Deception & the Motivation of Madness

[Nyssis]

"Why are you here?" the man in red inquired of the woman in his doorway as he shifted about his various merchant's tools. She didn't seem to make any apparent effort to respond, instead proceeding into the heart of the room with a dreadfully sluggish pace. The Red Wizard looked annoyed by her presence—or, perhaps, a lack of apparent profit in his day's sales—but his tone suggested otherwise. He slowly measured out stacks of trade bars and coin, spreading them out atop the elaborate table he sat at, and calmly spoke to the unidentified female without giving her a sincere look in the eye.

"Let me guess: you wish to barter, hmm?" he began. "I've already told you several times that I am no longer interested in the ... 'spiritual trinkets' you have to offer. I also am not keen on giving you any sort of discount without first—"

The woman smiled coyly and cut off his words, insisting, "I will pay the full price this time, Aloth Zura." The mage paused his activity and glared up at her. Frankly, her smile annoyed him, but he feigned light-hearted interest and sat upright in his court chair. The relaxed posture beckoned the female closer to his desk, where she leaned down at its front and rested her elbows on the polished surface.

"I am listening, devil-worshipper," sighed Aloth, a subtle hint of an exasperated lie on his tongue. He motioned to gather his hands and interlock the fingers, as was a habit of his amidst conversation, but his companion's hand lashed forward and she caught him by the wrist.

"I require the services of an illusionist in your employ, but just any apprentice will not do," she said. Her words intruiged the man, but he was otherwise uninterested ... until he felt the discomfort of her skin on his own. Averting his eyes to locate the cause, Aloth noticed the horrible deformation that was her hands. The fingernails were completely torn off from the tip of each phalange, and it appeared as though an animal had been chewing through the flesh and bone. The tips were formed into beastial claws, and the skin was so bruised and shredded that it persistently bled.

A disturbing sight. He recoiled back his hand in disgust and began frantically readjusting the hem of his sleeve, double-checking the expensive fabric to ensure no stains had formed. The woman only chuckled.

"I understand why, Marona," Aloth conceded. "However, you used to intentionally mutilate yourself in the past, and your appearance in public was not a priority. Why is it now that you wish to conceal it?" Marona pursed her lips together and shifted her gaze to the menagerie of objects and baubels on his desk. A hand tapped against the wood in thought, and she offered him a smile.

"I need it for a deception that is very important to me."

---------------------------------------------

Marona darted through the halls of the citadel in haste, barefoot and gowned in a loose chemise that trailed along the tiles after her. It was early in the evening—perhaps not even a few hours after dusk—so the area was not terribly lit. Windows were sparce and torches long burned out. She frequently passed open doorways and squinted hard to see inside, but as time drew on she eventually skipped rooms altogether. In her hand, she toted a large ring of keys constructed of various metals; based on the sheer number of doors in the building, they belonged to the locks.

Eventually, she reached a door on the third floor of the building, and quickly parted the key ring to unlock the latch. It was the smithy's old chambers when the citadel was still alive with people, caked with dust and soot and tools. She held up the hem of her gown with a hand and outstretched the other for balance, and she proceeded carefully into the room. The scent alone was alarming: it strangled her with the burnt residue of tools long rusted, or the pungeant stench of oils and overused whetstones. Maneuvering around in the room was also overly difficult to tolerate.

Many old materials for crafting had been spilled on the floor or misplaced when the residents still lived. Calipers and hammers had to be edged aside to make room for her footsteps, and she ocassionally had to avoid spilled nails or broken weapons. Several difficult moments passed until she reached the corner of the room opposite the doorway, where finished items were usually placed. Marona settled into a proper stand and she sighed dejectedly at the sight before her eyes.

The wooden table and display racks were covered with weapons, and inches of soot and debris rested atop them. She tested an area for thickness by wiping an index finger along the surface, and pulled back a digit that was nearly permanently stained with blackness.

"How could they let it come to this?" she mused, attempting to vainly shake the residue from her hand. After a clump detached, Marona slipped the key ring onto her wrist and picked through the small blades on the table. They were not terribly varied and she was in frantic haste, so she reluctantly nabbed one at random and rushed from the room as she entered.

---------------------------------------------

"Deception?" the mage echoed in confirmation and the woman responded with a short, stiff nod. He tilted his head back and rested his wrists on the table again, the long fingernails on his right hand caressing a bracelet of gold links that choked his left forearm. His stare was intense, as if he wished to divine her intentions with a single glance, and it prompted an cryptic explanation.

"Yes, deception. The sweetest sort," Marona began, gestuating passionately with her words in a sadistic mimicry of poetics. "The kind that leaves an audience in an uproar following a play. The kind that the weak of heart would beg not to experience. The kind that—" She paused and shifted her eyes towards the right, having been alerted by another presence in the room. A lesser mage waivered in the doorway and patiently awaited Aloth's acknowledgment.

"What is it now?" Aloth inquired with irritation and the mage-apprentice timidly shifted his posture.

"The caravan is here, Master Zura, but the merchants refuse to unload the supplies until you personally visit them," he announced. The Red Wizard curled his lips into a frown.

"Then kill them," he responded firmly. The apprentice immediately bowed in response and darted away from the doorway to reallow lukewarm light into the room. Marona turned her gaze to Aloth, but he calmly lifted his hand to halt the continuation of their conversation. They rested in silence for a few minutes, listening to the boisterous racket of spellcasting in the distance until it finally died down, and the mage lowered his hand.

"It is a wonderful thing, what I have planned; something you would approve of. This is living poetry: the sort of thing you would find in a children's storybook, albeit graphic. All I require is a potent illusion spell to conceal my hands."

(( To be continued.

[Nyssis]

The devil-worshipper returned to the enclave not a week after their initial conversation, eloquently describing the events of the past to the seated Red Wizard. He was hardly as into it as she was, preferring to look over the numerous pages of his spellbook than pay attention to her flowing actions, but he was slightly amused. Marona appeared to be whole-heartedly pleased: a rarity, from what he had seen.

"The stage was set and the play was spectacular!" she exclaimed with a flourish, stopping in a sudden stride to hold a hand out and motion a sweep towards the ceiling. "It seems that the show was a marvelous success. I entertained the Initiates and the actors have long since departed."

"Hopefully, without pay," the Red Wizard chimed in and his statement prompted a laughter from his companion. He uncomfortably adjusted his position in his seat, draping the large tome in his manicured hands, and licked the tip of a finger to press against the edge of the paper. The priestess resumed her delightful chord of bardic nonsense as he quietly turned a page.

"Truly, without pay. How could I profit from this if I threw all of my money away on wages? How could I have come here to stay with you, Aloth, if I decided to be generous and considerate to the free labor?"

"You killed your lover and child?" asked Aloth without looking up from his book.

"Yes!" she assured in a matter-of-fact tone, and the edges of her lips curled upwards in musing delight.

---------------------------------------------

A man was held aloft in the center of the room, writhing about to force himself out of his intangible bonds. Two robed figures endlessly gravitated around him in circular union with their arms outstretched, barring his body in place with a whispered chant and various intricate hand gestures. They were revolting in appearance: more than enough to spur several insults from the trapped human male. One was of anorexic structure, mere bones and skin with garbs being the only real construction of his figure, while the other was of muscular proportion, though the skin on his hands, legs, and forearms was horribly disfigured.

Cultists, no doubt, and their chanting was so foreign that it damned the ears simply by listening to it. The imprisoned, black-haired man let out a verbal shudder as he felt something tear at the back of his mind?one sudden snap?and his neck lost the will to hold up the weight of his head. He submitted to silence and a female strode into the room. Her presence prompted the two acolytes to cease their activity, and the floating body was dropped nonchalantly to the floor.

"Your reaction time was relatively slow back there," the robed woman began, the two similarly-dressed men flanking the only doorway into the room. "I had hoped that you could not have been overpowered so easily, but ... perhaps it is a tad difficult against magically hasted Initiates." The black-haired man on the floor tilted his head to one side. He had become too fatigued from fighting the bonds and wore his voice dry from his exclamations that he made no extensive outward response. However, it was noticable in his eyes that he was surprised by the female's presence, and he showed vain efforts to speak to her.

"You struggled for a while. All of the light has drifted from the sky at this point, so you probably cannot see too well at the moment."

"Why, M-Marona...?" he inquired as his body shifted to move into a more comfortable position on the floor.

"It is quite simple, Lucas. You should know better than to try and love a devil-worshipper," Marona condescendingly explained. "Staying by my side and telling me the intimacies of your mind; why, I learned everything I needed to know to essentially damn you to the worst fate." Lucas fell silent in response. Her words were, essentially, true, and he made no effort to deny or question.

"It is poetic, is it not? You, yourself, once loved and lost. You finally found affection again in a woman that killed her last lover. Not very smart, mind you. It is expected that I would return to this path eventually, and repeat the hideous treachery I once performed."

"Marona, we should leave to begin the ceremony before your son's corpse loses its warmth," the anorexic acolyte chimed in from behind her, passing an awkward glance outside of the doorway from beneath his cowl. She silenced herself and turned her head partially to the side in acknowledgement, and a hand beckoned something from the acolytes' possession. The anorexic one watched his companions as the mutilated human promptly unsheathed the iron longsword at his side, handing it to Marona without a word.

"Fine, enough talk. I do not want to be akin to those 'villains' that monologue in a moment of glory," she submitted casually, a somewhat annoyed tone slinking into her words. Her hands flicked the blade into a downward point and she proceeded closer to Lucas' grounded body with slow, thoughtful strides.

---------------------------------------------

"What was the reason you killed them again? To return to your 'god's favor' or whatever it is you priests call it?" the mage mentioned, effortlessly lifting a hand to make a rolling gesture before quickly returning it to the spine of his text. Marona halted her inspection of the exquisite decor across the room and turned on a partial heel to face him.

"Yes, and also to remove a burden."

"Understandable," he noted. "What a charming reason. I hope you never intend to kill me in ritual sacrifice."

"Of course not, Aloth! You are an exceptional mage that could probably detect any of my sways in a heartbeat. Besides, you and I are comrades."

"Your compliments were refreshing, but ... 'comrades?' That is absolutely sickening," the mage grimaced and it beckoned a silence between the two that lasted for several minutes. Though he had returned to reading during this time, he momentarily glanced over at Marona. She appeared to be incredibly flustered, the lids of her eyes slivered and brows met in a furrow, so he pointedly assured her, "I jest. Regardless, your presence here is beginning to bore me. Is there anything I can do to remove you from the premices without expending unnecessary effort?"

"I require work to keep myself busy and get me out of your hair, yes."

"Work?" he echoed in a sadistically innuendous tone with oddly perked attention.

"Not that kind of work, Red Wizard," she responded with a scowl and the mage's once-enthused expression turned grim. He promptly lowered his gaze and proceeded to sulk into an irritated mood, returning the majority of his attention to the large spellbook in his hands. "I heard that you have yet to employ a priest of Kossuth for your journey," Marona mentioned passingly, advancing towards the front of the table before him.

"Who told you this?" he demanded, pausing midway between turning pages to await her response.

"A transmuter apprentice. He called himself 'Jarasch,' or something along those lines."

"Remind me to kill him later, then," mused Aloth and he resumed his halted action with a sigh. "I suppose that my travels have intruiged you, once again. You undoubtedly wish to accompany me on my expedition to ensure the 'frail, old wizard' does not succumb to the horrors of mild dehydration. Regardless, I realize that you will pester me about it, so I will give you the information now and spare myself a headache. I have heard of a recent phenomina to the southeast at the borders of Thesk and Thay and I wish to investigate..."

(( To be continued.

[Nyssis]

A few days later, a great gathering had flooded into the center of the enclave with haste, all focused around a caravan in the middle of being prepped for journey. A menagerie of slaves were kept busy and in line by drivers, whom ordered the lot around as supplies were loaded into the various wagons for transport. Rations and basic survival items were not the only materials necessary for the expedition, it seemed, as crates of gems and arcane tools were also packed in. The Red Wizard must have, by the looks of the cargo he was towing, also decided that he would make a stop in Thay.

Marona was standing nearby and overseeing the slaves in paranoia. The last time she accompanied Aloth on a journey, one of the slaves turned out to be a polymorphed rakshasa that produced quite a headache for the mercenaries protecting the caravan. She had made certain to garb her eyes in truthful magic prior to her inspection, but her divinations proved in vain. The woman let out a sigh and tilted her head towards the ground, her action attracting the attention of a fellow priest nearby.

The man turned his intense gaze to Marona and wrinkled his pointed nose. He was skinned a deep rustic brown hue, his somewhat long hair living fire that crackled and danced with each sway of his head. A spark popped as his hair struck the chainmail on his back and he tilted his aged head to the side in response. A fire genasi, to be sure, and also a cleric of Kossuth: a silver chain was wrapped tight around his right forearm, a disc decorated with an embossed twining flame dangling noisily around his wrist.

"I'd already looked them over, I told you. There are no masquerading creatures in their ranks," he announced with a certain tone in his voice, as if the words he spoke were absolute truth not to be disputed. Marona cast him a sideways stare, her expressionism bland for a moment, but she relaxed the corners of her lips into a coy smile.

"I did not double-check in an attempt to insult your abilities, if that is what you believe, Huitzil," the blonde-haired woman explained. "I simply wanted to ensure that none had slipped in with the slaves after your inspection."

"You're paranoid, hell-priestess," Huitzil muttered as he stubbornly crossed his arms and turned his attention back to the caravan. His companion followed suit, offering a slight shrug of her shoulders in response to his statement, and returned to her skittish inspection of the slaves. The quasi-elemental noticed her repetition and sighed with aggravation.

Mere feet away, the two acolytes that accompanied Marona in the murder of her family loitered quietly and collected numerous disturbed glances from the residents of the enclave. The anorexic male stood on his own with his back horribly hunched and his cowled head dropped towards the ground, quietly muttering things either to himself, the voices in his head, or his companion. The male with scarred flesh sat on a crate nearby, kicking his bare, mutilated feet against the soil while manipulating a gem in his hands, and he occasionally cast the other acolyte or Marona a stare. It appeared as though they would also join her on the journey, but the accuracy of this assumption was questionable.

On the opposite side of the caravan, the Red Wizard directed the loading of his supplies with an insistent tone and a boisterous voice, barking orders to and fro. He was surrounded by a handpicked set of apprentices, most of which skittishly jumped whenever Aloth's voice reached a new pitch, and two Thayan Knights. One was male, heavily tattooed to the point of indiscernability of his skin, while the other female, though her markings were not as prevalent. They were both intimidatingly tall for humans, their heads clean shaven, and similarly armored in shimmering full plate. Both held their ground in silence, flanking the mage on both sides, and cast challenging stares to those around the enclave.

Events persisted until a few hours after dawn, when the caravan was fully prepped for journey and the travellers boarded. The road from Narfell to the borders of Thesk and Thay would be a grueling journey, possibly as eventful as the last expedition, but Aloth was not overly concerned. He felt content with the Thayan Knights, Huitzil, his five apprentices, the two acolytes, and Marona as adequate "meat shields," afterall. The morn and afternoon bore an undisturbed journey of moderate pace, the group making excellent timing and covering much ground. Marona, however, was skeptical that they would make it to their destination in under a week, as Aloth had proposed.

Once dusk and, eventually, night had breached the sky, the Red Wizard felt it acceptable to lift camp for the night. Unfortunately, their location was nowhere near any form of cover; the Narfell landscape was barren, as if a blizzard had wiped out all forms of life several winters ago. The nearest form of landmass was a mountain range to the far north, and the only natural life was a forest located to the far east at the border of Rashemen.

Late night was terribly frigid in this section of Toril, after the heat of the day rose completely from the ground and dispersed into the air. They knew to risk attack and light a bonfire of the crates of firewood than to freeze to death. As the slaves and drivers created the montrous flame outside, Aloth, the Knights, and the clerics enjoyed the warmth of tea and (good) company within one of the large wagons.

"It isn't exactly the smartest thing to light a huge signal fire," mumbled Huitzil. He still held a full cup of tea in his left hand, not even bothering to drink it, but it was still as hot as when it was first given to him. His grip around the glass, coupled with the natural heat of his body, caused the contained liquid to simmer and steam; it eventually would have evaporated completely into the air.

"Well, isn't it a good thing that I do not care what happens to the slaves outside?" the wizard retorted, steadily taking a sip of his beverage and casting the genasi a challenging glance. "You do not make the decisions here. I do. If you decide that it is not in your best interest, perhaps you would like to sit outside with them and suffer the consequences of a 'signal fire?'" The quasi-elemental's quick temper prompted him into sharpening his gaze and drawing his cup into a tighter grip. The irises of his eyes aggressively resonated with orange light and he slightly bared his teeth.

"You forget that I was the only Kossuthian willing to help you, and even then I was reluctant. If you truly want my aid and not the wrath of the Firelord, maybe you should—" Huitzil began, but he paused his words suddenly and gave an alert glance in the direction of the bonfire. Marona had almost simultaneously mimicked his action. Without another word, the genasi cast aside his drink and hefted a large spiked chain over his right shoulder, taking a stand and maneuvering towards the door. He gave the door a firm kick that shook the cabin, it swinging almost completely from its hinges, and leapt down to the dirt.

"Hmph. I am somewhat surprised that he did not break the door," Aloth announced with a snarky tone. The cabin's interior fell into silence for a few moments until, suddenly, the people outside all erupted into yells and panicked remarks. All occupants of the wagon shifted their attention to the door, but none made any advancement save for Marona. The cloth-garbed woman casually placed her cup on a serving tray nearby, stood and excused herself, then followed Huitzil's lead. Upon reaching the doorframe, she calmly gathered up the hem of her robes to a hip and leapt down in similar manner, though she was somewhat faulted when a driver bolted behind the opposite side of the caravan for safety.

She followed him with her eyes for a moment until a flood of frightened people also sought protection behind the wagons, and she turned her attention to Huitzil. He stood plainly a few yards away from the bonfire, the spiked chain in his hand flicking absently towards the ground like a whip. Several dozens of feet away stood a group of people dressed in hides and covered with slightly fresh vines, all of varied races, sexes, and heights. Denizens of the woods, perhaps; druids and rangers.

Despite their different appearances, they all had one thing in common: burns all over their limbs and faces, some severe while others minute. They looked upon the genasi with a scornful series of expressions, occasionally turning their attention to the bonfire and the caravan, and muttering words foreign to Marona's ears.

(( To be continued.

[undeadsteak]

Just want to say, I read these and i enjoy it!

[Nyssis]

A breeze tussled the flames of the bonfire into a wild frenzy as Marona circled around it, avoiding flying sparks and chips of wood and ash with a cautious stride. She turned towards the caravan for a few moments, eyeing the several dozens of legs on the opposite side, then glanced back towards the door of Aloth's private cabin. The Red Wizard was nowhere to be found, obviously ignoring the commotion and enjoying his provisions and warmth inside, but his two Thayan Knights did exit the quarters.

They were interested in the activities outside, but made no motion to follow the two clerics. Both loitered quietly near the caravan, either dusting debris from their armor or attentively looking on. Marona halted at the fire genasi's side and turned towards the burned group, some of which revolted at the sight of her bloodied clothes and mutilated hands. The majority kept their eyes on the quasi-elemental and each began to chime in a language the devil-worshipper could not comprehend.

It was guttural and most of their phrases were toned in yells or disgusted hisses. A lot of fingers pointed eagerly at the clerics, damning them to outer planes and back, or threatening their lives from the sound of it. While Marona remained silent and sternly accepted their taunts, Huitzil was showing signs of anger: his eyes occasionally flared in challenge or he tilted his head to one side with a frown, both of which either silenced the druids or yearned them on.

"If we sit here and listen to them," Marona eventually whispered with slivered eyes, "then we will never be able to return to our journey. We had best do something to silence them." Without warning, the genasi lost his temper and whipped his spiked chain towards one of the female rangers yelling off to the side. It caught her in the cheek, piercing her face and rending the flesh until the force of the blow knocked her to the ground with a thud. She writhed in the dirt momentarily, still lost in the daze and vertigo of falling, before clutching her face to quell the numbness. Her bare hands felt the strands of tissue hanging from a hole in her jaw, and she began screaming in terror at the realization of her injury.

A nearby druid dropped to his knees and began attempting to aid her, but Huitzil's chain was whipped towards him immediately. The centripetal force wrapped the barbed links around the diameter of his neck, choking the air out of his lungs, before being ripped back to the genasi's side. This motion flayed the muscle of the male's throat and he dropped, bleeding and gasping, at the ranger's side while Huitzil recollected his weapon in his hands. Fear overtook a majority of the group, their steps wriggling backwards to place distance between the clerics, but they recessed no more than a yard. It was during this time that Marona took initiative.

She held out a single hand, flexing the bony digits of her fingers, and muttered a small chant. The group was flabberghasted at first, but their attention shifted towards a male elf in their ranks. He whined and clutched at his chest cavity, heaving over with a foreign yelp to his comrades, and his glassy eyes darted to the hell-priestess. Marona stood, unwaivering and her speaking halted, with a still-beating heart in her aloft hand's grasp, the razor-sharp tips of her fingers cutting into the organ. The elf let out a horrified yell as he felt at his chest with shaking hands, attempting to rip open the hides and confirm his heartbeat, but he heaved forward and regurgitated a stream of blood. His body soon fell convulsing afterwards.

The remaining individuals scattered and prepared their weapons, but a few were suddenly taken down by the two acolytes in Marona's employ. The anorexic male blindsided one of the rangers and forced him to the dirt, sliding a wrist blade into the groove of his clavicle before he could force the lightweight human off of him. He quickly backstepped off and vanished behind one of the wagons. While Huitzil fended off a druid in animal form, the scarred male leapt from the flaming confines of the bonfire and brought down the edge of his longsword on the polymorphed creature's spine. He, too, almost instantaneously vanished behind the caravan to regroup with his comrade.

The frigid night sky rumbled with the sounds of battle and magic for only half an hour until the last scream echoed miles in every direction and was promptly silenced. The clerics and acolytes were relatively unharmed and the Thayan Knights had never bothered to join combat, though their boots were stained in blood draining around the wagons. The drivers and slaves slowly returned to their previous activities as if nothing ever happened. Huitzil and Marona cast the carnage only a momentary second glance before their attention snapped to Aloth, who suddenly decided to make his entrance.

"Bravo! Bravo!" the mage chimed in, stepping from his cabin and clapping his manicured hands together with a charming smirk. "I am glad to see that the two of you have skills worthy of eliminating the weakest of barbarians. Don't wander off in your glorious daze, however. I will need you to raise a few of these new ... slaves for me." Aloth proceeded into the debris of the battlefield without further explanation, attentively inspecting the corpses while his Knights actively lifted the bodies to his desire. Huitzil followed the Red Wizard with an irritated stare, though he knew better than to try and speak up in retaliation again. With his attention diverted, the devil-worshipper came to his side and nonchalantly dropped the festering organ still in her hand, her expression grim.

"Why were they yelling? Because we were burning innocent trees?" she asked with a distant tone in her voice, insinuating that he must have understood their language to some extent. It was either her suspection, knowledge, or she simply wanted to compliment him, but it drew nothing more than a sideways glance.

"Yeah, but something else, more importantly," the genasi explained with a furrow in his brow. "I asked those druids if I could join their Circle, once, but they denied me. Said I lacked the skill and thought process for it."

"They seemed far too angry to come all this way and apologize."

"I burned down their grove while they were having a meeting as payback for insulting me," Huitzil added, and a sadistic smile wormed its way onto his lips. "They must've trailed me this far for their vained revenge."

"Ah. Well, that is a bit more understandable. It also explains the burns all over their bodies: a result of trying to save their forest."

"No doubt, the fools," he assured and slowly departed Marona's presence. She looked on quietly as the quasi-elemental approached Aloth, who began pointing insistently at a corpse and demanding that the cleric restore it to "working order." Her attention shifted to the heart at her feet, blood oozing out of the numerous cuts and valves, and she repositioned her stand to avoid staining her skirt in the puddle.

Suddenly, the ground felt unstable and the woman dizzily moved about to maintain her balance. Her vision was blurring at an alarming rate; she had no choice but to force her eyes closed and await the feeling to disperse. She then felt a voice probe her layered thoughts, and it whispered promises in a damning language that was quite familiar.

---------------------------------------------

"M#$&@%! You have ^$#@$%#* to His $&@#^%$. Good. We need %$#; I need %$#. If you want to ^%#$@% to our fa#$^, you'll ha$% to %$#^&$# me. Un^%&$#and?!"

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She shook her head suddenly in an attempt to remove the distorted words from her mind, and felt at her forehead with a shivering hand. Her temples throbbed with a migraine of the worst sort, and it only intensified as she lingered in the stench of blood and upcoming disease. The sensitivity was odd, considering how often she was near a battlefield, but she was too preoccupied to question it. One final shake rattled her vision back to normal, and she joined the Red Wizard further into the carnage. A row of bodies was neatly lined up and the Kossuthian was busy healing the vessels, prepping them for the renewal of their souls. They would be there a while yet, it appeared, and dawn was nearing the horizon.

(( To be continued. In the meantime, here's some quick character concepts I drew in the last few days:

Marona - http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/8...eetcopygm0.png
Huitzil - http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/9...eetcopypx7.png

[Esteten]

Quick? How can you even paint like that? That's master paintings!

[undeadsteak]

Damn, Marona's hand looks disturbing. Nice pictures! You should post the old ones in the venoshia forums here.

[Nyssis]

The caravan made tracks as quickly as the sun rose the following morning, though they were weighed down from the introduction of a few new slaves. The remaining corpses were not even given a proper burial or burning, instead left as an obscure reminder to not trifle with the defending force of waylayed travellers. Marona spent most of the morn sleeping in Aloth's quarters and readapting to her once-nocturnal lifestyle, refusing to partake in any other form of activity requested of her. Huitzil, unbothered by his lack of sleep, felt himself more comfortable as far away from the Red Wizard as possible. He wandered several yards ahead of the caravan and acted as a feasible scout.

A pungent stench of slaughter eminated from the boots of the slaves, heightened by the arid temperates of Narfell, and it aided in driving most forms of predator in the opposite direction. The travelling group, thankfully, had no more to deal with in the region beyond a few wild animals during the day. Settling down for camp at night was equally as uneventful. The journey was discussed fleetingly between the important figures of the expedition, and it was noted that they would mark their path along the shores of the Ashane, Lake of Tears. They would traverse Ashanath territory, which dwelled between the borders of Rashemen and Thesk, and follow the clearing until the vicinity of Twestars. It was likely that they would encounter the phenomina in this area.

Yes, a phenomina. The entire journey was due to a wild magic region that recently unearthed near Twestars and Texir-on-the-marsh and was sending the balance of planes into disarray. Incomplete portals were forming to several layers of existence?for example, Baator, the Abyss, and the Shadow Plane?but the cause of the matter was moreover in Aloth's interest than the threat. It must have taken a powerful mage to do such a thing, wild or no, and he was planning on sealing his or her soul in a gem for his own reasons. That is, of course, if they ever found the person responsible.

Information, unfortunately, was sparse. The clerics assumed that whoever performed such an atrocity was either dead or vanished a while ago, but they knew better than to bring the topic up in the Red Wizard's earshot. He was a keen old human, and any whiff of such an opinion would relieve them faster from the payroll than death.

The hell-priestess' evening was terrible. She was wary from the distorted message relayed to her the previous evening, and somehow expected many more to cloud her thoughts in the future. It had no "return address," so to speak, but the sound of the voice and the language were both becoming of the Hells' residents. It may have been another cultist, or some creature playing tricks on her, but the tone of the demand was ... far more diabolic. Naturally diabolic.

Several could tell by her unsettled actions prior to praying at midnight that she was unnerved by something, though none bothered to inquire. Aloth made a passive comment that she should wisen up before she gets herself killed, but no sympathy emerged beyond that. It was also around this time that many began to notice her anorexic behavior, and her body was literally wasting away to nothing. Her bones were more apparent in the bare flesh of her torso, and she was beginning to look like the malnourished acolyte that trailed at her side. Aloth didn't tolerate this behavior, for one reason or another, and he forced her to eat her fill that eve.

The third day of their travels began with the sunrise, and the devil-worshipper retreated to the mage's quarters to rest once again. Surprisingly, they were already more than halfway to their destination, but the fire genasi had informed the caravan of a storm likely to occur within the next 24 hours. It would dampen their pace by a great deal, if it became an ongoing event, and Aloth sulked in his quarters at this realization. Already, the sky was flooded by overcast clouds thick with rainwater; a bad sign. The wizard steadily sipped a cup of warm tea with a grimace, watching the priestess sprawled atop a bed of blankets and pillows across from him.

"You judged the length of the journey on clear weather," Marona muttered as she stirred in her sleep, aware of the mage's presence nearby. He cast his eyes to her head for a moment, then shifted ever deeper into his seat.

"Return to sleep. I'll not stand for your attempts at belittling, woman," he retorted and it silenced her back into slumber. Soon after, the patting of rainfall against the roof of the cabin echoed between the walls, and the Red Wizard let out an exaggerated, annoyed sigh. Outside, the horses and slaves led the entourage with a drastically slowed pace. Huitzil was near, but he was quickly becoming enraged at the steady rain threatening to damp his scalp and snuff out his flaming hair. It was not long before he retreated into a random cabin to dry off.

The drivers directed the caravan out of a small valley and to raised ground, where they halted their progression. It didn't last long?a few minutes, perhaps?until Aloth swung open his door and yelled at them to proceed or be maimed, and they returned to their grueling pace as quickly as possible. Luckily, the rainfall did not persist, lowering in intensity to a slight sprinkle and dispersing altogether after ten minutes. The apprentices were booted out of the cabins to make room for the Thayan Knights (who apparently requiree three wagons just to sit down), and they quietly accepted and trecked in the damp soil. Likewise, the acolytes were bullied from their cabin, so they sat atop one of the wagons as it was towed along.

The third day ended with the caravan nearing the Mattladale region and, subsequently, the Golden Way: a road that connected several lowlying towns in Thesk territory. The camp could spot Rashemen's lands just over the well-lit waters of the Ashane 'neath the partial moon, though Aloth preferred not to give them a dignified second glance. He ignored the settlements of his enemies with a sneer and locked himself in his cabin, though Marona took a particular interest and forced herself out just to get a good look.

Most of the distance was entwined with sparse forests and mangled shoreline, silt forming a predominant amount of the coast. The woman stepped past the warmth of the campfire and faced the lake, lifting a hand to her brow and peering along the horizon in silence.

"You've been acting strange, hell-priestess," the genasi chimed in from his seat at the fire's side. "Like you're not completely there, or there's something eating away at the back of your mind." She tilted her head slightly to the side and directed her glance to Huitzil with a melancholy expression.

"Your concern is unnecessary, but the thought is welcomed," Marona assured, quickly returning to her inspection of the coast.

"Don't give me the aloof crap," he huffed with a frown. "What's wrong with you? Spit it out before I drag the wizard into this."

"Yes, Disciple. You have been acting bizarre and I would like to know why, as well. Both of us would," the anorexic apostle added from atop one of the wagons, motioning a shivering hand towards his scarred companion, who preferred to remain silent.

"Desist, all of you. I simply have a newfound objective in this travel," she muttered without giving them any recognition.

"An objective? Something to do with the wild magic?" the apostle inquired, tilting his head to the side.

"Do we need to detain and starve it out of you?" Huitzil called out, though he quickly reconsidered his words. "Highly doubt it'll do anything, though, considering your current state of affairs." His comment attracted the upset attention of the apostles atop the wagon almost immediately, but Marona paid him no mind.

"You are rude, Kossuthian. You do not understand our way of life, so you mock us."

"What else do you expect me to do? You're all freaks of nature that worship devils. I'm sure you get this all the time, so quit acting surprised."

"That was uncalled for. Perhaps we should teach you a lesson in respecting those with more power than you."

"More power?!" the genasi exclaimed, suddenly bursting into an awkwardly enthused laughter that drew the attention of the slaves and drivers settled around the fire. Several up and exited the premises, while others just gawked stupidly at the man's gesture. The druids and rangers that were revived as slaves simply lowered their heads in shame and shook them quietly.

"Stay your tongue in our presence less you wish me to follow through with the Red Wizard's intentions, wretch!" Marona suddenly yelled out, turning towards him and insistently making a quick cutting motion across her neck with a bloodied thumb. The quasi-elemental paused for a moment, head reared back and his eyes focusing on her from the length of his nose, but he quickly returned to his boisterous laughter. Though they had not noticed in their banter, most of the caravan's attention was focused behind them where a red-garbed male had exited one of the cabins.

"Marona, just kill him and be on with it," he beckoned and the devil-worshippers rushed towards the elemental simultaneously, no longer held back by constraint.

(( To be continued. Thank you for the comments, guys! As for the drawings I posted on Venoshia, they will not make an appearance here. I'm only featuring sketches that directly relate to the story in this thread.

[Nyssis]

"I'll kill you!" the scarred acolyte growled with a froth, baring his teeth aggressively at Huitzil as he sped forward. He was the first to react out of the four and, consequently, the quickest to come in contact with the quasi-elemental. His maimed forearm reared back as he skid to a halt and, with a grunt of effort, the corresponding fist was slammed against the ground. The force of the impact was deafening and the earth crumbled beneath the weight of the blow. Huitzil, whether by pure luck or a blessing from his god, managed to leap out of the way.

He backstepped only a meter before succumbing to the minor tremor that erupted from the acolyte's attack. His arms swiveled about to maintain his balance as the ground split beneath his soles, and he keeled over to correct his posture. It was then that he noticed the other disciple come from the corner of his eye, wrist-blade held firmly, and he fearfully ducked out of the way and tumbled elsewhere. Marona was nearby already performing a series of intricate hand gestures and altering her steps slightly to keep her target in view.

Though he only gave her a minor glance, Huitzil still knew that it was best to interrupt her casting as quickly as possible. The hell-priestess was infamous for her adaptability and rather painful, vile spellcasting, and sparing himself of any spell-like abilities would be preferable. With barely a breath, the man flicked his hand towards Marona and a bolt of heated energy careened forth, ripping jaggedly along the landscape before coming to a screeching halt. It struck the ground and, consequently, diverted Marona's attention. She quickly strode backwards to avoid the sudden upsurge of heat that sprayed from the breaking soil and broke her concentration in the process.

While she was distracted, Huitzil aimed a hand towards her body. She was deftly avoiding the steam and ash, but not too deftly; the fire genasi muttered a curse and thrusted his hand to the sky, drawing a pillar of holy fire from 'neath Marona's feet that swallowed her whole and exploded upwards. The flame engulfed a massive radius of ground and eagerly danced near the caravan and it's residents?perhaps threatening to ignite the travelling company?but Aloth appeared without concern. He was rather enjoying the fight between the clerics.

"Blasphemous! The true path shall guide you to find peace in annihilation!" the quasi-elemental spat. His hands were held aloft for a second as he muttered a ritualistic slur of foreign words before they extended to the sky above. All around him, the earth began to tremble with pathings of fiery-hot rock, and Abeir-Toril's crust prepared for a rude awakening.

"An earthquake!" the anorexic acolyte exclaimed and the Red Wizard's demeanor soured. Nearby, Marona emerged from the deadening holy flames with a vicious cough, only slightly burned and portions of her skin doused in ash. Her paranoid protection magicks appeared to have spared her. The burned humanoid gave her a subtle glance and she instinctively made a cutting motion with one of her hands in response.

"Silence him; Dhiren, Gavril!" Marona cried out prior to erupting into another fit of coughs, and the anorexic individual immediately flicked the thin wrist-blade from his bracer. Huitzil took note of the banter being barked back and forth between the devil-worshippers with alert, fiery eyes, but he persisted in the calling of his spell. He was intent on forcing a natural disaster in the middle of the clearing, right near the Red Wizard's caravan and his previous compatriots! Of course, it was doubtful that Aloth would sit back and rely on inferiors to prevent such a catastrophe.

While the two acolytes prepared to take down the chanting priest, Aloth merely unfolded his arms and directed a finger in his direction. A soft-spoken word of pure hate emerged from the mage's lips, casting an invisible demand to die at the target, but Huitzil remain undaunted much to his surprise. He was well-aware of the attempt on his life, however, and offered the Red Wizard a toothy, wicked smile. It wasn't a smart thing to do, arousing the hate of an already irritable Thayan, but due to his recent actions it was hard to judge Huitzil as the "thinking" type.

Their battle continued for barely a minute or two longer. Huitzil's earthquake had erupted in the area, but he only revelled in the carnage for a second before being pinned to the ground by Dhiren, the anorexic male. A blade was evidently slipped into the corner of the fire genasi's neck and it managed to do an amount of harm, but the lightweight devil-worshipper was easily tossed off like a child and slammed into the ground afterwards. It was then that Gavril caught the fire-haired man from behind with a forceful slash of his longsword, and nearly severed him in two.

A spell or two later and the fire genasi was reduced to a smoldering body, claimed by the same holy fire that he so desperately used and desired. In the following few minutes, Marona crouched down at the ashes and performed a rite of passage while Aloth yelled orders to his stunned entourage to return to their business. The event had left many individuals shaken or skittish, and a majority was intent on watching the hell-priestess' chanting. However, their collective fear of the Red Wizard was more than enough to rouse them.

"You send him to the Afterlife properly despite his words, priestess?" Dhiren choked nearby as his companion tended to his wounds of impact. The Damaran woman paused just long enough to respond before reverting to her previous action.

"A fool he was, yes. The words he said angered me, yes. While he is more suited for a Cyricist's ritual, I cannot leave his body without performing a ritual. It would deaden my senses to do otherwise, and I would stoop in level." Dhiren swiveled his downed body to one side so as to get a better look at her, though Gavril immediately pulled him back afterwards so he may continue healing. It forced a heaved grunt of pain from the anorexic acolyte, but added little to the damage already present.

"You are too noble!" he began, flailing a brittle arm upwards in poor gestuation. Gavril immediately slammed it back onto the ground and muttered something about staying still. "He has insulted our way of life and our god, yet you persist in giving him respect? He has not earned it. Not in the least."

Marona reverted to a stand and began brushing wrinkles from her garb, exhasperatedly saying, "Better to give him respect in death than in life, then." This statement forced a slight chortle on Dhiren's behalf and he directed his sunken-in eyes towards her. She was already casting an eerie glance to the sky. So inquisitive were her eyes, and her ears seemed perked to a distant sound not openly present. Her sense of judgement was keen. She was well-aware of the violent outbreak of magic, much like Aloth was, even though the distance between them and it was vast. "We are close. The hum in the air; it is ... so familiar, though I have never encountered a wild magic zone before. Perhaps a wild mage, but?"

"Familiarity is never a good thing," Gavril suddenly cut her off with an almost skeptical tone to his voice.

"Familiarity breeds complacency," she promptly responded. He immediately halted his tending to Dhiren and cast a depth-ridden stare in his superior's direction, but he was met with a similar glance and mild hostility. "If you suspect me as such, you would be better off concerning yourself with the lack of favor you have earned with that insinuation. You have sown a seed of doubt with an ill-chosen comment, whether you meant it or not, Gavril."

(( To be continued.

[Nyssis]

The cave-in. It occured in the opening hallway of the citadel, where several commissioned duergar were prepping the expansion of the subvault. The floor collapsed beneath the weight of the dragon-blooded slave and gave way to a fifty-foot vertical drop to the base of a natural cavern that had long dwelled 'neath the construction. Yes, it brought numerous with it; several priests and workers were dumped down the well, most of which died upon impact. Talaster, too, had almost succumbed to falling with the others, but he pushed both himself and Marona out of the way mere seconds beforehand.

Narfell is infamous for the magic empire that once ruled Northern Faer?n from this location. The caverns below the surface structures were probably once mines, inhabited by the empire and drained of its resources before the war with the Raumathar escalated. Full of contempt and developing a headache, the High Priest of the Citadel, Talaster Morden, ordered the construction to be put on hold. Marona, however, insisted on delving into the caverns and recovering the unholy symbols of the felled priests.

It was a long journey, but, seated on the shoulder of the massive dragon-blooded slave, the hell-priestess managed to reach the bottom of the pit. There was a water source below, most likely formed of melting snow that drained down from the wastes, and signs of recent life activity. The Damaran woman was no ranger or huntsman, so the origin of such signs was beyond her current knowledge. She ignored them and began tending to the wounds of a single survivor, picking through the bodies of the dead for their divine focus afterwards. Oddly enough, however, their unholy symbols were not on their corpses...

A sound caught her attention. Chittering; raced footsteps; legions of them partially hushed through the feet-thick walls of the enclosure. They were moving as quietly as they could, intentionally. The blonde woman eyed the walls of the cavern with suspicion as she shut the bloodied lids of one of her dead compatriots, and slowly rose to a stand.

"Take him up, slave," she mumbled towards the dragon-blooded, keeping her voice noticably hushed. Though he was defiant in nature and disdained being regarded as such, he reluctantly scooped up the injured priest and slowly began scaling the walls back up to the main floor of the citadel. Marona, much to Talaster's dismay, decided to stay down in the cavern and inspect the situation until the slave returned empty-handed. She strode around the soil with thought, disturbing only a few of the numerous humanoid tracks that littered the area and committing the formations to memory. Closing in on a portion of the wall, the priestess set the metal of her solitary, rusted gauntlet against its surface and brought her ear near.

All was silent. Deathly silent. Whatever creatures resided in this cavern were aware of a tresspasser's presence, and they were aware that she was aware of them. Perhaps they held the advantage, knowing at least what their adversary was. Perhaps it would not be or was not this way. With a slight gestuation of her opposite hand, Marona's eyes became aflame with sight beyond mortal sight; the knowledge of their presence ... all around her. They were in every crevace, beyond every wall and rock; while land-borne, they were still so numerous that it appeared the cavern was flooding with them like the sea.

She skittishly stepped away from the wall and recoiled her hand, her thought process momentarily faultering. Every creature in this area was frozen stiff in their movements. She could feel their thoughts, their eyes! Frankly, it was more than enough to arouse her paranoia, but she attempted to contain her fears and moved further from the heart of the room. She prepared to backstep towards the entrance; cast a spell; anything!?when suddenly the dragon-blooded humanoid dropped to his haunches nearby from several feet up. It summoned forth a small tremor upon impact that rattled the whole of the citadel, and the other creatures panicked and fled.

"Need you be so loud?!" the priestess seethed in a moderately hushed tone, clutching at her heart with a clawed hand to suppress the shock that erupted from his sudden entrance.

The creature merely shrugged impassively in response, saying blandly, "I brought the injured one to the Master as you requested of me, Mistress, but he's far more concerned for your safety. He demands that you return to the surface with me as soon as possible instead of lingering down here."

"I know what he wants! You try my patience by speaking to me as if I was ignorant!"

"Mistress?" he began grimly, but was immediately cut off.

The woman flicked her robes around her torso and clutched them ever closer to her armored body, hissing, "Silence, damn you." The heat of her exhalations was solidifying amidst the frigid temperatures of the cavern, spewing forth from the slits in her mask and beneath like the twirling smoke that prompted a red dragon's breath. This, combined with her insistent tone, was more than enough to silence the slave. He knew well the pain of the sect's wrath already, despite the natural toughness of his scaled flesh, and his scars told true the tale.

While he began sulking, Marona (with a newfound resolve, knowing that the burly creature was there to be her meatshield now) slinked back towards the center of the room with her robes drawn tight around her form. Her eyes were beginning to lose their omnipresent vision of the cavern, but she could still discern the latent energy of each of the other creatures. She desired to remain silent and content with just watching, but the dragon-blooded took a bit of initiative. He tapped the walls of the cavern with a claw, and the legions of formians crawled from their posts to defend their clan from a potential threat.

From a corner of the area, several creatures burst from the crumbling walls, set about in an unknown panic. An uproar of foreign yells added to the slew of chaos and several formians emerged from the crevace, damaged from unholy energy, with slaves fleeing their grasp. All of humanoid races, they were: elves, dwarves, humans predominantly, but only a single half-elf. While the other slaves attempted to fend off their pursuers, the half-elf stumbled towards Marona and the fallen bodies. He was panting, obviously fearful for his life, and saw the newcomers as his potential benefactors; those that perhaps could liberate him from his slavery. Though he spoke, that majority of his words were drowned out by the rattling of chains clanging insistently against his manacles as he ran, as well as the yells from behind.

"Help me! Please!" he managed to choke out amidst the noise, and he tripped in the hell-priestess' direction with a desperate expression creeping along his malnourished face. Marona, though her face was covered by the thick metal of a ritualistic mask, was noticably irritated. The half-elf approached her, begging for salvation, and even dared to touch the robes draped across her banded mail. With a grunt of disdain, the woman lashed forth her claws and caught the weakened male by the shoulder, ripping into his clothes and flesh, and knocked him out of her way to the ground. She ignored his pitiful whimpers and stepped over his downed body afterwards.

"I am your savior, hmm?" Marona questioned with a light note in her tone as she prepared the gestuations of a spell. "You have been spared the slavery of one, only to be drafted into the slavery of another. Your body is too frail, however, and we care not to nourish you, so you will either find yourself on the dissection bench or the altar soon enough. May the gods have mercy on your soul for this cruel turn of fate, half-elf."

---------------------------------------------

A bump in the caravan's path shook Aloth's cabin and stirred one passenger from her sleep. She was nearly drowning in a pile of cushions and throws, sprawled about her sleeping arrangement with little regard for those around her, but she managed to pull herself together upon slipping into partial consciousness. The Red Wizard, who had been previously preoccupying himself with reading a tome across from her, tilted his vision upwards to pull her into his field of view.

"What's wrong, child? Have a nightmare, did you?" he teased her from afar as she pushed herself into a seated position. Her expression, though laced with the mist of fatigue, managed to sour from his comment, and the mage barked a victorious laugh.

"Not only do you drug your potions, but you set aside the time to pack it into your incense, too, Red Wizard? I believe I just heard rapture, of all things, in your voice."

"Yes. Just terrible of me," Aloth agreed with a slight scoff. "You've not answered my previous question, however. I thought I taught you better mannerisms than this."

Marona directed her eyes to the floor between them. It took a few seconds for her to gather the proper words, but she finally answered, "Not a nightmare. Merely reminiscence."

"'Madness,' dear. 'Madness,'" he corrected her. "What was it you were recollecting?"

"Krin, the half-elf warlock. The one possessed by the tanar'ri. You recall me telling you of him in the past?"

"Vaguely. I most likely wiped such information from my memory long ago to make room for my studies."

"Figures," Marona mumbled beneath her breath as she crossed her legs and leaned back in her seat, hoping that the old man's keen senses couldn't peer past the groaning of the cabin and her own movements.

"...What?" But it seemed she'd receive no such luck.

---------------------------------------------

"May the gods have mercy on my soul?" a hundred voices seemed to inquire at once, each entering its own fit of chuckling at random intervals afterwards. "Such folly."

(( To be continued.

[Nyssis]

"What manner of god or beast spawned this monstrosity?" Marona harped from behind a lifted sleeve as her eyes followed the bizarre patterns that lingered around them. All of her senses were grossly overpowered by the potency of the anomaly. Her body altogether felt nauseous, even with the preparations she made to reduce the brunt of ... the pain. They had finally made it to their destination, but it was mentioned in passing to hardly be worth the effort. The land was stripped of its vitality and whatever spring of worth it had previously was gone. It had long faded into the tangible blight of broken Weave that spread across the miles of wilderness. Ruins of civilization that were abandoned by their creators in the night were suffused with an unusual stench at the core of this phenomina. Of course, the priestess tried to reason against proceeding so far into this danger, but her pleas fell on deaf ears.

"I don't believe either of those properly divine the reasoning behind this," the Red Wizard replied. He, too, was phased by the oppressiveness of the area but was attempting to contain it. And he was trying his best rightly so, since the droplets of sweat that milked from his brow were in need of some dire aid. "I am almost in a state of shock. Almost."

She briskly lowered her arm and gave the immediate area one last long look, then alerted her employer with a sincere glare. "I do not trust this place," she began with haste, already swerving around him towards the caravan. "Hurry with your study and be done with it so we can leave."

"They say paranoia is a survival trait," he whispered after her, but he knew the fear wafting off her was well-rooted. The instability of this place would drain a magister's lips and fingers dry of power should they linger too long. It would be difficult, if nigh impossible, for him to prove a match to any wild man or magic beast attuned to the shattered Weave. His spells would fail, magic items would be left chargeless, and a menagerie of components useless... Not promising. Indeed, Aloth followed the woman's lead and turned to his knights. It was not long that a loud command prompted the beginning of a very long period of research.

The others conglomerated around the wagons, heaving boxes laden with many pieces of equipment at the wizard's behest, or already gathering the tinder and wood required for a hefty bonfire. Even as lengths of time passed with no interruption or calamity, the resident priestess remained hidden in the darkness of a single cabin, sipping tea and sulking under the heavy air. There was little that would wrest her free, too, as was noticed when Dhiren and Gavril attempted to coerce her outside.

"Priestess, I thought this would be a new experience for you. I thought you would find it intruiging," the flimsier of the two chirped through the wagon's doorway, trying his best to make as much light of the situation as possible. Gavril only rolled his eyes dramatically when he noticed what his comrade was doing.

"No, this place disgusts me," she said harshly, slouching deeper between the cushions on her lounge and sipping at her piping hot drink with little concern for the goings-on outside. Dhiren tried to set his muddy soles on the steps, perhaps reach inside and beckon her out more directly, but the larger male quickly yanked him away like a ragdoll when he realised that the Red Wizard was watching.

"That is not the best of ideas. Not while our mage friend is alert," Gavril garbled as he kept firm his hold on his fellow's robes. "Wait for him to lose all his sense as a magister here before you challenge his rule." Dhiren remained bewildered, but unless he agreed with his companion's decision, he wouldn't fight himself free anytime soon. His complacency prompted Gavril to let go and slightly straighten out the wrinkles left behind in his clothing, but they all were jolted from afar.

"Greetings!" an expressive voice suddenly yelled from deep within the mist, the height of his pitch multiplied tenfold and echoing several seconds afterwards. It was akin to a great bellow or scream—almost on par with a wraith's screech—and it was more than enough to force everyone outside to cover their ears or wail in surprise. Marona had spit out a mouthful of her tea when the voice resonated into the cabin, scalding the open wounds on her fingers and forcing her to toss the beverage and its container to the wooden floor nearby with a curse. The porcelain's crash, while mostly drowned out by the exclamation, drew a sneer from the wizard.

"Have you been enjoying your stay in my corner of Toril?" the voice resounded again, thankfully not as loud as the first time. Aloth kept his eyes temporarily focused on the cabin, but it didn't hold for long. The air became fumed with the stench of sulfur, thick and billowy as the wind swirled about, and the caravan's entirety succumbed to blocking out the bad oxygen with their hands. It burned the throat and nasal passages on its way into the lungs, whether by nostril or mouth, and many slaves and apprentices crumpled choking. Dhiren seemed only slightly weakened by the effects as he stumbled into the door on the cabin, accidentally knocking it closed, but the sound it made was unnatural. He glanced sideways with his hands locked over his nose and inspected the door. The metal hinges and framing were melting.

"I'm afraid I was wrapped up with other business," it began again and the source, an unimposing half-elven male, emerged into view. "It took me a while to arrive, but here, I am!" He was short with placid skin and unwashed, brittle hair that weakly gathered behind his ears and at the nape of his neck. The robes he wore were torn in several places and stained near the heels, the slightly rusted links of his chainmail shining through beneath. He'd seen much combat and acquired plenty of scars, and his boots had dragged his body across many terrains. His eyes, while bright green and healthy, were strangely luminescent amidst the worn haze of wild magic. This feature alone was the only thing that made him look alive and well, like a living and breathing creature rather than some corpse or statuette.

Both of the acolytes outside noticed this oddity and the aura that resonated off of him. He smelled too foreign to be native to this plane of existence, and so Dhiren struggled to yell towards the cabin behind them, his tone excitable. Though mostly muted by his palms, Marona answered the call for assistance as she pushed the horribly crooked door open just far enough to let herself out.

"There is a fi—," she began but was abruptly cut off when the metal on the stairs gave way and she nonchalantly plummeted to the mud. She stumbled down the remnants of the stairs into Gavril's stoic body, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, and he settled her back into place at his side. She had barely regained her composure when she followed the others' gazes to the warlock and realised they very much knew each other. "Krin," she said simply.

"I remember you, too, woman," he sneered to her and his body began curling in on itself, slowly wrapping his arms around his chest in a sadistic form of comforting embrace. His expression, too, turned to pitiful sorrow, but the guile behind it roused hair on the back of the beholders' necks. "I remember when you subjected this vessel to torture. I remember when you tried your best to define my purpose—rip me apart—with your skills and tools. I remember when the head of your order tried to, to—"

The elfblood suddenly took a deep breath and he bellowed a great, terrible, drawn-out laugh with what corrupted air filled his lungs. "I've not gone anywhere!" he said amidst his hysterics, shaking his head in denial and tearing his arms away into a shrug. "Without that wretch following your heels, you've little chance to make me go anywhere, either!" The woman instinctively looked to the Red Wizard. He was eagerly watching the half-elf with his hands both over his mouth and draped along the spellbook at his waist, but it was the rapidity of his eye movements that struck her with a revelation. Mumbling a short incantation 'neath her breath, she drew a palm before her own irises and flashed them closed so the spell would take hold.

The very sight was appauling. The half-elf vessel stood looking so weathered, so old. His body was barely standing on its own with withered arms and legs and he bore a horribly gaunt face white as Narfell's Uktar snow. Malnourished? No, he was engorged on power. Fat and content with the multitude of beings inhabiting his very tiny, very mortal form. Behind the half-elf slithered a multilimbed demon, tall and imposing with the noble look of perhaps some of the priestess' more devilish allies. It was wreathed in a tough carapace of chitin, bone, and thick flesh to deflect even the sharpest of blades with ease.

Lean humanoid arms lined with the finest gold bangles and gems twirled about at either side of its body in a spell gesture while two massive crustacean claws remained hooked at it's ribs. It's head was mostly buried beneath the jutting bone of it's clavicle, but it was canine in appearance with vibrant crimson eyes and chitin plates and horns that crowned it. The lips lining a hideously toothed maw did not move except to spit a breath of sulfur and acid, and every so often contort into a most cruel smile. A glabrezu, as Talaster had told her so long ago.

Bodies of spirits and shadows writhed out from the warlock's shriveled body, sputtering and wailing their silent madness. They were comprised of all sorts of races, most likely victims of the demon's crusade for power: elves, men, dwarves. All of the surface races, even some drow and quasi-elementals. Other demons were there, too. So terrible and rotten were these figures, despoiling all life that encircled them, progressively fading back and forth from view.

Back and forth.

(( To be continued.