The days passed quickly as the two spoke more and exchanged turns of sleeping on the canoe while the other paddled. They dumped the old captain of the vessel just beyond the gates. Quinn stole the dead man’s hat so that Hans could hide his face, in case he was recognized.
In the hours where the two shared waking moments, they spoke. Quinn found Hans to be an entertaining traveling partner over their four-day voyage. Hans found Quinn to be a particularly useful foreigner, and that was as close to claiming anyone as a friend as he had ever been in his life.
Quinn talked about his time as a hunter, and of the nature of the Mathan Grod. According to him, they stood roughly at length the size of five tall men, and were two tall men wide, with what Hans came to compare as a brown skunk’s colors. They excreted a musk so pungent that most metals corroded, withering it within a minute of being in their presence, and were scavenger beasts that would eat anything that crossed their paths, which included the kindred of the Tìr Dhè. Quinn also regaled Hans with tales of hunts in the deep tunnels below Faochadh, the ‘capital’ city of the Tìr Dhè. It was the place where the several tribes that lived in the vast deserts united to revere the gods, exchange goods, and swap hunting stories in relative safety.
Hans spoke of his ancestral legacy, which started with Bernhard the Bloodless. In the ancient days before the gods revealed their place among the Peaks, Bernhard captured a woman from an unknown tribe that wore an emerald hood. She claimed she was a seer who could guide him to great riches if he heard her out. She was the prophet who claimed their line was destined for the horizons, and though Bernhard bore many sons, in his efforts of domination, he became reclusive, eventually passing of old age in his longhouse, surrounded by the wealth they collected from their conquests. It was then that his many sons fought for domination, and to the surprise of all it was his youngest son Eberhard the Beloved who came to take the throne after slaying his brothers. Eberhard’s legacy was what inevitably became the familial legacy of Lovenburg, and the prophecy of the strange woman was the guiding force of all that had come to fruition.
With stories shared, Hans decided to take an opportunity, and asked Quinn if he’d travel north with him into the Tìr Dhè. Quinn was surprised at first, but Hans explained that he could not stay in the King's lands safely. Not anymore at least. It was the best option he had to not only escape the lands where he would surely be executed if he were caught, but it also gave him the opportunity to actually see all of these things Quinn shared with him. If not, he would try to find his own ways, since south and west meant death, and east likely meant death at the hands of the Namandlans. Quinn informed Hans that they would have to see where the hunt led them first. If they both survived, he could think of no immediate issues traveling farther with such a bizarre companion.
On the night of the third day, Hans and Quinn made camp a fair walk away from the river’s mouth into the great southern lake. They dragged their canoe into the tree line, and Quinn cut some dense branches down with the ax to provide partial camouflage in case anyone followed them or decided to take their possessions in the night. Quinn was busy preparing a small fire when Hans asked about what tomorrow would bring.
“Well, I can’t say for certain yet,” Quinn said, “but once I get a better walk around the tower and hopefully find some tracks, I can figure out exactly what we’re about.”
Hans pried further, “Well, for your Mathan Grod’s, those sound like great beasts of sorts. What is your people’s plan for bringing those down?”
“Ah, well… about that…” Quinn’s eyes averted from the fire starter, and up to Hans, “We usually hunt those big bastards with about twelve people. Takes about three per leg to get them down on their bellies, and then the front paw hunters try to drive spears into the sides of its skull before it can rise back up. It’s just you and me out here.”
This answer was unsatisfactory for Hans. It was sounding more and more like Quinn’s people sent him out here to die, and that is when Hans realized he had never bothered asking why Quinn had been exiled. He mentioned it several times, and when he had, Hans had more important matters to think about than some dirty naked man’s crimes.
Hans thought about the most strategic way to ask without jeopardizing access to his guide north, and while he pondered his words, Quinn successfully drew a spark, and lit the flame that would warm them through camp.
“Now that I’m thinking on the matter, I do have a question for you,” Hans began, “What is it that got you cast out by your people? We’re both exiles now. You know why I’m here. What was your crime?”
Quinn’s excited smile about sparking the flame faded like the rising embers that fluttered to life in the air between them. His eyes averted from Hans, and towards the fire. There was a long silence, and then Quinn answered.
“It was my fault that people died on a hunt. It was something we had never seen before. Some kind of creature in the deeper caves that my hunting party had never seen. It was… bizarre. Even compared to most beasts we hunt. Usually there’s some kind of familiar… how would you say, ‘repeated similar things’ in your tongue?”
“A pattern?” Hans answered quizzically.
“Yes, a pattern of forms. There are snake things with no legs, bird things with wings and two legs, and then beast things with four legs. Usually we’d use these patterns to hunt the beasts. This thing had eight long legs and made terrible clicking sounds as it moved.”
Hans’ mind turned to the giant spiders in the Waldgebiet, but he remained silent.
“We didn’t need to fight this thing, but I was the hunting party leader, and I wanted to see what it was capable of…”
Tears welled in Quinn’s eyes. He stopped speaking and began sobbing. Hans knew then what got the man exiled. Weakness, and impulsivity. He made a foolish decision that got his trusted people killed and was too weak to own up to his shortcomings.
This was the burden of emotion that Hans could not understand. It was one thing to be frustrated, but it was another to make such foolish decisions. Even with all of the planning he had done in attempting to kill his father, in revision he now that he could have just been him. He didn’t need anyone’s help; it would have been so much simpler to do it by himself. Initially he thought that having some of the lesser nobles on his side would have allowed him to maintain stability in the land for a little while, but seeing how quickly they turned on him, Hans realized that there was no stability to maintain with such parasitic men.
“I’m sorry.” Hans said. It was a partial lie, he was sorry Quinn had such vulnerability, and he was sorry to be aware of it now, but he knew that generally people apologize for what weak people described as ‘sad’ things and offered this consolation.
Quinn choked back his cries and looked up at the unmoving expression on Hans’ face. After some time in the shared silence, Quinn rekindled the conversation.
“You don’t… feel. Not the way I do. Am I right?”
Hans raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”
Quinn reasserted, “You don’t express things like love, or loss, or any of that. It’s why you’re so calm all the time, especially after trying to kill your own father. By the Gods, I couldn’t even imagine trying that. Yet here you are, solid as stone. What’s it like?”
Hans twisted his face, but Quinn maintained his position, “What is it like, not experiencing all these things? Do you just… not see the beauty of the world, and the bliss and sorrow that come with it? Or can you see it, and you’re just… untouched by it?”
After some thought, Hans replied, “I just don’t care. Happiness, sadness, all of it in their own ways are forms of weakness. They allow you, and anyone else who has them to be manipulated by people like me. I’m telling you this because frankly, even though you are of lesser blood, you have saved my life, and have shared with me a world that I was unaware existed beyond my halls. I know saying you are of lesser blood may bother you, but it is a fact of life as far as my people are concerned. I am lucky, in a way. My father almost let me kill him because of his deep ties to love, and sentiment. I would kill my own son for the same acts were I in his position without hesitation. Strength comes from being decisive and calculated.”
The world returned to silence, and it lingered between the two as they both sat watching the fire. Quinn was the one to break the silence with “In a way, I would say I envy you. Being detached from… Well, everything. I think I would enjoy a few days like that. I don’t think I’d stand a lifetime of it though.”
Hans scoffed at the statement. “It's not hard to stand it when it doesn’t bother you. The only thing that bothers me is knowing I would have been better off just killing my father in his sleep or something. Uncle insisted that I needed to have a ‘strong presence’ for the people, but why the fuck should I care what they think of me? I am their rightful lord, destined to govern and lead them. Whether they love, hate, fear, or fawn over me doesn’t matter, worth a bucket of pig’s shit to me.”
“Is it strange to you though? Knowing that there’s all these things that exist around you, and not being able to indulge them?”
Silence returned, but in its long presence, no one broke the silence. Hans hadn’t thought much about this subject. He never considered if it was other people being weak, or if he himself was living in a limited way. The thought interested him. In a way, less was more. He was less likely to be used, manipulated, or otherwise toyed with, but in the same vein of thoughts, he was rendered incapable of knowing an experience that anyone else would have.
He watched the fire dance with the swirling wind as his thoughts performed in the theater of his mind. Quinn realized the thoughtful Prince was likely to remain silent, and that he was in no mood to keep talking, so he took the bow and began his night of watch. The two sat in silence, until only one sat in silence while the other was lost in dreams untold.
---
The sun rose upon the weary prince, and he rose from his earthen bed. Sleeping in the wilderness had been a hellish experience all its own, but it was still better than being dead. As he rose from his slumber, he rubbed the delirium out of his eyes, and tried to refocus on the world around him. The sunlight was warm on his face and contrasted with the morning dew in a refreshing way, despite the nipping pain in his back from sleeping on the firm dirt. He cradled his head and let out an exacerbated breath, then rose from the ground to get some water. Quinn warned him of the dangers of drinking straight from the stream, but Hans was too thirsty to care about foreign superstition this morning.
As he plopped down along the riverbank, he studied his surroundings, and though the world around him was familiar, it could not have felt more alien. The trees were variable in their shades of brown, with the occasional white wood tree sneaking between them. Some bore the skeleton of a barren canopy, while others maintained their evergreen splendor, as if to contrast the teachings of the Guide himself, life within death in an endless parallel, entwined until life is again reborn and restored. Hans admired the rime that edged around the leaves, showing winter’s embrace upon the fallen canopy, a reminder of the quick death that the cold season brings. Hans appreciated that his father had not been sent to oversee the Südmarsch, for the winter season there was a grueling hell of its own right. Endless blizzards and attacks from dire wolves blighted the snowy south and would have made their prison escape a few days ago an impossible task. Here in the King’s land, the winter’s bite was mild but notable, and one could sleep outside with little worry of freezing to death if a fire were maintained.
It was upon thinking back to the fire that Hans realized he hadn’t the slightest clue to where Quinn was. He swore aloud and stumbled up to a standing position before running back to their makeshift camp. The fire headed foreigner was nowhere to be seen. The ax had been left near Hans’ sleeping position, but the bow and knife were gone, as were all but one tin of dried rations. Hans felt anger welling up in his chest when a familiar voice called from behind him.
“Oi, you’re awake. Took you long enough, I had time to hunt up a few hares.”
“You left me alone in the dirt? What happened to taking watches?”
Quinn laughed, “I was no further than a hundred paces inland. Plus…” he lifted three dead hares from his belt, “now we have some fresh meat for breakfast!”
“What happened to the dried rations? We had two more days between the two of us, and now there’s a single meal’s worth!”
“How do you think I coaxed these little fuckers out of their burrow? Dried fruit does wonders for the fat ones. I saved all the meat though, there should still be enough food for a day and a half between us, and after the big beastie, we might not be worried about eating at all for a while.” Quinn smiled again with the gaps of the King’s punch still pronounced across it. Hans was disappointed with the waste of resources, but hot meat would taste better than salty fruit, so he didn’t complain. They shared their meal by the remains of the night’s fire and discussed what would come of getting to the tower today.
Quinn’s plan was fairly cut and dry, and Hans wasn’t much of a fan of that. The basic idea was that they would pull the boat up a ten minute walk from the tower, and then Quinn would check the tower alone for tracks that might suggest what kind of creature it was, then report back to Hans. Hans thought this plan was stupid, and suggested traveling up together, where they would both be present, and uncover what hid in the tower at the same time. Quinn wasn’t sold on the idea of having someone who walked so loudly follow him in a noise sensitive endeavor, and Hans didn’t like the idea of letting Quinn go in and die alone, leaving him alone with next to no food in the wilderness.
After much arguing over breakfast, during the subsequent trip along the river, and eventually at their point of landing, Quinn relented and allowed Hans to follow him up to the tower. The argument of ‘if I’m going to die in the woods alone, I’d rather it at least be quick’ was rather persuasive, and though Quinn didn’t mention it out loud, the idea of the beast being distracted by Hans would allow him to make a hasty escape, so in a weird way, it was a winning situation regardless of outcome.
The duo approached slowly, with Quinn leading with an arrow notched and ready to fire, and Hans with the woodcutter’s ax, braced for whatever the day may bring. They were roughly a half minute march from the tower when Quinn raised a hand. The two stopped, and his emerald gaze wandered over the unkept grounds of the area surrounding the tower.
Quinn turned his head to speak to Hans, but maintained his forward stare, “Grass hasn’t been moved. No signs of walking in or out of here. The door is open, maybe it was left that way. Our beast might have wings.”
“What’s that mean for us then?”
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“It means that the ax won’t matter if I can’t shoot a wing out on it.”
Hans was not happy with that answer, but Quinn continued, “Wait… can’t be a winged beast. At least none with claws, there’s no scratches on the stonework.” He pointed out the stoney top of the tower to Hans, and the lack of damage that hadn’t come from years of rainfall. “You ever heard of any flying beasts that don’t have claws?”
Hans shrugged, “Can’t say I have.”
Quinn turned to look all the way at Hans, “Well, then this is going to be fucking awful.”
“How so?”
“I’ve never fought anything that can fly without leaving a trace, or not leave footprints. If I can’t think of what it is, and you don’t know what it is, we have to go blind. That’s never good. I’d say we could try to burn it out, but the tower is all stone. So we can wait for it to come out, and study it, or we can rush in and die like fools.” With that statement, Quinn sat in the grass, and stared intently at the tower. Hans pondered Quinn’s words for a moment, then sat beside him.
Minutes turned to hours, and morning turned to afternoon when Quinn broke the predatory quiet by saying, “I think the fucking thing is empty.”
Hans turned and asked, “Empty? Are you certain?”
Quinn nodded, “Never heard of any beast this patient before. That or maybe it’s sleeping?”
“Maybe you can fire off an arrow at an upstairs window? That might wake it up and then we can lay low and hide?”
Quinn scoffed, “That is perhaps the stupidest thing you’ve said to me.” Quinn shortly afterward pulled the arrow back and loosed it at one of the windows on the tower’s second floor. After a few moments, it connected with the long decayed wooden panel covering, shattering it, and penetrating into the room.
The two hit the ground and laid flat and waited for any sign of a beast being roused. Minutes passed, and no such sign came. The two made a tentative rise from their place in the grass and looked at each other. Hans slapped Quinn on the shoulder, and exclaimed, “I thought you said it was the stupidest thing I’d said!”
“Well… yes. It didn’t seem like a terrible idea though.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Many things, Hans, many things.” Quinn smiled again, and then rose to his feet. “Looks like our beast isn’t home after all. Let’s go in and see if we can find anything to use against it. Maybe we can set a trap or ambush it when it returns.”
Hans watched Quinn rise from their place in the overgrown grass and as he started walking towards the tower, Hans called out to him “How do you even know it’s a big one?”
Quinn stopped in his steps, turned around to face Hans, and said “I don’t. But big or small, nothing made a sound or came out of the tower. I would say it seems empty.” He then returned to his original path. Hans muttered a few vulgarities about Quinn’s intelligence to himself, and then followed suit.
The tower itself was a remarkable stone structure, raised three full houses worth of height off of the lakeside. In the old days, these towers served as a watchpoint along the borders of the Lovenburg kingdom when the war effort had begun to struggle. Waging war against a warband of neighboring tribes had not been the wisest course of action and nearly ended the familial line that Hans belonged to. However, it was thanks to the clever foresight of an Ersta general that the watch towers had been constructed and defended, allowing messenger ravens to fly between them and allowing garrisoned warriors to safely ambush lesser tribes, while remaining in relative safety in the wilderness.
Once, many generations back, this tower would have cut an imposing figure, but now as it lies overrun with moss and pox of weathering, it lie a sad reminder of a once glorious past. The window panels had all but rotted off, and the once secure oak door sat lazily askew, a termite infested corpse of its former self. As Quinn entered the first floor, he noticed the ambient air of decay that permeated the tower and gagged. Something had been killed in here.
After unsuccessfully searching for tracks leading up to the tower, the two men entered the ground level after some whispered communications, and silent agreement that it was in fact Quinn’s idea to come up this soon, so Quinn got to go first. Hans kept an eye out for anything that looked like it needed to be struck down, and Quinn scanned the room with his arrow at the ready. The long fetid debris of what once stood as the armory lie before them. Weapon stands lie against the far walls, collapsed inwards upon themselves, and the tables in the center looked as if some monumental weight had been set upon them, with splintered fragments being the only telltale sign of their presence. The stairwell leading to the second floor seemed to be in wonderful condition, as the stone inside the tower had been unmarred by the external world. Dissatisfied with their findings, the two cautiously ascended the stairs.
What their eyes beheld defied all their anticipation and logical expectations, for in the center of the room lie the long desiccated corpse of a man in what were once fine silk robes of sky blue and white coloration. His long beard now a wispy tether of white strands lie peacefully on his chest, and he lay on his back in the center of what looked to be a five pointed star touching each of its points along a bordering circle, with white candles set around the points. Beside his body lay a black tome with golden lettering. The arrow that had been fired through the window lodged itself beside the text, a half step away from sealing the pages together.
Quinn pursed his lips, and while shaking his head, stated “I don’t like this.”
“Well, he’s already dead. What’s he going to do?” questioned Hans.
“Not him. Something killed him. Looks like it’s been a while. I’ve never heard of a beast that didn’t eat its prey…”
Quinn walked to the edge of the circle; bow trained for the entryway of the third floor. The wooden ladder that led to the open trap door lay desolate on the ground by what might have once been a small wooden bedframe. Hans approached the dead man; a curiosity gripped him about the strange book that lay on the floor. It remained in rather pristine condition, despite the weathered look of its previous owner.
Hans picked up the dust covered tome and found its text entirely indecipherable. He raised the volume up, and offered it to Quinn, who took the volume of text and looked over it cautiously.
“It’s Minali,” stated Quinn, “This man looks like an arcanist from the Aldaayim. What in the name of the Gods was he doing all the way down here?” A long shadow cast itself over Quinn’s face, as if some dark truth had been revealed.
“Run. Now.”
Hans was about to ask why just as Quinn began his rapid descent of the stairs. Quinn was out of sight and running through the first floor that his discovery became known. The sound of footfall stopped, and an eerie silence crept into the tower. Hans noted that he was unable to move his limbs on his own will, and stood locked in time, ax hefted over his shoulder. Panic began to set in, followed by a pungent scent of rot. There was a distant sound like something wet had been gradually sliding from somewhere. Moments after the damp sound stopped, the screaming began. Desperate, longing screams. They were unmistakably Quinn’s. They didn’t last exceptionally long. Then, as if Quinn had not been present at all, the silence returned, with the heralding call of a soft thump from the first floor.
With his heart racing, and his mind numb with adrenaline, Hans willed his body to run, to dive through the open window, to do anything. He remained a monument to his own failures and stood helpless as an ethereal voice called out to his mind.
“Plaything…”
Slowly, something otherworldly and utterly incomprehensible coiled its viscous form around Hans. It was careful not to make contact, but prevented his departure, as if he were even capable of leaving. As it moved, the familiar wet slithering sound returned, far more discernible now in this waking nightmare’s presence. Its ‘body,’ if it could even be called that, was a discolored gelatinous mass that bore coloration akin to old bones left in the sun. Atop what Hans hoped was its head, it had a long clump of what looked like black strands of long hair sprouting in thin tendrils. His poor assumption was corrected when a ‘face’ appeared on the middle portion of its body. The first milky white visage protruded towards him. Though its ‘eyes’ and ‘mouth’ were discernible features that offered this congealed mass a ‘face,’ they were entirely devoid of color, reminiscent of an empty night sky without stars. Its ‘faces’ began to contort, rapidly displacing to show several unique yet equally devoid and disfigured visages. Each ‘face’ seemed to fight one another for dominance, perhaps at the chance to be the ‘mouth’ that would feed. As the ‘mouths’ expanded, the smell of spoiled meat and active decay permeated the room to the point that it was almost suffocating. Chitinous spindle legs unfurled from the gelatinous body, protruding with a sickly sound of meat sloughing off of bones. Hans found himself surrounded on all sides by bony spears, poised to pierce him from all angles. He stood in silent horrified awe as he watched while this thing peered deeper into his very soul. Its penetrating gaze lingered upon him for much longer than it had taken for Quinn’s screams to go quiet before a voice spoke again within his mind.
“Not… sour… enough…”
The words were spoken in a mind-numbing torrent of voices, a maddening ethereal cacophony, all shrill and unearthly. Blood began to seep slowly from his tear ducts and ear canals, and his mind burned white hot in his head.
Hans wondered what this thing possibly meant by sour. He had drunk soured ale, and seen soured meats, but this was as confusing as it was horrifying. As if reading his mind, the voice continued.
“Sour… Guilt… Feeble words for feeble beings… but I need them… I crave them… the guilty… and you are… not guilty… strange…”
If he were a lesser man, Hans would have died of fear, for his heartbeat faster than he had ever expected. What in the name of the Gods was this thing?
“I know… your thoughts… plaything. No gods… come before me… or my siblings…”
This thing read his mind. A horrifying notion, but a convenient one. The idea that this creature had siblings nearly made Hans actually soil his trousers. In the long minutes of sitting in this thing’s horrifying presence and clearing the thoughts in his head from attempting to run away, and not pissing himself, Hans milled over the thought of taking this thing back to the castle, and watching it descend upon those cowards and bastards who dared question his role as inheritor of the throne. These thoughts seemed to entertain the abomination before him, and the voice filled him again.
“Very tasty thought… but your ‘gods’… are a problem… they spare you… from our hunt… or I would feed… deeply… mmm…”
That was a good thing to know, that this thing was at least deterred by the Seven. Horror crept back into his mind as he realized how helpless he and his people were in the face of such monstrosities by themselves. He had no control now, and as this abhorrent form insisted, he had become its plaything.
That’s when the idea struck his calculating little mind. He was this thing’s plaything. It clearly had influence over him, but could it embolden him? Could it offer him the strength to return alone and face his father? He would feed this beast every slave in the city, and every mewling noble if it assured he could manifest his destiny as King of the known world. This beast seemed to like that idea.
“Hmm… I will not eat you… no guilt is… so dull… but offerings and deals… my brothers are the ones who indulge such things… but… so many succulent… sour souls… mmm… I like your thoughts, plaything. So very… satisfying…”
If this creature was speaking the truth, he was at least safe, unlike Quinn. Feeling a wave of respite, as if this thing intended to relax its power over him, Hans managed to stammer out, “Wh-what kind of p-power could you grant me, oh horrifying thing?”
The thing made a new, and more horrifying noise. Almost as if the physical body of this thing were… laughing. It was a choking gurgling sound, with the patterns of laughter, and all of it sounded disgusting.
“I am… kindred of the cosmos… I can offer you the stars… if it meant you would feed me. Making deals… very clever… brothers were right.”
This abomination claimed it could offer him the stars. What weapon could he possibly want to wield as he fought his father, and slaughtered those witless appointees? His thoughts turned to recent days, and to the recently deceased. Quinn shared with him stories of magic in the far north. Unchecked power, as fast as the mind conjured it into existence.
“Mm… magic. Very tasty thoughts indeed… hides my presence… as your own. Gods… won’t know the difference… and I… may feast… and leave this place… mmm yes… I can offer magic… only for a moment… but what will I get, plaything? How many morsels… are worth magic?”
Hans spouted off the first number that came to mind. Seven. The number of Gods that guided the world.
“Seven guilty souls… for magic uninhibited… until a new king has been made… hmm…” The creature seemed to think of this offer, and then the voice returned, “The pact… is made…”
Hans’ right hand moved by its own volition, and the ax dropped behind him. He stuck his arm forward with his palm raised upward. This thing’s ‘hair’ coiled down, and the black tendrils bit into his flesh as they wrapped in a wild pattern up his arm, ending at his shoulder.
The pain was surreal, almost blissful. Hans wished he could inflict such sweet yet sinister pain upon his victims, and this thing laughed once again. The sound made him nauseous. He felt his mind growing feeble as the tendrils uncoiled from him, and consciousness drifted from his mind as the terror before him drifted from view.
---
Hans sprang back to the waking world, startled and frightened. His position in the world had not changed, but his right arm ached severely. As he inspected the source of pain, he found that the recent exchange of things had not been a vivid nightmare and had in fact taken place some unknown number of hours ago. The full moon’s glow illuminated the room, but he noted that he could see as if it were a cloudless day. His arm had been horribly deformed, with black tendrils enveloping his fingers, and then coiling like writhing serpents up to his shoulder. Dots of what looked to be spoiled milk pulsated along these eldritch tracings and watching them for too long made Hans sick. He rose from the ground and glanced at the dead man. He should have considered his weaknesses more seriously before seeking power. Especially if he knew what he was getting into.
Attention was diverted from one dead man to another. Quinn. Hans turned and walked the steps to find his recent traveling companion in a rather similar state to the arcanist upstairs. Though his clothes maintained their pristine condition, his body had rapidly withered and desiccated into what looked like the corpse of a long bygone ancestor. His flaming locks extinguished into a smoky white, the emeralds in his eye sockets rotted into empty hollows. The tome of the arcanist lay beside him. Hans stepped over the corpse that was once Quinn and retrieved it. The golden lettering still fascinated him, and he wished he could understand it.
It was then that the gravity of his actions reached him. As he willed the world to change in his favor, it did. His arm thrummed with a strange energy that was not his own, and his eyes accommodated his desires. The title of the volume read “First Mark on the Star,” and it was written by a man named Arcanist Rafiq Bilal. Hans read this once illegible text and found the truth of what his actions led him to: Arcanists understood this creature quite well.
Her name, and it did appear to distinctly address itself as ‘her,’ was Mahin Bwyar’oug, and she was the first of five theorized elder gods that existed before the dawn of man or myth. Though most of the volume consisted of speculations, there were three known facts about this abhorrent monster: She only consumed those who felt genuine and strong guilt, she could be conjured with a basic ritual and often responded quickly in hopes of receiving offerings, and there was once a culture dedicated to her worship. They were an ancient people who gave her and her siblings names, and the ruins of their civilization dotted the uninhabitable western deserts. Whoever they were, they worshiped four such beings, but represented them with a five pointed star, which was a curiosity to all who studied the arcane arts and led to the theorization of the unspoken fifth.
Hans read thoroughly through this enlightening text, then looked back to his arm. The dull hum of power faded, but its effect remained. His will could alter the world, and this newfound power harbored wonderful potential. He wondered to what extent this power could operate with, and his attention returned to the corpse of Quinn. Though he was of lesser blood, he had made an entertaining traveling companion, like a pet or performer of sorts. He willed the world to return his traveling companion to life with hopes of garnishing a life debt from his previous plaything.
The alien power pulsated again through his arm, and with it came an almost overwhelming wave of fatigue. Dark power coursed through his body, and Hans dropped to his knees and cradled his aching head. A strange warmth filled his nose and flowed from his tear ducts. When the headache subsided, he wiped away the warmth, and then dusted the blood from the back of his hand off on his tattered trousers. He lifted his gaze to his dead companion and found that his will had not quite expressed itself as he had intended it to.
The withered husk of what once was Quinn shakily rose, moaning low and hungrily. As it stood, Hans could see that the empty hollows now bore a dark ethereal glow behind them. It wasn’t what he was hoping for, but this iteration showed so much more promise. He had almost forgotten all of the cryptic stories of draugr, those long dead corpses brought back to serve and guard. Their masters, the fabled ‘necromancers,’ had always held his interest, though none of his tutors would ever speak on the subject. A sense of childish wonder and glee washed over him, and he willed this shambling husk to fetch the ax. Slowly, but certainly, it obeyed. With a smirk, Hans ascended the stairs and willed the second husk of humanity to rise, and it too obeyed. A devoid glow resonated within the corpse, and it too stood at silent attention for its new master. Dark thoughts loomed in the mind of the forsaken prince, and a new and very bloody plan was forged in the ironworks of his mind.