26 Cosmic Horror (2/2)
Li was right. When he entered the chaos of the marketplace, several men in hoods crowded around him. Here, where so many people thronged and so many vendors shouted, the guards noticed little.
”Follow us if you know what's best for you, little laddie,” said one of the men.
”We'll take you somewhere nice'n'quiet. Teach you a right proper lesson, taking that exam and having the straight gall to wave at us like we was your friends.”
Li shrugged. ”Please, by all means, lead the way. The quieter the better.”
----
Within a few minutes, the men had corralled Li into an alleyway. It was dark and dank, wedged between two seedy taverns. A brick wall sealed off the end, making escape impossible. The cobblestone path underneath was slick with mud and grime, ignored by the city's cleaning crews. Amidst the brown and black muck, there stood out the occasional bloodstain.
Li nodded. Looked like this was the routine place for these thugs to do their business. He turned to the men. There were four.
”Is this the best place in town? For, you know, your 'business',” said Li.
The men walked forwards like hyenas, their gloved hands withdrawing crude daggers. They even spoke one after the other, their cruelty feeding upon each other in a vicious loop that gave them more and more confidence.
”Aye, here's where we clean the streets of foreign bastards like you.”
”No use screaming here. Taverns here won't call for the guard. Made sure of that with a little coin.”
”Look at him. Prettier and paler than a tavern wench, he is.”
”Carve him up with a couple scars, would make him even prettier.”
Li let the men draw near him. They came slowly, not just to intimidate, but because they were unsure. They saw that Li had no fear in his eyes, that he stood tall and even bored.
”Before we begin,” said Li. ”I just have one thing to ask. Do you all have families?”
One of the men chuckled and spat on the ground. ”Family? You think to beg us mercy, telling us you have family? Is that it?”
”What a fool he is. Don't you know who we are?”
Li shrugged. ”No, and I don't really care. Just answer my question.”
The thug continued anyways. ”We're the Hundred Faces. In the very streets our families abandoned us, we became lords of terror.”
”Got it. So, no family then. Just a ragtag group of orphans wanting to feel tough.” Li waved them forward. ”That'll make this easy.”
The men wavered; their hands sweaty as they gripped their daggers. They could feel their instincts telling them to turn back, that to rush in now was to face death.
Li sighed and shook his head. ”You think that slinking around in the shadows makes you strong? Lords of terror?” Li laughed. ”Lords of being terrified, maybe. But don't worry. None of you have family. Nobody will miss you.”
The thugs took a step back as Li disappeared from their sights.
”Where'd the filthy cur go!?” said one of the men.
”Right here.” Li stood behind them, blocking their exit. He grabbed the man by the back of his cloak and raised him straight overhead with one arm. He flailed around madly, stabbing at Li's arm, but the dagger chipped and clanked as it struck flesh harder than any known metal.
The other men shrunk backwards, away from Li, forgetting that they had chosen this alleyway for its deadend. They had chosen their own death trap.
Li took a look up at the man he was holding.
”What in the hells are you!?” shouted the man as he found his dagger increasingly chipped and lined with cracks.
”Quiet,” said Li as he put his arm back like he was readying a baseball pitch, drumming up his inhuman strength before he threw the man straight at the brick wall. He intentionally missed the other men, wanting them to witness the folly of their actions, of the great sin they had committed in defying an existence so very much beyond them.
The man sailed into the wall like a bullet, and when he collided, his body exploded like a ripe tomato, bursting apart at every single seam. Splatters of blood and chunks of internal organs showered everywhere, and the rest of the men, doused in the lifeblood of their companion, started screaming.
”Stop screaming. You said it yourselves, nobody will hear you. And trust me, comparatively speaking, all of you will end up far worse than him,” said Li as he stuck his arm out to the side. He had not cast the eldritch part of his eldritch Druidry yet, so he was curious to see how it felt. ”[Shapeshift: Aspect of the Shoggoth].”
His arm swelled as it grew, the sleeves of the linen shirt tearing. His arm became a giant chunk of bubbling flesh as large as a horse, the skin tearing as it struggled to contain the ever expanding, tumorous mass.
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The men had stopped screaming, instead blanching as they witnessed the arm slough off its pale skin, revealing bare muscle and blood. Then even that became tainted, turning various shades of black, purple, and sickly green – all the colors of decay. The blackened and fleshy mass started shaping into tendrils, hundreds of them, and dozens upon dozens of eyes opened all across the arm, glowing with a yellow radiance reminiscent of gold.
The eyes rolled around, leaking ocular fluid, before they focused on the men.
The men froze.
Through those eyes, they could feel the hunger of that arm. It was an unending, ravenous hunger. A hunger cosmic in scale, the primordial hunger of decay that was responsible for the death of all things past and future, the hunger that would eventually render the entire universe into an infinite expanse of cold wasteland.
And when they felt that hunger, that terribly cosmic and horrible desire, latch onto them-
The men started laughing as they tore at their hoods and then at their hair, ripping off chunks that fluttered to the ground. They clawed at their flesh, scratching out deep and bloody marks. They gnashed their teeth on their tongues, and blood spewed from their mouths, spittling as they laughed harder than ever, their eyes growing so wide as to almost bulge out of their sockets.
Sheer insanity.
Li shook his head as he walked forwards, aiming his arm forwards. The human mind was so fragile.
The Shoggoth's tendrils reached forwards and eagerly grasped the men, absorbing them into its tumorous, tentacled mass until no trace of them was found. The men laughed as they willingly let the Shoggoth slowly draw them in. But of course, they would not find peace in insanity much longer.
They would be added to the vast expanse of the Shoggoth's stomach, a hellscape where creatures beyond comprehension would play with their minds, restoring and breaking their sanity in a torment that would last eternities unbound by the laws of space and time.
Li didn't feel much different from using eldritch shifting. It was the same as when he had used the [Fist of Ymir]. It all felt like an expression of his natural abilities. It actually felt more right, more comfortable, using this magic, as if he were stretching muscles he was supposed to exercise but had neglected.
He stared down at his boots. They were bloody. So were his trousers and the rest of his shirt. He sighed and considered whether he should have made such a dramatic show throwing that man at the wall. He would have to clean that body up too. Limit suspicion and all.
He looked at the Shoggoth. The eyes stared at him, eager to obey.
”Would you mind cleaning the blood off my clothes?” Li pointed to the mangled corpse of the man on the brick wall. ”And that mess too, while you're at it.”
The Shoggoth rumbled in understanding as it extended its body forwards, expanding as its tendrils reached out to absorb the corpse.
”That's a good boy.” With a smile, Li pet the Shoggoth's body, his hands gliding over countless bulbous masses that felt like tumors – physical manifestations of the minds of past victims all locked in a symphony of eternal suffering within the creature.