GNET: A Forum RPG from Beyond the Grave

[Midnight_Carnival]

it came to a place of neglect and death, it came seeking those who had been buried here.
all seemed lost, even the spiders had abandoned their little webs as the effort of clearing the dust and it had been years since the last carrion fly...
it did not mind the dust, the dust comforted it, but if there were still signs of life (or unlife) it would be ...most curious.

its senses penetrated the shroud of dust, a community had settled here once - they grew vain and bored. their decadent and flamboyant lifestyle of excess hadn't been sustainable. These creatures had been proud and warlike once, but they had gathered in this place from many distant lands - in their homelands they had bern parriahs, outcasts - in this place they had a sense of security.
it probed deeper, trying to learn what had befallen these creatures...

[Midnight_Carnival]

its tentacles started to sift through the dust as if of their own accord, it began to put pieces together in order to discern the nature of things...
ah yes, the creatures who had settled in this place had built a sort of castle, but they had been too concerned with the decor to invest much into the fortifications.
they had been a diverse and flamboyant people, vain and full of an eagerness to express themselves; because where they had come from, in all those lands, they had been outcasts, deviant, here they had a sense of community and security.
They had waited for those from their homelands to pursue them, but nobody came, in fact things in their various homelands had changed at such a rate that they had been forgotten here. These creatures were determined to prove themselves in battle, to show the world how strong they were in this place of security they had made, but no invading horde had come.
so then they decided that if a horde would not come to them, they would make a horde. some of their kind they called "trolls" and they decreed that the for of self-expression that the "trolls" had was wayward and somehow 'wrong'.
they had waited until the "trolls" left to explore the countryside and then they formed a small army to fight them, to keep them out of the castle.
but the "trolls", like them had grown up being the ones chased out, mocked, ridiculed and excluded. when they told the "trolls" that "you have no place here" the "trolls" prepared themselves for battle, but those who had locked them out of the castle attacked first.
the battle had been messy and undecided, for a while it looked like the "trolls" were losing, then they appeared to be winning - it was not surprised to find that the dust had won in the end, the dust always wins.
it's tentacles found the head bone of one who had fought to defend the castle and they found the head bone of one who had fought to get back inside, it compared them - it could not tell the difference between the "troll" and the other.
they had told tales of their great magic and prowess in battle, but they had squabbled amongst each other like petulant children and now they were scattered, only echoes remained here, echoes and dust....

[Midnight_Carnival]

but there was something else here - while most of the former inhabitants of this place had scattered, donning the attire and copying the language of the nations who had once driven them out (and then forgotten that they existed), someone had been here more recently.
it had been one similar to them, but it had a...
a goat?

what was this? where had the creature who had tried to rebuild this place after its own inclination gone?
and what of this goat?
it had licked goats once.
perhaps this goat had been one of its pets, doubtless now lording it over the poor forsaken creatures of this lost realm as a sort of god...
it had licked gods once.
it focused itself so that less and less of its writhing mass of tentacles penetrated this plane of existence, that it saturated this place with less of its potency.
It shaped its tentacles into the likeness of one of the creatures who had been here before, a small and inexperienced male specimen, one they would find aesthetically pleasing and think was vulnerable - no, it would be an older female specimen, mature and wickedly curved, one they would find interesting and enticing - it shifted subtly between appearances.
it would wait to see if this sad creature returned and if it brought its goat.
its hunting instinct coiled within it, it became a spider and started spinning a few silver threads.
it would wait...

[TrivialMorose]

Trivial Morose stirred, albeit just so, very lightly, as he sensed something moving about his ruined kingdom. Something sticky? And silky?

Foreign…

Exotic.

He would have baited his breath if only he had still possessed any of the apparatus required for that kind of functioning.

But no.

Trivial Morose had changed. Deformed and devolved. There was nothing left of him, but a single eye, incapable of nothing but a blank stare.

Lost somewhere deep in the dead earth, deep, deep underneath even the complex of subterranean tunnels that still crisscrossed the bed of the castle’s ruins.

The wretch had not even a lid to close the eye with, other than the blanket of countless tonnes of dry earth and rock above.

A buried eye.

Trivial Morose could do nothing but stare in the soil-black darkness.

Stare…

And stare…

And stare…

From strange slumber he continued to stare.