Haunted

Arnell - Tauren Raging Monk

Simon - Arcane Rouge

The battle for the pocket dimension went just about as soothly as Arnell thought it possibly could. Since embarking with this crazy group, this was perhaps the first time that he’d had enough information before jumping in headlong to actually formulate a plan. He wondered what this group would be capable of with that as the norm…

Arnell had been keen on the pocket dimension or half-world as Veridis labeled it since scouting it out what seemed like years ago. After returning from the negative plane with his “condition” it had all the more appeal.

Thus Arnell had enlisted Simon, Baldrix, and Tina for the siege. After discussing his plan with Windwalker, Arnell had forgone inviting Kya or Kavyr. Windwalker declined indicating he needed to monitor things… He hadn’t been specific. The paladin, Oth, seemed like an obvious choice where slavers were involved, but he had been very preoccupied with something and wandered off days before the attack.

So, just the four of them, they readied up and ventured to the one-way portal in one of endless knots of Yggdrasil. Simon went in first riding the boulder through the astral realm, then under stealth scouted out the camp. Simon was indeed able to message Arnell while he was in transit only a few moments later. The half-world was roughly circular, 800 yards across. It consisted of a three-storied tower - circular and made of stone void of any chisel mark or mortar, a large corral used as a slave pen, a long wooden barracks housing four to five dozen occupants, a stable for two dozen or so lizard mounts and beasts of burden, and a couple of outbuildings for storage.

Together they rushed through double doors of the tower where Simon had already dispatched the two outer guards. The carnage from there had been swift. The dwarves Baldrix and Tina in their heavy armor shrugged off the sauren attacks handedly in the great hall that made up the ground floor of the tower. Clearing most of the guards there, they held the doorway as the full company from the barracks responded to the commotion. Some even ran to the stables first, but were unable to use their lizard mounts inside the structure. Boosted with spells and mutagens, Arrnell and Simon slew the few remaining saurens in the upper tower including their leader and his multiple mate-bodyguards.

There was a basement to the tower where a cistern had been modified to be heated by an adjacent fire - this created a humid atmosphere for the tower throughout. Beyond the cistern was a dozen or so smaller female saurens, their young, and a clutch of eggs. One of the young stabbed at Tina with a makeshift spear and subsequently met an abrupt and bloody end. The remainder recoiled in fear.

When Tina raised her ax again to strike, Arnell swiftly took hold of the handle about the shoulder. An argument unfolded that still had Arnell contemplating.

Tina reasoned that these wretches should also be eliminated. They were complicit along with their mates, accomplices to a slave trade, murder, and worse.

Arnell had questioned, “The young too? The unhatched?”

Tina was adamant that their lot was either to be slavers or slaves - either end would better be avoided in their destruction now. Arnell would not stand for it. Internally he reasoned that if indeed they were even more animal than he, at least they would recognize and respect strength.

Knowing their tongue, Arnell promised safety to all who would surrender their slaver ways and work with him to rebuild. When Arnell turned back to Tina, her expression had hardened, lip curled in contempt.

She stormed off cursing in dwarven, “So slaves they be, may the far shores take you for it…” and something about how he’d either just sealed their fate or his own - also something about his mother, which admittedly was true to character for her anyway. Arnell looked to Baldrix, who only shrugged - apparently it wasn’t just a dwarven thing.

While Arnell worked with the remaining sauren, Baldrix and Simon cleared the rest of the camp. Tina immediately raided the food stores and gave as much as possible to the malnourished slaves. She readied them for travel intending to leave as soon as possible. Rather than engage with her on the logistics, Arnell shrugged off an accusation of being the bastard offspring of a gully-dwarf and a cow and started rounding up bodies.

In all, sixty-eight dead saurens, seven dead mounts, and three dead slaves. Arnell had his second moral conundrum when he found that the lizards used for mounts and beasts of burden where omnivorous - this when one of the converted saurens drug a body to their feeding trough. Tina was livid, but having already washed her hands of Arnell and his stupid pocket dimension, only hastened her efforts to get the freed slaves headed out. Arnell didn’t even know where she intended to take them. Hopefully that was something Baldrix could get out of her. Arnell and Simon went to work ensuring anything of value short of further damage to dignity was removed from the bodies before they were all made food.

That was two days ago. At least Arnell assumed so as this half-world had no sun - even better for his “condition.” The light shifted constantly as the darkness that surrounded the plane periodically exhibited narrow, shaft-like windows into the astral realm. The sound near these was penetrating, hollow, and very uncomfortable to remain near for any length of time. His assumption on the passage of time was based on how frequently he had taken to sleep.

Tina had left with fifty-two freed slaves of multiple races that very first day. Baldrix then found the thief of charms, a rod no more than an arm’s length with a fragile glass head. It seemed from a world apart from all current concerns. Holding it, Baldrix seemed distant, withdrawn even having finally found the device he had originally set off to reclaim. He didn’t touch the mason jars of embers they found, the product of the thief of charms they had learned about from Howl’s moving castle - he wasn’t sure what to make of them just yet.

Only hours behind Tina, Baldrix set off through the same portal to catch up with Tina and entourage. He had explained that he would update Windwalker and the rest so that Arnell and Simon could focus on things here.

Arnell went down his prioritized list of todos. First he inspected the exiting portal, it was permanently open, a stone circle covered in runes, but appeared dilapidated and it wouldn’t take much to destroy it. This bumped up his priority to investigate other potential egress.

Simon was better at detecting magics, their schools, and details. As such, when a cache of loot was discovered on the second floor of the tower, they agreed Simon should sift through and collect everything magical. Together with the few unidentified items from the nether realm, Arnell and Simon decided they would spend the following day together identifying said items in the great hall.

Arnell found little of interest in the storage sheds, barracks, and stable. He did however spend a great deal of time in the master quarters on the third floor. It was there that despite any journal or ever having met the man, Arnell learned of the tower’s original occupant. He was pleased to find papers with sketches, magical diagrams, and plans still hanging from the walls. Some were entirely too faded to make out much, but collectively they told the gist of a story unwritten.

Yggdrasil is the living connection between all planes, assumed at least by this magic user to be the birthplace of all planes including an untold number of temporary, in the reasoning of an immortal tree, half-worlds like the one in which Arnell now stood. Having found one that met his needs, a tower was erected by magical means, and permanent portals put in place. It was this plural portals that caught his attention. Only then did Arnell actively seek hidden portals or portal he now knew to be.

He spent the better part of the day preoccupied with an alcove in one end of the master quarters. It was here he would have erected a portal, perhaps an emergency exit. The alcove had an incredibly worn inscription of the word fade in draconic. In every tongue and dialect he knew and every variation of fade he could think of, Arnell sat giving commands to the unresponsive alcove.

His vision not being the best, Arnell inspected the alcove closely, every aspect. Finally while completely invisible to the eye, he noticed a texture change beneath the worn fade. He had almost missed it, it was two words.

It didn’t take as long to stumble upon fade away which activated a portal within the alcove. This one was translucent and Arnell could just recognize the burnt out remains of the late druid’s shop in Crux. Throwing a splinter of wood through the portal made it close just a breath later. This was an escape strategy.

As he reasoned this was now his tower and not wanting any hint as to the function of this portal, Arnell scrapped away all remaining vestiges of the word fade.

Martial combat with it’s speed and the intensity borne of a primal need usually takes a heavy toll. It fatigues the body and the mind. However, Simon’s mind was already so distant, preoccupied on events from weeks ago, it had all been as hallow echoes. He knew Tina was pissed at Arnell, possibly himself for who knows what. It didn’t matter.

Simon sat staring at a room full of loot without even seeing it. He had to repeatedly cast detection magics as he apparently couldn’t handle concentrating on sorting and what really festered within him.

His mind was still in the nether.

Still processing what had happened - what he had make happen.

Back in the nether, the lay of the chamber was distorting at best. The pull of the earth was weak and fluctuated. It’s very orientation revolved around them. The shifting shadows were so much more, without the grind of stone nor the percussive vibration of that much mass moving at all, the shadows themselves were simply there in one moment as thin as air and solid rock the next.

The Shadow lay in wait there, a perfectly suited predator for this ambush. The shifting rock cavern split the party and Simon found himself mesmerized at the beauty of what was unfolding. Through his magic thoroughly saturated with the disciple of shadow, Simon reached out and found he could communicate with the presence. It had a solitary ambition and seemed to be struggling. 

“The Magus must die!” The Shadow wailed - though it was through the link with no audible trace. Enthralled with the brush with such power, Simon wanted to help, felt an all consuming need to assist.

Preoccupied with the melee onslaught of the Shadow, trapped within magics that suppressed all sound but the low drone of the very plane itself, Kavyr never knew what struck him. From the shadows, Simon slid his stiletto deftly between the links in the elf’s mail, just below the ribs, upward into his vitals.

Without any audible sound or visible light, there was a jolt of energy akin to a lightning strike. An unmistakable vacuum of presence followed as the the Shadow now possessed the body of Kavyr, and Kavyr was simply gone.

Simon, enrapt with curiosity and either drunk with or overcome by a lust for the power he was actively engaged with, played along as the fake Kavyr stepped out simply rejoining the party when the shadows shifted once more.

Time to reflect on his actions had taken it’s toll. Kavyr was dead. Simon had murdered him without any hesitation. And for what?

Simon knew what the Shadow was. Time and the natural effect of exposure to negative energy has a damning effect on mortal coils. It drains the disembodied of any remnants of their former drives, ambitions, memories. Sentience is lost, replaced with only hunger - unceasing need to feed on the energy of the living.

Except this Shadow exhibited sentience - it meant to destroy, not consume. It had a specific target and could easily communicate it. That would squarely put whatever this Shadow was in a different category of undead - the stuff of liches, death knights, and revenants; those undead created by sheer will driven by a pressing need or obligation that transcends life. Or perhaps powerful recent dead still clinging to aspects of a former self as vampires do. At least before their thirst drives them to adopt the animalistic and become but creatures only too.

But what had happened to Kavyr? His spirit hadn’t been displaced from his body and carried off towards the cauldron of souls as other party members who had fallen in combat on the nether plane. He was simply gone. The Magus was no longer an entity, but only a vehicle for an entity.

And this touched on an area Simon didn’t know all that well. Spirits don’t just cease to be. There were really arcane and dark magics that could be powered by spirit as a fuel, but none of what transpired seemed to have any of those hallmarks as far as Simon knew.

Sadly Simon couldn’t even console himself with the thought of raising his companion from the dead if his spirit could be found. Elves can’t be raised, their spirits become wisps that in the great forests continue on with their decedents. In a new form, they were believed to aid and guide for generations of the longest living race on the surface.

Simon kicked a silver chaffing dish sending it skittering across the floor. This sent some loose coins scattering and knocked over some poorly stacked contents previously teetering on the edge of an open top chest. Too tired physically from days without sleep and exertion, mentally exhausted from… well, this… and wracked with guilt, Simon couldn’t even stand when he instinctively tried to do so in response to the mess.

And what of their new traveling companion? The Shadow possessing Kavyr was baffling. Shadows are naturally things of chaos incapable of planning or complex motivations. This thing was actively learning! It was making every attempt to pass off as Kavyr. Patient enough to learn names, relationships; it had some concept of martial training. Simon had no idea if it could be trusted, perhaps had some sense of debt for Simon’s help in the cavern to assume this form. As it displayed traits well beyond hunger and compulsion, it had to be capable of a moral code, maybe even duty bound to serve.

Undead are frequently compelled to service though necromancy, and shadow magic eventually would lead to the ability to compel the servitude of shadows. Simon realized how much further his learning would have to take him for that to even be an option and reverted back to optimistic thoughts on potentially honor bound behavior. He didn’t exactly have any frame of reference to assume if or how treacherous it’s likely to be. Right, a creature actively hiding it’s nature and fully capable of murder…

Simon buried his face in his hands. He wasn’t sure anymore if he was still thinking on the Shadow, or himself.

Arnell waited in the doorway long enough to feel sure Simon was indeed asleep sitting upright on the stool. It gave him time to consider how many days the rouge had continuously been awake. Feeling confident, Arnell decided to chance a move.

Much larger than his human companion, Arnell easily lifted Simon carefully from the stool with no more effort than he would a child of his own kind. He carried his sleeping charge to an adjacent room, previously the private quarters of some now-dead lieutenant suaren likely. Arnell had previously found the room and while he wasn’t entirely sure if the tick was filled with feathers or at least softer tree boughs, suspended by rope webbing as it was and covered with heavy quilts, it had to be more comfortable than the stool.

Arnell then sat leaning against the door frame, or more accurately blocking the hallway and took the first watch.