Prelude: Source of Corruption
Demonic Wildlands Near the Great Plateau
Month of the Snake 21, 172 ,328 DE
The charred remains of trees spread outward from a smoking crater in the Demonic Wildlands. Laying down, with their tops farther from the crater than their bases, every tree within more than a thousand meters of the crater had been turned into unnatural polychromatic crystal. Farther out, stretching for several kilometers, nothing remained but ash and charcoal.
Scattered among the trees, the polychromatic crystal remains of bird and animal looked as though they had died while fleeing from the crater. At the center of the crater, a magma-like substance, which had the same polychromatic color as the crystal remains outside the crater, churned and bubbled. Streamers of polychromatic gas rose from the magma-like substance before seeming to fall back under their own weight.
An airship slowly descended into the smoking crater. As it came to a halt, a couple dozen meters over the highest altitude the gas streamers reached, a hatch at the front of the airship opened. A black-cloaked man stood in the open hatch, and a bound yellow furred ape, a young one, lay at his feet. The ape was an infant Ferocious Beast. If it were an adult, it would have torn through the ropes binding it as easily as a strong adult human would snap a length of twine.
His eyes filled with contempt, the man kicked the infant ape out the hatch, while holding onto the end of a rope attached to the ape's bindings. Once the ape reached the end of its tether, it bounced and swayed like a pendulum. The man guided the swinging beast so that it passed through as many of the gas streamers as he could manage.
"RA! RA! RA!"
After a few minutes, the eyes of the ape glowed red, and it thrashed around wildly. As the black-cloaked man watched, the ape seemed to grow half a size larger, threatening to burst its bonds.
"Bring it up, Cross."
While still holding the rope, Cross, the black-cloaked man, turned and half-bowed. "Yes, My Lady."
Hauling up the struggling ape, Cross threw it on the deck of the airship's hold.
In the hold, a beautiful black-haired woman squatted down and examined the ape. She moved her fingertip through the air, leaving behind twisted spiderweb of silver-grey lines. Once she finished drawing the pattern, it released a faint polychromatic glow, which resembled the glow of the magma-like substance in the crater, and flies into the bound ape.
When the spell entered the infant ape's body, a translucent shape formed around it, growing in size until it dwarfed the woman. It would be over three meters in height if it were standing. Thick heavy slabs of bulging muscle make the figure look bloated. Bony plates covered the image's jaws and cheekbones, and bone spikes with sharp points stick out from its joints.
After staring at the image for several minutes, the black-haired woman drew another spell pattern formed entirely from polychromatic light. As she drew the spell, the woman's alabaster skin turned yellowish white, and her lips and eyelids took on an unhealthy blue tinge, making her resemble a walking corpse.
As she cast the new spell on the ape, its struggling ceased, and it stared intently at the black-haired woman. The woman smiled and seemed to pull a crystal vial out of thin air. Drawing a slender dagger from a sheathe at her waist, she sliced open a vein in the infant ape's neck and filled the vial from the spurting flow of blood.
After plugging the vial with a crystal stopper, the black-haired woman continued to watch the now docile ape. Over a few minutes, the flow of blood from the ape's neck stopped, and the wound scabbed over.
While the black-haired woman watched the ape, the blue tinge slowly faded from her skin.
"Put the Beast back in its cage and expose the others."
Cross picked up the bound infant ape. "Are the effects satisfactory, My Lady?"
The black-haired woman smiled. "The speed of the corruption is much greater than I hoped. Now, we need to find an effective means to expose a large number of Beasts to the Chaos energies. Once you expose the other Beasts, draw blood from each of them bring the vials to my lab."
Cross bowed. "Yes, My Lady."
