Turel of the Iron Forges

Rise, Turel. Rise.

The great wind of renewed vitality flowed through tendons long dried, through meat nothing more taut remnant and organs filling with vitae. The first sensation was the taste. Divinity wreathed with a poison long waiting its strike. Dried lips opened, teeth regaining their sheen. Fangs extending and finally - with a wheeze of ancient dust - first breath.

Panic. Pain. Adrenaline. And finally, with a touch of a heaving chest, life.

Eyes regained their senses, blurred and burning as eyelids blinked and seeked. At first, there was darkness given by the flickering of sparse lights. Then a strong hand grasped him as he stumbled on weak legs. Breath became in haggard gasps, lungs had no function but to continue its human mimicry. A sundered heart reknitting itself and finally, pumping.

"M-More." His throat croaked.

He didn't see it, but he smelt it. The copper-smelling abundance of ambrosia so close. With a forced walk, his skeletal hands reached till he gripped the rim of the brazier. Face diving in, as much as his legs giving out. The liquid wrapping his skull as he drank.

And drank.

And drank.

His body regaining its volume. The haggard form of a long-dead man transforming with refilling muscles etched and defined. His pale skin tight. His skull regaining its long mane of straight ebony locks. Fingers gripping tighter and tighter. His mind was overwhelming with memories. The cries and woes of men and women. He can see them as fluttering passes on the edge of a rushing river. Sometimes, he could see a man. Tall and proud, clad in armour of ancient making. Among comrades of six. He can see homes burning. The crying and ends of so many.

And something so vengeful coming for him, reaching for him with bloody talons and the other -

A hand grabbed his hair and yanked him from his gluttonous consuming. "Now, now, Brother." A gentle voice hummed with amusement, "We can't have you drowning in your first grand taste."

The newborn panted, eyes opening with the burning glow of power filling his black veins filled and pulsing under his skin. His vision coming in full, seeing the blood-red stained ceiling depicting a great white-winged sigil and looking to the man that dared to pull him from the estacy of life consumed.

His jaw was tight and tongue licking behind his teeth. Jade-gold eyes piercing through the emphasis of his newborn power. Hands gripping the brazier but something told him that this young, grinning interloper was not his enemy. "W-Who are you?"

That question made the youthful man grin more with the hooding of jasmine eye, his hand moving to pet through his hair and clapped his back once. "I am Raziel, First of our Father and you-" With a affectionate, if overly arrogant, pat on his heaving chest in a thump of the restored muscle. 'Dearest brother are now his Second risen."

The Fledgling searched into those eyes and down into the brazier, almost all of the delicious, precious, sanguine gone. Now, it was feeding his body. He saw his face in the dark reflection; a stone-faced man. Stern of brow and structure. A quivering hand - not of fear or dismay, merely the constant rush of a unknown resurrection and great restorarion - whipped at the mess on his etched face. The blood rolling on his lips and his gnawing gullet demanded he licked it off.

He licked but no more than needed. Eyes closed as he panted into his hand, inhaling the scent, and when he opened his eyes again, there stood a figure.

A being that looked human but everything in his body - and soul - warned he was not that no more. The 'man' stood on the other side of the brazier, bare-chest with a scar running from under pectorals to near naval. Skin like the purest marble. His mane a billowy ivory. Eyes are keen and golden as wolves. Their eyes locked and there was a connection that held him in frozen submission.

"W-who...what am I?"

"You are mine." This stranger said. "You will be apart of a great plan. A great dynasty. I have chosen you, Turel. You of Six to bring this world to its rightful masters."

Turel took that in. His body burned. his mind reeled. "Masters?"

"You are a Vampire now, my son. I will guide you, but for now - drink." He said, gesturing down at the brazier as two cloaked figures walked from the light of the door behind him, carrying vases full and in reverent bows, poured more.

"Drink and fill your veins with the life-blood we are due. For there is work to be done and I will see my Chosen prepared for the nights to come. Raziel..." The strange Lord said, looking to the other. The youthful man pulled his gaze from the bounty of blood given, looking to their master with an almost puppy-like look of admiration and obedient attention.

"Ensure Turel cleaned and his attire done, I must prepare the rest of the night."

"As you wish, my Lord." Raziel purrs with a bow. The pale king didn't give an outward expression, only turning with the sway of his scarlet cloak and walked out. Leaving Turel in the hands of his temporary mentor, who looked down with that same little smile and hand upon his tilted head.

"Well, Little Brother. Drink, we have a lot to do soon."

Might I have the honor of asking how you fare on this fine day? :D

Hash'ak'gik.

No.

Hash'ak'gik.

No!

Hash'ak'gik!

No, not again!

The Beast in the Pit stirred from his perpetual starvation. Eyes that no longer had the pleasure of sight opened, so heavy. So tired. His great ears flared up, hearing the cultists' chimes and chants. It gnawed into his skull and brought a sense of horror that he will never admit to himself.

He is...

He is god.

He is Iron.

Iron will not yield, even to this torture. He will not falter.

You are already broken.

The Beast surged feeling Them invading into his mind. The perverse entity writhing into his nape like cruel master and piercing into the brain-meat under his skull. He refused. Even as they came, again and again in this filthy, death-pungent pit, his pride refused them.

"N-NO!" He snarled, even as the flickering hell of daemon was boiling behind his eyes. One. There's two.

He threw himself on twisted legs, long broken when he was casted into his Pit oh so long ago. A parody of his greatest crime. Now, his vampiric powers were used against him. His regeneration did not restore them right, now he crawled along these floors like a slavering Beast.

Unable to escape. He've tried, so many times.

You will never escape. You are trapped here forever, Vampire. Your immortality is now your damnation.

The same taunt. The same damnable taunt they dare to hiss in his ear. He fought but he had no strength to will them from his mind. Every intrusion from Them was a hammer's blow to his skull.

Hask'ak'gik!

"SILENCE!" He roared in a scream of fury and anguish, he know those damnable humans can hear him and in his moment, he felt their pathetic twisted minds. All of them seeped deep in a fervour that almost overwhelmed the fearfulness of the Empire's worshippers. They worshipped an Evil that had no account of defeat and feared what was so beyond them to the point of reverence.

The Beast chose the tiniest cracks in the gathered. As the Entities were grinding into his skull, their aetheric talons were coming closer. They wanted him. They wanted to use him again.

Like a lashing whip, the Beast urged the weakest of the gathered. Jump. And by a will greater than theirs, three cultists lept from the ledge. They didn't scream until the charm of power faded. By then, it was too late, and their bones scattered on impact.

"Yes!" The Beast groaned. "Yesss!"

The closest corpse, he opened his jaws and inhaled every morsel of life blood that it had in its little body; his telekinetic power tore it from a waterskin. Its flesh withering and mummifying. Organs being crushed and liquidifed.

What will such little blood do for you, our little Tick? Do you think it will stop us?

"Silence!" He ordered, turning to another corpse in desperation and doing the same. These humans didn't have enough blood. They were too little. Too few. It barely even envigorates him, only to ease the burning aches and gnawing madness. To taunt that he was indeed alive and trapped.

You will remain here. You suffer in your Pit. No one to adore you. No one to hear you. No one to remember you.

The Beast didn't even realize it yet until he felt the blood dribble from his panting maw; they were talking. In his mind and using his own lips. No!

You are ours, Little Tick. Till the day you are found for your treachery, you will forever be ours.

That One. That Third Entity spoke with such finality that the Beast almost believed him.

"Betray? I have betrayed no one. I have served!" He roared, charging at a phantom and his entire weight slammed into a gong. Immediately, he was met with a rippling wave of true pain. The gong was so loud and carved through his own being in agony. Sweet, releasing agony, he could feel his mind rippling, and the Entities were cast back.

Panting as thick black blood oozed from his ears, eyes, nose and maw. Silence. Sweet silence.

Behold the price of doubt, Brothers! The Great God has taken those who were found wanting and for that, they flung themselves into the Abyss. Praise him and remember, the price of even mundane treachery has its due!

The Abyss...? The Abyss...Ah.

Treachery.

The old memory came to him so clearly. His ears twitched, hearing the last sacrifice. That one was still alive. Casted into the Abyss, who will demand payment for his God-Emperor's will?

No one will come. No one will find him. He doubts any even knew his name

But he did. He still remembered.

Each pass and they bent the knee to their Lord. He gave them no mind, it was their obligation to kneel to him. It was drilled into them. The Turelim were creatures of discipline and effortless drill, from their mortal lives to now. This great kingdom was the cultivation of a living machine.

As the Conqueror of the Eden Beasts climbed one step at a time to his waiting throne, carved from the alien rock of the Enemy’s dimension itself with Zephonim silk to bring the comfort for its sole master. Blackened skulls of Daemons rest at either side of the arched throne with Tartarus’ magma drooling from their eyes and maws eternally to run as small streams at the far sides of the room, trophies in the rare luxuries that he allowed himself. With a brush of his mantle-cloak, Turel - The Second of the Six, Lord of the Crucible, Master of the Forges - sat and looked upon his court.

His face a stone expression of stoic content. Grievous eyes glared to the slightest thought of imperfection. There will be none here. Beyond his great bastion, the Turelim city itself stretched as a living fortress with walls lined of artillery and warriors. The Six Great Smokestacks of the Forges belching the corpse-smoke into the sky. Never will the humans shackled to his rule see the tiniest blink of stars or the Moon’s glaring eye. No, they will only know the hellish privilege to provide for their master. Their generations-long transgression against Vampirekind, from the Sarafan Crusades to the allowance of Hylden manipulations, will be paid a hundredfold. This is their repentance and for the briefest moment, a cruel grin curled like a wicked talon on his veined face.