Butcher Botany

Deep in the woods lies a garden. A garden said to be magnificent;a marvel of sorts that surpasses all beauty that may exist anywhere else on the planet. A shelter where dusk refuses to pry and night never cries,a homage devoid of reptiles, disease and ugliness, a place of plain ungodliness. A secure refuge to the unholy. Hence the rarities of orchids, butterflies and roses exist there. They bloom with a pretense so wise so as to slay a goddess with the mere scent of their venom. The butterflies’ sting, the flowers prey and the insects chew meat. To a wanderer who may stop to smell the roses they are profane death as his life flutters way like a butterfly. To a warrior who passes they are temptation but not a certain hindrance when fed and hearty. In the middle of the garden lies a temple fit to be called a palace, a palace with no queens, no princes or princesses and no servants. No being other than a terrible creature, one of mass destruction. A horrible mortal part butcher, part mathematician and in part a remarkably gifted botanist. And he is just as well the high priest of Satan’s temple. A monk he may be called, a monk that kills in the name of botany. A monk that surrounds himself with a sheet of riddles, the subjects who go right get free passage, the ones who don’t get a free fall to the underworld. Warriors sharp as needles, proud as kings and swift as light have perished over the ages in advent of his demise. Yet failure miserably engulfed them into history. Armies never seem to make past the baroque embankment. What makes the chase interesting is that you are allowed to quit at any point. And yet the price you pay is all on chance. Probability statistics. He looks out the window and smiles. You may leave as a whole alive poisoned with a curse your future generations would carry or you may leave as a beetle with no legs and no wings. Or if he desired a show he could just throw you into the air. Where you land if you do or whether you land in bits or in competence is once again probability. If you were in for disaster you might beeline to the honeycombed snake pit with holes the size of your genitals. If you have a sword that would be the most likely trance you would be encountered in difference being you would hear the hiss of the Lilith rather than dance in the bites of her progeny tykes. The latter would bite tissues of you based on a pattern. The former would be slower and the chunks bitten off bigger. More time to guess the pattern. But a death more profound, more felt. However, there is hope. You could easily go off unscathed. But once again if you were bathed in honey or nectar or anything sweet, would not the butterflies feast you with more than merely large eyes? If you do however answer correctly you will be let in. The first thing welcoming you would be a stone statue; The statue of his God, sitting in the middle of a fountain starring you with eyes brimming with the enticement of the oncoming sport and a sickly wicked stain of a smile. Flowing through the feather of his hat would be a liquid. Whether it is holy water, liquor, elixir, acid, energy giving potions or poison disguised as any of the above is dependent on the position of the sun and the day of the year,either way no point drinking it. The fountain also houses the Lilith. If you are lucky enough you may see the tail. If you are not, it may sense your sight. As a blind snake the moment it does, it will attempt to rip your eyes out to see if they fit her holes right. Across the statue lays a door, a wooden door that creaks as you enter it.Knocking makes no difference. As you enter it, you discover another series of doors, doors that lead inevitably to a creature. No one knows what those doors hold. Each one produces a different sound. But the last one, the one across the one you just entered holds the Vycus. The master of it all. He can give life and he can take it. At the door of his haven is engraved
“One who dies just the once fights better than one who has not died at all.”
Hence if he pities you after you are dead he may just take you back to time to when you were at the gates of his household. You turn back you see nothing but a dark void. You go forward, the flowers, the riddles and the doors let you pass without question so you may spar him. You get a second life so he may snatch it again. The fight for that second life is what he drives pleasure from. If you ever believed that one who saved you only wanted to kill you, you were right.
The Vycus is like an obese man. More than a few extra pounds and a stomach the size of an elephant characterize him. He is half giant. The Lilith perches around his neck before the fight starts. The Lilith is actually just a normal water snake he feeds the wrong plants to on intention. It leads to permanent blindness, the size of an anaconda and venom stronger than the sum of the venoms of all poisonous creatures including scorpions and plants coexisting in one reptile. And a constant dose of the orchid that houses the strain. He uses it as his hook to pull you near him as and when he desires. He is slow with his slaughter and his movement but that is no reason for consolation. The moment he wishes to end it he would give the snake one last bait before he would ask it to leave. The one last bait would be you. On command, the snake would spew venom just enough to blind and paralyze you and then slithering leave. Once done he would start rotting himself. He would slash his own body with an axe starting at the stomach. And that stomach that looked so helpless would initially fill your nostrils with a smell so toxic, so pungent so as to burn every inch of your body. The pain would be unbearable and would last till what you thought was your death. After a few minutes your sight would return and you would see the most revolting thing you would have ever seen. Your skin would beg to start unfeeling. Your eyes would wretch you to close them. He settles on top of you as you try to scramble out. Gooey liquid and blood covers you everywhere. The rottenness starts digesting you. In a while he moves away to admire his own piece of art. All that is to be seen is a display of blacks, reds and icky greens. The blood is his. The goo is his. The black tar is you, all that’s left of you. He is still bleeding and will till all the blood in his body runs out. Once that happens, the wizards visit him and restore him. It’s when he starts rotting is he the most vulnerable. Its only when he rots is he killable.
Relevance here is that he is the Wizards’ battle axe. Their executioner you may call him. Everything brains and magic can’t counter he can. Most of it that magic can encounter, he can too. For centuries the wizards have lazed in peace as he did their dirty work. Losing him will not be a handicap to them but letting him live will be a fatal fetus to us. He holds their fury. He is their divinity. He is their primal object of fear, their one most sought after and most used weapon. If we do somehow pawn him, they will come at us with all their might which I presume is enough to evaporate us alone but there will be less to fear. Also the moment he dies, the trumpets are sounded. Hopefully the other wolves and a few other clans will pact with us. But this one price has to be paid. No matter how many of us die, this creature has to be slain.
This creature I talk about is human, a mortal. So he can be killed. He could have immortality if he wished but he wishes to be slain. This wish of his is what we will fulfill.