the first draft is complete, this is the start of the second draft, which of course is just improving upon the original one ;)

This story is set in the world of Soloa, Forlorn Hope: Online was set in that world, however its no longer online as Lands of Hope (FH2) is far better.

To that end, a few of the races may seem odd to you, such as the Lemurian. However, if there are any races you are unsure of, please let me know and I shall explain them.

I have written another story which details the origins of Shikaku, however it leaves a gap between that story and this as a friend wrote a story about Sasuke which covers this period, until I write Shikakus version of that, the story shall start here.


Massacre at Rithwick

For hours he had been trekking through the snow, and with each step he took the thing following him also took a step. Through the blizzard he saw what seemed to be a great spire of ice, he quickly picked up speed and hid behind it. The creature that had been following him eventually made its way to the spire, it looked around confused for a while, he looked down at the footprints, they had just ended. He stood there a little while longer before deciding to turn back, as he did so a great axe met him square between the eyes, the axe was like no other, the sight of it alone made the creature tremble with fear, the blades were crimson, stained with blood and glimmered with a fiery aura,. Between the two blades were two skulls, somehow fused together, back to back, from there mouths came the blades. The hilt was pure bone, two spines intertwined around each other. It was like no other weapon the creature had seen, its fiery red aura was pure evil. Shikaku leered from behind the axe, “tell me foul creature, why have you been following me?” the sight of the axe had left him so afraid that he could not answer, he just stared at the demonic weapon down his nose. Shikaku laughed, “if you shall not speak, then you shall die!” He brought his axe backwards then brought it thundering down, the creature turned to run, but it was too late, he fell to the ground lifeless as the snow on the ground turned red with blood. Shikaku wrenched his axe from the corpse and it became engulfed in flames leaving nothing but ash. Shikaku smirked as the wind blew them into the cold air.

He looked around for a moment, he was in the middle of Snowy Peaks, the blizzard had thrown him off course, he had to face the fact he was indeed lost. He had been searching this area for some days after hearing rumours of some sort of vampiric creature, across the lands of Soloa people described them as mouldy humans, their bodies at times were riddled with maggots and when not they appeared just as disturbing, they ate flesh, dead or alive and in most cases the thing they had bitten became another of them. It is said they smell like no other creature, a smell of death and decay that lingers in the air minutes before the creature actually becomes visible. For Shikaku this meant something new to defeat, something that would perhaps be more of a challenge. He headed off into the blizzard thinking back for a moment “Who the heck was that man anyway?”

He walked for what seemed hours, he was becoming cold and tired, he felt his life essence wearing thin, he stumbled falling into the snow. He lay there gazing at the sun thinking only of death. His eyelids slowly shut, he dreamt of a peaceful meadow with butterflies and frolicking children, no worries or cares and eternal bliss, until a shadowy figure on a dark steed rampaged through the large grass, his axe cutting through the flowers and the steed leaving flames in its wake, the figure was Shikaku. He laughed as he cut the throats of the men, tore the limbs from the women and burnt the children to cinders; the whole of the blissful meadow had become a fiery heck hole. Shikaku roared off into the distance and the dream ended. He awoke to see a great snow monster, it was massive, its eyes glared down at Shikaku, it seemed friendly and helpful it spoke “ooo lost? Me elp!” the giant snowball picked Shikaku up with his small finger and draped him over his shoulder, Shikaku groaned “what in heck are you?” a tear seemed to form at the creatures eye “epell call me monsta, me nice, me no hurt anyone, but they hurt me” Shikaku rolled his eyes, “can you take me to the place where the maggot ridden creatures dwell?” Shikaku put his hand on his axe, if this creature was of no use then it would die, “I take close, but no go in, they hurt me” Shikaku removed his hand and did something he immediately regretted, “Thank You.”
On their way the creature explained many things, the maggot ridden folk seemed to be called Ghoul, he explained how they had killed the majority of his family and how most snow folk had hidden, he pointed around at mountains “that’s my brother” he would say or “that’s my sister” it seemed this one was only young as he was only the size of a hill, the adults it seemed were as huge as mountains. The two of them spoke for what seemed hours, Shikaku learnt of the Drow and Slammerkin which appeared at roughly the same time as the Ghoul, “more challenges” he thought to himself.

After hours of travelling they eventually came to a clearing in the snow, the giant creature bent down and let Shikaku off, his great arm stretched out and pointed down a huge gorge, “gool down dere, I go now” Shikaku quickly fetched out his axe and like a hot knife through butter split the creature into two, the great creature screamed in pain. Shikaku sighed “not much of a challenge.” He looked down at the great city, it was quite large, lights and buildings scattered everywhere, in the centre was some sort of statue. He sat down in the grass for a moment, he was still dubious as to how the grass could grow here in the cold and harsh climate, but he thought nothing more of it and decided to rest. Again he had the dream, only this time another figure appeared as he rode away, bullets came flying towards him as one knocked him off his demonic steed he awoke in a cold sweat. The wonderful dream had turned into a nightmare. He grabbed his axe and headed on down the gorge towards the city.

The snow was beginning to build back up and he was struggling to hide his tracks, he hid around a corner slaughtering the gorgon that was resting down there, “why are there gorgons here” he pondered. He peered around the building and saw the great statue, it was of a gorgon holding a great lance. He cursed under his breath “that stupid thing took me to a gorgon outpost” as he was about to leave a group of ghouls marched down the road, it seemed they were having some sort of celebration. They gathered around the statue praising it. Shikaku a little confused decided to take a closer look, suddenly a deep voice shouted over “There he is! Seize him!” Immediately a swarm of human guards came charging towards him “Gorgons, Humans and Ghouls, why the heck would they all be together” he wondered. The first guard came flying at him with a large blade, he easily evaded and swung his axe with such haste that the torso was ripped from the legs, Sasuke came into sight, “Farewell brother” The guards surrounded Shikaku, his eyes become alight with fire and his axe engulfed in flames, he swung around wildly leaving nothing but ashes were the guards once stood. Sasuke a little surprised charged into battle.

They circled each other for a while until Sasuke eventually stood forward and swiftly shot a bullet across the battlefield at Shikaku, he was flung backwards into the snow, Sasuke rushed over to meet nothing more then a silhouette in the snow, he looked around hoping to see Shikaku before it was too late. As Sasuke turned Shikaku came roaring towards him with great haste striking at his body with an almighty fist of fire. Shikaku regained his posture and stared menacingly at Sasuke, he was slightly startled as Sasuke stood unharmed. Sasuke grinned and let out a laugh “Your amusing fire tricks can’t effect the Crimson Crest, surely you should know that?” Shikaku’s dark eyes stared at Sasuke with sheer vengeance, if eyes were a weapon Sasuke would have been cut into pieces, he spoke up “That’s where your wrong my dear brother” he dodged to the side as a few bullets came whirling past, his hands together he conjured a great fireball, he threw it towards Sasuke, the heat of it instantly made him sweat as he watched it glide past his face, the ball carried on travelling leaving a large hole through a line a smouldering buildings. Sasuke disappeared into the shadows as Shikaku began to conjure another, he appeared behind him, he shot Shikaku straight in the back with the bullets he had been saving, they were unlike most bullets, they were smaller, denser and left a greater impact wound, they could pierce through concrete and even the skin of a matured sandworm. Shikaku was left unconscious and bleeding, but somehow he remained alive. The fireball he had been conjuring was left in his hands, however Shikaku could no longer control it, it spiralled off from his grip with no direction and exploded onto one of the ghouls who had been watching the fight with glee, the city of Rithwick was left in flames, many ghouls died and even more were left even more mutated then they once were. But worst of all for Sasuke, Shikaku’s body was blown across Snowy peaks, Sasuke wasn’t sure whether he was dead or alive.

Death headed into Rithwick on his steed, he hadn’t had a crop like this for some time, sure the Ghoul were already sort of dead, but their souls were not and that’s what Death wanted, he knew Shikaku was a sound investment and he had more plans for him.

The Message

Shikaku roared through the meadow on his Demonic steed, flames lay in his wake and blood spilled into the river turning it red as Shikaku roared off into the distance and the dream came to an end. Slowly his eyes twitched open staring at the sky he attempted to move his right arm, it was limp and numb, the ice cold snow had left him semi-paralysed. He stayed there staring upwards for quite some time; he was slowly regaining some control, but was still not able to get on his feet. He heard muffled voices, they were strange and unlike any voice he had heard before, one was deep and commanded respect, if the voice was a weapon it could have cut through pure zeokan, the second was less powerful but still deemed a certain amount of respect, the third however was quite daunting, it was hollow and empty and seemed as if it should never have been here in the first place. The voices came closer, by now Shikaku could hear the crunch in the snow every time they took a step and the voices were becoming clearer, “So he is over here right?” “Yes, I can feel his presence close by, but remember he is a powerful warrior, get your message across quickly as the last messenger died without speaking one word” Shikaku quickly remembered the man he killed earlier, he chuckled to himself, ‘stupid messenger, shouldn’t have come alone, it seems this one is wiser” The messenger and his companions came crunching around a small snow hill, the leader was a small stubby Ghoul, just like the ones in Rithwick, only it seemed gravity had been playing with him and pulled too hard, the other two looked quite strange, one was pure darkness, some sort of silhouette that just glided through the air, the other was even more unsettling, it (for lack of a better description) wasn’t really there, it had shape, figure and seemed to be real, but had no defining features, it was virtually impossible to even comprehend where its mouth could be. It was some sort of blob, yet just by looking at it you knew it was more then this, it was something unsettling, something dark and it shouldn’t have existed within this world. Finally the trio came up to Shikaku, the Ghoul looked over, his voice commanded respect, however Shikaku could sense an edge of fear in every letter, “are you Shikaku?” The shadow of a creature turned and gazed over at the Ghoul, his voice strong and powerful, “You know its him, give him the darn message and lets get out of here, this guy gives me the creeps” Shikaku looked over at the ‘shadow’ “What, or who the heck are you?” The three creatures stood in shock (or at least two of them did, ‘it’ didn’t seem to do anything.) The Ghoul spoke up, “You can see my two friends?” “Yes, but answer my question before I remove your head from your shoulders.” “oh yes, errrm sorry master, basically I am a Ghoul, we were once under the command of the Lord Rithwick, but we were attacked by…” Shikaku interrupted him, “Yeah, I’ve been to Rithwick, I’ve met your type so just get on with it, I don’t want your life story. Who are these ugly fellows?” “Well if you had carried on listening I would have told you, my race were entrapped within a dark dimension, the tenth circle of heck, its so deep and so well hidden that neither Satan nor Chaos know how to get there, however we were not the only ones trapped there, Drow and Slammerking also roamed there, but also these demons, greater demons, only a handful of people can see them… which brings me to my messag” the e had no time to escape the Ghouls lips for Shikaku had driven his axe through the Ghouls torso and left him in two bloody halves, he looked towards the ‘shadow’ with intrigue, “he looked at me funny, now what was you message?” ‘it’ seemed to be smirking at Shikaku, the ‘shadow’ spoke up “your father requests your audience” “HAH! My father is dead fool” his axe came swinging around his body and around into the Demon, his axe gleamed and for a few seconds Shikaku could not be seen, when he reappeared the Demon crumbled and then shattered into 6 pieces. Shikaku smirked at ‘it’ and dispersed into thin air leaving nothing where he once stood, ‘it’ stood forwards, its hollow voice was hard to hear, but Shikaku made most of it out “nice axe, only two people can make an axe that powerful, one is dead and the other has never lived, unless…” Shikaku held his axe up to what appeared to be the demons throat, “speak up or you shall return to your 10th circle” his voice deepened and became a little more existent; his body erupted into an evil blue-ish light, “SILLY MORTAL! I was willing to tell you who your father was, but now I shall kill you instead!” he hurled himself towards Shikaku and narrowly missing he landed upside down in the snow, (or at least he was the other way around a minute ago) Shikaku had little time to respond, all he could muster was a puzzled look before the earth began to shake violently and cracks appeared beneath his feet, he had missed Shikaku on purpose. Then as if from nowhere darkness scoured the lands and shrouded the demon, leaving him lifeless and limp, a robed man riding a white steed roared across the sky, Shikaku feared the worse, was his life over? A voice boomed within Shikaku’s head, “if you shall not come to me son, I shall come to you”

Shikaku froze in horror, for several minutes the two were stood in silence beneath the dark sky, eventually words dribbled from Shikaku’s lips “how the heck can you of all things be my father?” “Things are not always as plane as they seem Shikaku, free the one called Asteroph and I shall reveal more to you.“ Before Shikaku had chance to respond the figure has vanished, the skies had returned to there former glory and Shikaku had passed out.

The steed came galloping threw the meadow with great haste, after the slaughter in the village Shikaku roared off parallel to the river only to meet a great foe wielding trident. All about his massive muscular body were riddles of skulls and bones that had been pieced together from the corpses of his victims, his hair was dark and bunched in some sort of pony tail, all over him his veins protruded from his pale white skin, he grinned at Shikaku revealing a few mouldy brown teeth surrounded by diseased gums and then leered over him. A laugh thundered down towards Shikaku and his fiery steed ran off into the distance, Shikaku was on his back peering upwards at a great ogre, as the massive green trident came hurtling down towards him a sudden image of Old Balane Town came to him and reality set in as he eyes opened. The dream had changed since last time, but there was little improvement and also to his dismay was the fact he suddenly found himself in Old Balane Town, was the meeting with Death also a dream? Had he been here in Old Balane all along?

A sharp pain shot up through his back and a slight trickle of blood found its way to the ground, his face screwed up in agony as he lifted his hand up to his back and felt a small bullet wound. Rage welled up inside him “that cowardly fool shot me in the back” he stopped for a while and calmed himself down, the bullet could stay there for a while, the pain was just about bearable, for now he wanted to settle his curiosity, the only thing he could think of was Death, Asteroph and whether or not it was a dream.