Toys of Shadow

[Lord Wyrm]

Veran gazed into the darkness, his immortal heart pounding. This house on the mountains was not holy to any god, it pulsed with evil unlike anything the Fallen One had felt before.

"Torvis?"

Who called that name? Veran couldn't shake the feeling of dread. Enternity as the great slayer of men had given Veran a certain invulnerability to the emotions of mortal beings, but this was such a strong, overwhelming feeling of pure, undiluted fear.

"Torvis, are you listening?"

Veran's mind flashed into recognition. "Yes, what do you need Drythi?" Torvis's lips moved but they were Veran's words. Torvis, young human warrior of the lower hills, had died a
fortnight ago when Veran slipped into his mind and severed his soul from its husk.

"Torvis, I need you to go through the door there into the antechamber."

"Yes m'lady." Veran answered the elven duchess in his practiced, fluid tone. The door he was to bash through was sturdy hardwood. Whatever could be said about this place, it was well kept for a place of supernatural evil. Kicking in this door did not seem fitting to Veran, even in his masquerade as Torvis. He drew his dagger and retrieved a nail from a nearby chest. It took a moment with the clumsy device but the lock in the doorway clicked into the open position. Veran reached for the handle and slowly drew the door open. His heart knew what lay on the other side but it would be best for his travelling companions to learn for themselves. A black fluid rose from floor to ceiling just inside the antechamber. Veran knew what it was but wasn't willing to share with the mortals.

"What is it Torvis?" the chirpy voice of Selene rang out. The little halfling paladin to Drake was going to have the shock of a lifetime. "In Drake's name!" she saw what Veran had obscured a second before. Blood, it was a wall of blood. The sanguine divider pulsed and flowed. Up and down, down and up, the red darkness moved as if alive.

"Powerful magicks shaped this wall." Drythi had already started trying to explain the wall like any wizard would.

That's where you'd be wrong. Veran smirked.

"This is an unholy creation!" Selene shouted in a tone that nearly hurt Veran's ears.

Please, the child didn't detect me as evil when I entered Torvis, and I wasn't obfuscated like this house was. What makes her think its evil as she knows it?

"Me smash!" Tog the orcish barbarian of the eastern steps charged the wall before bouncing off the body of Torvis.

"Smashing a fluid object might not be the brightest of attempts on your part Tog." Veran loved insulting the orc and loved watching him get hurt even more but he could not allow a death in this house. Not this house, not ever.

 

[Lord Wyrm]

Veran spent nearly twenty minutes lecturing Tog on why trying to smash a wall of blood was a bad plan when he noticed Selene was gone. Not many places to hide in this room, the doorway was blocked so...

Oh no!

Veran moved to the wall of blood and check the seams where it melded to the doorway. The sides and bottom seemed not to of changed but the top had retreated ever so slightly.

"Torvis, why you check funny wall?" Tog seemed to not of caught that Selene was gone yet. There was something else as well, it nagged at Veran's thoughts, ethereally hung just out of reach. And then it came, Drythi was gone as well. Veran's chest tightened.

The air seemed to become as water and for an instant Veran almost drowned.

"What wrong Torvis."

"Tog." Veran was way to calm, his years as a Duke of The Nine were coming back to him and his rather twisted approach for such things as this house were becoming second nature again. "Tog, smash the wall."

"But you say it bad to do so."

"Tog smash it... you need to smash it... Selene needs you to smash it." On that Tog's eyes went wide, his nostrils flared and his muscles bulged. Tog charged the wall of blood head on and vanished into its depths.

No more witnesses, now I can handle this my way. Who knows maybe the wall didn't kill them but meerly transported them.

Veran moved to the wall of blood and pulled a stick of red chalk from his pocket. With the chalk he traced a ward in the doorway and touched his hand to it. Veran smelled his own burning flesh as the ward attempted to repulse him, felt the tingle of old magicks ravaging his mortal husk. Then the pain disappeared and Veran was flying, no swimming. His arms thrashed for air and his legs kicked away at the deep until he was in the antechamber. The wall of blood loomed behind him. His lungs burned, he spat a viscous black fluid from his mouth. Was it his or had it come from the wall? No time to consider that now.

Veran struggled to his feet and slammed against the door to the outside more from exhaustion than trying to make it give. The door splintered under his weight and gave way into the courtyard of the manor house. Veran looked skyward as he felt the cooling drops of rain washing away the warm blood. He crawled in the mud until he reached the fountain in the center of the square. Its draconic statue still spewed water even in this torrent.

This house isn't going to let me out without killing me. I'm afraid it might succeed.

Veran was never this unsure of himself. He had existed since the dawn of time and never had he had so much fear. The air around weighed heavily on his shoulders. He moved to stand and found the strength. His gait was unsteady and undirected as he made for the back of the house and thats when he saw it just beyond the woodline. The creature Veran knew could kill him. The Grey One.

It moved so slowly, not to stay out of sight but simply because it had all the time in the world. Its hunched form was larger than any man and it skin was perfectly gray. No tone upon its flesh except that blasted grey. It arms were long and almost ape-like ending in wicked claws. Stringy loose clumps of hair fell over its shoulders, that same grey. The eyes were the most terrifying, it was like looking into the Abyss, not the one humans and demons knew but the far darker one. Pools of nothingness that made Veran cringe.

Veran couldn't move, he wanted too but something held him back. The silence weighed on him, the Grey One made no sound and the creatures around seemed to sense its prescence. The rain's pattering upon the ground seemed muted and wrong.