Six years later, a goblin lair in the wilderness of Eldia…
The ritual chamber, once hidden deep beneath the frozen earth, once held a colony of goblins and their Shaman. Effigies of bone and rags lay devastated as piles of splinters and cloth, amidst the scent of burnt flesh and arcane residue overwhelming the smell of rotting meat decayed for days and possibly months on end, that normally permeated through the warrens of this fetid nest.
Elena and Grinnaux stood close to each other, their eyes bloody and their chests heaving for breaths of foul air. By their combined might, the goblins and their Shaman had been slain. Now, all that remained of them, aside from charred and broken greenskin corpses splattered upon the floor, were the remnants of their dark deeds.
“Brother, that altar over there…”
Elena pointed right ahead of her, at what looked very much like a profane but ramshackle piling of cloth, metal, and leather, twisted into the shape of an elven woman knelt in prayer. Human and elven corpses, some skinless and bloody and others half-eaten with gnawed bones infested with maggots and flies, lay around this crude idol like offerings made in her honour.
“Can’t be. That’s…”
“Amon,” Grinnaux stated, as he cursed silently under his breath. “The Dark Goddess.”
“Damn it…”
Elena frowned, fighting back the puke welling up inside of her. Goblins were a parasitic strain of monster, barbaric and hedonistic to the extreme. The worship of gods, both real and false, was normally beyond them. Especially not of Amon, the one she knew from the teachings of the Order of Eternal Light from the Capital to be the Great Enemy of Sophia, Goddess of Life and Light, to whom all elves, even the Emperor himself, offered their prayers and praise. For the Dark Goddess, on the other hand, held dominion over the creatures of the night, and those existing beyond the cycle of life. Of the undead and the unliving, and darkness black as death.
“Hey, I’m gonna search for the prisoners,” Grinnaux declared, as he made a move towards the caverns that lay beyond. “They’re in there.”
Elena remained where she was, for her brother’s words had barely registered in her head as she remained enraptured upon the macabre altar. Nearby, the Shaman was still dead upon the floor, his green flesh and skull-adorned leather garb incinerated to a charred crisp by magical fire. His weapon of choice, far unlike the wooden staves little better than pointy sticks favoured by others just like himself, was a Grimoire that had allowed him to bring forth waves of roiling death. Now, that same Grimoire lay just few steps away, its pulpy pages and the bloodlike font of its writings unscathed and exposed for all to see.
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The Grimoire had such power, even in the hands of a lesser creature. That strength alone, in the hands of this goblin Shaman, had nearly laid her low with bolts of necrotic energy that she had barely dodged in time as she and Grinnaux put him down. The wall behind her, decayed and still melting into fetid sludge, was a stark reminder of what could have been. Now, however, she could feel the Grimoire calling to her, a wordless but sweet whisper upon the tips of her elvish ears, gently gracing her thoughts with promises of power, of what could also be.
Wordlessly, Elena picked up the Grimoire. It felt heavy upon her hands, its volume easily the size of two magical tomes put together. This thing, whatever it was, warranted further investigation and study. If it could grant a goblin Shaman such power, she could not help but wonder what it could do for someone like her, an Archmage in her own right like her brother. The tutors had always praised her for being a prodigy so naturally adept at the arcane arts, having cast her first fireball at the age of ten, and becoming fluent in the reading and writing and speaking of Enochian, the language of the gods that made the incantations and formulae of magic and spellcraft possible for the mortal races, at the mere age of twelve.
Surely, with that in mind, this Grimoire had something to offer her. Power, overwhelming. Just as it did this goblin Shaman, now relieved forever of his prize and his life’s work for Amon. Even if the power was evil, surely it could still be used for good! For Eldia, and for everyone. Understanding it, rather than denying it like the Order of Eternal Light would for all things related to the Dark Goddess and her creations, was but the first step to accomplishing this, she was certain. If anything, for the sake of a safer world.
And it would be all thanks to her. The Grimoire said so.
“Elena.”
Quickly, almost instinctively, Elena concealed the Grimoire behind her back, at the sound of her brother’s voice calling out to her from the caverns beyond. She wanted very much to show it to him, like so many other discoveries and spells that she had developed and learned over the years. And yet, this one, she knew she could not. Surely, he would not understand, or want to understand, the potential that lay within this magical artifact.
The Grimoire said so, after all.
“Let’s go.”
Elena frowned. Following closely in Grinnaux’s wake, was a group of elven and human women, some of them her age and others only a few winters older. Bloody and battered, they looked listless and moved as though caught in a daze, some naked and others in little more than tattered rags. Some of them, much to her mounting horror, had bellies both swollen and ripe.
“Breeding slaves,” Grinnaux stated, coldly. “Greenskin bastards.”
The prisoners stared forward soullessly as they moved past Elena, as though she was little more than a ghost. She could not blame them. Goblins were parasites of the worst kind, monsters that relied on the females of other species for reproduction, preferring especially those of human or elven origin. Men, on the other hand, were usually killed and eaten, and not always in that specific order. And she feared, truly, what had to be done when they reached the nearest town, with the healers helping them. She wondered how Grinnaux could remain so calm.
“You done gawking? C’mon.”
Elena looked quietly upon the Grimoire. She stole one final glance at the bloody and corpse-laden altar, leaving behind it behind in the past as she caught up with her brother and the prisoners leaving the goblin nest, her future within the Grimoire that had made it all happen.