Unbound Dumah

Dumah, Proud Crusader of the Sarafan and the Third to his Emperor's Throne

[prouddumah]

BOOP :D

Dumah stared a long, terrible moment before his armoured hand wrapped around the Booper's head. That tight squeeze while his Golden Dragons watched with his weapons on the draw. Look into those red-wine violet eyes, his stoic face twisted into a crooked grin.

His thumb lifted and tapped.

"Boop."

Then he walks around and do the rest of his walk through the village.

[murphymacintosh]

heigh-ho, new profile pic! felt cute, might raid a human village later idk

[prouddumah]

Dumah & All These Harlets

"Milord,' One of the Gilded Dragons spoke beyond the throne room with the privacy of Whisper. 'Another tribute of the flesh."

Dumah lifted his head just a bit from his resting fist. The Lord of the Northeastern mountains and all it beheld, blanketed of Turel's ashes, opened his eyes from his recline. The sculpted figure of war is etched on his tall form. The black of gauntlets and sabatons barely reflected a glint off the braziers, bare-chested and clan's mantle upon his broad shoulders.

His jaw popped as he considered. One hand retrieving a chalice of blood from a proper waiting servant, drinking deep from the glass-weaved skullcap. "Mmm, bring them in." He commanded, already feeling the vitae roll through his dark veins.

And when they came in, he looked at four fine women dressed rather sultrily that they could have been mistaken for children of Vorador. His tongue soured a certain way. They had that natural beauty of bloodlines that manage to survive even into this age, not of the clans' selective wants. Daughters of fools who believes themselves of noble blood and one looked more supple and fit a farmer's daughter.

He preferred meat and strength on a woman more often than not.

They looked over various ages but close to their eighteen and further summers. Only one had the appearance of close to forty and it suited her refined edge. Dumah squinted, despite her humility before her vampiric betters, there was a certain felinid pride in her eyes. One of those matrons seeking favour, perhaps?

However, all of them paled in attention to that fifth member in this recent tribute. Dumah may have been a...vigerous taste of the flesh, but the number of carnal troupes that approach him was mildly amusing. Was it Raziel or Zephon that sent them his way?

Almost hiding behind the oldest woman was a young man that looked almost sixteen. Even with the growing line of a dark beard along his slim jaw and a complimenting mane of curling flows, not too slender but still had worked tone. Eyes looked everywhere in fearful curiosity. Goosebumps of fear on pale skin.

Dumah grinned as he leaned back. These were experienced women, that young man was not.

A glance at the matron and the boy, he knew they were of relations. He remained silent. The whole throne room was silent until they were prompted to stop a pounce's distance. Dumah tapped his index talon on his cup before speaking with a voice devoid of anything but authority.

"You may kneel."

There was no hesitation, so awe-stricken and well-trained, the whole troupe did so. The matron, in her scarlet dress and gleaming silvers, could easily be a daughter of Raziel if she had such fortunes. Her hair was made to flow along her shoulders and back, tamed by a brooch of gold dotted in emeralds. Whoever this troupe was, they were brave and had protection to travel this far into Dumah's land without harm from brigands that he allowed to prowl. Just out of entertainment value.

Dumah didn't give much value in the other women. They were typical and had similar barings. Enough flesh to entice but enough to not show everything. From one's curves to another flush freckles, a third's interesting tattoos and licks of abuse - or masochism. All flavors of a candied box, a human might call it. Even the beauty of soft chocolate upon one of the younger women, she had a ferocity culled by the presence of Dumahim. She may make a better warrior than a courtesan.

He allowed them to bask in his presence and the humility of being on their knees and hands before clicked his talon again. "You may speak. What brings you into my court, fair travellers? What have you to give to Dumah, Third of His Glorious Chosen? Are you another of the countless flesh to be offered upon my lips, are you messages of exoticism or...beautiful killers?"

On that, Dumah's dark lips curled in a smile lined with warrior's humour.

Perhaps sensing that to be a joke, the matron made a sound of beauty. A humming chuckle with fingers brushing on her full red lips. "Nay, milord. We are certainly not killers of any malevolent sort. We are mere benefactors of the flesh and precious blood to give to you or those who may partake. Whilst you may have countless in your bountiful treasury and vaults of bloods, we pride ourselves in ensuring the finest tastes that you might find vexing for a time. Perhaps nothing to your great eternity but..."

"Oh?" Dumah questioned, giving the appearance of interest. How many of these troupes have given him such things, this one at least a certain flair to it. "And why do you bring him? Is he attached to your hip?"

On that, a few of the Dumahim warriors in the room chuckles and caused the boy to flush. Dumah could see him wanting to defend himself but his lips were pursed and brows furrowed just a tad. Cute.

His mother didn't give such indications, no doubt questioned that countless times before. "No, my liege. He is apart of this troupe by his own willingness. Despite being nineteen of summers, he proves a capable defender to our travels and just as capable entertainment."

A few of his descendants snorted at the notion. They gave no indication but whispers were made, provocative no doubt. Dumah simply rose an edged brow. "Oh?" He questioned, stroking on his jaw and feeling his trimmed dark beard. Facial hair was a short lived amusement for vampires that were restored from a life without it. It can be willed by a mere direction of blood's flush.

"Perhaps I will test that."

That brought a sweet tickle of fear. There are none in the empire that didn't know of Dumah's affinity for his gladiatorial entertainment. The countless that have died in his colosseum, it is perhaps the one thing that he and Turel had in kinship.

"H-He..." The matron cleared her throat. "He wouldn't be suited for such a great visit into your colosseums, milord. He is a mere guardsman for our travel, not a warrior of that grand scope."

Dumah smiled a little more. "Without the right training, no."

Next to him, the faeish Fredrick tilted his head with a glint of mischievous wine-red under his shroud of red hair. How he brushed through one of Dumah's courtesans' hair and whispered into her ear. The vampiress perked and giggled in turn. All of this was a play on their food, there was nothing quite like making them squirm...

[prouddumah]

A Moment of Sight

Dumah stared a moment.

Something within him stirred that he haven't felt in...years. Whilst his corpse was stone-stiff, he might as well be a statue to the world beyond the Dry Lands. His flesh did not rot. His muscles did not degrade. His armour hugged his power like a final testament to the immortality that blessed and cursed him. Final Death was not to be his and perhaps, this was the hellish decree that Humanity decided to give Kain's most passionate of warlords.

Despite the constant starvation eating at his metaphysical gut, Dumah would smile at the sweet agony of it all. However, he didn't. For his eyes perceived into the living world for but a moment.

The Emperor of Nosgoth saw his son. Amongst all of his descendants, his immediate children by the dark embrace, this one was most precious to him.

The devolved beast that was Fredrick de Rose sat at his feet. The Dumahim - and vampires - he learned became far less than they were when their minds degraded or maybe what foul sickness that nestled in his souls finally blossomed to reveal the monstrous visage under their human pupae.

Fredrick, or Frix as he became more common to be known, was a runt for the longest time. Perhaps that was Dumah's own fault when he embraced the boy when he was scant an adult in the first place before his heritage fully grew but the lord did not have that opportunity to see his mortal boy grow into a full man.

A cur killed his boy. A weakling who couldn't believe that little red-haired runt carried more favor and potential than he. And the fledgling that came from that cooling corpse proved just that, only cemented Dumah's love for the child.

Yes. Love. A word so nauseating and distant as it was true. Vampires shouldn't foster love. Love was a weakness. It was a blade that waited to plunge into their chest and tore the glory that an immortal could claim.

Kain had seen the poison of love and warned them of human weakness. Raziel flaunted it with all of the postures of a pretty peacock. Turel ignored - and perhaps symbolized the motion of discarded weakness most. Rahab...dear Rahab suffered of it most. Zephon. Heh. Zephon couldn't fathom a thing besides that of their brotherly comradiery, at least - even Dumah hoped. And Melchiah hated.

Oh, how his youngest brother hated.

But Dumah...well, he supposed he loved. Not in the romantic sense, he almost did but harems served enough, especially the near trap of falling like his immediate junior did.

This ached the spirit more than it should. I am beyond such things, he once thought. Now, he wished to touch the long, almost doggish beast shaggy with long draped wine-red mane and armoured hide. The human form it once bore was barely recognizable. Its torso and legs were perhaps the only things left. His face stretched into an armoured mimicry of the helm he once wore as one of Dumah's gilt dragon captains. The tarnished gold was now an aged green of face and talons.

"F-Father."

Dumah shifted, feeling the empty void of the nightmarish realm tugging his spirit back from the corpse. The joints of his jaws were locked. Organs still. His body leaned back from the power of bastilla plowing his body into its torpor.

"Come. Back. Come. Back...we are alone..."

The thing that is his son wept. Dark trails of tears fell along its face. Frix returned to him every couple of months, he probably prowled the halls and the stronghold like some demented dog. Very few came here. The remnants of the great battle that became his greatest defeat were just outside those doors, he saw the impaled corpses of his clan-kin and the bones of humans but there was nothing he could do.

He can only imagine why Frix hasn't freed those impaled, maybe they were long-gone. Perhaps they were the souls he consumed in his rabid longevity before finally shaping himself in the nightmare. or they were amongst the treacherous that believed he 'gone too far'. Maybe...

"I...miss...you. I miss...Na-" Frix groaned, curling into himself and allowing his body to lull against Dumah's ankle. Silencing as if rebuked by a unheard command to silence his whining. Frix never truly whined and it both broke - and angered - Dumah. He demanded to move. To rise. To once more claim rulership and conquest but now his spirit was leaving, it was being pulled into the Dry Lands and for the briefest moment, Frix looked up.

Oh my son, what I have done?

Dumah blinked and he saw his astral counsel - the few of his loyal children that survived the madness of cannibalizing each other, shaped and shrouded in astral rags and armour. Their barely manifested faces looking upon their master. They stayed back in the fear of their king falling upon them.

"Watch over him..."

[prouddumah]

Dumahim wild sorcerer

The fall of the Pillars had made the world unstable and its magics twisting and fickle, yet there are the few magi who survive and harness its maddening arcanes.

Energies. States. Dimensions. Mind. Conflict. Death. Time. Nature.

Balance has been broken and by the attendance of Kain and his selective teachings, few of his vampire progeny are chosen to be his disciples. Those whose souls provide potential. What could have been and may never be?

These few are sorcerers that hold a fragment of balance and even then - the nine fundamentals of Nosgoth can destroy them at any time. Amongst the Dumahim, such magi - a caste already disdained and distant from their warrior kindred in the Tower of Strategies - are so far and between among the generations.

Like all of Kain's descendants, the curse of Nupraptor run through their very being and it disturbs their magics unless honed. For the Dumahim, they find little care for the 'cowardice' of magics despite the warlike use. Their affinity to the personal touch of war is only matched by the Turelim and their abundance of physical prowess, so why bother studying the loathsome texts and annoying particularity of magical tutelage? Especially a 'school' so fickle as Nosgoth's irregular winds.

[swolizard]

I’d pay top dollar to watch this for an hour

[blkbutterfly816]

Why isn’t any form of martial arts in the Olympics

[badbootyshakinpickanosis]

This is the most badass thing I’ve seen all year

[candiikismet]

This don’t even make no sense! Damn

[drinkpisspissblood]

Not to be boring and ruin the fun but there’s like 5 different types of martial arts in the olympics………

[prouddumah]

Turelim Ambusher

The titan needed to only clap and a thunder's wave struck the ambushers into a bleeding-eared deliberation. The look of mere disdain crossed the Warlord's lips, masked under his iron helm as he strode over to the closest Turelim.

"Pitiful."

His only comment before slamming his taloned fist onto the tyrant-warrior's back. The delicious crumble of spine and ribs collapsing under Dumah's indomitable strike, carrying his attack in and found the quickening heart realizing its end.

A couple of the stronger aged Turelim were trying to recover, dulled of hear and mind but still their iron will pushed them to pounce at the Thirdborn. Only to be intercepted by the packs of Gilded Dragons, the finest of the Dumahim warriors. Their blades and talons tore into powerfully compacted muscles, metallic teeth clamping under jaws and their Dark Gift sending the rival clansmen tumbling against each other.

Tearing the heart out, Dumah laughed as he held it high for all to behold like a gladiator before squeezing it between his fingers in a wet pop!

In the same motion, he twisted and caught another veteran-tyrant with a muscle-tearing uppercut that carved a furrow from abdominals to pulverized jaw. The lesser vampire flipped once before Dumah caught him by the ankle and stomped his head half-way into the ground. Unfortunately for the attempted assassin, his skull was stronger than typical and had to suffer the pain of losing both head and part of the spine as the merciless warmonger pulled his body up.

It was always interesting to find out what it took for a vampire's body to decide it could no longer be able to resurrect. It seemed this wasn't one of them.

However, it was a thought for another time. When one - nay, two - of the ironforged mutts slammed themselves into the lord's back and side, almost through the demi-giant off balance. "Adorable." Dumah huffed, slamming his elbow into one and spun himself around to dislodge the cretins off him, but they held on like ticks. And when he turned, Dumah found himself looking at an unexpected thing; a cannon and it fired like a oversized blunderbuss!

Covering his face with a snarling hiss, the savage surprise blasted him and the Turelim off their feet. Tearing them apart while the titan slammed into a wall splattered in blood - both his and theirs. However, what should have killed him was pockmarking his warplate and wounds were already pushing pellets out the size of children's fists from his taut muscles. Hissing with forbidden incantation that made the healing process slower.

"Father!"

Dumah blinked from his momentary daze to see a large Turelim coming at him with a warhammer swinging for his skull. Instead of moving, the Thirdborn hollered and slammed his head forward! Helmet and hammerhead smashing against each other. To the attacker's utter horror, he was spun in a reversal axis before a massive hand groped around his nape and slammed him into the ground with a loud snap. Still barely conscious and gurgling in agony.

Above, Dumah was huffing and cackling with rolls of baritone while blood oozed from his helmet's sockets and down his tattooed face.

"Is that the best my Brother can do, hm worm?"

[prouddumah]

I see Fire

Dumah held the flailing human by his throat, his irises burning scarlet wine in their pools of vengeful vessel-red. His rage unmatched with the smell of murdered vampires in the air with the crackling pyres and pools of hurtled water. He strangled the mortal as painfully slow as his godly power could allow, the bones becoming gory powder in his throat...blood pooling from straining lips. The ugly wheeze the hunter made would have been funny if it wasn’t for the dozens of vampires dead; mostly his own clan. Finally when those eyes were bulging and rolling into their skull with a purpling face, the Third Lieutenant ended with a cork-popping flick of his thumb. Head nearly snapping off its useless neck of tendons.

He didn’t even drink. The vampire lord tossed the corpse aside as he looked out from his ruined camp, the whinnies of horses wild and the remnants of his immediate retinue running to secure and find who was alive while the hail of fire and the massive orbs of water were still hurtling.

“Lord Dumah!” Tiberius called, riding on his pale mottled stallion in half of his war-gear and halberd in hand. Dumah didn’t say a word, his claw pointed outwards. “Kill them. All. Their blood will be our mead!” It was the common of tongue and soul before he himself moved with speed that surpassed even the outriders already moving to find the ambushers. A mere blur of shuddering umbra, barely an outline as he bounded and slid until he could see them now; a regiment of archers and light-armoured skirmishers with a backline of catapults cleverly adorned with soft-rimmed wheels to cover their approach. Their cunning will pay with their lives.

His presence wasn’t even perceived until a small bundle of soldiers were torn apart by a backhanded slash of the vampire’s flattened hand! Gore splattering everywhere, a hornblower already on the move to warn everyone before Dumah’s fist punched through it and the blower’s skull. “Vampire!” The cry escaped in a sneer-inducing squeak from a man. Snarling, he turned on the weakling and clapped their head into an outward explosion of bone and metal shards that maimed several more behind him!

Gore up to his elbows with nothing but his boots and trousers upon his burly body, the Warchilde of Kain howled violence. His form shudders as if fighting between realities and charges again. A blur that tore through men and women, blood and gore flying where he moved. The sheer speed seemed to pull the sanguine after him, soaking into his alabaster flesh. Powerful legs carrying him forward into a fist-shattering smash against one of the catapults, even as bones were splintering up to his shoulder from the force and some of it poking out of his arm, Dumah felt nothing but rage.

His wounds were pushed into by the following blood, reknitting bones while defending himself a rounding Sarafan remnant. Shrouded under a violet tassel with armour inscribed of their dead god’s blessings and a sword gleaming of glyph, the Vampire Hunter lunged at him with practiced steps meant to fight a countryside feral or one of the legionnaires. Unfortunately for the bold creature, Dumah wasn’t simple. One moment he was there, the next he was at the human’s side and practically crashed his fist into the cuirass’ side like a mace. One punch. Two. Three. More and more depression craters crushing the man underneath before catching a desperate down-swing by the gauntlets.

“Your ambition will...end, demon.” The Sarafan had the gall to grunt with his ribs painfully raking against lungs and quickening heart. Death was before him and he took the fear. Dumah did not grace him with a word, not even a taunting remark. The bloodworm didn’t deserve it as he crushed his hands for one callous cleave from pate to groin. The spray of sanguine warming his face and skin.

At either side of him, soldiers were moving with long silver-glinting spears in hopes of utterly skewering him like an oversized boar. Only to be halted by waves of arcane fire writhing like hydra hissing and lunging into consuming rage, summoned by the hands of his closer magi; Vornah and Badurad. “Sire, please!” He could hear through the crackling flame, its heat already sizzling the blood on his skin but he didn’t care.

“Focus!” Vornah called out. Dumah squints, his tempest of fury rounding in his mind. Hands opening as he indeed focused. While he was not the most telekinetically inclined of his brothers, Turel and Rahab had that privilege - Dumah had enough as he spun with the flickering grasp of mind, the casted fires whirling him until a flare of his arms send them out further in a explosive wave throwing more of the catapults into burning splinters and turnt sides. Their operators screaming and rolling to douse the flames devouring their flesh like the soldiers they condemned with burning tents and acidic waters.

With fire and ruin framing his form, Dumah looked to his immediate children while the vengeful charge of his oathed mercenaries and the vampires that survived plunged into the gap that the young lord had caused.

The Dumahim, clad in their finer forgework of platemail and fluttering violet tailed gambesons, swung and killed with blades, axes, maces and claws. Their eyes burning of their father's rage and forward by the pulsing Hunger. Necks snatched and cleaved, blood drunken and hatred unveiled with their Zephonim cousins taking the flank with the outriders' roundabout. Together, with their mortals filling the gaps and ensuring the dying were not long for the world.

Dumah looked like a feral beast, breathing in deep as steams danced off his skin. He was not done. They are not done.

“Tonight, we feast. At dawn, we move.”

Vornah looked to her younger counterpart before bowing with him, “As you wish, Lord Dumah.”

"Go and kill for our murdered."

[prouddumah]

The Immortal Manticores

The Dumahim Eisennashorn companies marched in their formations, boots shifting and looming doom of their hammered platemail in disciplined unison onto the battlefield. The standards of their sire-on-high and the Emperor beyond he flew of the plum violet and sanguine red. Their allegiance shouted, “Down to the Living! Treacherous ilk! Down to the Murderers! Their blood will fill us full!”

Captainess Cristinia moved her mare along, eyes piercing from her hilltop to the formation of Human legionnaires standing between them and the fortress. It was bold to meet vampire blade-to-blade but she could taste it in the air. The witchcraft of glyph. The Sarafan has been double-forced in stretching their warriors and lore onto the standing kingdoms that can and will resist against the scourge that stretches like a wild-fire. Mankind was wavering, they know it to be. Their sins against Vampyrekind was coming for them ironclad and powerful. Moreso than the last war halted by their Sarafan Lord, whose death rang even now.

A frown crossed her dark lips, turning away as she beckoned onward to meet with two of her lieutenants to the straight ranks of her Immortal Manticores, lion-faced and maned of quilled furs from the Eden-beasts that each soldier was demanded to hunt for her confidence under her personal command. Siegmar and Arnulf saluted instinctively before Cristinia’s hand could stop them in the formality. It was appreciated but now - it was a mere second lost for her. “We move. Reposition our sharpshooters in a crescent by the right flank, warn our left to do similar. Tiberius will not have routed foes to escape the slaughter tonight. Our blood coffers are wanting.”

“Captainess.” Siegmar acknowledged, moving immediately to ensure it done. The flank was too far for a Whisperer’s extensive reach to the glyph influence, another technique crudely cultivated by the Sarafan butcherers. When he moved out of sight, Cristinia moved immediately to inspect her crossbowmen for the fifth time that night. Lord Dumah demanded perfection in his wars and perfection he shall have. Perfection not of a flawless execution nor a victory that lost not a soul, but the perfection of his fledglings behold the beauty of battle and cut by the blade to the ascension of their skills that no mortal can hope to achieve.

To learn something in each battle was a perfection in itself, for the next battle shall be even more glorious than the last. The thought of it reminded her of her training; each time she missed her mark and to reevaluate for each correction onto the next. Closer and closer until only the bull’s eye is her bolt’s landing. Then the use of the enemy, the same maneuver. She could understand her lord’s will and that is all she required, as much as demanded.

For the briefest heartbeat, Cristinia felt his presence brush her mind in the same way each Manticore under her eyes’ gaze felt her. They stood in attention, showing themselves for the Captain; from their well-handled armour of iron plate and leather undergarments to their shaped helmets, hornbearers put their shaped callers over groin and quivers for quick reach. Leg-long crossbows with their serrated bayonets, practical hand-bastillas in their grasp with vampyric strength handling their bone-testing recoil each shot. Short-swords in the preparation of possible close quarters, nevermind their formidable self-defense - instinctive and trained. Men and women, young and old, villagers and militia all.

“My Manticores, strong of voices and arms, hear me - we know our duty and our skill. To falter of your nature now is an insult onto me and yourself. Drink deep in the hunger in your gullet, take it and narrow your vision. Whilst you’re not of the front’s glory, you are the talon that ensures their victory. We see what they do not. What their shields hide and their ferocity devour, we look on-high and claim the vultures that seep to steal the lion’s meal. We are the Immortals who know no ignorance nor fear. Let the enemy know death by our roar while choking on their own blood, impaled by the shade of our bolts. We are Dumah’s stymphalian birds and where we stand, so shall be his.”

[sunnysimone]

[goatrodeo72-deactivated20221113]

#goals. I too want to be strong like bitch who fights bears in the forest!

[headspace-hotel]

she has her priorities straight

[cipheramnesia]

none of us are after that

[veerletakino]

Yoo I've been looking for this

[cipheramnesia]

Who isn't?

[prouddumah]

Plots Before The Plunge

Dumah frowned slightly at Zephon's proposal. "Why do we need to sneak when there is a perfect opportunity of tearing the Sarafan's cattle without the complexities?" He questioned outright. The exasperation on his younger brother's face was expected and ignored. Unlike Rahab and Raziel, Dumah wasn't fond of entertaining Zephon's little plays of intrigue. They had duties to perform and humans to subdue, playing in the shadows for five decades were enough for him. "I have a standing force that is sufficient to keep them besieged for another month's worth." 

The irritation on the long-faced Zephon turned into a thin, tired smile as he tried to make a better explanation for his older, war-hungry, sibling. "Because Dumah, our human resources are adept to be just that - resources. They and our turned chosen will be distractions whilst you and I take to this point."

A clawed finger pointed to the previously acknowledged weak point made by Zephon's earlier brief, made from turncoats perfectly coerced by the Fifthborn's serpentine manipulations. Dumah could only imagine what Zephon had spent to catch them in his intricate web. "If it make you feel better,' the schemer continued with an upturnt grin. 'You can take some of your dogs to give you more company."

This naturally caused a bristle in Dumah's stance and lips. "I am not afraid of doing this with you, if that is your implications. My concern is taking the experience from our fledglings and making them simply..." The Thirdborn didn't have the gall to even call his chosen vampires to be anything less than what he intended for them to be; his warriors.

 "Tools?" Zephon questioned and the look in his brother's face told him just as much. "For all your bluster, you have such a loving heart." Goading the most violent of the six was apparently a favoured activity for Zephon, to see the pure amount of restraint that Dumah displayed. The tension in his muscles brought pleasure to him. "Do not test me, Brother. I would have for you to miss your own plots unfold." Dumah finally warned, his voice darkened into a low growl familiar among the six to be learned from their true and only master.

Seemingly appeased, Zephon rose his palms up in silent surrender. "Oh don't be hurt, Brother. I was simply admiring your empathy for your children, I meant no offense." They both knew that was a blunt lie. "My advice remains; we can assemble our more...quiet warriors and take the town-fort from inside out." 

Dumah grunted, glaring down at their plan and absentmindedly moved certain siege pieces to points and the dark hound pieces that resembled his knights. His eyes traced once over before nodding at least.

"Very well."

[whimsisadie]

yea u gingerly sipped that alright

[everythingfox]

“Wait for it .. our cats face when she watches our new rescue kitten”

(Source)

[bepsboobs]

bonus;

[asktranquilrahab]

☯ A blue skeleton from the future approaches you and Dumah muttering something about revenge. What do?

“Have you come to reclaim the monster’s black heart?” Dumah’s brazen voice questioned and Rahab, accepting fate and consequence of this grave mission, followed with finality in his strong tone, “You’ll have to through us, first.”  

Despite preparing for this, the cries of Zephon and Melchiah honestly shook Rahab to his core. His beloved brothers murdered by this…ghoul. Familiar of Janos Audron coming to take vengeance upon the appointed champions responsible of its dark master’s demise. No, Rahab will not falter now. The Inquisitor could see the creature sizing them up, but there was a look of…familiarity that was almost as unsettling.

Finally, Dumah was the one - always him - to step forward with a cautious step and polearm primed. Rahab followed with his tightened fingers relaxing slightly from his sword’s hilt. The azure creature with its ragged trapping, holding the unholy sword of flame-blade and sinister crossguard, followed suite. Its stance was so…uncaring almost, despite the clever tension of legs, and holding the sword as if it weighed as much as a shortsword.

“Be careful.” Rahab muttered. Dumah scoffed before both Sarafan warrior-priests beheld the creature suddenly lunge like a wild cat. First it seemed to come for Dumah, but it was a split-second feint that redirected its movement at Rahab with a spinning swing. Years of swordplay and battling vampires prepared the Knight, but the unnatural attributes were never something to underestimate. Swerving his horned helmed head to evade the sword’s swing for his neck, Rahab stepped back on his back heel in the movement of retreat. His own feint that made the creature move to push its attack, opening a spot in its deprived ribs and twinned spines.

Using his own steadied heel, Rahab thrust himself forward and attempted to impale by the lower quarter of said-spines. The creature hissed out in what could be pain from the silver-trimmed blade as it attempted to pierce, blue ectoplasm spewed but, a hard smack of the weapon’s pommel caught the attacking warrior’s head enough to make him roll out of the way before the blade came after. “Rahab!” Dumah’s voice cried out, but the knight didn’t hear at first. Instead, it was the ringing and buzzing pain. This revenant was stronger than any common vampire he’ve faced…and the dent at his helmet proved it.

[prouddumah]

“You blasted devil!” Dumah snarled out, coming after the ghoul with the whirling swing of his glaive that sliced more ectoplasm from the creature’s back. That was all he could give before it moved with a speed that made the Inquisitor blink to ensure that he saw correctly.

He’ve fought vampires and endured the sight of several dark gifts that were as unique to each one as it was devilishly familiar. Yet, this one. It oozed an evil that Dumah was not pleasant to endure since first looking upon its mild familiarity. It turned about to meet him, the daemon sword in its taloned hand hissed as if just by his ear before it even swung. 

Clashing blade to blessed heft, the runes inscribed by Malek himself crackled and spat its holy wards against vampiric malice. Trading blows that carved at Dumah’s armor and never sliced at the revenant that either took the shining blade’s cuts like mere fabric tears or danced with startling agility.  Most importantly, Dumah angled their blade away from Rahab. 

Breaking from their battle with heavy-handed rebuke, Dumah whirled his weapon and slammed it down to a kinetic force’s fist that caused the devil to fly back to a splintering crash against a pillar. 

“Rahab, how thee fare?” He questioned, glancing back. “Well, brother...” Rahab muttered, forcing himself up with a shake of horned helm. “This thing is unnatural.” “As all that serve the Vampiric scourge.” Dumah agreed, slowly moving back but noticed the wretched thing have moved. It sprung out like a wild cat, weapon already coming to cleave him in two.  

Glaive pointed out about to let the thing plunge itself onto his weapon. His ears catching Rahab’s voice, “No! Brother, move!” The call was too late and his weapon jerked at the weight of that crashing body. The sicky suction of decrypted muscles and bones clenched around with a painful yawl from the daemon. 

First, it seemed to taken by such a move. Victory beated in Dumah’s heart, a grin passing on the crusader’s face at a well-made tactic and placed the fingers of his foremost hand in preparation to cast a spell of smite. Only for a taloned hand to grope around his. “What be this!?” The violet-garbed warrior gasped, seeing the burning white eyes in this creature’s scolding skull. The way its nose crinkled and brows furrowed under those ragged black bangs, this close - Dumah could see it now.

“N-No. Ooh God...” Dumah muttered, watching as the cruel doppelganger pulled itself down his spear. Ectoplasm drooling down thickly. Fear gripped his heart for the briefest moment but the crusader snarled under his winged helmet. “God be damned.” Yanking his fist from the taloned grip, he gave this monster one savage punch to the jaw.

If it had one. 

Damp-coloured cowl pulled in the swinging blow, revealing its pronounced canines and the gaping hole that should be a thyroid. “Huh...” 

And the flame-blade plunged into his chest, the blessed armour didn’t stop a blade heralded by a hatred that goes beyond just a righteous execution. No, this was a hand of pure, soul-scolding, fury from the Wronged and Damned. 

[thepakdefect]

[littlewolfofnosgoth]

@prouddumah

[prouddumah]

Cats

The rebels shifted, they heard something. It sounded like a cat. One, holding his crossbow close to his chest, slowly crept for the window. One soft soled boot after the other, eyes squinting through goggles still clouded from the recent ashfall that happens every midsummer from the sheer weight of the hellish Turelim smog. Two crossbows aimed for his support. Hand lifting for the latch, weapon aimed and... "Mrawl!" The familiar whine of their local watch-cat, Red, appeared. The petite red-striped Coorhage Coon, a large feline breed several generations in the making. The cat always looked like he had a big ol' smile on his face, already purring the moment he saw them - well, as a cat with a stubborn mane can be. Despite himself, Galen sighed in mild relief and finished undoing the latch. "Get in here, you mischief." He grumbled, after the months trying to chase this cat away, he finally gained a little amusement. Especially with the 'gifts' of killed vermin. This time, it was a bat. This time, another cat was with him. Unlike friendly Red, this one was mean looking. That angry squint made his short, compact, perfectly feral fit frame look unnatural. The others thought to kill it, it could be one of the leeches'. That one, Galen called Dagger. Sometimes 'ass' but that seem to catch the cat's glare every time like it knew. The two cats slipped in and shook off the falling ash, one going to stay in his corner and the other mrawling for attention with long purring rubs. Galen watched as the troop calmed down just a bit to pet on their favorite guard cat. The hunter simply shaking his head before examining the dead bat. It was a big thing too, palm-sized with a full belly and distinctive white back. He haven't seen these often, they typically stayed in the empire's inner realms. Apparently a sacred animal to the leeches', seen as a sign of their bastard god-king or whatever. not so much to a feral cat though. Looking back to the others, "We need to move soon. The leeches' are gonna be patrolling around this area by the next hour." Then he thought he felt the dead bat move. Muscle spasm despite its cold flesh. Red's purrs getting louder as he lay in Viktor's lap, mane stroked and a glinting violet eye looking at him.