| Contest Entry |
[Mar. 6th, 2007|08:24 pm]
The Thoth Initiative
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Legendary Creature Generator
This being is the incarnation of a living person's fury. It resembles a wasp, and it has three pairs of wings. Instead of flesh, it appears to be composed of amber energy. It appears bound in chains.
Also, The Ultimate Name Generator at (behindthename.com/random/)
Badr Haidar Mohammed
and
Harish Prabodh Amit Dinesh
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The sun lay low in the sky as a full retinue of the palace's Elite Guard paced the alleyways of the slums, sun baked buildings relieving little of the day's heat. Within the largest of the slightly run down buildings, the prince himself removed his sandals to take audience with Badr Haidar Mohammed, an infamous seer and hero of the district. The prince would normally be forbidden from meeting with such a man, of such a history, but the rules had changed, extremely recently. Any and all with the power of command over the prince now lay dead, as did the royal advisor who now lay at the ground between his highness, and the mystic. Badr laughed the laugh of the old, dust shaking from his shoulders, his breath carrying the scent of old blood.
"To what do I owe the gods for such a grand visitor, Prince Harish Prabodh Amit Dinesh, son of The Conqueror, brother of the Maharajah...? A favor he asks, or a blessing?" He laughed again, deep set eyes ringed with soot, A tint of red shining out from glazed over sclera.
"The gods have taken leave of me, old man. They have withdrawn their protections, and now I fend for myself. Under order from your prince, you too assist me. Ask not of the gods - ask only of me." Prince Harish knew the man was blind, but he also had heard the tales, strange and fantastic stories that claimed the seer saw not with his eyes anylonger, but instead with his soul. He knelt before the sitting man, over the fresh corpse, hand hovering above a grevious flesh wound. A curved cone, empty of the flesh that would normally constitute a body, crusted over with a dark green liquid.
The Prince new his station, as did he know of the man whose help he saught. Through bared teeth he spoke. "I seek answers, oh wise and proper magician. Tell me of the beast that leaves such wounds, tell me how to strike and kill it. In return, you shall be absolved of such meager housing, and given an official capacity at my side. Do not mistake me, young as I may be. This is not an offer." The prince's hand retreat back under his cape, fingers curling gently around the pair of ornamental daggers giifted him by his now dead parents.
"HA!" Badr rocked in his seated posiiton. "You think to threaten and bully me, you, whose palace lay in ruin, and you, who can't find access to the vault you consider your inheritance! You are correct in that you are young, but you do not consideryourslef to be a fool, which shall lead to great folly. You cannot even threaten correctly, instill in me a proper fear! You think I do not know that without me, you are lost? Without me, you are dead? Pah. Wave your sword somewhere else, young prince. You will find no help here..."
The prince seethed. "I will see to it that for your treason, you will burn old man. I have wasted my time here. You who sees so well, still cannot see to better yourself. It is you that are the fool." He rose, turning on his heel to leave.
"HA! Better myself!? What could be better than this!?" The old man rose his withered arms, fingers stretching towards teh ceiling. The building had once been used as a storehouse for the local constubulary, but with the changing of the throne, it fell out of use. Badr had come to live with the beggers and vagrants that resided here, and once venerated by the locals, was given to control the whole of the building. Now it lay as it had for years, draped and decorated with fine cloth and scented oils, whatever those seeking the seer's insight or assistance could afford, or steal.
"Again I say to you, that you are the fool, your exalted highness. You shall move to have me hanged, to seek assistance in a neighbor's lands. Who will accept you, the rogue son of a murderd king? Saying that they will lend you their aid, what shall you return to? A country of the dead and the destroyed, a people who died knowing that their prince, their sworn protector, had abandoned them in pillowed carriage eating fresh dates.. I see well enough, my lord.." He smiled again, coughing up something thick.
The prince had stopped dead in his tracks. His mind went over the words of the old man, and he spat upon the floor to show his disgust. "What will it take to swear your allegiance then? What must I do, for you to help me reclaim the palace?" He turned to face the teller, stepping not an inch closer.
"I do for you this favor, my prince, and I spare my own life. I have seen what is to come, and like you, fear that I alone would fail to attempt salvation alone. I simply ask that you lower yourself to my tier, to become as a lowly servant, in service to your land, and to teh memory of your father."
Harish knew what had to be done. His mother had often tried to instill in him the persuasive power held in a kind word, but he had had none of it. His teeth ground together as he stepped back towards the wasir, kneeling across from the body. "Please, good sir. I beg of you. Help me... and I promise that you will be called a hero, after your death at my hands."
"Heh. Still threatening, always threatening. You take the rhinos bargain far too seriously, my prince.." The vizier smiled, fingers extending into teh wounds of the deceased, hands poking, prodding, examining. The wounds repeated on the man multiple times, mostly across his torso, a few strikes forgoing the strength of the advisors ceremonial armor, seemingly not detered in the least.
"I know the beast that made these marks... and it is fortuitous that you sought me out, for I doubt many others that know of this beast live to share their experience." He smiled, tilting his head thoughtfully towards the prince. "As an advisor, will I have my own attendants? Some young, attentive thing.."
The prince spat. "Focus, wizard, or you may not live long enough to sample the fruits of your labors. Tell me of this beast. I only caught a glimpse of it, something aflame, before I was locked away, for my defense. When I rose to examine the grounds, it was gone."
"It shall return. In killing your brother, it thinks it has fufilled it's oath... it knows not that you still reign. The beast is a construct of most foul energies, the embodiment of hatred and blind rage. Someone who has no like of you has loosed this aspect of himself, and sent it to remove you from this world, and deny you the next. A wasp, as grand as a horse, flits on three times as many wings, glowing with the essence of the sun. When summoned, it lies tethered and obedient, by a chain connected to the very soul of hatred that defines it. Once loosed, it will stop at nothing to accomplish it's mission. As if lives and breathes, it's patron ceases to do so, growing a year for every day, a decade for every year. Once the beast concludes it's business, it's master regains some of it's time lost, but if he should expire before the creature finds success, it shall become unbound, free to live and kill, fly and destroy as it sees fit..."
The prince listened dutifuly, and was clearly not pleased with what he was hearing. "...but how do I slay this beast? My guards tell me of how blades and arrows alike bounced harmessly from it's hide, and how cloth and rope burned at it's touch. Perhaps some incantation or enchantment..?"
"Not a complete fool, it seems. Make no mistake, my fool, this beast will realize it's folly, and when it does, it shall hunt you to the ends of the earth. Your time grows increasingly short. Listen closely, my prince, and I shall tell you how to defeat this foe that seeks your life..."
The prince stopped himself from asking how Badr Mohammed knew what he did, but he stayed his tongue, and listened intently. He moved to grip his knives once more. The answers would come. |
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