The|MULTIVERSE

EPISODE 32: The Black Gate Get Down

Deathwynd Keep was couched within the barren pointy crags like a somber palace clutched by satanic claws. The eternal shroud of darkness coddled its jagged spires of light, and there was much light here, a city of sullen luminance that threatened weak souls and soiled many undies. Ricven's party stepped right into a gothic horror prop deep in the bowels of Lucienstrix's cavernous innards. The black bridge leading to the main event looked ancient, an evil fossil to time, but its craft and exactness told something completely different. Black Gate Bridge's stone blocks were well-squared, laid with care and perfection. The arcs were shaped like quarter moons and at its stony edges stood lined with balustrades topped with spiny stalagmites and steel flagstaffs proudly showed off a devilish blue skull girdled by silver rolling winds upon a soulless black banner.

But none of that mattered. They crossed the great bridge and found themselves faced with a familiar set of ebony armor. Sheolora's nightmarish vice knights strolling through the magnificent slab of black stone.

What really surprised Ricven, though, were their serene composure, like a bunch of docile monsters clad in black—a little TOO peaceful, to be exact.

"Well, this is unordinary," said Ricven. The knightly batch was smaller than expected for a guard post. Black Gate should be up to its serrated neck with guards. This group looked meager at worst. Something was obviously up. "Short on security, eh, Batty?"

Aramastus fumbled for a response, his glare sufficed.

"They're not attacking us." Fae pointed out. She wasn't entirely thrilled about that, it didn't feel right, fiendish auras galore aside. They should be charging at them madly—swords flailing and all. Aramastus in chains to blame? Couldn't be.

"Only five guards at the gate and the entire bastion appears deserted," Cornelius said. The knights' calmness didn't fool him as he carefully laid a hand on Dusk's handle.

Ricven noticed it all. Five knights; bad air; darkness everywhere. "Yeah, well shit's about to get pretty crowded."

"Just as long as you remember as to why we're here," Hanakin told him.

"Yeah, yeah—you'll get your din-din," Ricven assured to Hanakin. She may have been one to screen her blood-lusty emotions—and sometimes it leaked poison—but faced with Ricven, she was a lucid crystal rough around the edges and red-hot to the touch, shacking up a fire ready to ravage the instigator of her anger. "Just hold your hell-horses."

The knights halted their march and barred Ricven's party from further traversing along. Their faces were half covered in their helmets, so all that one could see were the grim little frowns on their ashy gray lips and the prickly white spines jutted from their full chins. The tallest of the five was the bulkier of the pack, thick meat layered in a coal black shell complete with a dark gray cape and a larger sword waiting at his hip.

All of that imposing get-up did nothing to deter Ricven's grin. "Uh, yeah we're here for the Sheolora Gangbang?"

The vice knights exchanged unpleasant looks then brandish their swords. The bigger one possessed more of a dignified meat cleaver.

"Splendid way to get them riled up," said Aethenius. He flicked his hand and his runite stones flashed and ringed around his forearm. Cornelius unsheathed both Dusk and Dawn, twirling them ready, and Hanakin released her Fangs of Detriment. "Not that I expected anything less of you—my despise of the demonic atmosphere aside."

Ricven agreed with a nice little grin and shrug of the brow. "Well, they didn't deny it." He spun The Staff of Koja into existence and tapped it upright. "Bitch's getting railed."

"That will be enough shenanigans this eve!" a voice demanded loud enough that the opposing parties halted their advance after the first step—Aramastus puffed an air of relief. The vice knights' dagger ears flicked and their swords settled away. The big one stepped aside and there strolled Kaemon Bloodborne, an ashen-haired elf (was he an elf? A demon? Crossbreed?) with pale blue skin and had a fashionable taste for the most fantastic of maestro outfits that anyone had ever seen! "We wouldn't want to plunder our new guest to totality just yet."