Winged Judgment - Dismal Keep One-Shot
- System: Dismal Keep
- Oracle: Mythic
I. Into the pit
-> Mockingly/Smooth
-> Usurp Strength
All that’s left is muscle. By faith, Rochester metes out judgment by and for the spite of the one, true deity—death, whose vultures scour the land in search for recipients of her hearty blessing, unceasingly applying it indeterminedly. Rochester, of grey, sinew, and muscle flesh that bears nothing more than a loin-cloth and a black cloak, holds a torch alight and a drifting censor which slowly and disciplined swings to and fro, a light and passionate guidance in the cavern through which its bearer treads. Sparkling moonlight glimmers into the cave mouth, the swamp beyond whispering death and the dark within welcoming the faithful Rochester.
? Does someone welcome him ?
[Chaos 5]
d: (50/50) 56 -> No
-> (Descriptions) Anxiously/Modern
The great moon’s twilight streams onto the glistening, burnishing, shining, shimmering cavern walls. Rochester treads onto a cliff-edge which spatters rockfall, small pebbles echoing down, down, down into a wide deep berth, bigger than a troll, larger than a town, wider than a river, ripping through the tremendous cavern and protracts down, down, and down.
Wooden tree logs, girthy and mirthy, stick meters out from all over the walls; the walls have stolen the forest’s trees and displayed them for none to see here. One, now, extends forth in front of Rochester, his calloused feet stepping on to a tree log to bleed from nature’s small splinters and twigs; Rochester flinches not at a single foot-wound, Rochester does not blink, no, eyes-open does he hum a low gravelly lullaby into the abyssal depth, a simple diatonic melody into the blackness for none to hear but himself and the echoes which layer with another for a languishing dirge.
Rochester steps one more foot out, and jumps down.
II. Black wings that fly
[Chaos 6]
-> (Scene Test) Altered Scene
-> (Adjustment) Add An Object/Increase An Activity
-> (Actions) Destroy/Portal
Tumbling down comes Rochester, his name blemished from his mind like the thick wood that bludgeons at his memory and his identity, and the bottom of the pit remains unseen, and the glimmer of moonlight at his back; Rochester tightens his body.
@ Tighten @
d: 2,4 -> Success with Woe
-> (Descriptions) Cautiously/Scary
He falls, rippling through an endless fissure; his back then splits, his cloak gives way, and wings emerge—black flanks that spread, mingling with wind, not gliding him but sputtering and flattering, unable to hold fast to air at first. They stabilize—Rochester flies!
III. Dusty landing
[Chaos 7]
-> (Scene Test) Altered Scene
-> (Adjustment) Add A Character
-> (Creature Descriptions) Gaunt/Masculine
Rochester’s wings grow taut, and while he clenches his back so do his wings. He gains control of these new mechanics, and dives downward, controlling now his trajectory. Though he has lost his robes, he grips tight to his censor, to his will. The bottom is in sight.
Water.
He splashes head first.
Burbling, long, from air to liquid in an instant; stinging sensation and warbled sight. Rochester kicks, and surfaces.
A rocky beach. His censor gives light. A blessing of the Vulture. Rochester makes it there.
So does another man.
White palor skin, naked is he, the man who stands on the rocky beach. He holds a long stick, a blade at the end, it seems. Rochester notes one thing—the man is skinny. The man is hungry.
The hungry man’s jaw distends agape. It droops, flaccid from its hinges, and drops open to inhale the air, seemingly chewing on Rochester even before he has gotten within 10 meters. No, the creature of a man does not chew on Rochester. Not yet.
The hungry one’s eyes wrinkle through torn flesh, and eye down with grey hue toward the bare flesh that arrives upon its shore. And the hungry one bellows—“GREAT BLESSINGS UPON THEE, OH HALLOWED DEATH, THAT YOU MAY BE GRACIOUS UPON ME THIS DAY! YOU HAVE BROUGHT UPON YOUR MOST HUMBLE, FAITHFUL SERVANT, A GREAT FEAST TODAY!”
The hungry one wags its long-stick-weapon wildly, and points its elongated digit at Rochester. “TODAY, WE FEAST!” says it, “TODAY, YOU SERVE ME!”
Rochester stands. His censor swings. He charges forward.