Part I: The Search for Dagaal
Chapter 6 : The Gallery of Unholy Death
The Gallery of Unholy Death—my glorious throne room—was situated within my underground palace, carved by slave labor out of the mountain’s interior. While the work of my goblin slaves couldn’t compare to the legendary stone masons of the Drokka tribes, my palace grounds were nonetheless awe-inspiring in their own right.
The throne room, on the main level of the palace and almost halfway up the height of the 20,000-foot mountain, housed a spectacular ivory throne that gleamed with a blinding white light—proclaiming my dominance to all who beheld it. I took immense pride in that throne, hand-carved from the single skeleton of a massive creature that once ruled the world long before mankind was even a flicker in my mind. Indeed, my seat of power was not only a work of art but also an intimidating sight, befitting a king such as myself.
The four main legs of the throne were actually some of the gargantuan curved ribs of the beast I had sacrificed for this venture. Two of the larger bones formed the back of the cathedra, jutting up some twenty feet into the air, while a pair of shorter, six-foot bones acted as the front posterns. The seat area was fashioned from the smaller bones of the creature, with any sharp tips carefully installed to point downwards, away from the padded sitting area filled with the finest pazziera leaves from Arbola Forest. (I always did have a taste for creature comforts.)
Just as impressive as the craftsmanship of my throne was the fact that all the bones used to build it had been painstakingly burnished to a glaring white, giving the chair an other-worldly glow. This was no mere aesthetic choice; the chair’s luminous bones illuminated me further, contrasting sharply against my dark, ebon robes and adding to my striking presence.
As I made my way toward the throne room, I passed through the Hall of Echoes, a vast chamber where every footstep and whispered curse against me reverberated endlessly.
The walls of this hall were adorned with trophies from my countless conquests: skulls of formidable enemies, ancient weapons, and fragments of shattered idols. Each relic served as a testament to my power and a reminder to my minions of their place in the grand scheme.
I couldn’t wait to sit in my throne again. As I made my way there, my presence began to be felt within the kingdom. Numerous servants hurriedly removed themselves from my path, their fear palpable.
“Yaark, ze Shaitan!” yelped a goblin-like gnome, dropping whatever he was carrying, letting it clatter upon the damp stone floor as he raced off.
“Zsst, sho ke sin….ba!” Another shrieked, trying to recoil back into the recess of the cave walls.
“Hooo…..Shedu! Kesta, kestaaaa!” A third wailed piteously, running any which way to get away from me.
My response to all of this was simple—I smiled. It was clear to all that the Master had returned, and that was just how I liked it.
“Their fear is good,” I whispered to myself.
Oh sure, I knew my creatures were not all that bright, but still, they were smart enough to know that if their Shaitan had returned, then soon enough I would resume my experiments. Unless any of them wanted to become an integral part of those grisly machinations, it was best for them to remove themselves from my general vicinity… lest I call upon them to come partake in my delights. And so they ran.
Passing through the Chamber of Shadows, a multi-limbed monstrosity scuttled across the cavern floor, its spider-like legs tapping a macabre rhythm. It looked up at me with its multiple eyes, each one reflecting a spark of recognition and twisted adoration. Another creature, a serpentine being with scales like molten rock, slithered away, its forked tongue flicking in and out as it sensed my approach.
For now, I had no time to pay attention to the charade that played out around me. Instead, I had important business to attend to; or rather, I had an interruption to remove from my path in the form of Samyaza, after which I could then get back to my own crucial affairs. I was anxious to get started on both accounts, for I felt that I had already wasted enough time.
“Ah, Baal-Zebub, you simpleton,” I chuckled to myself as I walked on. “You really think you can control me?”
Now don’t get me wrong—I knew I had work to do for my master, and I knew that Dagaal was supposedly up here on Terra to threaten me into doing it. But even still, the mere fact that I had escaped—or was released, if you want to be technical about it—served to make my recent nightmares less frightening. Oh, they would remain, of that there was no doubt. And yes, if I did not complete my assigned tasks for the evil one, then the next time I returned to Illusia, my lord would be even angrier with me.
But all that was millennia away, and the fact that my fool of a master was locked in his own prison world made his threats now seem like naught but…
…fading gossamers…just as so many delicate webs upon the fleeting perceptions of my mind. Ah…
I smiled at my own poeticness, believing (like a fool) that in time I could just brush away the nightmares of Evil. If only that were so easy, right?
The Apocrypha of Azazel 