21: My muse finds out a loved one of your muse has died, and has to tell them.
On that day, Manfroy had triumphed. All of the suffering and derision that his sect had sustained had finally borne the fruit of success. Loptyr, reborn, had taken his vessel with ease, shattering the soul of he who housed him and bringing ruin as prophesied. Dierdre had been his first victim; Dierdre, his prized pawn who had outlived her usefulness. After she had bore the vessel of the dark god, she was a husk of meat with no purpose left, and was simply discarded accordingly. Her corpse now lay at her former son’s feet, and the boy hadn’t reacted in the least. No, he was Loptyr now, wholly in body and mind. That woman was naught more than a simple death; she meant nothing to him.
It was with this victory that Manfroy had called Arvis to him. Oh, he knew the emperor to be a capable mage, and the man couldn’t have missed the surge of power that had accompanied the dark lord’s descent into his new medium. When he had departed the chamber in which Dierdre had met her death, he’d heard the rushed pitter-patter of an anguished runner’s. He called out to Arvis, beckoning him to catch glimpse of what was in the next room. His inquiries of the welfare of his wife and children would be properly answered even with a cursory look. A door swung open, and it revealed the scene his victory had left in its wake. The blank stare of Julius and the limp corpse of his mother, hair sprawled and neck askew, on the floor before him.
Rather than consoling the newfound widower, Manfroy let forth a laugh that filled the chamber with its echoes and glee. It was a laugh that none had ever heard from him, a true atrocity that had emerged from the thrums of his throat. It was more than a mere laugh; it was invigorated by achieving his life’s purpose. It was soulless and devoid of the mirth that one would ever associate with a laugh. A horrible thing to accompany the innermost grief of Arvis. This was what Dierdre had died for. This madman, who had once given them happiness, had killed her with only a laugh, not remorse, to show for it. He would never regret what he’d done. It would become his most fondest memory and achievement.
With this, history took its darkest turn, and, at the heart of it, was one conniving schemer pulling its strings, remorseless.
