#otd1

[equitable-death-blog]

Starter for @of-the-detested.

These Hollows had been lead astray by those who would prey upon ones they saw as lesser than themselves, and Agdayne could not abide sitting idly by. Not while he still possessed life in his limbs. Gently, he shepherded them in groups of two and three away from the evangelists of the distant cathedral, occupied their ravenous hunger for souls as best as he could. He had no souls to offer of his own, but he could guide them to ones which had already been lost. One Hollow offered a gift in exchange-- perhaps they had once been a merchant-- but he declined. 

Presently, he squared off with a colossal, if misguided foe. The two-handled saw raised over the large Hollow’s head and brought crashing down mere inches from his feet tempted the Fenito to take the blacksword from his back, though he ultimately deemed it unnecessary. Carefully stepping backwards at the repeated downward strikes, Agdayne waited for the brute to tire himself out before making his move. His hand erupted in a veil of darkness that seemed to suck up all the light around it, palm outstretched to clutch to the curve of the undead’s skull. 

“Quiet,” he directed, and the servant of atrocities fell forward before him, weapon but forgotten. 

Hand still wreathed in dark, he gestured back to the cobbles where others lurked. “Come.” Those who still possessed some semblance of their own wills ignored him, but the truly Hollow shambled forth, pulled like moths to flame. In continued silence, he showed them away from the largest of their ilk, who might see fit in his soul-starvation to harm his own kind. Satisfied once the Hollows huddled peacefully under a lean-to, he gave his attention back to the servant. The fellow wobbled, still dazed, but scrambled about the ground for his blood-rusted saw. Taking hold of one, meaty fist, Agdayne escorted him in the opposite direction. 

Similar vignettes played out across the settlement, wherein he tried to separate the violent from the docile with as little confrontation as possible. The light here burned his sensitive eyes, often making them water, and scorched his skin where it peeked through scavenged, linen cloths, but he could not leave things as they were. He would not.

[sweet-temperedsludge]

@of-the-detested

“I hate this.” Their words fell flat in the frigid air. The cold bit through Mire’s armor and clothes as though they had been made of paper, and they compulsively drew their cloak around their face anew, though it never seemed to actually warm this nose or chapped lips. Icy wind funneled through the corridor created by tall buildings along either side of the trio, its cold fingers rushing forth to grab them every few minutes. It wasn’t snowing-- in fact, the sky was bright and alive with beautifully twinkling stars, the full moon casting a silvery glow on all things-- however the wind whipped up what was piled against the corners of structures and the sides of the road, causing the rat servant to cover their face with their arms and bend double until the gust passed. 

Still, they fared better than their master. Carrying him had proven impossible in the wind, but worse, his joints had grown stiff with the chill of the air, making each step on his three legs infuriatingly painful. When the way was clear, he tried to bound forth to keep pace with his servant and his new companion, but often miss-timed his small jumps with the wind, which sent him sliding backward several more feet. His claws could not find purchase on the thickest patches of ice and he frequently stumbled, once even planting himself directly onto his nose. “Damn it all!” the Rat King cried, shaking the frost from his fur, dampened both by sweat from exertion, and the ice which caught on his flesh and melted. His whiskers drooped, heavy with small icicles. “We must find shelter posthaste!”

Mire echoed their master’s sentiment, calling ahead to their knight friend, who had been leading them through the unfamiliar streets. They cupped a hand around their mouth, but the wind still muffled them considerably. “Dame Selen! Where... Uhm. Where might we be able to rest?”