Literature / Stories Never Told

Stories Never Told is a supernatural horror anthology by VineLight^note Formerly Lightysnake, and an entry in The Neverkind Saga. It can be read here.

At a gathering of wealthy socialites, a young man is regaled with a series of tales in the past:

• The Architect of Matter: Nebula, the Architect of Matter of the Daydreamers, reflects upon her purpose in a young Teraverse, and her relationship with the archangel Lucifer
• A Question Of Monsters: The mysterious Adam, leader of outcasts, centers in on a grim operation, leading to revelations even he does not expect.
• In Darkest Hearts: A trio of allies during World War 2 are on the trail of a mysterious killer, set during The Wolves of War
• The Guilty and the Just: In the ancient days of the Old World, the Judicator Lucia, Architect of Justice, joins with Hell's prince, Azazel Baal, to uncover a mytserious plot.
• Shadows in the Ice: 1955. Set after The Wolves of War, the Seer Jeanne Dreyuss and Hardestadt Delac undertake a voyage to Antarctica to find a lost city, unaware of the horrors awaiting below the ice.
• By Blackest Will: When the 17th century becomes the 18th, the dark god Nyarlathotep draws together a group of sorcerers of the darkest hearts to hunt down a traitor to his order, with alliances ever shifting among them.
• Behind the Trees: In a rural Tennessee town, a teenage girl uncovers a set of disappearances in connection with the town's founding family, with something very hungry lurking in the woods.

Tropes present in this work:

In general

• Framing Device: "Stories at Dinner", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Their host turns out to be Nyarlathotep.
• I Am a Humanitarian: What the "dinner" turns out to be at the end of the Framing Device.
• Sexual Karma: In contrast to the cold transaction between Lucia and Azazel and the anonymous, violent sadomasochism between Hardestadt and Helen, Hardestadt and Jeanne are caring and warm with one another in Shadows in the Ice and The Architect of Matter features the young Nebula and Lucifer being very caring and passionate together.

The Architect of Matter

• Genki Girl: A major aspect of Nebula's character. Her unrestrained passion and zest for life, creativity and all of the Old World's potential is part of what attracts Lucifer to her.

A Question of Monsters

• A Father to His Men: Adam, as ever, loves the Sodality dearly and allows some members to counsel him in turn.
• Cain and Abel: Adam's brother Xol Malig, introduced in The Wolves of War, is very clearly the Cain: he spends the entire conversation needling and mocking him for thinking Adam can be anything but a monster.
• Pædo Hunt: Adam plans to destroy a brothel that caters to pedophiles and kill everyone there. Until he learns it's a front for vampires to lure in pedophiles.
• Undead Child: The child vampires of A Question of Monsters are a family who lure in and kill pedophiles.

In Darkest Hearts

• Humans Are the Real Monsters: One of the most depraved men in the stories is Marcel Petiot, a real-life Serial Killer operating in Paris during World War 2.

The Guilty and the Just

• Bad Boss: Even though Azazel is Childhood Friends with his minions, Shax, Andras, and Morviak, he has no problem treating them as infeiors and keeping them in line with threats.
• Deadpan Snarker: Lucia is always ready with a coarse, dry repartee.
• Evil Prince: Azazel was a wicked and ambitious man long before he became King. The entire plot of recovering the Cornerstone was a pretense to kill his brother and advance his position in line to the throne.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Azazel Baal is a handsome young prince of hell, but those who know Reign in Hell know he's one of the most horrific villains in the saga.
• Lie Back and Think of England: When Azazel demands Lucia sleep with him in return for his help, she attempts to be as passive as possible, only to find herself enjoying it, much to her frustration, due to her and Azazel's disturbing similarities.
• Sex for Services: Azazel demands Lucia sleep with him in exchange for his help, which she views as simply a transaction.
• Sibling Murder: Azazel's goal is to kill his elder brother Talrik to enhance his position in line to the throne.
• Skewed Priorities: Lucia is more outraged that Azazel manipulated her than she is that he got tons of people killed in his scheming.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Azazel's minions, Morviak and Andras, dislike each other due to the former being a commoner and the latter a proud noble. To a lesser extent, Lucia is hardly thrilled with having to team up with Azazel, whom she regards as an arrogant demon princeling.
• Unholy Matrimony: Azazel and Sevara Gehenna appear to be this, being an equally ambitious and cold-hearted couple who trade playful jibes, are attached at the hip and can barely resist sneaking off to have a tryst even when surrounded by allies. Being a sociopath, however, Azazel in truth cares absolutely nothing for her. Sevara later ends up in Azazel's infamous Court of the Broken after saving their daughter from Azazel.

Shadows in the Ice

• And I Must Scream: The fate of those trapped in Commoriom, who were consumed by Knygathin Zhaum and held in perpetual torment for billions of years.
• Cuteness Proximity: Jeanne's reaction to a group of penguins is to begin fawning over how adorable they are.
• Eldritch Abomination: The monster hidden within Antarctica—Knygathin Zhaum—is a hideous, malformed blob the size of a city, all ooze and misshapen slime.
• Homage: Not only one to At the Mountains of Madness, the story contains numerous shout-outs and aspects from the work of Clark Ashton Smith (a contemporary of Mountains' author H.P. Lovecraft).
• Leaving You to Find Myself: Jeanne leaves her brief relationship with Hardestadt, realizing they feel little but mutual sadness they're trying to drown in one another, and she can't grow tethered to him.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Knygathin Zhaum is a billion-year-old Voormi sleeping in the Antarctic cold.
• Stealth Sequel: Shadows in the Ice turns out to be one to Clark Ashton Smith's The Testament of Athammaus.

By Blackest Will

• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Eliphas Coyte is chronically deserting dark gods after learning all he can. He finally pulls this on Nyarlathotep himself.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Helen Valentine is a gorgeous, vivacious and cheerful woman who is a devious, monstrous sadomasochist who violates every taboo known to man and then some. Her masks do slip at times to showcase what she truly is under it.
• Gone Horribly Right: Helen is fine with Y'golonac jealous of sleeping with Hardestadt. It nearly results in him refusing to help her when she needs him.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: Helen Valentine in By Blackest Will finds violent to be incredibly arousing, even and especially when it's being done to her. When she and Hardestadt have an anonymous hook up, she specifically stokes his sadistic side to give her as much pain as possible.
• Nothing Is Scarier: A noble makes a pass at Helen, prompting her to accept the invite. He's never seen again, with people looking for him and nobody ever revealing just what happened to him...
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: A twisted inversion occurs when Y'golonac is furious with Helen Valentine for having consensual sex with Hardstadt.
• Safe, Sane, and Consensual: A variation. Hardestadt makes it clear his fling with Helen will be such. She hates all three and tries to make sure it's rough and painful for her as possible so she can fantasize it isn't.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Eliphas Coyte is loathe to see Helen Valentine again, recalling that during his time serving Y'golonac, Helen almost fed him to her husband, Il Padre. Helen barely sees this as memorable enough to comment on.
• Villainous Friendship: Joseph Curwen believes Silas Ruthven and Eliphas Coyte are truly his friends, the latter being his mentor. It turns out he's very wrong as Coyte double crosses him at the end.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Helen sends her own son, Draco Valentine, to die against Hardestadt when she's tired of him, viewing his jealousy of her as evidence he's no longer of any value.

Behind the Trees

• I Am a Humanitarian: Behind the Trees features the Whitebrook family, who gain power and longevity from the consumption of human flesh. Ruby's Hollow is their larder and farm.
• Kid Hero: Rowan Thornriver, a scrappy teenager from Tennessee, is the protagonist of "Behind the Trees" with Hardestadt as her ally.
• Hillbilly Horrors: The atmosphere of the story is extremely reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: while the setting is Tennessee, not Texas, the grimy, isolated backwoods horror element is still front-and-center in the story.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Ruby's Hollow, a town in the backwoods of Tennessee that happens to be host to ghost children and a cannibal clan.
• Undead Child: Rowan turns out to be a ghost herself. Even she's unaware of this until the last minute.