The Shadows Return: The Blessing of Lord Scroltch

A contribution from Owen, In which Lord Scroltch the Deliriously Pustulent is blessed by Papa Nurgle for his many services and becomes an even more diseased deamonic octopus than ever.

Lord Scroltch the Deliriously Pustulent was sitting in the mud, making happy little bubbling

noises to himself as he watched the happy little bubbles rise to the surface and burst, releasing a pleasingly horrible stench into the air when it happened. First there was blast of flatulent trumpets, then the dull grey fog of Albion rolled back to reveal a beam of nauseating greenish light, which shone down from on high. Down this beam of light descended a great and scabrous mass of heaving, rancid flesh, supported upon a palanquin born aloft by a great and scabrous mass of heaving, rancid nurglings. With a squelch, the wetness and vileness of which defied description, and which unleashed a stench beyond the comprehension of mortal men from the swamps of eternal stench, this great palanquin came to rest before Lord Scrolth, who waggled his tentacles happily and blew squelchy burps of joy towards it. The great and festering mound of flesh seethed and rippled for some time making dramatic gestures accompanied by a symphony of odd plops, glops, squeaks and squelches. Lord Scroltch looked on in awe.

It was at about this time that Papa Nurgle realized he had landed facing the wrong way. He proceeded to chasten his mound of gibbering, giggling nurglings, which obliged him by turning around and actually facing his most pustulent follower.

Speaking in a deep, rich voice resonant of phlegm, catarrh and halitosis, and spraying yellowish blobs of spittle liberally about the landscape, which became nurglings where they landed and danced with joy at their great good fortune, Papa Nurgle began to speak. He spoke at length of the great service Lord Scroltch had done him, waving his great festering limbs about for emphasis with such vigor that one of his gangrenous fingers fell off¹ . He spoke with deep admiration of the many interesting skin diseases Scroltch has discovered in his travels, his mighty belly rippling with a mixture of laughter and a particularly violent bout of flatulence. He rhapsodized lengthily, not to say phlegmily, on the many diseases his faithful follower had spread to Albion, pausing only to unleash a belch which shook the very heavens and killed all bird life within a six mile radius before forming a yellowish cloud which hung over Albion for years to follow, raining small frogs. Finally, he pointed his gnarled finger at Scroltch, before realizing it had fallen off earlier and switching hands. Scroltch felt great power flowing through his veins and burbled with joy as his already impressive collection of skin diseases tripled in number, and a horrible gangrenous vitality flowed through his body as he became even more a giant disease riddled and exceptionally happy octopus than ever.

With that, ten thousand of Papa Nurgle’s bloated bearers produced trumpets from unknown and most certainly insanitary hiding places, placed them between their buttocks and blew a great wet fanfare in honour of their god, and the whole squirming pustulent mass receded up the foul beam of greenish light. The fog rolled back, and all that was left to show that the great god of decay, plague, pestilence and the common cold had trod the boggy ground of Albion was an orange cloud raining frogs and a very, very happy Chaos Lord testing out his new deamonic blessings by bashing his tentacles with his filth mace and watching them grow back while making ecstatic whiffling noises.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the island, Kragan the Bloody Handed Destroyer of Bunnies charged on wards through the mist, bellowing his undying rage as he pursued a small rabbit in a red rage.

¹This divine digit turned into a great slug where it landed, and was ever after the faithful mount of Schklooorp Pus-eye, leader of Scroltch’s faithful knights of Chaos)