Seed of Hriste

This is really terribly written... but it gets my point across.

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The black-robed figures led their victim deep into Undersigil. The gnome, bound and gagged, tried desperately to scream, but its captor’s grips were as strong as steel. The black-robed ones paid no attention to the struggles of their victim, there was no chance it would escape from their grasp, it was no threat.

The gnome was carried deeper and deeper into Undersigil down passed the point where stone tunnels gave way to hand-carved passages. The corridor branched and doubled-back and soon the gnome knew he was hopelessly lost. Even if he could escape these iron-gripped fiends he would likely be lost in these tunnels for days. And there were the sounds of strange dark things that seemed to echo through the caverns, things that made the children of Sigil scream in their sleep and run to join their parents in bed.

After an impossible amount of time, the gnome could hear a voice much closer, a voice speaking things in a hollow metallic tone.

“And she was called ‘Shredder of Our Foes’ and she bore the Mother’s goodwill upon her heart and wore a sign of the Mother’s fortune atop her breast.”

As the figures finally reached their destination, the gnome’s eyes had to adjust to the blaze of torchlight. His eyes fell upon a small room that appeared to be natural or as natural as any of Undersigil’s caves could be. A half dozen robed and hooded figures all sat cross-legged on the floor facing a black robed man who seemed to be blocking something hanging on the wall with his body and his shadow. The man’s skin was shiny and metallic and long spines sprung forth from his features, their needle thin points glinting in the torchlight. The gnome squirmed against his captors as the speaker (obviously a bladeling) turned to regard him and nodded.

“She walked forth from her home and led great armies against those who would defile mighty Zoronor. Hriste’s power flowed through her veins, bringing her victory over the beasts of corrosion and the mortal insects that infested the cubes. None could stand against her mighty blades and the glowing power of the Forest Mother’s might.”

The gnome didn’t know what was going on, but fear had gripped him and he fought on with renewed vigor. Something horrible was going to happen, something out of his nightmares, and he really did not want to be there when it did. Unfortunately, he did not have much of a chance.

“She was amongst those who came upon the Second City, the Ring City, in those days before the mortals so infested its majestic streets. It was she who looked into the eyes of the bladed queen of that land and saw in her a kinship of warriors.”

“She and those with her carved a place for themselves in this, the Second City, and built themselves a fortress of black ice and stone. The fortress was a bastion for the race, a home away from Hriste’s breast, a place where her chill embrace could be felt if not touched directly. There was talk amongst her people of perhaps spreading out from Zoronor, an empire of our kind that spanned the planes. We had hidden for long enough behind the ice shards of Acheron, it was our time to come forth and wipe the planes clean of the infestations of the other races and remake them in our image.”

There was a murmur of approval throughout the room as the acolytes nodded their heads.

“But her hopes were dashed as armies assailed the walls of their mighty fortress. It is unknown who attacked, some say it was the Tanar’ri others say the Baatezu, there are some who speak of a purging brigade of celestials, in any case she valiantly fought the onslaught even as her temple to Hriste’s power tumbled down around her ears.”

“Days after the assault, those who survived searched through the rubble of their fortress and came upon the fallen body of their leader. Her body was slain and broken but in her eyes still gleamed the battle lust that came with the destruction of Hriste’s foes. Her body was entombed in the soil beneath the collapsed fortress and those few of her followers who survived limped back to Zoronor.”

“It is said that in each of Hriste’s children a bit of their mother is nurtured. On the place of her burial, it is said that that seed of Hriste nested in her breast, fed on her devotion, nurtured and germinated. A vine of sharp thorns of black ice grew from that spot; a child of Hriste growing in a foreign land.”

The priest stepped aside, finally revealing the thing that he had been obscuring. The gnome gasped and began thrashing as the shape on the wall was suddenly visible. A humanoid skeleton was half-entombed in the wall, sharp blades protruding from its bones. Growing from the chest and skull and the very bones of the skeleton were the thickest stalks of razorvine the gnome had ever seen. The sharp vine grew up into the roof of the cavern, branching into millions of tiny vines which, the gnome imagined, may have stretched throughout the entire Cage.

The priest pointed to the gnome once more and his captors quickly drew ought knives as the gnome thrashed in terror.

The priest was pleased. Hriste would drink deeply on this day.