Tale of the Renowned Duelist
Blood drips from Yorovar’s, probably broken, nose. He scrambles backwards, struggling to stay on his feet. Another hit, straight into his ribs. A crack is felt, both by Yorovar, and his opponent facing him.
Yorovar scutters backwards hurriedly, while hovering his hand over where he had just been punched. A soothing warmth extends from his palm, and he feels his innards fix themselves. Uncomfortable, but surely better than the alternative.
Regret is beginning to ease its way into Yorovar’s mind. There were a couple things he wished for in this moment. One, that he never took this quest. Two, he wished that he had brought someone with better martial skill than he himself had. Three, he would have liked to have done some more research on what he was actually hunting. Or at the very least, its capabilities.
Standing in front of him, and now approaching him to follow up the last strike, uncurling its claws for this one - A Rakshasa. A fiend, usually in the form of a humanoid tiger. The most unique and unsettling feature about them were the reverse hands. But, being unique, it was the one thing that sold them out as being Rakshasas. Not that it had helped much in Yorovar’s search for this particular individual, as with their innate ability to disguise themselves, it had been a bit of a struggle to find him. And all that work only to find himself at the receiving end of a beatdown.
Another noteworthy thing about Rakshasas, which has been Yorovar’s bane so far, is that they are immune to most magic, other than the most powerful spells. And yes, Yorovar has a few powerful spells. They’ve put in a good bit of work, but didn’t do enough, and he is out for now. He had tried other, weaker ones, but all had been shrugged off.
He wields his trusty dagger, but it seems that Rakshasas are immune to more than just magic. Although he isn’t much of a martial prodigy, Yorovar had managed a few lucky strikes, but each had bounced off the magic hide of the Rakshasa, as if stabbing a solid wall.
And now, he finds himself, legs giving out under him, trying to scramble away. The Rakshasa ever approaching, with a mix of arrogance and indignation on its face, and claws out. Yorovar doesn’t have much left to give, and it’s clear the Rakshasa knows as much. And so it strikes.
Yorovar closes his eyes, bracing for the hit.
But it never arrives.
Instead, a light shines through his eyelids. It’s warm, and yet, cold. He knows this feeling.
In another dire moment, a spirit shows him a tale.
This land is grey. It’s quiet, except for the occasional screech of someone, or something, horrible. Everywhere you look, the landscape is desolate, plantlife blackened, and the stench of undeath fills your nostrils.
In this land, there is a castle. Much like the rest of the land, it is ruined, broken down by decay from the many years stood, almost untouched. Dark clouds swirls above this castle, with sickening, green lightning striking anything which dares reach for the heavens. The castle looks as devoid of life as any other place within this land. Almost.
Inside the castle, a throne room sits. Beautifully decorated and luxurious, with a wide array of armors and weapons adorning the walls, clearly having been crafted by many of the worlds greatest smiths. A gorgeous crimson rug paves its way from the door, all the way down the middle, and finally to the opposite side of the room. There, steps lead from the large floor to a raised platform. And on the platform stands the one thing that contrasts the beauty of the room.
The throne.
From the door, it might look like any other throne. But a closer look reveals the terrible truth. The throne consists entirely out of hands. All preserved, as to not decay from the state of which they were cut.
Sitting atop the throne is a warrior clad in armour made of black steel, a myriad of scars from centuries of warfare cover the plates, laying atop decaying flesh. His face is rotten, his eyes are gone, replaced with a malevolent light within their sockets. The skin of his cheeks has already fallen, now displaying the stringy muscles underneath, and serving as windows into the undead lord’s maw.
Opposite him, a man steps into the throne room. To have made it this far into this kingdom of undeath, he is clearly a quite capable warrior. And he has come to kill the undead lord. And so, he charges.
Yet, the lord seems unimpressed. He stands, drawing his sword. Shadows seep from the blade, down onto the ground where the lord slowly steps towards the man charging him.
The man has trained for this moment his entire life, and yet, it ends so fast. He had tried to stab the undead lord, but with an unnatural speed that nothing like him should possess, he had moved out of the way, and stabbed his sword into the man’s guts.
The man crumbles to the ground, as he takes his final breath. The lord, still seemingly bored of this entire ordeal, grabs the man’s dominant arm, and cuts his hand off. He then leaves the man to bleed out on the floor as he adds yet another fallen opponent’s hand to his throne.
Yorovar opens his eyes again, right as the Rakshasa lunges forward. In a moment, where time almost seems to stand still, he looks to his dagger, and watches as it grows. An sickening, green light shines from the hilt of the dagger, and takes the form of the undead lord’s blade.
And so, in a moment of unnatural speed, Yorovar dodges out of the way of the claws of the Rakshasa, and stabs him, much in the same way that the undead lord had. The Rakshasa stumbles for a moment. There’s a look of shock as it turns to face Yorovar, before dissolving into a cloud of sulfurous smoke.