It was not grass that bent beneath his boots, not wind that ran across his warplate, and it was definitively not reality that surrounded him. Luscious stands of too-green grass blew in the opposite direction of the wind, while the leaves of the trees wafted in another, stands of massive mahoganies looming overhead, flourishing in a tropical environment that seems to have never known rain, simply the same summer day, repeated endlessly. A soporific haze drifted through the woods, the atmosphere cloying as it filtered through the rust-stained punctures within his helmet.
So be it. This was not Okor's first walk down stranger paths.
The earth beneath him was like a tarpaulin, reality bending and warping with every step, alternating between buoying him upwards and sucking him downwards, as if there was some deeper, danker hell that was beckoning him into its depths. Each step was a stumble, his ceramite-shrouded carrion cascading forwards, always a single moment from falling into a heap of rusted metal and eternally decaying flesh.
His claws carved their way into a thankfully sturdy trunk, corroded digits skinning the bark, the mossy hide peeling off the still-living bark as he anchored himself in the trunk, viscous sap oozing over his gauntlets. Desiccated and desecrated lungs heaved within his chest, the cancerous bone of his ribcage straining to contain his beating hearts. He was endless, eternal, unceasing- and so, ironically, there was little reason not to recollect himself- stop to smell the roses, as it were.
The weird-winds at his back, his claws curled, drawing the bark up for closer inspection. Fractal patterns of moss grew upon the exterior, spiraling growths that faded into a green haze at their terminus- the detail slipping into some other dimension in search of the geometric perfection that could not be attained upon this limited realm. Gnarled bones ground against each other in his wrist as he twisted the material, turning his blighted eyes upon its opposite.
Seven days after the serpent moon sets- when the first mother's blood returns to her birthplace - when a weed overgrows the tree of life- prophecies were writ palimpsest upon the bark, overlapping omens scrawled in a steady hand, regardless of what other promise of the future laid in their trajectory. Dozens of destinies grew within this tree, spiraling about its trunk, following its disparate branches with every twist and turn of the timeline. What might I learn if I flayed it?
The thought was a tempting one- to walk this world on a path that you had paved long in advance, every step predestined to lead towards some great fate. But he pushed off the tree and took his next step into the unknown at a leisurely pace, the futures he had glimpsed falling from his festering fingers. He did not need a seer's knowledge to foresee what the inevitabilities of this world were.
Eyes as bright and red as rubies watched him depart, emerald scales coiling about the high canopies as the diseased devotee strode on, leaving distortion in his wake. His very passage and perception altered the landscape, the pristine dreams shifting with each step, fungal blooms and rampant growth blooming about him. Corpse-flowers blossomed beneath the boughs of trees whose leaves offered no true shade- light filtered through them, creating twisted reflections of whatever their light touched, the wafting breeze causing carnivorous flora to become thorned roses as the refracted sun cast its light across its putrescent petals.
Everything rots. He did not need to be an Oracle to foresee that primordial truth.
So be it. This was not Okor's first walk down stranger paths.
The earth beneath him was like a tarpaulin, reality bending and warping with every step, alternating between buoying him upwards and sucking him downwards, as if there was some deeper, danker hell that was beckoning him into its depths. Each step was a stumble, his ceramite-shrouded carrion cascading forwards, always a single moment from falling into a heap of rusted metal and eternally decaying flesh.
His claws carved their way into a thankfully sturdy trunk, corroded digits skinning the bark, the mossy hide peeling off the still-living bark as he anchored himself in the trunk, viscous sap oozing over his gauntlets. Desiccated and desecrated lungs heaved within his chest, the cancerous bone of his ribcage straining to contain his beating hearts. He was endless, eternal, unceasing- and so, ironically, there was little reason not to recollect himself- stop to smell the roses, as it were.
The weird-winds at his back, his claws curled, drawing the bark up for closer inspection. Fractal patterns of moss grew upon the exterior, spiraling growths that faded into a green haze at their terminus- the detail slipping into some other dimension in search of the geometric perfection that could not be attained upon this limited realm. Gnarled bones ground against each other in his wrist as he twisted the material, turning his blighted eyes upon its opposite.
Seven days after the serpent moon sets- when the first mother's blood returns to her birthplace - when a weed overgrows the tree of life- prophecies were writ palimpsest upon the bark, overlapping omens scrawled in a steady hand, regardless of what other promise of the future laid in their trajectory. Dozens of destinies grew within this tree, spiraling about its trunk, following its disparate branches with every twist and turn of the timeline. What might I learn if I flayed it?
The thought was a tempting one- to walk this world on a path that you had paved long in advance, every step predestined to lead towards some great fate. But he pushed off the tree and took his next step into the unknown at a leisurely pace, the futures he had glimpsed falling from his festering fingers. He did not need a seer's knowledge to foresee what the inevitabilities of this world were.
Eyes as bright and red as rubies watched him depart, emerald scales coiling about the high canopies as the diseased devotee strode on, leaving distortion in his wake. His very passage and perception altered the landscape, the pristine dreams shifting with each step, fungal blooms and rampant growth blooming about him. Corpse-flowers blossomed beneath the boughs of trees whose leaves offered no true shade- light filtered through them, creating twisted reflections of whatever their light touched, the wafting breeze causing carnivorous flora to become thorned roses as the refracted sun cast its light across its putrescent petals.
Everything rots. He did not need to be an Oracle to foresee that primordial truth.