Memories III: The Necropolis
Beyond the ruins of your former stronghold,
and above the gardens of the dead,
your brother Melchiah waits...
As Raziel moved through the remnants of the place that used to house his clan, the ponies took their moment to take a look at the place and try to see what they could get from the place. Chills filled their bodies as they saw intact constructions but no sign that they were ever inhabited, they tried to think of how they would feel if Ponyville, or any part of Equestria, were ever to befall of such fate.
It was frightening to say the least. The buildings themselves gave testimony of how there used to be a civilization, but there was no indication of any type of survivor inhabiting the place. All they could see were the sons of Dumah infesting the place and attacking Raziel whenever they found him, quickly transforming into his meal.
"Girls..." - Everypony turned to look at Pinkie Pie, who had her mane deflated although she still had some pink on her coat. - "I don't know you, but, just by looking at this, I feel really bad for Raziel."
The ponies took a moment to think on what Pinkie was saying as they reflected on what they were looking at. While Raziel was piercing a vampire to death, all the ponies could notice was the loneliness of Raziel having to endure the destruction of his whole clan, after being murdered by his own brothers and his murderous leader.
"I..." - Pinkie proceeded, - "I don't think just making a single party for him would make any of this go away. I'm not sure if making multiple parties for him would fix something as harmful as this, do you get what I mean?"
The ponies took a moment to think and understand what Pinkie was saying.
"I understand you perfectly, Pinkie dear" -, responded Rarity, - "After seeing all of this, I'm not even sure if there is any way for Raziel to recover from something so traumatic" -. She then started to mull over how she could even face something as horrible, as having those close to you eliminated from the face of the planet. - "All I know is that I don't want this to happen to Ponyville."
As Raziel started to climb a spiral, Fluttershy decided to interject.
"Well, it's not as in there's nothing we could do, both to make sure this never happens to Ponyville and to help Raziel."
All the mares looked at her with a certain level of thought and wonder, considering her words and taking them as factual.
"You are correct" -, confirmed Princess Celestia, - "although we cannot change what we are seeing, we can make sure that the destruction, shown in this world, never happens to us. The same way, we can help Raziel so his life on Equestria is as pleasant as possible."
"We agree, dearest sister" -, added Princess Luna, - "just the idea of Raziel coming from a world such as this, and still being able to raise up to come to a world, different from his, to save us from utmost destruction. He truly deserves to have a better... life... here among us."
All the ponies were starting to smile and formulate plans to help Raziel's stay in Ponyville, until the reaver's memories reminded them of what they were seeing.
"No! Please!"
The ponies saw Raziel getting close to a perch as they all looked a bipedal creature that didn't quite looked like Raziel, the devourer of souls would later explain them that this creature was a human, moving back from a bonfire with fear, as two frail and ghoulish looking creatures started to get close to him.
Seeing the monsters moving as if their bodies were constrained, they were lanky and thin with their skins looking artificial or as if it wasn't truly part of them. All the ponies could feel their bodies crawl for how unnatural this, already unnatural, creatures seemed and, they knew, the knowledge of what they were would only make them regret it, but, just for Raziel, they would endure this, to the point that they didn't looked away from the scene as the creatures decided to murder the human with their claws and drink his blood.
"I didn't recognize these flayed wracks of flesh" -. Said an unfazed Raziel. - "Their scent was vampiric, but they gnawed upon their victim's carcass like dogs."
Suffice to say, Raziel quickly jumped into the fray and sent the two vampires into the bonfire, quickly releasing their souls and turning into his next meal.
After that, Raziel kept on moving until he then found a graveyard, with yellow flags on the upper sides of the pillars and with more of this frail vampires eating the corpses of humans moving through the tombstones. It was impossible to ignore that many of this ghoul-looking vampires came from the earth and were capable of digging themselves down just to appear on another side of the graveyard, or any place with soil.
"This charnel house bore the unmistakable marks of Melchiah's clan. To what depths had out dynasty plummeted, if these ghouls were the descendants of my high-born brother? Were they so debased as to recruit fledglings from the dessicated corpses here interred?"
After devouring more of this melchahim, Raziel managed to get on the upper side of the graveyard, just to see a mural depicting his brother Melchiah as some kind of hero worth honoring despite the graveyard being filled with devolved vampires.
"My brother, Melchiah, was made last, and therefore received the poorest portion of Kain's gift. Although immortal, his soul could not sustain the flesh, which retained much of its previous human frailty. This weakness, it seemed, as passed on to his offspring. Their fragile skinds barely contained the underlying decay."
It was in this moment when all the ponies understood what they were witnessing and Rainbow Dash, probably, was the only one explaining it in the simplest of ways.
"So, this are vampire zombies...? So awesome..."
After this, the ponies followed Raziel through the remnants of Melchaiah's territory, always noticing how the mausoleums and crypts were now used as places of temporary, rather than permanent, rest for the vampires as they used the ground itself to transport through the land.
In comparison, any human Raziel found wasn't worth fighting.
In fact, what took the most interest from the ponies was a vampire whose corpse was no longer moving but its soul was nowhere to be seen. The same way, since the crypt didn't provide of any way to move further, Raziel decided to shift between planes and he then noticed a robed figure floating through the spectral realm as if it were swimming.
"Beware, Raziel.
These wraiths are vampire spirits, fettered too long in the spectral realm.
When their vampire natures adapt to this plane, they become eaters of souls.
Do not allow these spirits to re-inhabit their corpses..."
Raziel quickly prepared to fight as the wraith jumped straight at him and clawed him slightly, it was here that Raziel truly understood another problem from this vampiric wraiths, much to the ponies worries, as it started to siphon in Raziel's energy. For a brief moment it wasn't understood what to do but Raziel's agility managed to get a few hits on the creature, ending the soul leeching, and allowing Raziel some time to breath.
As Raziel fought the wraith, Twilight tried to analyze its movement and realize how much it reminded her of the monster that tried to eat her, back when she first entered the Spirit Realm and wondered if there was anything she could do to defend herself should she ever find herself coming back to that dangerous place.
So invested was Twilight on her thoughts that she missed Raziel devouring the wraith, allowing him to continue into his journey through the city of the nonliving, as the crypts were filled with more vampires raising from the ground and even vampires impaled with human weapons that were better left alone.
In the end, what worried the ponies the most was how these vampires never showed signs of rationale. No matter how many vampires Raziel ended, they would still try to eat him, as if they were feral animals rather than rational creatures from a long eroded empire.
Celestia and Lune were the ones thinking about this the most, as they tried to conceive how detrimental must have been the life for these vampires to act in such... underdeveloped form. In the end, all they could hypothesize was that these creatures must have been suffering from extreme hunger. Hunger of such levels that any type of thinking was demolished for the instinctual desire for feeding on that of which is hard to find: blood.
In the end, Raziel reached the lower ends of the city, as he found a lone chamber with a huge, roof-less, cage in the middle. Looking at the top of the cage, one could see a great contraption that made it seemed as if anything withing the cage could be compressed to a pulp. On the sides of the cage one could see two other entrances locked, with bars that any vampire with a high enough jump could get across, with a strange lever within the room. As Raziel stepped in, the chamber's entrance quickly closed behind him, much to his worries, and a worrisome growl was heard on the deepest side of the chamber.
All the ponies gathered behind the princesses in fear, despite knowing that the monster couldn't harm them, as Raziel moved forward and menacingly. He moved towards the creature, what little could be seen showed an gigantic beast sitting on a small crevice within the chamber, making it look like the monster was important and, just by looking at the silhouette, Celestia remembered what was about to be faced and she became glad that the smells weren't as strong as how she actually remembered it to be.
"Show yourself, creature."
As he said this, the monster started to move towards Raziel as its guttural voice made the ponies' skin crawl, and its heavy steps made the chamber quake.
"Do you not recognize me, brother? Am I so changed?"
As the monster stepped out, all of Twilight's friends (and the scholar herself) were in shock as they saw the most hideous, and disgusting, monster they ever saw in their life. It's flesh was made out of human corpses (whose faces could still be seen as if they were shouting in horror) with bony protuberances coming out of its shoulders, its hands were human bodies, with each limb being a finger; it had no legs and its face was impossible to be seen as human with all that flesh distorting whatever remnant of normality they could have. In the end, its deep red eyes showed that this creature wasn't divine by any means, it was a demonic monster that was, quite interestingly, dwelling on the lowest chamber among the dead.
"Melchiah?"
Just pronouncing its name was hard to digest, as the monster didn't resembled Raziel's little brother he knew so long ago.
"Yesss, brother" -. Its hissing made it even harder to be taking as a rational creature but, nonetheless, both Raziel and the ponies recognized that he looked sentient enough to talk with. - "You should have stayed where the master sent you, Raziel. You will find Nosgoth less pleasant than you remember."
"What has become of my clan?" - Raziel quickly asked. - "Answer me, little brother, or I will beat an answer from your horrid lips."
Melchiah's answer was just as quick and, horrifyingly, calm, considering what he said next.
"Everyone is afraid, sibling. You awake to a world of fear. These times of change are so... unsettling. Do you think I feel no revulsion for this form? Do you believe for a moment that our Lord would risk his empire upon an upstart inheritance?"
The implication was infuriating for both Raziel and the princesses, the only ones understanding where it was going.
"Enough riddles - what are you saying?!"
What Melchiah said next would chill the ponies with shock and fear, as it finally cemented on them what they saw on Raziel's former clan.
"You are the last... to die..."
Melchiah then moved towards Raziel, at a speed that was above from what a creature of its size, and weight, would be capable of achieving, while Raziel simply responded by trying to harm it with its claws, only to see how they were completely ineffective against his little brother, forcing Raziel to run away from him by jumping inside the cage in the middle of the chamber, hoping to have some time to think and prepare a plan against his putrid brother but it was for naught. Melchiah started to move into the cage and (to Raziel's and the ponies' shock) became transparent and phased through the bars as if they weren't there. Before Raziel could understand what the necrotic leader was doing, he became solid again and almost took a (literal) bite from Raziel.
This forced Raziel to quickly run into one of the jails, on one of the sides of the chamber, and ran to the jail's deepest corner. He ran so fast that he missed to see the lever and tripped it, it was here when Raziel noticed how the lever quickly rose the bars on the jail's entrance and it gave him an idea. He raised the bars and waited until Melchiah was coming by, he waited until his little brother was right below the bars and, then, Raziel dropped the bars into Melchiah's skin, piercing what was thought to be impregnable, and causing the beast to shout in pain.
For a brief moment, Raziel thought he was going to have an advantage against his brother but Melchiah quickly broke the bars holding him and continued his charge against Raziel. The Soul Reaver then ran into the other jail, in the hopes of weakening Melchiah but not before noticing a lever (or switch, as he started to guess) that gave him an idea, so he decided trick Melchiah into the other jail, just so he could pierce his skin once more and, while Melchiah was trying to break the bars, he prepared himself to trick Melchiah once more into the cage and, once the leader of the Melchahim clan got into the big juicer's center. Raziel quickly ran and activated the trap, sending Melchiah to his doom.
"Tell me, Melchiah" -, he said before murdering his own brother, - "where can I find Kain?"
"The master is beyond your reach, Raziel. He makes himself known when He sees fit - not when commanded."
It was here when Raziel decided to pull the switch that ended Melchiah's life, as the trap moved down and started to pressure the once 'divine' liutenant. His body tried to resist the pressure, but the machine was much more powerful than Melchiah, who quickly accepted his end with a simple sentence that made many ponies wonder what kind of individual was Melchiah, as well as how his mind was at that moment.
"I am released..."
His body then let go and was pulverized until there was nothing else but blood on the floor, much to the disgust of all the ponies, and wraith, on the room. The contraption then raised from the ground, blood spilling from it, and, to the surprise of the ponies, a pinkish light started to pulsate from it and it quickly went into Raziel, who had no other choice but to eat what once was Melchiah's soul. As the absorption was completed, Raziel fell to the ground, tired from the recent conflict and tried to comprehend what he just did with remorse on his words.
You have done well, Raziel
"Am I reduced to this? A ghoul? A fratricide?"
Elevated, Raziel, not reduced.
Consuming Melchiah's soul has endowed you with a new gift.
Insubstantial barriers such as these are no impediment to you in the spectral realm.
Will yourself to pass through, and you shall.
Seeing the bars not raising, now that the one in charge of doing so was no longer among the living, Raziel shifted through planes and went to them. He pressed himself with strength, as if he was trying to force his own will through the bars and, to his surprise, he quickly felt his body losing what little solidness he had and went through them.
As Raziel left the Necropolis, he still met melchahim trying to attack him but, to his sadly surprise, he noticed that they didn't seem to realize the lack of their leader. They were still the same hungry and ravenous beasts that had little to no rational thought of their own. So, once Raziel finally went through and left the City of the Death, he was given a new task by the Elder God.
With Melchiah's gift, your way is opened.
Return to the seat of Kain's ill-omened empire
This increased Raziel's interest, as he remembered the bars he couldn't cross long ago.
Its sterile silence has secrets yet to unveil.
And with that, the memories stopped moving, letting the ponies to digest what they saw once more and be back into the innocence of their land once more.
"I suppose that should be enough for today" -, Raziel said as he moved to see the ponies (except for the princesses) with their faces locked into a state of shock, and asked, - "does any of you have a question for me to answer?"
The ponies took a moment to think and react at all at what they saw, but, a few minutes later, they all started to react by throwing their reactions into the floor. It didn't surprise the princesses, and Soul Reaver, how the ponies were carpeting the floor with their old innocence, as it was hard to think of any creature that could see something as disgusting like that and feel nothing about it.
Minutes later, they all started to reincorporate themselves and tried to think of something worth asking. In the end, Rainbow Dash was the first to comment.
"That was awesome...! Disgusting, but awesome!"
The ponies were looking at her with weird looks but that didn't deter Dash from talking and praising Raziel.
"I mean, you were hunting vampire zombies and you then defeated its leader in such an awesome way. I mean.. yeah, he was your brother but, that was so awesome."
The ponies then looked at Raziel, with Applejack being the one asking more about it.
"Yeah, about that, do you feel... bad, for doing that?"
Raziel took a moment to think about it and responded with simplicity:
"I still consider myself a fratricide and I no longer am ruled by the emotion of vengeance, but I cannot deny that the injustice committed to me would've still plagued my heart until the day of his demise, at my hands, could be done."
The ponies weren't sure of what could be said about it, so they relented on the questioning but Fluttershy needed to know something else.
"Do you think he felt bad for what he did to you?"
Raziel took a moment to think before answering with an even tone that betrayed no emotion.
"His departing words may indicate that he felt absolute distaste for what his current life, but I'll never know if he ever regretted to stay silent to my murder or the destruction of my clan."
He then looked at the ponies, how battered and tired they looked like and asked them to rest before continuing with his tale, while Celestia would call for a maid (called Aurora Blossom) to clean the newest mess on the room, while the ponies talked about bringing Cadence for the next session of memories.
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When I saw the update, I could not click the link fast enough. I was eager to see what everypony's reactions would be upon seeing Melchiah and I am happy.
Now to face off with Kain... and meet Ariel.
Dude, I’m wondering how you will write about all the puzzles in Zephon’s territory. I’m waiting for the remake because that cathedral is the closest to the hell in all the game. It’s even worse than the oracle. Good luck. Good luck Reaper.
Holy crap! I Finally found something to fill the void left by my dead family!
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Thanks, I hope you enjoy this story. I'm yet to update it, but I have zero plans on stopping it, it's just that this year in particular hasn't been kind on me.
Please update.
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Writing it.
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Thanks.
10720419
I can't wait to read it.
How is the update going?
10977542
Getting close to finish it. Got really bad when my keyboard stopped working, but I got a new one and am writing the chapter as of now. I plan to make a new update once I have the chapter finished.
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Thank you for all your hard work.
What will they see next? Will they see the secret areas and hidden Glyth sites? How about the purely optional and partial only via cheat reachable areas?
I wonder what happened to the Bloodshrines of Kain youth, the seem magical. Than again when blood become hard to come by the probably got used up eventually...