Chapter 0: Introduction
Location: Lost Village, Netherworld
Tags:
Darth Vinaze
Five years and seven months, and yet only six days or maybe two weeks, or having just arrived a few moments ago. That's how long Gretchen had lived here by her highly skewed estimate. But, truthfully, it made no real difference and no one else around her seemed to care at the end of it all. Not the chief dealing with the ever-changing laws of the universe's afterlife; not the cooks learning a million new recipes from the village folk originating from a thousand years away from their own mortal lives; not the farmers growing and harvesting crops they couldn't even pronounce; not the children who had taken on new parents after death.
While she herself was a curious case in that she was personally concerned with keeping track of the time spent here, she knew why the others were not. Really, how could they when every second was a year and every year was an hour? When a dozen new souls entered the streets in the light of the shadow mountains, and a hundred lost ones departed into the outskirts of glowing fields, it was hard to really care about the passage of time. There was both time and no time, death and no death, life and no life. The grass - which glowed like starship engines - was both tall and short and felt dry and wet. The trees of impossibly far away yet near forests on the other side of the fields were thin and old while also being thick and fresh. The buildings that made up this village in the land of the dead were archaic yet were furnished with modern amenities. Thusly was it decided after a while that arguments over the facts of time and all that nonsense were pointless, and the people of this village preferred not to care about it at all. Gretchen secretly thought this was a foolish mindset, and her mind was wont to venture into theological discussions with herself as to why the village and the locations around it were like this.
What they preferred to care about was their own personal safety. Often, as children were set to sleep and the adults decided to have a few drinks, the village folk discussed what lay beyond and within the borders of those outskirt fields and forests where so many nameless and formless faces vanished. Of what hid in the crags and corners of the shadow mountains as tall as the distance between a planet and a star. These were always tales of horrors usually beyond imagining and blessings usually beyond comprehension, which Gretchen quite enjoyed during the times she was not farming or talking about this Netherworld with herself. Stories of shadowed ethereal things stalking the day and lit scintillating beasts setting the night aflame, nearly all of them always near but never in full view to be described in detail beyond the aforementioned and big or small, hunched or straight, beastly or humanoid.
Unfortunately for Gretchen, that was all the village's people could produce during these discussions and much was left to the imagination. At least, nearly all but one. One terrible thing that was rarely spoken about, not because of lack of sightings like all the others, but because of fear. True fear for the thing that could kill that which was already dead. Dread for that which dwelt in the glowing fields, in the light of the shadow mountains, and underneath the very village itself.
The tales of this "one," when spoken of, were old and new and infamous, as all things were here. Gretchen quite enjoyed these tales, told only by people who had almost entered those fields and mountains yet backed away, saved by the willpower of their heart or were so stricken with dread that even in death their minds took them to safety. They were the scariest of all stories the village's people told and were the closest to anything she could use to imagine what "the one" was, short of a picture or directly encountering them. It was strong and quick, as well as lithe and agile - like a lion or a Nexu. It was clothed and somewhat armored - at least, that's what the people assumed by the glinting shine that sparked past them - yet seemed bare. It would approach the people telling the tale, at a distance first and then closed in, but was always shrouded in a blur, even when it stood still. But the most confusing aspect of it - or perhaps the most frightening depending on who you were - was the color. It had none, yet it had all. Red would shift to blue, blue to green, pink to yellow to gold to white. And then it would be gone, and sometimes, if those who told the story were with any others...so would those others. Another thing that Gretchen found interesting about this "one" was that it was never given a true name in the entirety of the stories that were told, only a title or a moniker in an apparently dead language spoken by the chief. The translation he would not give, for reasons he would not divulge, but the pronunciation of it spread quickly all the same despite the rarity of its utterance.
Mlădios Nălucă.
Unfortunately for Gretchen, the more she heard of these tales, comparing and contrasting them to the others along with the unfathomability of the land she now resided in - and the more she heard the hushed name - the more she inexplicably became enamored with the idea of encountering it, even at a distance. And thus was her idea set in stone when she heard one too many tales of this Mlădios. She would leave the village as the others fell to their beds, snoring in slumber and hoping to avoid the nightmares of the dangers orbiting their homes. The most recent tale spoke of this Mlădios residing in the mountains, shadowed and giving off faint light of an invisible sun within the rocks. It was an inverted sight and she could remember normal mountains from her mortal life giving off shadows rather than light, but that was a discussion for another day. She ran as quickly as she could without drawing the attention of the others, which was not really as quick as she wanted. The mountains were at the south side of the village, at the end of a moderate stretch of land the farmers used for crops. Fortunately, she was not going completely defenseless - although it must be noted that she was certain to die from this moronic venture. On her side, she held something she vaguely remembered as being a blaster pistol, although she wasn't entirely convinced it would do much should this Mlădios assail her. Still, it was a risk she was willing to take for the sake of...whatever it was that drove her to desire seeing this terrible thing.
The grass of the land sunk under her feet and yet wrapped around it in rope-like strands, and the more she crossed the field, the further away the mountains seemed to grow until, suddenly, she nearly ran into the rocks of the base. A single unmarked and steep path lay near these rocks, traveling far up into the mountains and beckoning her to climb. With a huff of resolve, she did. Climbing and climbing and climbing, Gretchen was carried by her inexplicable desire, self-assured that she would bear witness to this legendary thing, unaware that each step drew her further away from a village that she would never see again. A village that would forever be changed by the actions of the only one who felt no fear or apprehension of this Mlădios Nălucă. Something that would destroy any and every fearful tale of what lied beyond the safety of the village.
Corruption made manifest.
Location: Lost Village, Netherworld
Tags:
Darth Vinaze
Five years and seven months, and yet only six days or maybe two weeks, or having just arrived a few moments ago. That's how long Gretchen had lived here by her highly skewed estimate. But, truthfully, it made no real difference and no one else around her seemed to care at the end of it all. Not the chief dealing with the ever-changing laws of the universe's afterlife; not the cooks learning a million new recipes from the village folk originating from a thousand years away from their own mortal lives; not the farmers growing and harvesting crops they couldn't even pronounce; not the children who had taken on new parents after death.
While she herself was a curious case in that she was personally concerned with keeping track of the time spent here, she knew why the others were not. Really, how could they when every second was a year and every year was an hour? When a dozen new souls entered the streets in the light of the shadow mountains, and a hundred lost ones departed into the outskirts of glowing fields, it was hard to really care about the passage of time. There was both time and no time, death and no death, life and no life. The grass - which glowed like starship engines - was both tall and short and felt dry and wet. The trees of impossibly far away yet near forests on the other side of the fields were thin and old while also being thick and fresh. The buildings that made up this village in the land of the dead were archaic yet were furnished with modern amenities. Thusly was it decided after a while that arguments over the facts of time and all that nonsense were pointless, and the people of this village preferred not to care about it at all. Gretchen secretly thought this was a foolish mindset, and her mind was wont to venture into theological discussions with herself as to why the village and the locations around it were like this.
What they preferred to care about was their own personal safety. Often, as children were set to sleep and the adults decided to have a few drinks, the village folk discussed what lay beyond and within the borders of those outskirt fields and forests where so many nameless and formless faces vanished. Of what hid in the crags and corners of the shadow mountains as tall as the distance between a planet and a star. These were always tales of horrors usually beyond imagining and blessings usually beyond comprehension, which Gretchen quite enjoyed during the times she was not farming or talking about this Netherworld with herself. Stories of shadowed ethereal things stalking the day and lit scintillating beasts setting the night aflame, nearly all of them always near but never in full view to be described in detail beyond the aforementioned and big or small, hunched or straight, beastly or humanoid.
Unfortunately for Gretchen, that was all the village's people could produce during these discussions and much was left to the imagination. At least, nearly all but one. One terrible thing that was rarely spoken about, not because of lack of sightings like all the others, but because of fear. True fear for the thing that could kill that which was already dead. Dread for that which dwelt in the glowing fields, in the light of the shadow mountains, and underneath the very village itself.
The tales of this "one," when spoken of, were old and new and infamous, as all things were here. Gretchen quite enjoyed these tales, told only by people who had almost entered those fields and mountains yet backed away, saved by the willpower of their heart or were so stricken with dread that even in death their minds took them to safety. They were the scariest of all stories the village's people told and were the closest to anything she could use to imagine what "the one" was, short of a picture or directly encountering them. It was strong and quick, as well as lithe and agile - like a lion or a Nexu. It was clothed and somewhat armored - at least, that's what the people assumed by the glinting shine that sparked past them - yet seemed bare. It would approach the people telling the tale, at a distance first and then closed in, but was always shrouded in a blur, even when it stood still. But the most confusing aspect of it - or perhaps the most frightening depending on who you were - was the color. It had none, yet it had all. Red would shift to blue, blue to green, pink to yellow to gold to white. And then it would be gone, and sometimes, if those who told the story were with any others...so would those others. Another thing that Gretchen found interesting about this "one" was that it was never given a true name in the entirety of the stories that were told, only a title or a moniker in an apparently dead language spoken by the chief. The translation he would not give, for reasons he would not divulge, but the pronunciation of it spread quickly all the same despite the rarity of its utterance.
Mlădios Nălucă.
Unfortunately for Gretchen, the more she heard of these tales, comparing and contrasting them to the others along with the unfathomability of the land she now resided in - and the more she heard the hushed name - the more she inexplicably became enamored with the idea of encountering it, even at a distance. And thus was her idea set in stone when she heard one too many tales of this Mlădios. She would leave the village as the others fell to their beds, snoring in slumber and hoping to avoid the nightmares of the dangers orbiting their homes. The most recent tale spoke of this Mlădios residing in the mountains, shadowed and giving off faint light of an invisible sun within the rocks. It was an inverted sight and she could remember normal mountains from her mortal life giving off shadows rather than light, but that was a discussion for another day. She ran as quickly as she could without drawing the attention of the others, which was not really as quick as she wanted. The mountains were at the south side of the village, at the end of a moderate stretch of land the farmers used for crops. Fortunately, she was not going completely defenseless - although it must be noted that she was certain to die from this moronic venture. On her side, she held something she vaguely remembered as being a blaster pistol, although she wasn't entirely convinced it would do much should this Mlădios assail her. Still, it was a risk she was willing to take for the sake of...whatever it was that drove her to desire seeing this terrible thing.
The grass of the land sunk under her feet and yet wrapped around it in rope-like strands, and the more she crossed the field, the further away the mountains seemed to grow until, suddenly, she nearly ran into the rocks of the base. A single unmarked and steep path lay near these rocks, traveling far up into the mountains and beckoning her to climb. With a huff of resolve, she did. Climbing and climbing and climbing, Gretchen was carried by her inexplicable desire, self-assured that she would bear witness to this legendary thing, unaware that each step drew her further away from a village that she would never see again. A village that would forever be changed by the actions of the only one who felt no fear or apprehension of this Mlădios Nălucă. Something that would destroy any and every fearful tale of what lied beyond the safety of the village.
Corruption made manifest.
