Emeric’s steps echoed, hollow in the dim tunnel lit only by the green runes faintly throbbing in sinister rhythm. A chilling draft blows his cloak behind him, whispering secrets of the long-departed. The walls, cloaked in shadow, grew darker still as they pressed onwards into the depths of the temple. A cold sweat broke on his brow; the air was thick with an essence of decay and despair. He swallowed hard, the taste of fear tainting his tongue. “Keep your wits about you,” he muttered, more to himself than to his companions, but his voice seemed to be swallowed by the pressing darkness. No echo returned his caution. His hand instinctively reached for the hilt of his sword, offhand tracing slowly in the air, finding some semblance of comfort in the familiar motions.
A blast of stagnant air engulfs the group suddenly, Emeric’s arms flying up to shield his face from the malevolent feeling washing over them.
“Whitehall should have been your grave, Emeric,” Savi’s voice cut through the stillness, sharp and accusing, a stark contrast to her usual warmth. Her green eyes, once full of compassion, now glint with the reflection of the fading light, hardened and unforgiving. “Should have fought harder,” Keyon grumbled, his silhouette towering beside Savi. “The forest mourns what you let slip through your fingers.” Their words struck Emeric like arrows, each syllable a pointed reminder of his darkest hour. The betrayal of his comrades, those he had considered brothers-in-arms, flashed before his eyes like specters. They had turned their coats, selling their honor and the safety of Stel to the enemy for gold and empty promises. And he, powerless to stop them, could only watch as the stronghold succumbed to the flames.
“Damned if I did, damned if I didn’t,” Emeric’s reply was terse, a growl rumbling from deep within his chest. His blackened eyes darted between the two figures, searching for traces of the allies he knew, not these specters of accusation.
“Your excuses reek like this place,” Keyon said, his voice carrying the weight of the wilds’ disappointment.
“We needed you,” Savi added, pain lacing her words, a sacred oath broken.
Emeric felt the oppressive atmosphere press in on him, his breath becoming shallow. The pulsating runes cast an otherworldly glow that painted their faces with shifting shades of distrust and blame. He wanted to scream, to unleash that primeval arcane fury that shimmered in his veins, but he knew it would be futile against the phantoms of his past. “Focus,” he commanded himself again, his voice drowning in the despair on this dark temple. “It’s the temple… playing tricks.” Despite his resolve, the sting of their words remained, a brand upon his conscience. The darkness seemed to swallow him up then, shriveling in the accusatory glare of his allies.
- - -
Savi’s heart thrummed a frantic rhythm as she trailed behind Emeric, her hand gripping the holy symbol at her neck. The air within the temple was thick, choking, tinged with an aura of malice that seeped into her bones. This place was a perversion, a stark blasphemy against the warm divine embrace she had always known. Whispers skittered along the walls, serpentine and insidious.
“Embrace the darkness, child of light,” they hissed. A cacophony of voices clawed at the edges of her resolve, heard and unheard, known and unknown. “Bow to Zartek.”
“Never,” she breathed, her voice barely audible over the din of the dark god’s call. The shadows around the group swelled, burgeoning into a tangible force that seemed to pulse with hunger. Savi’s eyes widened as the dark coalesced into the smoky form of goblin warriors, their ethereal blades glinting with spectral malice. With a surge of dread, she realized this was no mere vision - the phantoms bore down upon them, all too real. Their guttural way cry echoed in the tunnel, amplified, swirling around them like it was its own attack, striking a heavy fear into the hearts of the companions.
“Keyon!” Emeric’s shout cut through the din as he conjured arcs of arcane energy, hurling the toward the advancing horde. But his spells splintered against the apparitions, ineffective as whispers against stone. The glow of his arcane energy exposes the unnatural horror of the horde, their shifting faces betraying their spectral nature. His eyes swirled with blackness as the magical energy flowed through his body, flinging half-formed spells as fast as he could move.
Keyon let loose a volley of arrows, each one finding its mark with deadly precision, yet the smoky forms pressed onward, undeterred by the material weapons. His face, usually an impassive mask, now betrayed a flicker of desperation. “Fight them!” Savi cried, her hands radiation a soft, golden glow as she invoked a protective barrier. As the illusions charged, it shattered like glass under a hammer’s blow, and instinctively Savi flung her hands forward, invoking her gods to rebuke the horde and its infinite darkness, but the smoky forms cast aside the radiance emanating from her hands, leaving the group exposed. In moments, the goblin specters were upon them. Emeric’s energies became frantic, desperate, but the shadows cut through flesh and spirit alike. Keyon fought with the ferocity of the wilds, but even his strength could not withstand the relentless onslaught. They fell, one after the other, their bodies crumpling to the cold temple floor as if snuffed out by the very darkness that birthed their now-fading attackers.
“Save us, Savi,” Emeric’s voice came in a ragged whisper, snaking out of the torn mess his throat once was. His figure lay broken, his eyes hollow pools reflecting accusation. Keyon’s once-imposing form was now a twisted echo, his limbs rotated unnaturally, his gaze piercing her with silent blame.
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“I - I tried…” Her words faltered, trapped in the vice of her tightening throat. “I always tried, why has this failure risen again so vivid?” Tears blurred her vision as she stared at her fallen comrades, the illusion so complete, so cruelly vivid. She knew it was the temple’s vile magic casting these aspersions, a punishment for not bending her will, yet the pain of failure and the guilt felt agonizingly real. “Forgive me,” she whispered, the mantra for the dead slipping from her lips as she attempted to steel herself against the torment. Her legs trembling, Savi fell to the floor, next to the lifeless projections of Emeric and Keyon, her resolve shattering like brittle ice.
- - -
Keyon’s footsteps echoed softly in the temple’s forsaken halls, his gaze drawn to the wild tangle of vines that clawed at the stone walls with unrestrained ferocity. The natural world had waged a silent war against the temple’s ancient foundation, reclaiming ground lost to dark ambition and sinister worship. As he moved cautiously forward, the last hints of human craftsmanship were mothered beneath the verdant onslaught; pillars choked by ivy, altars overrun with moss.
Emeric trailed behind, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, darting between the pulsating runes and the encroaching greenery. The air was thick with decay, a scent that filled his nostrils and set his teeth on edge. “Keyon,” he called our, voice as sharp as flint striking steel, “you who tread forest paths like the fox, and know its secrets like the owl - how is it that this place is hidden from your sight?” His question hung heavy between them, an accusation veiled in a cloak of curiosity. Emeric’s silhouette was etched with tension, his mage’s cloak drawing shadows around him like mourners at a vigil. Savi lingered close, her once-bright eyes dimmed by the oppressive gloom of the temple. She glanced between the two men, her voice a fragile thread in the suffocating atmosphere. “Yes, Keyon,” she added, softly but with a firm edge that belied her gentle nature, “the forest speaks to you, shares its whispers. Why not of this place?”
Keyon paused, his broad shoulders casting a looming shadow on the wall as he turned to face them. The vines seemed to still at his presence, as if recognizing one of their own. Deep green eyes met theirs, reflecting an inner resolve as impenetrable as the forest depths. “The trees hold many tales,” he answered, his words rough-hewn like the bark of an ancient oak, “but some are buried deep, guarded by thorns and silence. This temple… it is like a shadow within shadows, and you are birthed from that darkness, fiends. With a scream like steel dragged across steel, the figures of Emeric and Savi erupt into a smoky darkness, peeling away the illusion around Keyon. As he turned his stride deeper into the temple, where he could hear commotion, he did not waver. Amid the crescendo of whispers and shadowy figures that clawed at his sanity, he was a pillar, unbothered by the haunting visages of family. A concept as foreign to him as the temple’s forgotten god. As the illusions intensified, he came upon the slumped figures of Emeric and Savi, their breathing ragged, the spectral images of Emeric’s failures intertwining with the macabre sight of Savi’s sorrow. The phantoms of Emeric and Keyon with their lifeless eyes began fading, just as the voices of those blaming Emeric for the fall of Whitehall faded to a dull whisper. “Collect yourselves,” Keyon’s voice cut through the mire of dark magic, a command more than suggestion. Savi clenched her eyes shut, reaching inward for a shred of divine warmth to shield her spirit. “False shadows,” she whispered, her voice steadied by devotion. With a surge of willpower, she opened her eyes to find the grim pageantry dissolving into wisps of dark mis. Emeric’s gaze followed suit, the blackness in his eyes receding like the tide as he saw the accusatory stares of his comrades filter back into the stones around them.
“Keep moving,” Emeric said, terse as ever, yet there was an undercurrent of gratitude in his gruff tone that only those who knew him might detect. They pressed on, silence their steadfast companion save for the occasional scrape of boot against stone. The temple air grew colder, thicker, as if each breath bore the weight of buried secrets desperate to escape their earthen prison. Finally, they arrived at what appeared to be the temple’s most clandestine chamber. Here, the walls were barren, the runes peppering the temple thus far nowhere to be seen. Amongst the detritus of ancient rites and esoteric hoards, the trio found scattered evidence of recent occupation: fragments of parchment, torn maps, and hasty correspondence penned with malice.
Savi’s heart quaked as they sifted through the evidence, finding maps of Stel, crudely drawn spikes and skulls noted over places like Brookhaven, small holdfasts of man that would surely be snuffed out by the goblins marching in force. Emeric’s fingers trembled, unfolding a letter detailing alliances as treacherous as the path they’d walked. “A dark cabal within Stel…” his voice trailed off, disgust mingling with dread. Keyon gathered the torn pieces of a recent addition to the maps of the region, piecing together the jagged edges to reveal plans far more sinister than just goblin raids or razing villages. “Camps. Swaths of land cleared for the goblin’s putrefaction of this world. They won’t just destroy us, they’ll destroy everything around them…” his voice trails off, the pain of the wilds reflected in his voice.
Savi, the cleric of light, shrouded in the darkness of this place of malice, weaves her hands through the air, trailing strands of divine energy that spread like a net over the room. “I must know what the significance of this temple is… why would such a evil be refuge for goblins, let alone humanity?” The strands of her light sifted through the wreckage, seemingly tracing the past events of the chamber. Suddenly, her energies begin swirling in the center of the chamber, black strands twining through the radiance of her light, the dark rituals present in this chamber swirling through her mind as her spells reveal the truth of this chamber to her. Her eyes swirl with a milky shade, reliving the dark truths of this temple’s rituals in ages past, and the newer malevolence of the recent residents of the temple.
“Phirru,” she cries, eyes clearing from her visions, pointing at the etchings on the walls depicting a monstrous beast, covered in a chitinous husk. “Called from the belly of the earth, birthed of darkness.”
“An unholy alliance, of man and goblin, of dark priest and ancient beast,” Savi concluded, the gravity of this discovery setting upon her shoulders like a leaden mantle. “This beast was released to keep us from this place, from the significance of this room.”
“Or to draw us in,” Emeric countered, his mind racing with the implications. “We tread a game board, and not as mere pawns.” His tone grows steely, his rage at the forces beyond their sight apparent for all to see. The chamber seemed to constrict around them, the very air pulsing with anticipation of what move they would make next. Unseen eyes watched, waited. The trio stood united, resolute in the face of encroaching darkness, turning to face the growing horde in the forest once more.