Darkness. That was the first thing I noticed as my senses returned to me. Not the darkness of a simple night, nor the darkness that happens when the light cast by Oriens’ Shadow is chased from the sky by cloud cover. No, this darkness was the all-encompassing, suffocating, chill-inducing kind. Then, like a pinprick of hope against a sea of darkness, I noticed a dancing red light akin to a small fire and began making my way toward it.
I moved closer to the light; the next sensation that returned was the noise. It started as a low roar, but as I walked closer I began to distinguish between the different sounds. The clang of weapons clashing with each other – thudding and tearing against flesh. The sudden yelling of orders and the cries of anguish from the dying assaulted my ears as they began to rise above the rest of the sounds of battle.
I sprinted towards what I could see was the camp set ablaze. I began to get flashes of the commotion around me. Looking about I saw that despite the noise everything was still, as if time itself stopped. One of these is of a heavily armored giant of a man cleaving through a stocky Nanus Kerdil that I recognize as the camp's livestock master. An archer from the attacking force being burned alive by our Flame Dancer. I registered the acrid smell of burning hair and the disgustingly savory smell of flesh crisping from the fire. As bile rose from the depths of my gut and touched my tongue, I noticed the sensation of taste where there had been none before. I brought my hands to my mouth to wipe it clean and noticed the slick blood covering my hands and forearms. The brightness of the blood contrasted horrifically with the charcoal color of my skin. I desperately tried to recall what caused them to be drenched in the bright, sticky liquid as I staggered towards the center cart, my home for the past six winters, owned by the Ringmaster.
When I reached the wagon I noticed that, while damaged, it’s the only cart that hasn’t been set ablaze yet. I climbed the creaky steps to the door and walked in. Once inside, I saw a tall, thin man standing over the crumpled body of my mother. He locks eyes with me as I rush towards him with a silent, agonizing scream stuck in my throat trying to claw its way to freedom. I reached for his throat and as I wrapped my fingers around the undulating larynx and started to squeeze the man began to laugh. I could immediately tell something was off about the laugh. It sounded distant and gruff, as if the laugh was not coming from this man, but from dozens of feet below the ground.
Blackness descends again as everything fades around me and I am startled awake by the same gruff, distant laugh I heard in my vision.
***
As I get reacquainted with my surroundings, I shake off the lingering dread and despair felt from my dream of that night so long ago. The Light-Damned visions have been getting more vivid and frequent of late. My reasons for hiding in the stonewood trees that line the elegant garden maze of the manor return quickly as I search for the source of the laugh that brought me back to the present. The first thing I see is a thin fog creeping from the Lord's personal docks and over the maze like the skeletal fingers of long dead denizens of the sea coming back to haunt the living. I decide to use just enough of my Soul Shards, Animea Tembikar, to enhance my eyesight and hearing.
Looking around, I spot a trio of guards gathered in the center of the maze sharing drinks, stories, and songs. The laughter comes from a large, broad shouldered brute about my size that could be a match for the man I saw kill the livestock master, though he seems far too young to be the same person. It doesn't matter, it's likely he won't survive this night. The other two guards; one a willowy Parvus Manusia – a half-man, as they're small of stature – and the other a lean but muscular Dryadalis Peri pass around a bulging skin of some liquid. I decide that stealth would help me through this section of the manor better than brute force. I cancel my eyesight enhancement and start sacrificing more Animea Tembikar to thicken the fog. The sharp tugging sensation of my Soul’s energy being used to fuel the spell sends a spike of adrenaline through my body that never fails to caution me of the magic’s requirement.
Using the natural hand- and foot-holds that the stonelike bark of the trees provide, I make my way to the ground. With the vantage point the tree allowed, I am able to easily make my way through the maze and avoid confrontation with the three guards. How long that will last is wholly dependent on how well I do my job. I call it a job because it helps me stay focused and calm, but the truth is this is a bit more personal than typical jobs.
I exit the maze and approach the entrance to the eastern wing of the manor and release the control I have over the fog which begins to thin again. The doorway to the building is guarded by two ornate sculptures of terrifying beasts reminiscent of the Canis Ibli, creations of the Exiled. They are six-legged canines with bat-like wings and a flaming tail. Their maws appear to be distended like a serpents and hold hundreds of needle-like teeth. I spotted them from afar during a previous scouting mission but up close they are downright terrifying. I asked around about them in the city and learned souls are an expected offering even if the creatures are made of stone. I reach in my satchel and pull out two large stones. One gleams with a blue flowing light while the other has a blood red and orange flickering dancing within. I place the blue Unda Roh stone in the sculpture to the left of the doorways mouth and the Incendium Roh stone in the one to the right.
As soon as both stones are in place I hear two voices in unison, one thunderous and one with an oily darkness behind it invade my head.
“The Soul Sacrifice has been accepted”, They said. Then, again in unison they say, "Beware, your actions tonight will have far reaching consequences. Step forward to proceed on this path." The warning catches me off guard, but I step forward with a little more trepidation in me now. As soon as both of my feet touch the ground I can feel an invisible force that was covering the door like a shield dissipates. The demons break free of whatever bindings kept them in place and take to the air. Realizing that this will not be just a simple execution, I hesitate to step through the doorway, but I have come this far and I intend to see my revenge completed.
I close my eyes as I walk through the doorway, expecting something, anything to happen. Nothing - at least that I perceive - happens and I stand in the disappointingly bland entryway. Instead of the grand sconces, murals, and priceless trinkets you come to expect from nobility and those in power, I see plain black walls marbled with blue and silver veins that pulsate with light.The rhythmic pulsating remind me of the slow heartbeat of an animal at rest, safe and content in its home, never knowing the predator is watching from the shadows. While beautiful in its own right, the lack of opulence and the use of darkness and light within the walls reinforces the dread that has begun to creep its way through every cell of my body. I recognize exactly where I am; every child growing up heard the tales. How the Deus' and Dea's battled over creation, of the Great Sundering that caused Souls themselves to shatter, and of an entire generation of the Pantheon that was cast out. I am in a ward of Oriens, The Immortal Serpent and the Deus of Light and Shadow. I am in a place that only exists in legends.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I cannot turn back at this point so I continue down the only hallway I see. I decide to sacrifice more of my soul shards to heighten my hearing and smell again, hoping it will give me a clue for whatever comes next. I suddenly fall to my knees and my vision blackens for a moment. I need to be more cautious about the use of my Animea Tembikar, but now is not the time to be conservative with my power. Each spell I use consumes a portion of my soul, dragging me closer to becoming a mindless and vicious eda animea, or soul eater. One blessing from the Deus' is that the soul does repair itself but it is at a glacial pace and if I'm not careful in its use I'll consume all of my own.
I continue towards the single door at the end of the hallway. As I reach the door, I notice the faint but distinct smell of ozone, as if lightning had just struck. Against my better judgement, I lean in to take a closer look. The door is roughly around ten feet tall, leaving me a comfortable two feet of headspace. It has a dull metallic sheen to it, but ebbs and flows with the same blue and silver light of the walls - a sea of lightning culminating at this single point within the building. I could see a relief carved out of the doorway. There are dozens of figures locked in battle; male, female, and bestial in nature.The way they are frozen in time on the doorway gives me a deep sense of deja vu. I notice at the top of the scene depicted there are two orbs, one larger and slightly in front of the other, with what appear to be rays of light coming off of them. They are the celestial depictions of Oriens and his wife Pulchra Roh, the Dea of Life and Beauty. Moving to the scene on the right side of the doorway, I see the same figures, but they are no longer locked in battle. They appear to be writhing in pain with a mirror image next to them appears to have shattered. Looking to the top of this scene, the only orb that is present is Oriens. It suddenly makes sense at that moment: I am looking at the Great Sundering of Souls, at the legend of Pulchra Roh disappearing from the sky and magic entering the mortal realm through the shattering of souls. I lean in, trying to hear what might be on the other side of the door, but it is futile. The lightning-like quality of the door produces nothing but a barely perceptible buzz even to my enhanced hearing.
I step back and take a deep breath, now wondering what I am walking into. In preparation, I drop my enhanced hearing and smell and condense the air around me into a shield, to the point of it being a second skin. I conjure lightning in my hands and command it to surround them as a protective barrier against the lightning-like substance of the door. I reach for the handles, feeling only a slightly uncomfortable shock when making contact. Something in the walls click as if they were waiting for my hands alone, and the door splits in half and melds into the walls. I walk into the room beyond and see a tall skeletal man with close cropped hair dressed in fine black clothes with golden trim. Something isn’t quite right about the way he moves, like his limbs are attached to strings and the puppetmaster is jerking them about. He bares a striking resemblance to the man from my dream and instantly my vision goes red. As soon as he notices me we lock eyes and that same too-large smile that has haunted my very soul for too many years crosses his face.
"Ah, Collis," the man says. "I'm so happy you could join us, though I am more than a little surprised that it is you who has been summoned for this task." It takes me a moment to register the use of the word ‘us’, but once I do, I take a second to search the room. There are four large columns spanning from the floor to the ceiling twenty feet above with indecipherable but elegant markings scrawled upon their surface. In the center of the room is a dark shallow pit, with the same elegant markings as the pillars that appears to have the remains of some desiccated creatures within. Looking past the pit, I see what appears to be a bright shining shield covering a portal of the deepest black I have ever witnessed. I suddenly become aware of a vaguely humanoid roiling shadow in the farthest left corner of the room. I can only assume this is the ‘us’ the man is referring to. He continues speaking in that crackling voice of his, "Just because the outcome has been fated by the Deus to happen does not mean I will make it easy for you. I am Crisenth, the last Warden of the Exiled, and my fate is my own."
Before I can process what he was saying, he appears to my left where. His fist connects with my face with a force his sickly frame should not possess and I go flying into the pillar on the right. The back of my head cracks against the stone and I lose focus for just an instant. I cannot tell if my head, the pillar, or both, are damaged and as Crisenth rushes towards me I don't have time to assess the situation. I can sense more than see the condensed blades of air he launches towards me and as I roll closer to the center of the room I feel one graze my left shoulder. I move towards the pillar to my right so there is solid stone at my back. As he closes in, a quick series of blows connect with my body, the pain they inflict excruciating. He throws a left hook that I dodge beneath. I swing my left arm into his ribs pushed by a jet of air behind my elbow. I hear a satisfying crack as bones break against my reinforced fist and a sudden exhale of fetid breath. Stunned and doubled over, I bring my right knee to the bridge of his nose. The cartilage disintegrates and I feel hot blood splatter my cuisse covering my thigh. With a guttural cry Crisenth throws his shoulder, again with more force than expected, into my stomach lifting me from the ground, plowing me into the pit. I thrash against his back, dropping my elbow against his spine once, twice, thrice before finally being thrown into the shallow pit. Between the pillar, his shoulder, and the force of hitting the old but strong bones in the pit, my world begins to spin.
As Crisenth walks slowly around the edge of the pit and begins speaking, but the words are garbled by my rattling head. After a few seconds his words become clearer as he climbs on top of me.
"This is no fun if you aren't able to listen." I hear him say. I turn my head to spit out a dark red blob that looks like it contains a tooth. He reaches for my shoulder where his air blade cut me, digging two fingers into the wound and repeatedly punches me in the face. The sharp pain brings my focus back to the moment.
"Why did you do it? Why kill my mother?" I sputter out between heaving breaths and spitting blood. A look of surprise and amusement, then a smug grin crosses his face.
"Oh my dear boy, it wasn't I who killed your mother. I was just the puppetmaster pulling the strings that night." He reaches for my head as I try to squirm from beneath him. His skeletal fingers grasp my bald head and a searing pain causes my vision to go black. What feels like an eternity passes before I notice that I am crouching in my mother's cart, her bloody body crumpled on the floor. As I rise from her body, I can see the blood covering my hands and forearms. I look on in horror at what I have done when I hear an incoherent mumbling behind me. I turn to see Crisenth with his too-large smile and eyes of darkness. He grasps my head and I am back in the chamber with Crisenth sitting on me. "You see Collis, it has always been you. It was hidden from you by the Deus and Dea's so that you would seek me out." As my anguish surges through me, my air shield pulses outward throwing him from me.
"You're lying!" I shout, as tears begin to stain my face. I know in the depths of my soul he's telling the truth. I roll onto my side and reach for the closest object, a thick and jagged humerus, and thrust it into his side just below his ribs. As a black and red mixture of blood begins to dribble from his lips, I hear him whisper: “Seas rise, mountains crumble, empires fall to ash, and you will bring Ruin to all.” then collapses to the ground. With monumental effort I sit up, grip the piece of bone sticking from his side and infuse it with lightning, cooking his insides in a flash.
The bright shield shatters, the Universe wails, and I, too exhausted to care about either, collapse.
They have reawakened.