Vortex

Return to RP Stories

" This is the point from which I will die and succeed.

 Living the struggle, I know I'm alive when I bleed.

 From now on it can never be the same as before.

 Cause the place I'm from doesn't exist anymore."

- Immortal Technique: Point of no Return.

Vortex
Azai suddenly woke up.. How long had he slept? Probably one hour at best. The young troll was tired, very tired. The last few days he had hardly slept, constantly watchful for any sign of danger. Plagued by an feeling of anger and paranoia, the ice cold grip of insanity began to take hold of him. The lonely existence of an wanderer had become an enormous burden for a troll that had always been accompanied by friends and tribesmen. Azai was very capable of surviving on his own, but he had never been really alone. Not in this way. Azai knew no one had his back this time. The increased paranoia had become worse last days, because of a series of encounters with the Scourge. The first encounter was just a day after the exhausting chase. A few undead had found him, while he was fast asleep. Luckily Azai woke up in time and rapidly grabbed the axe next to him. This time there was no possibility of fleeing. Four undead soldiers gazed upon him, without any hesitation the undead attacked. Azai had bashed in the skull of the first attacker, but was stabbed by the second. The sight of his own blood had caused Azai to go berserk. An primal rush had thundered through his body, bringing on an tunnel vision. The young forest troll brutally slayed the attacker, before ploughing through the rest of the rotskins. Although he had slain his attackers, they had still wounded him. Pain he had not felt during the conflict.

The second encounter had been two or three days after the conflict with the four undead soldiers. This time he had been surprised by an ear-splitting screech, an horrific cry. Azai had covered his ears, but the screams went through flesh and bone. He had quickly checked from which direction these screams had came, only to see a lady-like figure looming up between the trees. The banshee passed through the trees, not paying any attention to Azai. Azai had been frozen of fear. The banshee had left as fast as she had appeared, leaving Azai with a heart attack (not literally).

The third encounter had been completely Azai’s fault. From a small hill he had spotted a few houses. In a rush of curiosity he had moved towards the little town. The houses had looked abandoned, even by undead. Azai had slowly entered the town, even now the town had looked silent and abandoned. But the town hadn’t been abandoned, well it might’ve been abandoned by life, but not by unlife. The moment Azai had stepped into one of the houses, an icy scream screeched through the house. A banshee appeared out of nowhere, startling Azai. He had quickly ran out of the house, only to find him being surrounded by the other sisters of filth, the banshees. The young troll had never fought these creatures, Azai didn’t even know if his weapons would harm them. However Azai’s instinct quickly took over from his ratio. He quickly grabbed a small vial dangling from his clothing. While the ladies of pain had started to engage him. He had drawn a ritual knife he had previously imbued with a potion, scaring off the banshees. With a subtle move Azai had popped open the vial and had drank the disgusting concoction. His surroundings had immediately turned to grey, his enemies had disappeared.. At least that was what he was seeing. It had been him, who had disappeared. The concoction had faded his body and made him invisible for a short time. The mixture of rotten Fade Leaf and dried Steelbloom had worked. Azai quickly took off, into the hazy grey woods. He had escaped.. Again..

Luckily Azai had ran off into the right direction. He had spotted multiple troll footprints a few days after the encounter, finally a little bit of light after days of darkness. However the process of isolation and loneliness had not been stopped. Pain, anger and paranoia had returned, a few hours after finding the prints. Insanity was touching him and Azai started to grow desperate. Only the Loa could help him now. And that was exactly what Azai had done, he had turned to the Loa. He sacrificed every being he encountered, slaying and burning numerous undead in the name of Samedi. And in the case of no nearby victims he would start to cut into his own body, only to appease the eternal bloodlust of the Loa. In his desperation Azai started to take greater risks. Ambushing undead patrols and even high elf rangers. No matter how bad he’d get hurt, he needed to appease the Loa. Above all, they were the only saviours left.

Recklessness and insanity had taken over, backed up by an volatile concoction of anger, hate and paranoia. Azai had become very instable and absurdly violent, where he usually had refrained from using serious violence he had now developed an lust for blood. Sacrificing to the Loa had become an obsession. He had become the predator, they had become the prey. It was the will of the Loa, and the Loa had to be appeased.

For days he had wandered the plagued lands of former Darrowmere. Days of fear, pain, fatigue and paranoia. At a certain point Azai fell to the ground, completely exhausted. He had slept immediately...

Azai woke up and quickly got himself back on his feet. He then grabbed his stuff and ate a little bit of his rations. There hadn’t been much rations left since Azai had entered the Plaguelands, but the cannibalized elves had proven a good meal once in a while. Azai checked his surroundings, everything looked the same after a while and he had absolutely no idea where he was. But it wasn’t the first time he got lost in these forests, so he decided to head into a random direction. Just so he wouldn’t have to think about the fact that he was lost in the middle of Scourge territory as well as the feeling of paranoia and fear that was creeping up on him once again. He walked for hours, at least so it seemed. But suddenly Azai stopped.. He heard something.. Or did he imagine he heard something? No, no he did hear something.. The sound of weapons clashing.. A warcry. A warcry in a tongue he understood! Zandali. Azai, quickly grabbed a hold of his axe and ran in the direction of the sound. There he found two green trolls almost completely surrounded by undead. One of the trolls was severely hurt, his arm had almost completely been cut off. The other troll was guarding his wound comrade fearsomely with a spear. About six to seven undead were approaching the trolls with their weapons drawn. Azai froze for a moment.. These trolls had to be Mossflayers.. His brethren.. Azai stood next to a tree behind the undead, about ten metres away from the conflict. He didn’t hesitate a moment. Azai grabbed his axe firmly and charged the undead in their backs, screaming out an ancient warcry in Zandali. The undead quickly turned around, but Azai’s axe already made his first victim. The first undead body hadn’t even reached the ground before Azai mowed down the second undead. The undead were surprised by the sudden attack from behind, as well as the two trolls. However the Mossflayer, who had been protecting his comrade, rapidly took advantage of the situation. His spear thrusted into the rotten back of one of the undead. Four undead were still alive and stood against two trolls on the verge of berserking. One of the rotskins lunged at Azai. He tried to evade the attack, but the rotskin did hit him. The crude blade sunk into abdomen, Azai felt the pain, immediately triggering an rage. The pain fell away, his senses were sharper than ever and his muscles were filled with an ancient energy. Azai quickly reacted and bashed in the skull of his attacker. The other Mossflayer, clearly went berserk as he threw away his spear and just went over to unarmed combat. Shattering the skull of one undead with his bare hands, he punched the second undead to the ground and started bashing into the body. All of the undeads bones were getting smashed by the troll. After that kill, Azai and the Mossflayer stood up and teamed up against the last walking corpse.

The Mossflayer looked at the body, after which he stared at Azai. “Who ya be?”, the Mossflayer asked on a harsh tone. “Azai.. Azai’Zao.”, Azai quickly muttered. The Mossflayer, who was clearly older than Azai, suddenly stiffed and eyed him up and down. Azai noticed the surprise in the eyes of the troll, but before Azai had the opportunity to ask anything about the surprise, the wounded comrade screamed out. He was in a terrible pain. His arm had been cut off and several smaller wounds had been inflicted on his body. Azai quickly walked towards the wounded troll. The stump was bleeding like crazy and the troll began to faint. Azai immediately ripped off a part of his linen kilt and bandaged the wound. While keeping the pressure on the wound, Azai reached out for a flask of Wildvine. While Azai was saying quick prayers to the Loa, the other Mossflayer took over the pressure-keeping and Azai opened the vial of Wildvine, which he poured into the throat of the wounded troll. Azai hoped that the pressure in combination with the Wildvine would stop the massive bleeding and the regeneration would take over the rest. After a few seconds the troll stopped to bleed, Azai and the other Mossflayer carried him away from the scene.

After about a half hour carrying the wounded Mossflayer, the fellowship arrived at a few hills. There was a path leading into the hills and two Mossflayer warriors were guarding it. The guards noticed the fellowship and rushed towards the wounded troll, not paying any attention to Azai. One of the warriors gave him some water, while the other one took over the carrying. Azai and the warriors dragged the wounded troll into the hills. The air was hazy and Azai could hardly look further then 3 metres. But after a short walk, the air cleared up a bit and there it was.. A small poor city.. Zul’Mashar.