The Accursed Ones: Part One

Your feet collided at the quarterdeck of the ghostly ship. As you tumbled into the ivory bannisters, the whip of the howling wind was all you could find in the grove which had slid from the stark gold of the sunny noon to the frows of a violet dusk.

"Morgan, Morgan are you there!?" Your calls at first seemed unanswered, but as you hurried down the body of the sleek schooner, you saw the white-haired woman, curled over the foremast, pushing on her forehead as if to drive out some stupor.

"You scared the hell outta me, I thought I'd lost you out here. You alright?" You asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, steadying her and holding her out to check her.

Morgan cooed dozily like there was little in her head but jello. Her eyes were glazed over, the shining white head lost in the clouds. But she seemed able to at least walk as she dribbled.

"Trust me I’m not to far off myself…" You cringed quickly before clearing your throat. “C-can you hear me, should we continue, ugh I don’t even know if this is bad or not!”

Her head wobbled slightly on her shoulders but she raised a long finger to point towards the Ship’s helm, cooing dizzily.

She'd just about managed to hold unto your arm as you led her to the helm. Together you grasped the wheel as you willed yourself onward.

"Show us more."

The Morrigan - Gluttony

“Back in the days when they still crawled around in the dirt, we called ourselves the Mór Adharcaili" The Great Fuckers, we were a monsterous breed.

Of all the tribes that lingered in our ancient lands, we were surely the mightiest, for old blood ran in our veins. The blood tempered our eyes with furious gold; the mark of a fallen god we’d never known.

We'd crawl from our raths, paint our skin with black streaks, and braid the feathers of crows into our red hair, an act of devotion to the Gods. The haft of the spear felt familiar in our hands as she stormed through the crannogs, hunting any who entered our lands without permission; even when blood still ran hot in our veins the taste of iron was a rich reward, not an everlasting need.

The others outside the safety of the Neads called us barbarians, mindless killers, and calling them liars would itself only be a half-truth….

When we hunted down those who entered the serene rolling hills and foot-swallowing bogs it was with the thrill of the hunt beating hard in our chests, there was nothing mindless about the skill with which we’d thrust a spear into their chests, or hanged their spines from the branches to detour any others who dared disturb our ancestral home.

We had chosen our path from the start, my children, my nephews and nieces could nary be seen without the stains of innocent blood painted on their cruel eyes, nor would my brothers ever return without the putrid scent of charnel pits following their every step.

Until they came…. And it changed us all.”

Your mind had been dominated, lashed and whipped under the colossal weight of this softly spoken voice which branded its story upon your mind.

...Swallowed and swathed by its wrathful spite, how it called to you, slithering across your skin with hair of flaming scarlet and hands calloused; strong, grasping at your neck and face trying to pull you further in.

But a smaller, paler hand dove into the storm of red, closing around your outstretched hand, wrenching you free with a staggering effort.

Dragged out of the forest of wriggling fingers and bloody manes, you gasped in the thick air as you tumbled backwards into a pool of mud.

Clawing back to the surface, you rubbed the muck from your face and saw the panicking scene in full.

You had been tethered into the dark recesses of a shallow marsh, caped by gnarled trees, booming with the croaking of frogs and the ear-biting sounds of the hundredfold insects which hid all around you.

Deeper in the bog, was the eldritch swarm of clawed fingers and hands, cloaked in great matted clumps of red hair. The wriggling mess of limbs was a formless non-sensical mess, with little trace of any sophistication... save for the tattered cloak drapped over the rippling mass, shining oddly with dull golds and stained iron grey.

This amorphous abomination which seemed to ooze from the bog itself was the half-consumed body of Morgan Blair.

Morgan did not scream as she was yanked deeper into the horrifying mass, but outstretched a hand and gazed back at you with her black eyes which penetrated the walls within your mind.

“Don’t be afraid… you must continue on… Maintain your will and my return will come steadfast.”

Her voice echoed in your mind's eye, but you would not lose her so easily. Scrambling up to your feet in the dense mud, you **** yourself onward towards her, fingers outstretched to try and free the white-haired witch from the ever-receding crimson mass.

“MORGAN!” You roared, your immense stride stricken by the thick waters of the bog… the mass swallowed Morgan down into the dirt, pulling her down into the shadows where her pale face vanished out of sight.

Slowing, left alone in the marshes with nothing but the moonlight to light your way, you batted the water in frustration “fucks sake” you muttered, glancing around for any sign of life.

Unsure of where you were and contemplating Morgan’s enigmatic telepathic message.

Your vision was limited, this place seemed to have dulled your vampiric powers. Luckily a few encouraging slaps to the side of your head made your eyes blaze red, focusing your enhanced sight to reveal the shoreline a few meters away.

Waddling awkwardly through the marsh, you dug your sharp nails into the congealed bank, struggling to rip your soaked body up on the mossy embankment.

“Had to be a fucking swamp…” you muttered bitterly, sitting up and contemplating your life choices… it was about then that the squirming sound of wriggling fingers crawling from the foul waters came again, and from the shadows came the swarm once again, shambling in a horrifying centipede-like motion towards you.

Rising from the ground, you ran your claw across the back of your left hand, drawing blood “Oh so you’ve come for the big dog, eh? I’m gonna scorch this shithole off the map and your ugly ass along with it! Mhalia!”

You grasped at the air, expecting the familiar haft of your flaming sword to meet your fingertips, but found nothing but empty air occupying your expectant palms.

The moaning, freakish amalgam of limbs and hair drew closer as you blinked and chuckled “…or you know, running away works too!”

Spinning around deftly, you burst into a dash, jumping from one narrow patch of grass to another, the groaning roar of the grasping creature drawing in closer and closer as you dashed through the endless marsh.

“FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK!” Your heel caught in a bramble, twisting your ankle and dumping you back into the cold waters. Emerging in panic once again, the monster squealed as it came down upon you.

Throwing up your arms and squinting, you waited to be bludgeoned by the overwhelming **** of a hundred fists… but instead felt two gentle hands close on your shoulders.

“You will not touch him, Fallen King, return to the desolation where you belong!”

Opening your eyes, shock and awe flooded your being as the many-handed monster flailed directly in front of you.

The gentle grip on your shoulders was not imagined as you expected. A pair of thick scaly talons had closed around your arms and chest, two gigantic wings splayed out, dripping and wet.

A screaming yowl, that of a furious bird cut through the air as it pecked and jabbed violently at the Many-handed Creature, driving its warping mass back into the darkness.

“What the- !!? WOAH, WOAH AHHH!” You cried as you felt yourself rising, the harsh batting of the crimson wings pulling you high above the swamp’s cape of shadowed trees and into the night sky.

Trapped in the bird’s iron grip, you tried to look up as you tore through the night sky but spotted the blurred form of what appeared to be a gigantic eagle, nearly twice the size of the biggest albatross, its bloody feathers releasing a trail of crimson blood behind it as its flaming emerald eyes peered back down at you.

They were… oddly comforting, those eyes which burned like a forest fire, but before you had a moment to think, the bloody bird began its descent.

Hurtling back towards the marshes, you spotted only the dotted silhouettes of many huts before you were released, streaking like a missile into the grass and dirt, where you rolled into a painful halt.

Immediately standing up, you looked up past the tree line, catching sight of the crimson eagle which looped around the silver moon. It whirled and dipped with a grace you couldn’t have ever imagined before curling in its wings in a beeline right at you.

“Oh come on!” You spat, readying once again to defend yourself… but as the eagle descended, it seemed to warp and shrink, losing more and more of its mass in the cloud of blood which trailed behind it, until it was no bigger than a blue jay, you watched as the tiny bird spread its wings catching itself on the breeze, where it fluttered down to you, landing curtly on a mossy log before you.

The bloody eagle chirped and sang, it skipped and turned for a moment before looking at you again with its fiery green eyes. “Oh… so you're, not gonna kill me then?”

The tiny Eagle, clacked its bloody beak, seemingly in protest. “Promise?” You said cautiously.

The bird wasn’t made of flesh, that was for sure, its texture was smooth and fluid, constantly churning and dripping red with each step. Kneeling beside it, the Blood Eagle stepped closer “All kinds of weird shit out here, where have you brought us?”

As you looked at the deeply buried huts, eerily lifeless and empty. The Eagle twittered again as it flew up and landed on your shoulder “Let’s hope a geographically protective ogre doesn’t jump out at us next. Do you know the woman who came with me, did Morgan send you?”

The bird merely stared silently.

“Guess not… screw it, any friendly face is welcome right now. What was that thing back there? looked like it jumped out the pages of the Necronomicon.”

The eagle bent down, ruffling through its viscous feathers.

“Delve into the memory of your past she said, it’ll be a great idea she said. What the hell does a place like this have to do with my Frenzy? -Ow!"

You recoiled your hand as the Eagle pecked at it diligently. "What was that for?"

The Eagle chirped again expectantly, but you rubbed your head. "Wherever we are, it can't be related to Frenzy... whatever the reason it better be important, this place is creepy as shit."

You began to stroll through the empty village, off-put by its ghostly aura. There were no signs of life, by your guess, it had been long abandoned.

The smell of long-dried blood was soaked deep into the rushes and boards of the prim stove huts, **** had lingered here for a very long time, and as you wandered among the haunted hamlet the smallest of sounds could be heard.

Crouching down and moving in stealth, you raised a finger to your lips, warning the bloody eagle to remain quiet as you crept towards the largest of the huts, built into a warped oak tree at the foremost edge of the village.

Remaining quiet was difficult with the squelch of the wet dirt beneath your feet, but you managed to usher yourself up to one of the moulded windows to peer inside.

Within the pitch black of the hut, was a single luminance, emitted by one burning candle. Inside was a woman, crumpled over and surrounded by a mass of shapes covered by black cloths.

You heard her weeping softly, clutching the bodies and rolling in despair as she sputtered like an abandoned child.

“I was too weak, Mother… Father... my brothers, Uncle, please forgive me... I-I’ll bring you vengeance, I’ll lay you to rest no matter the cost… I swear it by the War-Mother, I s-swear it, they will pay!”

The woman whispered. She was badly beaten and bloodied, not far off the corpses hidden beneath the black cloths around her, which you had guessed were her fallen family members.

A small jolt, flowed through you as you saw her sit up, a familiar twinge sent chills down your spine as a shadowy figure emerged from the blackest corner of the room, a well-dressed mass cloaked in the abyssal blackness which stuck to it like flies descending upon a corpse.

“And so the weave of fate has brought you here, the great heir of the Marshland Clans, reduced to a sputtering husk by those you so greatly opposed. So it's vengeance that you seek? Oh so childish, misinformed and pathetic.” That voice… how it haunted you, dark and cruel as the dapper man stepped towards the girl.

Throwing herself back, the woman crawled back in terror “Y-You. You stay away from us, shove off, leave us alone!”

The suited man, wrapped in shadow merely laughed. You could not see his face, as his back was to you, but the look in the battered woman’s swollen eyes reflected the terror that his gaze inflicted upon her.

“You wish for us to leave you be? oh, my dear how very boring, it was you that called me here, seemingly for a good reason. I’ve never seen one blessed with my blood wallow so piteously in sorrow, and how easily this all could have been avoided.” Spoke the well-dressed man.

The Woman’s face twisted with anger “Shut up, just shut your mouth. We were warriors, the guardians of our sacred home...." You watched the woman unwind, shaking and twitching as her wrath was churned into madness "...Those cowards, they said they were our kin, that we shared the same blood; your blood, but they slaughtered us all the same… Now my Uncle refuse to rest, he consumed my brothers, and their corpses still hunt in the bog, cursed forever in spite.”

“That despicable creature out there are your brothers? pah. No wonder the Black Ones came to call you, even in **** your bloodthirst persists.”

The woman tensed, her face twisting with madness “ALL WE DID WAS DEFEND OUR LANDS, THEY HAD NO RIGHT TO PASS JUDGEMENT ON US, I-IT IS - IT IS OUR HOME, OUR RIGHT!”

The dark creature stirred, and the air seemed to thicken with the ire of **** as it cut into her with its words “Your home? These lands were home to the creatures who have dwelt in its depths long before your kind stumbled upon it. They too suffer in the mortal cycle of life ad ****, they feel pain as you do, regret and mourn as you do and yet you executed them all the same.

But I am sure you are right, the senseless execution of anybody who dares enter your 'home' would never come back to bite you eventually, right?” Sarcasm flooded the dark figure's ominous tones, but the woman seemed to lose her conviction, falling again on the corpses around her and sobbing softly as she cradled the bodies around her.

“I-I got them away, brought them home, to stop them from melding into that monster, their souls belong with the goddess, not with that thing… I-I saved them.” She cooed, drowning in melancholy.

The figure moved closer and the woman seemed too lost to be afraid anymore “What if I told you that they could walk the earth again, stronger, more powerful than ever? What if I told you that your vengeance could be more than just the final dream of a wailing girl in a swamp… what if I told you that your time of worshipping gods has come to an end?”

The shadowy figure reached out, touching the woman’s bruised face “What if I told you, that you could become the very goddess who refused to answer your prayers?”

The Woman looked up at the figure, how mouldable she looked, like a fresh ball of clay.

“The elders warned us of your dealings, Dark-one: Monarch of blood." Whatever hesitation those stories had instilled in her, didn't seem to prevent her from falling under the Dapper man's hypnotic gaze. Even you could feel the power dripping from its unholy aura.

"Good, then you know just what we are capable of. I require an Heir of my own, my blood runs through your veins, You could have your vengeance... if only, you hear my propositions."

A black hope boiled behind her golden eyes "N-Name your price, Demon” the woman muttered

“It will cost you the only thing that you have left to offer me, princess… blood.”

Sitting up, a newfound conviction filled the battered woman who fully opened her golden eyes, who pulled the neck of her tunic aside and offered her bare skin to the figure before her “Take it then, take it all. It's not as if I could stop you.

If the Black-bloods would condemn us as monsters, then Monsters are just what we shall become. Mother… forgive me.”

You watched as the figure lent in and pushed it's black fingers into her chest "You shall be weaker than the rest of my direct creations but it is of small consequence, your blood will still grant you power beyond belief. Better to be Superior than stuck in that frozen cage Alucard created." Its fingers pulsed as they slid into her skin, injecting eternity into her veins, as her mouth opened in a silent scream and the world opened before her.

The Eagle chirped again, as if in shock. You quickly lowered down, hushing the bird hastily.

Awaiting some kind of confrontation and ensuring that the figure within could not sense you, but as you slowly stood to stare through the window again, your eyes met with the stare and the smile of something beyond any evil you’d ever experienced.

“Look at the shell, staring dumbly without its soul to guide it. It was foolish to walk so petulantly in the Schism between realms, little Drake, nobody can protect you here.”

The voice was like an earth-shattering wave, crashing into you and booming in every corner of the astral plane. ...akin to the unholy decree of something beyond your strength, or the strength of any creature; living or dead.

Flying back, you stumbled to run but found the gentle grip of two hands taking you by the shoulders once again

“Begon, foul creature. You couldn't take him then. You will not have him now.”

Swept up into the sky, you were saved from the transcendental glare of the otherworldly figure and whisked high up into the night by your new crimson guardian.