In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming; PHASE II

[Lagertha]

this will never end, ‘cause i want more, more, give me more

It must be some miracle, Lagertha thinks, that she does not break a single bone upon landing. Any fall from even a decent height should shatter her forelegs, her hind legs, even her relatively floppy neck - but for some reason, whatever they fell through brought them here, to what must be some circle of hell. The land is dotted with hills that are have nothing but burnt, blackened tree trunks on them. Nothing walks or talks or moves. There is no life here, only the silence that remains when everything else has been devoured. The air itself (not clouds - there are no clouds) is gray, grayer than the aftermath of the Jungle’s blizzard, grayer than the dreariest, cloud-covered horizon. And that smell! It’s worse than a vulture’s carcass that’s been left in a stagnant pool full of panther shit and urine.

She coughs (almost retches, vomiting a bit of bile in her mouth) suddenly aware that it is difficult to breath. She is hot - too hot - and looks down to realize that a thick layer of leather now covers her body. That is all nice and dandy, but her first thought goes to her powers. Would they still work?

The General does a quick test drive, trying to summon a thin layer of metal beneath the leather. She pauses and takes a step, noting that her legs do indeed feel heavier than before, despite the fact that she cannot see them. Then the metal is gone, and though she wants to try her favorite method of defense (thorns), she doesn’t want to leave holes in the leather quite yet. So instead, the gray woman summons some puffy white clouds to the outside of the armor, making herself look like either an overgrown sheep or a giant cotton ball. Absurd… but necessary. Lagertha shakes it off and looks in all directions, trying to find some trace of salt and this sea that the Dark God told them about.

She hopes Rhy is alright. The gold and white woman has twice the power Lagertha does, but though she is fierce and well-protected, the Ambassador is no warrior. She must have faith that she will see her sole friend on the other side - perhaps then they will compare battle scars like true comrades.

She turns her nose to the still air and after a minute or two of definitive deciphering, she finds something: it’s very faint, almost overpowered by the pervasive stench of the air, but like a Glade spritzer by a dumpster, it stands out as a beacon of fresh air. Ok. That way, to her left. For a good couple of minutes she proceeds at a cautious trot, eyes peeled and nostrils flared, every nerve standing on edge - just as they would be if she were entering enemy territory (she is).  All is well until the ground beneath her starts to shake and tremble, sending her skittering sideways with a squeal of surprise. Fucking hell! The ground cracks where she was just standing, sending a boiling geyser of steam into the air. A powerful roar echoes in the distance, and Lagertha knows it would be foolish to linger.

Even she is afraid of this place.
Her first lesson was to know the difference between fight and flight, and this situation begged for flight. A good warrior knows when to retreat, when to raise the white flag; this alien land was nothing like she’d ever encountered, and Lagertha didn’t want to wait around for something to come and find her.

Her trot becomes a canter, and she tries to imagine that the heat of this place is like the sweltering blanket of the Jungle on a summer’s day, but that water is always just a few minutes away. You can stand anything for a couple of minutes. She crests her second hill, only to screech to a halt at the sight below, hooves sliding to find some traction before she moves too quickly down into the small valley and towards the massive, pulsing red blob with several searching tubes and a gaping, slimy hole at its base just dangling in mid-air. What. The. Actual. Fuck. She is completely and utterly repulsed, frantically searching for a way around the monstrosity. However, as fate is wont to do (and often does), the immediate areas around the slimeball are taken up by a bubbling pool of something very acrid to its left and a minefield of active, scalding geysers to its right.

Can’t go over it, can’t go around it… must go under it.

As if the (what would be the aorta) tubes at the top could sense vibrations in the heavy, blanketing air, they begin to wave in a searching manner when Lagertha moves forward. They are, however, short and stubby and can't reach her, so she automatically marks them down as less threatening than the gaping hole at the base of the things. Foolish General - you’re in an alien land, everything is a threat! So while the gray mare’s attention is directed towards what she perceives to be the greater problem, the… monster (it hardly seems sentient) waits until she is closer to rain acid down on her. She can almost see the inside of the hole when she first hears the sizzling of corrosion. It’s faint, and comes in irregular intervals. Lagertha turns her head to see what is going on behind her, and that’s when she sees a blackish-purple, oily looking substance falling around her. As she cranes her neck even further, she sees the edges of the top tubes pulsing and quivering and shooting the very same liquid into the sky.

Luckilyy for her, she has leather armor, but that’s not going to keep her safe for long.

Her eyes dart towards her hindquarters, which are already pock-marked with tiny little divots as the light acid eats towards her flesh. FUCK. It doesn’t hurt yet, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before it does, so she adds a thin layer of platinum to her skin to buy herself time. Must move forward, must get to the sea. Lagertha turns her head back around and is about to surge forward and go underneath the blob when another horrifying site stops her in her tracks.

Crawling out of that gaping hole - in fact, almost completely out of it - is a large, pale, reptilian creature with a trunk for a nose. That trunk has a mouth at it’s end, and that mouth is gnashing it’s very, very sharp and pointy teeth. Their eyes connect. The mouth grins, and the disconnect between eyes and lips make it seem that much more sinister. Lagertha bolts forward, and the creature drops, landing on her back. The upside of this is that it is blocking her from being rained on by acid, the bad part is that there is a large, hungry, half-elephant/half-lizard  creature on her back that presumably wants to make her its supper.

Lagertha crow hops, trying to throw the beast from her back, but those little reptilian claws (feet? pads?) have dug themselves into her armor and are holding on tight. She crow hops again, this time throwing her hind legs into the air and adding a buck at the end - but still, the beast hangs on. The only thing her writhing and bucking and hopping around seem to be doing is keeping the mouth from finding a good place to latch on to. It’s mouth… lamprey like in its placement and number of teeth, does not seek to eat her, only suck her dry. Perhaps the lizard-child feeds the mother heart with the blood of its victims, and it is the blood of the slain that is turned into acid to weaken others. It would be a fitting cycle for this dimension of hell.

Lagertha knows she must keep moving, must keep that long and wobbly trunk unsteady and flailing. Unless… unless she can kill it. The General pauses in her hopping and bucking long enough to focus on that thin sheet of platinum that already lines her back. She adds more to it, pulling it into a spike and forcing it - there is a stabbing pain in her belly. The pause was long enough for the vampiric creature to find a softer piece of flesh and bored through the leather to attach itself. It clenches its circular jaws and begins to draw the blood from her body.

She screams her rage and frustration- loud and powerful and dramatic (as we all know Lagertha often is). How dare it try to take her blood! How dare it try to keep her from her mission?! If anything, its successful attack has made her even more determined, giving her a renewed sort of battle rage that only comes from drawing first blood. She shoots several platinum spikes out of her back, hoping to impale her ill-begotten rider, and it not impale it, at least injure it enough to realize that she wasn’t going to be an easy meal. She knows she hits something on the beast, because the mouth suddenly lets go of her belly, hissing in anger. The creature’s reaction is enough to encourage her, and she shoots several more out - enough to painfully poke and prod the beast, so that it leaves her alone.

She would kill it. She wants to kill it, but Lagertha doesn’t know if killing it will bring more, or if it even could be killed. What parts were vulnerable? Regardless of what she wants to do, the pale lizardoid leaps from her back and scuttles across the land to return to the warm womb of the heart, it’s mouth bloody and hissing all the while. Lagertha’s wound is dripping, stinging and aching all at once. But the sea, the sea! And the next wormhole. If she reaches it, she’ll be safe. Maybe.

To top it all off, the acid has reached her skin, and its stinging is worse than any god forsaken plant she’s ever encountered in the Jungle. It compels her to move forward, demands that she disregard the wound to her belly and march on like a good soldier does. The sea cannot be far. If she hurries, she might not attract anything else, despite being a walking advertisement for a horse burger. Lagertha grits her teeth and hurries on, alternating between a trot and a canter again. She crests a fourth hill, and then a fifth, and finally spots the sea. Her heart sinks. Of course it isn’t the welcome relief she sought… just another vast expanse of boiling water - but there! There, right on the edge of its shore is a black hole!

And so, like the champion that she is, Lagertha powers through till the end, running head-long, as fast as she can into the portal to whatever came next, leaving a smattering of bloody breadcrumbs in her wake. That thing better fucking close before any other abominations get through, otherwise Lagertha is going to be in some serious trouble. Anything could be following her.

lagertha

carnage x grim reaper; amazonian general