This is the first of several vignettes I'll be writing as I develop the Cult meta-plot; of course, keeping in mind the fact that every world and every meta-plot will be procedurally generated to some extent, the names are just stand-ins.
These will go up on the Cult website fairly soon, once it's completely designed and the game and forums are ready for an initial launch.
Warning: Contains Spoilers. If you ever want to play the game WITHOUT knowing the meta-plot, you should avoid reading this.
Cult - Gareth's Tale
The voyager gazed through the wide open expanse of white-gray snow and shadow, willing his legs to continue methodically plodding forward despite the fact that his muscles were burning and he felt as if he were trudging through congealed soup. It didn't help that he was bundled up in so many layers that the simple act of walking, even under normal circumstances, would have been awkward. Normally wearing so much over his thick fur would have resulted in runnels of sweat soaking his entire body within minutes, but in this ice-cold wasteland he felt as if he'd still be shivering if he'd piled on twice as many clothes.
He set his teeth in a grimace and continued forward. He knew that he must be getting close to his destination; he would either find it or die trying. There were not enough supplies to make the trip back to Orthenheim unaided. Even with his slow Prestalgani metabolism, he would need more food than the few meager scraps he'd managed to save to get himself back to civilization. For a moment he pictured the warm highlands of his homeland, nights spent gazing up at the stars next to a cozy campfire; the safe, comforting dome-ceiling of a Prestalgani yurt, and the soft and furry curves of a she-nomad to share it with him... but he knew he was only tantalizing himself with such fantasies, and he forced them out of his mind and thought instead of what awaited him at the end of his long journey.
Immortality. Ascent to godhood and unquenchable power. A chance to reshape the world in his image... if, of course, he succeeded. If he failed, there would be only death.
He had wandered long and far just to make it this far into the hostile tundra he was now fighting against with every step. He had spent the last thirty years of his life in a seemingly endless search that had finally brought him here, each whispered rumor guiding him from town to town, camp to camp, tribe to tribe. He had been to the great cities of Yldramar and he had sailed every ocean in the world. He had witnessed sights that would have made any of his fellow nomads lose their minds. He had fought in wars on three continents and had survived them all. And he had killed many to bring himself here. Their blood was on his paws; dozens, perhaps hundreds of faces, male and female, child and elder, from every race and creed that populated the wide world. He felt no remorse, but at times they haunted him.
This was not one of those times. The looming spectre of his own death was more than enough to drive away any thoughts of those who were already food for the crawling things. It was becoming unbearably cold. Another step, then another, then one more...
Far away, he thought he saw a faint glimmer. His entire body tensed, and he subconsciously increased his pace; his breath came quicker with his excitement, exiting his long snout and forming misty-white clouds in the dry, freezing air just ahead of him. The glimmer briefly disappeared, and he wondered for a few maddening seconds if it had only been his mind playing tricks on him. He had lost an eye long ago in the course of his wanderings, but his good eye still saw clearly, and he trusted it. But the light was clearly gone. His heart sank.
But no, there it was again! It was no more than a mile in the distance, high up against the black background of the looming and cloudless sky. There were no moons on this night, and the only illumination came from the winking stars.
The next half an hour was painful. He urged his body forward at a pace that seemed slower than a beetle's crawl, yet his muscles ached with such fatigue that he nearly had to stop and rest. Ignoring them, he pushed onward, offering himself no mercy in what he hoped would be this final stretch towards the knowledge that he so desperately needed.
The Khwal'zin had denied that the old one was one of their own; they said that he had lived here in the deep of the cold wilds since long before their most ancient elders were but nestlings. And the Khwal'zin lived long lives by any race's standards. There was always the possibility that it was just rumor - or what the Khwal would call 'moon-talk' - but if he believed that to be the case, he never would have risked life and limb on a mad sojourn into this ice-hell. The signs had all pointed to this place; all of the evidence had led him to the conclusion that the old one was the link he needed to proceed.
Suddenly, the light seemed to rise up directly above him. He could see now that it was the top window of a tall, thin stone keep that stabbed, needle-like, into the black heights over him. How anyone had ever managed to dig into the rock-hard frozen earth here to lay the foundations for such a structure, he could only guess. It almost looked as if it were a lighthouse out here in the sea of white; the top even appeared to bulge out and then taper into a sort of pointed tip.
The door was a narrow stone slab that must have turned on internal hinges. There was no knocker or mechanism by which to open it from the outside, and he hesitated as he approached it. Should he call out in the hopes that someone inside would hear him? But it seemed mad to believe that anything could be heard over the roar of the wintry winds, especially through thick stone walls.
All at once, however, the door slid noiselessly inwards as if pushed. His breath caught, and he stared into the yawning black archway. A tinge of fear made his fur stand on end, but he quickly pushed it aside. He had not come this far by listening to his fears. He swallowed cold air and strode forward through the doorway. He had not taken more than three steps inside when he heard a loud click and the feeble light of the stars disappeared completely; the door had swung shut once more.
One by one, candles flamed into life along a winding spiral stairway that led up to the peak of the tower. He stood at the very base of the stairs and considered his options. There was obviously magic at play here, but this did not surprise him; he had dealt with many magics, as could be expected during the course of a quest such as the one he had undertaken, and while he did not trust it, he knew that the power was useful. He had even dabbled here and there where it suited him, but never too deeply. He cared less for the poor, pauper-like imitation that was mortal magic; he was interested in obtaining true power.
At any rate, whoever dwelt here - whether or not it was the old one - might or might not be leading him into a trap, but there seemed to be little he could do at this point to escape. He suspected the door was firmly sealed behind him, and he had no intention of going back into the harsh cold outside when he appeared to have found something resembling what the old Khwal tracker had described as the place he was looking for. So he did the only thing that made sense and made his way up the stairs, glad of the sudden warmth that flooded his body now that he had at least temporary shelter from the deadly tundra.
There was another door once he reached the end of the stairs, this one a simple wooden affair with a brass handle. He set a paw on it and wondered what would come next. Then he twisted it slowly and pushed it forward. He was in a room at the very top of the tower - clearly the one from whence the light had been emanating. A cheery fire blazed into a chimney at one end of the room, and a large and intricate glass lantern hung from the ceiling.
His gaze was immediately drawn to the only other person in the room; it was hunched over in a chair by the fire, a long and straight wooden staff in its lap. Two hands tufted with scraggly white fur were folded over the staff. It was impossible to make out the thing's face, features, or even race; it had on a great gray robe with the hood drawn up over its head.
Without moving, it began to speak. The voice was decidedly male; it sounded like a slab of granite being scraped over a sheet of thick ice. "Greetings, Gareth of Prestalga, greetings. You must be cold. Please, warm yourself by my fire."
He was alarmed that the old creature - whatever it was - knew his name. But the occult had ceased to break his composure years ago, and little enough was truly known about this old one that he might have surmised that it would be powerful. He had found, over the course of his trials, that the most dangerous things out there were the ones that people knew the least about.
"Thank you," Gareth said in a calm, measured voice. Unnerving though the situation might be, he owed his thanks at least for this temporary reprive from the elements, no matter how brief or strange it may be. "Thank you. The Khwal'zin call you the old one, don't they?"
It laughed. If its voice before had sounded like granite scraping on ice, now it sounded as if a glacier was being ground apart by two colliding mountains. "That's right, the Khwal'zin have known about me for a while now. They are an interesting people, the Khwal'zin - one of my favorites. They are very good at minding their own business. They make good neighbors." The creature turned its head half-towards him, and he caught a glimpse of long, bushy white eyebrows. "Well, come closer to the fire. It shan't bite you."
Gareth moved tentatively closer. It did feel incredibly good to let the waves of heat crash over him. He peeled off his outermost coat, if only because it was soaking now that the frost covering it had begun to melt, and folded it over his arm. "Well, I'll have to apologize. I'm not very good at minding my own business. It took me a long time to find you out here, old fellow."
The creature laughed again. Now he could see that it had a furry white face, a stubby beak, and what he thought were the edges of long and floppy ears edging out of the hood. The eyes, from the brief glimpse he caught, were gray... stony gray and somber as the grave. This was no race he had ever seen before. "No, you're not. In fact, I must admit I am sorry you made it here. You're a promising type. Wily. With a little luck you could have the world at your finger-tips. A city or two, a kingdom... perhaps even an empire, young pup."
Instinctively, Gareth did not like how much the old creature seemed to know about him, even if it was just gusto. "I haven't spent my entire life trekking across the world for a measly town or two, old man. Do you know why I've come here?"
"Of course," The old creature replied with a soft nod. "You've come seeking the true prize." A pause. "To ascend. To escape the mortal coil by becoming a god."
"Yes," Gareth half-breathed.
"It is a fool's desire," The old one snapped in reply, turning his cold gray eyes to the younger Prestalgani. Gareth was no pup, but those eyes made him feel as if he had just finished fighting his littermates over the last of his mother's teats. "Those who seek it seek death, Gareth of Prestalga. I warn you, turn back now, for there is only doom in the knowledge you would obtain."
The words were so powerful and filled with dour conviction that Gareth almost did turn back; he almost turned and marched down the stairs and into the slow death of the winter outside. But somehow he steeled himself and forced his lips into a wry smirk. "I am already doomed, old one. I've lost an eye and half my mind - and more than half of my life - to make it here. I don't know what scrap of lore you've got stored in that ancient head of yours that I haven't already read a hundred times from faded runes pulled out of crumbling ruins or abomination-infested tombs of forgotten gods, but I know that I need it if I'm to succeed. There will be no turning back."
The old one sighed and turned its eyes back to the gleeful fire. "I see. If I tell you what you have come here to learn, young one, your fate will surely be sealed. Many have come before you. All have met the same end because they sought the same thing as you."
"Enough, old man. I'm aware that my chosen life is a dangerous one. If I were afraid of death, I would never have left my yurt."
There was a long and sullen silence. The creature leaned forward in the wooden chair and reached out with its stave to poke and prod the fire. "Very well, young one. It is your choice, not mine." One of the logs toppled down and sent up a spray of red-orange sparks. "Norshek."
"Excuse me?"
"You did not ask for my name. It is Norshek."
Gareth bit his tongue. In his excitement, he had forgotten the basic rules of hospitality. His people valued such etiquette over almost all other social rules; to be rude to a host was inexcusable. "My apologies, Norshek. Please go on."
Norshek sighed once again, and nodded. "Very well. You know that Urd crafted the world from the dust of the dying stars."
"Yes, yes, of course," Gareth said, perhaps more impatiently than he should have.
"And you know that Urd had to destroy the old world to form this one - that he had to bury the sins of the past in the bones of the new."
"Yes," Gareth agreed. "All the legends agree. But they do not explain where the other gods - the forgotten ones - come from. Or the newly risen gods - the fire-beasts that rose in Yldramar, or Tashar of the Nine Swords, or---"
"I will get to that," Norshek said curtly, leaning back in his chair once more. "The important part is that for the new to be created - for Urd to become the creator - the old world had to be destroyed. The old order had to be cast down, crushed, and the Great Serpent - the false god of the old world - had to be cast out forever, buried and locked within the confines of its prison deep within Urda, our world."
"I know all of this. A child of any race would know this."
Norshek nodded. "Yes. But - I will tell you something that you have never heard before. You see, young one, Urd was not the first god to cast out the powers of the world."
"Not the first...?" Gareth shook his head, tried to gather his thoughts. "But all the lore agrees that Urd was the first creator even in the old world, and that he was simply cleansing his creation of falseness and sin."
"The lore lies," Norshek stated flatly, his beak snapping closed with a click. "There have been many such gods. Hundreds. Thousands. Perhaps millions."
"But how?" Gareth asked skeptically, suddenly doubting the accuracy of the old creature's claims. "And why would Urd lie about the manner of his creation?"
"One question at a time, young one. First, you want to know how it is possible that there have been many worlds, many gods. But you have yourself just admitted that there are many gods, forgotten and uncovered alike, who are not Urd - why would he allow such a thing if he had the power to expunge them completely? A god is a difficult thing to destroy, young one. And here is another secret for you, one that only a few have ever heard: each time a god ascends, the entire world is cast into oblivion. The ascent of a god means the utter destruction of life as you know it, for every god strives to be the first and foremost power in the world, and casting one out means casting out its entire way of ordering the universe... many have been cast out, many have risen up. Some many times. The only way to ascend to godhood is to cast aside the creator of the world, and with them, their creation."
Norshek turned to look at the much younger Prestalgani again, then peered out of the window and into the snowy abyss. "The gods you know of are - by their standards, I suppose - young. There are others... there are entities so old that their age defies understanding. They are beyond time and reality. They have forsaken the eternal cycle of rise and fall, the parry and thrust of scheming young gods who seek to return to primacy, to pursue something... deeper. Something darker and forbidden. They have no sanity. Or perhaps it is better to say that they are beyond sanity. Eternity has stripped them of all semblance of what they once were, and they occupy forms that are shapeless and terrifying. Their minds are warped and unintelligible."
There was a long silence. Gareth wasn't sure if he believed any of this; it was stranger than anything he'd ever heard before, stranger than any of the claims in the old runes and parchments he'd spent a lifetime recovering.
"You sound as if you fear them," Gareth ventured.
Norshek nodded. "Yes. I fear their fate."
Gareth arched a brow. But before he could ask any questions, Norshek went on.
"Would you still pursue your wild dreams if you knew you would wreck all of reality by achieving them?"
"Yes," Gareth answered without hesitation, his voice suddenly confident. "Yes."
Norshek rapped his fingers on his staff and nodded. "Very well. Now, your other question. Urd would lie because Urd cares for his creation - just as all other gods have loved theirs. Let me ask you something, Gareth; why do you wish to become a god? Why not a king? Why do you wish to change the very foundations of the world? Do you truly believe you would be a better god than any that have come before you?"
"No. It's because..." Gareth closed his eyes. "Because, old man, I have a vision." He spoke softly, with something close to reverence. "A world. I can envision a world. A world free of the injustices and imperfections of this one, a world beyond the ken of anything that exists here, something wild and living and breathing and full of life... a perfect world."
"Perfect? Do you really think so? Certainly not perfect for everyone. After all, a god created this world, and it is imperfect by your definition."
"Perfect for me. If I am to be a god, that's all that matters, isn't it?"
Norshek let out a long, booming laugh.
"Truer words were never spoken. But you, young one, are in great danger. For you possess what the gods fear the most - imagination and a will to carry it out upon existence regardless of the costs." The wizened old figure laughed softly. "Yes, very dangerous indeed. What makes you think that your plans would not be foiled? What makes you think others would not strive to impose their will upon your world and cast you out?"
"I---" Gareth paused. "I suppose they would. But I would thwart them. You said I was wily, did you not?"
"You are indeed," Norshek admitted. "It takes great wiles to come as far as you have. How, Gareth, do you suppose you would thwart them?"
"I don't know, exactly. I suppose I would plan and plot against them. Lay traps."
"Good," Norshek said approvingly. "Very good. Yes, a wise god would lay traps for his enemies. He would protect his world from those who would rise up against him, catching them by drawing them with the lure of power, like flies to honey."
Gareth nodded. He was beginning to feel slightly faint. The room was now extremely warm, and he wanted to pull off more of the thick winter garments he had worn in from the frigid cold. "That makes sense. Lead your possible usurpers in circles. Keep them from realizing they're walking into an ambush. Are you saying that this is how Urd maintains his power?"
"Yes," Norshek said. "It is how I maintain my power."
It is how I---
Gareth stepped back. "Come now, old geezer. No tricks."
The creature turned, his beak opening slightly in something like a smile. "No tricks, pup. You are a dangerous one. You have perseverance, I must admit. And worse, you are not simply a power-monger - those can be dissuaded from the path with worldly things. Land, money, crowns. Not you."
"But... Norshek. You said your name was Norshek."
The creature nodded solemnly. "Yes. Norshek of Bim. That was my name, once. Before I destroyed the world."
Gareth's world seemed to be spinning. He thrust his paw down to his waist, felt for his sword - gone. The old creature stood, leaning on its long staff. It was huge - taller than he had thought from its hunched position in the chair. Its shadow grew behind it to impossible proportions, drowning out the suddenly-meek lights of the room.
"I am sorry, Gareth of Prestalga. I tried to turn you aside. But this is MY world. MY creation. MINE!" The voice boomed out, shaking the entire keep, sending drifts of piled-up snow cascading off of the roof above.
There was an impossibly bright flash of light. A scream rose, peaked, and dwindled into nothing.
Norshek reseated himself and sighed. The ceaseless winter wind howled outside, rattling the windows of the small room. Far above, the stars continued to twinkle in the black sky. The world was as it had been since the beginning of time.
More code updates to come soon.
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Topic: Cult - New Development Video (5-10-12) (Read 114393 times)