Dakzat picks up Marzost’s feet and you pick him up by the shoulders as part of his brain matter slops out of his axe sized head wound. Doesn’t take long before you both transport him to the pit and light him up.
Dakzat remarks that she’s going to go back to the nursery to check on the sprogs, meanwhile you decide to just watch Marzost burn for a bit. Enjoy the quiet again.
“Nice speech nephew, looks like they all believed it more than you actually do.”
“You can’t shut up for just a moment?”
“Of course not, insanity doesn’t take a break boy. Don’t worry, your torment will soon come to an end.”
“Not soon enough apparently.”
“Well you’re the stubborn one insisting on surviving to the bitter end. Oh all right, I’ll shut up for a bit, I’m enjoying watching Marzost’s carcass burn up too. Hey maybe we’ll get a surprise and he’ll reanimate before he burns up completely.”
You spend a lot of time watching Marzost burn, but he never reanimates. Eventually you get bored and finally go close the front gates, which despite having remained open all this time, no horde has come wandering in to finish you all off.
“Of course I wouldn’t get that lucky.” You mutter.
Time passes…
