It had been days since Lore had last been heard from. The amulet he gave her had been dormant until his defeat when the library was destroyed. The amulet went cold, almost as cold as Iseult was. Over the course of a few days, it got warmer and warmer to the touch, as if ready for Lore to come back. Eventually it grew stagnant, staying the same amount of warm. Yet... Lore has not yet returned.
Physical description: a muscular and slightly thin body, narrow around the waist. His hair is black and slicked back, with well kept facial hair. His eyes are bright red when his magic is active and golden when it's not.
Weapon: Bloodrunner, an abomination of a weapon that's made of the remains of minor demons. It has a working vein-like system with a heart that helps conduct the energy through it. Megahes is his go-to mechanic for Bloodrunner, as the weapon has been socialized towards him.
Lore is the keeper of secrets for hell, from the biggest secret hell has to hide, to little gossip tid-bits from noble houses. Eventually, Lore grew tired of hell and escaped, abandoning who he was and his demonic nature. He aged and eventually split ownership of a library with his now deceased wife Sandra. The library was destroyed in his recent battle with Lilith in order to keep her away from his secrets.
TW for blood, gore, monsters, demonic ritual, living statues, adult content, death. (Minors beware)
Lore sat in the middle of the library where all the shelves form a circle around it. He grabbed BloodRunner and pressed the abomination of a weapon into the center of the circle. "Are you ready veil? Her forces grow near."
Tendrils of black slime crawl their way through the golden pedastle in front of Lore's office, skipping their way through as they stand. "Ready old friend."
"Very well. Wait outside for her forces to come. She will no doubt be at the very end of them."
"How do you know she will be with them at all?" Veil's body forms as a black human sillohete made of sludge, looking at Lore with his bright blue eyes.
"She's the only one who knows how to access the secret she searches for. Lilith has to be here."
Veil nods and settles himself outside the door of the library.
(From here on out, the story will continue in third person but until a certain point, it will be segmented on sides. One will be Veils and one will be Lore's.)
Veil reformed outside the library's doors, tendrils whipping around in excitement for the battle, the taste of blood...
And he would soon have it, for here comes Lilith's horde. The entirety of it was ugly, disfigured faces and bodies, some with tusks, some with fangs, some with jagged and gapped teeth meant for ripping into flesh. They all smelled like rot and blood.
Veil watched as Arrows flew at him, listening to their whistle as they shot towards the black mass, but failing their hit as they sink into Vessel, feed the beast with their very content of corruption. The ghost now made abomination laughs at the attempt to kill him and watches as the horde advances. The front of the demonic army puts their shields in front of themselves and starts running at him, screaming out their inhuman war cries.
Black tendrils thrust out and catch the shields, throwing them across the field. Before the thralls have time to think, Vessel grabs hold of their bodies and begins to pull them into itself, gurgling as Lilith's men screamed and reached for their companions only to be denied as the rest continued on fighting the abomination.
Veil issued out attacks, watching demon after demon be ripped apart until the horde became half of what it formerly was. Lilith was at the very end of the horde being carried by four demons holding up a throne for her. She was as beautiful as she was disgusting, a full and curvy body, slender and delicate with horns twice the size of her own head, stretching out to the side before curving up to reach for the sky, but never quite getting there. For a moment, veil finds himself enraptured with her before he is brought to attention by the horde before them.
It takes a while, although it seemed more tedious than hard for Veil and Vessel, but there was something greatly off. The throne carriers were dead, and the throne demolished. If so, where was Lilith?
As soon as Veil went to turn around, Lilith jumped down from the roof And grabbed hold of the specters head, holding it as corruption, as black as night and lined with blood red, began seeping into Veil and Vessel. Both abomination and user screamed in pain, trying to get away from the hell queen before they fell victim to the corruption.
Silence... Before Veil opened his eyes that were now glowing bright red.
(Back of the library)
Demons from a seperate part of the army began to sneak into the library, pulling a vent off and crawling through. These where the smallest of the army, and the most intelligent, Lilith would leave this job up to no other except the demon of shadows and she seemed to be disposed at the moment, so Lilith had to make do.
The rogues slipped into the very back of the library, looking up at the mass of armor displays and statues that surrounded the large room. They slip through without triggering any alarm, if any where around, and leaving all but undamaged.
Before they think they've gotten away Scott free, a Gargoyle bounds towards the leader of the group, ripping into him until he was nothing but remains. The others scattered and tried to run away from the statue but were stopped by the seven angel statues, three on the left, three on the right, and one in the end of the room, who all turned to the demons and began to move from their place kneeling on the ground. The library quaked and the angels stood, holding swords tight in their hands.
The statues began to bleed.
Blood rolled down their eyes as the angels started slaying the demons, each for slain meant more blood would pour down their eyes.
The mage demon began her castings, disrupting the blood magic that made the angels move. The marble statues collapse on the ground as the other demons dodged and climbed to safety. The caster moves the debris from the ground with a magic blast and jumps down, letting the army file Infront of her.
As the segment marched forward, one last statue creaked from above... A large statue of the grim reaper with a scythe in one hand and the other pointing at seemingly nothing. The statue bursts, standing from it's place on a marble throne. Dust falls beneath as it falls down to the ground, levitating just before it hits the ground.
"RUN!" Calls the caster as she and her army try to make it away from the reaper.
It's scythe rips through the caster and she screeches, trying to get away before being tossed aside to bleed out.
It runs through the entire army, cutting off heads and stabbing through their chests until only one remained. He was backed into a corner, holding his sheild up in a trembling arm.
"Please I don't wanna die..." He whimpered.
For a moment, there is silence. The empty sockets of the reaper glows a bright red, and a voice echoes.
"Death comes to all."
(Lore)
Lore held Bloodrunner in his hands as tight as he could, feeling the blood spiral across the patterns in the floor and feed the abomination of a weapon. The metal facade of the staff disappeared into a cloud of black smoke, revealing the fleshy outer coating of it as the spear tip opened up in a mass of tendrils side by side, like a blooming flower.
Some demons began running at the librarian while he completed his ritual, yelling out their war cry and running after him.
Before they could hit, Lore grabbed the first demon with one hand, throwing him down onto his knees. His hand encompassed the demons entire face and began to drain the beast of all blood in his body before pulling his hand back. The soldiers blood acted as a whip, lashing across the other demons and throwing them back with deep lacerations enough to cripple them for a moment.
The blood fell to the ground and Lore pulled Bloodrunner free from the hole in the floor that fed it blood. He spins it around three times and runs after the demons, stabbing through one and watching the tendrils wrap tight around the blackened heart of the demon. He puts his boot against it and throws it's corpse off, letting Bloodrunner consume the heart as he casted fire down onto the other demons.
"Are you ready Bloodrunner?"
"Yessss, feeeeed!" Hissed the weapon.
Lore channeled his magic through Bloodrunner and began to spin the staff, hitting the demons with bolts of magic that shocked them into their eventual deaths. As soon as the last demon was done, Lore huffed heavily and looked over the corpses of the army.
He leaned against the weapon and panted heavily. "I... Am weakened." He breathed. "I have not used so much magic in years, let alone fight physically as well."
Bloodrunner wraps it's tentacles around Lore's hand, holding him in place almost. "Massterrr... Hurrt?"
"No, not hurt. Just... Drained."
Lore lifted himself back up, but was quickly brought back to his senses when the stained glass overlooking the library was shattered, and a black tendril shot out, wrapping around Lore and pinning his arms to his side. Lore grunted, trying to fight against the tendril as he looked up and...
"V-Veil?"
"It seems Veil is under new management Lore."
The librarian groaned against the tightening of the tendril as he watched a female demon, covered in robes and a long cape following her, float in front of him.
"Tsk tsk tsk Lore." She grabbed his chin and yanked his face to make contact with hers. "Look at the state you're in. All because you reject who you are. I figured out how to get to your secret because you're too weak to stop me."
Lilith rolled her tongue over the side of Lore's face, dipping her tongue into every dip and curve of his aged face. He growled and tried to wriggle free.
"Let me go Lilith! I have nothing for you!"
"Right now you don't... But in your true form you have everything I want Lore." She slid her hands over his chest, hissing in his ear. "And I'll get everything Lore."
The librarian looked up at Veil, the red eyes staring back into his soul as black tendrils began to take the form of a pentagram.
The moon aligned with the window, glowing a blood red that made the clouds around it scarlet.
The red light shined down on Lore as Lilith's shadow was casted over him. His skin began to seer and fall apart under the crimson light, causing him to scream in pain.
"Lore, be reborn!!!"
There was a loud booming, shaking the entire library and causing cracks in the walls. Lore's scream distorts into a roar as the sound of flesh tearing can be heard.
The light dissapears.
Lore began to regain consciousness, but now he was no longer old and frail. His hair was jet black, and the wrinkles of age were gone, aside from the corners of his mouth and between his eyebrows where a permenant scowl sat.
Lilith cackles and looks down at Lore, watching him stumble and try to get up.
"Now, Lore." She grabs his hair and slams him into the ground. "I've brought back, now give me the secrets to creation Lore."
He wheezed, trying to grab at her arm. "N-never you bitch!"
She growls and slams his head into the ground, hearing Lore grunt in pain.
"Tell me! Where do you keep the secrets!'
"I'll tell you over my dead body!" He yelled out, spitting blood in her face.
Lilith's lip twitched into a snarl. "Fine. Then I'll get the secret another way."
Lilith sat him against a pillar and put her hand on his chest. "From your blood, I can create a child, a child you'll never see. A child I'll kill as soon as he's bor-"
Bloodrunner went through Lilith's shoulder, causing the she-devil to screech. She spread her wings and crawled away from Lore, who was standing up now.
He started making his way to Lilith, Bloodrunner in his hand and a flame in the other.
Lilith, now in shock, started crawling away before she got up and started running. Lore followed behind, but he never ran, letting her get ahead.
Around them the library began to crumble, blocking the exit to the library. Behind her, he was still following, so she cut around the corner of a bookshelf, running as fast as she could away from him.
Veil began to wake up, watching as the library quaked and groaned. His body, the very library that he had known since before his death, was being destroyed. He looked over to the devil's on their hunt and frowned. "Oh no... Lore..."
He was left with no choice. Just as he and Lore had planned... It was up to him to destroy the library and every secret it held.
Veil went to the middle of the library, where Lore had settled Bloodrunner before Lilith had came and let the blood encompass him.
Lore looked down at Lilith and jumped on the bookshelf, now begining to run after her. Every opening was covered with rubble she didn't have time to dig through.
She only had one chance at escape and that was the stained glass window.
The devil spread her wings and tried to get through the window.
Lore spread his wings and grabbed her, pulling her down with him.
"If you want my secrets so bad..."
Lore forced his arm through her chest, now holding her heart in his clawed hand.
"Then you can die with them!"
The flame began to engulf then both as the library continued to crumble. Lore dropped her heart and let the library crumble around them...
(I made an aesthetic board for Lore! Not much in the realm of the human aesthetics that fit him other than the robes and library sadly, but I had fun!)
What does Lore think of people who eat with their mouths open?
"I try to be patient but even I have my limits. I'll kindly ask them to eat with their mouths closed and if they don't I'll simply knock them out and return them home. I have very sensitive hearing, even when eating, so smacking is not my favorite noise nor is watching the already chewed product of someone else's food my favorite sight."
To resolve a conflict he prefers violence or discussion?
"It all depends on the situation really." Lore polishes off the spear he carries around, one that could fold on itself and be hidden under his robes or on his belt. "Say someone walks into my house, uninvited and intent to steal or cause harm? I might scare them off with the shadows around the library, or confront them if they look easy enough to chase away. Maybe a drunk man has approached me, wanting to start a fight. I'll offer him a cup of coffee and ask what's bothering him, and if he denies I'll just avoid him all together."
He stands up and spins the spear-staff hybrid, pressing the panel on the top and watching the spear-head eject. "Now... Say someone threatens a person who means a lot to me." He slices down a tree and watches as it comes down, slow to fall but loud when it hits the ground. "I might not be so nice at that moment."
From the tree, some form of essence spills between gaps in the bark and the weapon absorbs them. It flashes to a fleshy pink and red before changing back to that metal form it was before, leaving only a glowing vein system to be seen before fading off. The tree that had fallen was now dead, black and falling away to dust when the wind gently touched it.
I read the character sheet and he so ratchety tho 😭 why he weapon need to be socialized tho?
(Blood runner is a living weapon! It's not very sentient but does think in short terms like "hungry" "tired" "yes" and "no". Because of it's nature and abilities, blood runner tends to be aggressive towards anyone who isn't Lore or a mechanic it hasn't been socialized to. As an example, you take blood runner to a new mechanic and Lore will have to "drug" it with his magic. If he takes it to a mechanic that's previously worked on it, then Blood Runner will have no problems being worked on.
Also why you gotta call the damn weapon ratchety god damn xD)
