The Paths Of The Dead

Spiritual Misadventure

My eyes lock with the necromancer’s and time begins to slow.

He smiles. A genuine smile.

An answering grin crosses my face of its own volition.

Where did that come from?

His smile grows bigger. He’s genuinely enjoying this.

Bastard.

I watch as his shoulders bunch, and my eyes follow his arm as it makes a slow descent in my direction. Belatedly, my mind screams a warning, and I attempt to block his attack with my axe.

Too late.

He strikes me full in the face with a massive dragon’s claw that has somehow taken up residence where his hand should be.

My body stiffens as the world behind my eyes turns to white-hot fire and my ears are filled with a sickening crack that begins in my neck and resonates throughout my entire being.

I watch with bemusement as the world around me turns itself upside-down, and I’m vaguely aware that I’m falling.

Amusement becomes horror as I begin to understand, but understanding is lost to pain as a horrific rent forms within my soul and swallows me whole.

This can’t be good.

I open my eyes to a deep, enveloping darkness; thick, cloying, and oppressive. My body sings with the electricity of pain remembered as I look around, trying to focus on something, anything, but the world is a blur.

I pull myself to my feet, moving carefully, expecting pain that doesn’t come.

I hear movement all around me, but I can’t see anything but fog.

Slowly, my eyes acclimate to the darkness, and I realize that I am surrounded. Large, shadowy figures of questionable friendliness and indeterminate number.

Suddenly, light as bright as the noonday sun beams from my ring, and I hear The Lady’s voice say, “Come, Child. This is no place for one such as you,” and I feel myself being enveloped in a thick, warming nimbus of light.

Something snorts behind me, and I spin around; the mist swirling dramatically around me.

As I said before, this can’t be good.

A very large, shadowy something is charging straight at me, snorting and bellowing as it comes, several of its fellows not far behind.

I catch a glimpse of large, slavering jaws, and smell hot, charnalhouse breath as the light surrounding me intensifies, and the world is washed away.

Posted by Cava on the 11th of Thoth, in the 341st year of the Dominion.

Picture by Pitx.