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Force Necromancy - #OFP Entry | Star Wars Amino [https://pm1.aminoapps.com/6486/83714affd4f9ef2f7e8fcfdc5522fce88912dfdc_hq.jpg]
https://aminoapps.com/c/star-wars/page/blog/force-necromancy-ofp-entry/kKFG_u4pqVZjjM1D6J3GrQV5KonZDY
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Since the time of the first Archmage Lengara, Irlena had always been fascinated by magic. More so when she found out from her mother that all the women in her bloodline were blessed with certain gifts. Trained by her grandmother to see into the great beyond that existed between the nether realms, Irlena had spent much of her life playing cards with tricksters, dancing on clouds with elementals, and watching the daily lives of her subjects.
In a way she saw herself as a guardian, and for many years she had done what she could to keep her people safe. Which was in itself ironic since she knew they would throw her off a cliff the moment they found out what she was.
Half turning in her seat as she heard the door open behind her, Irlena smiled as she saw Sergeant Durgan in the doorway. A big and sturdy man with a robust physique, Irlena had always admired his calm temperament, and thoughtful expression. Today however was different as he quickly hurried inside, and carefully shut the door behind him.
Taking a deep breath as he scanned the room for possible dangers, the big warrior avoided her eyes as he took a seat on the bed opposite her. Then as if he could no longer contain his worry, he rasped out, “Have you seen the boy? Is he still alive?”
Unable to hide a chuckle as she was reminded of a time when Durgan had warned her against using magic, she replied with a wry grin, “he’s alive and well, and it seems he has found a map to Robar’s camp.”
Releasing a heavy sigh of relief, Durgan’s body seemed to relax a little. The big stern warrior she had grown up admiring, brushed his fingers through his thick black beard, his shoulders sagging with relief. “That’s good to hear.” And to her surprise, she found his words to be sincere, a wonder considering Durgan had known the boy would probably die and yet had sent him anyway.
Raising her left eyebrow at him to continue, Durgan read her unspoken question as he shook his shaggy head, and sighed. “I admit the plan was to use the boy to get close to Robar, but there is something about the lad that has grown on me. Any other man who has faced what he has faced would have run at the first sign of danger, and yet he stands and fights like the saints are watching out for him.” He then laughed a little, “perhaps in a way they are,” his gaze flickering up to meet hers, before he looked back down at his feet. “All the same, it seems your scheme has worked, my lady. With your mind linked to his, we can see all that he sees, and strategize our assault accordingly.”
A not so simple task considering the risk of exposure, but Irlena felt that to do nothing would be far worse for her people. This Robar character, whoever he was, and wherever he had come from was a threat that her father should never have ignored. But as it was, there was little she could have done back then when he had first appeared. At least not without arousing her father's suspicions. It was only through the wisdom of her grandmother that she had finally confided her abilities to Sergeant Durgan, a loyal soldier whose family had served theirs for generations. And it was to her surprise that she had found a warm reception from him. Not only had he been pleased by her gifts, but they had begun working together to better the lives of Hollow Valley. It just seemed a pity that he still refused to meet her gaze. Was he afraid of her?
Turning back to her desk with a heavy sigh at the thought, she closed her eyes, and sought out the glimmer of light that was Walter. It was like a tether that connected the two of them. A link she had created when she had seen him in the stables.
Floating through the air on streams of colorful gas, she found herself drawn back to the forest. The trees that covered the ground beneath her blighted the land like an open wound that oozed black pus for thousands of miles.
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Slowly drifting down towards Walter, she passed through the thick canopy, and saw hundreds of creatures perched atop the branches, their black feathers barely disguising their bulging bodies as their malevolent red eyes watched the forest floor below. While crouched down behind a tree was Walter.
An average young man who was relatively tall compared to the people of Hollow Valley, he had broad shoulders, long black hair, and a scar across his neck. Still wearing the mud stained uniform of Huxelberry’s guard, he looked both haggard and exhausted with dark rings around his eyes. And for reasons she couldn’t rightly explain she felt a touch of shame at what they had put the poor boy through. Not that she was much older than him.
Shaken by the sight of him, she floated in closer till she was but a breath away, and reached out an arm to touch him. Watching him shiver uncontrollably, she strengthened the link to her ephemeral body, and with a light gasp could suddenly see through his eyes. A disconcerting experience she had yet to get used to.
Drawing in imaginary lungfuls of air, she expelled it out slowly. The mental exercise meant to focus her mind as she opened her astral sight, a part of herself aware of her presence back in the castle, while also seeing everything that was going on in the forest.
Seeing the massive encampment ahead of her, she let out a sharp intake of breath, before she spoke out loud, “I believe he has found Robar’s encampment.” Hearing the shuffle of feet in the room with her, Durgan's voice seemed to echo as he asked, “Where exactly are they? How many can you see? Is Robar there with him? What of the sorcerer?”
Rolling her eyes a little at the plethora of questions, she tried to push her sight to go even further, the encampment coming into sharper focus. Licking her lips as she studied the dozens of gray tents around her, she noticed the interspersed poles that carried banners with a strange sigil of a red serpent on a field of black. She also noticed the immense enclosure full of corpses to the right of her, the orderly rows of tents that were marked off with different colors, and the dozens of heavily armored squadrons that patrolled the area.
But of more concern to her were the defenses that they had laid out around them. Besides a deep ditch that surrounded the entire clearing, they had a thick palisade of wooden spikes to slow approaching attackers, and at least fifteen bombardier's pointed in every direction. Having studied a little of siege weaponry during her brief education with Lady Rosette, she understood the devastation these cannons could cause on the field of battle, especially if they were equipped with grapeshot.
Again relaying everything she saw back to Durgan, she could feel the sergeant become more and more agitated as his heavy footsteps clomped on the floorboards around her.
Trying her best to not grind her teeth at the sound, she eventually snapped, "Can you please keep still! It's very distracting!" The big soldier coughed uncomfortably as he apologized. "Sorry, my lady."
Releasing a heavy sigh as she pictured him bowing his head, she returned to her hunt for Robar, and discovered an old run down fortress. With its walls half crumbled inward, it was clear that they had tried to reinforce the walls with rubble, but as she thought about taking a closer look at the ruins. She felt the presence of another mind. Powerful, dark, and full of swirling black energy, she was drawn to the darkness like a moth to light, and only through sheer force of will was able to tear her gaze away. Wondering what in the saints had just happened, she wasted no time, and fled back to Walter's side. The thought of getting anywhere closer to that cesspool of darkness making her skin crawl.
There as she tried to calm her rapidly beating heart, she saw the young man stand up, straighten his shoulders, and look as though he was about to do something incredibly foolish. But just as he took a step forward something must have happened because panic flashed in his eyes.
Able to link her sight back up with his, she saw the direction of his gaze, and felt a flush of terror run up her spine as she too saw what he was looking at. Moving towards the enclosure full of rotten corpses was a man robed head to toe in black, his face shadowed by a cowl, and skin pale as milk as he strode into the enclosure.
Surrounded by mounds of corpses that lay all around him, he raised his arms up to the sky, and in a flash of thunder that came from nowhere she heard a rumble from beneath the ground. Growing louder and louder as thunder flashed all around them, Irlena felt herself tremble with fear, and could hear Durgan ask what was wrong, when in a final explosion of dust clouds her vision was blocked. It was only after Walter lifted a hand from across his eyes that she realized he must have protected himself from the dust.
Then with a ripple that seemed to stir the ground in the enclosure once again, the undead slowly began to rise up, their voices lifted up in a chorus of guttural groans as they clawed themselves from the earth.