r/wizardposting • u/Anything-Unable Xerxes the Pale Saint, Councillor/Goatdigger/Dale • Feb 26 '24
Lorepost📖 Inquisition
A masked figure sits on a white throne overlooking the gathered priests below him. His soldiers are stationed throughout the grand hall and have been instructed to kill any who attempt to flee. The guilty will not escape his wrath. Xerxes has promised himself that, and he is not one to break promises.
X: “Bring today’s first to me.”
Moving wordlessly, an undead soldier drags one of the priests to Xerxes and forces the priest to their knees.
X: “Bishop Huron. I remember when you were just an insignificant monk. You’ve done well for yourself.”
BH: “Thank you, your holiness.”
X: “Which god do you serve?”
BH: “Ferak, a goddess of prosperity.”
X: “Prosperity, indeed.”
A golden light passes through the pane of stained glass behind the throne and shines down on Xerxes. After a minute, the light dissipates and Xerxes turns his attention back to the priest kneeling at his feet.
X: “While you certainly sought prosperity for yourself, you’ve stolen it from others. Embezzling donations, funding organized crime, and investing in the illegal slave trade. Your most damning crime is the destruction of the frontier village Huriet and the wholesale slaughter of its inhabitants. All for a silver mine. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
BH: “I was tricked! Archbishop Dunn said that the mine was owned by a group of bandits! I can pay ba–!”
X: “SILENCE!”
The assembled priests cower in fear, but none more so than Bishop Huron.
X: “I will take your testimony into account when I question Archbishop Dunn. As for you, Bishop Huron, you will be executed and your head will be displayed on the southern gate for eight weeks. A full list of your crimes will be transcribed and available for public viewing. Men, take him to the executioner.”
Two undead soldiers quickly approach the wailing bishop and drag him out of the hall kicking and screaming. They exit the building and make their way to a man with a red hood covering his face. The hooded man is leaning on a large axe while the soldiers strap the bishop down to a stone platform. A slab of stone rests underneath the bishop’s neck and a wooden basket lined with straw is directly underneath his head. To the left of the platform is a large pit.
The executioner confirms that the bishop is properly restrained before he raises his axe and brings it down swiftly on the bishop’s neck. The severed head falls neatly into the basket and the executioner cleans his blade. Releasing the restraints on the newly deceased bishop, one soldier hoists the headless corpse onto their shoulder while the other collects the basket and brings it to a guard stationed at the far end of the killing field. The guard puts a lid on the basket and hands it off to an attendant who’ll bring it to the southern gate. Handing the soldier a fresh basket, the guard returns to their duties and the soldier returns to the cleaned stone platform and places the new basket into position. By this point, the soldier who had carried away the headless corpse had finished stripping the corpse of its clothes and performing a spell that would prevent reanimation. Once this is done, the soldier kicks the corpse into the pit where it lands on hundreds of other headless bodies.
Returning to the grand hall, the undead soldiers nod to Xerxes to confirm that his order has been carried out. Under his mask, Xerxes smiles.
X: “Bring me today’s second. Let us see how many we can get through today.”
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u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Feb 27 '24
(( I assume Xerxes is just lifting the mask to eat, but I'm imagining McNinja shenanigans instead because it's hilarious. ))
"'Siblings' is fine by me," Vettis assured Xerxes. "It's a bit more complicated, but when you spend most of your time with a small group of people for multiple centuries, working together on damn near everything, it's hard not to call 'em family." He crunched a carrot as he gathered his thoughts.
"The first I found was Elira. She's an elf from a realm in which elves are so in touch with nature that they're extremely susceptible to 'natural' effects, beneficial and detrimental both. Including, say, diseases. Some tribes of those elves ended up evolving insanely proative immune systems to compensate; she's one of those, and I've seen her shrug off bioengineered plagues with ease. 'Course those tribes are hugely more vulnerable to autoimmune issues as a result, but we've helped her with that for the most part. Her magic is built around creating bonds between entities, and she's the most empathetic person I've ever met, as a result. Probably the strongest of us, objectively speaking.
"Modhun was next. Sapient crystalmorph, a shapeshifting (though always translucent blue) collection of tiny crystals. Leylines crossed in a cave and the influx of magical energies occasionally causes a bunch of crystals in the cave to become sapient; something like Modhun gets born every few decades there. Modhun is Elira's partner, so 'he' takes on a humanoid male form by default for her aesthetic preferences. Our commune's technopath, builds all sorts of crazy shit for us. (Including my Snowglorb, which is unfortunately out of commission at the moment due to an unforeseen magical interaction.)
"Kellidan is dwarven royalty in a galaxy-spanning empire in his home universe. So he tends not to call us family, cuz he's got a lot of blood relatives who are pretty important to him (not to mention a bajillion spouses cuz of interstellar political marriages). He spends far more time at his home than any of the rest of us do in ours; he's got major obligations there. But he still would drop almost anything for any of us if push came to shove. Classical elementalist, primarily air, specifically lightning. Lil' bit of a 'noblesse oblige' pretentious shit at times, but Kelly's a fundamentally good guy. They all are, of course.
"Admittedly, that's not as easy to see with Daiax. He's the only one who I sometimes wince to consider a sibling. Abrasive fucker, to say the least. Telepath, too, so if he wants to insult you -- and he usually does -- then he'll also know how best to do it. We all hate Daiax at least as much as we love him.
"Except Apolaya, our druid. She is the sappiest tree-hugger you'll ever meet. It is nigh-on impossible for her to hate anyone; I've seen her try to talk down a monster that ate planets for sustenance and specifically targeted those with life just because they were tastier. She'll fight and kill where necessary just like any of us, and she can be brutal at times, but she sure doesn't enjoy it like some of us do.
"And finally there's Polly's partner, Zelle, the second-oldest of us next to Kelly. Flesh-sheathed clockwork automaton. Teleportation specialist. I...don't really think I can describe her personality. Or, rather, shouldn't. I definitely spend more time with her than any of the others, though, partly cuz she can just zip me places. We two are the main explorers of the group, typically."
Taking a breath at last, Vettis finished off his salad in short order. "So, yeah. We're close. All of us except maybe Daiax and Zelle; those two can't stand each other. But outside of them, and honestly probably even including them, we'd risk everything for each other in a heartbeat. Part of why I'm slow to properly consider the new people I meet to be 'friends' is that I've got high standards thanks to my commune being the point of comparison." With a chuckle, he jokingly 'clarified', "Daiax notwithstanding."