Tales of Doom 1-2: The Calling
* The Druid RP for C03.
New ERA of Wrestling Presents...
TALES of DOOM
Featuring... The Druid as Himself
Episode 1-2: The Calling
(CUE UP: “Return Trip” by Electric Wizard.)
(The camera fades into the dark place between time and space known as THE BEYOND. Under the shadow of a pentagram, the camera slowly pans around from the center of a circle of ROBED CULTISTS in the middle of a ritualistic black mass. Assumedly, they were once regular New ERA fans, but now they appear lost in dope-induced prayers to dark masters, heads bobbing in time to crushing doom riffs and mouths chanting unknown languages in unison.)
The Druid (O/S)
Go on, sheep. Continue to deny me. Continue to DEFY me. Your ignorance only hurries the doomed fate that awaits you all.
Now you can see for yourself the POWER and INFLUENCE of
the Elder Gods. Look with your own eyes the signs of the
dark things to come.
(The camera comes to the rest on the maddened and impish smirk of THE DRUID, standing in the full robed regalia of the pagan high priest. He stands a step ahead of the circle of acolytes.)
The Druid
You all thought I was a LUNATIC... but as you can see, THE CHOSEN FEW that walk among us on this insignificant blue planet have heard
THE CALLING of
the Elder Gods. They have listened... they have come to understand
the Prophecy of Doom at hand... and now they have RISEN UP to follow
the Druid to the New ERA of OBLIVION.
Go ahead and WHINE about how unfair it is that I have my own
PAGAN CULT backing me up... but really, what can be considered “FAIR” about this bleak and miserable planet we live on? Mankind exists to squander its time and effort away playing this meaningless game called LIFE. In the end, it won’t matter who followed the rules and who broke them. It won’t even matter who
WON.
When the Earth DIES and we’re all nothing but
SPACEDUST... the GAME is
OVER... and the only real “winner” in any sense will be the man that recognized the insignificance of rules and order, and played the game his OWN way.
The Druid is that man... and you are all playing MY game now.
(He passively holds his arms out, gesturing to the black mass circled around him and the camera.)
The Druid
These loyal acolytes will be present at every match, bound by the will of
the Elder Gods. They will be there to watch me push the limits of all that is believable and real in that ring... to expand their collective consciousness to new limits. Many of you will not like it, and probably complain about it, but all the same, you will have to
DEAL WITH IT... because it’s all the will of
the Elder Gods, in their dark plan to make every man that dares enter the ring with
the Druid experience the horrifying realities beyond the veil of human understanding.
Know this, sheep... when the time comes, you will know what it’s like to live in FEAR and MADNESS. You will be exposed to holds and techniques you never thought possible, witness stunts and feats that could never be dreamed. You won’t rest easy for even a moment without having to constantly keep a wary eye cast over your shoulder, knowing ANYTHING can happen, forever hoping to expect the unexpected.
But none of you will see it coming... because so few of you are willing to EMBRACE that fear and madness, as I have.
(With a sinister chuckle, the Druid slowly walks down the line of the circle of silent cultists as the camera as it follows his every move.)
The Druid
JASON PAYNE, ever the optimist, simply tried to ignore it... but where is he now? Nobody knows, because ever since
Cyberstrike 1, when I opened his mind to the horrifying realities that exist beyond his narrow scope of perception, he’s been stunned into absolute
SILENCE. Even a determined and hard-working hero like Payne, who once lauded his ability “push forward” despite the pain and the hardships and the what have you, could not stand against the inevitable will of
the Elder Gods.
Then last week, at
Cyberstrike 2, I proved that I don’t even have to be in the BUILDING for my dark influence to manipulate the happenings in this federation. To think, we could have seen a
new Champion of New ERA of Wrestling leave the Agganis Arena that night... but as we all know, that didn’t happen. And now? Our New ERA Champion is sitting in a hospital somewhere, the future of his career in jeopardy... and the man who put him there is looking like the world’s greatest fool after ruining his latest chance at professional wrestling immortality.
All because of the involvement of yours truly...
the Druid.
(He comes to a stop on the other side of the black circle, turning his insane smile to the camera, red eyes burning into the souls of every viewer watching at home.)
The Druid
So much more needs to be done before
the Elder Gods are appeased. More sacrifice is needed... and much more will continue to unfold as we enter
Cyberstrike 3, where I will step into the ring with the very man I seemingly screwed out of the New ERA Championship.
(A tongue of flame suddenly erupts up from the pit between the Druid and the camera. The cameraman backs up as a wall of heat hits him, but the Druid stands his ground, mere inches away from having his face incinerated.)
The Druid
I will admit,
Chaos... there’s a lot in you I do admire. Like me, you’re not what the pundits would call a conventional wrestler. We understand it’s not about win-loss ratios, but instead it’s about the IMPACT we make in that ring. It’s about knowing that even a strap like the New ERA Championship can’t outweight the feeling of putting its
Champion it into a damn hospital.
All that aside... what you did to the Champ, frankly, doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest. I’ve done worse to
MYSELF doing backflips off of my parents’ garage when I was a kid... and it’s a well-known FACT that
“The Phenon” Shawn Hart has spent more time these past couple years in hospitals and clinics than he has in the ring. I know you want the world to think you’re some big, blood-thirsty beast... but to me, given all the damage I’ve sustained over my career, you’re nothing more than HARMLESS.
The TRUE beast of mankind lies deep within the darkest voids of his soul...
(Behind him, two acolytes step forward from the line. One of them hands the Druid his goat-headed ritual headdress, and the other, his censer of smoking skulls of doom.)
The Druid
See, while your actions last week revealed an unrivalled ferocity and destructive nature to most of this federation’s locker room, something else was revealed to
me. Specifically, a lack of self-control and awareness. When things don’t go your way, you blow up, embracing those violent and primordial human urges we all have but never constantly withold. But as we saw last week, you take that whole thing just a little far.
You’re capable of destructive actions, but clearly, you don’t THINK before you act. Yes, you’re big, you’re angry, you’re ugly, and you’re unstable... but apparently, you’re not very
SMART.
Sure, you put the Champ in the hospital... but what do you have to show for it? In time, Hart will eventually recover... he’ll be back in the ring, shaking his thing, like nothing ever happened... and you’ll
still be without that title. All because you couldn’t stop for a second and THINK about the weight of your actions.
(The acolytes begin bowing before the pit of fire in ritual hypnosis. Either they are really into this, or they are really high. Perhaps neither, perhaps both. With his red eyes now lit up by the fire, the Druid walks around the pit in a slow circle.)
The Druid
Looking back to last week, I think everyone will agree that you fell victim to your own maniacal and unrestrained rage. All you had to do was make the cover and walk to the back with a new shiny prize around your waist... but instead, you threw a little temper tantrum, took things a little too far, and got yourself disqualified.
You can’t blame
The First for what happened, nor can you blame
The Druid. The only one to blame for your grief is your
OWN mindless rage. It just goes to prove that all the things about you that set you above the rest, hold you back from ever being considered the best.
(Knowing he’s right, or perhaps simply humored that he managed to rhyme on that last line, another impish smirk crosses his face.)
The Druid
Or maybe, Chaos... maybe you CAN blame me...
(He takes a step forward and the entire viewing audience takes a step back, as if they can SMELL the reefer and the decay wafting off his brown mane of hair.)
The Druid
Because after all... you said going into that match that if anybody appeared around the ring, you would, I quote, “cut a bloody path of revenge that New ERA has never seen before.” You probably meant it as a warning, but to my ears, it sounded more like an invitation.
Maybe I
expected you to flip out, Chaos, upon seeing people crowd the ringside area. Maybe I expected you to take it out on the first person you got your hands on, and maybe I expected that person to be the Champ himself. Maybe I did it all because I knew, in the long run, it would only make things
easier when the time came for
the Druid to cash in his own title shot. Maybe I was the puppetmaster all along, and you were nothing but a puppet...
...or maybe I’m just saying this all now to bluff you into thinking you really aren’t the one who’s in control.
(He lets loose another evil cackle.)
The Druid
So was it all a matter of bad timing on my part, or did I orchestrate the entire outcome of that fateful evening? Nobody knows, because some things in this universe SHOULDN’T be known, and history has proven that you can never be certain of the absolute truth when dealing with
the Druid.
Consider the fact that I’m
UNDEFEATED in competition here in New ERA. Does that make me a fluke, or a bona fide bad-ass?
(His eyes find the camera.)
The Druid
I guess you’ll never know, Chaos...
Not that there’s much you know NOW. Clearly, you’ve never heard of me before this week, which is a shame. If you had, maybe you’d know that I was the man that retired the New ERA Television Title without so much as a blemish on my record. Maybe you’d know about the scores of defeated opponents who made the mistake of underestimating my reality-defying techniques and hang-time skills, and paid the price for it. Maybe then you’d also realize that this isn’t going to be as simple as walking into the ring and being your usual chair-swinging, seven-foot-tall mongoloid self and expect the same results.
Alas... you choose swim in the sea of ignorance.
(He shakes his head with complete indifference.)
The Druid
And it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, because all you really are is nothing more than a product of destructive, single-minded rage, and every time your vision turns red, you go BLIND to other, more important factors involved. I know now that it doesn’t take much to make you snap... and when it happens, you’re bound make mistakes.
This is exactly what I expect to happen at
Cyberstrike 3. You’ll come after me... but you won’t catch me, because the fact of the matter is that you’re big, dumb, and slow, and I am professional wrestling’s ever-elusive “Escape Artist.” You’ll grow frustrated as time and time again, I slip away from your destructive hands, denying you the satisfying torment you so callously like to dish out.
(The robed fanatics crowd around the shoulders of the Druid, huddling in close and following the gaze of their master with eyes that seem to glow with evil and impurity.)
The Druid
Then there’s the possibility of
THESE guys getting involved, which would only add to your ire. Coupled with the MADDENING JEALOUSY you’ll sustain once you lay witness to the SICK-ASS stunts off pull off on a moment’s notice... sooner or later, that black and brutal RAGE of yours will CONSUME YOU.
With gnashing teeth and swinging fists, you’ll raze that ring like a human Tasmanian devil... but no matter HOW HARD you strike or HOW BADLY you want to see me dead and mangled, you’ll never get that chance, because I’ll always be a step ahead... and that will piss you off to the point of a complete mental meltdown.
(He raises the censer and shakes it a few times in front of the camera, setting up a wall of mist that only the glowing of his reddened eyes can show through.)
The Druid
It is there, in that dark and defenseless place, where
the Druid will make his strike.
With these hands, these legs, and the Cosmos surrounding me, Chaos... I will whisper dark prophecies into your ear... I will reveal shadowy truths that will leave you begging for death... I will bring you to the BLACK MASS of
the Elder Gods... I will leave you wanting to stay down, never to rise until sweet death saves you from the grief and oblivion that awaits the rest of this pathetic federation.
(Behind the fog, we can hear something. Is that... bubbling?)
The Druid
CHAOS...
YOUR TIME HAS COME!
(With the cosmic doom outtro of “Return Trip” blaring over the soundtrack, the mist of death now completely obscures the vision of the camera, which slowly fades out to black.)
Link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nbHVEullZYqnYjSkdRhvdXuyJcfBeOvxTKLfJyCEc4Y/edit?hl=en#
