Loud footsteps rocked the stone hallways causing the small servants to hurriedly drop to their knees. Paying no mind to the servants the slightly hunched one-eyed giant with a long messy beard picked up his speed in a strange amalgamation of walking and running. The bleached stone around him was decorated densely with the stories of his people from the time they climbed out from the small drop of Rohtua's very own blood to the present day as the last mural carved around the gatehouse in front of him depicted the soon to be the conception of a divine empire sealed deep under the Stardust Mountain for their Gods to rule over the dead, keeping them away from the cold clutches of the abyss.
The cyclop looked up toward a vetarii slave working on the portal around the massive gates to the city of the dead. The two-eyed creature no bigger than his hand, was covered in sweat which stained the white tunic with large patches of ever-growing darkness. The vetarii seemed to not mind his appearance as he was completely absorbed in the work he was assigned to, carefully placing his chisel on the stone and hammering it with perfectly measured strength.
Behind the gates, the cyclop saw a huge excavated cavern existing height of the mountain above it. An army of the most skilful beings under their sovereignty worked on the sprawling city in the distance. Going further the old cyclop found the person he was looking for standing still with his arms behind his back silently overlooking the magnificent scenery.
"I never thought I would see stars so far under the surface." The cyclop donning a heavily enchanted rob depicting their Father slaying a Pramil god accepting his mantle as an heir to all that exist said.
"Mmmm, it is almost like the Gods themselves had blessed us even before we were ready to gift this wonder to them."
"Wise words Stylianus. I wish though, that the Gods allowed us to use magic to build all of this, we would have been finished in a year or two." The monarch let out a sigh. "My father will have to be content with being only able to rest here."
The old cyclop stroked his greying beard. "Our Gods demanded our sweat and blood. Building all of this with magic would have been like making the Gods do our work for us."
"I know," The Heir to Orlak turned to face his advisor. The two cyclops gave the city one last look before he motioned Stylianus to follow him. "I would have asked what you did in the north but I can sense you bear to me important news. Tell me Stylianus why had you thought teleportation was the only way to speak to me." The monarch's large yellow eye watched his advisor with unblinking interest.
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" A great comet was spotted above our capital but unlike other messages from our Ancestor this omen from the sky does not shine brightly but shines with a sickly pale light." The oldest of cyclops spoke with a hint of excitement managing to escape his otherwise serious tone.
"I was already informed of this," Erastus's eye showed worry for his old courtier and friend. "Had you forgotten already you yourself had announced this in front of my court last summer?"
"I had yet not gone senile, I perfectly remember observing its great tail trailing above our capital," The mage's harsh tone was enough to make his liege lord apologise. "I had divined that the comet was slowly losing speed and it will hit the fields around the capital, today."
"What!" Erastus quickly ran outside leaving his maddened court mage behind. He rushed with all his might outside the gates to the Necropolis before teleporting to the town square.
A nervous drop of sweat ran down Erastus's forehead. In his many years of ruling the vast empire the powerful cyclop never felt so nervous in his life as the so-called gift from his great-great-grandfather was about to crash into the birthplace of his people.
As soon as the blinding blue light disappeared Erastus casted a spell to magnify his voice but before he would spread his voice across the continent his pupil travelled upward to the cloudless sky. The blue roof holding up the darkness of the void looked empty, perhaps the crazy old mage had mistaken a fireball for a comet but as the royal cyclop scanned the vast blueness an ever-growing blotch of pure darkness tore a long rift in the otherwise pristine sky.
"Everyone who hears my voice, begin to cast a shield above our capital!"
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Iris watched as the sun slowly set for the second time since she was defeated at the hands of the Spiritwalker. Its dying light painted the grassland in an orange hue alongside playing inside the dark surface of Kia's dried blood. The more the elf watched the more, the perfectly smooth and glass-like layer cast around Kia's arm appeared alive. On the surface of the dark solid bubbles would occasionally appear, reacting to the gust of wind as if lashing out at the element for daring to cause its master pain. The orange light too seemed to play gently on Kia's face giving the sleeping undead a bit of life as her skin looked almost normal if not a little too perfect to exist on a human.
A light curved on the girl's arm to create a chaotic theatre with actors shifting erratically on their dark stage. The play ended as Kia shifted in Iris's arms causing cracks to appear on the previously immaculate surface. Kia's open eyes tracked the sun slowly disappearing beneath the horizon, her gem-like eyes still possessed enough strength to marvel at the big fireball setting before frowning a little bit as the last ray of light disappeared in an anticlimactic fashion.
The undead mage turned away before her eyes travelled upwards to meet with the risen. Her hand travelled up Iris's chest, supporting itself as its journey brought it closer to Iris's face. With a pained smile concealing her sadness the elf took Kia's hand off her chest and delicately brought it down. Not only had she not deserved Kia's soft touch but even with the ancient's might her body clearly showed just how feeble and powerless she was now with even such a simple action bringing the necromancer to her pain threshold. Iris's fingers stoked the air right above Kia's skin trying to ease the mage back to sleep. The last time she tried to stroke her mistress to ease her pain, she caused the girl to scream in pain.
Under this phantom touch the girl's eyes closed, through their connection Iris felt the girl's frustration but their link quickly settled once more. *Bleh* "Watery." Iris heard the kitten complain about something as she stuck out her tongue in disgust before falling asleep again.
Iris readjusted her grip on the girl and tried her best to readjust her jacket to cover as much of the animalistic girl as she could leaving her legs to hang over her arms before continuing to seek some sort of shelter.