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T̴h̵e̴ ̶b̶e̸a̶s̴t̴ ̷l̶a̷y̸s̴ ̴d̶e̷a̴d̸.̸

̸

̶I̶t̷s̵ ̵e̵n̸d̶l̶e̸s̷s̶ ̸t̵i̴d̶e̷ ̵c̵u̶t̴ ̵a̵t̸ ̵t̴h̵e̷ ̸h̷e̵a̸d̷.̶

̷

̶B̸u̶t̷ ̶t̵h̸e̵ ̴c̴o̴s̶t̴ ̶o̷f̴ ̷s̸u̶c̵h̴ ̴a̴ ̶t̸r̵a̵d̴e̵.̶

̶

̷W̷h̷a̵t̴ ̶p̸a̴i̷n̴ ̴i̵s̶ ̷w̵o̶r̶t̸h̷ ̸s̶u̶c̷h̷ ̶a̷ ̷t̸h̷i̵n̷g̷?̶

500+ years ago

Nishtal

—500th annual Festival of Flame—

It was that treasured time of the year again.

The date that every denizen of this fair city, and countless others across the world had been looking to.

For weeks, countless banners, tapestries, and even unique stylings of clothing wore by the people were put on full display for all across the city to see. Their bountiful colors clashing boldly against the stark stone-esque construction of the homes and buildings they were hung upon.

But eventually, the hour came. One the sun was at its highest in the sky, from the city now poured out thousands of krakotl from their homes, clogging the cobble streets with the sheer number of their forms. all moving directly towards the same place. A temple, right at the center of the city, raised slightly by a set of small steps that beckoned the massive crowd inside its interior and towards the sole source of the temple’s existence.

At the very center was a massive theatre that ran deep into the earth, seats lined in rows all across the half-sphere’s circumference.

At the bottom of the chamber was a small pit, only a few inches deep, but its contents were truly their greatest value. A set of intricately carved coals and perfectly cut woods arranged to form a tightly held cone that stretched a few feet above the meager pit they were held inside of.

From a entrance at the bottom of the chamber, emerged several krakotl, a few of the tenders of the temple. What light commotion their had been died out the instant their presence was seen. All four of the figures stood across the small put at four places, and began chanting in a hushed tone. Slowly, one by one the torches they carried in their hands began to change from their orange and red tones, to more mystical coloration. Purple, blue, green, and Magenta.

With one final hymn spoken by the crowd, and the caretakers below them. They dipped the torches into the pit.

And from it burst forth a massive multicolored flame that rose the height of the temple’s roof in an instant.

From that fire as mighty figure burst from its center, her four wings covering her mighty form and as the crowd around her hollered and exclaimed their praises upon her. Inatala unveiled her massive flame covered figure and screeched to the heavens above a mighty call that reverberate for miles.

The praising of her people only grew louder, and she could hear them all across Nishtal’s form, calling out her name and giving thanks to the bountiful harvests and pristine weathers they had experienced for generations.

Inatala stood there on the pyre, basking in the genuine gratitude of the countless mortals around her.

It was a gratifying feeling, a feeling that she hadn’t felt in…so, so long. But here it was again, coursing through her veins and warming her hearts with delight. She closed her eyes for a second, letting the sounds of the memory fester in her mind.

Inatala’s eyes opened, expecting to once again bask in the warm gaze of her people, and the radiant glow of their sun still beaming down upon their body. She wanted to bask in these nicer times still, to let these good memories keep coursing through her.

But this was not such a memory. It was a nightmare, and that was apparent to her the moment her eyes opened up again.

The land around her was dead, the temple she was summoned from, in utter ruins, and stained in massive splotches of blood from nearby corpses. The sky had become a horrid shade of unnatural red and black, arching with powerful electricity that relentlessly beat down upon the land, coating it in swathing waves of scorching fire that burned everything to a deep charred tone of black. The city beyond the temple grounds was a shadow of its former self, destroyed in a thousand places, and burning in thousands more.

Inatala stood in disbelief, struggling to understand why this was happening, thats when she heard it. The screams, countless souls still trapped within the burning remains of the city, while the growls and roars of unseen horrors beckoned an encroaching doom.

She had to help, she had to! So she quickly rose from her lowered stance. Only for something to clam tightly around one of her arms. A chain, thick in form and heavy in construction grasped tightly around her right wrist. With desperation and confusion she pried as best she could to free herself, only for another chain to clamp on her opposite wrist.

Then another, and another, and another, and another. All forcing her back to the ground, and nullifying her struggles to free herself. But she still tried nonetheless, managing to inch herself out slightly by imperceptible margins. Until, a sound broke her concentration, a chuckle. Deep and low in tone, and seemingly right before to her. Slowly, she bid herself to look ahead, and was greeted with a wide crimson faced her down, with five eyes staring her down with pinprick pupils.

Before a full gasp could even manage to escape her throat, her captor’s sharp hands were already choking it, but this time they were somehow depleting her lung’s supply much more quickly. Here eyes were forced up to her assaulter’s made to stare them down as the life was drained from her visage. The red grimace before her grew longer across the captor’s face, the pupils shrinking more and more as her vision began to darken and a chorus of sickening laughter could be heard from it.

Then, in the distance there was a bright flash. In moments both were engulfed, and moments later, she was plunged into darkness. With only her thoughts to occupy her mind

She tried to resist. She tried so hard to resist.

wake up

But it was no use.

you have to wake up

The space in her lungs was rapidly collapsing.

Inatala Please.

The city was burning.

Wake up!

Pleas of salvation were going unanswered.

Wake UP!

All because she was too weak to save them.

INATALA!!!!

-------------------

The Goddess’ real eyes snapped open, removing her mind from the horrific memory. She gasped heavily, taking a deep breathing to fill the lungs she thought were bereft of air.

Her eyes looked to the voice that shouted to her, seeing that its owner was none other than the Allmother herself, worry etched onto her face.

The first thing she noticed beyond her, was the land around them. Then it hit her, they had continued with her plan, they dropped the weapon. And now she was seeing the results.

The region around her was in ruins, the black, stained remnants of trees bases dotted the space around her like gravestones to the forest that had been here. The grass was torn from the earth and the soil along with it, leaving a sickly ashen substitute in its wake instead. Black particles of poisoned rain were beating down in infrequent patters upon the ground. The destructive force of the antimatter, was a massive as she remembered. But being directly at its presence, it was another feeling entirely.

“Is….Is it…” Inatala tried to speak, her voice meek given the damage that had been brought to her neck. But the Allmother knew where she was going with this line of thought.

“Yes.” She said in a singular, regal sounding voice.

“Mars and Isatros dropped the cluster of warheads onto the creature. Its evisceration...was a certainty.” She said, her eyes looking off to the side at something beyond her.

Inatala followed her gaze to the horizon behind her. The writhing mass that once was terrorizing her realm, now laid twitching weakly on the mountain tops, its body charred black by the fires of the warheads, and its eyes losing their coloration with ever passing second, many already having melted, or bled from their sockets.

The gnashing mouths of teeth that were covering its immense form bled from their sockets, gums and weakly wheezed meager breaths, if one could even call such a pathetic motion that.

“Its…done.” Inatala muttered blankly to herself.

Inatala tried to stand up, nearly face planting into the ground in the process, only barely managing to use her hands to prop herself off of the ground.

Noticing her struggles, the Allmother quickly moved to aid her, lifting disturbingly light body into her arms. Inatala grit her teeth tightly, the pain of her attempted stand apparent given the deep gashes that curled down her legs.

“You are in no condition to walk at all dear.” The Allmother said.

“Your injuries are too severe to allow you be on your own. Worry not though. Just as upon that treacherous mountain, I will carry you the whole way.”

Inatala wanted to reject her assistance at first, the the looked at herself. The scarring, the torn sinews of her wings, the lack of any mobility for so, so long. She could try to think of a retort, but they would all no doubt be rebuffed easily. The Allmother took her lack of protest as a sign, gifting her a small look of thanks before beginning her wander.

“Thank you.” Inatala said meekly.

“Think nothing of it dear.”

“Where are your other deities?”

“Preparing the fire.” The Allmother stated simply before looking up to mass once more, a massive ocean of blood pooling out of every orifice..

“The creature still undulates, they are preparing a spell to fully have it disposed of. We do not want to leave any possible chances that this abomination could still live.”

As far as Inatala was concerned, there would be no objections from her about that procedure. Perhaps she would have been more reserved about torching the entirety of the mountain range. But, they were well past that point by now.

Yet, fate had other plans for her, as the sound of moaning reached her ears. Mortal moaning somehow. She turned her head to the noise's source, only to immediately regret that choice.

There indeed was a mortal there, or once was. It was one of the corrupted, but was simply....standing there, like a lost animal. Beneath it, bodies, countless bodies of other corrupted, black ichor leaking from every conceivable orifice that wasn't mutated over.

“There are so many.” Inatala muttered at the sight. The Allmother did her best to press onwards, but her pace was still slowed by their presence, which she felt inclined to explain.

“The moment the beast died, its connection with its corrupted ones died with it, and many fell without it.”

“Some however, seem to still live without its influence.”

She was prepared to carry the two of them away from this sight, but Inatala. She couldn't simply leave, not like this.

“Put me down.” Inatala said. The Allmother was silent, her grasp on the goddess still firm and unwilling to waver.

“Please, I have to do this.” Inatala pleaded again, reluctantly but understandingly, the Allmother put the goddess back onto her talons.

With shaky steps, Inatala approached the closest infected krakotl, those closest to it seemed to still have some premonition of fear in their minds as they scurried away as fast as their tortured bodies could. The one that didn't run used its one good, dully colored eye to stare up blankly towards the figure towering over it.

Inatala sat on her knees, letting her see the corrupted one more closely. Their body was covered thick growths of a black mass coiling in and out of their skin with thick veins that ran across the body. Where its left eye would have been, an empty lidless socket took its place instead, the shape of which was deformed beyond any hope of prosthetic utilizations. What feathers she could still bear witness to were just the ones that weren't covered in that black mass, but even the spots adjacent to it seemed to be losing their will to stay in the sickened skin beneath it.

Inatala outreached her hand, and lightly pulled the mortal's head further upwards.

Those eyes.

There was nothing behind them, this was an empty husk of what once was.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered to them, pulling the corrupted one closer to her body, and hugging the form gently and with as much care her battered body could still muster to utilize for itself.

She held them against her face, its low mindless droning coming to a complete stop, almost as if it recognized the figure that was grabbing hold of it so gently.

“I'm so, so sorry.” She said again, tears welling from her eyes and hitting against both the corrupted and the infected ground beneath them.

It almost seemed to start remembering something, but its soulless form could never hope to tie feelings to these emotions, only able to meekly extend its arms around the figure in front of it.

“I hope you do not remember who you still are beneath this. I hope there is some peace for you in the Great Islands little one.”

She put the mindless husk down, and left it to be.

As she left back to the Allmother’s hold, both were unaware of the creature staring down at its hands, as opposed to the ground. A small crowd of fellow corrupted were even forming a circle around them, staring down with almost a curiosity in their eyes.

(N….n…..nv.nv…….k……klz…….z?)

Just below them, where Inatala had cried what tears her body could shed, the blackness of the earth was eroded away, and a patch of deep, brown took its place, with a singular strand of green just barley sticking out to the surface

———-
Cathul turned away from the massive twitching carcass at the sound of footsteps behind him, her turned to find the new goddess being hefted around by Terra, a sorrowful expression on both of their faces. It was enough of a signal to tell that despite their actions here, it wasn’t anything worth celebrating in the slightest.

Mars and Isatros landed down beside them, Cathul turned and Knight of Frost gave a quick bow to him.

“The ritual awaits Sire. In an instant the beast will be engulfed in soul-searing flames.”

“Thank you Isatros.” He said, the three stepped back to The Allmother’s location. Cathul turned slightly to Inatala, wanting to give her the honors of activating the spell, but the look on her face was all it took for him to realize, now wasn’t the time.

With a snap of his fingers, the mountain range before them erupted into flames, engulfing the creature in totality. The light bled so brightly the entire valley they stood was illuminated from its presence.

“I truly am sorry we couldn’t do more for your people.” Cathul said, Inatala only looked further down, unable to give any answer above that.

The pantheon resolved themselves to stare in silence, as the monolithic fire raged on.

This may have been a victory.

But the cost, the suffering.

Whoever put this monstrosity here.

It knew how to bring about such a thing.

And what is worse..

Than a god dedicated solely to the cruel craft of spreading that one sole thing across the stars?

Pure.

Incomprehensible.

Suffering.