Humanity Lost (ch 1)

I stood out on a stony precipice that rose from the ground like a bony finger clutching hopelessly for the sun, the rock itself was browned by millennia of dirt and sand being swept across it by powerful winds and the arbitrary rains. On the edge of the spire, I stood almost indistinguishable from the stone in my now brown cloak. At one time this robe was a deep jade green, unmatched in beauty by nature, but now it was hardly good enough to wipe down a muddy horse. I looked no better than the cloak did. I had even forgotten my original name now, and am now called Vereoth. Once I had the trademark silvery hair of people who lived like me but now I was a vague brown color as if the gods had molded me from the stones I rested on. My physique had become laden with heavy muscle to survive the harsh climate. I had once been called “weighty” to my face, but now I was only heavy hearted, as there was no abundance of food on which to thrive.

With cold, hard, green eyes I surveyed the landscape as I had for countless years only to be looked back at, by the same shifting sands and the occasional cactus. My face had taken on a leathery look in this sun. The lips on my face had been full to the point of making me appear ladylike but now they were thin slivers of lighter flesh. A shadow was cast down the dunes making me into a giant though I stood six feet. This was my doomed existence, to watch over the tomb of the final son of Chaos, the man who had once raised me as his own son.

Chaos was a timeless man who had lived longer than anyone else, at least to my knowledge, and was my adoptive father. Chaos was an imposing figure, easily another head and a half over me. His arms looked like tree trunks, pitted with old scars. If you were to approach him from behind you would think him an ogre but one look at his face would sway you otherwise. Soft golden hair framed his stony face, and a short beard covered his mouth. But the eyes are what I noticed, a deep violet like an aged wine. They radiated kindness and set the heart aglow. 5,000 years ago I was laid on the front step of Chaos’ tower stronghold wrapped in swaddling, and there I was found by the kindly man. Never once did he raise neither voice nor hand to me and I always listened to his sage advice. Chaos taught me the ways of magic and the arcane arts. I studied diligently to prove myself to him and to prove myself better than his prodigious children. The boys all had the look of their father about them, and ranged in height but the daughter was definitely her mother’s child. I never saw Chaos wife personally but he had the building coated in her decadence. Portraits of her were always hung in the rooms waiting for a stray traveler or a weary child to walk past them. Her hair was brilliant ebony that shone with the opacity of obsidian. Thick red lips cast in an eternal smile made the viewer know that no harm would befall them in their presence. Under the watchful eyes of my family and the benevolent photos, I excelled at the craft and soon was able to join my mentor on his mercenary like missions, our primary source of income. I saw his 7 boys and his one daughter grow into fine young men and women and then I also saw as they stopped aging at about my age of 30, like their father, and finally I had to ask.

“Father,” for that is what he wished to be called, “why is it that your children stay the same age as you but I grow older?”

“Well my family has had this trait since my great-grandfather, over 70,000 years ago. Sadly he was killed in a horrible accident when he was three thousand.” A small and rather sad look crossed Chaos’ face at mention of this man and I felt that I was at a loss for never meeting him, how wrong I would be. “Ever since then my family has lived forever, barring accidents of course,” Chaos chuckled at this so I knew I was looking at one who had cheated death for years and now could look upon the bane of mortality with a familiar kinship. No, for Chaos had not aged a day since I had known him. I had inquired on this many times after our conversation over his immortality. At the time I wondered why he had to work at all when he could force anyone to do as he pleased, with no way to kill Chaos, who could stop him? It turned out that while he was eternally young he could be killed by old fashioned methods. Chaos father and one of his brothers had been killed in a flood, so this lack of invincibility had been proven.

“But father if I am family why am I not also ageless like you and your children?” Chaos seemed to stare into the wall behind me as if it were an evil creature, eyebrows furrowed and chin pinched between his fingers.

“Well, it isn’t enough that you are family. You aren’t my blood so you did not receive this trait.”


Although I do not think he knew it these words crushed my joy into a deep depression. Imagine how I felt knowing full well that one day I would lie crippled and incontinent on my bed watching as my siblings frolicked around in playful and exuberant youth. My passion from that day on was rediscovering the secrets of the Chaos family’s longevity as this great grandfather must have an eon ago. Days I would spend in the bottom of the tower, desperately pouring over tomes and journals, trying to divine the secret from the ancient texts. Once I even obtained some blood from my brother’s lip when he was hit accidentally during a horse riding competition between us. I used my magic’s to duplicate the single drop of blood into a full person and proceeded to perform vile and twisted experiments on the abomination of flesh. It took years for a full body to grow and for me to be sure it had the immortality gene. At one point I was desperate enough to learn the secret that I drank all the blood I could glean from my brother’s wretched body. He barely survived, though I wish he hadn’t. To this day I can still feel my faux brother’s screams rippling my flesh.

After nearly 50 years I knew time was running out. I was unable to stay awake as long and my bones had become brittle. Although Chaos had vast abilities at his fingers and had extended my life beyond the normal sixty years the common man enjoyed, there was only so much he could do for my mortal body. I was 80 years old and couldn’t complete my days on end of research anymore, so I had one last avenue to turn to… necromancy! I had stumbled upon it when searching for some way to create helpers. The most forbidden of dark arts, necromancy drags the dead from their rest and forces them to a masters will. It is a bastard practice that is shunned and scorned by all who know of its existence. But, it was my only choice.

I stole away my father’s equipment for summonings and conjurations, usually intended for speaking to those in distant places; now for speaking to those dimensions separated, tonight they would know the taint of the damned. In the bottom of the tower, my usual hide away, I set up the portals and large glass tubes that contained the magical energies. The room appeared cramped with the heavy amount of furniture to rest my weary body upon. The table that my brother’s clone lay on took up a good portion of the room as well, for the fake still had the real ones powers and needed to be contained.


After midnight I felt the time was right so I stalked over to where the drained and atrophied form of my brother’s clone laid, lashed to a large stone table and covered in various runic scrawling. I scratched angled figures into arms and legs while the body moaned quietly unable to summon its voice after 30 years of silence. The final preparations were complete, I had nothing left to do but slay the distended body of my treasured friend and I would be able to summon the man who gave this family their immortality. Once I had torn his tortured soul from the beyond I could force an answer out of him. The living world was made intolerably painful to the dead by the gods to prevent their willful return from the grave. This was one of the reasons necromancy is so reviled. The knife hovered over the throat of my brother Asiimash; I think that was his name? I could no longer remember well enough to recall a day past. Time was truly short. The runes lit with an unholy black light and caught fire torching the slab they sat on. The knife plunged of its own accord into the throat of my victim and seemed to drink in the tortured screams as it wound its way past bone and vein to the back of the neck. My mind was tainted by the images I saw before me. Disgusted at myself I dropped the knife knowing now that what I had done was unspeakably horrible. I tried to pry the knife from the struggling throat of my brother to keep some vestige of my humanity, but it wouldn’t budge under my feeble hand. The black fire roaring on the stone crawled up as if alive to consume the carcass on the table, and an unholy noise rose from the glass instruments on the wall; something had gone terribly wrong…



As I tried to use my magic’s against the instruments I had set up, my body quickly became exhausted by the strain and excitement. My hands worked wildly into crazed half runes and weak wardings, all were batted aside by the coalescing power in the center of the symbols. I cursed at myself for my own stupidity and impotence to stop the out of control power in this room. Chairs were hurled at walls by arcs of black lightning and cabinets split in half by concussive explosions. The glass sphere that was to be the container for the soul of the great grandfather of Chaos was aflame in unholy brilliance. I felt so alive as I looked upon it but my soul was pitted with blight by the sight of what was inside. A horned figure reared up in a silhouette amongst the smoke and fire covering the room. The flames licked at my body but I felt no pain only indescribable sadness at what I had done to the world by releasing this, this monstrosity.

“Do not worry human I do not wish to hurt you,” the voice coursed through my wretched self, leaving me physically winded and sick. The beast arched a scaled eyebrow quizzically, “though I might.” A daemon stood before me at an awful 12 feet, head scraping great gouges in the thick stone of the roof. It had horns that rose another foot from its head and then curved to the sides and finished their eye bending trail pointing frontward, waiting to gore an unsuspecting human, I imagine. The body was thick with bestial muscle and the legs ended in hooves instead of feet. Its hands were tipped with great claws that looked incapable of compassion.

“S-s, stay back beast!” I shouted feebly and made a warding gesture with my hands. I knew it in vain but I hoped the damned soul was still under enough of my control to send it away. I was wrong.

“I’m afraid that you hold no sway over me mortal. I congratulate you on your successful summoning of one such as me though!” with this the creature let out a horrible laugh that made me vomit. It saw my confusion and gave a grand wave of its hand and an overdone bow. “I am Chaos the first, great grandfather of your ‘father’.”

I could only stand in shock as I saw the faint resemblances in the face of this creature and my benevolent guardian. “I deny you hell spawn my caretaker is not the kin of the likes of you!” with this the daemon laughed again.

“You are a fool if you deny me as such. What do you think I would look like, hmm? Do you believe the gods don’t punish those that steal from them!” my jaw dropped, my mind was racing as I stared dartingly about the room grasping for a glance at reality, it never came. “Oh, I see. My great grandson left out how I gained the power of immortality.

“How do you know my father spoke to me of this!” my voice quavered as my confidence was shaken by this malevolent figure.“Well let me tell you what really happened…” and again the beast laughed.


I was a young man, about 20 or so and I was venturing the world trying to make my fortune as most men do, when I came across a rumor about a gateway to the immortal realm. Of course I dismissed it as superstition, until one day I was traveling with a group of sell-swords. A man propositioned us for a trip to this supposed gate and I took the job as it paid well and since I thought it a fairy tale I saw it as easy money, no work. I and the man traveled for weeks through every imaginable climate, rain one day and scorching sun the next even a blizzard, until I was sure the gods were trying to slow us down. Of course in the omnipotence of hindsight I was right.

All at once it seemed the weather had given up and we had smooth and clear travel for days, but on the 8th day of walking a storm struck. The wind howled until I thought I would go deaf and the rain fell in solid sheets. Lightning split every tree for miles and finally the man I was traveling with was hit by a falling branch. The tree pinned him down so that removing it would only cause more damage to him. I held him until the sun came up hoping some help would come by but no one appeared. The man bled slowly to death over the next few days. I had to go on though and prove to myself that this trip was for some purpose so I placed the mans body in a makeshift pack and carried him to the point he said the gate to the gods lay. I reached the spot and found ruins that must have been from the godly realm. The buildings were hundreds of feet tall and had to be centuries old. I walked past the grand structures all day and felt ready to give up. Finally I buried the mysterious traveler who never got a chance to see his mystic gate. As I rounded the corner of a pillar though I saw it, a glowing hole in the middle of nothing. No defined border was around its edge and it could hardly be called a gate as no fence could have stood up against it. The colors swirled gently and varied as if a new kind of rainbow had been made just for this place. I walked awe struck up to it and placed my hand against what I supposed was the next world, it felt soft and warm. I pressed against the boundary and heard a chime of crystal as the ‘gate’ slowly gave way. I passed through it and felt the calm of what had to be eternity wash over my body. There I saw a grand palace with birds of paradise walking its paths and small brooks lining its beautiful gardens. The main part of the castle was foreboding in its absolute height, it was impossible to say how tall the structure was as it reached above a cloud.

There were several creatures running between buildings some carrying food and others various godly items, but the ones that concerned me were the ones carrying weapons. I slowly walked up to the side of a bright and highly gilded building that ended in a dramatic golden cone that had a shining star placed atop it. My eye caught a sight of a doorframe that opened of its own accord as I approached it. I knew immediately why no one was near this building, it was a treasure room! Golden devices with fine jewelry coated the walls and coins of varying age littered the floor. In the center though was a small ball of pure light glowing over top of a pedestal. The feeling I got from it was perfection, all my worries and cares would be insignificant if I touched this orb, and I could nearly hear a small squeaking voice call to me. The impulse was followed through on before my mind could catch up and I quickly stole the ball from its point on the pedestal. A cool shock ran through my veins and the ball gave a powerful shudder and a bright flash of light, illuminating the intricate carvings of the stone doors. My body reverberated with energies and I was crying in exultation. I knew that I had become immortal though I didn’t know why I knew. Another piece of information that came with this insight was that what I had done was not going to be easily accepted by the rightful owner of the ball. I dropped the orb as it had served its purpose and ran for my now endless life.

Even the immortal can feel pain so I fled through the gardens kicking aside birds and flowers. I could hear the sounds of pursuit behind me. I had no intention of testing my skills against the defenders of the gods. Arrows whistled past me at astounding speeds and embedded themselves in stone walls. I knew then my armor would be no use except as an impediment to my flight. I tore the leather armor from my body as I dashed towards the ever nearing gate. I knew the defenders were gaining on me as I heard swords being drawn from their scabbards. Just as my salvation was nearly reached the ground in front of me rippled violently and 4 enormous warriors clad in armor jumped from the ground spraying the marble from their body as if they rose from sand. Only sheer luck saved me from death as a sword the size of a horse cart carved a path through the air my head had just occupied. I had tripped and bounced hard on the ground and slid a few feet putting me halfway through the gateway. My pants were clutched in the iron grips of my pursuers and I felt them drag me backwards, that was when I realized they couldn’t pass through the barrier as I had or they surely would have continued in pursuit! Quickly I grasped for any hold I could get, desperately pulling and kicking in an attempt to free myself. Then it happened, my pants tore off at the knee and I fell violently forward and collided face first with an iron statue.

I awoke several hours later and began to run senselessly in any direction I could until I passed out from exhaustion. This cycle continued for years as I tried to evade those who may be after me. I was in a state of shock and I had no intention of being tortured for an eternity. Finally after many a year I stopped and just sat down until a couple came by with their family on their way to town. I hitched a ride with them and eventually became good friends with them all. Never once did they question my ageless face and the fact that I never had to eat with them. They had so little and I had no wish to take anymore than I already had since I could now go without food, for I had stolen the heart of their daughter. Romance blossomed with the spring apples and we soon were engaged. Eventually we were married and had several children; all whom I believe lived for quite a while.

Sadly she passed away as all the mortal do and I was left with nothing to console me since the children had gone. A vacuum appeared in my life that I needed to fill and although many women were up to the task none was the right fix. For a long time I was in a terrible state of distress, what is a man to do with eternity? I was given an answer in a dream. The man who had led me to my salvation came to me in the night while I slept and told me of the mysterious powers of magic. He told me that he had fooled me into entering the gate by faking his death because only the non magical could break through the barrier. I felt disgusted at myself and mortified at the mysterious man for the treachery that had befallen me, but he had given me immortality, somewhat. From that day on the man would appear every night in my dreams to try and teach me magic as a repayment for his lies. Finally I learned how to touch the swirling abyss of the aether, and that was the biggest mistake of my life. The man in my dreams was not a man at all but a god who was trying to get me to touch magic so he and his allies could use this common ground between the dimensions to exact their revenge on me. As soon as I reached out for the magic I was swept away to the personal torture rooms of the darkest of the daemons. The result of their work is the ‘man’ you see before you today. My flesh was burned to cause it to dry and itch until I scratched it off on my own, then ants were set upon me to scour the remaining skin. I was whipped, scalded, mutilated, stretched and garroted but never did I die, for the immortal only is reborn only to die again.


With his story done the man I saw shrouded in pain before me became clear and I felt a small tear well up in pity. As I glanced around my neck was bruised from a fall and I seemed to have broken my leg, no longer could I work on developing my cure for death. Even with the person who caused the trait appearing before me the answer was an enigma as I could hardly make it back to my chambers, nonetheless to the gate of the gods and back out. Now the only thing left to do was wait for the cold hands of death to strangle the remains of life out of the old bones I occupied.

“I can see you understand that the immortality will never be yours, at least by your own methods.” The daemon quirked his terrible voice with this last phrase and looked at me like a cat does a mouse hole.

“What do you mean, ‘my own methods’?” instantly I could see that I had walked into the trap right in front of me but I had no other choices. With a shuddering laugh the daemon told me of his twisted plan to give me immortality and at the same time ensuring his freedom from the cursed body he occupied. I was to provide a working body using my newly acquired dark arts for Chaos the first, great-grandfather of Chaos. In return he would provide his souls immortality through the same dark arts; this kept both of us alive. In order to create a proper body for Chaos the first to live in though, I had to sacrifice someone similar to him, my family.

With minimal sleep and even less energy I was forced to take samples of hair or blood and even urine to gather enough tissue so I could begin the process of growing a body that had all the traits needed to keep Chaos the first alive. This time I didn’t have 20 years to wait for the body to mature naturally and so I was forced to take my necromantic powers another step from raising new bodies to draining the life force from a living victim, speeding the aging process. As the body grew into the infant stage though Chaos began to suspect that something was not right in the home and proceeded to search every room to discover the source of his uneasiness. My final mistake was trying to drain life from a member of the Chaos family; the magic was felt by every single one of my 7 brothers and my sister including Chaos. The spell had begun and terrible glass cracking screams rose from the throat of the mutt body and its convulsions threw it spasmodically across the room. A pair of dark beams issued forth from the palms of my hand and cast into the body, shaking loose the life and the backlash carried the life back to my grasping fingers. My body did not grow healthier as it would normally; as you cannot drain health from yourself and I had incorporated myself into the body. Finally the desired age had been reached and the body was ready to have its soul consumed and replaced by this creature. Without warning Chaos blew through the heavy wood door as if it were tissue paper, the bits of wood flew across the room and struck me.

“LEAVE MY HOUSE AND MY FAMILY NOW CHILD OF HELL! YOU SHALL NOT REAP THE DAMNED FROM MY CHILDREN!” with that a ball of searing lightning flew from Chaos hand and struck down the drained body reducing it to mere ash.

I could not move or respond, as what I had done over the last few decades came crashing on top of me in a hurricane. My mind was twisted with guilt and confused half apologies, so that all that came out was. “I-i-i-I’m sorry, Chaos and my siblings”.

“I know you are my boy but leave now lest I forget who you are and kill you.” All I could do was shuffle away from my safe and secure life that I had thrown away over a foolish fear. I cursed the day I had asked why I must age, but I also cursed my own weakness at stopping my fear from controlling me. The beast was there in my mind speaking to me but I couldn’t hear nor did I want to. Now that I didn’t have the body for Asmodeus to travel into he would have to remain in my mind until I found a way to oust him.