A Very Angry, Very Dead Man

[Mister Doctor]

'Dead Guy'
 

Portrait commissioned from James Julnites

Nickname: Corpse, Shuffles, Stinky, Mr. Body Class: Barbarian Archetype: Zombie Ancestry: Human Gender: Male Age: Might have been around mid-thirties when alive Combat Role: Hitting hard and taking hits Reason for Attending: Looking for Trouble

Show Backstory

Just wake up! You useless sack of flesh!

No one could hear him of course. He was not really here, not in any way that mattered.

Get up! Please! I'm begging you.

He was not standing on the street, with his back to the burnt out remains of what had once been a comfortable home, a family home. He was not shouting at a corpse, strung up from a lamppost with its feet just out of reach of the cobbles. He definitely was not wracked with tearless sobs over the pain and unfairness of it all.

Please!

He was dead, staring at his own bound corpse, hung up like some kind of grim trophy and made to watch as his tormentors burned his world to the ground before they let him finally die.

Please!

The looters wearing Chelish colors did not even seem to notice when they walked through the space where he was not standing. They had eyes for the corpse.

"Right, cut it down, let's see if there's a gold toof 'r summink else this fine gennelman would like to donate to the neighborood watch," one of the looters said, elbowing his companion roughly in the ribs.

The man's companion, or perhaps 'lackey' was a more fitting appellation, grumbled but set about the grim work of sawing through the ropes binding the corpse to the lamppost. After a few minutes' unlovely work, the body swung free, still hanging as it was by the noose around its neck. Soon enough, that too was severed and the body fell in a heap on the ground.

The men were not gentle as they rolled the corpse over and began searching it for coins or other stray valuables that had been missed by their compatriots. They did so with the systematic diligence of two men that had performed this desecration over and over again.

"Nnnf, no coin, t'others already helped themselves to that."

"Look at that 'e's got a ring, looks like the poor sap left a widow!"

"Eh, prolly not, they've like to have gone and burned up. Peel that ring off, I'll check his teef."

A hand gripped the corpse's face, squeezing to press the jaw open against the bonds of rigor mortis. Soon fingers were prying the jaw the rest of the way open and rooting around inside, trying to hold dead lips open long enough to check the back corners of the mouth for a telltale glint of gold.

"Shit!"

"What!"

"The eyes moved!"

"No they dinnit, you milksop. Still got the rest of the night to get through, no use in you getting jumpy now."

"I'm telling you they mo-OOOAAAAAAGH!"

Dead muscles clenched, teeth chopped through warm flesh, tendons and cartilage parted, the iron taste of blood washed over a dry tongue. One of the looters fell away, leaving his fingers inside the mouth of the corpse. He screamed raggedly from the sudden icy shock of mutilation. The corpse was not done.

The other looter was still trying to pry the ring from a dead finger. It was a simple gold wedding band with no embellishments but gold all the same. The slipping the ring off was not the hard part, it was convincing dead hand to uncurl enough to fully relinquish it.. Things became profoundly more difficult when the hand shot up and grabbed the man by the throat, squeezing with unholy might as the side of the looter's head was slammed into the cobbles again and again until bone cracked and brain smeared. The corpse was not done.

"You," it rasped through a windpipe crushed by a noose as it sat up. Bloody, severed fingers fell from its mouth as cloudy, dead eyes fixed on the surviving looter.

"N-no! Stay back!" The man squealed, clutching his maimed hand to his chest and scrambling back as much as he could.

"Hk-k-kill... you," the corpse choked out.

"No! Please! No!" The man screeched in fear. His screams echoing off the burned hulks of ruined homes but only the dead were present to hear them and the wet ripping sounds that followed.

---

The corpse was not done.

It shambled into the ruins of the house, feet slowly gaining confidence as some impulse it did not understand drove it through the ashes and mostly burned remains of someone's life. Heavy, dragging footfalls took it in to the foyer, where a collection of cloaks and coats for all weather once hung. It skulked past the entrance to the dining room, where memories of smiling faces and warm meals flited briefly through dead brain cells.

The stairs up to the second floor had resisted the worst of the fire but the upper floor was less steady. Even so the corpse continued on. It passed the open door to a little girl's room, ignoring the nursery rhymes and lullabies that rattled loose within its skull. It did not spare a glance into the master bedroom even when confronted with the image of a woman glowing with life cradling a fussy babe in her arms.

It continued on to what had once been a study. Hauling aside a bookcase that still glowed with malignant embers. It ignored the burning of its own flesh as it rooted around in the piles of ash and flinders that had once been chairs, tables, books. Then a scorched and scalded hand closed on something familiar and pulled it from the ashes.

A sword, once a noble but humble blade, now battered and chipped by the collapse of the building around it. The corpse held the sword, not caring as the heat of the now bare metal hilt seared into his dead hands. This was what the corpse needed.

---

The corpse was not done.

It pulled the most intact of the cloaks it could find in the ruined houses tight around itself, hiding its form and the sword it now carried. There was work to be done. Whatever had pushed the corpse upright would not let it rest until the work was finished.

"Hk-k-kill," It rasped into the night air and began shambling out into the streets of Kintargo.

Show Description

Partially burned, with strips of flesh missing and the marks of a noose around its neck, the corpse has definitely seen better days. In life it was likely imposing, a well muscled figure built from long hours training with a blade. In death, it keeps much of that power but rendered leaner as what little fat there was rots away and the body dries.

While at first glance, it might be mistaken for a leper or similar unfortunate, exactly what it becomes clearer the longer this thing is observed. The corpse is a corpse, no matter what fell energies animate it and keep it functional.

While far from intelligent, it makes more than a passing effort to shroud itself from prying eyes. On some level it knows that in a city like Kintargo, the unfortunate are usually overlooked and ignored. So as long as it hides itself under ratty cloaks and keeps the worst of its damage out of immediate view, it too should be ignored.

Show Personality

The guttering spark behind the eyes of the corpse is defined by one drive, one desire. Revenge on those that burned a home and slaughtered a family, those that made a man watch as his world was unmade simply because it could be. The corpse is not cruel but it is single-minded. However, while dead, the remains of a man destroyed are not dumb.

It possesses a level of low cunning far beyond similar misbegotten things. A grasp of cause-and-effect, the capacity to predict, plan, to delay immediate gratification in order to achieve a greater goal. While it is profoundly direct in much of its thinking, as much as it can be said to think, it is not simply some beast.

Stimuli outside of its rather singular goal for existence have... unpredictable responses. They range from blank incomprehension to sparks of what might just be the man this corpse once was. Things flicker into life behind dead eyes and while they do not always remain some do manage to stick. It is smart enough, for example, to hide its mangled form under cloaks and stay out of direct observation whenever it can, seeming to grasp that something like it could cause considerable consternation to the average citizen of Kintargo. Whether it does so to spare them the discomfort or out of frank practicality is another matter.

Getting revenge is profoundly difficult when being chased by a torch and pitchfork wielding mob, after all.

Previous Art

 

Edited May 8 by Mister Doctor (see edit history)

[Mister Doctor]

Dead Guy - Character Sheet

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KAC: 20/19 Fort: +11 Ref: +6 Will: +7
HP: 59/59 THP: 0/7 Hero: 1/3 | Perception: +7

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"Spare a cup of brains, neighbor?" It moaned, horrendously.

Edited May 8 by Mister Doctor (see edit history)

[Mister Doctor]

Gravedigger's Chant - Zeal & Ardor

The man woke, drowning.

Clawing his way to the surface of something that was not water, he swam for the shallows and slogged out to a point where the not-water reached only to his ankles. Only then could he start to take stock.

He was... himself? Things were wrong, the shape of him uncertain, details rendered indistinct. He did not even remember what they were supposed to be. The left side of his body and presumably his head were cloaked in wicking, lightless flame that seemed undeterred by the not-water around him.

The shallows and the depths stretching out behind him were dotted with more indistinct forms. People, hundreds of them. They bobbed in the not-water or slowly drifted up into air, gathering into lazy clouds overhead. Those clouds flowed upwards further still, joining in great shoals of silvery forms and flowing away in a steady stream off into the sky of this place.

The man could almost feel the pull, something dragging him up into the sky, telling him to forget and move on from this place of not-water and pain. Even as his feet rose out of the not-water, beads of the stuff dripping from his toes to cause gentle ripples to spread from under him, he could feel something tethering him in place. Another pull like an anchor chain wrapped around his heart. If he looked... yes, there it was. A thin, indistinct cord that he could only make out a few feet of.

Gripping it hurt. Flashes of pain, fire, helplessness, faces with pain and fear writ large across them. Blood, so much blood.

He gripped it hard, feet splashing back down in the not-water. Hand over hand, he began to follow it against the pull into the sky. It was an anchor, it led him back to somewhere he needed to be.

"Now, now, we can't have that," a voice called out. A massive masked crow perched atop a lamppost looked down upon the man. "You should join the flow. There is nothing for you in that direction."

The man looked up at the masked crow for a moment, but either did not or could not respond. Instead, he continued the painful process of following the quavering tether.

"If you keep going, steps will have to be taken. You are already late," the crow warned, puffing up in agitation. The man continued stubbornly. He knew there was something he had to do and no crow was going to talk him out of it.

"Eh, very well, I tried," the crow said, spreading massive wings and swooping down from the lamppost.

---

The man woke, drowning.

---

---

---

...He slowly woke up to the feeling of something warm and wet on his thigh. Looking down he saw the huge blocky head of a sleeping dog nestled into his lap, jowls on one side of the dog's muzzle pushed up and moistening his pant leg. As was the way of such things, the beast had trapped his legs under its bulk and taken up much of the alcove. He had fallen asleep reading again, mid-afternoon streaming through the slightly warped panes of glass in the little windowed alcove proving to have a relentlessly soporific effect.

Carefully removing the book from his chest and marking his place with an old quill, he set it aside. The study was a familiar, warm place. A couple of couches, overstuffed and worn. Bookcases along one wall, stacked with nearly as many curios as there were books. A small fireplace, currently cold. The only thing that might be out of place was the sheathed sword hanging on a coat rack by the open door but his gaze did not linger too long on it. Like the study, it was familiar in its own way.

There was a hurried clopping coming from the hallway outside along with a shriek. The giggles that followed it immediately took the worry out of the sound as a wildly grinning girl sprinted past the open door on hooved feet. There was an impression of a yellow sundress and a half-braided mop of curly brown hair before she was gone down the hall.

A few seconds later her mother followed, cradling a contented babe to her chest. The woman looked into the study for a moment and smiled. She was tall, sporting her own mop of brown curls and a pair of glasses on a freckled face. When she smiled at him, he felt that same twist in his chest he always did. A feeling of mild disbelief that someone like this woman had decided to spend her life with him. Then she was gone, sweeping off down the hall to no doubt track down their rambunctious daughter before she...

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Gravedigger's Chant - Zeal & Ardor

He placed his hands in the shallows and hauling himself up to his feet. He could feel it now, his body. An eternity away and right next to him. Behind him, he could hear agitated wings rustling.

"Pain. That's all that's waiting for you back there," the crow said, "You know that right? They've already taken everything from you. The souls of those you lost have already moved on. You should do the same."

The masked bird was not wrong. The man could feel it every time he gripped the tether back to his body, he could feel the rage and pain and deep, deep sadness that kept him connected to his body and kept his body moving. The not-water that lapped at his feet and the gentle skywards tug whispered the sweetness of oblivion and nothingness into his bones. It would be so easy to let go and find his final reward.

"You can feel the half-thing you have become in the living world. Let the living worry about the living, your time has come," the crow said, swooping from its perch to land on the surface of the not-water in front of him.

The man looked up at the bird, featureless face creasing slightly. It gripped the tether more tightly. The line leading away from him bent and twisted, tying itself into knots before flattening into the shape of something wholly familiar to the man. Something he could work with.

"Huh, you're... not supposed to be able to do that."

---

---

---

"He's... he's back again," one of the two guards said. They had names, of course they did. Maybe even families or loved ones but none of that mattered to the thing watching them. To the thing watching them, they were just something to be broken.

"Then go tell him to piss off and if he resists show him the end of your cudgel. Devils below but I can hardly stand any more of your whinging," the other guard said. He looked to where his companion was staring and saw the object of the other man's consternation.

If pressed, he might have admitted that there was something unsettling about the figure that stood in the distant alley and stared fixedly at the two of them. What could be seen of that face in the gloom of night was a ruin, pallid and one of the eye sockets entirely hollowed out. He did not fully understand just why some sick and mangled vagrant had shot such fear into the heart of his companion. He had not been there for the previous shifts on night watch to see that thing stand and stare, waiting, unmoving for hours like an alligator idling near the shore.

"Y-you don't understand," the first guard said, voice cracking under the stress. The boss had been so much harder on them after something had raided their building and made off with two of the prisoners. Now this thing was haunting them, just staring at them and waiting. He was increasingly certain that was no vagrant out there, it was something unnatural that merely wore the shape of a man. "It-he's been there every night. He's-"

"The Hells I don't," the second guard said, "If you're not going to grow a pair and deal with it, I will!" With entirely unearned confidence, the more bellicose of the two guards started for the figure that waited and watched. As he got closer, it drew back into the shadows. This only spurred the man on. "Oh! A coward are we?"

As he reached the mouth of the alley, hands emerged and grabbed him. The man's shriek of pain as the bones in his wrist audibly snapped was cut short when he was dragged into the darkness and replaced with a wet gurgling. Even this far away, the sounds of meat tearing and bones being casually shattered could be heard by the lone guard wise enough to not leave his post.

What felt like an eternity but was more like a scant few minutes passed and the figure reappeared, staring, fresh blood smeared around its mouth and spilled down the front of ragged clothes.

[Mister Doctor]

Gravedigger's Chant - Zeal & Ardor

"I don't understand mortals, I really don't," the masked bird lamented as the assembled gaggle watched the man get back up, pulling himself out the rippling surface for what had to be the twentieth or thirtieth time at this point. Each time he got back up, he would start for some abstract direction that must have felt like a path to the mortal world, resisting the flow of all that was right in the natural order. Each time one of the assembled entities would have to step in to put him back down.

"Iff tupid," a rough, pained voice managed. Beside the bird was a strange amalgam of exposed bone and bestial features. The body was dark and muscular, like some sort of stocky hunting cat, but sprouting from a mane of black feathers was the perfectly pale skull of crocodile... one that had been half-smashed and was slowly reassembling itself through esoteric means. Fragments of bone floated into place from where they had been scattered and fused into a coherent whole. Never particularly talkative or insightful, the blow that had splintered bone and now impeded what little this beast had to say only further soured its mood.

"The mortal heart is full of contradictions," a considerably more musical voice spoke up with a note of benevolent indulgence, "At once easily distracted but entirely myopic. Sometimes they just need a gentler hand."

She was a grim beauty. A full, perfect skeleton dressed in the simple gown a peasant woman might wear to a village festival. There were flowers of purple, red, and yellow woven into her long black braid and hanging in the crook of one arm a basket of more. She stepped forward, her bare and skeletal feet making the surface of the not-water ripple as she put herself in the path of the man.

"Come to me," she bade the flickering figure, "You have struggled long to grasp justice for those taken from you but the tides of death only flow one way, dear soul, and it would sadden them to see you suffer so. Please, come to me and know rest." Her voice was gentle, cool as a damp cloth in the midst of a fever. It promised relief, an end to fighting and pain if only he would finally let the currents pull him up and away from mortal concerns. There was no denying that voice, even if she did not threaten or command.

The man took a halting step towards her, the blade he had bent his soul into dipping down to trail against the not-water. Then another staggering step, and another. Would it be so bad to finally give in? He did not know what awaited him at the end of the river. He did not think he would see those he had lost again but oblivion was its own reward. Another step. Another.

"That's it," she murmured to him, her bony hands reaching out to caress the side of his face and welcome him in for a single kiss to send him on his way. It was right then that a hand came up, gripped her exposed skull and shoved her aside.

It would be so bad.

Edited April 17 by Mister Doctor (see edit history)