Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - [BONUS] Hallowed Origins (Prophet Prequel) | Part 1

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

Listen to both parts of Hallowed Origins with a 7-day free trial of Dr. NoSleep Premium. Cancel anytime. No commitment. Start your free trial now:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠patreon.com/drnosleep⁠⁠⁠ Hallowed Origins is the prequel to Prophet of the Hallowed Corpse. Enjoy :) Author: Dave Kavanaugh * * * CONTENT DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content not limited to intense themes, strong language, and depictions of violence intended for adults. Parental guidance is strongly advised for children under the age of 18. Listener discretion is advised.  #drnosleep #scarystories #horrorstories #doctornosleep #horrorpodcast #horror Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to the entire Hallowed Origin series now with a seven-day free trial of Dr. No Sleep Premium. Cancel any time, no commitment. Just go to patreon.com slash DR. No Sleep to join. Link in the description below. From the smoke and embers in the air, the beast came. Like a hulking shadow in the night, shaking the very earth with each thunderous footfall. The Great War Mount was a mammoth, not some little plains mammoth from the local grassland. but a shaggy titan of a beast, all the way from the snowlands of the distant north.

Deadly spikes of obsidian were fixed along both mighty tusks, and upon its head and shoulders, the mammoth wore giant plates of armor, crafted from the thick carapace of gliphtadons, those monstrous armadillos in the jungles of the far south. Upon its woolly back, there sat a lone rider, who had traveled far and slaughtered many. He was the warlord. Path Cleaver, some called him, or else the wind that wipes the trail away.

He was the wielder of the all-shadow axe, which he held in one giant fist. Its handle had been crafted from the bone of a thunder lizard. The curved head of the battle axe was made of sky-fire iron, and it glinted black and orange in the fiery night. The warlord had a true name. given to him by his mother long ago, though besides the warrior himself, only one person in all the world now remembered it. As the mammoth approached the burning building, it halted, its big ears twitching nervously. Raising its great trunk, it let out a trumpeting roar. The woolly mount would go no farther, for it felt the horrible power of what lay ahead, as an animal might sense

the coming of an earthquake or a hurricane. The warlord dismounted, dropping heavily from the saddle. His bison hide boots crunched in the charred ground, and his suit of armor, made of many interlocking bones, rattled. With a breathy groan, he straightened, rolling his muscular shoulders beneath his great bone paldrons. Then he turned in place, surveying this latest display of carnage that his war band had unleashed, following. following his unholy orders. The hot light of fire and the cold dark of smoke swirled around him, so that the burning huts and pine trees looked like glowing ghosts in the night.

The ground was carpeted in bodies, hundreds, thousands, men and women and children and infants, twisted and tangled and torn apart. He nodded, satisfied with the thoroughness of the destruction. His vision was framed, always, by the eye-holes of the the dire wolf skull he wore atop his head. Part helm, part mask, he had killed the giant wolf himself as a boy. Now, all these years later, seeing the world through the skull kept the warlord focused. It helped remind him what was truly important in this life, and that was the killing, the burning, the total annihilation of his enemy. That was his sacred purpose. It was all that mattered.

And this night, finally, his long journey would reach its end. As he stood, letting the sore muscles in his legs stretch, something clutched weakly at his ankle. He looked down and saw a small hand upon his boot, reaching up from a filthy, bloody child. The young villager was crawling limply across the gory ground, breathing in wheezes, reaching up for aid, for mercy. Raising one boot, the warlord,

Brought it down, hard, and smashed the child's head. Then he marched forward, his axe swinging in his fist. His bone-framed eyes fixed ahead, where, through the smoke, he saw his assembled warband waiting for him. They called themselves the unhallowed scourge, though the name was not well known in the wide world, or rather, once a village did learn of the merciless warband, it usually meant their destruction was hours away. The men were tired after the day's massacre

and now leaned heavily on the shafts of their spears, hammers, and axes. Their armor and helmets of hide and bone were coated with blood and ash. But there was still much work to be done. The villagers and their livestock and pets had all been slaughtered, and their homes and crops and the shrines to that which they worshipped had been destroyed. But that was not enough to satisfy their war-werect. Lord? Not at all. The path cleaver demanded more. The flesh of the fallen had to be roasted away, and the bones shattered to dust. The fire pits and storage pits and burial grounds must be dug up and

refilled. That every scrap of clothing and piece of jewelry, every loom and tool of iron, anything beyond simple stone tools, must be unmade, smashed beyond recognition. There was the weaving. Every village that followed the hallowed path had one of the sacred tapestries. The weavings were usually stored by the village shrine, carefully rolled up, protected from the elements, and brought out only for feast days. It was not enough to burn the sacred cloth. The warlord insisted that his warlings, the young boys who traveled with the scourge, unravelled the fabric, reducing it back to colored threads, and only then could the warlings.

burning start. And then, when every trace of the village had been defiled, the unhallowed scourges rearguard would be summoned, and the unhallowed ladies of the rearguard would make their way to the desecrated location, guiding their giant sloths that pulled their war-sledsled, and piled high on the sleds beneath tarps of hide, was precious salt from the western ocean. Then the spearmen and the warlings and the ladies of the rearguard would work together to salt the earth where the village stood. In this way, not only was the past of their enemy erased and their present generation cut down, but their future too was made barren and lifeless. Only then would the war band move on to their next target. It wasn't an easy life, and any moment of respite

was welcomed by all. But when their one-eyed master of camp, Mawalak called them to a attention. Every warrior and warling fell to their knees and bowed in reverence. The unrighteous unraveler of dreams, our wicked warlord approaches. Their hulking leader marched through the bowing ranks, all the way to the northern edge of the village, where it's all camelops stood on the crest of a hill. Seated on a saddle atop the long-necked, hump-backed creature was the oldest member of the Unnack. hallowed scourge, Numaya, who served as the master of carnage.

About cursed time you got here, grumbled the white-haired warrior, leaning from the saddle, he spout upon the warlord. You worthless spot of a cancerous whore! The warlord grunted irritably at the insolence of his elderly subordinate and said,

and do cursed evening to you, Numaia. Numaia spat on him again. The old man was clever, He had figured out long ago that the best way to survive in the warlord's company was to be hated by him, strange as that may sound. I have come from the stone mountains, where salt is now spread upon every corner of what was the kingdom of the ivory crown. This, then, is the last refuge of her magic, the last stretch of path to be cleaved. Turning, the warlord peered down across the rolling hills to the north.

There in the distance, set against the undulating landscape and rimmed in slender Ponderosa Pines, was a perfectly round clearing of flattened stone, smooth as a windless lake, unnatural. The Holy Circle. Numaya looked too and nodded. Five kingdoms have been crushed. 500 villages put to our torches, and 100,000 souls slaughtered at our hands, by my estimate, all to stop a witch who calls herself a goddess. And now here we are, we wardens of woe, here at the end.

Here we are, the warlord repeated. He could just make out, by the cold light of the moon and star, that sifted through the haze. The sparse features upon the Holy Circle. There was a temple of black stone on its northern edge, a small pond in its center, and a few scattered dwellings where the highest servants of the sacred lady slept. But the warlord cared about none of these. It was the chamber hidden beneath the Holy Circle that he needed to get to. So the only location in his view that mattered was that small, dark mouth of a cavernous passage, dead ahead, on the southern edge of the circle. He breathed in through his nostrils,

out through his lips. His woolly mammoth might have been scared off by the supernatural energy emanating from that tunnel, but the warlord felt no fear, only conviction. He would enter that cave, and he would find the woman hiding in its depths, and he would put an end to her existence. I am hungry, he said suddenly. I will eat before the final confrontation. At this, the voice of the master of camp called out, The warlord hungers! Bring a meat and spirits and fetch the keeper of spores.

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Warlord sat. Cross-legged upon that carpet of charred corpses. The all-shadowed wax lying atop his knees. He feasted upon the roasted flesh of turkey, giant tortoise, and three-toed horse. He had just finished drinking a second gourd of choke-cherry wine, when the master of spore stumbled up to him and stood, swaying in place, naked, as always, but for the many leather pouches that hung about his short and flabby body. The flames do sing a merry, merry song this midnight, say I, declared Tuka T-Wi. swaying in place as his drug-addled eyes stared in two different directions, neither of which was directed at the warlord he was speaking to.

So tell me, war man, bath or cleave, what form or flavor or strain of mighty mushroom? Do you require this? The warlord looked up at him. Had the man fallen asleep? His eyes were still open, and a bit of drool was dripping down his chin. Too good, Tiwa. The keeper of Spores blinked. Uh, what?

You were speaking. I was. Yes. What about? The warlord exhaled, and biting that last scrap of meat from a horse's leg, he tossed the bone away. Mushrooms. Oh, well, that makes sense, said Dukotihuah, and he sat, wriggling his ample weight to find a comfortable spot atop the dangled corpses. So, your unholyness, what form or flavor or strain of mighty mushroom do you require this night?

I have fresh, fried, dried, and pickled caps of half a hundred kinds. Shrooms for sustenance, for energy, for healthy. gut for a good night's sleep. He laid a hand on the warlord's armored knee. What do you need, O dark one? The warlord was silent for a moment. Then he closed his eyes. Before the sun rises again, I shall slay a goddess. I am not afraid, nor am I fatigue. My blade is sharp and my body is ready, and yet it seems my mind is clear. My vision tainted, cursed by the ghosts of my past. He looked up at Tukotihuah.

I need to see the truth, Spore Master. Through the haze of deception and waking dreams, my enemy uses against me. Have you a fungus? For that? The keeper of spores considered, then cracked a smile. Do I? You ask. Oh, I do believe I do.

His hands rummaged through the many pouches he wore, mumbling to himself about spore powders and mycelium clumps and fungal tufts, before finally declaring, Curse me! Here they are, delicate little fellas! Holding up a small purse woven of reeds, he opened it carefully, then extracted and held up one small toadstool between his thumb and forefinger. Its cap was turquoise, and its stem was blue and spiraled with a threat of gold. The mushroom was coated in a sticky layer of pollen-like spores. What is it?

I call them corpse fruit, though the grassland foragers might have another name. Perhaps we should ask. He looked around at the villagers. Their bodies spread out in the darkness and laughed. It's a local variety. They grow on rotting flesh. It's as potent and expander of the spirit as any I foraged. The warlord took the offered mushroom and ate it.

It didn't taste like anything special. Tuka Tewa nodded. Yes, yes. You'll know when it takes effect. Now then, what else? Ooh, I've got some bitter birch shroom tea which offers endurance in battle. Or maybe a little something for endurance in other areas. He nudged the warlord with an elbow.

When rolling in the old berry bushes, if you know what I mean. Behind his dire wolf skull, the warlord rolled his eyes. I see, I see, said Tuka Tiaw, nodding seriously. No mushroom for your mushroom. Got it. The warlord laughed. It was only a soft chuckle. But even so, the sound of it coming from their leader shocked all who heard it. it, including the warlord himself.

Only Tukotihuah failed to recognize what that little laugh meant for him. Sighing, the warlord set one hand atop the shaft of his axe, tapping his fingers. Alas, it seems that I have grown fond of your company. This did penetrate the Mary Hayes and Tukotwa's mind, and for the briefest of moments, a look of surprise flashed across his round face. Then the all-shadow axe flashed, a dark blur in the night. The warlord had barely moved. His wrist had simply flicked up from his lap, then set the axe back into place atop his knee.

Beside him, Tucketwa's eyes gazed blankly for a moment more. Then his head rolled off his shoulders, bounced off his large belly, and came to rest on the ground, slack-jawed and flushed in the light. Tukotihu's body remained seated, hands open and limp at his side, blood pulsing weakly from his severed neck for a few more seconds. The warlord leaned over and pushing his fingers through the mass of thin leather straps. He found the woven purse and snapped it free. He could already sense the corpse fruit melting in his stomach and tingling in his fingertips, and he liked the feeling.

It was strong. To his feet once more, he tucked the purse into his belt. It seemed a shame to waste such a fine bit of mushrooms. As he made his way back toward the master of carnage, he began to feel just a bit, dizzy. Bender of the spirit indeed. So strong. He staggered a bit and felt one of his men catch him by the elbow. That was kind. So the warlord turned and split the spearmen open with one quick jab of his axe. The other warriors fell back then. Their heads bowed. He grumbled. So many. To his right. Beside the smoldering remains of a pit horse, two of his warlings had just extracted the village's tapestry, a great roll of golden cloth.

Hmm, boys, bring it here. Yes. The warlings, like the keeper of spores, were naked, though so dirty with mud and ashes that it was hard to tell. They came forward, carrying the cloth between them. Lay it down, roll it open. Look and behold, the why behind our bloody crusade? The warlord knelt, pulling one of the boys down next to him, the named with his axe at the tapestry. It is a thing of beauty.

Oh yes. deep of huge, rich of sea. Do you know what it shows, boys, across this? This tableau of figures and symbols? No, it is the story of stories. What was and is and shall be? First, the darkness here. Then the birth of light.

Next, the great dance of the stars and the spheres amid the voice. One of the warlings tried to sneak off, but the warlord grunted, and the boy returned to sit and to listen. Here, from the warm seas, life, water moss, flatworms, fish, lizard, rat, ape, which brings us to, the warlord blinked down at the center point of the unfurled weaving, which showed a family, father, mother, brother, sister.

He stared at the image so long that both warlings were able to slip away. They might not have the skill of old Mawalak at keeping their warlord from killing them, but staying away from him worked almost as well. There were more scenes upon the cloth. Strange scenes of supposed miracles to come. Villages the size of mountains, iron snakes with happy humans in their hollow bellies,

slithering from land to land, birds without eyes or beaks or feathers, with yet more human passengers, and mighty spears with trails of fire, slicing through the sky to puncture the dome of heaven. The warlord did not need to look at the rest, not again. All this. The great vision, the hallowed path, the promised dream.

A lie, the warlord snarled, jumping to his feet. He stomped upon the weaving. He felt a fever in every cell, born of fury and fed by the meat and wine and the mystic mushroom. His right hand seized upon his axe's handle so tightly that the heavy bone creaked. He twisted around, facing north, facing the holy circle. and began to march. Oh, hold on, you witless grub! growled Numia, guiding his camelops to block the warlord's path. A few hours of patience.

That's all that is needed. The scourge must rest and flake-sharp their blades before we can form ranks and... No more waiting, roared the warlord, and he raised his axe, ready to cut through Mount and Rider. Hold, Beth Cleaver, you shrivel-cocked bastard. We do not yet know what trickery the sacred lady might use to guard her final sanctum. Think, your unholyness, do not lose focus now. The warlord lowered his arms and growling in his throat. He forced himself to calm down.

No, Numia, he said after a moment. speaking softly. He motioned with the finger, and the master of carnage leaned from the saddle to hear the words meant only for his old ears. I must go into the cave to finish. Numaia snorted, then spat. Fuck your vision!

Listen to me. I am ready. I will go in, and I will not come out again. Do you understand what that means for you? The white-haired man was silent, staring into the eye-holes of the dire wolf. Once this land gavards clear, and you are sure that every last fragment of her dream is truly gone,

then you must have a great feast with wine for all, and you must poison the wine. You must kill the scourge. The old man chewed his lips, and his eyes narrowed. Every warrior, warling and lady alike, Cook their bodies, Numaia, and grind their bones. Shatter our weapons, our everything. Treat the unhallowed scourge as the last village. And then, and only then, find yourself a high cliff above raging waves and jump. You must do this, Numaia.

I am your warlord, and I do not give you permission to die until it is complete. Now, say it. swear to me that you will be the last. Tears came into the master of Carnage's eyes, even as his wrinkled cheeks twitched in a raging grief. I will be the last unhallowed. I will end it all. This, I swear.

The warlord nodded. For a moment, the two men gazed at each other. Two blood-bound warriors, each of whom had rescued the other upon the battlefield many a time. And for the first time, the warlord let himself admit, in his own mind, what a monumental challenge it had been all these years, to convince himself that he had hated Numaya. Perhaps some glint of this affection showed upon his face, for the master of carnage cringed and leaned back, away from the wielder of the all-shadow axe.

My mouth has gone dry. Otherwise, I'd spit in your eye. Then ducking to pass. beneath the camelops long neck, the warlord rushed forth, turning his back on his warband, and on the bloody smoking ruin that had been his life's work. He charged down the slope, battle axe in hand, his bone armor rattling and boots pounding the earth. He fixed his eyes north, upon the cave at the edge of the Holy Circle. And through the smoke and embers, a rumbling bellow arose in the distance behind him, emanating in the night, one trumpeting note of well-wishes for its rider, from the woolly trunk of an armored mammoth. From the mouth of the cave, the defenders of the Holy Circle came, a double line of warriors, marching out into the moonlight

in perfect unity. The first of these were archers, half a hundred women in iron chain mail, each armed with a quiver and a bow. The terrifying projectile weapons, dreamed up by the sacred lady herself, were capable of killing from a further distance and with more precision than any spear-thrower. The archers took up ranks upon the slope, and moving in unnatural synchronicity, they bent their bows.

The first volley flew, 50 whistling blurs against the indigo sky, and charging forward, the warlord maneuvered left and right, snaking his way through the night, Boots, crunching through fallen branches and kicking up stones as he surged onward. Arrows whistled by him, thudding to the ground. On, he ran.

A second volley flew. One arrow bounced off his wolf skull helm as he ducked, and three more came straight at his chest. He flicked his axe before him, deflecting two. The third struck his bone armor and pierced a few inches through, but the pain was nothing to him. Jumping a narrow brook, he sprinted up that final hillside to reach the holy circle and the warriors that waited for him. Without time to fire a third volley, the women moved as one, dropping their bows into the trampled grass and pulling iron daggers from their belts. The warlord reached them and raised the all-shadow axe. Deep, deep within himself, in that perfect dark, that bottomless abyss where he stored all of his deepest fears and hates.

and furious desires. A white-hot flame exploded into being. He barreled into the enemy's ranks, a stampede of one, knocking over bodies three at a time, while his axe cut in arcs from side to side, shattering daggers and hewing limbs

and necks and torsos. The archers were slow to react, their movements stiff and imprecise, as he wove his way like lightning through their lines. Dipping, lunging, spinning, he cut them down to the last woman. Many broken rings from the useless chain mail reigned upon the hillside. As he straightened up and worked to slow his breathing,

he saw a host of men now emerging from the tunnel, with spears and hammers and swords, all of iron. He turned to face them, blinking blood from his eyelashes, but felt a hand seized tightly upon his leg. Glancing down, he saw, for the second time that night, a bloody arm reaching, although this arm, had been severed cleanly from its body. The limb was quite dead and quite active.

Its fingers clawing their way up to his waist. He twisted, flinging the bloody thing off. Then he staggered sideways as another archer's severed head began to roll itself toward him, jaw snapping. Well, what is this? Unexpected. The defenders rushing from the cave moved toward him. Ominously silent in their charge, their faces blank and weapons raised. The warlord marched to meet them, but the bloody lower half of a woman scurried into his path.

He sneered in disgust and knocked the legs aside. A spearman lunged and the warlord dodged the attack, nearly tripping as three more arms through themselves from the blood-soaked grass and attached and seized his right boot. The warlord growled in his throat, in swinging his axe to meet the stone hammer of his next foe. He adapted to these gruesome new obstacles. fought the oncoming defenders, parrying each blow and delivering his own, while also stomping and kicking at the gory assault from below.

Getting in close to another spearman, he cleaved the man's head from his shoulders, but the body remained on its feet, stabbing wildly. The warlord jumped backward, but his boots slipped in the blood and he fell. A huge hammer swung at him, wielded by a defender as tall and broad as the warlord himself. He rolled sideways. and the hammer landed on the spearman's biting head, bursting it like a rotten gourd. Jumping back to his feet, the warlord flipped over the next hammer swing, and spinning his axe, severed both the giant man's legs at the knees. The defender fell, landing upright on his bleeding stumps,

and continued to fight. Ducking as a sword swished at him from the left. The warlord caught the hammer's hilt in his free hand, wrenched the weapon free, and brought it down with a crack upon the bastard's brow. They fought for another few minutes. Black bladed axe in one fist, iron hammer in the other, grunting as he spun and swung and chopped, fighting the living and the dead until, at last, he hammered the sword from the last defender's grip and axed its wielder into bloody pieces.

The ground still wriggled in the dim night with fleshy movement, but the warlord stumbled onward, dropping the hammer into the grass. He was dizzy now. His breathing was heavy, his much muscles soar. But the white fire in his heart had not diminished. If anything, the battle had added fuel to the blaze. Several pieces of his armor had broken or knocked off in the fray, and he was bleeding from a dozen different wounds. It made him smile. Snapping the shaft of the

arrow that stuck out from his chest, he entered the mouth of the cave. The air within was cold and sweet. He stood for a moment, panting, squinting into the dark, and the dark As his eyes adjusted, he saw them, the shapes of a third host sent to block his path. The passage was only wide enough for two grown men to stand shoulder to shoulder, and yet, the enemy now facing him, stood in a line of four abreast. They were children, so many children. Some were tall and thin, almost ready for marriage. Others were tiny, so tiny they could barely stand, and clung to the legs of the large,

her children. The children had no weapons, no armor, and none moved to attack him as he reached the front row. He raised his axe. They did not respond at all, but stood, like a garden of statues, like a wall. How far back did this assembly go? Ten feet into the passage, a hundred, all the way to the sacred chamber? He did not know, but it did not matter. You think. This will slow me down, which? He roared, his voice echoing down the cave. He flexed his fingers on the handle of his battle axe. Their necks are at the perfect height for my swing.

The all shadows shall cut like a sickle through grass. And he marched forward, swinging his weapon left and right, left and right, left and right. He heard the music of the sanctum before he reached it. The droning of voices, old and young, chanting in wordless harmonies, and the percussion of water on water, in lively drips and languid splashes. When at last the tunnel widened, and the warlord stepped into the yawning cavern, its brightness burned his eyes. He could not tell where the light was coming from,

for the flicking glow of the scattered torches should not have reached the high ceiling of the underground chamber. Its glistening surface swirled with veins of gold and shone across the green lake that filled most of the cavern floor. The water rippled with interlocking rings of turquoise. A constant stream of droplets rang down into its center from a stalactite high above, and he noticed other drops of water which were moving up, like strings of twinkling beads to find nature as they rose. All this, the warlord saw clearly, as if the very vapor in the air were glowing ghostly gold to fill the sanctum with holy light.

He moved closer to the lake, his axe hanging. at his side, dripping blood from its blade with each step. On the rocky beach that circled the lake, many people were gathered, alone or in small groups, perhaps a hundred in total. They all stood ominously still, and their expressions were vacant. Like the children in the tunnel and the defenders outside, they wore garments of silk, richly colored like the sacred weavings, and each outfit was embroidered with many precious stones, yellow topaz, crimson garnet, a dozen hues of glassy fluorite. These then were her highest level acolytes, the men and women and children who served the sacred lady with undying devotion. None of the acolytes turned to look at the warlord as he entered.

All their mouths were open and chanting softly. Their half-closed eyes glazed as they stared at the far side of the lake, where she stood, proud and silent. The warlord stared at her across the water, and at her reflection, green and rippled like an emerald fire. And she was just as beautiful as he remembered. Listen to the rest of hallowed origins now with a seven-day free trial of Dr. No Sleep Premium. Cancel any time, no commitment. Just go to patreon.com slash DR No Sleep to join. Link in the description below.