Spying on Hell

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((It's a new year! You know what that means. DOUBLE UPDATE!))

The treeskeleton flicked their leaves softly, branches curling around their figure in the semblance of a bush, easily overlooked by any who would dare glance their way in the waning daylight. A little way behind and to the left of them lay Eragon and Roran, flat on their stomachs as they all stared down at the evil spire of rock jutting up from the earth.

They were here just in time to watch a sickening procession make their way towards the place called the Gates of Death in the ancient language, Helgrind. They all moved in obscene ways, as each and every last one of the 24 were missing limbs.
The priest, if one could call the genderless worm lacking anything apart from a head and torso by a gender, was seated upon a litter carried by 6 slaves, their skin glistening as they bore their master to the altar.

"The priests of Helgrind." Eragon murmured.
"Can they use magic?" Roran questioned tensely.
"Possibly. I dare not explore Helgrind with my mind until they leave, for if any are magicians, they will sense my touch, however light, and our presence will be revealed. Would you?" He regarded the god beside them.
"We are technically already present." Nightmare's voice explained.
"But their minds are too abstract and maddened to make sense of without probing deeper- of which doing so would reveal us."

They watched as the procession continued, acolytes dressed in gold and bearing unusual cages around their bodies full of bells that rang in tune with their left or right steps, calling out and singing with terrible cries, all of them followed by a long trail of townsfolk, upper classmen and moving down to the poverty level near the end.

They at last arrived at the simple altar at the base of the evil mountain, whereupon the head priest- the worm-like body- began chanting in a strange dialect formed of combined words from english, dwarvish, the Urgal tongue and ancient language.
What they could make out of the ramblings was horrifying, and filled Nightmare with regret.
"I used to have worshippers like this." He muttered aloud, despite Dream's desire that he say nothing.
"Nightmare?" Eragon asked, bewildered as he recognized his voice from the merged form.

"I once discovered a cult that idolized- worshipped me. At the time, I was indifferent, so I left them. After a century or so, I forgot entirely of them. So, when I returned to the AU and stumbled upon them, I was shocked to discover what they had become. I don't know what disgusts me more, that I let them continue or that I enjoyed the idea of such profane worship. It certainly pleases me now to know they will all die soon, that they will never taint this world, and I am no longer that depraved being…." He paused then, the head priest barking out an order to the lesser priests so that the creature's shoulders were sliced open to bleed from the altar.

"But the thing is.." Dream spoke up, voice wobbling slightly as Nightmare glimpsed his brother's memories and froze.
"Sometimes the worst things are done for good. Humans are both the best and worst race..."
A woman, blond hair splayed out like sunbeams on a marble and gold table, the hall gleaming with tapestries as the ever so pale human sobbed. A priest in white with yellow and gold in his robes, holding an amulet of the sun over her in one hand and a dagger made of gold in the other, passing the blade through the yellowed flame in the bronze brazier until it glowed. He directed it over her heart as other priests placed yellow apples on the four corners, before the single voice screamed out for the innocent life.
"Stop! What are you doing?! She is innocent, for what crime does she lie here for?"
……"She lies for you, my Lord."
A single, yellow tear trickled down their face as they returned their attention to the priests of Helgrind offered cups of blood to each other, supping of the red substance.

"Gar!" Roran muttered in disgust. "You failed to mention that those errant flesh-mongers, those gore-bellied, boggle-minded idiot-worshippers were cannibals."
"Not quite. They do not partake of the meat."
They looked on as the congregation finished with the drink, the same pair that laid open the worm's shoulders bound them again in white cloth, blood quickly seeping through the bandages.

Unaffected by the wounds, it spun around and addressed them all. "Now are you truly my Brothers and Sisters, having tasted of the sap of my veins here in the shadow of the almighty Helgrind. Blood calls to blood, and if ever your Family should need help, do then what you can for the Church and for others who acknowledge the power of our Dread Lord…. To affirm and reaffirm our fealty to the Triumvirate, recite with me the Nine Oaths…. By Gorm, Ilda, and Fell Angvara, we vow to perform homage at least thrice a month, in the hour before dusk, and then to make an offering of ourselves to appease the eternal hunger of our Great and Terrible Lord…. We vow to observe the strictures as they are presented in the book of Tosk…. We vow to always carry our Bregnir on our bodies and to forever abstain from the twelve of twelves and the touch of a many-knotted rope, lest it corrupt…" The wind now gusted, the voice muffled to the point of obscurity before it could be comprehensible again.

"...and such things as you long and lust for will be granted to you as a reward for your obedience…. Our worship is complete. However, if any now stand among you who are brave enough to demonstrate the true depth of their faith, let them show themselves!"

The audience went stiff, tense with barely controlled anticipation as they waited silently. All was quiet as they waited for a long minute, seconds dragging by.
Then one of the followers leapt up with a cry. "I will!"

To this, the congregation all shouted in glee, the rest of the acolytes ringing the bells in a maniacal rhythm as they all lost their minds to the moment, leaping about and screeching like animals, such was the madness of the worshippers.
The man who first called out stripped himself of his clothes, to the point of wearing only his leather breeches, prancing onto the altar, dancing in the blood that coated it's rusted surface. He faced the dark fortress and trembled violently in tune with the chaotic music, head lolling, mouth frothing, arms spasming til he shone with a layer of his own sweat.

As the music climaxed, the man jerked his hand behind himself erratically, into it a priest gave him a strange weapon. It had one edge along it's two and a half foot length, the blade was broad and scalloping towards the end, the shape similar to that of a dragon wing. It's sinister purpose was clear: it was designed solely to cut off limbs.

The fervent madman raised his hand towards the evil mountain, pointing it towards the highest peak before falling to one knee, letting out a sharp cry as he brought it down on his right wrist.
As blood spurted across the stone, the man screamed.

Cicállaé closed their sockets, branches shifting around as Dream wailed internally, his Soul pounding at the horror of the situation, Nightmare forlornly calming him.
The priests tended to the man's wound with magic, and the rest of the acolytes chained two slaves from the high priest's litter by the ankles to a loop upon the altar, piling offerings of some kind out of their reach before the entire congregation turned and headed back down to Dras-Leona with a cacophony of manic noise, the newly disfigured follower just behind the head priest, smiling euphorically.

When the procession at last disappeared round a hill, Eragon sighed explosively. "Well."
"Well what?" Roran questioned.
"I've traveled among both dwarves and elves, and nothing they ever did was ever as strange as what those people, those humans, do."
"They're as beastial as the Ra'zac." Roran growled, then nodded towards the black mountain.
"Can you find Katrina in there?" He asked both god and Rider.

Eragon hesitated, then glanced at the treeskeleton, who ruffled their leaves tensely. Roran stared at them with intense severity, grey eyes blazing as they bore into them.
"We sense her, and few others. We cannot risk probing deeper in case they be the Ra'zac."
"Is she sick? Is she injured? Blast it-" "She is unharmed, Stronghammer. Calm yourself." Nightmare snapped before falling silent.
"Is Dream unwell?" Eragon asked softly.
"It will take time to recover from what we have witnessed." He admitted quietly, leaves fluttering weakly.

Their branches slowly moved, stretching out towards the humans, Eragon taking a hold of it and grabbing his cousin's hand as well.
Then they all teleported away, to their camp and to the dragon that awaited them.

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