Therrin’s amorphous form slowly blended into the thick mist that lay ahead. An eerie silent wind slowly blew, rattling the thousands of talismans and fetishes that hung outside, forming an almost impenetrable otherworldly barrier. Our own breath condensed, in strange twisted forms before disappearing by the next heartbeat. Our feline-like graceful footsteps still disturbed a cloud of centuries-long settled dust in our wake.

True to his words, or as befitting of my spymaster, the outer door of the grand walls simply opened -- just as the halfling speculated. With a gentle push from Rodo’s powerful arms, the door slid open with a huge groan, willing to let us have a share of the secrets it harboured -- Or become a part of it.

Moss-covered statues of bizarre forms fully etched with runes adapted from various religious beliefs, primitive tribal totems in various forms of decay, greeted us. A large nightflyer, or probably a grotesque carnivorous bat, flashed past as a projectile raced itself from the mist. Its crimson eyes glowing almost as if possessing a light source of its own. Rodo’s step faltered as he yanked his hands towards his heart, calming the surreptitious thrumming in his heart.

“Calm friend,” Zaehran spoke without speaking, “the creature is as spooked by us, just as we are by it.”

“This is that thing's habitat, right?” asked Rodo with fear spiking in his whispering voice.

“I presume so,” replied Zaehran.

I simply shrugged. Bone-chilling as it might be, the vampire lords threw balls and debutant parties with a far unsettling atmosphere. Awe-inspiring and terror-invoking at the same time. A massive force of fear slapped the very soul while undeniable arousal held the body hostage. Compared to the twisted architectural norms of the vampire lords’ tall sanguine spires, this place could be described as a sty at best.

For a werewolf pack leader, who stubbornly and vehemently defended his people against rising odds, without any hope of relief against thousands of armoured soldiers; now to let fear become his overlord, cannot be a simple product of external factors alone.

His limbs, with their steel-like grip, now hung dangling like a broken twig from his broad shoulders. Despite the low chill permeating the place, beads of sweat formed on his forehead. One single drop trickled down slowly before disappearing into his bristle-like beard. Calming his nerves, fighting against his erratic heartbeat, his yellow eyes slowly widened as he strugglingly filled his gaze with the surrounding.

“Rodo, do you have a mate?” I asked.

A nervous laugh issued from him followed by visible perturbations replacing his fear. He squirmed uneasily.

“My mate, if she exists, must be skilled at hide-and-seek,” replied the werewolf. Another nervous laugh, forcefully ejected from his lips slowly, in an attempt to break the tension, failed. His trepidation made it undoubtedly evident, that in my fervour to relieve him of the invading fear, I drove poor Rodo from one nifty subject to another.

Justifying that anything could be better than his latent kinemortophobia or worse necrophobia, I prodded more.

“So how does it work? does your mate come from your pack or is there a ritual for it?”

“I will know it when our scents are compatible,” is all that Rodo was willing to slip at the moment.

His brows knitted in furrows, palms crushed against one another before he slowly summoned the last shred of his willpower to engage further.

“I wish I had the choice, instead of the slumbering primal beast shackling me lifelong with someone I barely know,” he stammered and spit his words finally.

“So the tales are true. Werewolves mate for life,” I said.

While Rodo just blinked once, a very slow and deliberate closing of his eyelid, which held shut for half a breath, making his answer evident without the use of words, his actions, barely registered in my mind. It wandered, gyrating towards the romantic notion of being bound for life. A wolf can lie to the whole world but never to their mate. The mate can always sense the evasion, the distortion of words and the subterfuge with the breath. What Rodo regarded as a curse, I coveted as a blessing. Lyria and I, both of us, bonded for life. For us, to gaze into each other’s eyes and instinctively realise the unresolved tenebrous threat lingering dangerously close would have saved our relationship centuries ago.

Therrin’s return rooted my wandering thoughts back to the present. The purposeful urgency in his stride, the extra stealthiness in his movements and most importantly, the way his nerves held taut as he approached, radiated a sense of dread in him.

Therrin did not speak immediately, instead, crouching low, he let his hazel eyes roam back again, piercing the thick mist.

“I scouted all the way to the entrance,” he said puffing, his fingers twitching as he carefully considered his next words, “the path is clear, all the way and that is disturbing.”

“Why?” asked Rodo in a low whisper.

“The place is filled with traps and all of them are deactivated,” replied the halfling. Annoyance seeped into his words. Contempt flowed with them, almost as if it was below his station to interact with the rudimentary intelligence of the werewolf.

“Maybe centuries of dormancy and rust collected on them?” I threw my opinion.

“Every single one of them?” scoffed the halfling, huffing as much as his tiny lungs can expunge, he continue, “Even the deep pits with spears as thick as dragonslayer lance, huge swinging axes and even the flame walls,”

Therrin stood and turned his head towards the way he came from, lifting his hands, he pointed his pudgy fingers accusingly and said, “Layers of dust, cremlin nests and creeper vines. Those doors were never opened before and all those traps disabled.”

“It does not add up,” he said shaking his head, “how could something from the inside disable the traps, without opening the inner gates?”

“Because the something could pass through walls,” answered the ascetic monk, his voice surprisingly perturbed, “and yet tangible enough to warrant deactivating traps.”

“Vyrkolax,” sneered Rodo with fear and disgust in equal measure. His submerged fears rose again, enthralling him, draining him of his vigour.

Therrin bit his lower lip, summoning every shred of his willpower to suppress his rising chagrin. He clenched his fist tightly till they paled and slowly, in a controlled manner, he spelt, “You. Are. A. Werewolf. Pack. Leader.”

“Vrykolax is a creature of nightmare and terror. They stalk through the night. Their ravenous hunger always unsated,” uttered Rodo with apprehension colouring his words.

“Vryko whatever, we all get it,” cut in the rogue dusting his cloak with contempt, “It is the second scariest thing to walk the night.”

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“What is the first?” I asked.

“A dominant alpha Werewolf,” answered the rogue and he had an element of truth to his assessment, for Rodo, cowering in fear, occupies the apex position in creatures that haunt the night.

Rodo tensed, the hair on the nape of his neck slowly bristled with the halfling’s affront. Only the calm voice of Zaehran, took his building rage and gave it a new focus.

“So what manner of creature is this Vrykolax?” asked the monk.

“A creature that tethered itself between life and death. Our people speak of it in hushed tones. They can pass through layers of soil undisturbed. They don’t even need an invitation, if you answer the knock, they can enter and when they are finished draining the blood, the liver and heart would be missing, that is how you knoq it is a vrykolax and not a vampire,” responded the werewolf with obvious fear mingling with trepidation in his eyes.

“A werewolf doesn’t even need an invitation and can still enter homes,” scoffed the rogue.

The ascetic again acted as a medium of resolution by simply taking the attention away from the contemptuous halfling.

“Tethering between life and death,” pondered the monk. His finger rose, gently massaging his temples while I braced myself for the impact.

“That is a curious choice of words,” the ascetic continued slowly, “A vague notion with serious implications. Cheating death is not the same as being faster than death. So what does tether mean?”

“What the monk is trying to say in simpler terms is, liches usually cheat death while ascendants with their enhanced abilities can stay ahead of death,” I answered to the befuddled warrior and the rogue.

Zaehran gaze swept in my direction with an all-knowing smile that bordered close to cynicism.

“True. Then there are those who overpower death itself. Angels, demons, celestials. Different realms different names but the essence remains,” uttered the monk in calm demeanour ignoring the subtle rime.

“There are even the transcendents of life and death,” he continued.

“Samsaran,” I spoke the word that resurfaced from the depth of my memory. The origin of the knowledge eluded my mind.

Zaehran’s eyes opened wide, his eyebrows shot skywards, and his thin sunken cheeks glowed as the monk did not bother concealing his amusement at my words.

“I am surprised you know of them,” he praised with morbid curiosity, “Those who escape the natural cycle only to bind themselves to a wheel of life, death and rebirth.”

“Even primitive cultures have the belief of reincarnation,” uttered Therrin, “Nothing new in that.”

“They are born with memories of their previous lives,” I replied, the sibilant hiss in my voice surprising me.

“Have you had the privilege of their tutelage?” asked the monk with enthusiasm seeping in his words, “Even the wisest of my people, just a grain of sand before their infinite wisdom. Their sage advice is deeper than the dark blue of their skin.”

“Unfortunately, no one has met one. Only academical treatise...” Zaehran raised his hands with a sharp hiss cutting my words.

Tension rippled through the serene monk. His jaw tightened as teeth grind against each other. His chest heaved with every sharp breath he took.

“Echoes of death lingers, imprints of fading life,” he uttered.

“Sorry that I am the one to remind you but we are in a graveyard,” huffed Therrin.

“Master Proudwick, make haste and lead the way,” said the monk ignoring the halfling's taunts, “These are psychic implants of fresh death, not of this plane.”

As our motley group rushed passed, sights of deathly traps, crafted to perfection, all with a singular purpose to arrest and prevent for eternity, vacantly greeted us. On closer examination, Therrin Proudwick’s observation was proven to be even more detailed. None of those traps malfunctioned due to the effects of time.

Meanwhile, as we crossed the threshold of the inner gate, imperativeness, a trait that the monk cautioned against, yet in a surprising turn of events, held him in his grip as he flashed forward covering an impossible pace in the blink of an eye. I wondered if there could exist an undead that would push the austere monk on edge.

Sharp icicles of needles, a thousand of them, pierced through our skulls. A bleak sheet of hoarfrost encased our bodies, saturating the senses, overloading them to sap the very essence of our soul. My teeth clattered at the unnatural cold and the relentless rime threatening to fracture our will. Honed daggers of ice nicked at my spine, persistent in their attempts to force my advance, make me fall on my knees, and submit.

Therrin Proudwick, the smallest and the derelict in physical resistances, soft and precarious was the first to fall. Rodo, his hand partially transformed, sunk his razor-sharp claws into his own pec, unheeding the pain, he tore a deep cut. Even the comfort of his own pain was short-lived as the werewolf, stumbled on wobbly legs, covering a few more paces, his strength failed to carry him.

Summoning from the last reserves of my willpower, holding myself against crumbling from the onslaught, the crouched form of the monk rewarded my efforts. Cold, eerie and senseless whispers clouded, begged and urged me to let them in. To lend my ears, open my presence to their plight.

“Fear not,” calm the tenor voice of the monk, “They are not spirits, just psychic imprints reacting to my presence.”

Trusting the monk’s words as his own and not an illusion of the mind, I lowered my defenses. Instantaneously, my essence was robbed from my body and deposited in a wallless chamber. The twirling maelstrom of thoughts, demands and sentiments reigned supreme, callous to my own rudimentary presence.

“Suffragan Zaehran, we failed. Our creed, an amalgam, futile and tainted,” thoughts weaved with the delirium of death flowed through.

“Warn. Time fails you. Resurrect our creed. Suffragan, bestow honour on our death,” more thoughts, the last wails of a being facing certain death, filled.

“Warn against who?” I posed the question.

“Spare your efforts, there is no cognitive here to process your question,” delivered the monk.

“But these are thoughts,” I reasoned.

“You will receive no answer here just like how a signpost could not be expected to reply to a question.”

In the realm of the mind, devoid of other senses to accumulate information, all I had left was to trust in the words of the monk.

“Be prepared,” struck Zaehran’s instruction sharply.

Despite the eeriness of the location, my heart rejoiced at finding solid ground beneath my feet, the feeling of icy winds and even the oddly surreal silence as I regained the use of my senses. Zaehran, still crouched a few paces ahead, unmoving in front of a body; similar in feature -- another githzerai. A calm silence, almost a gentle serene expression pasted on the corpse’s face, betraying the tumultuous emotions that ravaged during the death.

Ahead of us, unhindered by the unnatural tomb, stood the dilapidated and once-prosperous villa and now serving as the tomb of Maugrym. Lumbering hulking forms, a few heads taller, advanced. The unnatural mist quickly dissipated, shunning the vile presence of the newcomers.

“No undead, no Vrykolax,” uttered Zaehran with venom dripping like molten metal, “Just aberrations from another plane. Chaos Sloads.”

Taking the monk’s words as an invitation, the figures advanced with bipedal reptilian legs crunching stone and rock beneath their heavy footsteps. The protruding bone blades stuck to the end of their arms, and their primal claw glistened at their sharpest point even in the dark of the night. A row of sharp filed teeth greeted menacingly as the ravenous maw opened, their long tongue flicked, tasting the fear in the air and licked their ophidian eyeballs.

Zaehran straightened himself and said, “First, we have competition. There is no better way to entertain chaos than to spread a potent plague.”

A deep rumble issued from the sloads, sending reverberations of challenge.

“They are individualists. Only a Devourer, possibly inside, could have formed them into a group. This is not the last of our battles,” cautioned Zaehran as he dug his heels firmly into the ground.

Rodo slowly lifted his crumbled form. Pain washed him in waves, Agony cascaded through his as his spine slithered like a serpent under his skin, preparing to transform. A scream, like ululations of a thousand sacrificial victims, leapt from his jaws. The crunching of bones as they reorganised themselves filled the air. Perforations filled his skin while thick hair punctured from within, bursting to fill every part of his body.

Flexing his primal form, Rodo pounced with lethal precision, in the other direction.

The moist scale mercenary, the first one to enter, a bipedal scaly creature in a heavy gambeson, wielding broad dual scimitars fared no better than children wielding twigs against the brutal swipe of the werewolf.

Zaehran, who stood next to me, disappeared, teleporting instantly behind the assembled row of sloads. With his fist, hardened as encased in adamantine, he punched, shattering the spine and skull of the sload. Voluminous rivulets of bile-like vitriolic stew flowed, spilling viscera followed, liberated from the confines of the toad-like form of the sload.

In a fluid motion, like an arcane dance, Zaehran turned towards the next sload.

While the monk and the werewolf rushed to fight in opposite directions, Therrin Proudwick, spymaster and rogue extraordinaire, rolled in dirt and played dead.