Under the dying light of the setting sun, the village of Hollow’s Edge revealed itself to Emeric and Savi, shrouded in an unsettling stillness. The thatched roofs of ramshackle houses slouched like bowed heads, mourning the vibrant life that once thrived there. A chill wind, carrying the foul stench of rot and decay, rustled through the abandoned marketplace, tugging at tattered banners that flapped forlornly in the wind. The silence was a weighty shroud, broken only by the soft clatter of pebbles underfoot as the two weary travelers made their way cautiously down the dusty main street. Savi’s gaze trailed over the destruction long ago wrought in this village, all too familiar with its hallmarks. The small cap of a child, fallen in the street, never to be held again. The remnants of fruits, meats, and all the local goods of the village, long since rotted to dust in the baskets of the market. Emeric turned to Savi, knowing her history with the markings of darkness. Concern heavy in his voice, he called out, “Savi, are you alright?" His eyes searched hers with a mixture of compassion and worry, knowing the weight of the past that lingered in her gaze. Her shoulders tensed briefly, momentarily betraying the turmoil in her mind. Relaxing, she looks to Emeric and nods, “we must press on. This isn’t the first sign of darkness we’ve seen, and it will not be the last.” Her gaze hardening once more, she pushed onwards, until the dilapidated form that was once the Drunken Calf tavern came into view. Like a rotted tooth in a mouth of broken teeth, while this was a building still standing, it was far from intact. The yawning abyss of the entrance seemed to beckon the pair inside with a sickening allure, knowing there would be a step along their journey inside.
Their disgust for the state of the village put aside, Emeric and Savi pushed inside, their cloaks swirling around each other as a blast of damp air pushed them backwards a step. Deep in the shadowed corner of the once-lively tavern, now a sickly mirror of its former self was a man that was, in himself, a sick reflection of Emeric and Savi. Their years-long quest to expunge the darkness that slew their friend Keyon had honed their bodies, while the man before them was a shriveled husk, sworn to serve the very darkness they cast out. The man’s eyes gleamed with malevolence as he rose slowly from his decrepit chair, the suffocating silence of the tavern pierced by creaking wood. Emeric and Savi tensed, fingers twitching, readying their staggering reserves of magical energy. The man’s voice, a chilling rasp that seemed to crawl up from the depths of the underworld itself, snaked its way through the dimly lit room. “Welcome, dear travelers,” he hissed, a mocking smile twisting his pallid features. “I’ve been waiting for you…”
Emeric’s jaw clenches, his hands raised in defiance. He knew this man was a necessary evil for their journey, but he was still struck to his core with a chilling fear of the malevolence before them. He stepped forward, steeling himself against the fear in his heart, “reign yourself in, Garth.” The old man chuckles, his frame racked with each beat. “Peace, mage. I swore to deliver you the information you seek, and deliver I shall.” Garth reaches into his cloak, seemingly dripping of shadows itself, retrieving a thin scroll, yellowed with age, bound with a fibrous net of inky black spider silk. The atmosphere in the tavern grew even more oppressive as Garth extended the scroll towards Emeric and Savi. The air seemed to thicken with dark energy, making it hard for the duo to draw a full breath. As Emeric brought his hand closer to the scroll, the dark magics in the air seemed to grow, swelling as he came closer, until his hand rested on the scroll, when the energy seemed to completely disappear. Savi watched with a wary expression, her instincts on high alert as she observed the exchange. She knew that Garth’s motives were murky as the shadows that clung to him, and this scroll could just as easily hold valuable information as be laced with a deadly curse. Garth’s thin lips curled into a sinister grin as Emeric unfurled the scroll, revealing cryptic symbols etched in a language long forgotten to the world. The mage’s brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to decipher the ancient text, his mind aching as reality seemed to warp around him. A faint whisper danced at the edge of Emeric’s consciousness, a half-formed thought that seemed to slip through his grasp, as if he held a net with holes in it. The symbols on the scroll swam before his eyes, shifting and twisting in a maddening dance that threatened to consume his very sanity. Savi watched with growing concern as she saw beads of sweat forming on Emeric’s brow, his normally steady hands trembling ever so slightly. She reached out a hand to steady him, her touch grounding him in reality amongst the chaotic sea of ancient magic surrounding them. With Savi’s touch anchoring him, Emeric felt a surge of determination welling up within him. He summoned the full extent of his magical prowess, drawing upon the wellspring of power laying dormant within him. Savi’s restorative, calming magic intertwined with his own, and the symbols on the scroll began to glow with an otherworldly light, pulsing with an ethereal energy that seemed to thrum in time with their heartbeats. As they focused their minds and willed the magic to flow from them at an ever greater rate, the light only grew, and the pulsing intensified, until the symbols melted away altogether, Emeric’s black-clouded eyes turning to Savi, the meaning of the scroll revealed to both.
Whirling to face Garth once more, the duo fling themselves at him, their resolve shattered as they learn the truth of the evil they are fighting against. “You aren’t just pledged to the power of Zartek, are you, old man?” calls Emeric, his eyes wide in disbelief, his hands already spinning sigils in the air, the air bending in front of him as he prepares to thrust pure arcane energy through Garth’s figure. “A perversion of the gods’ magics is contributing to this plot? Blasphemy, vile heresy!” Savi’s long dedication to the pantheon of the land surges to the forefront of her mind, seeing the dark corruption of the very magics she controls in the powers of Zartek.
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“You grasp at straws, failing to see the bale before you, adventurers,” chuckles Garth, his voice steady, unwavering in the face of the pure rage in front of him. “Zartek is no mere perversion, he is no mere power to pledge ourselves to, he is a new source of magic altogether. Your arcane magics, your divine magics, they are old and decaying, just as I am in this body. His magics… his magics call the fury of the arcane and the enlightenment of the divine, entangling them and creating magic anew from their energies. To him, you both wield the two halves of a whole, and his whole will swallow the world, begin a new age of magic perfected!”
“You’re mad, Garth. You think we would heed the ravings of a madman,” Emeric shouted, freezing where he stood. “We saw the darkness tainting Zartek, we saw his vile corruption tear away the good in the world firsthand. You attempt to reason with us in futility.” Emeric’s sigils in the air begin to swirl, the potent magic within them acting as a further catalyst for the spike of energy forming between his hands. The forces of the sigils suspended in the air seemed to stretch and accelerate the spike of energy, propelling it towards Garth at lightning-fast speeds. As quickly as the spike launched itself at him, Garth seemed to fling the shadows from his cape into the air, the spike disappearing into the void created where he once stood. When the distortion of arcane energy disappeared, and the shadows suspended in the air dissipated, Emeric and Savi were left staring at the empty space where he stood. “Was he…” Savi began, and Emeric simply shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it, never heard even tales of someone simply disappearing.” Savi’s confusion was apparent for him to see, and Emeric felt it too. Nowhere in his years of arcane research had he seen any tales of this phenomena either, nor could he even begin to think of what could allow it to happen.
Just as the tavern began to settle back into a tense silence, Garth’s rasping chuckle echoed through the tavern once more, filling the room with his chilling presence. “You think you could best me so easily, travelers? You have hardly even scratched the surface of our power.” The torches lining the walls, presumably lit by Garth’s hand, now blew out one by one, Garth’s dark presence whirling through the room, causing the remaining torches to cast long, writhing shadows around the room. Realizing the full extent of the power and malevolence inside the old man, Emeric and Savi realize they are dealing with a powerful wielder of a dark magic they cannot even begin to comprehend. His voice continues to taunt them from the darkness, each beat dripping with malice. “You seek to oppose the inevitable new order, clinging to your feeble notions of good and evil, light and dark. Zartek offers true mastery over magic itself, a glimpse of what lies beyond the walls of your world. Take your eyes, mage. They swirl with darkness, even as you claim to command a just force of light. And you, healer. Your magics are divine, radiant even, and yet you scorch away swathes of land without batting an eye, tearing this world apart.” His voice fades, leaving the pair to grapple with the questions he posed, the shadows coalescing into a normal form once more, the smoke of the extinguished torches swirling into the pockmarked roof of the tavern, escaping into the darkening night sky, just as Garth seemed to have escaped into the dark embrace of the shadows.
Emeric and Savi exchange a wary glance, the weight of Garth’s words lingering heavily in the air around them. The darkened tavern felt colder now, as if the very shadows held a malicious intent against them. Emeric could feel the tendrils of doubt creeping into his mind, his thoughts swirling with uncertainty. Was there truth in Garth’s twisted words? Did their magic truly hold such duality within them, waiting to be unleashed in ways they were unable to comprehend? “We cannot let his poisoned words sow doubt within us,” Savi stated firmly, her voice a low murmur as she turned to face Emeric. He nodded in agreement, his expression resolute despite the turmoil brewing beneath the surface. The bond between Savi and Emeric had always been strong, but in that moment it felt unbreakable. With their magic intertwined, they were an unstoppable force, determined to uncover the hidden truth that Zartek’s minions had worked tirelessly to keep buried. Their discovery of Zartek's twisted combination of magic was unsettling, and both Savi and Emeric grappled with the shocking realization. However, their unwavering determination and steadfast resolve led them down the path towards revealing the dark secrets of their world. Despite having their beliefs challenged and their entire worldview shaken, they remained resolute in their mission, confident that nothing could sway them from their course. Setting out from the tavern, their footsteps once more sending the pebbles along the road skittering ahead of them, they shared a determination to uncover the truth behind Garth’s cryptic words.
“We must press on,” Savi said, her voice unwavering. “We cannot allow ourselves to be swayed by the darkness that lurks along our path.” Emeric nods, silently following Savi’s lead, trudging once more into the moonlit wilds of Stel. In the moonlight behind them, a fluid figure detaches itself from the shadows around its flowing form, slinking into the wilds behind the pair.