In the light of a falling moon, a clan of goblins celebrated the naming of their newest hunter. The rouge scout who brought the discovery of the path and dealt the final blows to the haunting figure of the once cathedral. The owlbear, given the name of Glora, had that name bestowed on another.

This celebration would mark the beginning of the fall for their clan of goblins. As an achievement of such magnitude for a clan like theirs, brought the eyes of those who sought war and conflict.

The tribes, the groups of the many monstrous creatures in the region of ruins, sought this tribe for war and battle. They would begin attacking, raiding and destroying the clan of goblins who thought they were so powerful.

But as orcs, bugbears, hobgoblins and more intelligent monsters chipped away at the clan, they would begin to forge the goblins who survived, into true fighters.

With every death of the clan, a new guard was minted. With every fall of a guard, a fighter would surface. With every slaying of a fighter, a soldier was born. And so on.

The clan was whittled down piece by piece. From over two hundred fighting adults to a core of warriors who numbered only thirty in total. But these warriors were not wild goblins. They stole, they learned, and they schemed against their enemies. And at their center, was the goblin who led them to victory over the owlbear. Who carried with them, the weight of their clan’s greatest success and failure.

Over the course of five years, the new clan of goblins earned their right to exist in the ruins. Before, they were weaklings who existed only because it was too much trouble to kill them all. Now, they had become a force to rival the tribal orc warriors.

Until the day a fog fell over the region. A magical fog that suffocated all who breathed it in. No bird, no bug, no goblin or orc escaped the net of poison.

Tens of thousands of humanoids were stolen away from their homes of hundreds of years. Where their ancestors were buried, where their children would grow to earn their names and homes.

To be taken from that place of tribal freedom and thrown into a hell of “civilized research.”

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The elves of the Northwestern Forests were a force of nature. They were said to have been born at the same time as the towering trees were first planted. That Madra Herself had tasked them with guarding and raising these trees that were beacons of nature’s might, power and dominion.

Originally, they were one kind. One blend of a race, designed and created to tend the trees. But as millennia passed, they did what all creatures were meant to do. They evolved.

As creatures of nature, some sought out the other creations of nature Madra had brought forth from the womb of creation. Some sought the deep seas. Some sought the mountains. And some were drawn down into the depths of infinite stone and darkness below.

And like many cultures and species they had encountered, the elves, though long lived, were not immune to the folly of mortals. They developed rules, societies, governments, customs. All things a fabrication of social order.

Casts, roles, politics. The elves walked willingly into these things with the arrogance that their kind was different or uniquely equipped to handle these traps.

They were not.

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Over, and over, and over again. Creatures, people, males and females, children and elders, fighters and crafters, all awoke. Some later, some sooner. But each would awaken in time to their bodies being submerged in the green goo.

A creature would gasp for air first. Their body fighting for true air. None came. Liquid filled their throats and lungs. Their instincts and years of experience breathing air conditioning them to reject this intrusion.

The first minutes of their new lives were an unnecessary fight for their life, against themselves. The goo that floated in provided them with the things from air they needed to live. And they eventually would come to terms with that after wasting precious energy and adrenaline on fighting against drowning.

One in a thousand or so of those who woke up this way, usually the eldest of their kind, would die in this struggle. They would die in their vat of goo under the awaiting gazes of beings who would bet on who in an awaking batch would die.

As the creatures, the subjects, would awaken, confused and exhausted from a fight they need not have fought, their gazes would focus through the green tinted fluid on their surroundings.

Forty tubes of green goo lined the walls of a circular room. The creatures could see some of their kind, their kin. Usually only their kin. But the few who did not get divided evenly into forty from their original groups or capture, woke to be mostly alone of their tribe members. Some of the lucky might have three or four. But many were alone.

When all the creatures were awake, and finished their struggles for air, their eyes would turn naturally towards those in the center.

Each group was assigned a team of elves. Forty creatures with four elves to care for and monitor them. These elves were usually wood elves, though those who might be able to recognize or care about the differences were few and far between. For most, they were just elves.

But these lowly elves were not the only ones the creatures were to meet. Infact, these elves would become their favorite. For if they awoke from induced sleep to see them, it meant a day of silence and solitude. If they awoke to any others, torture was to come.

In the Ceisiwier facilities, each group of creatures was subject, repeatedly, to the experiments and tests of the Mad elves. A good day would be when unknown potions were pumped into the goo and then forced inside the subjects for the effects to be recorded.

Usually, these were poisons and some antidote formula. It meant that whatever torment the brew caused was usually temporary. Allowed to take hold, and then administered something that was designed to combat it. But, as with all experiments. Some went better and some went worse. Usually, at least two subjects died every time they “awoke.” Sometimes more, sometimes most of them. But very rarely ever, did none.

Time was meaningless in the vats. There was no way to remain awake when the elves did not want them to be. There was not enough strength within them to break the clear crystals that encased them.

They were trapped in a hell with 39 others. Forced to watch and fear as one after another of the subjects were injected, tested, used in rituals, magical circles, or any other mad inclination the elves held. An untold number of days, weeks, months and years would pass. Slowly, the tens of thousands of subjects were chipped away at.

Every subject, after the fiftieth “awaking,” would enter a new phase of testing. They were no longer the lab rats for random effects that the elves always wanted to know answers for but couldn’t test on themselves. They would begin the culling for their preferred subjects.

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The first test that Glora could remember for this stage was a simple one. Cold. Freezing, inescapable cold.

They awoke that day to the sight of what were frost elves. Each was finishing creating the outlines for a magical circle to isolate the room. Blue chalk swirls filled the room from floor to ceiling.

The goblin’s gaze shifted from one tube to the next. Counting. Listing off the names and faces they could recognize. 31 of their once 56 strong tribe were present. The remaining three were orcs they did not recognize the markings of.

Glora had watched their forty-goblin troop dwindle awakening after awakening. Some days, they would wake up to see the empty tubes replaced with other creatures. Sometimes more of his clan members. It had been seven awakenings since more of his tribe was added. And he knew deep down that this was the last of them.

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Glora stepped slowly towards the high elf. His head tilted back, gazing down at the goblin with arrogance they had no right to. A confidence gained not through battle, but through “right of position.” But that did not mean he was weak, or unskilled in battle. Only that he was not fit to lead.

The four others walked past them. The gnoll male and wood elf catching the goblin’s peripheral attention the most. But they did not draw their milky eyes away from their true target.

Slowly, they approached the elf. He had stopped about twenty feet inside the entrance and allowed his companions to approach the other clansmen.

Glora took in the scent as the sounds of battle began behind them. This elf smelled familiar. He held the scent of the same goo the goblin had lived within for unending days. And woke up to still smell after the nightmares struck.

Glora knew what this meant. He was different than them. He was not a subject. He was a volunteer.

“You are the Mad Gunman, Glora?” The elf asked, his eyes full of disdain. Arrogance. Pride. “Your actions destroyed my clan, forcing us to cower under the power of another.”

Glora half listened as the first gunshot from their roughish daughter rung out. As well as a wild, howling snarl of primal wrath fills the building.

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“You’se are a, what’s the word… Arbrawf?” They spat the elvish word from their lips like a glob of mucus.

“Your horrible, bastardized pronunciation aside, yes.” The elf leaned forward. Glaring down with hate at the creature of his undoing. “Because of you, my treatments were never finished!” He raised his hand into the air and brought it down in the stone and concrete below him. Leaving a crack and crater behind.

As he stood, Glora’s tracked his form. Noting the slight elongation, beefing up of the fist before impact and the traction of mass back into his dark cloak.

“You’se are an ooze?” The violent shaking of wrath at the insult of such a crude name told the goblin all they needed to know.

“Oh, you’se aren’t just a volunteer. You’se a failure.” The sadistic pleasure they took with those words marked the beginning.

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Almar was born and raised in the Ceisiwier clan of Llaw Du. A portion of foreign elves fled the Black Hands once they returned to what they believed to be their race’s homeland.

During the Sundering, they fled with the Ceisiwier and became the link they had to the outside world’s underworld.

But because of their introduction as an outside force. They needed to earn their position as an elven clan. And did so, by offering their young as elvish subjects, the Arbrawf, to try the tests and rituals they believed to have perfected.

Most had some success, and very rarely did they have any true failures. But, as years went on, and experiments grew grander and more in-depth, trying to recreate the elemental merging that the Ceisiwier so craved to steal, did they experience more failures.

True abominations of nature and magic. Almar, was one of these.

The process was strange. It involved the dissolving of the body, while retaining the soul. To replace the body slowly with the energies of elementals. Turning the creature from a moral, to what amounted to a body elemental.

They took the principles that all things were created from the base elements interacting in complex ways, to an extreme. As elementals were not just limited to single elements. Given enough time or energy, mixed elementals could be formed. The Smog and Magma elemental of the dwarves was a perfect example.

They sought to find the energy combination that would enable a mortal to become an elemental. And elemental of themselves.

Instead of forming a wild elemental that would gain a soul and consciousness on its own, they would forge the body of an elemental that would perfectly fit the mold of another soul. Crafting what was like an extension of a soul, the sung in harmony with its connected being.

It was a complicated, wild fantasy. But if it could be achieved, it would push a being beyond anything even monsters and giants could possibly hold.

It would give the final subject a level of natural ability that was on par with demigods or similar beings. And the Ceisiwier wanted it. They wanted it to secure their power and dominion over the elves and the Isle of Madra. To take the elements She used to forge the world and forge themselves to be even closer to her.

Or to dominate and enslave all lesser beings on the Isle. Depending upon their levels of religious zeal.

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Glora watched, anticipating. Their experience with elves always proved to themselves that there was more to the thought that arrogance was a natural, or at least deeply engrained and learned, trait of their race, the high ones at least.

Stepping back, twisting, bouncing on their stiff, aching heels, the goblin bounced with ease from one foot to the next. Evading, stepping and dancing around the falling great hammers disguised as fists.

“Hehe, I’se heard you’se were a graceful rouge.” The goblin barked out through their laughter. Ducking another fist and not fighting him yet at all.

“And I heard you were a threat.” He hissed with frustration. Backing away and entering another stance.

“Lookie lookie at the skilled fighter. Can’t even hit an elderly goblin granny.” Glora snickered. The eyes of the elf narrowed in response, but the taunts were no longer working. “Well, you’se ain’t the sharpest, but you’sr ain’t the dullest either.”

The high elf remained quiet. His eyes narrowed and denied the goblin more of their games. With a shrug, they resign their teasing and finally, draw their pistol from the shoulder holster.

“O’Re… An abomination…” The elf hissed once the engraved metal reflected from the magical light produced from the gun’s own length.

The scene of trees, ancient and monolithic, set ablaze with a multicolor array of flames and violence. As eyes lingered on the barrel, the images would grow more detailed and explicit, the eyes, the silent screams of leaves that represented and slowly shifted into the faces of each elf slain and maimed by this weapon and its wielder.

Glora watched, savoring the growing horror and wrath that bloomed on the “child’s” face. Dozens of elves, then hundreds, thousands. So many that counting them became an estimate, a guess at the horrors brought by this weapon and this goblin.

They relished it. They craved it. They were addicted to this sense of wrath that their actions brought up in the Ceisiwier. No words, no tales of atrocities committed and used to sow hate with the youth could match the illusion of truth that O’Re could produce once a being had become truly attuned and connected to it.

Glora did not care about the guns, the blood, the shouts and howls that echoed around them in this moment. This descendent, this defender, this torch bearer of all that was responsible for their current existence and experiences, was witnessing what destruction they created. The horrors the Ceisiwier released upon their race and the world.

But most of all, was that the power those experiments instilled, could, however slim the chance of success was, for this elf, to have that power. The power that of given to a being with a nigh immortal lifespan, would never have decayed in power as quickly as this green abomination. The greed and hunger for power was so clear, so all-consuming that the hate for crimes against their kind was replaced by one for something having the power that should belong to them.

Glora allowed this hate to boil up in the elf. They knew it was stupid. It was foolishness. But like their gnollish daughter, some instincts, some cravings and desires would always overpower reason and sense.

The difference, however, came from if you could afford the extra price that indulgence brought with it. And the goblin, at their age, knew very, very well, where their faltering limits lay.

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Glora moved first. Their reflexes, their explosive movements were unrivaled by all those in their clan when it came to reacting or acting. It was an almost impossible task to beat the goblin’s ability to enter combat at a literal moment’s notice. Space was put between themselves and the elf. Dashing back while unleashing three quick shots.

The first launches out. A flare of burning powder propelling it forward with the accuracy of a being who has honed their skill over decades of war and battle. Within the first shot, the goblin had pierced through the skull of the elf as they turned and tried to dash after the goblin. Glora could see the hole open as they pulled the barrel down to keep firing. The second passed through his neck, just to the left of his Adam's apple. And the third traveled through the center of his chest.

Not one of the shots stopped the elf, only disorienting him slightly as he chased the gunman. As their game of cat and mouse began, the holes in the elf did not bleed, they only leaked a slightly black fluid and closed in seconds with no signs of permanent damage. With a deep, crazed laugh, the elf leaps and brings his fists down, barely missing the flittering goblin’s wild movements.

With the utterance of an incantation, the elf lifts his fists, opening them and blowing out a breath. A quick spreading fog of poisonous gas chases after the goblin, engulfing them for a moment before they escape it, none the worse for wear.

With a tisk, and the cocking of the goblin’s hammer, the elf blurts out, “Tarian,” and a blue, nearly invisible shell of mana manifests around him. A quick shielding spell to deflect some of the damage he was to receive. But was only met with an amused snicker from the dashing goblin.

One shot slammed into the magical wall, causing a shower of sparks as the top layer of the metal jacket around the lead tip is stripped off. But it doesn’t stop the projectile from slipping through and piercing his torso. The second shot reacts just the same but causes the whole structure to rattle as it strains. The third shot, however, does much more.

With a bright, burning flash of fire and heat, from the chamber, a piece of metal does not expel. But rather a similarly sized and shaped, condensed and shining fireball. A piece of fire itself launches from the metal barrel and slams into and then through the shield, shattering it in the wake of heat. Slamming directly into the skull of the elf and consuming it in an inferno.

A wild screech of pain echos from the smoldering and hissing head. Before the fire was even out, the smoking head spits out a series of words and signs. But the goblin was already moving. From a spot in their path, an explosion of noxious gases poured free and engulfed them before they had a chance to react.

A powerful poison that didn’t care about being breathed in surrounded and drowned out the air around them. It burned, stinging every inch of their skin, as if its touch was rotting their flesh away. Turning on their heel, Glora flicked open their revolver and expertly extracted the five expended and normal cartages, and withdrew a now dark, ruby red bullet in the same shape and caliber as an unfired round. Replacing them with five normal rounds and a dark blue, almost purple round.

“You’se cloudkill is rather pathetic.” They commented calmly, breathing in the gases as the placed the revolver back in the holster on their shoulder, and unslung the tribarrled Cerberus from their back.

The elf waited in silence. Staring at the gas and his surroundings. The goblin would come out at any moment, and he would be ready for it. And was met with surprise at the directness of the attack as the goblin lunged from the rafters from within the fog. A shotgun held in their hands.

They landed atop the bubble of magic that appeared and chuckled at the serious look in the elf’s eyes. Looking down at the recovered head of the elf, there was no disheartening for the goblin. Only glee that this would get to continue.

Like many shotguns of this kind, Cerberus had three triggers. One for each of its barrels. And they held it directly against the magical shield that was keeping their form aloft. And fired all three shots at once.

Again, the shield cracked and shuddered, completely ineffective against the literal downpouring of lead and fire. The goblin let out a gleeful shriek as they fell onto the scattered upper half of the gelatinous form that was riddled with pellets, buck shot, and a large, piercing slug. But the powerful aftermath of the shot was not even the most surprising thing.

That was the spell the elf had managed to get off even as their body liquified from the forces applied to it. A bolt of green light formed from a crumbling stone shot up and barely missed the goblin as they used the force of their shotgun blasts to move them back in the air.

The aura of the bolt was that of immense and powerful destruction. In an instant, it flew up and impacted the ceiling above. Striking it with a strange lack of sound. And in the same time as it took to travel, a massive section of the roof simply vanished, disintegrated into a small cloud of falling dust.

Not taking another chance, Glora knew that this needed to end now. Letting go of the creation, they let it hang on its sling and with the opening of the jacket, O’Re literally sprung out to meet their awaiting hand. Five more shots flew out to strike the quickly reforming body. As half of the torso was already returning as they landed on the ground.

With expert, accurate shots, the remainder of the legs and torso were scattered into a smattering of black goo and ooze. Leaving only a solid black and stonelike core. Walking over to it, Glore aimed and fired the last shot. A blinding lighting flash engulfed and devoured the core. Searing it with burning plasma. And shattering it like an eggshell.

With a deep sigh, Glora opened their revolver’s cylinder with a flick and extracted the casings gently. Turning, they started to walk back towards their fighting children, only to be met with a horrific sensation of danger and something they had not felt in a long, long time. True, unrestrained fear. As a power they had sacrificed the lives of tens of thousands of elves to bury, reared its head again.

Turning with slow, stuttering, and disbelieving motions, their milky pupils laid upon a shadowy pool of expanding goo. At its center, the now glowing remains of the core floated and spun in a circle. All of it revolved around a slowly expanding mass of ooze.

In a single moment, the work of the Ceisiwier was reborn, and tainted by another force. One that lived and existed with a hate for the creatures that cast the shadows from which they were born. A Ceisiwier creation had been taken and given a tainted second life, through the Shadowfell.