RP:The Avatar's Journey

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

Near the Mines, Xalious Mountains

Krice's eyes narrowed subtly as Cressida's hand made contact with his chest, her skin to the cloth of his shirt, and it was without any shift in his posture that she'd be able to get a vague idea how strong - or how heavy - he was. The words she spoke thereafter helped him understand the gesture and he smirked wryly as a result, shaking his head. " I mean..." A pause. " I don't have many things, so I don't need a place to put them, really." Another pause. " 'Traveling light' means moving around with items that only your hands can carry without the need of a carriage or other transport." Did she know what a carriage was? His left eye narrowed on its own as he contemplated this.

Cressida lowers her hand to her side and fiddles with a vine that's wrapped itself around the strap of her satchel. "I see." She does - the explanation is clear and simple. She doesn't feel any need, nor does she possess the desire to pry further. "I travel light, too." She amends a moment later, "But heavier than a bird." She glances toward the mountain, studying it, scrutinizing the area where she figures Krice must have begun his descent. "Do you usually come down like that? All at once, and not a bit at a time, as others?"

The cooler temperatures up here in the highlands often drop dramatically. But rarely do they do, on a day when they wind is not a blistering chill, nor lacking in blizzard-borne snow. Today, the air grows cold – not only cold, but creeping-cold, the kind that gets under your warm tunic and clings to your skin; the kind which ignores socks and boots and nibbles your toes blue anyway. And there’s no wind, at least none that might cause such a sudden change. It will be a few minutes at least before the cause of it appears over the rise of the road to the south, distant yet, but perhaps marginally familiar to one present. It is a figure, a woman to judge by the very long, black hair - and it’s apparent this traveler is not striding; indeed, not moving at all in the ordinary way. Rather, it seems to be floating along with just its boot-tips dragging the ground, its body and head positioned in an awkward and unnatural manner.

Krice may have been comfortable in temperatures that were not so for regular humans, but the chill that enveloped his immediate surroundings, and it did not slip by him unnoticed. The warrior's brows dipped inward, portraying a distracted confusion, but he held fast to his conversation with Cressida. He answered her query with a nonchalant, " It wastes time, going up or down one bit at a time, when I can do it all at once." The warrior's eyes drifted off the dryad's face to glance behind him, to the north, up to the mountain peeks; but the winds up there were consistent and direct, as told by the wisps of snow that were pushed off the peaks by it. And then he looked west, but something caught his left eye's periphery and he continued with his gaze until it focused south. In the distance, over Cressida's shoulder, and whilst it seemed familiar to him, its manner of approach was less than settling and he stepped forward. Standing abreast the dryad, Krice kept himself at least beside her should anything go awry, his crimson gaze fixed staunchly, with indiscernible intent, upon the nearing hoverer.

Cressida lifts her chin at the sudden bite in the air. It's not so much the cold that unsettles her - she's hardier than many on account of her composition - but it's the leaves rustling at her feet that suddenly still that draws her attention away from Krice. She steals a glance over her shoulder at the approaching anomaly, tilting her head, soaking in the strange sight, attempting to make sense of it as it approaches. It appears human, but it does not travel as one. Nor does it travel as a bird, an avian, nor a dragon. It is something wholly different. She turns to face Tenebrae fully now, as the flower in her hair shrinks with the sudden frigidity; the unkempt hair it had been pinning in place is now loosed and left to its own devices. Krice is next to her, now, and his presence there garners a quiet confession. "I do not understand this either." There's no fear in her confusion, even though the flora in her immediate vicinity appears to reflect some degree of trepidation.

Tenebrae - for Krice at least would by now, as the figure nears, recognise it as that woman – makes no sound, aside from the slow scrape and his of leather wearing down on stone and gravel, where her boot-toes now and then touch the earth. Her head is loose on her neck, presently flopped back so that her hair nearly touches the backs of her calves. Her arms are not limp, though, but held out a little from the sides of her body, reminiscent of a gesture of supplication. Closer she comes, and with her, the cold.. And as the necromancer reaches the pair, begins a slow circuit about them, still levitating that scant half inch or less off the ground at times, and others, her toes making that scrape-scrape-scrape. Her head flops so that her face is toward them, expression slack and lifeless. Her eyes must be rolled back in her head, for they are stark white, a blank stare that’s now levelled at Krice and Cressida – and while it is blank, still there’s a deeply unsettling sense that the necromancer, or whatever presently has hold of her, is observing them intently. Around and around them she goes. When she’ll stop – nobody knows.

Krice 's brows dipped a little lower in the wake of Cressida's confession, but as the hovering creature neared, it became clear to him that he knew it. Her. As she slipped into orbit around them, the details of her state became clearer, not so much blurred by the fog of distance, but perfectly sharp to his evolved eyesight as if she was dead-still, standing merely an inch from him. His head turned as the woman revolved, watching her when she was in front of him, listening to her when she was behind. During one of the former moments, he took a step forward from Cressida, just a small one, and called to the floating, lifeless female with a bemused - and perhaps slightly concerned - " Tenebrae." There was no jest in his tone, no one-sided camaraderie. Only seriousness, respectful of the condition in which she visited them.

Cressida certainly doesn't understand what's happening now, so much as she hadn't earlier, either. For the first circuit or two, she follows Tenebrae's trajectory, turning with the necromancer, though she remains in place, circling on a very pointed axis. Krice steps away, and she stops rotating, though she sways for a few seconds more in a rather circular fashion. He utters a name that is unfamiliar to her, but she can deduce the word is what the woman is called, or maybe the preferred greeting, when encountering a revolving woman who drifts over the ground instead of walking on it, and who looks on without the apparent immediate use of her eyes. She echoes it, too, so as not to be appear rude. "Tenebrae."

Tenebrae, however, doesn’t really appear to be home. And that gem adhered to her brow – which seems to utterly refuse to reflect light, in any way – is black as pitch, the kind of blackness which draws the eye to its immensity of lack of hue. But it wouldn’t be wise to gaze into it too long, for it seems to wish to suck not only light into its dull, abysmal gaze. The necromancer’s own eerie, absently white eyes are unblinking, and there’s no sign of acknowledgement to Krice or Cressida’s voicing of her public name. But as she makes yet another circuit, her lips spasm and from them, slightly out of sync with the slack motions of her mouth, a voice can be heard over the scrape-scrape-scrape, a soft sort of rasp, nothing like Tenebrae’s usual mellifluous and lilting tease. Yet, like the cold she brought with her, the voice –creeps- to ear, or perhaps mind, so thought it is very soft, like the creak of an old door in another room, every word is crystal clear: “It comes… the time is near…” Then a pause, then: “..it hungers…”

Krice 's left eye twitched ever so slightly when Cressida echoed his one word, not because she spoke, but because she spoke in the presence of this anomaly, this... evil. Despite their banter, one-sided or not, this was not the Tenebrae he had come to tolerate, not one he could call 'hag' and live to say it another day. The warrior was confident in his abilities, stronger than any magic-free, natural human anyone could encounter, swift and durable, but this creature inhabiting the necromancer's body, whether it be the -real- her or something worse, unsettled him to his core. Krice's eyes drifted up to the voided gem sitting neatly in Tenebrae's forehead, but it was her words that drew his gaze away; back to those empty white eyes that stared at nothing. After extending his arm slowly to his side, and glancing over at shoulder to communicate through a look that Cressida remain where she was, that she keep silent, Krice redirected his focus to the possessed woman hovering around them. " What's coming?" He asked, his brows slightly furrowed in a hybrid concentration-concern expression.

Cressida continues to observe the strange orbiting and she isn't at all sure what to make of it. It is something entirely new, and that newness gives birth to rapid confusion, and uncertainty. She meets Krice's stare, though she doesn't take his meaning, nor his unspoken command. She eyes him as he poses his question, but she soon returns her attention to Tenebrae, and she begins to turn in place again to better observe the hoverer. "Destruction breeds creation," she murmurs sidelong to Krice, perhaps in some likely unneeded bid to reassure him. "It is the natural order of things." She takes a step backward when Tenebrae is at the farthest apex away from her, and another, until she is outside of that orbit. She watches for just another moment or two before she turns and disappears behind a bend in the base of the mountain.

The words of Cressida are followed by a dry noise from the necromancer’s loose, blood-rose lips, a horrible escalation of creaking which might have been laughter. The woman’s slender arm suddenly rises, one sharp-tipped finger pointed west, not at the mines but slightly upward, as though indicating the mountain, or somewhere beyond. The awful creaking ceases, and there’s a pause before it begins again, more comprehensible now: “It wakes… child of Aranoch… the eyes of Vakmatharas will open, they will see…while the Burrower… feasts…” the sound trails off like an ill wind blowing itself away to plague more distant places, and the Tenebrae’s ghastly orbit ceases, as she breaks the circle and her limp frame begins a slow hover toward Craughmoyle.

Krice was slightly unsettled when Cressida began to speak again, perhaps because it would draw Tenebrae's attention to her. The dryad was privy to things natural and unnatural, however, and saw fit to depart the area as was wisest. Krice, on the other hand, couldn't quite take that step, not when Tenebrae in this form was so startling, so sinister. So -different-. The creaking that came from the woman inspired a slight snarl on the warrior's face, expressing dislike for the sound, and when she pointed up to the mountain, he followed the indicating digit with just a brief glance to the west. The words spoken by the voice inside the necro-vessel drew his attention again and he fixated a solid stare upon Tenebrae's ghostly face, listening intently to her answer. When she turned to drift away, the man followed, brisk steps at first, but he'd jog if it was necessary to keep up with her. " Who are you?" He enquired, remaining outside the vessel's field of reach.

Tenebrae - or the thing which had hold of her – did not relent in its slow progress toward the mines. Nor would any attempt to stop her, for any dwarvish hand which might reach to grasp the woman in alarm at what was entering their subterranean territory would wither and die on the bone, blackened and dry. Her head did not roll Krice’s way again, but arid whispers still gusted over her lips now and then, a gibberish of sounds which yet had the aspect of some kind of speech. And so it went, into the torch-lit and more natural darkness of the caverns, until the warrior phrased the one question for which no-one in these modern days of Lithrydel, with a very few possible exceptions, was equipped to know the answer. The scraping ceased, the body spun about to face Krice, and with no other warning than that, the man’s mind was assaulted with a montage of images – more than images, though, for he would feel them, know them, as a kind of reality. What came was Death itself, countless ways it had touched the living through out history. Plagues, the suffering of the sick, the body-pits. Wars, the thunder of weapons of magic, the destruction, the limbs and heads in piles, and rivers of blood. Terrible accidents, mangled bodies, drowned bodies, crushed and smashed and eaten bodies. On and on it went, as the creature inhabiting the necromancer chanted in its own way, the litany of its innumerable names.

Krice 's left eye narrowed every so often as he worked to decipher the haunting whispers that cascaded from Tenebrae's mouth. And then the body spun around toward him and he halted just as abruptly, hair pricked, muscles tense. What came next was something unexpected, and it pushed through his natural, mental barriers as if he had none at all; as if the creature's ambiance had a direct line to his brain - to the gray matter itself. He inhaled sharply, shock stiffening his body and widening his eyes, which searched the air in front of him blindly, back and forth, back and forth, twitching as his mind grasped at the images thrust upon it. In shorter time than he'd like to admit, the images and the sensations attached to them started to eat at his composure, at his character, and he felt a chill run up his spine and grip each vertebra with unrelenting terror and sorrow, anguish epitomized in the horror that gripped his face. To experience all these things at once, as if he lived them when they happened, threatened to break the warrior and it was with a loud, forceful growl that he thrust his arms forward, left fist at Tenebrae's right shoulder, right fist just under her left breast, to shove her harshly away from him, to try and knock Death's hold on him.

Tenebrae’s body swung like a gymnasium punching bag when the fist of the warrior landed on her, and while the horrendous hold on Krice’s senses was indeed broken, a repeat of that unnerving dry laughter may indicate that the blow had nothing to do with it, whatsoever. As the laughter creaked and echoed through the caverns, chilling all who heard it, the warrior’s hand suffered the same fate as those of the few, unfortunate Craughmoyle guards that had attempted to manhandle what they’d presumed was an escaped madwoman – until, like Krice, they found their flesh withering with a creeping, dry rot that blackened and withered skin, muscle… for those who’ve actually grasped her, the rot will go down to bone. Krice was fortunate, for his blow was brief. But the touch was still enough to cause harm, and it was not at all painless. Still cackling, the necromancer’s body returned to its Western journey.

Krice didn't land the second blow. The moment the first one impacted Tenebrae's body, he felt something cold and dry spread through his knuckles. Consequently, he withdrew, stammering back, startled by the sensation, and cast his gaze to the affected right hand. Never mind the after-effects of the images that coursed through his head; that suffering would have to wait. In its place was this worse suffering, this slow, agonizing cramp that kept tightening, and tightening, and wouldn't bloody -relent. His breathing quickened and he stumbled back from Tenebrae, the vessel forgotten now. In a bid to try stave off that horrible, bone-deep ache, the warrior shook his hand and then gripped at its wrist with his other, trying to stem the flow. The infection of decay was not past his palm yet, but his whole arm felt heavy, responding to the invasion. He frowned, gasped for air and then held his breath, and growled again in discomfort as he stuttered over the mountain path, distancing himself from the cause of this frightening pain.

Western Gate, Craughmoyle

Craughmoyle was in turmoil. Not full-force.. yet. But panic was spreading through the people who’d encountered the strange apparition of a small, pale woman (or thus they assumed her to be) – the guards who’d attempted to stop her were fallen, the hands with they’d touched her withered to the bone, their well-forged iron weapons shattered like glass. Children were screaming, their bearded mothers pulling them into any available shop-door, home or side-tunnel, and many a night they would all wake up crying afterwards. The woman herself offered no direct harm – that only came to those who attempted to get in the way of her slow progress west-ward. Dwarves whispered under their beards once she’d passed, about the eerie way her feet did not quite reach the ground, but only her boot-toes dragged over the rock, and how limp she seemed, as if unconscious while at the same those stark white, empty eyes in her head could look right through a person, and beyond. By the time she has almost at the end of the main east-west thoroughfare, the guard has decided it’s probably best for all concerned to simply let her pass, like a very bad dream made somehow manifest in the waking world.

Serrure rode as far as the horse could take him before relying on the strength of his legs...perhaps not the best idea for a man untrained in running long distances, or in running much at all, really. It is not difficult to follow the trail left in the wake of-- of -whatever- it is that he can feel, as he slips through the underground, passing wailing children, stricken parents, and horrified guardsmen whose swords lie broken before them. Serrure has always known that his spiritual sensitivity is more developed than in most, but this is something else. This isn't simply a building of his senses, but a manifestation of something far, far more powerful than anything he has ever met in this chaotic world. Only as he starts to catch up to the source does he begin to catch snippets of its appearance; the dwarves speak of a pale lady, an apparition who turned all that stood in her way to dust and death. They shouted after him that he was a fool, that he would die too, but no one tried to stop him. It seems the guard are not concerned with an outsider so desperate for the embrace of death. But Serrure is smart enough to keep his distance and follow, quietly scouting out the atmosphere, trying to understand what has happened to cause this. He's not caught up to her yet...but soon.

Tenebrae herself is not present. Her flesh, the shell of her mind - all was still in the physical world, being moved along in that eerie, slow hover as though carried by a vast, invisible hand – which in a way, it was. The necromancer’s soul was.. elsewhere, probably nowhere pleasant to judge by the carnage and fear left in the wake of her body’s passing. The thing possessing her muttered and whispered through slack lips, which didn’t quite manage to keep time with the sounds it made. These were guttural, nonsensical for the most, but a serious student of extremely ancient languages might make out here and there a phrase or a word which echoed a kind of proto-language, archaic and brimming with the kind of power words once had but have no more, except as a dim and diminished echo. At the gate to the West, the woman ceased forward motion and hung in the air like a body on a gallows without its noose. Her immediate area was cold, a deep and bone-chilling sort of cold that seeped through more than mere cloth and flesh. What the thing was waiting for was anyone’s guess.

When he rounds the next bend in the tunnel, Serrure very nearly runs straight into the woman, which would have been very unfortunate for him. Luckily, exhaustion has slowed his pace enough that he's able to react with inches to spare and save himself, lunging to the side and managing to fling himself slightly away from her, while she continues onward unhindered. He lifts his head to stare after her - hit with a sudden, crippling pain that seems to reach directly into his brain and crush it, Serrure drops back down again with a pained cry...but before that he saw it. For the briefest moment, he saw what few would see; the shadow of a great black hand wrapped around her body, the apparition of a god reaching down from the sky to use her as a puppet. To be honest, looking at her, at this scene, he can't shake that off as just some sort of awful hallucination. Tentative, he looks back up. The pain is still there, but less now that the initial blow has been struck - he can look at her without wanting to faint, at least, and carefully picks himself up off the ground. Coupled with the nausea and the all-pervading chill that seems to surround her like a large, invisible blanket, and which he passed through when he fell, the mirgraine is just another burden wearing him down, and Serrure moves almost as slowly as the woman had been, dragging himself along and leaning heavily against the wall. It takes him a couple of seconds to realise that her progress seems to have halted - he peers past her, taking note of the gate and the guards bunched together in front of it, their weapons drawn, pointed at Tenebrae. Serrure grimaces. "J-Just open the gates, will you? Open them! Let it through!" He's not one for shouting but, just this once, the man is able to raise his voice enough to be heard.

Those guards whose Fates were filled with misfortune enough for them to be stationed on gate-duty that day, and who had until Serrure’s shout been utterly paralyzed in terror, suddenly galvanized, some of them sobbing, others with their teeth violently chattering – but rather than obey the man’s order, simply fled as fast as their dwarven legs and half-frozen toes would carry them, leaving the gate firmly closed. The necromancer’s mouth hung open, her jaw working up and down while a peculiar creaking sound emerged – was it laughter? Whether the vision of a hand that Serrure has seen was an accurate representation of the force possessing Tenebrae, or merely his mind’s best way of interpreting its energy, it would now seem very apt – for one pale hand lifted, its wrist making a painful ‘crack’ when the hand was flipped fingertip-upward, palm out. The gates, which had stood for centuries probably, flung off their hinges, wrecked metal scraps that blistered the ground where they fell to the west. But rather than continuing on her path, the woman in red swiveled, limply, to face Serrure. He’d see then, the gem on her brow – a terrible and all-consuming blackness somehow pressed into the form of a stone, which appears to be embedded in the woman’s forehead like an awful third eye. To stare at it too long is to invite madness, creeping and irreversible. The whispers begin again, slowly and collectively making a sort of piecemeal sense as the man before her is spoken at: “… comes the child… it hungers… comes the child…of Aranoch.. . the eyes again… will look … together… upon this world…”

Serrure might have cursed but it's never heard, for the words that leave his lips are easily smothered by the tearing of metal and the explosive force with which the gates to the West are blasted off their ancient hinges, all this with a wave of the hand. He's shaking, the same tremors that run through a rabbit caught in the scope of the wolf's gaze, the stench of fear strong, almost strong enough to break his willpower. Maybe Serrure is reckless, maybe a fool - maybe both. When she turns to face him, his mouth opens in a silent 'oh', a mixture of awe and dread reflected in his grey eyes; the sight before him is as beautiful as it is terrible, and he can't bring himself to look away, not at first. He gazed into the Abyss...then covers his eyes, before it's too late. There are runes in him, scars and bindings and burns, wards he'd carved into his own flesh to protect, defend...imprison, if need be. Who knew what purpose they would serve against this being, if anything at all-- but it was all he had, all he could put between himself and her aside from his own skin and bone. "What are you doing? What-- what are you intentions?" Serrure is not certain he'll receive an answer, not wholly expecting one either. He stands stock still, scarred hands kept pressed over his eyes, waiting...

And wait he would, for a moment that would seem an age.. Then came that creaking sound again, wizened and arid, like a tomb coughing up a thousand years of dust. While that wheezing horror continued, every mark, every scar and rune, every magical modification on Serrure’s flesh crawled with deep indigo glow, a kind of anti-light which activated all his wards together and powerfully so. Bathed in the horrible glow if, Tenebrae’s body spoke again, a jumble of auditory blasphemies that the man would yet somehow understand, “… the temple… make it ready…” And not only were the words heard, and creeping like slimy fingers through the mind, they were crawling along every mark on Serrure’s chilled body, embedding themselves into whatever matrix was their sum total. There’d be no doubt as to which temple was meant. There was only one in all of Lithrydel appropriate for the thing which guided the flesh of Tenebrae, first of the Empusai, arch-necromancer, Thanatos Domina.. and now merely a vessel for this most ancient of spirits.

Perhaps he should have refrained from asking questions; this is the last free thought, wholly his own, to run through Serrure's mind in a wave of regret and terror before the magic in his body is activated by something other than himself, blazing abruptly into life, its light illuminating the tunnel and the woman with an unholy glow and nearly forcing the man to his knees in the process. That monstrous voice reaches his ears, works its way into them, oozing through his head like thick, black ink, and blotting out all its insidious touch extends to, soaking all the way to his rune-scarred bones to drown them in darkness and blight. He convulses as it spreads, rocking back and forth on his heels, his shuddering gasps seeming to rip his lungs apart with every breath. Resistance is there, but futile, he finds-- and then. Then it doesn't matter. "Th...the temple," he repeats under his breath between full-bodied shivers and sobs, almost as if he's still fiercely fighting the corruption...but it's more than likely that Serrure's spirit has already succumbed. It's just taking his body a little longer to catch up. But his hands are still covering his eyes. "The temple." Spoken softly, with a nod of the head that's barely noticeable.

The entity controlling the body of Tenebrae does not acknowledge Serrure, for that man’s fate was set on its new path now, and so he was necessary in no further capacity. The woman, her boot-toes worn through, leaves a thin trail of blood from bare toes scraping over rough rock and twisted metal, and the Vessel of the Eye continues on her westward travels.

Serrure , skin slightly smoking, etched rune lines still faintly glowing, turns erratically, looking generally dizzy and disorientated, and begins to retrace his steps back through the tunnels, headed eastward. He's left alone on his way back, too - no dwarf wants to touch the dead, and none wish to touch the man who survived his encounter with that terrible being, either.

Causeway, Venturil

The body of Tenebrae continued on its long, slow journey into the west, accompanied – as she grew closer to Venturil – by a series of strange and notable events which drew curiosity from the King’s guards and commoners alike. There was a rain of birds, all dead.. The edges of what few crops have been eked out of the badly-leeched soil withered and blackened. Dogs howled in terror, and did not stop until the small woman drifting like a ghost down the causeway had long passed. Tenebrae herself is – absent, still. Her flesh is a vessel for some fell spiritual entity which has her hovering above the ground just enough so that her toes drag in the rocks and gravel and parched dust. Her boot-toes are ruined, worn through, and she leaves a thin trail of dark ichor where they drip stolen blood. Her own eyes are white, rolled up in her head, and her body is limp as a rag-doll’s. Whatever motion she makes is slight, but wholly awkward and unnatural. On her brow is a gem so black that it is difficult to look at it, an act which would be ill-advised anyway – it seems to draw the mind in, the same way it draws in light and refuses to reflect it out again. There are badly maimed guards left in her wake, and several local farmers, all of whom have attempted to get in the way of her constant southern path, men with shriveled hands, shattered weapons and madly staring eyes…

Dogma had been following the trail of destruction for a while now. The feeling of impending was growing by the second the closer Umbra, his drake companion, brought him towards the source. Casting his eyes about the area he noticed the first signs of the darkness, destroyed guardsmen, Maimed farmers and more then a few people driven to insanity. The Crusader swore to return and fix what he could. A mental command to Umbra to have him go faster and faster still. The only odd thing about it all was the closer he got to the cause of all this destruction, the quieter and quieter the god of death become in his head. Surely this was a fortunate sign? Shaking his head to clear such silly thoughts the avian cast his eyes back to the ground once more searching for the cause of the feeling. Finally his eyes alit upon a floating...Thing. “ Alright umbra... Don’t get hurt buddy.” And with that the Crusader let himself fly off the back of his drake flipping and falling towards the ground. If anyone was to pay attention to the suddenly appearing ball of feathers it would be obvious that he was actually enjoying the free falling series of back flips. Twenty feet out in front of the possessed entity would be where dogma appeared. And with a sudden flaring of his wings he’s descend from the sky in a shower of midnight black feathers. Cold blue eyes looking upon the thing that caused all the destruction, and now the god of death’s voice had vanished completely. The paladin was decked out in his usual simple leather armor , the holy sigils of his faith glowing in protest to the darkness in front of him. “ Ohh hell... This is just not my day.” Even knowing that this was going to hurt and something awful the Avian drew his sword.” People, flee from the demon. Get away you stupid guards men and farmers. “ Sometimes you had to be a bit mean to make people understand that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Finally his eyes took in the fact that it was the same woman that had forced him to remember all his sins. Even the ones that had been locked away in his mind. So he started to his first battle prayer, made just for the moment of this meeting.”Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, “ The holy sigils light up summoning his armor to him."when she played the whore in the land of ventruil and lusted after her paramours there,” The armor appeared in a burst of light as he rushed forward sword drawn high above him.” whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions.” And he attempted to get close enough to bring *Vengeance* down upon her.

Tenebrae, had the consciousness of the woman herself actually been present, might have fallen over in a fit of uncontrollable laughter at the paladin’s words. But she wasn’t there, not any part of her at all but for the shell of her small body. No laughter, then. Just silence, and the ever-onward motion of that dangling, white-eyed shell… There’s no reaction at all to Dogma’s various actions, not a turn of head, not a glare. Nothing. Almost as if the avian doesn’t really matter. As he draws weapon, though, there’s a terrible rush of cold, not any sort of cryomancy but the dead, bone-numbing cold of death made manifest. The sword named Vengeance may rise – but it will never fall on this avatar of Vakmatharas, nor the flesh it presently inhabits. The very metal it’s made of is vibrated, as if something’s shaking up the very atoms it’s composed of. It’ll shatter, probably, any moment, a likely unfortunate event for Dogma’s own flesh when its shrapnel flies – that, or the avian will get wise quickly and simply leave before the god-thing turns its attention on him more fully.

Dogma was never one for giving up even when it was obvious he should. Even as the sword started to vibrate in hand as the simple actions of the woman he continued on with the strike before him. The blade shattering shooting shards of metal against his armor and into his flesh. A sudden wave of nausea as the cold and blood swept through him. He continued forward , his wings flapping wildly behind him to send him faster and faster towards the avatar of death. His right hand cocked back in the classic punching position. At the end of his fist divine energy started to gather in ball. And he'd strike out once more for the woman. Every intent on stopping the avatar even if it should cost him his life.

Have you ever seen a bird hit a window? The sudden THUMP, the feathers drifting as it falls? Trying to hit a bit of a god with a much weaker bit of another god might be a great idea – in theory. Not so much practise, as Dogma is probably discovering, right about now. Wherever he ends up, in whatever condition, Tenebrae’s body spins on its axis, ceasing its motion for a time. The white eyes level upon him, and if he still has senses he might perceive the black gem – like an awful third eye – appears to fixate on him as well. Waves of an unspeakable intelligence reach out, wrapping the avian in themselves, chewing their ineffable way into his bones, flesh, mind. The woman’s lips move in a loose way that doesn’t match the sound, the terrible sound, emerging from her. Some of might remind Dogma of words: “….my temple… make it ready…. The child comes… the eyes will… open…” As it had been with Serrure, it was obvious there only one temple in all the lands worthy of the Death God’s avatar. And, unless Dogma’s own will could somehow overcome this archaic fragment of Vakmatharas, the paladin (if he can still be a Paladin, after this..) can consider that an order given.

Dogma gave a sudden scream of pain as his entire form slammed into an invisible wall of something. He slumped to the ground as he looked to be a broken toy. The sudden burst of golden light and his armor had vanished showing the avian with a broken arm and several slashed covering his body. As he started to stand that terrible third eye fell upon him and the waves of intelligence reached out to capture his mind. The avian fell to the ground, his left hand clawing at his face. Lowly he started to mutter as if to himself." No, no... Not again. " The voice was back, stronger, more brutal then before as if it was smashing his mind while reforming it only to smash it again. Slowly the avian fell to the ground twitching and clawing at his face as if to drive the demon from his mind. After a moment the avian simply stopped moving flattening out onto the cold ground. The holy sigils along his body slowly losing the golden shine of the gods of light, The first on his back turned a deathly black, more and more of the dark energies started to torture the paladin. " No... No...Not again..." At that moment Umbra appeared from the sky. The Bonded drake slammed into the earth besides the avian nudging the broken paladin with its massive snout. The mental images flashed through both their minds as the mental battle was joined with a beastial rage to release his companions hold. Slowly as if from a great distance the avian started to mutter more to himself then to anyone else.The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.” Slowly the darkness consumed the paladin in its entirety.” Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will,” The Crusader started to stand his face bloody and beaten, his body torn to shreds.” shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness,” He held his left hand level at the god like being before him.” For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.” The infernal divine energies started to form at the end of his hand. The smell of burnt flesh dancing about the area. “ And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.” The energy burned and danced in its anger as more and more of the avian’s body started to cook from channeling the power of the gods.” And you will know my name is Aramoth when I lay my vengeance upon you!” The cooked meat smell suddenly turned into the smell of burnt flesh as the avian’s entire left arm was cooked as he sent the single, large, bullet of energy towards the god being. The avian promptly collapsed back against the drake, the only thing holding him up would be the fact he grabbed a spike, but even with that the avian needed a healer and bad. The corrupted influence of the death god was growing to much as the whispers started back in his mind. To listen, To give up and obey. Sigils flashed wildly between bright stunning gold and darker then night onix. Two meetings and twice his faith had been shook to its core. Even now the thought to go and fix up this god’s temple ran rampant as he tried every calming mantra and prayer in his arsenal to block out the shouted commands of the dark god.

The dark god wasn’t shouting at anyone. And the thing in Tenebrae, which is but an echo of that god, albeit a powerful and much-corrupted one, had apparently lost interest in the paladin.. Whatever he threw at the tiny, puppet-like body it inhabited, the god-shard absorbed it, as it absorbed all light and life which got in its way, excreting only Death. It was not more powerful, nor it was less so, for Dogma’s efforts. It was not capable of being concerned about whether the avian succumbed to its will, or miraculously overcame it. It simply was drawn to back its slow travels, the inevitable path toward its ultimate goal…

Dogma promptly slumped across the drake and blacked out. Letting Umbra take him where ever in the world the little beast wanted .