Rigid winds swept all across the vast woodland of dreaded Vesgeriath in the closing days of Aurhiur in the 1259th year of the First Age, reaching through even the radiant ward encircling walled grounds of Deoshiar Monastery erected in the wicked heart of the woodland.
Walls of carefully stacked stones ran in sharp turns around the tightly packed courtyard where the dry road moistened as the snow phased through the unseen radiant ward keeping evil at bay. The radiant warmth melted snow, and let it through in its purest form to drench the now muddy road crossing through the courtyard with short turns leading towards the few magnificently geometrical ivory structures emanating a blinding glow to the walking revenants circling between the nearby trees.
Nearest to the southern gate, a simple long house rested with a garden of moistened, thriving plantations, while the interior nearest to the garden oozing with rousing deathly scent of frozen meat hanging from chains, waiting to be seasoned and prepared in various ways. Beyond that further in, a long hallway leading into an even more spacious hall beset with richly deep wooden tables and chairs set near the walls and windows filtering natural light.
Heat condensed in the adjacent room where on a singular large counter in the center bowls of sliced potatoes and other vegetables and rice from the east, vibrant red or mauve meat dreamt their dreamless dreams while erudite cooks prepared for the coming feast of midday.
Facing it, the home of the local scholarly clergyman dreamt peacefully in their myriad rooms stretching in the limitless space born of the high grade enchantments woven into the stones. In the back of the expanded interior, a chimney rose high above the walls, emanating a sulfuric mist as below it a large heated bath took up most of the space where they could relax after long and arduous days.
Most prominent of these structures was the House of Studies in the heart of the courtyard, a large cross of two rectangular patterns melded into each other while from the center, a high hexagonal tower grown towards the skies with a looping terrace on the top, windows two on each side of all seven floors.
The interior itself built with cozy walls of warm tones containing hidden maghiath runes calming the mind, wide balustraded inner terraces of circular kind, wooden floor garnished with embroidered carpets bearing the symbols of the Dawn Father while near the outer walls, stacks of bookshelves stood in disciplined silence, racked with myriads of hard covered tomes and books.
The latter contained mostly tales recounted by locals on the Five Damned Lords of the Land whose number since then have been culled to three thanks to the century long effort of the Order. This included the tales of the Crimson Praetoriar which varied from folk to folk.
A few believed that he was once a proud Draennith Praetoriar whose magnificent winged mount was felled more than seven centuries ago when the horde of slaves mounted one last defense against the pursuing ivory legion of the north, at the hands of the Seventh-Born of the Nightscale himself whom He conceived with the Father of Strigoii.
Others believed he was a shunned Impirith Praetoriar who failed to protect one of the myriad mates of the Elhyrissiar, whose family disowned him and, in his shame, wandered to the north where he entered into a pact with the Extinguisher of Bloodlines to create his own accursed bloodline whom he wanted to use to enact revenge on those who stripped him of all he had.
And there were hundreds of different tales, not just on the now fallen lords but even on the other three still ruling from their hidden, curst courts where the Hosts’ most prominent nekromancers traversed to learn hidden techniques known only to the risen dead.
Iuitl herself – a mesmerizing vivid and faded translucent green merkin possessing long, voluminous dark hair – held a hardened amber covered tome betwixt her webbed hands, her bulging, small round eyes in a sunken socket glared inquisitively at the soft, gilded white pages adorned with well-articulated interconnected lines and deeply ingrained inked maghieth runed writing.
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The ancient runic text beneath the interconnected lines forming into five welted triangular shapes slowly rearranged themselves familiar syllables to her small, round eyes bulging from her sunken sockets while they trailed after her index finger beset with boorish gray nail with a basalt-like texture. The six slits on her neck ovulated rapidly behind the vermillion collar of her tunic tightly clasping onto her neck, as she slowly whispered out the words.
Yet her tired mind could not make sense to the confusing wording of the archaic language translated right in front of her mind. For the past two weeks, alarming dreams assailed her slumbering hours, dreams in which a horde of even more bizarre undead broke through the barrier, the courtyard littered by the gruesomely torn apart cadavers of fellow scholarly inqusitoriir before she too was claimed by the decaying nightmares led by a grotesque beauty of draped in tattered dark regal garments.
She knew the nightmares came as a warning, foretelling of the doom of their purpose and maybe even worse if she not acted in time. Like her many others shifted in translating the tome, trying to find a lost scripture which may aid in strengthening the ward, while the others sought ways in case their trail leads to a dead end.
Occasionally she stared anxiously out the mosaiced window to her right, staring at the ever swirling Illius hovering high in the infinite sky, praying silently to the One and the Eight. Though she was aware it was all in vain, here where the Elder Dragon of Dusk was the true sovereign of the woodland, no matter what the remaining damned lords of the forest taught in their accursed minds.
As she finished the prayer, she noticed the book quivering in her tremulous hands and she took deep breaths while focusing on the text, yet she could not abate the frustration born of impatience and dread. Even the hidden enchantments proved meager against the coldly scorching sensation forcing her clawed fingers to scratch her thick corralled brows and neck.
When the hour of her shift’s end approached, Iuitl only deciphered a pair of pages which according to her enchanted eyes and mind, told of techniques to transmute pure maghieth matter itself. From it she deduced one had to stand in the junction of the arkhaine vein running in the frozen, nekrotic soaked earth itself and offer their own radiant matter first to then force change upon the taint.
While this was only a small step, it still proved enough to ease the cold scorching assailing her whole being as she slumped into the soft silken cushioned chair while hot air escaped her smooth, bulging fishy lips. Yet this moment of calmness lasted only for a blink of an eye.
Iuitl’s tenderly sharpened ears twitched as hideous coldness swept through the wards’ invisible wall followed by an echoing of glass cracking as it strained against the assault of maghieth energies condensed into destructive inscriptions.
Through the mosaiced window, she watched to her horror as cracks formed in the elevated reality while large shadowy feelers arose from the snow blanketed ground and drummed against the ward with great force. She forced life into her frozen legs and rushed down the ladder and out from the House of Studies, and strode with great haste towards the northern gate.
Beyond it an army of the dead awaited patiently, a few holding decrepit shields surrounding the hulking feelers of pure pitch blackness – wounds on the fabric of reality from her point. Though what shook her to her core was the regal feminine figure hovering above the deathly trees wearing shapeless regal robes on her divinely rotten pale body while a crown pressured her hooded visage hidden under shadows.
Her right hand stretched forward, ethereal nails planted into their tips of the same primal darkness, pointing towards the ward on which intertwining cracks grew towards the upper center revealing the unseen bubble which for decades, even centuries offered protection against the vile inhabitants of the Vesgeriath Woodland.
Though the fear within her never abated, the trembling of her knees and body halted when she felt the tenderly touch of their niuvhen Urh-Magistriar who possessed a perfectly symmetrical, angular visage of smooth, snow white epidermis and equally white luxuriant hair reaching down to the center of his back as it naturally cascaded.
A mellowing smile adorned his youthfully elder visage which eased the prosperity of impending doom as like her fellow scholarly inquisitoriiir, Iuitl exhaled deeply while closing her eyes. In the darkness memories of her past flounced across her mind, both dear and difficult before she managed to clear her minds’ vision to finally see the dozens of prismatic collection of lights surrounded by the hundreds of darkened mauves.
At least when her heart gained back its calmed pace, she opened her eyes to the icy shriek and the shattering of the ward – an ethereally mesmerizing sight as particles of radiant mana blackened before disintegration just as the malodorous dead began their rush emitting a warped cacophony.