Helemburg / Intro to the Ouroboros Cult

While Vargold is my current main character, Helemburg was my conqueror back on Cimmeria. I decided to reroll him on Wic as a Dark Templar, with a background as to why. The Ouroboros Cult is an organization I need to do more write-up on, but basically it's an organization devoted to Set (with a different mission than most) which Helm was affected by and was hunting down. Since I don't want to pay for a character transfer right now and the DT class has always been of interest, I decided to reroll him as a DT and write out the process/background. For reference, the Stygian referenced in this short story is one of the cult.


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The room stank. The air had a dull, hazy taste to it, and Helm always grimaced upon entering. How whatever malady that poisoned his wife made its way into the very air was a mystery to him, and that made him hate it all the more. He had always hated things he didn't understand, and yet desperation had caused him to trust that Stygian and his chants and poultices with Celse's life, or what was left of it. The best Mitran healers and priests had seen to her without success, and so when the marked man from Stygia that offered no name had come and offered his help where all the others had failed, Helm had felt he had no choice but to allow it.

"Helm?" Her voice sounded like sandpaper across stone, and each syllable was a battle. "Helemburg?"

He stepped to the bedside and placed the basin of water on the floor. Two fingers moved to brush against Celse's cheek as he knelt at her side. "Sorry I woke you," he said quietly. Her skin was colder today, its color ever fading. It will get worse before it gets better, the man from the south had promised. Helm hated that he had to watch his wife get sicker, and hated even more that the Stygian often referred to her as 'it.'

"Helm? Is that you?" She always asked that.

He hushed her, submerging the cloth in the hot water. It had recently been boiled. "Shh," he whispered again. The cloth dripped a warm trail as Helm brought it to his wife's forehead. Her eyes closed when the warmth reached her flesh, and he looked at her face. That was the only time he could bear to look at her; the black, lifeless orbs the sickness had left of Celse's once beautiful green eyes were difficult for him to view.

The sudden voice from the doorway startled him; he had spent nearly two hours at his wife's side. "It is time," the voice hissed. The Stygian stood near the door, tall and dark. 'Time' meant that the man from the south would shut himself up in Celse's sickroom for an hour or more, as he did several times each day, and perform remedies upon her. Helm rose to his feet and approached his wife's would-be healer, who stared through him with those thin eyes of his. "It is as we suspected, and feared."

Helm shook his head, staring at the floor. "What do you mean?" he asked, though it came out as more of a command than a question, and his voice was ripe with despair.

"You know, Helemburg."

"Say it, damn you."

"It has indeed passed on to the boy." The Stygian's words, utterly lacking in any shred of sympathy, cut deep, though Helm had known they were coming. "We must begin the process immediately."

Helm sighed deeply, defeated. "No," he said, shaking his head once more. "No, I won't let him suffer like this." He battled with himself, trying to convince himself word by painful word. "I won't."

"What will you do, then?"

"I...I don't know." But in his heart, he knew.

"Mm," the Stygian hummed. "You would do well to think on it quickly." His tone matched his expression; callous, heartless. "Now. If you please," he added, apathetically waving Helm off to dismiss him from the room.

Helm stepped past the swarthy man without a word, though his entire being boiled. Bastard, he thought spitefully, hating the Stygian for the news and for being apparently unable to cure Celse. His thoughts, and steps, stopped short as he left the sickroom; just past the door, standing against the wall as if to sneak a listen, was his young son. "Cole," he murmured, as if his son's very name pained him to utter. "Come. Off to bed with you." He held out his hand. Cole reached out and placed his tiny hand into his father's.

"Will Mommy be alright?" The boy's hair had become stringy. His face had begun to lose its pigment, just like Celse's when she had first taken ill.

"Aye," Helm lied, placing his hand on his son's shoulder as the Stygian disappeared into the sickroom and the door closed before them. "Aye."