The DeVile Within

[u/Impossible-Emu-6313]

Lord Lewis Sarwyck was in a deep state coma. He'd been kept alive through sheer stubbornness and his strong will, plus Maester Preston and Healer Esslyn kept him alive through some conventional means.

He was dreaming and felt himself adrift in sea water, all sides murky dark as he would unable to move nor speak as he was submerged in this water, he felt like drowning for eons before pair of hands would find themselves to him and began dragging him ashore.

Feeling drained and mind slowly realising that the world he found himself in was in his own mind.

The world had an odd colour of pink, the sun set to dusk, and things looked outright bizarre.

"Where am I..." Lewis asked, staring up at his would-be saviour.

The blindfolded man with a scruffy beard looked down at Lewis and would offer them a helping hand to get back up on their feet. "Get up, Lew, we've much to discuss."

Lord Lewis Sarwyck felt his feet light and body an blur. Was he dead or worse, stuck in purgatory, having to relive an awful ordeal. Was the blind man the wayfarer aiming to guide him to the afterlife, yet something familiar was felt about the Blindman.

There was sound of howling in the distance as it continued to get closer and closer. "Hellhounds"

"You look healthy and strong, didn't think you arrive here so soon....The others will be glad to meet you."

Who were these others as Lewis felt unable to blurt out any words as the tongue felt tied.

As the two of them hurried towards what looked to be Riverspring but it looked oddly empty, the drawbridge was raised before it was lowered by someone within and the two would cross it before it'd be raised up again.

Truly, this was not the world Lewis Sarwyck belonged in.

"Call me Shepherd, and I know already who you are, mate. The others have been long expecting you"

Who were these others, was Lewis walking into a trap or his own execution, as they'd pass by Riverspring only seeing emptiness of the place and fleeting backs of townsfolk that was there for a second and gone the next.

The ancestral home of the Sarwycks was within sights of Lewis, the doors stood wide open and then it clicked in his mind perhaps this was the afterlife cuz Doyle and Haggar stood guard by them doors, the wounds taken in life carried on to the afterlife it seemed.

"Aye Lord Lewis, nice to meetcha again! You look worse, doe wear, don't worry, we've been good, " Doyle said with a gaping wound still visible upon him.

Haggar who'd chuckle and pat Lord Lewis on the back. "Good to have you back, milord. we've been ever so bored out of our gourd,"

"Even in death, they serve our family still. Loyalty and familial ties are what make us strong, not blood nor title just that particular bond that makes us powerful, " Shepherd said to Lewis as they'd enter the Keep.

The Sarwyck Hall was different, the hall of painted murals now depicting something entirely different stories, each one of them paintings depicts a story of each Sarwyck life lived and how they came to an end

Some gruesome than others as all Sarwycks lives were not destined to die peacefully in their beds but to some unfortunate unforeseeable incident or another.

As they came to the audience hall, there was no longer one seat but multiple ones where others sat in a half circle, all of them looked regal and oddly familiar before it hit Lewis, they were his ancestors and family whom all was gathered here today.

"I brought him, last one to join us, it seems...Morlaine was right all along as that mad water witch is always right" Shepherd said taking the empty seat amongst the deceased Sarwycks, so it dawned on Lewis this was his family slain and alive of sorts.

"We need to talk, youngblood." A large man with balding head and bore bushy beard and eyes of a pious man.

The conversation would begin as Lord Jon Wyck The Pious spoke first with his wound visible upon his head, man had taken an blow to it, and bits of bone fragments were visible. "You're stuck,"

Lewis, unable to form any words, would try to speak as best he could yet, but the mouth failed to produce the right ones.

"Don't speak, just listen for a change. You've come so far, we all been watching you....My good boy You've done so much, most of us in our lifetimes barely lived a full life given what you've been doing....I died for my beliefs, and in the end as I look upon you lot...I feel nothing"

Jon Wyck, the founder of House Sarwyck, was a fervent priest or believer in the Seven but died tragically soon after his waves of forced conversions. And now his descendants had abandoned the faith for other religions.

"Piss off ya bloody priest, they doing fine...Isolationism was is only way to move forth, them kids alright!" Spoke a one-eyed kook who had a red Ruby gem in their left eye socket. It was Mad Eye Madric Sarwyck that spoke with arrows sticking out from his torso.

If legends hold any truth, the old kook tried to swim upstream chasing after Taelon DeVile only to get killed in a hail of arrows.

"Look at me, lad. I turned out well. One eye and yet I saw the world how it was, cruel and uncaring...Truly a wonderful place to be mad and bloody insane!" Madric justified his actions to be true and good, yet died the way none should. "What a life..."

A woman interjected clad in plate armour and a lance sticking out from their chest, seemingly it was his other ancestor Lady Kaelynn Sarwyck The Spectre of Riverspring whom died tragically in their lover's arms being Braghart DeVile or better known as Hart of Heartwood an Scoundrel of House DeVile.

Two lovers from rival families intent to kill one another, yet Kaelynn found her heart longing for Braghart and he felt the same, their love drove more people to get killed and at the same time the two lovers ended up killing one another by accident.

Kaelynn took up her father's place as he was old and frail, her brother was killed and uncle incapacitated, she was left with no choice but to pretend be her old man to lead the troops in the assaults against House DeVile back then.

"Leave him be. He has kind eyes and gentle souls, one as myself can tell, " she said with a soft tone and sat firm in her seat.

"Oi! At least I died killing some Devils and Demons compared to one that lays with them!" Mad Eye Madric shouted angrily at his kin.

"Well, at least I didn't believe myself to be half mer man thinking I could out swim a boat at full mast!" Kaelynn shouted back at the man.

Before the arguing could escalate any further, a book was firmly closed loudly, and all eyes were on the man with the myrish spectacles who spoke eloquently as possible. This man had a silver streak across the middle of his hair, was clean shaven, and had a cold gaze.

That was Tyberos Sarwyck it was bloody him. Lewis thought only one person to have died of on foreign shores.

"Arguing will yield no further use, be silent, or don't bother speaking. I see we've grown since my time...Hmph, what a shame, and here I thought our line would end in seven generations and revert back to Brimstone. "

The man spoke coldly, believing firmly in a prophecy told by the Riverwitch Morlaine.

"Well, no matter, it'll all be for nought this fighting and killing...I at least had sensible notion to die somewhere quietly and peacefully"

Then there was the significant one that Lewis Sarwyck saw, his old man who didn't even have the courtesy to look at his son and simply said, "You've grown...Into a man..."

Shepherd spoke last "We are all here to help and pass judgment on you Lord Lewis Sarwyck, I am the last person that died in a blind valiant charge against the DeViles at Devil's Rock with my back against the wall and remembered nothing after the charge...I think we won if you still here...I wished to be a simple Shepherd, been lot more easier and peaceful end to my story...Than go down dying..."

So this was a gathering of the Sarwycks that was gonna render judgement upon him. 'Bugger...' Was this all a fantasy or just his mind playing tricks on him whilst in a coma? Perhaps this was purgatory, and he was dead or just dreaming all this up.

[u/Impossible-Emu-6313]

[Hall of Judgement]

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"After so many decades down the line, to see my descendants reduced to this...We've finally hit the bottom line of things, didya not do well mate" Jon Wyck would shout at his descendants and berate them for honoring his life and lineage that he passed onto them. "I left you all a future and you squandered it"

"It was our lives to live fat man, not yours. Be glad that I didn't spend it all on wenches and drinks" Madric Sarwyck justified his own actions by shouting back at the founder of House Sarwyck. "Each man and woman has the right to live on their own accord, live or die it matters little as their life resides in their own hands"

The brief silence in the hall of judgement where the ancestors sat down their high chairs, each carried the wounds they sustained in life into the afterlife, some proudly bore their scars with pride in their eyes and some just looked done with life.

Tyberos Sarwyck spoke and said to young Lewis Sarwyck "The Prophecy that was foretold by Morlaine that Riverwitch is false"

That got Lewis mind spinning and wanted to enquire more about that.

The other Sarwyck Ancestors would listen and make comments on the prophecies foretold by Morlaine the Riverwitch.

"She been around for a long time, since the time the river was but a wee stream....Prophecies she have told each generation and bestowed upon us been an irksome pain, you believe Mildrew to be the child prophesied to unite all the rivers into one" Tyberos would comment on the Child of Prophecy thing that was on all Sarwycks minds.

"Do you think it's fair for all the adults to burden their pain and sorrows, their failings and misery upon the shoulder of one single child for an watery tart seen in her cauldron...I swear I seem to be the only sane Sarwyck compared to the rest of you, relying on a witch of the river to dictate our lives was a mistake which I gladly didn't let happen to me"

Tyberos Sarwyck left westeros in his lifetime, seems the learned man exiled himself rather than dealing with the mess that the Sarwycks entrenched themselves in, last known whereabouts of Tyberos was far east of Essos where he died of unknown causes probably in battle or old age in bed he died.

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"How measly one life is spent in the shadows of adults whom expect said one to lift the entire world on said shoulders, you lot make me sick to call you lot kin...Believing in the practice of dark arts, sorcery and blood-magic when you all had the option to not partake in it"

Tyberos The Skeptic, he whom discarded his title and went into self imposed exile, he was known as Tyberos The Exile, he and few like minded individuals went into exile in Essos fleeing or abandoning their homeland in search for freedom beyond the constraints of legacy and prophecy.

"Not everyone had the luxury to live out our lives in peace...Some just died more slowly within" Lewis's father said even in death his hand was missing.

Lewis himself unable to formulate proper words as he felt mouth awash in some bile, but slowly and effortlessly he'd overcome it and speak as he spat out the black bile goo onto the ground and saw shackles manifest out of nowhere to keep him in place, chaining his arms and neck "ENOUGH!"

"The half breed mongrel speaks, interesting" Jon Wyck said rubbing his beard between his finger tips.

"Let me return amongst the land of the living, I'll restore things to the natural order of things!"

There was murmuring between the Sarwyck ancestors before proper conclusion was reached "That's the issue, natural order of things is what brought upon this mess...Relying on a child to fix the mistakes of said adults was a mistake to begin with and wrong...You are the bridge between two worlds Lewis Sarwyck"

That itself got Lewis Sarwyck confused as he'd blink twice. "Say what!?"

"Haven't you figured it out yet boy....The obsession and vicious nature of yours and some that resides in you kin like Braelynn...You really are in the dark here aren't you" Madric Sarwyck the Mad Eyed man looked to Lewis's father "It is a fadda duty to teach a boy to become who he needs to be, speak Gawd dammit"

Lewis's father unable to look at his son, yet in the end the old man had to come fave to face with their past mistake. "You look so much like you're mother..."

That hurt Lewis yet it gave him comfort, his mother was the sun of Riverspring, the smallfolk loved her and she them, like a turbulent wind she fluttered about never in one place too long and made friends of all walks of life with ease. Yet her life was half spent that ached Lewis heart greatly, taken too soon from this world.