Tyrant Era: The golem of Carnifex

by The Psychopath

The pumpkin party

Carved within a huge swath of the mountains floated a tower of black and jolting blue bolts of demonic magic. Several other small pieces of the tower accompanied the main building, and they were all interconnected by blue tunnels that waved as the towers levitated upwards and downwards. There were very bright windows everywhere on these buildings, and several winged giants with almost decaying faces roared upon their perch on the top of the mountain. They were standing guard and, judging by the insane amount of corpses littering the bumpy lands, including their own kind, the Crimson Pioneer was very eager to finish with his rival. However, this dark world was not completely deserted of all non-demonic life. Nearby the towers stood a few villages that looked utterly devastated. There were several demons nearby each town that formed patrols and watched over these ponies. Such a thing would be considered weird if one knew the Pumpkin Lord. He did not like mortals. In fact, he hated them, and loved to torture them, but even the demon realm has a form of currency that is not always a highly esteemed soul in the eyes of a higher demon. The gold that these ponies, griffons, and other creatures mined were very valuable to the demonic kind. Since they cannot touch silver, gold is the next best thing to refract the light of the Creator and its soldiers.

As the night rolled, the screaming of ponies could be heard emanating from the floating towers. Within these buildings, one's mind could be lost. Everything twisted and bent. It was not straight and organized like the castle of the Pioneer, no. It was creative and had several decorative objects that could remind one of Nightmare Night, only, with a much different setting. There were even heads and arms in the walls that lashed out at the tied up ponies being dragged by armored demons. The walls and everything of these buildings were a very dark blue that shined within the bit of light that strange travelling orbs gave upon the surface. Ponies and a few gryphons were being dragged upon the rugged ground, as noted earlier, and were taken to a hole in the wall. It seemed to be drooling and looked a lot like a throat.

"In you go," said a demon with a scrawny voice as it tossed its protesting package into the hole.

All the others followed, and flew down the paths until finally, they arrived in the "throne" room. Only, their arrival was ill-met, especially as they flew in from the ceiling and destroyed a number of objects used for fun, such as torture machines and an axe throwing game platform. The demons in this dark room looked at these intruders with anger. Some of the tied up characters seemed to be moaning in agony, as it seemed that their legs were completely broken. This "throne room" was full to the with games and other things. It was extremely tall, and looked a lot like a dark blue cave with sparkling water reflecting on the walls and floors. Stalactites, stalagmites, dank windows with images of some sort of skeletal horse with a headless, armored being riding on it, and a HUGE amount of smiling jack-o-lanterns used as decorative ornaments and even used in the construction of pillars, walls, and other things. The huge tapestry leading to the two thrones at the end of the room looked like a following of yet more pumpkin faces. As the trail blazed through the crowd of demons and the food on the floor, it ended at said thrones with a drop. The thrones were made in a "hole", so one would always lower themselves in front of the Pumpkin Lord.

The thrones themselves were tall and spiked, and around their rocky masses moved turquoise flames. They weren't dangerous flames. These turquoise fires were mostly used for decoration around the floating towers. And even then, they are rarely ever seen, being reserved exclusively for the "royal" portions of the castle. Despite all of these frightening yet somewhat imaginative appearances, the prisoners were only afraid of one thing: what was directly in front of them. It was a tall bipedal creature, just like the Crimson Pioneer, only, its armor was a very dark hue of blue and had several faces of jack-o-lanterns on the joints, such as the elbow and the knees. The armor had little thorns here and there, but the weirdest part of the armor was the eyes of said pumpkins. They glowed a bright orange and followed every movement around them. This was the Pumpkin Lord, and, if one took into account the excess obsession with the carved pumpkin, the appearance of this tyrant was obvious. His face was a flaming jack-o-lantern and, as a weapon, he used some sort of chain-saw on his back that burned just like the lord's head.

His smile literally illuminated the room as he walked towards the shaking prisoners on the ground that began to huddle up as they saw the flaming monster approach them, the surrounding laughing as they cleared the path of this ruler.

"What do we have here?" he said with a semi-silent voice.

It was almost snake-like with an added sound of ash falling.

"These are some who tried to protest your grandeur, master," an armored demon said as he get out of the crowd.

"Really?" The Pumpkin Lord leaned further towards a griffon who was about to get a heart-attack.

"P-please don't hurt me," he stuttered.

"Hmhmhahaha! Into the conversion tower with you!"

"NOOOOOO!"

Two giant demons pulled the griffon away from the huddled group and placed him in front of the Pumpkin Lord who revved up his weapon. As the griffon closed his eyes, the entire floor around him was torn to shreds, and he fell into an almost bottomless pit that closed back up in an instant.

"Hmmm. Now what should I do with the rest of you. Ahhh. You would make perfect skin peels." the lord said as he pushed a mare's tearing face upwards by the chin.

Suddenly, the doors to the throne room burst open with its and pieces of demonic guards splattering everywhere. The party guests all cheered as they saw who caused it. Epoch Moon had returned, but a few of the guards were missing.

"Epoch! My love. Where have your guards gone?"

"They were swept away by Crimson Pioneer's soldiers. Nothing important."

"Indeed. So I trust that everything went fine during the diplomatic conversing?"

"Yes." she said with pride in her voice as she went to a table to get some demon's blood to drink.

"Then explain to me why you have an unknown energy clinging to you."

The mug fell to the ground, and the demons started to have a little ruckus.

"I-I-"

"What did you see over there?"

"I...The Golem of Carnifex has awakened," Epoch lowered her head in shame.

"WHAT?! AND YOU DIDN'T DESTROY IT?!"

His yelling caused a pony and a griffon to explode, literally. The demons found this funny, but the others were terrified.

"I couldn't. That damnable refugee camp collected one of the pieces that give it immunity to magic. The 'Plate of Arfore' I think it's called."

"DAMN! If they find the other four-"

"Three, master."

"Right. Thank you. Three, then it'll return to its gigantic form and lay waste to all our hard work. But how is it awake? I killed the only descendant of Shining Illusion."

"Well...it seems that she's alive and well, although she appeared to be rather..."

Epoch looked down as she thought, making the Pumpkin Lord walk up to her in concern and with the need to understand.

"Rather what?"

"Rather prissy."

"Huh?"

"Yes. Unlike the one we knew, this one looked like she was horrified of dirt and such. She even had a tiny dragon that looks exactly like our pet."

"Spike? How is that even possible? I tore him from the cold hooves of that stupid purple pony and grew him into a fierce predator. No two dragons look the same!"

"While you look into that, I need some...time alone with one of your prisoners," she looked...seductively at said beings as she licked her poisonous lips.

Pumpkin Lord tossed his arm to the side, gesturing for her to go away. "Fine. Do whatever you want. I need to look into this. I just hope they don't know where the other pieces are."

"Perfect!"

She walked towards the prisoners, and finally stopped at a rather bulky looking brown stallion missing an eye. "You'll do great."

"Stay back, harpy! I know what you do to your chosen prisoners. I've heard the rumors."

"Then you must know what I do when one refuses."

The stallion's eyes shrunk.

"Better a quick death than a long and painful one."

"That's a good slave."

She spoke quietly into his ear as she dragged him into the air with her evil magic, slowly disappearing through a portal created in the ceiling.

A demon walked towards Pumpkin Lord, worried about Epoch: "Master, why do you let her do these things? I know she tortures them, but to take them to her private quarters..."

"No. She doesn't do THAT with them...at least, not that I know or that I care. Ever since I plucked her from that pathetic spell on the moon to even the odds with my enemy, she has been...rather needy. It seems that she was stuck in there a long time, and while her form was quite evil, it wasn't demonic enough. So I spruced it up."

"I see. What about this golem? Why do you fear it? We can destroy it."

"No. You can't. Unless you wield the pure power of existence, then it shall simply reform itself. It uses the beginning and the end. The start and the finish. It uses the Nothing."

The noise in the room suddenly went silent as they looked at their lord who looked horrified at what he had said. One could hear screams and the sound of a very deep voice coming from the eye sockets of the jack-o-lantern as Pumpkin Lord remembered a terrible happening.

"But enough about that. If we can prevent it from reaching the other three pieces, then we are free to do as we please. Begin the search!"

"Yes, Pumpkin Lord!" the demons yelled.

Comments

[The Psychopath]

1117150 You aren't disturbed by what Epoch might be doing to her prisoner?