3rd of Obritnaum, 1149 of the First Age.
In the midst of the forest clearing where she stood gallantly with her company, in front of her lay an ancient, forgotten ruin. It’s weathered walls and columns bore wailing faces, their lidless, empty eyes stared at them, warning them of the danger’s lurking within. The once pristine white stones now greyed completely after eons passed without care.
Surrounding them were imposing trees with white bark. Leaves of deep obsidian shades emitting smothering dark mist that swallowed the little light that entered the clearing. Their eerie shadows cast over the ruin’s timeworn façade.
“Had doubts found their way into your heart my dear niece?” Augermil a fine draevhen warrior of seven thousand years walked up to her stunning niece whom herself blended into the scenery with her haunting form. His shadow tenderly shrouded her well-honed petite frame clad in the finest of aevhen crafted armors.
An aevhen face most beautiful even by their standards, long dark hair that never reflected the light, yet possessed an unparalleled luster. A tender, pale face perfectly fitted with graceful eyes adorned with dark slit pearls. Soft, marble like scales covered her sharp cheekbones and under her armor, took intricate patterns.
Their armor, matching collection of draocryte plates with an unparalleled silver sheen. Each placed over where the arkhaine points positioned, namely at the abdomen, their muscled thighs, and feet in the form of greaves. Lastly at the hands, whence they ran upwards in seamless, metallic perfection. Reaching the shoulders, they were shaped to resemble the deathly sparks of the Silent Shepherds’ Lantern she carried around to guide the dead to their Judgement at the Gray City of Asphodel.
While for Augermil, the torso plate also engulfed his chest, for her it ended at her bountiful chest, in the shape of a shell protecting them. Above it, her seamless dark, leather tunic with white trims continued protecting her body. The neck of her tunic was fashioned into two arched folds, with the bottom tips touched the shoulder. Keeping those together, was a white silken cravat tightly knotted under the folds. The leather material itself – aevhen made – had a silken luster and smoothness, paired with the durability of metals while still flexible enough like the leather tunics.
“No, thank the Deossos and the Almodo, my resolve remains.” Moirstyria answered offering a heartfelt smile to her uncle. Her long, sharp ears softly quivered as if listening on to a hidden song, but there was only silence surrounding them. An eerie silence as the forest still possessed some form of life. Brows contorted as she looked up, took in the harsh warmness of the sun.
“Truly? Fear is not our enemy, but our savior in battles against the unknown, the unexperienced.” Augermil said while his eyes searched her visage, for proof that she just put up a front.
“Truly uncle. I did feel fear while we were traversing the forest. But now, strangely its as if fear and dread passed in my heart.” She reassured him with a smile.
“Then we should make our way inside sooner rather than before fear and dread revive within your heart.” Augermil approached the ruins with heavy steps, his body and armor’s combined weight combined together shook the ground softly.
“I’m with the old man. The sooner we are over with, the better.” Their Niuvhen comrade Akamion said as he stopped beside her. His deep moon silver eyes fixated on the imposing ruins, a slight hint of fear in them.
Akamion was a young warrior from the far east of the Elhyrissian Empire, clad in their lacquered, black segmented tanko with deep reddish frames with a shortened, thick kimono under it. At his side, his katana rested in its hilt, waiting for its master to unleash it against the wicked.
“And the sooner you can take a proper bath, isn’t it?” Moirstyria poked his side with a cheeky smile.
“You lunars are quite strange. Thinking of baths instead of all the glory we will amass today.” Before he could retort, Dagbjartur stepped in while patting his back. Which almost sent him to the ground if not for his stench entering his nostrils as soon as he stepped a foot closer to him. His shabby chestnut hair and already graying beard still contained leaves and even some small pebbles from the ground.
On the other end, his furred armor lacked of any of that thanks to certain enchantments he and Ba’atz, a haebrian magus of the group woven into them secretly. That now made him wonder, why didn’t they also enchant his beard and hair at the time.
“My skaeze friend, with a natural canopy like yours, how do you not desire a fresh lillyum bath?” Hearing those words, Djagbartur answered in a hearty laugh.
“Well, I just got used to it.” Then he answered plainly. “Anyway, who stays out Isty?” Once again, before Akimion could speak, Djag turned to their Moirstyria and asked.
“You and Aki come with us. The rest stay and if we don’t come out in half a day, return to the town.” For a while she remained silent while gazing at the ruins with Augermil.
“As if with two Chosen on our side anything bad could happen to us.” Djagbartur said loudly, his attitude brimming with confidence as he unsheathed his large battle axe resting at his back.
“As you wish Isty!” Ba’atz said with half a bow, during which his silken robes remained seamless. “And do not worry about this decision. I always wanted to see the famous Black Forest and its haunting wonders.” He added noticing the somber look on her.
“I’ll lead the way.” Augermil said as he proudly looked at them while his large round Aspil shield appeared out of thin air, attached to his left arm already. His right hand with his long, straight blade in hand. As they arrived under the embrace of the soft shadows, the sound of their steps gradually died down the closer they got to the imposing entrance.
Once an ornate black gate, mostly adorned with white skulls carved from crystalline, with a grin elicited strange feelings in all who looked upon them. Grief with a certain sense of joy, relief that the ones in the Beyond now can rest in the Eternal Dream. But now those very same skulls upon the black marble were tainted by wicked shadows eating light and more in His presence.
**
A lunar sphere hovered high above the four, parting the thick shadows settled within the ruin. Within the darkness the light revealed seemingly endless corridors occupied by darkness and silence, crypts with praying statues all focused towards the center where a single large marble grave lied in each. Their heavy lids slid over to the sides, revealing their gaping emptiness, only small spiders and their homely webs occupied them along dust and air.
“Blasphemy.” Akamion muttered as he stood in front of a large mural, reshaped to glorify the Grimm Sovereign. Once the mural was a showcase for the benevolence of the Silent Sheperd guiding lost souls towards the Beyond. Now it bore the dreadful glory of Her treacherous father who went against the Dream of the Almodo, waging a war against his own Sisters and Brothers.
“Come on, the sooner we leave this crypt, the better.” Djag said, his words barely reached his ears in their proper forms.
“Ready yourselves, he must be close.” Moirstyria said, as she barely understood their decaying words. She could tell as their footsteps barely made any sound if at all.
A chilling dread breezed through their being making them stop in their tracks. For several moments they waited. “Undead.” Augermil shouted, yet only four letters managed to reach the others.
Undead charged forth from the darkness, the light revealed their decayed husks clad in fine priestly garments that still remained in perfect condition, even after a thousand or more years. “Behind too.” Djagbartur tried to warn everyone, but it only reached Akamion, and only in torn pieces.
A rotten claw swung at Akamion’s neck, yet it only reached his gleaming chest plate. The scratch marks sizzling with nekrotic matter slowly faded away, while his katana sliced the undead in two. Its mangled distorted scream filled him with unease, but pushed through it and crushed the dead’s head to dry pieces.
While his katana aimed for the next undead, lunar-runes appeared on its surface, blending in with the metallic hue. As its tip ran diagonally down the undead’s torso, it lit up in a silvery flame that devoured its ages old rotten, moving carcass within three constant blinks of an eye.
Djagbartur as expected of him, fared the same against the seemingly mindless undead filled with nothing but hatred and hunger. His heavy battleaxe cut through one of them, once a haunting beauty, a priestess of the Grimm Sovereign before his betrayal, severed into two from top to bottom.
Another charged at him, its shrieks broke at every second primal syllable annoying the hulking northern man to no end. Lightning surrounded the blade of his battleaxe, then as he swung it into the air, a line passed through the shrieking dead. Its body blew to sizzling dark smithereens.
Augermil fared even better unsurprisingly for someone with at least six thousand years of battle experience. Most of the undead charged from the front now lay dead, pale flames swallowing their afresh unmoving carcasses while vile smoke burnt their throats and nostrils. Gentle waves of the same pale flames engulfed his blade, with careful steps he cut more and more of the dead aimed at him.
As the last of the walking dead fell back to their eternal slumber, a perfect, eerie silence settled. When they cleansed their blades of residual tainted blood and nekrotic matter, the usual sharp, wet sound was amiss. When Djagbartur opened his mouth to let out a victorious shout, no vibration, no positive, audible consonants. Just silence. A silence that creeped into their hearts slowly, piercing them with chilling unseen needles.
Except for Moirstyria and Augermil whom both raised their hands, gesturing to continue on. Noticing their calmness, Akamion and Djag calmed themselves too as they took heavy, silent breaths while moving their legs forcibly.
Augermil raised his left hand into a fist as they stopped at old steps covered in bones and webs. The two nodded and turned their backs in a defensive position, Djag’s lips curved into a bloodthirsty smile as expectation of what may charge at them tingled his senses.
His mana flew through his arkhaine veins between the two points in his left arm, then another silvery sphere appeared in his palm covered in metallic leather. The sphere rose into the air and stayed between him and his dear Moirstyria.
Each of their steps sang of an empty, silent choir as the light’s impacted the enormous mirror dome turning the silver to a pale white light revealing the circular hall. At the walls featureless statues prayed with their arms crossed over their chests, fists facing east and west while tightening onto their shoulders. A similarly glass river flowed into the center, where he rested down on his knees, under the last sculpture of The Grimm Sovereign.
A fine sculpture of several hundreds of meters tall skeletal figure draped in dark robes. Small divine horns sprouting forth from its skull, forming into a circle, a crown while the hood remained resting behind the absent nape. Six decaying wings sprouted forth its back, surrounding His figure like blooming petals.
Skeletal arms held out front, in the right an hourglass of obsidian hovering above, rotating till the end comes. In the left a shifting featureless figure made of dense fluid – representing the life cycles of all blessed by Mortal Flesh.
“The seekers of the betrayers have finally arrived at Your altar my liege!” Vehelet’s voice, a fading note in the passing wind, entered into their minds. A chilling dread wrapped around their throats and hearts, their hands now gripped their weapons even tighter as they approached the at least four meters tall pale figure.
Flesh frozen in a half state of decay, nekrotic runes carved into the rough surface where alabaster black flesh hung on the last threads. A wicked grayish black metal waist piece from which hoarse pieces of cloth covered his frail appearing legs.
“These keen children of His will be a fine offering to you I’m most sure of this.” His voice ringed through their minds as he turned around, the darkness blurred around him as his featureless visage focused on the two. Dreads made of bones dangled at the sides of his head where his ears should have been, sprouted forth the top of his bald head.
As she looked at Augermil, he recalled his words while they headed through the dark forest. “When facing a foe not of our world, best to end the battle in the least amount of steps, and the least amount of strikes.” At that moment she thought it was such a foolish thing to utter. But now, standing in the presence of Vehelet, she knew if they don’t take him down swiftly, they were good as dead.
Her eyes shot wide, her senses sharpened as a pleasant feeling, similar to one when someone steps inside a cooled shelter from the scorching rays of sun, coursed through her while mana flew within her body. The world felt slower, dust particles became even more visible while Vehelet remained still.
Yet he remained as fast as before while raising his arm. The sudden rush of unease led the two jump at the far sides. A bit beyond them, one of the silent statues crumbled into dust, dust into nothing. His head tilted slightly like a surprised child’s, then focused at her once more. The same unease charged her as she constantly leapt from one place to another while statues crumbled to nothing, the wall rotted like flesh.
“How vexing. Why escape your fate. Embrace it, for it brings the change wanted.” The whisper bit into her mind this time making her almost fell at a wrong step. Her shield once with an unparalleled sheen became a rusted piece that dissipated as the cavernous deathly air blew it. One step to the right, one leap to the far left, then as she fell towards his head, her blade pointed down and her mouth opened agape, no sound escaped as she screamed in silence.
“Foolish knight of the Pretender, begone your death won’t matter to Him!” Augermil noticed his focus on Moirstyria and charged at Vehelet. His blade ran through his ethereal flesh, stopping at his abdomen. Vehelet’s angered voice filled his mind as he quickly pulled out his sword, barely managing to evade the arm aimed at his head.
“I see your truth now my liege. There is much to be done before the veins diverge.” He remained eerily still as the blade ran through where his face would have been. Moments passed, her hands shook with dread as he remained still, then his imposing pale body dissipated into the darkness. Her laughter echoed through the darkness as tears flowed down her sharp cheeks.
