Chapter I: If The Dead Could Talk

Dorian glanced around, looking at the band of travelers he had managed to become a part of. Before the morning, none of them had met before, each independent, part of no greater scheme or plan. Yet here they were, as if drawn together by some mysterious force of fate, walking through the woods, heading to a supposedly slain fortress. Slain by one man, at least if the soldier's story was correct and not embellished upon in some fashion.

The trek had been longer than Dorian had originally expected, but walking was something that he was more than used to. After what seemed like an hour or so's walk, they finally reached a hill on the outskirts of the woods, a hill that overlooked the village behind and the fortress ahead. There was indeed no sign of life down there, but they wouldn't know yet. They still had a good half hour's walk before reaching the fortress.

Krevense looked around. "I feel a growing sense of dread. It does iminate from that fortress." If a ghost could gulp its jaw, like a Living could, Krevense would have done just that.

"calm your plasma ghost! Everyone get your weapons ready and keep an eye out any movement and you tell us you get me?" Aren slid his sword out of it's holster and crouched slighty moving foward as if expecting a fight to occur any second.

Martin sneered at the overzealous, yelling swordslinger. How typical.

"You do know that if there were anyone still out here, that you've just alerted said person to our presence?" He sighed. Not everybody could be as sensible as he was, sadly. The terrain just begged to carry sounds, particularly echoes. "Nonetheless, you are right. We may want to spread ourselves out a bit as well. Walking in close formation like this... Well, we'd be slaughtered if we come up against archers."

Having spoken his mind, he stepped back about 10 paces and drew his bow and an arrow from his hip quiver. He would provide support from the rear and he would be the lookout.

Krevense began to glow as he drew in necrotic energy. "I shall charge myself in case we encounter trouble."

Dorian rolled his eyes with a hint of irritation. Taking the lead, he started walking. He had no weapon and so he had no reason to stay behind. Glancing over his shoulder at the hesitant group, he shook his head slightly.

"Something that causes this much quick and efficient destruction, doesn't stick around to be greeted by the locals," he said as if he knew the intents and motives of every combative thing on the face of the Earth. "And besides, even if it did, you expect to take it out with your little weapons. It defeated an entire fortress, I doubt you would be of much use in a fight with whatever it is."

With that, Dorian turned facing forward and briskly commenced walking again. He was intrigued and they still had a fair amount of ground to cover before they could begin to find some answers.

Martin frowned at Dorian and decided to let him know his thoughts.

"Oh, I agree. Whatever caused all the death and destruction on the hilltop almost certainly has left by now. However, you know what they say: when there is vengeance to be had by angry souls that died en masse..." He paused to quickly shoot near Dorian's shoulder, at the shadowy figure that had suddenly appeared next to the leader. Not a very sneaky being now, was it?

"...their spirits remain behind to reap death and destruction of their own." He finished gravely.

"Shades."

"OH GREAT we now have two enemys to deal with now"

"Dorian i think you may have a point what are we compared with an entire fortress. Heck i don't even know why i'm here i've just met you all."

Aren spun round and lunged his sword into another shadowy figure.

"At least theese 'shades' are easy to deal with"

Krevense thought, then suddenly turned to a Shade and absorbed its Necrotic Energy into his own, powering himself up further. "Oh," he said, slyly, "Now time for me to join the fight. Don't worry, my Living comrades, I'll handle this!" He then began to absorb more Shades.

Dorian simply kept walking towards the fortress, letting his misfit comrades deal with the ghosts of the dead. He was weaponless anyhow so he would be useless in this fight. However, he kept pushing back the dark thoughts that were encroaching upon his mind. The tales he was told as a child, the things meant to scare him and others like him. If the shades of the dead were present...well...he didn't want to think about it. Not yet and if he didn't, perhaps it wouldn't come true. They were tales to frighten the kids after all, weren't they?

Indeed, the shades out here, far from the fortress, were weak things, pathetic and only posed a threat in great numbers. In truth, however, as the group traveled closer to the fortress, the frequency of the spirits' attacks increased and said spirits became faster, stronger, and more annoying overall. In addition, given the increased presence of shades, an aura of despair* formed around the ragtag group of fighters and an unarmed leader. Gradually, a sense of hopelessness and a feeling that the horde of dark souls would never end latched on to each person and the fighting became sluggish. There was no reprieve from this onslaught, no rest from the depression which had beset the group 2 hours prior. It would be so easy to just let it end, and yet, they all tried their best to continue fighting in spite of the oppression. Martin struggled, however.

"Dorian!" He shouted, wearily. "I cannot hold on any longer! They are going to take me and I am going to disappear. They will take me to the fortress where the hate is strongest." He paused and breathed heavily before speaking again.

"When they do, you must come find me. The rest of the shades will leave you, but they will mentally torture me until I am filled with their hate. I will eventually become their slave if someone does not come and take me away." With one last effort, he left a parting thought. "If I do become enthralled, there is no way to release me. At that point, you all must kill me."

With that, he slumped over and fell to the ground. Gradually his body faded from existence until it was gone. He was now at the not-so-tender mercies of the shades.

*Think nerfed dementors from Harry Potter. Far less powerful, but same idea.

At that point, Krevense was angered. Being an undead spirit himself, he was in no way afffected by the shades' dispairing influence. "Again, I have failed to save a Living.* I will NOT FAIL AGAIN!" Suddenly, he started drawing in tremendous amounts of Necrotic Energy. The Shades that didn't leave yet were vaporized as their very essence was drawn into Krevense. He began to glow bright purple, as he charged himself. It was blinding.

*A bit of Trivia on Krevense: he was once friends with a female human mage, but he failed to save her when some creature attacked her.

(This is not the charging of a powerful super-move, but Krevense charging himself for a temporary power boost.)

(Shades are gone. They took Martin. Y'all just need to head to the fortress now.)

Meanwhile at the bar, Toroak was getting annoyed and the alcohol now had as much effect on him as water. He set out on his own journey to the fortress, which he had seen while entering the town.

Dorian and the others simply watched as Martin's body faded from their view. When he felt enough time had passed, Dorian looked up at the others before turning around and continuing his walk to the fortress. The battle with the shades had taken a fair bit of time and the sun was now on its arc down.

"Come, it will be night soon," he said without looking back. There was still a bit of distance left to cover before they would reach the fortress and Dorian didn't feel much like having to deal with things in the dark of a massacred fortress.

Krevense finished absorbing Necrotic Energy just as the last Shade, as well as Martin. faded from view. He heard Dorian say that night will be soon. Krevense simply responded, "If we do end up stopping, I'll take watch."

In the meantime, Martin had reappeared in some dark room, groaning and pressing a hand to his left temple. What a pisser. He just had to be the one that went down, right? He looked around, but he could see nothing except a never-ending sea of blackness. No windows, obviously, and no doors for a while in any direction, if there happened to be any.

"Well, I'm not one to simply sit around and wait til I die from starvation. I'm getting myself out of this mess." Never mind that he told the others to save him. He picked one direction and set off. He stopped once he finally saw something in the darkness.

"Well, what do you know? The light at the end of the tunnel! This smells horribly of a trap... and a cliche." He remarked to himself. Nonetheless, it was either bright light or depressing darkness. He headed for the obvious bait and once he reached it, he stood in front of it, pondering its existence. It was a sphere surrounded by concentric rings of different colors. The sphere itself was a marvelous display of different colors, and one couldn't help but be mesmerized by its appearance.

"Hmm... normally I would indeed not be so foolish as to touch an unknown manifestation of light, but there is nothing else around." He reached out to touch it. His fingers were an inch away before a voice called out to him in a rich, deep baritone.

"I advise that you not do that, mortal." The voice called from behind Martin, who pulled his hand away from the sphere and turned around to look at the speaker.

"And who are you?" He inquired, looking over the figure who called out to him. The shadowy "person" was 7 feet tall and wrapped in chains, and it had 3 wicked-looking horns on its head. It appeared to be another shade of some sort, though Martin himself had never seen anything like this being before. He asked. "What exactly are you? Be you a shade or a demon?" Then remembering the circumstances for his appearance here, he narrowed his eyes in realization. "Or, perhaps, simply a figment of my imagination?"

The shadow man simply chuckled at the accusation. "Indeed, this is your mind. A wonder that it is so empty, is it not?" The verbal barb did not escape Martin's attention.

"Hah." He replied, humorlessly. "But really, why are you here? I'm certainly not into S&M." He gestured to the chains. "So if you're not some severely repressed sexual fetish, why would you be in my mind?"

The shadow man expanded and grew about 4 feet before replying. "And now we get to the crux of the matter. My dear Martin, I am here to kill you and take your body."

The sun was almost at the horizon line when the band of travelers finally made it to the fortress. Dorian sniffed a little, but it was unmistakeable. Death had been here and had taken its prize. The deep orange of the sun cast long and menacing shadows all around and throughout the fortress, making it even more eery than the death alone would have done.

Finding a torch still in it holder, Dorian picked it up and lit it. The flickering glow of the torch seemed to add a touch of friendliness to this dark and dreary scene. The gate was open and Dorian slowly entered it, waving the torch around to get a good look. The walls were splattered with blood, yet there were no corpses to be seen.

"Come on," he said quietly to the group following behind him.

Aren followed dorian closely. *He thought only a fool would go in unarmed and then realised if one man did this then weapons would be useless* He grabbed another torch out of it's holder and lit it using the one already burning away. The added warmth and glow of the extra flame seemed to sooth eveyones tension slightly.

"Blood without bodies? I hope our friend isn't a cannibal now!"

Krevense, being an Undead, didn't need light to see, so he suggested, "How about I take point? If whoever did this is here, he may not damage me as easilly as one of you, and I do not require light to see, so I could warn you of anything more easilly."

Dorian motioned with his torch for Krevense to lead the way.
"We're not dealing with a savage," he said to Aren, "there are no bones. Whoever did this, was very elegant, professional about it. Quick, simple strikes," Dorian said, reading the visual cues of the blood splattered across the walls. The splatters were in clean arcs, not wide sprays, but narrow arcs on the wall.
"One person did all this," he mused quietly to himself.

Martin eyed the now-imposing monolith and slowly began to fear for his life as he came to a shocking revelation. This being was indeed no joke, and it was folly on himself that he thought it nothing more than a fetishist's wet dream. The chains? The shadowy profile? And above all else, sentience and the ability to converse? It was a plethora of foolishness that he did not realize it sooner.

"A reaver." He calmed himself so as not to show any fear to this loathsome creature. "A motherfucking reaver! How on earth did you come to this plane? Your kind is stuck in the Fade! Not even a massacre of a fortress can cause a rip large enough for your class to come through to our realm!"

Said reaver simply 'grinned' at him menacingly. "Normally you would be correct in saying so. However, this is no normal matter, lest you have already forgotten the ease in which the assassin butchered the inhabitants? No, he was no normal man. He was a maleficar, tempted by the promises of demons beyond. He ritualistically killed everyone through unnatural means, by using blood magic. Such perversion is enough to open a large hole, though one that will close. Needless to say, he was possessed as soon as he completed his deadly ritual, and I was able to escape before the hole closed, and I have stabilized it."

He gestured to the eerily-glowing sphere. "That, Martin, is the tear. I have, through great effort, moved it into you. You see, it is impossible to completely tear down the barrier between realms without using a dweller of the realm as a catalyst."

"So I am to be the sacrifice to allow demons to fully cross over without consenting mages?" He asked. "I must say, that it so very inconsiderate of you all. Haven't you all thought of my feelings and asking first before doing this? So very rude of you!"

The reaver snorted. "Oh please, I have no patience for your glibness. I am going to consume your soul and all this talk has made me quite hungry. Keeping the shades in line was quite taxing, and moving a tear in the Fade even more so."

The reaver walked forward at a slow gait, staring Martin in the eyes as it drew closer. There was no way he was going to lose his soul here. There was only one way out and, though this option may have been worse in the long run, escape from a soul-hungry reaver seemed like the more attractive option here.

"Well, I'd love to stay around, but I'm afraid I'd like to keep my soul, thank you very much. I'll just be going." And with that, he ran. He ran back toward the sphere and jumped into it, leaving the reaver who let out an earth-shattering scream with fury in its eyes and anger at itself for not having the strength to bind its prey. Oh well, the human would simply be dead at the hands of some other demon. For now, however, it could serve its race by using the last of its energy to sacrifice the human's body to bring a high-class demon into the mortal realm.

It did not have the energy to fully bring down the barrier, but it could at least bring forth a being to kill the insolent human's friends and create a gap large enough for medium-level demons to escape, before a different being could fully complete its work here and make the full-scale invasion commence.

With this in mind, he began chanting in a horrible language for five minutes, before finally concluding. "With this body and my soul, I summon thee into being. I call thee forth, Cthulu!"

The blackness that was Martin's mind began to crumble in upon itself, and the reaver sank to his knees, exhausted. It knelt in peace, however, knowing that though he had been thwarted slightly here, the invasion had begun. This realm would be theirs. Its last thought was simply sorrow in its failure to complete the task itself.

In the real world, all hell broke loose.

(Yeah, you guys are screwed.)

Xihavaov, twas walking towards an small hamlet, he had herd the Blacksmith there was fairly skilled in repairing Blades, something his Swords dearly needed, they'd seen to many necks, and not so many Anvils. He may of been an solider of the Elven Legions, but there's only so much, one can do to ones sword, before it needs an professional.

As he entered the small little hamlet, he lifted his hood over his head. While he maybe as normals as any other Elf, The Mundane aren't quite fond of the Elven kin around them. Most humans fear the Elf's, they hide this behind Threats of Brutality & lies, but they Fear the Elf's, simply because, they are not human.

Something was wrong thou, No Guards, No Sound, No one was here. At this time in the afternoon, this Hamlet should be bussling with activity. He could't even smell an Pie on an Window. And an eary Fog, didn't do much to help convince Xihavaov that everything was alright. "Something terrible happened here." Said Xihavaov to himself, he had an habit, of speaking his mind out loud, he knew he was doing it aswell.

"Ware is everyone." he said, as he walked around, till he saw an Grand Fortress, in the distance, built apon an Mountain, she'd of seen many an Specular battle. He wondered what was older, himself or the Fortress. Since there were no Black Smith to fix his blade, it's worn out state would have to suffice.

And he began his trip to the fortress.

As they ventured further into the dark fortress, Dorian couldn't help but feel it fill up his soul. The more he saw, the more he began to believe, to fear the stories he had once been told as a child.

And that's when it caught his eye.

"Over here," he motioned as the light from his torch reflected off an object sitting on a pedestal in the center of a large chamber. Walking closer to it, he glanced over his shoulder, noting that the others had a look of confusion on their faces.
The object was small and seemingly worthless, unless one knew what it was. Taking in a deep breath, trying to quell his nerves, Dorian inspected it.
"This is not good," he muttered over and over to himself.
"We must leave, now!" he said, no question or doubt in his voice. Dorian turned to leave when a large stone door fell from the roof, sealing them into the chamber.

"It's a trap," Krevense announced, "Now what? I could probably phase out of here, but what about you? How are we going to get you out?!"

Dorian waved his torch around. The chamber did appear to be completely enclosed. Motioning quickly with his hand for the others to follow suite, he went close to the walls and began feeling them, looking for cracks or something to release the door that had just fallen shut.

Xihavaov, was nearing the walls of the Fortress. "Those are big walls" Xihavaov noted. He looked around to see any other Entrance, none, well there were the giant closed doors, but knocking wasn't going to work, since there was no body there anyways.

He looked at the wall, it was high, but not high enough, he braced him self to jump it. And with one giant leap he landed on the other side. He looked over the place "Very empty fortress... makes no sense." Xihavaov said as he walked around. "To much fog.... Rain coming in aswell. Need to find out what happened before that happens, hate rain."

Dorian came to a stop after he and the others finished searching the walls for cracks or any signs of being able to release themselves. Holding his torch straight up, he began to notice something. His torch was dying, as were the others.

"Great...we're completely enclosed and I think we're running out of air!" he said.