The silence was palpable after Griggorn entered the chambers of his master. The once lively master of his was now a shrivelled, moving husk of what he once was. The Arch-Magus who lived by excavating in the deeper parts of Mount Dhaugrúz for long lost relics and tomes of power left behind by those who managed to traverse to the Bottom Stratum without being consumed by the thick deathly miasma. One has to possess exceptional magical talents, to conjure wards of aether to either slow down the process of magical decay or make a special ward that would connect to some faraway place, or if one possessed knowledge of it then into the Void Between Worlds.

His former master tended to favour the former, especially because he came to this world with a blessing of time, one of the rarer gifts. Yet it still proved useless when it came to halting the process of the Triumvirate tainting his mind and soul slowly. It even backfired, mostly thanks to the abyssal ones’ ageless insight into the aspects. Griggorn now understood that for one to corrupt, they have to have thorough knowledge about it. Instead of slowing the process, his former master instead accelerated it, instead of having a slow decay that lasts at least two centuries, he lost his mind in less than two decades, prompting the ascension of Griggorn to his position. Something that he once dreamed off, but in this moment, fear gripped his heart.

The only thing that kept him coming to meet his former master was Acniss herself, and their dream of elevating their people, having their revenge against the Empire that exiled them for a sin their first king committed. The first step towards achieving his ambitions is in front of him, yet he feels the hardness of committing in this crucial moment. Even though sacrifices have to be made to change.

“Don’t leave me please.” His former master said in a broken, dried voice as his pupils extended, tears pouring out from them slowly as he has to force them out.

“I won’t. It’s a promise.” He says as he forces his hands to grab his malformed head with shivered beard and hair melding together in a unified mess.

“I promise.” He whispers into the empty air as the flames quickly consume his former master, leaving only behind ash and an orb of abyssal energies that quickly flies into him. He falls to the ground and the world fades into darkness as a cacophony of demonic cackles fill his mind.

**

A low rumbling growl of flames swirling in cone towards flocks of undead rushing towards Griggorn and Erori, integrating into the cacophony of battle. Their deathly, warped wails bleed the ears of nearby warriors of the Dhau-Íssz who are summarily torn apart, cut down and burnt or frozen before joining the enemy’s ranks.

“Damn it.” Griggorn mumbles under his mask as one of his fireballs explode in the distance, sending bloody chunks in all direction. Some rotten, some probably belonging to the Dhau-Íssz who were in the vicinity.

“Should we push out?” Erori asks while lifting two wights in the air, then with an added air pressure smashes them onto the ground, their weak bodies exploding in a bloody, mushy mess in their armour, while darkness disperses into the air.

“No, we’ll fight even if the last of the Dhau-Íssz falls!” Griggorn says with a firm tone as he incinerated a group of undead goblins gleefully tearing an orc warrior apart, throwing her bulky arm at his feet.

Before Erori could retort with the loss of the Dhau-Íssz in the Upper Stratum, the dhaugrians and the dark elves may try to take their territories back, an undead construct made up of a dekatonchaires’s upper body and a centaur’s lower fused together and enlarged appears behind her and strikes down with its fists engulfed in black flames. She blocks it with a ward then a strong gust of wind pushes the construct backwards into a group of undead charging at her. The eerie coldness finds its way through the ward, and the pain of frosting makes her yell out curses.

The earth shatters open under the construct and the lesser undead. The large body crashes the skeletons and zombies while the ghasts and wights start climbing out using the arms of the construct like branches of a tall tree. Before they could reach the edges, Erori closes down the hole, crushing them to pieces buried in the rough earth.

“Master, with all respect, if we win with losing the Dhau-Íssz, won’t they use that opportunity to strike at us?” Erori asks in a respectful, tired manner while her arms gain back their fleshy texture.

“I’ll kill them all in that case.” He replies in a calm manner while lifting another batch of undead in the air, teleporting them away. A thunderous roar in the distance follows by a cloud of smoke rising towards the dark clouds blocking any and all light besides the flames.

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“Follow me.” He calls Erori to her as four undead charging at him explodes into burning pieces, painting his menacing masked figure in their vile black blood. He grabs onto her shoulders, ready to teleport away to hill where the Nameless silently watches the battle unfold, turning quickly in his favour.

Their teleportation is interrupted by a lightning striking at their position. The two spells colliding create an invisible explosion that sends both flying, with Griggorn’s mask falling off and sliding into the crowd. As he gets up, ignoring the pain coursing through his body, Griggorn notices in the chaos of the battle as the demonic minotaur construct slowly approaches his position. Lightning strikes down at any living seeking to slow it down, only some of the mages manage to put up defence against them, but even their wards break on the second strikes.

As it reaches him slowly, the memory of seeing the Nightscale first resurfaces in his mind. The fear he felt as the earth trembled under his feet, its enormous body towering over the city walls. All the spells evaporating midway as his aura of death devoured them. The screams as his flames decayed, aged the capital, people quickly withering, turning into walking corpses as the flames gained a lighter bluish hue and got swallowed into their bodies, tainting their soul to eternal service under the Elder Dragon of Death. Yet he still found his shimmering black scales mesmerising, later understanding why the Horde and the Dhau-Íssz that followed after call him the Nightscale, while also understood the title of Deadfire too, his flames not just causing decay, but also shackling the soul.

For a moment he took his sight from the demonic construct, taking a peek at the Nameless, extending his sight to take a better look, sensing a similar stench of death accompanying him, yet it also feels more distant, uncaring as if he destroys, eradicates simply out of nature.

“Seems even Fate loathes me.” He mumbles as he turns back towards the demonic minotaur construct. It bellows a demonic, warped sound as if inviting him to a duel. He smiles and dispels the despair returning to him after being absent for so long. A determination too laugh in the face of Fate resurfaces him, manifesting as madness to the outside as he laughs frantically, deciding to become the first mortal to defy all five of these malicious entities standing in the way of his ambition.

“Watch out Master!” Erori’s soft voice calls him back to reality, a ward casts its light above his head and in front of him as lightning strikes from both directions. One coming from the darkening clouds, the other from the monstrous hand of the demonic minotaur construct that could easily grab and smash his body.

“Is everything okay Master?” She asks in a worrying manner while conjuring a ward around a small group of undead, swiftly shrinking it. Their warped wailing piercing her ears slowly come to a halt, while combining with the stomach-churning sound of bones creaking and breaking, putrid flesh tearing.

Before she could get an answer though, a strange undead with ethereal, shadowy flesh, Stahlaar armour pieces grafted onto its body with only its lower face visible as its small mouth emits a warped growl as appears above the smoke and flame, leaping towards her while trying to pierce her with its Stahlaar lance ending in a flat blade. Erori dodges with her body as her ward shatters at the poking, the blade scratching her soft skinned cheeks quickly commencing rot.

A condensed air pressure taking the transparent whirling shape of a sphere strokes the wicked chest plate, pushing the strange undead a few steps back. Then another hits it, this time making it almost lose its balance, then at the third it howls sending chills down Erori’s spine, while lunging the lance toward her. She jumps out its way, letting it skewer a dark elven wight and human Dhau-Íssz locked in a fight that seemed to go in her favour before she met a violent, abrupt end.

A hardened, earthly spike rose under the strange undead, piercing it between its thick thighs. It continued flailing around, trying to push itself over the sharp top drenched in dark ichor that seemed to corrode the earth slowly. Erori slowly approaches it slowly while from the edge of her vision sees Griggorn channelling mana into his staff, aiming to finish the demonic construct off as swiftly as he can. Erori abruptly turns around, raising her arms while conjuring a ward above herself, as the dark blade of the Arnyak strikes down. The blade swallows the ward and enters her head, splitting it open till her forehead, exposing her fractured brain and skull. It quickly pulls the blade out that devours her remains on it, while she falls and rises in tandem.

Her eyes turn to dust, replaced by gaping darkness, her smooth, oily skin withered and dry, her malformed head drenched in blood. Its mouth agape as a warped shrieking leaves it, black flames wrapping around its skinny arms as it prepares to take Griggorn by surprise.

“Thief!” Griggorn screams as the demonic minotaur construct explodes in flames that consume the nearby undead, then turns around and brings an end to the short and accursed existence of Erori, lightning destroying its frail moving cadaver, blowing it into pieces, the Arnyak watching silently, ignoring its second quick demise.

The two watch in silence, the undead start charging at Griggorn but stop midway, surprising him as the Arnyak raises its arm, the metallic appearing gauntlets giving no sound as it fist unfolds.

“Remember me, whoever or whatever you are! I’ll be the first to defy the whims of Fate.” Griggorn speaks with a threatening tone, the only response is the Arnyak slightly tilting its hooded head. The earth trembles under its footsteps and the earth shattering after Griggorn’s chanting while the Nameless watches through the eyes of his dead, a modest grin curving onto his lips …