The abyssal depths had arisen in the chamber beyond, and no more could Aedmorn just sense the dark, but see it too, for skeins of it crawled across the surfaces of room. Dark threads edge with amethyst light, went their way across the floor, the walls and the ceiling, a spider web ever shifting. Corpses too ambled and shuffled, the niches empty of the once resting dead. Upon entering the room, each and ever corpse turned to face them, lifeless eyes focused on them.

Horror had come to the room, a sense of dread and evil that never before had Aedmorn felt or encountered, for here was not just death but the antithesis of life, an all of it focused at the back of the room, in a corner opposite them. From there the threads of dark emerged and as they watched, the alighted upon a corpse and it twitched in response, the once empty eyes now taken over by a hue of sickly purple. It sparked across the body, rolling down arms an legs.

The corpse lumbered towards them, moving more swiftly than others had before, no longer lumbering and easy to avoid, but a threat that could no longer be ignored.

“What devilry is this?” Ivkhara asked, dropping down into a fighting pose, balanced and on edge, her sword raised before her. She looked like a hunting cat, all coiled nerves ready to spring, either to flight or flee as the situation need. Torn between the two she seemed, the desire to battle the darkness cashing with the reverence in which she held her ancestors.

Aedmorn stared hard at the source of the dark, attempting to pierce the gloom even as the corpse came forwards. Senses stretched forth, feeling, probing, finding nought to purchase upon, all drowned by the overwhelming presence of the dark that filled the room.

And then, on the edge of surrender to the inevitability that nothing yet live, he caught the faintest trace of life within the chamber. Life, despite the dark, despite the location. Bugs and beetles that scurried and hid, far beneath notice, and with them the crawlers and the creepers.

Fresh hoped blossomed in his chest and a triumphal cry erupted. “The Blessed Green Lady watches over me,” said he, and so saying he struck at the ground with the butt of his spear. The sound reverberated throughout the chamber, as if a deep gong had been struck, the resounding blow echoing forth.

All paused at the sound of it, the shambling corpses halting, their heads flopping side to side. Even the testing threads of dark halted in their twisting course, turning towards him as if watching.

From all the dark, hidden places, from the corners and the cracks and nooks and crannies there emerged bugs and insects, of shimmering iridescence and black, skittering across the floor, across the walls or taking to flight, headed towards Aedmorn. Not many there were, for there were few enough to begin with and fewer still that could overcome their timorous nature to come forth at the call.

“By Az-Ashar, what manner of things is this?”

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“Life,” Aedmorn responded, sweeping his spear before him as if it was a staff. “All part of the Green Lady’s design, for she is Storm and Thunder and the Gentle Mist, the Giver of Life. All that lives and walks, crawls and swims and flies belongs to her, aye, even to the least. And I walk in her grace, and her children walk with me.”

The rippling swarm reached Aedmor, though they touched him not, for they curled around him, ever moving. With a thrust of his spear in the direction of the corpse, and the creatures crawled and fluttered forth towards it.

Ivkarha started as the bugs reached the corpse, on edge as she was, and made to move forward, driven by the desire to aid her fallen ancestor, yet uncertain what course of action to take. Caught between desires and needs, she react on instinct, seemingly intent on driving off the swarm.

“Halt!” Aedmorn barked. “Halt,” he said again, this time less strident. “All will be well. Watch.”

Ivkarha paused in her advance, sword shaking, all her will at work to trust the words of the man, to watch rather than act, a concept that seldom did she have a need for. Action was at her heart, her very being.

The first of the bugs reached the corpse and started to climb its legs, scrambling upwards. Sparks of light marked the meeting of bugs and corpse, of the deep sickly purple and the vibrant viridian green, crackling across the shambling body. Bugs fell away at the touch of the sparks, to be replaced as more climbed it. The corpse shuddered and a terrible moan issued from its slack jawed mouth.

A look of anguish crossed Ivkarha’s face at the sound, colour draining from her face, her dark eyes pained.

“Patience,” Aedmorn all but whispered to her. “It is nearly done.”

Then the corpse tossed back its head and a howling sound came from it as a dark light erupted from its open mouth, a swirling cloud in which deepest amethyst lights flared. It shot up and whirled about as the corpse collapse to the ground, the bugs scattering aside, to move no more.

“It is at rest again,” Aedmorn announced.

Ivkarha, her restraint at an end, leapt forward, her sword tracing a glittering arc through the air as it slashed for the hovering cloud. It passed right through the insubstantial form, though a startled cry came from Ivkhara and her sword fell from her hand, to clatter upon the rocky floor. The fingers of her sword hand curled up tight, a grimace of pain showing in her features. She clawed open her fingers, stretching and tightening them over and over to return feeling to them.

The darkened cloud drifted away, back towards the corner from whence it had first emerged.

“What manner of thing is this?” she asked, retrieving her fallen sword from the ground. “Moreso, how do we defeat it?”

“As to what it is, that I can not rightly say,” Aedmorn responded. The remaining crawling bugs had left the now still corpse and had returned to swarm around him. “And in not knowing, we may not be able to defeat it yet.”

That grim determination that he had observed before returned to her. “That I can not accept,” she stated. “We must find a way, for I shall not stand by to let my ancestors suffer so.”

Aedmorn gestured with his spear to the corner, to where the darkness clung thickest, the foul stench of it strongest. “If there are answers to be had, it is there that we shall find them.”

“Then let us find them,” Ivkhara stated, “And be done with this devilry.”