Tower of the broken

(Joy, oh my, so warm enclosing and gentle, you had been there all along, still steadfast by my side, unbroken by the harsh past.)

Inside the tower it awaited me it had awaited me for long, something that cannot be described by mere words or thoughts, was it perhaps as indescribable as the body of our world? Perhaps. There's nothing in the initial room of the tower, just a ground plane of white marble and a spiraling staircase leading upwards further than my eyes can reach, much much further, do this road really carry on to a land of answers, and from answers, progression.

Wandering on and on the stairway seems to become more and more obscure, so cold since when had the temperature started diving? When? There are no rails, just a stone slab after another, some short, some planted in the wall, others almost falling down to that white below. *Sigh* More distortion up ahead, some steps are even flying in the air now, breaking the ever reaching flows of nature, indeed this could only have been the product of an ancient one, a dark deity. Is there any rhyme or reason to find within this prison of cosmos, this prison of suffering, this prison of bend' ed rules?

A door finally, anything to get of these unreliable excuses for stairs, wait, this spark, these vibrations, they're faint but definitely there, beyond this white door draped with red flowers like the field I'd left behind, my right hand clinging to that doorknob, I prepare myself for what might be awaiting carrying the lantern in my still numb left, oh what a liking my familiar had taken for it, what may the reason be?

Beyond the door, there's a room, grand, and grey, this does not look like any part of the tower from the outside, have I crossed that tear in the sky perhaps? This room seemed to belong in a castle of riches, and not to a lonely tower standing on lonely hills, grand grey and... What's that stench? It reeks, almost like the odor of putrid and exposed flesh hanging in the sun for days. *Ugh* That feeling, that sensation of bile acid rising in the back of the throat ready to discard one's last meal, it had been lasagna, right? Alexander had made it, hell, wheres this horrid stench coming from? From the corners? No, something staining the shiny floor? No... wait, tiny black spots on the floor, crusty and dried up, can be mistaken for regular dirt at sight but its pattern, it's just too peculiar and its consistency, it is only one thing it could be, dried blood, but then the source must be... Yes, hanging under that tall roof, like a token, a token of pride perhaps? Or like a talisman for protection?

There, suspended under a bright glass ceiling it was, four dark wings mangled and stretched out by rusted hooks, hands, and feet bound with tight iron chains, suppressing any meaningful movements, skin battered and lacerated with vile puss oozing trough the sliced flesh, dripping down on the marks of dried blood, and its face obscured by a red sack tightly bound around the creature's neck. Its chest seemed to slightly rise then inflate, the wounds gashing with every slight breath, it's alive, for how long? Judging the injuries it should have been long dead, hanging there as a broken vessel.

"I... Am... Sorry." Still, possessing the ability of speech huh?

"L-l-le-let m-m-mm-me die.... Just let me perish from this plane... end me" Cursed, deemed to hang as either an icon of fear, protection, supreme judgment, or just some sick art, ah not that I care, I'll get out and I will cleanse the world, but I will not let suffering be and just look through the cracks of my fingers, when I find suffering I will end it when I can.

"Let the fires of the soul cleanse your being and may your passing to the next world be light as an angel feather".

Burning so brightly, for some moments the flames burnt so brightly that they cast a shade upon the light shining down, truly the bright glory of a holy halo. The flames melt the hooks suspending it starts falling down. The charred remains at my feet are still moving, perhaps some piece of it was bound to never freely leave? The ashen-ed bones felt crusty and strangely cold to the touch, lights? Bright lights, "Let go, use this catalyst to ascend, to achieve peace, I invite you inside to guide you to your cleansing light, your salvation, freedom from this prison, a prison of bones, a prison of flesh, a prison of chains, a prison of the mind. Now fly".

Shining light, a bright tower over an underground castle in a landscape fertile and with many roads, the tower had a lord, a dark angel guarding this world against an unknown abyss. The lord smiling brightly holding its holy scepter with pride, wielding it as both a key to answers and a weapon to intruders or invaders. Its staff golden and its head a crimson crystallized nautilus. Then... Darkness.

Moved on, it seems, did it want to tell me something? That scepter, where is it?

Entering the tower I was blinded by its glass floors and shining crystal walls, oh so bright, thereby the wall it was resting, a golden staff and a crimson nautilus, moving over to it I could feel the vibrations, something grand and powerful, an ancient artifact not weakened by the ages past, just as perfect as in that shining vision. The vibrations, subtle and powerful akin to pulsating shock waves were enveloping me, shock after shock, my right hand gripping its shaft strongly, and even the ground shook from the impact, a golden light splitting the walls wide open blinding me and any potential onlooker's.

The blinding light faded and the scepter settled to vibrating softly in the palm of my right hand. What? The land laying beyond was not fertile, nor with many paths to take like in the vision, what laid beyond the crystal walls were a dead, desolate, and dried up wasteland stretching for miles on end, tarnished by a heaven consumed by a black being, twisting and curling its dimension sized body over the horizons. Deustarmer, is this your true wretched form? Lantern of my familiar in my left and the scepter of a golden lineage in my right I step out into this wasteland.