Congregation

A being made of particularly dusty dust, it is the ancient enemy of the twin deities Shaik and Vack. So goes one myth. Another says they come from the future, their dust being the ashes of those whose death they’ve come to show. Actually, that’s a really good idea, I should be saving it for a sci-fi novella. Dustlords of Tomorrow: Book One of the Dusts of Future Dust Trilogy, available wherever books aren’t yet being burned for fuel.

A shapeless mass of Red Moon disciples, Congregation was born from a ritual gone wrong. Thirteen bodies were welded together, but only seven of the original souls remained conscious, tormented by perpetual, excruciating pain. The remaining six allegedly got lucky: they died during the ritual. The truth, unfortunately, is that the dead ones occasionally come back to life, just long enough to relive the horror of their physical form and feel its deadly, relentless pain. They bring with them terrifying memories from the hells their souls have passed through. Before dying again, they share those hellish visions with the rest, leaving the living souls in anguish and desperation, knowing that not even death will end their suffering.

Ashtart was already deep in her grey years when she became one of the followers of Baal’Thasar. In fact, she was among the first. She lived in fear that, on the day she died, she would have to face the judgement of some merciless god for the unspeakable sins she had committed in life. Her desperation to avoid the inevitable led her to become the first to experiment with human sacrifices, twisted rituals, and all sorts of abhorrent practices, all at the expense of the lesser disciples of the Order of the Red Moon. She would consume their flesh, wear their skin, graft their organs into herself. With every abominable act, she lost another piece of herself, and plunged her soul deeper into the depths of damnation. As her grotesque figure wandered apathically through the halls of Red Moon Manor, her dead cold eyes forever searching for the next victim of some vile experiment, a group of terrified disciples of the Order decided to put her at the centre of one instead. It did not move. It did not even scream. The soulless abomination that Ashtart had become simply kept throwing its dagger-like stare around, searching for the next piece of flesh to consume, while its body burned in bright flames and sharp swords plunged again and again into its abhorrent mass of organs. The relief of the disciples did not last long. The charred bones of Ashtart rose from a pile of cinders, and, somehow, even without her eyes, the disciples could feel her feral gaze picking them, one by one. No matter how deeply her remains are buried, how thoroughly her bones are shattered, or how many exorcisms are cast upon her, Ashtart’s corrupted will always comes back, clutching at anything it can control. An unstoppable force. Dark and hollow. Mindless and soulless. An evil presence with the singular goal of preying on life.