Leviticus
Bio
He tired of the constant push for productivity. Tired of the need to be forever innovating, forever creating. He wished for his own way, his own path, his own power. So when the Necromancers came preaching of Plaguebringer's tenets, he was immediately drawn in. He could be so much more than a cog in the machine. More than one of Stormcatcher's minions.
It was difficult to leave his desert home, but once the journey ended, he saw little difference between the Scarred Wasteland and his original home. It was all desolate but
alive in some way. He would be seen by Plaguebringer. Known now as Leviticus, he would take her trials and prove his divine right to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Necromancer that brought him here.
Day 0
So Leviticus climbed the Wyrmwound. Claws dug into rock and dirt, hauling him ever upward until his eyes started to weep and his throat started to burn. He did not stop. He would not stop. The satchel in which he carried his pearl thumped against his flank as he climbed. It would grow with this feat. All others would know of his efforts and exploits.
"Mother!" He called when he reached the top edge of the cauldron. His eyes stung with the effort to look upon the vile lake below. "Bring me to your side! Bless me with your divine infection. Make me one of your own." And it was there he stood, wings aloft to await the touch of Her grace.
Difficulty: Hard
Day 1 - The Trial of Infection
The first day he spent in prayer. Leviticus did not beg but he also did not break. She could very well turn him away at any point, smite him with Her wrath if She found him unworthy of Her blessings. No matter how terrible he felt simply being so close to the lake of proverbial fire, he knew he had not been touched within. Not yet. But still he awaited Her sign.
No Infection
Day 2 - The Trial of Infection
Still he waited. Still he prayed. For a moment, he thought of his own death. If he failed these trials, would he then serve Plaguebringer? Or would he return to Stormcatcher? He had not yet been noticed by the former. Was there a limbo for dragonkind not beholden to any flight? Or would they return to the deity of their birth? Leviticus didn't intend to find out. He shook out his mane and flapped his wings. "Please Mother. I will ever be your humble Hand."
No Infection
Day 3 - The Trial of Infection
Leviticus lay upon the dusty earth, scrawling aimlessly in the dirt. His eyes wept and his throat burned, but it was from environmental strain, not a sickness from within. He sniffed, a long snort of the running mucus excreting from his nostrils. Taking a break from prayer for a few moments of meditation, he continued to seek Mother's touch upon him. Her guidance for his heart.
No Infection
Day 4 - The Trial of Infection
"Will you forsake me as you did your own ancient children?" He asked, daring to question the might of a goddess. He knew the story of the aberrations, of the belief that Plaguebringer had forgotten them, that she turned a blind eye to them, that she didn't know they survived despite it all. Who could truly know the aims of a divine being? Their purpose or reason? "I wait here at the edge of oblivion for your touch. Will you not look upon me with your favor?"
No Infection
Day 5 - The Trial of Infection
Five days. A mere quarter of the time he knew he would spend here. And Mother was silent. Silent to his prayers, silent to his meditations and his pleas. Leviticus had never considered himself a very spiritual dragon before he'd come here, but the gods were real. The gods built this world. Their power ran through it in streams and rivulets of energy, a spark of which resided within every dragon that walked or flew. That was a fact of life. Yet he'd never seen himself doing
this, and here he was. He was not the only one.
He could see them in the hollows and hillocks, clinging to spires of bone and sinew of the living earth. Other potential Necromancers--or just dragons that wanted to test their mettle on the rim of the Wyrmwound.
Had any of them been touched by Her?
No Infection
Day 6 - The Trial of Infection
By now, other hopefuls were either moving along in their Trials or simply succumbing to Mother's touch. Leviticus stood and looked down the slopes into the roiling Wyrmwound. He'd chosen one of the closest perches that he could, to prove his mettle, his worth. And still She had not seemed to notice him. Perhaps She was testing him, testing his patience.
He bowed his head in reverence, in meditation. Today, his thoughts were ravaged by doubt.
No Infection
Day 7 - The Trial of Infection
His doubt continued. He spent his night in prayer. He could prostrate himself there on the rim of the Wound and beg Her for Her blessing. He could. But he would not. He had not come all the way here from the Shifting Expanse to beg like a pauper. He'd come to prove himself worthy of more. More than what Stormcatcher offered, more than what Stormcatcher asked for in return.
At this point, he felt as though he were butting heads with the Mother of Plague. She might refuse to acknowledge him. She might refuse him Her gifts, but he would prove one way or another that he would stand for Her required time. Whether She touched him or not, he would persevere through the twenty-three days.
One way or another.
No Infection
Day 8 - The Trial of Infection
"Do you know what it's like?" Leviticus asked, his voice a harsh whisper. The steaming Wound had taken its toll on his throat, though there was still no real illness within him. "To be treated like a piece of a puzzle that does not fit?" He questioned. "To be a piece in a machine that doesn't need to be there to make it work?" He paused, looking into the glistening new layer of his pearl. His reflection grew more haggard.
"I do." He spoke softly, but to himself or to someone else? Perhaps Mother herself? It wasn't clear. "Unleash me, Mother. Free me." He plead, resting his forehead against his pearl. "Change me. I am ready to evolve in your grace."
No Infection
Day 9 - The Trial of Infection
He prayed again, kept on praying, unsure if Mother even heard him. A lesser dragon might have given up, lost their faith in any of the gods to touch their followers. But not him. Leviticus knew it was he who was unworthy, not Plaguebringer. But it was only the ninth day of his meditation and prayer. Perhaps She was waiting for him to give up, awaiting him to walk away.
No Infection
Day 10 - The Trial of Infection
"I will
not walk away," he snarled. "Not again." She knew. Certainly She knew. Knew that he'd walked away from Stormcatcher. If his loyalty was so flimsy, why would She put Her faith and power in him?
No Infection
Day 11 - The Trial of Infection
Leviticus slept. For he was but a mortal dragon and still needed rest even if he fasted to prove his worth--or perhaps to make himself more susceptible to Her touch. He dreamt of Her. Of Her great form towering over the Wyrmwound, the sunken pits in Her skull-like face glowing and glowering crimson, their glow illuminating all of Her unseen servants. Her germs. Her plague. He reached out to them, claws barely grasping the disease he sought.
"If they will not come to you, what will you do?" The voice echoed, booming in his mind though Her mouth never moved.
"I will...," he wheezed, coughing with weakness, perhaps even for real through his dream. He didn't want to admit that he would have to leave without Her approval. But he could not lie, or She would know. "I will...," he spat, "Survive."
No Infection
Day 12 - The Trial of Infection
Or would he reach out and take them for himself? Leviticus had that thought more than once, eyeing other dragons around the Wound. Could he manage somehow to get close enough to them to contract their disease? Was that what Plaguebringer wanted? Did She want him to show initiative by
taking what he wanted? Perhaps.
No Infection
Day 13 - The Trial of Infection
Though he did not leave the level of his perch, he did move. Sometimes closer to sickened trials, hoping to become infected by whatever strain ailed them. But they evaded him. Weakness was beginning to settle in. Nearly two weeks without food was beginning to take its toll.
No Infection
Day 14 - The Trial of Infection
Ever steadily, he grew closer and closer to dismay. His desperation was beginning to overwhelm his pride. He felt ill, but knew it was merely the Wyrmwound's miasma that caused it, not true illness. Even as weakness from lack of sustenance spread through his body, he knew in his heart She had not found it within Herself to approve of him. Not yet.
No Infection
Day 15 - The Trial of Infection
"What do you want from me!" Leviticus screamed out over the slowly swirling pool of fetid slime below. He reflected in his eyes, wide with near madness. What had he done, what could he
do? Time for him to begin the second trial was shrinking with every day. If he wanted to pass, he needed to optimize, but how could he do that when She wouldn't even touch him with her power?
At this point, he did not care who heard him, who he woke with his cry. He lowered his voice and glowered at the lurid pit below him. He'd come to the very heart of Hell itself for this. "Do you even exist?" It was a challenge he hoped She'd answer.
No Infection
Day 16 - The Trial of Infection
Giving up was exactly what the point of these trials were meant to prevent. Only the strongest and most able to withstand almost a month of waiting, fighting, and surviving, mastering the illness within them, could become Necromancers. But giving up was exactly what he wanted to do.
"Your time is running out." Was it his own thoughts? Or was it something else? He wasn't sure anymore. Days of meditation and isolation--he had not exactly made friends with anyone up here--had begun to blur the lines of reality and fiction. Sixteen days. That meant he had...one week. Seven days to contract a disease, master it, and Become.
He truly was running out of time.
No Infection
Day 17 - The Trial of Infection
The tribulation of his trials hit him hard. Leviticus did not have what it took to become a Necromancer. He learned it the moment his desperation forced him across a line. He attacked a fellow trial-goer, an aberration on her third run with madness. Two heads really were better than one, it seemed.
He realized as he lay dying that only the day before, he'd seen this revelation. He'd been too mentally and emotionally battered to see it. When he heard the voice, the thought that he was running out of time, he thought it meant the trials themselves.
But as the light faded from his eyes, his lifeblood feeding the sickened soil of the Wyrmwound, he realized it was the sound of his own destiny coming to an end. No longer a cog in a great machine, no longer an aspirant of greater purpose, he was simply another body for another Necromancer to walk over to reach the top.
Swipp Pull - Ambush
Death
