Threads of the Soul

The first thing Seth would have noticed upon poking his little figurine head out of the corpses clothes was the thick, almost oppressive metallic stench of blood. There was so much iron in the air that a TSA agent would be trying to frisk it.

Now, You would think that is a stench that he would have been used to by now, with how much he has personally killed and the waves of beasts he has cut down, and you would be right, for the most part.

One must understand that the overwhelming nature of this stench was not its origin, but instead a matter of pure scale. It was like the difference between smelling a single turd in front of you versus an entire football field of faeces piled as high as the pyramids.

The blood stench Seth had grown accustomed to was from smaller hunting skirmishes or from a single large beast. The most he had been faced with was the armies, but neither of the ones he had faced up until this point had been more than a hundred strong at any given time. Numbers get difficult to track when your enemy is constantly making new ones, you see.

It was also helped by the multitude of people who took it upon themselves to clean the battle fields or deal with the fresh meat. It was easier to mask the stench of a beasts corpses if you turned it into a freshly cooked steak, after all.

In contrast, this wretched odour was from thousands of corpses, with some smells lingering for months and mixing with the fresh kills to make an even more vile odour. There was no care for the concept of 'cleaning', nor was there any hate for the vile odour. It was as if he had stepped deep into the lair of a wicked, ever hungry beast or, even worse, a boys locker room. One shudders at the thought.

Thankfully for Seth's olfactory system, he could in fact not partake in the horrendous odour that was drowning the concept of fresh air, since for this excursion he had chosen not to use his new ability and possess his puppet. Instead he opted for the classic control scheme. but not simply out of nostalgia.

Although doing it in this way meant he lacked a certain finesse to his actions, as well as sacrificed senses such as touch or smell, Seth was not confident in the idea of sending his vulnerable soul behind enemy lines.

He had already had his soul scorched and shattered once before, and that once was more than enough for his entire lifetime. The sacrifice would just have to be worth it, and if there were any hints of him repeating his previous incident, Seth wouldn't hesitate to drop the connection immediately.

However, even without the ability to smell the oh so delightful aroma permeating his surroundings, that did not mean Seth was completely ignorant to the situation, nor the amount of death that had occurred in this single location.

A cursory glance was enough to tell him that he was in the middle of an open courtyard, with high stone walls on three sizes and a wide archway in the wall behind him. The walls themselves were composed of large, stone blocks intricately placed together, with battlements placed at the top of the walls either side of him.

Of course, that wasn't the most interesting feature of the walls. If he had to say what that would be, then it would definitely have to be the corpses hanging from the walls like lanterns lighting up the night.

It was difficult to say what exactly killed some of these creatures, since all of them had been freed of their skin so that their musculature may show freely. In fact it was difficult to say what some of them even were. Most of them were missing a variety of limbs, perhaps to facilitate better blood-flow or simply to satiate something's hunger.

But it was impossible to miss that some of them were suspiciously humanoid in shape, even if they were missing certain key features like their head or a leg.

A variety of runes littered the walls, all very crudely drawn and smeared on with blood, because of course it was. God forbid they used spray cans like civilised people. But even with Seth's limited knowledge, it was easy to understand these markings were not just mindless graffiti.

They were almost... ritualistic. Hundreds of smaller runes were arranged in a surprisingly perfect circle, surrounding a much larger rune that was situated in the middle of the circle. This shape was definitely not accidental either, as they had drawn the circle around the smaller ones, as well as around the larger one to separate them, before adding in more details to the outer ring of the circle.

These geometric horror shows were positioned on the wall behind each and every corpse they had hanging up, each design identical in every way, except for minor differences of craftsmanship. Not a single corpse was missed, nor were they hung in a way that forced the circles to overlap.

As if the purpose of these designs wasn't made obvious, it rhythmically pulsed with power like a living heartbeat. With every pulsation, blood was drawn from the corpses and flowed through the air like crimson serpents. The rivers of blood stayed suspended above the ground as they winded their way towards the middle of the courtyard, where they congregated together.

Small wisps of light, like fireflies in the night sky, danced around the hanging corpses and the rivers of blood. The wisps each projecting slightly different colours of light and moving in an erratic way. It added a strange and macabre beauty to the otherwise grim atmosphere, although Seth couldn't quite figure out their purpose in the grander scheme.

Despite the presence of these enigmatic wisps, each scarlet river flowed without interruption into a giant pit that had been dug into the middle of the courtyard, a pit that was large enough for a dozen elephants to frolic inside happily.

Crouched around the pit was half a dozen Hemogoblin mages, exactly who Seth expected to see. Of course, with this much blood involved, how could he not see Hemogoblins being involved?

The mages were hard at work, slowly and methodically drawing more and more symbols around the edge of the pit as it slowly but surely filled with blood. With a blood filled bucket in one of their wretched little hands and a severed finger in the other, the mages used the fingers like paintbrushes as they worked.

The most worrisome part of their little ritual was not how they were performing it or how many had to have died to carry it out, but was in fact the sight of it nearing completion. Seth had no idea how deep the pit was, nor its purpose, but he could see the blood within inching closer and closer to the marked edges.

No doubt the corpse he hitched a ride in would end up contributing to this profane ritual. It was no wonder they had been so aggressive and relentless in their attacks.

Seth just hoped that the result of this ritual would be an enormous army of fodder for him to cut through and cull with his wonderful new abilities. While that was an odd thing to hope for, it truly was the best outcome he could imagine from such a thing.

Although, Unfortunately some part deep within him knew that an outcome like that just wasn't likely. Whilst he couldn't understand a majority of the runes they were using, since they were written in that odd sub-language his teacher had been studying before his.. untimely demise. Seth could nonetheless still feel a terrible malice emanating from each new rune they added to the edge of the pit.

Deciding that he had seen enough from this particular vantage point, and not wanting to have his spy discovered when they were preparing this corpse for blood donation, Seth had Geets quickly dart from beneath the clothes and scamper up the nearest wall.

His little hands dug into the crevices between each heavy stone blood as his surprisingly powerful fingers, thanks to Seth's passive upgrading of his puppets, easily dug into the mortar to create ideal handholds.

Before he knew it, he had reached the top of the wall and was promptly throwing himself off of it. Landing on a gargoyle that was positioned on the outer side of the defensive walls, Seth found himself with a wonderful view of the city.

Of course, even without the view of the city, it would have been obvious where he had ended up. Honestly he should have expected it as soon as he laid eyes upon these horrible creatures and their bloodstained hats.

The base of operations of their enemy, and the location they would need to raid to finally be safe from said enemy, was something Scotland was strangely famous for. At the top of a hill, in the middle of the destroyed city of Thraven, little Geets had found himself inside of a castle.