Dol Guldur: The Forest Under Nightshade

[Baphởmet]

Dol Guldur: The Forest Under Nightshade

The Woodland Realm of Greenwood the Great was a prosperous, thriving Elven country, first under the reign of Orophor and then into the reign of his son and heir Thranduil. However, around the year 1000 TA, a shadow fell on the southern reaches of the forest. For some time, it was not known that it was, in fact, the Shadow itself. Mairon, in the guise of the Necromancer, had come to darken the forest and spread his dark influence. He took for himself the abandoned capital on Amon Lanc and began construction on a fortress that would later be known as the Hill or Sorcery: Dol Guldur. Where once there was light and joy, gardens and trees, there was now rot and decay. Orcs began to populate the region, then wargs and trolls followed. Finally, hordes and hordes of spiders began to make their webbed homes in the unlight of the mountains. The Necromancer’s influence was slow and methodical. Soon, members of Thranduil’s court were ensnared in his schemes and promises of power and control. One such elf, Sirimir, attempted a coup against his lord and king. The attempt failed but the damage was done. Taking the name Angathfund, a name given to him by the Necromancer meaning “Ghost of Perdition”, the corrupted Silvan elf began one of the Necromancer’s chief lieutenants, organizing and directing the completion of Dol Guldur and the spreading of its corruptive influence throughout the southern regions of the forest. One of Angathfund’s spells, a bitterly cold, sound devouring fog began to spread for miles and miles around the fortresses and its environs, protecting and shrouding the land from unwanted eyes. However, in 2063, the Istar Gandalf entered the fortress through subterfuge, eager to suss out the identity of the Necromancer. In response, Mairon fled. Angathfund was left holding the forces of Dol Guldur together, moving them secretly into the Emyn Duir for the next four centuries. However, Mairon returned, still using his guise as the Necromancer and once again, the Hill of Sorcery was alight with dark magic. The dark forest forces were again interrupted when an open attack came from the White Council in 2941, this time driving out all of the Necromancer’s forces. It was not until 2951 that Angathfund, under the command of the Black Easterling, Khamûl himself, and two other Nazgûl, returned to the haunted forest throne. Khamûl and his fellow Nazgûl were detached from the day to day ruling of the lands they’d been given by the Dark Lord, which gave the opportunity Angathfund had sought for so long: the rule of the haunted hill for himself. Now, with much of the strength and power of Dol Guldur restored, Angathfund readies his forces for the imminent wars to come.

Locations

The Fortress

The Fortress, the administrative hub on Dol Guldur, is built on the foundations of the old capital of the Woodland Realm. One of the first construction projects of the Necromancer, he tore the old city apart, destroying all that was good and green on the hill and twisted it until all the environs were utterly unrecognizable. Using alien malevolent black stone from the black lands of Mordor to reinforce the walls, the fortress is built in the style of a massive ringfort; the center of Dol Guldur is a massive tower where sits the dreaded shadowthrone. Not so great as Barad-dûr, but no less imposing or filled with horrors beyond human or elven imaginings. It was once home to the Necromancer himself, where he brooded and plotted his unending schemes of revenge and control, but now houses the Ringwraiths, inscrutable and unknowable. At night there is a strange pale green glow from the highest rooms in the tower that seeps from stone and infuses the hill itself with a terrible alien light. Also within the walls are many of the barracks for the legions of orcs, as well as training grounds, a mess hall, armory, an alchemy laboratory, and wolf kennels. There was once a great library full of arcane secrets but in the intervening time between the Necromancer and the Ringwraiths, Angathfund had it moved his place of residence. Deep down below, carved out of the foundations and into the very hill itself, are the terrible dungeons of Dol Guldur where multitudes of prisoners are housed for torture, information extraction, or experimentation.

Angathfund, played by Frost

The Web

Just outside the fortress proper is the place known as the Web. No one knows the real name of the place, and no one is brave enough to ask Quolúvië (played by Moriel), the pubmistress and one of the Seven Deadly Sisters. The name is simply taken from the unending mass of cobwebs and creepy crawlies she keeps as part of her décor. Still the place is often alive with sounds of drinking, fighting, and gambling. Beware though, for within the Web, Quolúvië’s word is law, and no man may kill a spider and hope to live. The Web, once a fine inn for those passing through Amon Lanc or on business in the capitol, comprises a split-level ground floor of taproom and bar, and a longer and more secluded room in which to sit- though no one is ever entirely invisible from the pubmistress's many eyes. The upper level with its vaulted ceilings is accessible only by a secret staircase, and comprises Quolúvië's living chambers. None may enter but by invitation.

Quolúvië, played by Moriel

The Hawthorn Mansion

Outside the fortress is a massive, ancient hawthorn tree reaching nearly a hundred feet into the air, the only tree upon the hill. Once, in the long days of yore, Orophor had a large mansion built into the tree. It was a place of joy, light, music and song, and beautiful colors. After the Silvan elves abandoned it, the mansion fell into decay as the tree began to reclaim the space. Angathfund has taken this once beautiful monument to Silvan construction and ingenuity into a place of horror and nightmares. There is no sound within the walls of his home, no conversation, no music, no laughter. A dreadful cold fog surrounds the mansion, like fingers of the frozen north. No one knows what goes on within the confines of Angathfund’s seat of power, and no one asks, too afraid of what the consequences could be for disturbing the mercurial former Silvan noble.

The Rotten Temple

Some leagues away from the hill, deep within the evergreens of Mirkwood, is a shrine to Melian, constructed by Orophor himself in honor and reverence to his former queen, Melian of Doriath. He continued to use it even after the capitol was moved. His son, too, kept up the tradition of yearly pilgrimages to the shrine. In return for this devotion, something similar to the Girdle of Doriath was placed around the old capital, making it difficult for the Shadow to enter the abandoned place and set down roots. However, Angathfund found the shrine and defiled it, throwing down the images of Melian and constructing his own horrifying effigies from the bones of animals, the desecrated remains of his fellow elves, and unholy wood of the trees he cultivated after the destruction of the sacred evergreens. Learning from the Necromancer himself, he filled these inhuman effigies with something similar to life. They guard his shrine now and hunt the grounds for any creature that dares enter, adding those they catch to their ranks.

The Smithies and Foundry

Carved into the hill in a strip mine fashion and continuing down into the lowlands around Amon Lanc, the Smithies and Foundry are perhaps the greatest achievement of the Necromancer and his successors thereafter. Hundreds of forges creating the arms, armor, and siege engines dot the landscape, an image evocative of Mordor. Created and maintained by slave labor, the forges work ceaselessly to create more and more and more in service of the Dark Lord. Hundreds of orcish sappers and engineers, handpicked for the work by the Ringwraiths themselves, oversee the work, demanding no less than perfection from their workers and their slaves. Deaths are common in the Smithies and Foundry, but workers are cheap. While a place of innovation and ingenuity, it are also a place of betrayal, schemes, and manipulation.

The Spider Dens

Deep within the Emyn Duir, the shadowy Mountains of Mirkwood, are the Spider Dens, monstrous descendants of both Shelob and Carníheniel. There was some pact made between the spiders and the Necromancer as he began his slow corruption of the Greenwood and they entered the forest and, as in Taur-nu-Fuin of old, filled the forest with shadows and webs and horror. Their leader, a monstrous creature by the name of Samreseth, heads a legion of nightmares, making the forests more dangerous than before, as well as swelling the ranks of the army, providing scouts, spies, and beasts of burden for the myriad siege engines. Very few can walk into the Spider Dens and come out alive, even though there is a truce between the spiders and the forces of Dol Guldur, any interloper found wandering in the haunted hills is fair game.

Samreseth, played by Frost

The Cave of the Whispers

Far beyond the light, down a tunnel that feels as though it’s leading down the very hellish fires of the center of the earth, is a cave, a prison, a tomb. The Cave of the Whispers is where Angathfund trains and molds his most terrible servants. Either taken unwillingly as slaves, or willingly as members of his old coup, Silvan women are taken and tortured and changed into something different: The Whispers. Assassins, spies, wraiths with an unflappable loyalty to Angathfund, their creator. They are hunters who will never stop searching for their prey. Often, the Lonely Lord will use them on special missions deep into enemy territory, targeted assassinations or daring heists of powerful objects. It is rumored that Whispers exist within the courts of Thranduil and Galadriel, maybe even within the forest valley of Rivendell itself. They are ruthless, unyielding, and savage and revel in bloodshed to a degree that make the most savage orc seem tame by comparison.

Rules:
1. The year is 3014 in conjunction with Angmar and Minas Morgul, however you may write in any year you’d like
2. All races are welcome but if you want to play a good aligned character, remember you are in their territory, not yours
3. Keep any OOC comments to the Hall of Barad-dûr: Mordor OOC
4. Refrain from using overly bright colors
5. Anyone can use any canon characters in their stories, there is no ownership in this thread. However there will be nonexclusive rights for the TR (Frost) to use both the Necromancer and Khamûl at his discretion, Moriel will also be granted nonexclusive rights to the Witch-King within this particular thread
6. We are all adults here and can decide for ourselves the stories we want to read so rather than dictate what can and cannot be written in this thread, we will ask that any CW (at the discretion of the writer) be placed at the top of the post.
7. Keep overt silliness out of the Web, it might be a rowdy place but it isn’t On the Rocks
8. Double Posting is cool, just don’t spam

Many thanks to Moriel for the assists

[Moriel]

The Web
(open to all)

The establishment now known as The Web had once been a sprawling, comfortable inn, a gracious way station for travelers passing through Amon Lanc, or on business at the capitol, a place where high and low could find lodgings and a place to mingle. Now, the building with its split-level ground floor and vaulted-ceilinged upper level was a hive for debauchery, violence, and lewd intoxication- as well as a literal hive for the pubmistress's companions. Quolúvië's sensibilities of décor were a far cry from some of her sisters, but there was a macabre beauty about her tavern, covered as it was with the webs of those spiders who chose to make their homes within and nearby. Large and small, they softened the corners of rooms and obscured the windows, providing bridges between braziers and shelves and mantlepieces. Light within The Web was provided mostly by those braziers overhead, along scattered chandeliers and candelabras, dripping with wax. There were several fireplaces within the tavern- one behind the bar, for the use of Quolúvië and her staff, one in the kitchen of course, out of sight, and one in each of the large rooms on the ground level.

The first, the taproom, spread out broadly before the bar, where Quolúvië held court, a massive structure of lebethron, an excessive show of opulence that must have cost the original owner a fortune. It was a bit taller than a typical bar, necessitating extra-tall stools and the perching upon them of most of The Web's customers. But as Quolúvië was uncommonly tall for a Southron woman, and inclined to wear heeled shoes, this was no trouble for her. Within the taproom were many tables and chairs of varying shape and size, as well as a number of comfortable looking settees, which appeared much newer than the rest of the furniture. Deep, old armchairs surrounded the the fireplace of this room, which was taller than an elf, and twice as wide as that. The second room, on the lower of the split levels, was narrower and longer, more lined than scattered with tables, and its fireplace at the far end was a more conventional size. This room was only partially visible from Quolúvië's bar, but any occupant who thought themselves free of her eyes would be foolish indeed.

Spiders of all sizes roamed freely about The Web, and dropped down upon whomever they pleased. Other creatures, arachnid and insect in nature, also called the place home, and would frequently emerge from unexpected places. But woe betide those who dared threaten any many-legged creature within Quolúvië's domain: some prenatal connection existed between the pubmistress and her pets that would cause her to know at once what had occurred, and exact her retribution. Today, The Web was quiet, and Quolúvië sat behind the bar, enthroned on a tall stool with a padded back, and a footrest at exactly the right height for the ball of the lower of her crossed feet to rest upon, the pointed heel of one shoe just visible from below the drape of her narrow gown. It was difficult to determine where the gossamer grey of the gown ended and that of her hood began, they joined so smoothly near the shoulders. The hood rested at the peak of her forehead, held in place by an invisible comb in her glistening black hair, which was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck. This hood also served to partially shadow her face, which had a long, straight nose and full lips, tinted black. Her eyes were oddly yellow- was it a sheen of the light, or some other trickery? difficult to tell. Her skin appeared sallow in some lights, and rich in others. She sat, neither waiting nor expectant, and polished a glass. A spider the size of a middling cat crawled over her back and onto her shoulder, looking down inquisitively at Quolúvië's polishing hands.

[Galadrihell]

Cave of Whispers

There is a grating sound, the harsh whine of metal on rock, an ear-pinching screech that no-one pays any heed to. Screams are commonplace here, after all, but in the end, they all turn into whispers. Everyone begs, in the end.

Vorhúna was whetting a knife.

It was one of her only possessions. It was a gift, really, a sign of trust; it shewed that she has been chosen. Blessed. Just like her name: also a gift. She gave something in return, she knew, but what it was eluded her; her memories had trickled away over the months and years, a jug of wine drained to the bitter dregs, until she was perfect: a vessel, empty, ready to be hallowed.

And she was nearly ready. Vorhúna was certain of that, as she was of little else. Her soul was as honed as the blade: pared into perfection. She sucked in a breath with every stroke. The air was close and fetid; the women crowded together like worms, pallid limbs clammy in the red torchlight. Most of them were unready. Many of them would be discarded, their souls shucked from their worthless bodies so that the Necromancer's pupils might try again. They still desired life; weaker yet, some of them desired death. Vorhúna had seen them cast hungry eyes on the edge of her knife, gleaming dark with desperation. Soon they would come to beg.

You will be a dagger in the heart of our enemies, a whisper of fear in the minds of our foes.

And soon she would be unsheathed.

[Baphởmet]

The Rotten Temple

It was quiet here. It was always quiet. The only sounds that ever disturbed the serenity of this nothingness was the arhythmic footsteps of his many effigies wandering and haunting in the woods. The winds, no matter how strong and violent, could not make a sound without his expressed permission. This was his domain, his land, his kingdom. All around him, his freezing gray fog obscured the world around him. He could see vague, almost human but not quite right, shapes. They stood at the very edge of sight, limbs reaching to the ground, shapes as gaunt and hollow of skeletons, heads crown with asymmetrical horns and antlers. Had he not been their father, their creator, he would have felt a pang of fear at their arrival. How many were there now, drifting at the edge of the physical world? They decayed faster than he’d like but they were never meant to be permanent. They were made of decaying stuff, desiccated bones, burned wood, and fungal matter. Each one was a unique work of art, a testament to the Lonely Lord's power, a window in the soul of a long-buried poet. This grimscribe had long gone unnoticed, his life and works had been mocked and scorned. “Too dreary” they would say “too macabre, where is the expression of life?” The elves had been fools to deny his brilliance. They paid a heavy price for that ignorance. These effigies were the manifestation of his art, of his most horrific reflection of the physical realm. All were naught but rotting materials, gathered from dead things to masquerade as a creature independent of its maker. They all stood there now, each one coming at his silent call. They waited for the ceremony to begin. He inhaled the cold air and looked at the material beneath him on the altar. He considered the bones, some troll, some orc, some elk. There were bits of stringy meat still clinging to the orc bones, shreds of sinew and tendons. There were also bundles of noxious weeds, vines too green to be natural, and oleander flowers. There were branches torn from a tree, all scored with three red slashes across them. Curious, Angathfund thought he knew those markings. What were they doing within his realm? A message to her ladyship might be in order. But that was for later deliberation. He looked at the skull he’d procured. One of the Black Easterling’s horses had spooked and broken its neck in a fall, poor thing getting spooked by a figure in the fog. Khamûl had been none the wiser, not that he cared overmuch either way. It was a good skull. There was still some flesh attached around the eye sockets. One of them had been crushed in the fall so one eye was much larger than the other. All the better to see with, my dear he thought. He placed a pair of antlers ripped from a bull moose on either side. He stood back and admired his work. The creature would be have long bones in its legs, troll bones reinforced with the vines, innards filled with poisoned mushrooms and deadly flowers, the limbs of the elk and the hands of an orc, with the head of a demonic horse and topped with moose antlers.

He began to mutter in a strange, singsongy voice. The language was one that had not been heard by a living creature in more than ten thousand years. The primordial language of the elves, before his people were corrupted and broken by the yoke of the Valar, by the burden of light and sun, back in the time when the darkness was welcomed with open arms and there was a wide world of nothingness to melt away into. He envied those that experienced that first existential dread of loneliness. The first to experience just how vast and empty the world really was. They had created his fear, the fear he now used to imprison and torture others with. He rubbed at the old wound on his throat. It ached from time to time, especially when he was forced to speak. But the ceremony required words, and thusly he would use them if he had to.

As he intoned the ritual spells, the effigies closed in around him, a hundred different shapes and sizes, some with three limbs, some with two heads, all expressions of his inner malice and disregard. They closed in until they formed a circle around him. None of them could speak, he’d made sure to never allow them that freedom, but they did stamp the ground, clack their bones or twist their limbs in a sort of rhythmic song following the tune of his chanting but on a much lower register. His voice rose and fell, jumping between eight different octaves. His voice was raw with disuse and the corruptive magic he poured into the figure on the stone slab. Fog billowed out of him, cold bright fog. It obscured everything around him, blocking out all sounds ands sights. For a terrifyingly blissful moment, he could feel himself utterly alone in the entire scope of creation. He was alone in all of Middle-Earth.

The fog cleared below him, swirling apart to give him a clear view of the effigy being born. Muscle fiber and vine merged, knitted itself together in a horrid facsimile of life. The thing shuddered, convulsed, and made as if to scream. Angathfund’s smile was cruel and cold.

“Welcome, my child.” He said before the entire world fell back into complete silence.

[Baphởmet]

Cave of the Whispers

Naltacolindiel. That had been her name once. But that had been before. Before the Ghost, before the Lonely Lord, before the whispering began. It was hard for her to keep track of the years she had not been Naltacolindiel, all the days and nights ran together in her mind. Time had not been kind to her. It played tricks on her, teased her, jumbled itself all up until there were so many knots it was impossible to tell where it began and where it ended. It angered her. She was an elf, she ought to have mastery of time. Those that decided which ways the rivers ran were fools, degenerate and blind. Her master, the Lonely Lord, he was a master of time. So he said, and if he said so, then she believed him. He had spent years telling her that he was a master of time. She had not believed him though. But that was all before he became the Ghost. He was a river jewel once, a shining glittering object just out of reach. But as the Shadows of afternoon lengthened, he changed. His attempt to wrest control of the Woodland Realm had ended in failure. She blamed herself. She blamed the king. She blamed the fool. How could he have failed if not for the lack of faith in him and his cause? She had believed him then. She forced herself to believe. Whatever he told her, whatever whispers he deigned she could hear, she believed. He told her to prostrate herself before the Necromancer and beg for his favor. And she did. She felt something striped away from her when she did. Her reason and logic seemed to melt like candle. She felt freer but broken, wiser but maddened by what she’d seen and heard. Angathfund he was called then, throwing off the glimmer of the river jewel and shrouding himself in ghostly vapors. She abandoned her name as well. She had been the light bearer, the first star of the morning. The name she had now cut holes in her lips and cheeks if she tried to say it.

He raised her up, the Lord of Silence, and she thanked him. She had been reborn in a pit of fog and broken tree limbs. The cold no longer bothered her, not after the black fires of the Necromancer and the bone cracking fog of Angathfund. It was cold in this cave. It was always cold. This was where she liked it. Far from light, far from sound, far from life. She had made this cave her home. He had given it to her to make her own. She was his Whisper, his reflection of reality. She was the first. She would be the last, when the Shadow conquered and laid waste, she would be there and shriek in the utter loneliness of it all. She giggled madly in the darkness of the cave. There was no echo. She knew there was supposed to be an echo, this far down, with all this space around her. But that’s not what happened. This was were hope and daylight died. She touched the walls of her cave, her prison. The stone felt strange on her fingers. Some of her fingers felt the harsh cold, the glassy, oily feel of the igneous rock. Others, the fingers replaced twisted black wood, felt nothing. It still felt strange to her, even after all these years. The grey pilgrim was going to pay for what he took from her when he entered the Necromancer’s sanctum.

The cave was large, vast, a gift from a power beyond something she could comprehend. She followed the silent track down and down and down and down until it was not cold that she felt but an absence of either heat or cold. The air was foul down here, like the smell of a chicken farm. There were many little chicks down here, all of them crawling over themselves, fouling and messing in their eagerness to please. They learned that that was the only way to survive. Please the Lonely Lord, Angathfund, and he may yet reward them. Some had names, others had nothing. Some had bones, some had blades.

It was time to find another Whisper.

Which of these little chicks could make an echo?

She entered the chamber. There was no light down here. There was never any light. Light would have invited companionship, would have encouraged hope and the illusion of togetherness. In the darkness, there was loneliness. Loneliness was the gift of her god.

“Which of you can whisper? Which of you can touch the Lonely?”

She exited, drifting back like a shadow melting in the coming of dawn. They would all kill each other, ravenous and hungry for approval. The survivor will have passed the test.

[Galadrihell]

Cave of Whispers, Vorhúna

Noise draws predators. It is the first thing you learn, an instinct strong enough to stifle any other. Vorhúna knew and welcomed it, felt a strange lightening when the first arm gripped her wrist and tried to twist her flint blade from her grasp. In the fetid dark, even her keen eyes could see nothing; everyone was shapeless and formless except when touched.

Vorhúna loathed being touched. The sensation of another skin on hers made the bile come coiling up into her throat. She hawked and spat harshly, and was rewarded with a cry. The hand was withdrawn, but Vorhúna was already striking, her free hand throttling something soft and full of cartilage, her dagger hand stabbing and stabbing until she could taste iron and salt and the air was full of wet noises. There was a whispering susurration from the others in the cave, the body going limp in her arms with a final crack. She could feel grating along the bone as she withdrew her sodden hand and licked up her victory.

She could hardly bear to touch the corpse. Something like a memory snagged in her brain, of the last time she had been forced to kill, of the eyes that accused, of her own loss. Vorhúna blessed the sacred dark and packed the silent shapes of night into the jagged holes of her heart. She would feel nothing and be nothing. She could grieve nothing.

There was something like a breeze, the foul air moving with someone's passage as a strange voice called out into the void of their existence. Lonely... how Vorhúna longed for solitude, for silence and forgetfulness - for perfection. She began to crawl towards the entrance of the cave.

[Baphởmet]

Cave of the Whispers

The Whisper stood at the entrance to the cave. She could not see, but she could hear. The progress was being made. She could hear the whimpers of the dying, the gurgling of those drowning in blood, the snapping and ripping and chewing of meaty flesh. In her mind’s eye she could see the whole thing. The cavern floor was slick with blood and offal. Despite the stink, she found herself inhaling the scent of death as fully as she could. It was an intoxicating scent, hypnotic and hallucinogenic. The smell of death was addictive. It was one of the benefits of being a Whispers, she could smell all the death she wanted. In the gloom of the lightless cave, the elf once known as Naltacolindiel smiled with vicious white teeth. There were a few already crawling toward her like worms towards a pile of cow shire. She wondered if this was how Angathfund felt when she crawled toward him, when she worshiped the very earth his boots trod. It was a powerful intoxicant. Her hands felt heavy at her side full of potential energy ready to explode.

A knife appeared in her hand, a long slender blade carved from the femur of a horse. It had been her weapon of choice for a thousand years now. It was sharper than any dagger and easier to hide when she was permitted to spy. Silently, the blade sank into the nearest worm, a creature so covered in filth it was impossible to tell if they were human or elf. The blade came back slick and wet with gore, chunks of flesh fell off the blade. She smiled and plunged the blade in again and again and again. There were soft, piteous moans at first, but those died away as the body transitioned from living thing to dead meat. It was not typical for her to kill a prospective Whisper like this, but she was feeling particularly agitated by all the excitement. The creature wasn’t worthy of being a Whisper anyway. It had avoided fighting and clawing and killing. That was not the way of the Whisper. She knelt down and plunged her hands into the wounds, tearing at them, pulling apart flesh and bone and muscle in a savage frenzy. This was all creatures that hid deserved. She stood up, having eviscerated the corpse then stomped on the head until the skull cracked and turned to mush beneath her booted feet. Power. It flowed through her like molten steel.

---

He watched invisibly from behind his Whisper. She had initiated the final ceremony, seeing who was worthy of him and who was worthy of fertilizing the fields for his armies. She took pleasure in all this. He did not. If truth be told, Angathfund didn’t care much about any of the bloody rituals of the Whispers. They were a necessary evil, an engagement he had to attend in order to maintain his control. He would much rather be in his Hawthorn Mansion, watching over his kingdom, but needs must. The cave was a seething mass of bodies, stinking and filthy. It was a reminder of all the things he hated about other people. They were all vile, animalistic, and servile. Yet even the flea infested rat had a use. There would be a Whisper in this horde of seething putrescence. He could sense her. In the darkness, he couldn’t see her, but he knew who she’d be. He had stolen her away from a life of mundane horrors and banal entropy. A life of wild abandon awaited her, she need only embrace the fear of loneliness, embrace the denial of existence.

“Rise, Vorhúna,” he whispered, allowing his form to be seen in a pale green fog. “Rise, and whisper for me.”

[Galadrihell]

Vorhúna, Cave of Whispers

Her throat warmed with the scent of shed blood. A rising flush spread in her veins, a pulsing vulnerability in her neck. Suddenly paranoid that the creatures around her could smell her living vitus, Vorhúna tucked her chin and gritted her teeth in an invisible grimace as she forged on towards the noises, becoming ever more gristly; somewhere in front of her, someone was being unmade.

As was she.

The smell of viscera is unmistakeable. A dozen - a hundred - hungry mouths stretched towards the terrible wet crackling; Vorhúna felt dirty fingernails dig into her flanks and slapped flesh out of her way. She ripped out a handful of someone's hair, leaving her palms greasy with sweat and sticky blood. Soon the gasps turned to mewls as she slashed out a path ahead of her. She could almost feel what the Whisper was doing, as though her own strength were surging up with enough wild-fire ecstasy to rip a body limb from limb. As single-mindedly transfixed as an insect to the light she staggered forward towards the Voice that had called her name, that surged in her brain with an ocean's roar.

A figure coalesced in front of her - or in her mind? Vorhúna barely knew. She had not seen anything with her own eyes for months. She rose up on her forearms, crouched like a rat in the filth, tried to stand.

"Master," she breathed.

[Baphởmet]

The Cave of the Whispers

The cave was alight with the sounds of ripping and tearing, muted screams and cut off whimpers. This was the savagery he longed to cultivate. The maddened frenzy of teeth and claw. Some of the creatures here wanted to live, to escape, they were the ones that did not understand the puzzle, the game, they were a part of. There was only one way to survive this cave of nightmares. Him. This maze, this mental labyrinth was designed for one single purpose, for them to come to him, to see him as their master and savior.

The Ghost of Perdition would purge them of their former lives, their former existences. He would rip apart their minds with ecstatic rage in a frenzy of fragmented memories, stolen names and faces, and shredded emotions. They were remade, reborn, reconstellated. He placed within the deepest part of their minds a whisper that only they could hear, only they could answer. That whisper would grow and consume them. Angathfund looked at the Whisper to his side, the one that had been with him from the beginning. She was part of this orgy of violence as well, lost in the feral bloodletting ceremony. He did not smile, but he did approve of her sacred rage.

“Well done, thou vile and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the ecstasy of thy lord.” He reached out a hand to the one crawling to him, crouching like a rat ready to feed.

Below the sounds of gnashing and crunching and tearing was the sound of a river of blood flowing down into the deeper recesses of the cave. Somewhere, through the twists and turns of the infinitesimal cracks and crevices of stone and earth, this little sanguine stream would meet the Enchanted River and create a slow, insidious infection. Again, he did not smile as he thought of this, but it did please him.

“I love you, Vorhùna. I love you more than them. Rise and show me how much you love me.”

[Galadrihell]

Vorhúna, Cave of Whispers

There was a greenish, pallid glow around him; too sickly and grotesque to be called light, it spilled around the stark contours of his body and gave him something like a form - a shape Vorhúna could perceive.

She had not seen anything with her own eyes for so, so long. Her pupils were empty holes that had almost devoured the irises within the lightless confines of the cave. She inched forwards, her hands shaking as she stretched them up towards the beckoning figure. As she beheld her own limbs she recoiled in shame; they were streaked with filth most vile, wet with the thin blood of the weak; she was clotted with their shame, the stench of bowel relaxed in death, damp with the smeared tears of cowards.

Vorhúna’s own eyes ran with the Master’s words, her cheeks helplessly spilling moisture. Love? What was love? Love is a snare, a trap to hold your heart quiet for the knife. She had proven that long ago, had broken the bonds when she had released her beloveds into the only safe place: death. Mortals who died were safe. They alone had that true gift: not like the Elder Children, dragged back to the surface of the world, chained to its substance whether polished clean of their deeds and reborn again, or as bodiless ghosts, thieves of weaker flesh.

“I do not love thee, Master,” she wept, fearful, but compelled to the familiar usage. She lifted her lashes, darkened with tears, the hollow eyes rapt with adoration. “I am unworthy. I worship thee.”

[Baphởmet]

The Cave of the Whispers

He was rapidly losing interest in the proceedings. The new Whisper had been chosen and soon the Cave would be swept clean. He chafed to be away from here. What more use was it for him to doddle about and interact with them. Even if that idea had not been utterly repellant, it was not good for a god to mingle too much with his worshippers. He did not need familiarity and trust, he needed obedience and dedication. The proximity to living things began to grate on his nerves. Even though the Whispers treated him like a god, he hated being around them. He found them less objectionable than the orcs or the spiders or the men, but he would still rather have an entire world of quiet nothingness. “You will learn, Vorhúna, you will learn.” He looked into her mind, sifting through the surface thoughts of his newest devotee. She would do nicely. A test, a real test, not crawling through a mass of worms and rats, would present itself and she would have to prove herself to be truly valuable. It was one thing to be a savage, it was another to be a Whisper.

He cast his eyes to the other Whisper, frantically and enthusiastically butchering the bodies of the would be Whispers. She had always been like this. She had lost her mind when she was exposed to the Necromancer’s will. She had a single shred of sanity and she wrapped that single shred so tightly around him that he found he could move and stretch it in anyway he pleased. He did find a perverse sense of pride when he saw the brutality and sadism she inflicted. He gained no power from it, he was not that kind of lord, but she did not need to know that. If she lost that single connection, there was no telling what sort of damage she could end up causing. Keep her on the leash, the leash she so desperately wanted him to hold.

“Once you’ve finished in here, Vorhúna, I will have work for you to do.” He whispered and stepped back into the blackness, letting the mists fold back in around the entrance to the cave.

[Marceline]

The Web

Hethu was almost ashamed to admit that she had never once set foot into the disquieting confines of Dol Guldur. Almost. She would have been properly ashamed by her absence if she had not spent the years since leaving the Isle roaming the southlands in the name of he who had founded this terrible place. But now she had an excuse to venture into the chill fog.

She ascended the hill on foot. Her horse had broken a leg on the rocky slopes as they approached, and she had put the thing out of its misery before continuing on. It would not do for its shrieking and moaning to alert everything on the hill and in the nearby woods to her presence, sympathetic as she was to their cause. No, it was far easier to cut the thing’s throat and have done with it. By the way her spine tingled, Hethu was quite certain that many watchful eyes had seen her and were eager for a taste of horseflesh.

The mist rolled steadily and serenely through the air, a never-ceasing veil of pearly moisture obscuring the fortress looming at the top of the hill. As she neared it, she turned - heading instead for a smaller building outside the fortress’ walls. From a distance, the place appeared to be made of black marble veined with white, though Hethu realized upon closer inspection that the white streaks were, in fact, sticky webs strung across its rough walls. She touched one as she passed through the door. The stuff was light but strong, sticky but not clinging.

Within, she found a hooded woman (Quolúvië) and a hair-raising supply of skittering legs. Hethu understood that her business here would not be nearly so difficult to accomplish as it would be in the more virtuous corners of the world, but still: she slid onto a tall barstool before the woman wondering how it all would play out.

“What a pretty pet,” she remarked lightly, her glance falling on the spider perched atop the woman’s shoulder. She cut to the chase without pause. “For a bar filled with such fascinating patrons, I would expect the drinks to be similarly interesting. What does Dol Guldur’s tavern have to offer a weary traveler in search of rest?”

[Baphởmet]

The Web

Right. Work was over and it was time to kick back and relax. Ramuk had two choices. Did he go back to the barracks and try to sleep with all the hooting and hollering and carrying on of his fellows, or did he go to the pub, creepy and filling with spiders as it was? A choice of evils was at his feet. He looked at his feet just then, there were, in fact, two weevils trying to burrow into some drop shred of beef. As the saying goes, one must choose the lesser of two weevils. He picked up the smaller one, looked it in the eye and sighed. It really was the lesser. How disappointing. He popped it in his mouth and decided where he had to go. The barracks were far too noisy and rambunctious, and he was in no mood for such caterwauling tonight. Tonight he simply wanted some peace and quiet, a strong drink or two, maybe some time and space to read a good novel. There weren’t many good pieces of literature for an orc to read these days. Most of the works coming from Umbar or Harad or the East were written in a language he couldn’t read. It was frustrating. The works coming out of Mordor were even less inspiring. Torture manuals, propaganda pieces, or army literature. Why can’t he just get his hands on a good adventure novel? They had them in the old days. There used to even be a printing press here. It was secret of course, but it was still there, putting out good trash. Now it was just trash. Literally, the black hooded bosses had found it and wrecked it so well there was no saving it. They went through all the barracks then, searching for “subversive materials”. Lucky for Old Ramuk he’d managed to save a few before he’d tossed his in the fire. Same old, same old. Still, it was better than nothing right?

He made his way down the hill to the pub. He could feel the air changing as he got closer. There was something weird about the Web. More than the obvious. It was like two competing forces were at work on Dol Guldur. He had no idea what side he was on in that conflict. All he wanted was a mug of grog and some fish. He loved lutefisk, but they were always out. Maybe he’d try his luck again. After all, he’d eaten the lesser of two weevils, that ought to do for some bit of luck.

The older orc entered the establishment and immediately felt a chill. There was something in the air tonight, oh lord. The place was empty. Well not empty. There weren’t any two-legged types running around. That was good. He could have some peace. He rounded the corner into the common room (the place used to be some sort of fancy elfish inn or something and the common room was quite spacious) and found himself very disappointed for a moment. He wasn’t alone. “Well damn,” he muttered under his breath.

A spider crawled onto his shoulder, dropping down from the ceiling. The first time that had happened to him he nearly pooped himself. The spiders here were of freakish size and familiarity. He knew the rules though. Kill a spider, kill yourself. When the spider had not bitten him or laid eggs inside him, he relaxed. The spiders here were curious, but not overly interested in eating patrons. Not these any way. There were others that were less disinclined to eat everything in sight. Ramuk breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’d try the black lager with a black rum chaser if I were you,” he said to the woman at the bar asking about the special drinks here (Hethu). “Dunno what they put in it, but it really calms the nerves.” He gave her a polite nod. He always gave humans and elves an extra helping of politeness. They were more skittish and ready to bite than the spiders. One look at them wrong and Old Ramuk was done for, despite decades of service to the Lonely Lord and the Necromancer. “In fact,” he said with a wry chuckle “I think I’d like just that if’n you don’t mind Madam Quolúvië.”

He moved off then, not really wanting to engage either women in conversation. He sat at a table relatively free of webs and spiders, there was a big brown one that skittered under the table as soon as he sat down. With a satisfied sigh, he collapsed and pulled out the book from his back pocket. He’d read this thing more than a dozen times. It was predictable and full of clichés but he was not one for complaining.

[Marceline]

The Web

Something - or someone - entered the pub after her. Hethu turned and watched massive spiders skittering haphazardly throughout the place. Her eyes followed them into shadows, corners, and impossibly small hidey-holes in the walls. Were they fleeing? She watched a group of the creatures casually lowering themselves from the rafters on near-invisible strands of webbing, spinning peacefully in midair. Others crawled up and onto tables, where they sat twitching their jaws and stretching their legs. No, they were not fleeing. Hethu supposed that, while this place must play host to all sorts of people on a daily basis, the spiders were the ones truly at home here. This was their domain, and they came and went as they pleased - at least while it was still this quiet.

An air of solemnity preceded the newcomer (Ramuk), and she saw the mood written upon a face like a boulder. A spider came to rest upon the orc, and she noted how his shoulders relaxed when the thing made its way onto him. He was a regular here - he knew what the spiders were capable of and what they might do, and he also knew where their boundaries were. Always the regulars, she thought. Her task might have been easier had she come across a fellow traveler, but she would make do with what Dol Guldur had spat into the mouth of this pub.

He recommended a drink, and she smiled. “That sounds perfect,” she said, nodding to the proprietress. She started to hear him uttering the elvish syllables of the woman’s name. How strange that those sounds would flow so smoothly from his tongue. “Thank you, Madam Quolúvië,” she echoed him. He did not linger to make conversation but instead ambled off to a table and withdrew a book from a pocket. A reader, she thought. Aside from whatever tome they were currently absorbed in, nothing interested readers like what other people were reading. As a lover of tales, she knew this fact well. No wonder he was so fluent. She reached a hand into her bag and rummaged through its contents until she found one of her favorite little volumes: The Great Hunts in the South. The title was embossed upon the supple leather cover and just visible in the bar's low light.

As abruptly as she’d seated herself on her barstool, she slipped lightly from it. “Please bring my drink to my table.” She took a seat at the next table over from the orc and chose the chair on the side which allowed her to sit facing him. Three spiders, seemingly at war with one another, chased each other across the tabletop before vanishing over the edge. It seemed likely that the smallest of the three would be a meal sooner than not. Hethu settled into her seat and opened her book.

[Baphởmet]

The Web

Ramuk took a sip of the black lager. It was thick and heady with a foamy aftertaste that left his head buzzing. He wasn’t sure exactly how they brewed this stuff here at the Web, but whatever they were doing, he hoped they kept it up. The alcohol settled in and so too did he. A spider jumped onto his shoulder. For a heartbeat, they looked at each other, each one daring the other to make a move first. These spiders, the orc was quite certain that they knew the rules around here and liked to flaunt their sacrosanctity. Why else would they run around so out on the open? In all his years, before the Web was a place, spiders of all sizes had been skittish, running and hiding at the first sign of something bigger. They’d grown bold here. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. At the moment, it was definitely just a thing. He shooed the spider off his shoulder, she raised her front two legs at him menacingly before bounding away to parts unknown. He took another sip of the black lager. Red hells that was good stuff.

Feeling sufficiently heady (he should have ordered something to eat, this alcohol was going to go straight to his head), he opened the book and began to read. The first chapter of this book was quite good. The author described the scenes so well it was as if the characters were springing right from the page. It was too bad what happened to them all later on. He licked his thumb and turned to page and…

There was someone sitting across from him at a nearby table. What in the blazes? No one ever sat with him, not that she was sitting with him of course. They all said he was too cantankerous, too crabby, too “disappointed dad” for anyone to want to sit and chat with him. That didn’t bother him anymore, he liked the quiet. He tried to read the next paragraph but found himself forgetting what he’d read as soon as he finished. He read the paragraph over again, then again, and then again for a fourth time. He looked at the lager. Surely it wasn’t that? He’d only had two drinks, there was still more than half a pint in there. He looked at the woman. She was reading something too. Another reader? His interest was piqued. Still, he didn’t want to be rude and intrude on her privacy.

He read the paragraph again. It made a little more sense this time. Had that bit always been so difficult to understand? Why was he so distracted? He read on and got to the introduction of the heroine, at least the character everyone thought was going to be the heroine. It was a clever ploy, a misdirect to shock the audience, she actually turned out to be the villain of the whole story. He smiled, remembering his first reaction to the twist, he’d been so shocked he stopped reading and went back to the beginning, this very page (he could see a few scratched question marks still), and reread it over and over, trying to find where he’d been tricked.

He took another sip and looked over at the woman. What was she reading? Without being too obvious, he tried to see what the title was. He squinted. Damn this lighting! It was just out of sight; her finger was covering one of the words on the title. Great [something]unts of the South? Surely that couldn’t be right? His imagination filled in the rest of the missing letters. A saucy book eh? He looked at her again. He’d always assumed women didn’t read erotica, good to see he’d been wrong about that. He cleared his throat and hastily went back to reading his book. “Stop staring you old oaf,” Ramuk chided himself, “gonna get yourself in trouble that way.”