1 One-Shot
"It was a crisp spring morning in the fifth month of the one thousand forty-seventh year of the Arcinian calendar. A crow cawed in the crumbling branch of a withered tree in a courtyard. There was a thin layer of morning dew on the grass. There were splotches of dead grass here and there, stained with human blood. I was very wounded, unsure if I could ever stay alive. My vision was murky and unfocused as I reached my gauntleted hand out in front of me. I blinked a few times and saw it.
Various swords were stabbed in the ground accompanied by half-eaten mutilated bodies in broken, melted, and shattered armor. There were deep gashes in the armor that those bodies wore. It was as if they were killed in a subjugation quest. Small fires lingered around the dead brush, choking the crystalline sky with ash and dust. The air was hazy and one could see the heat rising from the scorched earth.
A figure that looked to be made of obsidian stood there in the center of the massacre. It's back was to me and it had cracks all over it that emitted the faint light of a volcanic substance. A decently strong wind blew over the massacre. When the blowing air hit the being, it slowly crumbled to black sand…" The old man set the half melted chest plate back onto its pedestal near the shattered sword hilt that was mounted upon the wall. He turned to his apprentice and placed his withered hands on their shoulders and spoke in a paranoid tone, eyes filled with madness.
"That day thirty years ago… was the day that I learned of… the existence of demons..."
The apprentice had a black hooded cloak and a strange coin upon a necklace over their cloak. Their face was obscured by an adamantium mask. The mask was contorted into a face of jealousy. It appeared to be envious to no one in particular. Within the eye sockets of this mask was a purple flame of madness.
The apprentice was completely silent as their master continued to endlessly rave.
"The Pope! It was the Pope who wanted this to be! He's out to get me! He'll give me to Them!" The old man fell to his knees and started weeping into the front of his apprentices' robe.
The apprentice put one gloved hand on the old man's shoulder. The 'apprentice' proceeded to pick the old man up by his throat, lifting him three inches off the ground. It's 'master' in its hand, it finally spoke a single word.
"Insect"
The elderly man struggled in the iron grip of his 'apprentice.' He managed to barely cough out some words from that grip. "W...what… are y...you?"
The mask made a noise as a crack appeared on it. Then it fell off and clinked on the stone tiled floor The robe burned to ashes… The old man's eyes widened in horrifying realization.
"Trash like you were never meant to survive the contract…"
It was the same demon from thirty years ago that the Pope had not believed him for surviving…
Souzalai the Psion, Demon Lord of the Mind…
The grip crushed the man's throat, separating his head and body. Blood spewed from where his head had been as the now headless body of the former Knight Commander fell to the ground limply. The head rolled for about four feet before it smacked into the base of a pillar, a small pool of blood surrounding it too.
A burst of chilling laughter echoed throughout the streets of the Royal Capital City of Arcinia during that cold, wretched night of the twenty second day in the twelfth month of the one thousand seventy seventh year of the Arcinian calendar.
