The Ring Of Devour

Future Past Series

Torrential quacks had been occurring of late, the foundational rock beneath the city of Quarmi has been cracking. Fissures as wide as a hair have been deepening and splitting, becoming further apart, day by day, till by the fifth day citizens would have their feet caught in the cracks. 

The Right-Forms lived in the city, protected by high walls, and their musket wielding guardians upon the battlements. Layers and layers of walls made every district of the city more protected than the outer. Built on the coast of a tumultuous sea by the Artitechs Of Ancient Dwoveland, the city served as a bastion of highly evolved humans delving into the mysteries of the world. 

Those outside the city, living in the shadow on a narrow strip of fertile land were the Argauns, primitive people, who spoke many languages, but lived in caves and dressed in the hide of beasts. Shaggy haired, and grim faces, they were guided by the Omen-Seeker, their soothsayer who plotted their farming habits and concocted medical ointments and elixirs for his people. 

The Argauns leader, Chief Jomaxima went to the Omen-Seeker beseeching his insights into the ether realms of the afterworld, and see why their caves collapse and their crops wither and day. 

Going to his crystal ball, the Omen-Seeker looked into the fog of the orb, and gazed into the ethereal chaos to divine their fates. First the tanned face of the wizened wizard went pale, then his eyes got darker, and his face grew whiter, as he let out a croaking cry. Life seemed to flow out of his mouth in a hazy mist, as he fell over onto the floor of his cave. Chief Jomaxima watched in disgust and horror, as Omen-Seeker’s body shrivelled, his flesh falling off his bones, leaving him a barren, bloodless skeleton. 

Overcoming his terror Jomaxima went to his side, and lifted his skeletal body from the ground, pleading for him to share what he saw. “What did you see? What doom will befall us?!”

Finally after the skull lifted up, and shriveled eyes looked upon the chief, the Omen-Seeker let out a ghostly prophecy. “Leave! Tomorrow doom shall befall all who live here! Leave!” 

Then the eyes turned to dust, and the skeleton was lifeless. 

Heeding the words of the seer, he assembled his people, and told them of their exodus. “The Omen-Seeker has given his life so he can give onto us the foresight of our doom. Our only salvation is to leave these lands, we will take what provisions needed, and be gone before night. We shall travel without rest westward, in hopes of outpacing this dire fate.” 

Despite the reluctance to leave their homes, many grew discontent with their failing crops, and their dwellings being destroyed by the tremors. Obediently they built wagons, and taken with them their livestock, the Argauns left as the Right-Forms observed them from their towering mansions behind their city walls. 

“Look at those malformed mutants!” 

“Run and go, you frightful, superstitious vermin!”

“Go out into the badlands and die! Die! Die!”

The people of the city were cruel to their neighbors as they saw them as too inferior to be treated humanely. For the Argauns were the progeny of the first mutants to crawl out of the badlands to the west and north. Driven by the mainland by their more horrendous mutant cousins they were forced to dwell in the shadow of those unaffected by radiation on the coast. 

Keeping to themselves, the Argauns did not wish to draw ire of the far more well armed and advanced Right-Forms. Who would protect their city with over zealous retaliation, so the Argauns remained in the higher lands around the coast, to avoid their musket and cannon fire. 

With the Argauns leaving as the sun was beginning to set, the Right-Forms began to celebrate, as they treated this as a sign of their superiority. Often the Ministers of the city of Quarmi have been debating of purging the unevolved far from their walls. Their leaving on their own was seen as a victory, and made them forget the eroding foundation beneath their feet. 

That night as the Argauns traveled farther and farther west, the people of the city got drunk, engage in savage carnality, and depraved blood sacrifices to appease their primordial God, Thul’huc. Before dawn arrived, all of them were in drunken stupours, or reveling in the afterglow of their bloodlust, and crimson and white fluids mingled on their bodies. 

Then as dawn cracked the dark horizon, the storm came, a venomous cloud formed over the city, and a terrifying rumble struck the ether waking all of the Right-Forms from their sleep. It was then as the horror of their destruction sobered them, as the rock beneath them fractured, and tendrils of some unseen leviathan rose from the fissures. Dragging the hapless people of Quarmi into the rising sea waters.

As the winds howled and grew strong enough to toppled the towers of the city, waves crashed against the city walls, and collapsed them, as a leviathan of the depths rose from the foaming abyss. 

C’thydra, a creature of infinite heads, and endless tendrils forming its body, its jaws snatched onto the fleeing people, and chewed on them, staining their fangs with their crimson gore. Screams of death and desperation came from them, as many sought salvation of their depthless God, but too late they realized their prayers were useless, as foam washed into the streets. 

Drowning in the rising waves, they could not escape the city, as the mass of the deluge harbinger enveloped their city, and in its form crushed it into rubble. Utterly crushing the walls, and the people who sought safety behind them, then as foresaw by the Omen-Seeker began to collapse the coastline. 

Yard by yard, mile by mile, the landmass of the continent began to erode, and be sunken beneath the devouring waves of the sea. Madness over came the natural order of the world, as the blue sky, was blotted by the sentient storm clouds, that carried the storm inland, as the C’thydra continuing inward, drowning all in its wake. 

Acres of forests, mountains, and hills sank beneath the primordial seas, brining all into its every consuming body, as underground volcanos erupted staining the sea in a dark crimson, as if it were filled with blood. 

The Argauns looked back, their faces pale, as they saw the destruction following them, and in desperation, redoubled their movements. Dropping supplies, livestock, and those too weak to move on their own, they were overcome with the insanity of surviving a bleak oblivion. 

The mere sight of the Devour God, made them lose all sense of mind and purpose, as they ran onward, forsaking their babes and families for a chance to survive. However despite this sacrifice of all else, C’thydra came upon them, collapsing the ground at their feet, and drowning them in a tempest of hellish fury. 

Each mile they outran the destruction by inches, the Argauns looked back at the horrific deep God, seeing the rubble of the city of Quarmi still trapped in its tendrils. All seemed lost, as already many of them were dead, hundreds, and only dozens of the fastest, and most driven outran the apocalyptic deluge. 

That was till something stood in the way of them, a figure frail in figure, whose hair flowed in the hysterical winds. Eyes glowing with blood crimson, in fields of black, he looked as if he were a pale wight, driven to wake from his tomb. As his lipless jaws parted over his thick scarf, and as his white tendrils of hair flowed in the wind, he raised his fist into the sky, and a crimson light came from his finger. 

That bathed the sky crimson, and in the haze of scarlet, the destruction ceased, despite the Argauns continuing to run, C’thydra halted, it was pacified. Slowly it submerged into the water, taking what lives and remnants of land it still had in its hold, and as the storm dissipated so the foam where it has submerged. 

The storm cloud was gone, evaporated into the ether, the winds calmed, the destruction had ended, as C’thydra now slept. 

Lowering his fist, the fearsome figure, dressed in tattered pale and black attire, felt his hand seethe with a burning sensation. The crimson light still twinkling on his finger, as it came from a crimson ring, with a oval ruby affixed to its form. 

Argauns gathered around him, marveling at his great power, believing his sorcery had stopped the deluge, they wished to thank him, but one got too close, and the ring needed to reap a cost. 

Grabbing hold of the mortal man, the skeletal figure let out a pained growl as he reaped the cost of his invention on the soul of the Argaun whose skin burned black, and his body turned into a charred skeleton. Falling to the ground in a heap, the other Argauns saw this, and overcome with renewed fear fled into the west, never to return to the east. 

Alone at the edge of the new coastline, Osmin looked at the ring, and whispered to it. 

“Are you not sated, my love? I pray the next time we intervene, doesn’t take such a terrible cost.” the ring continued to burn as it was still hungry. Placing his hand into the water, the skeletal wight felt his body tremble, as the ring sought out life in the deep waters. 

From the sea floating up, came thousands of sea life, mermaids, fish, and whales all burned into charred skeletons. Now filled, the ring went back into a passive state, and Osmin continued on in his eons long journey, with no aims, or hope of salvation.

***

Eons Past. 

The opening into the mountain was a gaping wound in the rock of the earth, allowing noxious fumes of the flume shaped mountain to escape the corked volcanic chasm. Walking along a gloomy stretch of rock that lead further into the enclose cavity of Bane Mountain, one would find the Kiln Of Flames. 

Osmin the Great and his trusted blood-brother Kinsman scaled the slumbering volcanic mountain. On a cloudless day, they ascended the jagged mountainside, till they reached a outstretch of rock, leading into the opening into the mountain, Salée Gate.

Osmin a powerful warrior, and Lord of his realm of Gyre helped his boyhood friend Kinsman up the final rise of rock, after Kinsman nearly lost his footing. Not a strong warrior compared to Osmin, Kinsman was meagerly sized compared to their people of heart lake sailors, and often needed the aid of a strong arm. 

Though Osmin never held his superiority against him, the warrior lord did sense a resentment towards him, that made him cautious of betrayal. 

“Kinsman, you should be wary, though my reach is long, even I wouldn’t be able to save you should you fall beyond the tips of my fingers.” the words were spoken in earnest caution to a exasperated soul. 

“I doubt anything can slip through your fingers brother, even if I should fall beyond your reach.” Kinsman’s words had a viperous bite to them, that made Osmin recoil. 

Silently they enter the mountain opening, to find what treasures are held within the Kiln Of Flames. Sweltering heat came over them, as soon as the sun was blotted out by the ceiling of the opening. Gloom and dancing heat enveloped them, without the will to give up and return home without any reward for their quest, they continued onward, feeling the intensity of the volcanos fire roast their flesh. 

Boots were sturdy, but even they were eaten away by the sulfuric pools that lay throughout the cave floor. Bubbling, to the surface through cracks, Kinsman considered going back, but he saw Osmin continued on, undaunted, and he didn’t want to lose out on the glory. 

Turning around a bend, they came to a steep slope, and with strong grips on the narrow walls, they managed to descend it without losing their footing. However the walls were heated as if they were coals in a forge, and blackened the palms of their hands. 

“We have made it brother…the Kiln Of Fire.” Kinsman walked through the archway, that led into a seething chamber of crimson and darkness. A large pit was in the floor, leading to the roiling pools of the mountain, a large pool of magmatic flame lay below, heating the entire chamber. “It is here that the dwarves have kept their treasures.” 

Eagerly they searched, but all they found were empty chest made of rock, displays with no wealth. The hoard of the dwarves had been thoroughly plunders throughout the eons, leaving only the barest of evidence of its previous glory. 

“Gods curse this day.” Kinsman lamented as he felt the heat blister her forehead, and exposed legs. “We have come to be roasted alive.” 

“Take heart brother.” Osmin tried to comfort him. “The mountain is not a behemoth we cannot overcome, come to me and I shall usher us from here.” 

A enraged sneer came across Kinsman’s face, for he had plans for his share of the prize, a fat wife, lands, and a legacy that would allow him to rise from the shadow of his blood-brother. Through his resentments and ire he slammed his fists on the walls, and despite the skin scalding burning, something precious fell from a outstretch of rock from above. 

Hitting the stone ground with a sharp twinkling sound, he looked down and saw something, that gleamed as brightly as the dawn after a long dark night. Reaching down, Kinsman lifted it, and held up the last treasure of the mountain, a ring. 

Victoriously they placed it on his ring finger, and presented it to Osmin with a jackal smile of victory. 

“See?! I have claimed this, the last of the great dwarven hoard.” the oval ruby imbedded in the ring throbbed with a will of great might. 

“That you have, but remember out bargain, we split the take, no matter what is found or by who.” Kinsman was not a covetous man, but he was fair, and unafraid to claim his rightful share. 

That was when Osmin felt a whisper slither into his ear, and speak of a solution to his woes. 

‘The ring speaks to me…no, it gives me ideas…this is an enchanted ring…the Ring Of Devour…I shall claim it all my own, to Hades with Osmin…greedy fool.’

A cruel expression came upon Kinsman’s face, a stern malice that had no mirth or revelry, only serious violence. 

“Perish in flames!” he commanded, and from Kinsman’s hand came a beam of flame, that grew out, and threatened to consume Osmin.

Osmin was prepared, he had seen such treachery brewing in his blood-brother, and had no time to offer mercy. Ducking below the flames, he felt his back became scorched, as he wound around the beam of flame, and with his long sword pulled from its sheath, flanked his friend whose eyes went wide with shock. 

Backing away, hands up he tried to plead for mercy, but Kinsman felt the sharp steel slice into his chest, and pierce into his heart, where all his bloody gushed out in copious amounts. 

Crimson heat bathed Osmin and before he freed his sword from his friend’s chest, most of Kinsman’s blood had left him, and he lay dead on the ground. Slowly his flesh was being burned away by the heat of the mountain. 

“Fool.” Osmin spoke in a pitious tone, as he bent over to secure the ring, as he took sole possession of it. “You could’ve shared in the glory, not you shall be entombed here, forgotten and pitied from the stories I will relay of your treachery. Goodbye, and rest in Hades Kinsman.” 

Osmin had nothing by bile fueled hatred for traitors, and offered them no measurement of mercy, for they were the destroyers of truth and valor. Placing the blood soaked ring on his finger, Lord Osmin left his friend to rot in the Kiln Of Flames. 

Leaving the way he came, he found the heat bothered him less then, as he was able to climb the slope, without even bracing the walls. Emerging from the mountains opening, the midday sun was setting, and he had a long cool night to travel, as he felt no weariness nor urge to sleep. 

Climbing down the mountain side in pitch darkness, he reached half-way down the slope when he first began to be given ideas from the Ring Of Devour.