Seht Vledtepes

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Act I. Biographical Data

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Given Name: Seht Vledtepes
Nicknames and Aliases:  
Gender: Male
Birthdate: July 4, 365
Race: Demon

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II. Physical

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Appearance:
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His long segmented body is a tough, almost armor-like shield against the elements. His legs number in the hundreds and each is as tough as steel blades. They are riddled with sharp spines, which are useful for carving up prey. His large mandibles at the front of his head are the sharpest edges on his body. They are lined with a highly toxic venom that is powerful enough to completely paralyze an arctic bear in seconds. His mandibles, legs, and his eyes are bright red, while his body is a pale white color.

- Length: 50 ft (15 meters)
- Weight: 4,000 lbs
- Hair Colour/Style: None
- Eye Colour: Bright Red
- Exoskeleton Colour: Red and White

Body Type & Physical Condition: He is at peak physical condition for a Centipede
Physical Abilities & Limitations:



Physical Illnesses & Afflictions: None
Physical Imperfections:  None
Clothing style: None
Distinguishing Features:  Is a 50 foot Centipede.
Voice: Clicks and Screeches
Transformation: None yet.

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III. Mental

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Alignment: Neutral Evil
Outer Goals: Survive
Inner Goals:Protect Kali
Super Objective: Survive
Personality:  Impersonal Insect (Except with Kali)
Likes/Dislikes: None
Hopes/Desires: None
Fears/Phobias: None
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Dirty Secrets:  None
Introvert or Extrovert: Neither
More Thinking or Feeling: Neither
Selfish or Selfless: Selfish
Attitudes Toward:  N/A
- Self:  
- Others:  
- Friendship:  
- Love:  
- Religion:  
- Country:  
- The World:  

Superstitions: N/A
Admirable Traits: N/A
Negative Traits: N/A
Prejudices: Dark Elves
Most Painful Things in Their Life: N/A
Mental Disturbances:  N/A
Philosophy of Life: "Eat."

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IV. Skills & Talents

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Talents:Seht is exceptionally large and powerful, even for an Imp. In addition to this, he is also much more intelligent than his imp peers generally are, having the intellectual capabilities of a 10year old human. He can solve simple puzzles, navigate mazes, and even recall patterns with astounding accuracy.

Another talent is his ability to react very quickly, even when traveling at his maximum speed. At this speed, he can change direction, shift his momentum, or turn around completely. It is this speed in combination with his killing efficiency that lets him capture his prey.


Skills: He has yet to learn anything.

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V. Social

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Political Alignment:  He is currently a centipede and cannot conceive of politics.
Religion: N/A
Job/Class: N/A
Family: N/A
Relationships: Kali is significant to him.

Noted accomplishments: N/A
- Famous/infamous: N/A


Hobbies: Hunting
Pets:  N/A

- Weaponry, Armoury, and Inventory: N/A

Weapon:

Armor:

Item:

Properties

Business:

Education:  None
- Languages Spoken: None.
- Literacy: [/u]


VI. Background/ History


“...It’s coming,” my father whispered.

He huddled us up under the thin barricade of tables and chairs. My mother held onto my younger brother and I with a strength I had not known she could muster. All the while, the sound we heard only minutes ago returned, a resounding screech that forced us on our knees . I put my hand to my ears and blood cascaded down my arm. It was so loud, I couldn’t hear my brother’s cries, my parent’s screams, nothing.

   Then it stopped. My ears were already splitting by that time. It was like they were constantly being stabbed with tiny needles. I couldn’t stop crying. My head was heavy on the dirt floor of my house but I felt I was sinking. I saw my father’s hand reach for me and pull me out of the dirt. He couldn’t carry me because he was already carrying my brother, so he dragged me out by my arm. Our home was gone now and we only walked a few steps when the ground cracked and threw off our balance. We were picking ourselves up out of the dirt, the second time for me, and as mother lifted me to my feet, I turned my head to the source of the destruction.

   But this story doesn’t begin with me. It isn’t even about me. This story begins with my father, Varun Rajkumar, and his wife, Kavya Vledtepes. When they married, persuading Kavya to change her name was an afterthought. He’d convinced himself that he should focus all his energies on loving her instead. Her eyes were colored like toasting wheat, and her hair was fully black.  She was human, from the Sinking Slums of Caelin. Varun had never been there, but he would listen when she told her stories. Kavya stole away on an airship heading from Ariaheim to the Onyx district in Howldon. She survived by eating the goods that were stored on the ship, her quick thinking keeping her out of the crew member’s sights. That’s where they lived now, near the center of a sleepless city and that was no exaggeration. Students and adults alike ran through the populace at all hours of the day and night. It was great to be young in Onyx.

   But they weren’t there for that. After living in the slums all your life, Kavya would say, you get tired of excitement. Now she was an aspiring actress, taking classes at Howldon University and occasionally getting the spotlight  in the Claude theater. She was never so happy as when she was in the light, her short, slim figure casting a bold shadow over her audience. It wasn’t always so simple, though. Varun listened to her talk about her brother too. How she would go back for him, bring him here so he could have a good life like she did. He was a scientist, somehow forging a love for technology he had no way of gaining access too. Kavya was comforted just by the thought.  Varun did not own much, but he could feed her, clothe her, and they drank mead when the occasion presented itself. They'd only known each other for two years before the marriage and they were young. At least she was; they were about seven years apart, kavya in her late twenties. She was better off than before they met. That, he could tell.

Varun taught orchestra at the same university. His time was divided between composing and being home. He loved both, but home was occasionally more stressful. Once in a while he'd wake in the middle of the night gagging with his wife's grip on his neck. On occasion too, he'd have to force her away or be killed.

“I can’t..” she muttered one night after an incident. She was sobbing. “I didn’t mean to,”

“I know,” he said. She was curled up into a dark corner of the room, her way of punishing herself, her face buried between her kneecaps. He went to her and cried with her. They slept on the floor those nights.

-------|------


   Kavya was in the light again. She was jumping across the stage like a fire, hopping from bush to bush. If I could just land this next move, she thought, trying to ignore the stares of the front row. She was playing the powerful faery queen of Thesela and she was scantily clad because of it. She earned the mesmerized faces of the men, and women, watching her. She donned frilly bottoms and a thin, violet top that were both embroidered with gold rings and chains. It was the final scene and she had just been stabbed by her lover. BRAVO! BRAVO!  She sighed with relief.


   “I want to be like you, Kavya. A Queen!”  said a voice. Varun met her backstage with this orchestra class, filling Kavya’s private room up with university students. She didn’t mind, though. She wasn’t much older than them, she thought.

   “And you can be,” she said laughing.

“One thing at a time Olivia. Transpose that Ravenheim piece before anything else.” Varun said. The students snickered.

The two of them walked home together. They didn’t get to ease into the comfort of their chairs before they heard a pecking at their window. Varun walked into their dining room and saw what looked like a scruffy pigeon sitting on the outside of their window ledge. Its feathers were scattered around its body and there were marks on it’s flesh where there were no feathers. It had a note tied to it’s beak. He startled the bird when he went to open the window and grabbed it just before it flew away. He carefully pulled the knot of string off that was holding the note to the pigeons beak. He was careful not to be bitten before he let the bird fly. He unrolled the dingy folds of the paper and read, eyes darting back and forth.

“What’s it say, Varun?” she said.

“It’s your brother,” his voice was a whisper. Kavya darted across the quiet room, every footstep echoing in the empty house. She grabbed the note and began to read aloud:

“Hello, Kavya

This is your brother Sansom.

It’s a shame we haven’t had much contact,

though I know you’ve been trying. Unfortunately,

if you’re reading this, I am dead.

Since you left, things have been a bit...hectic.

I prepared this message to be sent to you

in case something happened to me

before you came back.

Forgive me, I could not protect you for longer.

I am your older brother and yet

I have failed. And I have had many

enemies, Gorgons, Vampires, and Witches alike.

So please, do not come to avenge me.

It would be a hopeless plight.

Only know that I love you

Forever

Goodbye, Kavya.”

Kavya’s eyes went cold. To Varun’s surprise, she wasn’t weeping. Her eyes were stuck to the letter, glossing over it again as if to re-read it into non-existence. She started to her room with Varun following behind her. She stopped him in his tracks. The blank expression on her face when she waved him away was the most alarming thing about her,  Varun understood, but that didn’t mean he knew what to do. Hours went by and night fell while Kavya still locked herself up in her room. He, in an attempt not to give up completely on getting back into his bedroom, decided to go for a walk.

Something about the bustling cities calmed him. Maybe it was the flashing lights that blurred in his horizon without his glasses on, or maybe it was the people. It seemed Onyx was more populated by children than adults. Varun walked this route before, but never did it seem so short of a walk. He felt like he’d crossed the entire city in a few minutes. He needed more time before he could face her, time to think of how to consult her. He started out of the city, into the Vampire District. It wasn’t necessarily an unsafe, he thought, as long as he didn’t venture too far nothing would happen to him.

It was an abrupt change from the childish aura of onyx. The District was lit up too, but not with cafe’s or shopping hubs. Every other shop was a brothel or an abandoned building soon to become a brothel or magical shop. There were women on the corners of streets, bearing all and whisking tourists in like they were selling some exotic pastry. Many of them were not vampires, their tails or other afflictions hidden with sheets some of them wore. Varun shrugged, he didn’t need this anymore. Those long nights in the district he once spent were all gone now. Still he couldn’t help but reminisce of more simple times.

“Hey you,” said a man behind a wooden post with quite a strange mustache.

“Me?” said Varun, slowing his pace.

“Yes you. You don’t look like the rest of these tourists out here. You got a name?” the man’s short and stout body told Varun that he posed no threat, as long as he didn’t have a weapon.

“Yeah I do”  Varun said. “But I’m busy right now, sir.”

“You need to know what to say to Kavya, right?”

Varun lit up with an instinctual fury. He turned reached past the man’s post, grabbing him by his collar. “How do you know that name?” Could this man have something to do with her brother’s death? “Talk.”

“Read the sign my friend,” he pointed to the poorly drawn words written in Hexxarin on the front of his stand that read Jo Et Omnezi. “I am the prophet, Jo” he said.

“A prophet of what?” Varun asked, letting go of his collar.

“The phoenix.”

Varun paused. It wasn’t until then that he noticed that the man’s mustache was bright red. His eyebrows too.

“I could hear what you were pondering as you walked by, and i thought i could be of assistance. Again I ask, what is your name?”

“Varun.”

“Good,” Jo smiled, “ Now what exactly is the matter? Or should I prod your mind for that too?”

Honestly, Varun had no real reason to trust this man. Sure, he said he was a phoenix, and a phoenix has red hair, but this could just be coincidencial. Varun was no fool.

“Wait,” he said. “I want you to prove that you’re who you say you are before I give you a lick of any coin.”

“Very well.”

Jo came from behind his stand and waved his hand for Varun to step away. A crowd of a few other onlookers formed in a semicircle around him, but Jo didn’t mind. As long as they kept their distance, they would be fine. He clapped his hands and summoned fire all about himself. It clawed at the air and burned just as brightly as any fire, but it did not burn Jo. The three onlookers all fell on their backs, their faces were lit up like the fire in amazement. It wasn’t that they’d never seen anyone do fire magicks before, but never so easily. Jo hadn’t said a word or put in the effort to cast a spell to ignite himself. Varun shielded his eyes with his sleeve, but kept standing.

“Do you believe me now?” he said

“Not just yet” Varun spat “A real phoenix would never reveal himself as such!” he felt proud of the little knowledge he had of the old world; the half smile he hid with his sleeve proved it. “You must be a fraud.”

“Oh oh oh, my friend, are you sure about that? I am a phoenix. I am a prophet of Kyreith himself. Do you think we hide ourselves because we are afraid of the likes of you? ”

“And yet-” Varun said

“And yet what?”

“And yet I see no proof. I only see a glorified mage.”

Jo narrowed his eyes. Varun could tell he was getting to him. It wasn’t that Varun didn’t believe the man, it was just that he wanted to see for himself, as most do. Varun was about to say something else when he noticed that everything around him was dark. There were no people, there was no city, there was nothing. Only Jo stood in before him, and on what, he couldn’t tell. He looked down to see that there also nothing there but darkness. Jo was still on fire, but the light didn’t seem to reach any further than the borders of his flame.

“What did you do? Where are we?” he stumbled.

“Nowhere.” he said. “I’ve taken you away.”

“Where exactly? I must get back.”

“It’s alright. We are no longer bound by the constraints of time. I have a gift for you. It will help you with your wife.”

Varun prodded the darkness ahead of him with the tip of his left boot. There seemed to be ground ahead of him. And everywhere. He moved closer to the burning prophet.

“To be honest, Jo, I hadn’t doubted you. I just want to go home now.”

“I will let you go home. If I can be honest, Varun, I knew of your problems before I asked about them. I have come to give you this.” He held out his hands and the fire that surrounded him curled into his palm and began to take shape. It twisted into a withered old blue book with golden edges that seemed the only part of the book to remember the flames.

“With this, you will be able to bring your wife’s brother back from death.” said Jo as he handed the thing off. Varun noted how surprisingly cold the book was for previously being made of phoenix fire.

“Thank you, Jo.” he said.

“Mhm.”

Varun held the book to his side and stepped away from Jo, signifying his desire to leave this place. He felt the darkness around him moving somehow. He blinked and was standing on the road of the vampire district. Everything seemed the same except Jo’s stand was gone, and everyone walked by as though he had never been there in the first place. He held the book out in front of him and read the title aloud:

“Necromancy.”

-----|-----

When Varun arrived home, Kavya was still in their room lying down, but her sobbing resided. He let himself in and sat beside her on the bed. It was not often that he had to think of how to tell his wife that he could bring her brother back from the dead, and he figured he wasn’t going to be good at it, but who would be? He struggled to find the right words.

“I have something, Kavya, but I don’t know how you’ll feel about it.”

“It’s alright,” her voice was cracked, but soft like she had just finished crying, “ you don’t have to try and fix this. No one can fix this. I just need time.”

“But I think I can fix this Kavya. I met someone on my walk.” she turned to face him with a mixture of anger and confusion stuck on her face.

“What are you saying, Varun?”

He held the old book up for her to see the title and her immediate reaction was to slap it away from her face and onto the floor. Varun jumped across the room to it and saw that there were two or three pages ripped about half way from the fall.

“By Gods, what the hell did you do, Varun?” Her eyes were wide with fear, her once beautiful dark hues piercing Varun more fiercely than he had ever seen before.

“I didn’t do anything Kavya. I’m just looking at our options.”

“Options?  That is not an option. It is not right.”

“Say’s who? Do you know who gave me this? A Prophet of Kyreith himself.” He slowly moved back to her side of the bed, book in hand.

“A Prophet of God gave you that book? You sound mad. A phoenix gave that to you?”

“Yes!”  he said. Kavya held her head in her palms.  He placed the book behind him, took Kavya’s wrists, and put  them in her lap. He went down on his knee, a gesture that reminded him of years past, and held her chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning her head so their eyes met.

“I have not yet lost my mind,” he said. “ I am just doing what I can to help you. At the very least, we can use this to find out what happened to your brother.”

“I know what happened to my brother. He was killed.” She said as she broke eye contact with him, looking to her knees like they demanded her attention.  “But I love you Varun, so I do not think you are insane. If you say that a prophet wants you to bring back the dead, I will help you.”  He was filled with relief and he let it wash over him in a frenzy.  He thanked his wife and saw her smile. It was a smile he had hoped to see much more of in the coming months.

To his dismay, it is not what he saw. Instead, he saw her rubbing her temples in frustration as they both tried to grasp the complicated language that was Hexxarin. They began at page one, but the tedious grammatics distracted from any real progress. They spent many nights in their studies with texts and dictionaries they borrowed from the basement of Howldon. In moments like these Varun was reminded how much Kavya knew. Compared to him, she was soaring through the texts like they were old child’s tales. Even though she had been poor, she did not allow her mind to waste. Some months later, they were able to unravel the chapters that told of how to bring the dead back to life. There were some poorly scribbled pictures too, but aside from a few mistranslations, they understood the spell.  They had to find a Black Spider, those beasts who stretched fifteen feet from leg to leg and donned the head of human girls to lure in unsuspecting prey, and take two cups of her venom. Varun’s eyes drifted off the pages. He was petrified like a child who needed to walk a dark hall to find his toys. There wasn’t time to travel to the Hallow Lands where Spiders and Undead were free to writhe, either. He had to return to the Vampire District.  He would do that alone.

The last ingredient was a lock of hair from a muse. This is impossible he thought. How could either of them ever hope to even meet a muse? From what he knew, muses were not exactly fond of humans. It was much more likely that, if they did happen upon a muse, she would decide to drown them in swamps or perhaps impale them with stiffened vines. A thousand ways they could perish flashed through Varun’s mind. He never thought himself brave, but this was the first time in his life he ever considered himself a coward.

   “Varun, I can do this.” Kavya had a light in her eyes now, one varun had not seen since they began reading that wretched book. “ I met a muse once. I can ask her to help us.”

“You met a muse? How? Who was it?”

“I don’t know her name, but I know where to find her. Keep your worries to yourself Varun. If anyone needs them, it’s you.” Kavya paused to take a breath. Her hand moved to his and she held it to her bosom. “Do you trust me, Varun?”

   “Of course I do, but this is-”

   “Then let me do this alone. She has not been known to rejoice at the sight of men. I’ll be safe.”

   And that was the last he spoke of it. The next night, Varun went back to The District. The temperature had dropped to only a few degrees and rain was falling. He brought a leather coat with him and bundled soft fabrics underneath to keep warm. At first, he was walking aimlessly. He knew that Black Spiders could take a more humanoid form. They could become men or women, but be white as ghosts and yet have a darkness about them that sent shivers through the spines of grown men, including Varun. There were many strange creatures that roamed the streets of the district, but from what Varun could tell, there were no Spiders. Then it suddenly came to him as he stopped in front of a sign that flashed in the dark rainy night: GUILTY PLEASURES.

   There was a burly man in a black coat standing motionlessly outside the doors. “Can I get an amen?” Varun shouted.

“What?”

“Can I?“

“Get the hell out of here.”

“Why, brother, do you forsake me?”

“What are you talkin’ about man?”

“I would like entrance into your prestigeeeeeious institution.”

“No.”

“Why not, my good brother?”

“Because I don’t know you, the man who owns this place don’t know you, but most of all, I don’t know you.”

Varun whips out five silver coins. “I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement here.”

“I make more than that in my sleep buddy.”

“But has it ever been free?”

“It’s not free, I have to earn it by letting you in the club.”

“But come on, I have money.”

“No, you don’t. But I like you, you’re funny. So this one time, I’ll let you through.”

“Thank you my brother.”

“Stop calling me that. Gods. ”

The man stepped aside and varun strolled in casually. He had to put up this facade because he didn’t know what to expect. Rumors were what dominated the streets here and rumor had it that Guilty Pleasures wasn’t the most upstanding place. He tried to ignore the beckonings of the dragon women who ate fire off of phallic batons, the dancing cat efferi girls, who pawed at him, and the many breasts of the succubi. He walked past the poles and into the area in the back, where the smell of lit cigars burned his nose.

There were six doors. He could tell from the scent of wine and not-so subtle moaning what four of the doors were for. The other two doors were different. One was a black door as tall as Varun, if he could stand on his own shoulders, but it seemed far too skinny to be used regularly by humans. The second door was decorated with bright gold shillings and had Heaven etched into it in white. Whatever had been in that room, Varun wouldn’t see it. He went to the darker door to twist it open. A cold wind escaped from the door as he pushed it open. The chill seeped into his bones. For her he thought, trying to give himself the courage to walk in. He leered his head past the door. Hello he whispered, expecting something horrible to jump out and attack him. But there was none of that. it was a medium size, lit room in the shape of a semi circle. Straight ahead behind a wooden table sat a pale woman. She was bare chested with only a cloth and the table covering below her waist. From the distance she seemed beautiful, but there was a darkness about her.

“Sit.” she said, her voice echoing in the round room. He closed the door behind him but kept a good distance from her. He came here for only one thing.

“Please. I must find a woman here who is a Black Spider. I will pay good coin to see her.” he said nervously.

“Sit.” she insisted. A chair began to rise up from the wooden floor in front of the table as though it wasn’t there and someone was hoisting it up with a string.  She’s using magic, it’s only magic, there is nothing to be afraid of here in the Vampire District, he lied to himself. He reluctantly sat.

“So you want to play with Spiders? You must want to make love with death.” she licked her lips as she pierced him with her scarlet eyes.

“No, I did not come here for that. I just want to speak with one.”

She stood up. She was an astounding seven feet tall, and her torso was slender like the door behind him. Her long, raven hair dropped straight down against her white skin. The room seemed much smaller now, and he felt more helpless. He thought to the dagger he had hidden away in his belt. She moved around the table in only two steps with her long, thin legs. She started to dance, throwing her waist in circles for him and shaking the shingles that hung from her cloth. She stepped closer and leaned in. “You are speaking with one. No man walks through those doors without his desires.”

Varun couldn’t believe his luck. He found what he was looking for before he even realized it. She started to pull off the last of her garments. “Wait!” he said, “ I am not here for that. I want something else. If it doesn’t trouble you too much, I would like to have some of your poison.”

“Do you mean my venom? You must really want to die.” she grabbed Varun by the neck of his coat and lifted him up to eye level with a single hand.  “Shall I feast on you now then? If that is what you want…”

“No! None of that.” Varun reached into his coat and pull an empty jar from it. “I just need some of it for my wife. You see, she is deathly sick. Some disease wrought from the rains. But I can surely cure her if I had some of your venom.

The Spider woman started to set him down. She had a face like she was debating whether to eat him or not. “You’re serious.”

“Very.”

“Then I will make you a deal, Human. I will help you if you come back here tomorrow with your sick wife. I will give it to her myself. Bring at least twelve Gold pieces.”

That night was one that rang of hope for the future. Kavya had been successful in bringing back a lock of hair from the deadly muse. Varun could not help but wonder how she got a muse to agree to such a thing. He tried to think of any way a creature so powerful would step down and help a lowly human, especially after the well known feud between their two races. For a second, he thought perhaps that Kavya had given some wild favor to the muse. And just as soon as he had that thought, it faded away when he realized that most muses took the form of a woman. Maybe that didn’t change anything?

“Varun, you needn’t worry.” Kavya had just a hint of playfulness in her voice, like she was calming the worries of a tempered child. “I’ve only gone as far as the marshes. I wouldn’t endanger myself, not now. I went to the muse of the forests nearby and I asked her for her locks. She’s used to humans, especially me, and she only needed some trinkets from the city. I gave her some steam cookers and an old iron. Her eyes lit up like fireflies when I showed them to her. You should have seen it. It was like showing a child something for the first time.”

Varun was too overcome by relief to ask any further questions. Though he did wonder where she got the steam cooker, and whether this meant he’d need to buy another one later. Probably.

He told her what the spider woman asked for and that she would need to feign some kind of illness for them to get their hands on the venom. She went to her closets and grabbed the most worn out rags she could find, trying to make herself look as convincing as possible to the watchful eyes of the spider. When they arrived the following night , the man that stood outside in the rain yesterday had gone. They walked in and went straight to the spider’s door, just like before. It was strange though, it seemed like the club was almost empty compared to last time. He shoved the idea to the back of his head and continued on to the door. At least that was still the same. The door still looked like some un-human thing would be using it, and now that Varun knew what was inside, he understood why.

They walked in and the woman was sitting right where she was before, but she had been completely naked. “This is who you came to see Varun?” Kavya crossed her arms.

“By the Gods, it wasn’t like that Kavya.”

“If you two are finished.” The Spider woman stood. Her long thin legs made up most of her height. Too say the least, it was an eerie sight. Kavya quickly remembered that she was supposed to have a terminal illness and hunched over her shoulders, dirty robes covering everything but her face. She feigned a cough. The Spider woman reached behind her to grab a jar of black-blue liquid filled to the brim. She seemed to pull it out of thin air. Varun wouldn’t have been surprised if she did. “Did you remember the Gold?”

Varun went into his pockets and they jingled with metals. “Yes, I have the coins you wanted. First though, give us the venom.”

The spider woman’s red eyes flickered twice. Her pale face began to crack as though she was made of glass. The thin door shut behind them and the sounds they heard coming from the dancers in the other room halted all at once. Varun pulled a dagger from his belt, small and silver against the white of the room. But even that began to crack away and turn into darkness. The walls peeled away like a great wind was taking them and sending them towards the spider woman. By now, the woman was twisting and turning in an unnatural shape. It was like a nightmare. Varun cursed himself for dealing with Gods and Spiders.

“There are no Gods here, Varun.” The woman was now just a mass of swirling blackness, a shadow. The walls had turned to images of stormclouds quickly swimming by and the floor was the only solid surface in the room. Varun held Kavya tighter and pointed the dagger at the mass of shadows. They soon began to dissipate and he could begin to see a face and body. The darkness halted.

“Jo?” Varun gasped.

“I can not believe this worked so well. You know, I had my doubts at first.” He stepped closer to them, slowly like he was only playing a game with them. “But you really pulled through. Braavo.”

   Shit. Instead of helping, all Varun had done was put his wife in danger. He didn’t know which was worse, the blame he was casting on himself for this whole mess, or the fear.

   “But why? I thought you were a prophet of the Gods.”

   “I lied.” Jo said.

Just then, Jo’s features began to blow away, like the gusts that blew the clouds on the walls were erasing him and revealing a new person. Behind the dust of Jo was a man Varun did not recognize. He wore a tall white collar with gold pieces embroidered all over. His shoulders were puffed with a velvet fit for royalty, his sashes were tied together with rubies and sapphires from the highest realms. His eyes were a pale, icy blue and there was a great darkness that circled them and seemed to crack on his pale cheek. Short black locks of hair curled around his head too, dark as night.

“Who are you?”

“Jo. Who do you think? But I am not a prophet, I am a Doll.”

He had never heard of such a race. They must have been a rare breed, he thought.

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to.” Jo casually walked up to them both. He ignored how tense they became when he stepped closer to them. It was like he was looking past them. “You are only human, and you fell for my ruse. That book was not made for necromancy. I made it myself. Did you really think you could bring someone back to life that easily? Did you think it was that simple?”

“But why?” Varun hoped his wife couldn’t tell how scared he really was. He feigned his confidence.

“Dolls have the power to weave the fabric of dreams. With a flick of my wrist I can make you see anything I want. . . And I made you see God. . . But that is over now. I will be taking the two of you.”

“You can’t.” Kavya cried.

“I can.” He turned his back to them. He snapped his fingers and Varun felt himself being tied up by ropes that moved on their own. The same thing was happening to Kavya, and it was happening too fast for either of them to respond.

“And I will.”


               -----|-----


“I’ll put fifty more on ‘em.” a raspy voice shouted. It came from a man whose skin was dark as oil, with ears pointed like spears beside his round head. He donned light brown leggings, shredded with age and toil. He had nothing on him from the waist up, save the white whip that he held. His whole arm went back as he looked to Varun and lashed him and lashed him and lashed him. The back of his skin ripped open with each crack of the whip. It thundered on him twenty times, thirty more, and then another twenty more for the hate the Dark Elf had for the likes of humans. He spat as he spoke. “Maybe that’ll learn ye’ to take a break. I got money to make from yer sweat, boy.”

Varun writhed in the dirt. He could no longer feel where exactly the whips touched him, he only felt his entire body screaming. This is my own fault some voice in his head tried to convince him. But by now he had gotten stronger. He was more defined, more worn. He tried to get up, falling to the hard dirt beneath him the first few times. When he finally got to his feet, he saw what he had been seeing for the last two years. Slaves. They all toiled in the dirt doing various labours, most of them human, some of them not. The sun burned down on them. Varun had once been so taken by misery, he hoped it would be the sun that took his life just so the slavers wouldn’t. As quickly as the sun had come up, it went down. “Alright ye’ paperskins, get the hell back in yer stables.”

The dark slaver huddled them all like cattle into a large barn, where they all slept with the other animals.  Varun went to his wife who had been curled up in a corner. She used a mixture of hay and old rags to cover her hair, her breasts, and her sex. She thought that if she dressed as a boy, she would be less likely to be taken by other men when Varun was not there to protect her. For the most part, she was right. To some of the other slaves, and certainly to the Dark Elf slavers, though, it did not matter either way. By now, she had slain four slave men and one woman who tried to take her, but it was no use trying to stop the Dark Elves. Their prowess in magic rendered her, and her husband, helpless. It’s all my fault Varun thought.

“How did you fair today? Did anyone trouble you?”

“No, not today.”

“Have you eaten?”

“No.” She kept her eyes down as she spoke, frowning. Her hair was dark now, piles of dirt hanging off some strands of hair. He dug in his pockets, his clothes torn from fresh lashes and handed her a few pieces of stale bread.

“This is the best I could do today. It’s a lot more than last time, and you need it.” He cupped his hands around her large, round belly and kissed her. “You both do.”

   Then Varun felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun around, his hand at a small spike of wood he kept at his waist. But it was no use. Before Varun could pull the wooden weapon from his waistcloth, another hand had grabbed his wrist with strength enough to keep his arm and the spike in place. He turned his head to see a woman with skin black as night and eyes brimming yellow. She wore an abundance of brown cloth, much like Kavya, and her hair was white and short, though she was no more than eighteen years.

   “You shouldn’t scare so easily Varun. Have I taught you nothing?” said Idris.

   He began to relax. Idris was teaching him the magickal arts whenever they were out of their master’s sight. Kavya would have started too, but Varun was done putting her in danger. Especially now. He turned around and sat next to his wife. Her head fell on his shoulders.

   “You haven’t taught me enough.” he said. “We’re still here, aren’t we?”

   “Patience. For an old man, you’re quick to rush someone.” She sat facing them. Her smile faded away and was replaced with a solemn look. “We’re almost finished preparing for tonight. Have you done your part?”

   He had been tasked with sabotage, and he was surprisingly good at it. Next to him were nuts and bolts from the tall white mountain of a house the Dark elf slave masters lived in. He managed to do it without being caught too, though there were a few close calls. “I have.”

   Idris was leading them all in this. A girl that had probably never known the flesh of a man, let alone the air of battle, was leading them in a revolt. Varun found it hard to be amazed though. Of all the things that he’d seen in the few years past, this was nothing. They trusted her because she was strong, stronger than all of them. She knew magick and was passing along her knowledge to a select number of slaves. The ones who could be trusted. Her hands were dirty like she had been handling charcoal.

   “Are you sure this will work?” he said.

   “No, I am not. . . But we will try.”

   Varun would never forget the night that followed. It was quiet. There was no sobbing or fighting like there had been every other night. By the dozens, the slaves started out of the shed and into the darkness around the white house. The guard that posted outside had his neck opened and a dirty hand to cover his screams, but not before one of them let out a whelp loud enough to alarm the other elves. Idris pulled some chalky black rocks from her sleeves and gave the signal for the other slaves to do the same. Varun was just one face among the crowd, and he did the same. Just as they saw lanterns being lit inside the house, Idris threw up another signal. The black rocks whizzed through the air and windows and crashed against walls. When they hit, they went up in loud bursts of fire. They scorched the inside and outside of the house, wild flames licking and spreading on the dry wood. As the screams of explosions filled the night air, so did the screams of burning Dark Elves.

      Unfortunately, there was little magick could not do. The Dark Elf named Raaku, the one who lashed Varun earlier that day, walked out of the front door as though it was not engulfed in flames and crumbling down around him. The fire was on him, but he did not burn. He jumped off his porch and walked towards the men and women who rebelled against him. Varun instinctively took a step back and clutched his wife to his chest. He looked over to Idris. She might have planned for this, she might have known how to stop these monsters. She didn’t. The petrified look of fear she had on her face reminded Varun that she was just a young girl. No, she was more than that. She was a girl who he entrusted his life to. His wife’s life. He grabbed her by the collar with one hand and struck her with the other.

   “Find yourself Idris! What do we do?”

   By this time, the first of the slaves were sprawled out on the dirt, their bodies twisted in unspeakable ways. Raaku struck them down effortlessly. The fire that was on him before was gone. Two more Dark Elves came out of the debris that was once their house and they closed in, both of them powerful enough to make light work of them. That’s when Idris finally came to. “Run!” she shouted.

   They all spread out, each of them running for the dense forest and swamp that surrounded the field. Varun was strong enough to carry Kavya, but not for very long. They were not the priority for the slavers, so they did not give them chase. The same could not be said of Idris. He laid her down gently behind a fallen tree. The dirt was wet and covered with mosses. They were deep into the forest, but they heard everything. The wailings of tortured slaves that were captured scratched at their ears. It was completely dark save the silver glint of a half moon.

   Suddenly, the voices stopped. He heard nothing. Not even the owls and crickets seemed to say anything. He squinted, trying to make something out of the darkness in front of him. It looked as if it was taking shape. He pulled out the wooden spike he had at his waist and held it in front of him.

   “Who’s there?” he whispered. “What’s there?”

   “Slave,” said the darkness. He grabbed kavya’s hand and they both sprinted off. They couldn’t see where they were going, but they knew to run away from the screams. Varun felt ahead of him with his spike, wary of trees and logs and whatever else was in this forest. But it happened again. “Stop” said the darkness, louder this time, and closer. It was not cold before, but it was so cold now that Varun could see his breath in front of him. Crash. They both fell back into the mud like they had run into a stone wall. Shadows twisted before them in the shape of a man’s face that was taller than they were. It’s eyes and mouth were see through. It must have been some Dark Elf magick, he thought.

   “I would rather die than go back with you, Elf.” yelled Kavya

   “I am no elf, Slave.”

   “Then what?”

   The face of darkness spoke with a voice that was neither of man nor woman.

   “I was once a man living, like you. I was a slave on the same fields too. . . .I was taken out into these woods and murdered with my daughter. They cut us into pieces and burned our heads. They said it was for their Gods, they craved human flesh, but they were lying. They have no Gods. . .My name was Mikael”

   He was a wraith. A soul bound to this world by loathing. That explained why Mikael manifested in the guise of darkness, but what could he want? Wraiths have been known to attack anyone just to satisfy their unquenchable bloodlust. Varun had to be careful.

   “What do you want with us? Like you said, we’re only slaves.”

   “Yes, but I’ve been watching you for a time now. I know how much you hate the Elves. Perhaps not as much as I, but certainly enough. . .I can not hurt them. Their magick is beyond anything I can muster in this form. But if you help me, slaves, I can help you.”

   The blood curdling screech of someone nearby being torn apart by the Slaver caught Varun and Kavya by surprise. If they caught them, they would either kill them both in the mud or worse, bring them both back to the fields. He thought he learned his lesson from before, not to make deals with otherworldly things. He looked to Kavya. When she nodded her head to him, he knew that fear had left her. From her, Varun found his own strength. “We will help you, Wraith.”

   Mikael didn’t say anything. The shadows that made him faded away into the night like tendrils. It was quiet. . .Why? Varun turned to see Kavya lying down with a bruise on her forehead. The next thing he saw was Raaku swing a club between his eyes. His head throbbed when he was hit and he went down.


   “Humans lack the natural ability to use magick. They cannot will fire into their hands or water into their throats just because they want to. To have any magickal merit, you would need to devote your life to books and potions. Even then your power would be nothing in comparison to an Elf.”  

Varun sat on a grassy plain and took in the warmth of sun, legs folded. There were no clouds overhead, just the booming of Mikael’s voice. Mikael was speaking to him in his dreams, the only place they could talk without the Dark Elves noticing. After all, no one could take his dreams from him.

   “But together, we can perform a spell.”  Mikael said.

   “A spell? One spell cannot hurt the Dark Elves. Especially one made with my human hands.”

   “No, not that you know of. . .but this is no ordinary spell. I will show you.” The wind in Varun’s dream blew harder.

   “. . .What about my family? Will it hurt them?”

   “Take them away when the spell is finished and they will be safe.”

   After everything he went through with Kavya, it was hard to believe that his problems could be wished away by a simple spell. He could be lying Varun thought, but why would he? Varun was already a slave and offered the wraith nothing. He had no reason to lie. From the cloudless sky above, he was struck by a bolt of black lightning. He woke up.

   

                   -------- | --------


   The rebellion was unsuccessful. Many of the slaves were murdered once the Dark Elves found them running. The ones that did survive paid the most. Varun himself paid them in a gouged eye and severed left arm. The only thing that stopped him from bleeding out was their dark magicks.  If that wasn’t enough, in their cruelty, they gathered the remaining slaves together and showed them a caged Idris. For hours, she was put through unspeakable tortures while we were forced by the elves to watch. By the end, she was hardly recognizable. Then they lopped off her head, what was left of it, and put it on a spike in the middle of the fields. They said that it would be a constant reminder of what happens to slaves who defy them. It was a wild understatement to say that he hated them.

This day was no better than any others. Varun struggled to plow the land as he once did, ignoring the face of his old friend staring at him from afar. His strength was leaving him.

Varun had no time for nightmares. When he slept, Mikael was with him in his dreams. He began to feel the same hatred that Mikael felt against the Dark Elves. Every night he would learn a new verse to the incantation. When he had the chance, he wrote markings into the dirt far away from the plantation. Ancient markings that he did not know the meaning of.  He still felt their power. In his bones, he felt the darkness grab hold of him. He did this for years. Repeating the same patterns, only changing them when Mikael would say so.

“It is finished.”

----|----

That was when my father, Varun, whispered in my ear that something was coming. We all heard it, and knew that our father had been doing something for years. He planned to kill our masters somehow. This must have been it.

I looked into the distant forest that surrounded our plantation for the source of the screeching. I stood in awe, picking myself up out of the dirt. I could not comprehend what I saw, but i knew that it shouldn’t be. It was a massive creature, black and red and pulsing. I couldn’t tell how large it was, but i saw that there were clouds around it that were small in comparison. It was hovering high above the earth, and it was still. Everyone was standing outside now, looking at the thing. Even the Dark elves came out of their homes and stood speechless.

A thick darkness began to materialize. “Mikael!” my father said, “is that–”

“My revenge, Varun.” the large mask-like face that was Mikael changed into the face of a man that I did not recognize. My mother seemed too.

“Sansom!” Kavya shouted.

“Yes sister. I am here.” The darkness spoke. My mother was in shock. “I am not a Wraith, I am a Spectre, Varun. When I found you in the forest, I needed to disguise myself. Had either of you known it was me, the Dark Elves could have used magick to learn that I was still here. But it doesn’t matter now. He is here.”

“Sansom–what is that thing?”

“We have temporarily summoned the aether of The Wailing One, The Banshee, Liannon. All of the research I’ve done in my life has come to fruition. All of my work is manifest in her. The Dark Elves have plagued this world too long. Since we were children, Kavya, they have only ruined; and now they enslave you, my family. Death could not have kept me from this retribution.”

Liannon?

My father was always strong, but when he lifted my brother and I on his shoulders and sprinted away from the plantation with my Mother, there were tears in his eyes. The rest of the slaves followed. There was a stampede running for the hills and the city. Even the Dark Elves were running with us. Who was Liannon?

There was another screech. This time, the shock wave moved the ground underneath us, flipping the running slaves on their backs. Varun fell too, hurling my brother and I in the dirt. I looked back, trying to see the floating black mass. It looked like a deflated balloon now, and it was falling. I turned to my Father.

The Dark Elf Raaku held him up by his neck and was chanting something. His eyes were glowing. This was bad.  My little brother held onto his leg and  sank his teeth into the Dark elf’s calf. I went to grab him before–

Half of my little brother’s head rolled down the hill we were climbing. I froze. I was so close to him, all I could do was look. Around me chaos was unfolding. Slaves were running away and Dark Elves were slaughtering them, but I could not take my eyes away from my brother. Kavya threw herself at Raaku, catching him by surprise. He dropped at his son's corpse in disbelief.

   He looked up to see his wife being strangled by the whip Raaku beat him with all these years. At this, my father burst into a rage. He lunged at Raaku with his hand in his pockets. "Father, No!" I shouted at him. He didn't listen. The dark elf flung Kavya aside with his whip and reeled back with enough force to kill my father. He slashed his whip and varun took his hand from his pocket. The force of the white whip was enough to push varun back in the other direction. The only thing my father had done was throw rocks. Raaku was horrified, but I hadn't understood until it was too late.


The explosion pushed me back with my father, but it completely destroyed Raaku. My mother found us. We stared at the gory remains of Raaku and my brother as we remained stuck in the dirt. The other dark elves were ahead of us, rounding everyone up. Suddenly, there were beasts attacking everyone. They were sliming and disgusting, like giant insects. Some of them flew, and some of them came up from the earth like worms. There was one beast that stood out from all the others. He was the largest, by far, and the fastest. It was a white centipede with burning red eyes and hundreds of red legs. It devoured dark elves, slaves and other beasts alike.

Varun told us that they were demons, that they came from that floating mass. All of those monsters came from Liannon's Aether.


We stopped. We were finally far from the demons.  Father took us underneath a woodwind tree for shelter. We could only hear the hordes faintly now. There must have been hundreds of thousands of those beasts. It was a miracle that we made it out alive. I looked around for herbs that could easy my father's pain. There was a huge gash from his ear across his entire face from Raaku's whip. He was lying on his back motionless. My mother was still in shock, but she was with him. I buried my face in his chest and wailed, wiping my tears on his shirt. I felt so useless. I couldn't help him at all.


He was looking at me like he wanted to tell me something. I went closer to him so I could understand his mumbled breaths. "Kali, Kavya—" there was a long silence then, the longest I felt I had ever experienced, "stay alive."


I heard something behind us. Again? I turned to see a black scorpion the size of a bear. Its tail was dripping with vile and its head looked deformed, but strangely human. It was going to eat us—we were going to die here.


"NO!" I shouted.

Approved mate.

One of the coolest characters I've ever had the pleasure of reading over bud. Good job.

Welcome to Nyx.