darkSpyro

Thoughts on what you liked, what you didn;t, and what didn;t work!

Prelude: Newborn

Daichi Hadaka tried to keep his focus on the swaying lantern as he rubbed his wrists and ankles against the shackles and manacles. Yet the blurry lines at the corners of his vision drew his attention to the rest of the slave hold, turning the orange light into a blur and bringing the horrific sight into sharp contrast. Children likely from the coastal towns of the Nezutake region of Raijou were packed tight into cells, shivering from cold and sickness. The scent of drying vomit mingled with that of urine and excrement. Somewhere in one of the cells, Daichi heard a prisoner retching.

Just retching, he thought. Thank you, Myojin that the children’s cries have stopped! The ascetic ceased his shuffling and rubbing to catch his breath. He shook his head, sending a bit of sweat flying from his disheveled topknot. Forgive me my impertinence mighty Myojin, Daichi thought as his eyes roamed over the huddled groups of chained and bound children, but why was the hebiroki brood absent when these desecrators arrived?

One of the only two doors in the slave hold slammed open. Daichi turned his angry eyes to the man who stood in the doorway. “Free me and face me on even ground, you honor-less—” Daichi’s words died off as the gaoler stepped into the dim light afforded by the overhead lantern.

His skeletal face was more scabbed over flesh than skin. In staring hard at the cabalistic scarring, Daichi realized there was a pattern to the slashes and gashes in the pale skin; it had given his face a goat-like visage. A smile crinkled his mangled face, splitting some of the crusted areas and sending lines of dark red trickling down his cheeks and chin. He began approaching one of the holding cells with a shuffling gait.

Daichi thrust himself forward as far as his bonds would allow. He searched the gaoler’s chosen cell for his son and offered thanks to the Myojin when he couldn’t find his boy anywhere in the pitiable mass of bodies.

“Good news, kiddies!” the gaoler said. Oddly his voice didn’t have the slur Daichi had come to associated with a drunk. “The Thousand Young are looking for new recruits, and fortunately for you I’ll be conducting initiations until we get to Kalisbre. But first, a special treat!”

He whistled and motioned toward the doorway; another man came through. This one was bald and in his hands he carried a creature whose gray skin had a scaly texture. Two sets of arms dragged along the floor as the man bearing the hebiroki made his way to the gaoler. He handed the dead reptilian being too the gaoler and left the slave hold.

Daichi’s eyes grew wide and his jaw muscles slackened. How can it possibly be, great Myojin! What test is this that you have put your humble ascetic to? He saw the man’s hand narrow into a point and snapped his eyes shut. In that instant his sense of the seiyurei alerted him to the high amounts of the spirit-stuff gathering around the gaoler. Might Myojin I beg that you give me some answers, a starting point to understand this, anything—

The first crunch came from the gaoler thrusting his hand straight through the dead hebiroki’s thick, scaled hide. A snapping sound indicated that the man had torn through the serpentine being’s spinal cord. Finally there was a sound—barely audible—of the gaoler digging through the inner organs of the hebiroki. After that there was blissful silence.

Daichi eased his eyes open and felt anger overwhelm him at the sight before him.

“What a fine bunch of kids we’ve got here, wouldn’t you say?” the gaoler said in a high-pitched voice. With each word, the hebiroki’s lower jaw dropped open and snapped shut. The ascetic’s lips draw back into a snarl at the sight of the desecration of a creature he had once considered a divine aspect of the Myojin. A growl escaped his throat.

No…the hebiroki is a divine entity of the Myojin’s brood! Daichi told himself as he bit down on his lip, drawing blood. He put more force into the bite until he felt his teeth pierce the flesh of his lips. Forgive me my sacrilegious thoughts. Take the blood of this humble ascetic as penitence for such uneducated thoughts, my Beast.

The ascetic closed his eyes once again. He turned his inner senses to the seiyurei that pervaded the slave-hold. Much of it was rapidly diminishing as the seiyurei-devouring spirits swarmed into the prisoners. Daichi gulped, for soon they would begin dropping as the little beings turned their appetites to the weakened minds and bodies.

Come to me, you wretched things! Daichi mentally shouted at the seiyurei-devouring spirits. Soon the door will be open and you’ll have my seiyurei to feast on!

A squeal of iron and a loud slam caused Daichi to pause in his search for the thickest concentration of seiyurei-devourers. Sweat broke out on the ascetic’s forehead.

Please don’t let him take my child, Myojin. Daichi prayed. Let me have the cut, that the devourers might enter me. Then I will take this fiend at blade-point to Jukamidoon and he will be yours!

The chains binding the children clinked and clanked as they drew back from the gaoler’s approach. Suddenly a multitude of screams sounded in the slave-hold, wrenching Daichi from his meditative state. His eyes opened once more and he saw the dead hebiroki lying on the cell floor among the frightened children. A boy’s shouts drew the ascetic’s attention to the gaoler, making his way back toward the door to his quarters.

The gaoler and the boy disappeared into the darkness and the door was pulled shut. Silence fell over the slave-hold. Daichi shuffled his feet and yanked his arms in an attempt to make as much racket as possible. Sweat streamed down his face, soaking his neck and gi.

He didn’t want to hear what would come next, didn’t want any of the innocents in here to hear what would come next.

“The seiyurei will burn you alive! It will forever eat you from the inside out, you honor-less coward!” Daichi said, his voice going hoarse. “You’ll hang impaled upon—”

The sobs came in short bursts from behind the closed door. Though they were light, sniffling things, they brought an end to Daichi’s outburst. He simply stared wide-eyed at the door, the warmth of his exertion replaced with a sudden chill that rushed throughout his body.

Then the sobs rose into inhuman shrieks. There was a loud thump of something heavy hitting either the wall or the floor—it didn’t matter to Daichi; in that instant he considered cutting the spineless gaoler’s guts and letting him writhe as the seiyurei-devouring spirits went to town on the stores of spirit stuff in the man.

“Oh damn it!” a woman said.

Daichi snapped his head to the side and saw a figure in shimmering gray robes running from the stairs leading to the ship’s upper levels. He noticed a mark on the back of the clothing indicating them to be of Kalisbrean make.