The Deathweavers's Story

A lone ship, black as the void, materialized from the emptiness of space. It floated amidst the endless ocean of frigid death like a sarcophagus. The ship, on its exterior, was as cold as the void it drifted through. A miniscule scrap of radiation was emitted from the vessel. Only sensors of the highest caliber could distinguish it from the stray cosmic energies of space.

A single cadaver sat motionless within the cockpit. Faded blast armor clung to its bleached skeletal frame. Three long jagged gashes marred the torso of the skeleton's armor. The long-deceased pilot's eyeless sockets stared longingly into the endless abyss beyond the viewing port.

Awaken.

The skeleton's fleshless jaw opened in a voiceless groan. Dried joints and bones creaked as its bony arms reached for the dashboard. A dim azure glow flickered in its empty eye sockets before they ignited with tongues of blue flames. It lifted a bony white hand and pressed it against its temple as the flames flickered and focused into two solid ghostly azure orbs.

The pilot looked out the view port with renewed focus as it closed its dangling jaw. Its glowing eyes darted to the panel in front of it before its skeletal fingers began to work the controls.

"Stealth systems active." the pilot hissed in a phantasmal multi-layered voice. "Sensors operational. Location... Near isolated shipping lane. Likely Taiyou. Initiating scouting procedure."

A lone ship, black as the void, materialized from the emptiness of space. It floated amidst the endless ocean of frigid death like a sarcophagus. The ship, on its exterior, was as cold as the void it drifted through. A miniscule scrap of radiation was emitted from the vessel. Only sensors of the highest caliber could distinguish it from the stray cosmic energies of space.

A single cadaver sat motionless within the cockpit. Faded blast armor clung to its bleached skeletal frame. Three long jagged gashes marred the torso of the skeleton's armor. The long-deceased pilot's eyeless sockets stared longingly into the endless abyss beyond the viewing port.

Awaken.

The skeleton's fleshless jaw opened in a voiceless groan. Dried joints and bones creaked as its bony arms reached for the dashboard. A dim azure glow flickered in its empty eye sockets before they ignited with tongues of blue flames. It lifted a bony white hand and pressed it against its temple as the flames flickered and focused into two solid ghostly azure orbs.

The pilot looked out the view port with renewed focus as it closed its dangling jaw. Its glowing eyes darted to the panel in front of it before its skeletal fingers began to work the controls.

"Stealth systems active." the pilot hissed in a phantasmal multi-layered voice. "Sensors operational. Location... Near isolated shipping lane. Initiating scouting procedure."

A single star system drifted through the emptiness on the edge of civilized space. It was a young, vibrant, yellow star with a gas giant and a handful of planetoids. The fourth planet was a marble of blueish green with white swirls. If one looked closely, they would see a plaid checkerboard pattern dotted across the landscape.

Several ships suddenly materialized around the planet. They emerged from the cold void of space like silent phantoms from the shadows, or a pack of sharks from the depths of the ocean. The ships were black as the frigid death that clung to their hulls and bore sigils of crimson war paint. An eerie sense of dread radiated from the ships as they began to circle the planet.

"Attention all crew. We have reached our destination. We have arrived at Eden-12."

At first glance, the interior of the ships was just as dead and desolate as the exterior. The halls were dark and the air reeked with death and decay. However, sinister shadows lurked in the dark and frigid passages. A lone skeletal figure sat on the captain's chair of the bridge. It was surrounded by several other skeletons and half-rotten cadavers that manned the various consoles and controls. The empty eye sockets of the nearby dead burned with a ghostly blue flame, while the center's eyes held a solidified phantasmal azure glow that radiated with cold calculating intelligence.

"Jam communications and deploy drop ships." the Captain's ghostly voice rasped. "Leave no survivors."

As the Deathweaver fleet began to descend on Eden-12, a sudden anomaly would be detected. In a bright flash of light, a medium sized moon would seem to randomly appear in orbit around Eden-12. It's composition was incredibly dense, and it's glossy black surface seemed to be back lit by mysterious clouds of color and light.

There was a pause.

Within the massive black sphere, minds were now racing.

There was supposed to be no resistance here. What happened?


We can't account for all variables; clearly someone has the same idea we do.

I can't detecy any mental signals on those ships.

Should we proceed with seeding?

Not sure. Let me ask Nealaphh.

...

Nealaphh says to hold off, and to observe.

And if they try to make contact?

We'll just play dumb, as usual. There's no reason for them to believe we're a anything other than a giant shiny rock.

Alright, if you say so.



...and so the black moon remained, placid, high above the planet and the dark warships that loomed in low orbit.

The Deathweaver ships slowly surrounded the planet. As they moved into position, several torpedo-like objects were expelled and sent shooting off towards the planet's surface. They congregated towards the more developed and populated parts of the colony.

When the VARIAtech vessel entered the system, several sensors aboard the Deathweaver command ship, Hades Tribute, flared. Though there were no life signatures on any of the ships, they were not silent. Powerful psychics and sensors would detect the faintest echoes of psionic signatures that formed a web with the Hades Tribute's command deck as the center. The epicenter suddenly flared like a bonfire.

The skeletal captain's ghostly blue eyes glowered at the wall of the command deck, as if his cold gaze was attempting to pierce through the hull and drill straight into the black moon through sheer will. His eyes took on a new focus as another, far more powerful, mind peered through them like a pair of binoculars.

"What do we have here..." the new presence pondered as it attempted to telepathically probe the black moon.

-----

Meanwhile, on the surface of Eden-12.

It happened so fast.

John laid prone underneath a car. Blood curdling screams and animalistic roars bled through the hands that covered his ears. An explosion from a grenade sent a concussive wave across the town square, causing him to screw his eyes tighter. Blood already ran through the streets. How long had he been lying there? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?

All he needed was to buy a part to fix his combine. He had to order it off-world and it arrived yesterday. John decided to take the afternoon off and head to the city to pick it up.

Stupid. Stupid! Stupid!

They fell from the sky like meteors. These... capsules. The objects crashed into buildings and streets and sent everyone panicking. Then they opened. Armored men came charging out of them screaming like animals. Except, they weren't men... There were long gashes in their blast armor where rotten flesh spilled out. Unnatural blue flames burned where their eyes should have been.

Then they started killing.

Men, women, children. Police. Civilians. Young and old... No one was safe. Some of the monsters resorted to tearing their victims apart with their teeth! John could've sworn he saw living shadows, these pools of hate and rage manifested as predatory darkness, pounce from the alleyways and drag whoever they could back into whatever pit they crawled out from. Their gurgled screams were swiftly silenced.

A shadow fell over him.

John opened his eyes.

The monster's scream drowned out his own.

More blood joined the river that flooded the street.

We're missing out on a lot of blanks down there.

I'm aware.

You don't think we could just pick at the scraps?

Nealaphh said to wait, so we wait.

Fine, fine...wait...we're getting pinged.

How? We haven't manifested any electronic comms.

No, no psionically. Someone on that ship is a mentalist.

...that changes things.

Yeah. I'm going to consult with Nealaphh, he- oh wait. He's coming himself.

Near where the black, glowing moon had popped into existence, there came another bright flash, much smaller than the one that had heralded the moon's arrival.

This new object also appeared to be made of whatever comprised the nearby planetoid, but it's configuration was much different, somewhat reminiscent of a giant, stylized crystalline bird of prey. Only a single light shone throughout this construct; a pure silver radiance that flashed in rhythmic patterns.

Captain Deathweaver would feel his psychic outreach met, but not rebuked, by the new mind inside the bird vessel.

"Greetings. We are the Consulate. We admire your initiatives taking place here." the mind replied in a soft, pleasant tone.

While the Deathweavers continued to pillage the colony below, the black ghost ships moved into positions above the open farmlands. After they stopped, beams of... energy... screamed from the ships and bombarded the planet like a hailstorm of death incarnate. The energy was black as the void and gave off no light, heat, or any other noticeable signatures. It ate away at whatever it touched and radiated with a sickening aura of wrongness. Finally, the beams of energy collided with the rolling hills of farmland. Crops, vegetation, and the earth itself withered, blackened, and died at its touch. Metal constructs were reduced to piles of rusted scrap. Animals and colonists simply dropped like sacks of rocks and moved no more.

The Deathweaver ships did not stop with burning and salting the colony's fields. Several missiles leaped from the vessels and made direct courses to the cities. They exploded in the atmosphere, sending numerous smaller warheads throughout the populated areas where they erupted with a greenish black gas.

"We are the Deathweavers." replied the mind that continued to probe the VARIAtech ship. It dispersed like a fog, automatically seeping into the minds of the crew and sifting through their contents. When Nealaphh touched the mind, he would get a glimpse of ten thousand others raving, gnashing, and screaming with animalistic rage and murderous hatred. However, a much more powerful presence encompassed them, channeling the emotions of the lesser minds into calculated focus with an uncompromising will of iron.

"And I am their Voice."

Gro'chal might be slightly taken aback when he found that the black crystalline moon contained not just a few hundred...not just a few thousand...not even a few million minds...

The black moon was inhabited by almost three billion independent psyches: disembodied mind that lived within this strange black substance. Every single one of them was psychic.

So when Gro'chal attempted to subtly infuse his mind into the hub of mental activity, he would suddenly feel the scrutiny of countless other minds looking directly at him. But rather than push him out of their commune, the minds seemed to...welcome him. They seemed eager to let them brush up against their minds and glean small things here and there.

Maybe this was an ideal existence.

Maybe his mind should stay with them.

Regardless, Nealaphh continued to speak to Gro'chal, apparently nonplussed by the necromancer captain's self important declaration.

"I see that, yes. It is good to know that The Consulate is not the only power within this verse that values the power of the mind. In fact, we value minds above all else. Each one is a treasure, full of potential..." Nealaphh said calmly. The crystal bird rotated on a central axis as if to regard the planet below, which was slowly starting to go from green and blue, to brown and black.

"Normally it is our desire to liberate unenlightened minds from their physical bindings, and such was our intention with this small world. Do not have concern that we will be interfering, however. In fact, at this juncture, we would like to invite you for further discourse..."

A large explosion from the planet's surface gleamed across the glistening black carapace of The Consulate vessel."

"...at your own convenience, of course."

Gro'chal was momentarily overwhelmed by the abrupt and unexpected vastness of the hivemind. However, when the countless minds tried to connect with his own, they would not find another willing drone to join their collective.

Pain.

A flash of burning cities.

Death.

Thousands of lifetimes of despair and anguish.

Rage.

A resolve that could sunder mountains and shatter the boundaries of Life and Death.

Suddenly, the doorway to the necromancer's own hivemind was cut off with a mental construct of an adamantium sphere. Gro'chal still maintained a telepathic link with Nealapph, but his presence was cold and emotionless. It was in sharp contrast to the cancerous well of darkness it was a moment ago.

"The Dead will find vengeance for the many crimes of the Living." Gro'chal replied. "Those who find no acceptance or joy among the unascended will find kinship and purpose in the embrace of Death. I will entertain the idea of mutually beneficial agreement in the interest of these goals."

Meanwhile, the strange gas continued to disperse over the cities and the living dead rampaged through the streets. Large portions of once bountiful farms were now massive swaths of blackened and diseased wasteland.

It was a calm afternoon on the shore of Yggor's Island. The waves lapped the sands and gave the seagulls rhythm for their hearty song. Howling wind surfed the tide while the fish of the sea played their merry games in the reef. It was the symphony of the sea that soothed the ears of the island's inhabitants.

A deep rumbling suddenly broke the song as the sky darkened. Any denizens on the beach would gaze upon the sky to see a great mass of blue, red, and yellow flames plummeting from the heavens. It screamed like a storm giant maiden in labor as the air and sky ignited in its wake, leaving a tail of smoke as black as the Abyss.

Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the object crashed into the ocean with a titanic cacophony. Massive clouds of steam billowed into the air as gargantuan waves exploded from the impact. The rapidly displaced waves pulverized reefs and washed away sand that had the gall to stand in their path of destruction. Within seconds the waves crashed upon the shore, wrecking even more havoc on the coastline.

Several silent minutes passed as the air itself recovered from the shock of such abrupt destruction. The waves receded from the shore, leaving age-old wreckage strewn amidst the remains of the beautiful reefs that once decorated the island's shallows. Smoke continued to rise into the heavens from the alien object's impact, indifferent to the chaos it caused to what would have been a lovely day at sea.

Splash.

A long charcoal black arm shot out of the water and dug deep into the sandy beach until its fingers found purchase on a rock. Three long black fingers paired with a thumb gripped the rock like a life-preserver. A large shape rose from the water. Small flames burned across its body. The stench of burning flesh stained the air as the creature rose to its feet.

It stood nearly twice the height of a man with blackish-blue skin strained over tight cords of muscle. A long reptilian tail slid out of the water as seaweed slipped out from between his four-toed feet. Tendrils adorned a set of mandibles that protruded from an enlarged cranium. The creature's body was covered in a suit of charred and smashed armor. Pieces of its flesh were burned away or simply torn off, revealing white bone. Two ghostly blowing blue eyes scanned the beach for any souls. With a will strong as iron, he clenched his fist and the flames extinguished.

Phase one complete...

The being closed his eyes and twitched his mandibles. Each wound - every exposed nerve and bone - sent spikes of agony throughout his body. It was like an inferno, but one he welcomed. He focused upon the pain, embraced it, and began to channel his Power. Slowly - ever so slowly, bones snapped into place - new muscle and sinew filled in the holes of his body, and raw skin was stretched over them like gauze.

He stretched out his hand and a pillar of black flames and smoke erupted in the air. A dark staff materialized in his grip. Archaic runes were etched into the the shaft while the skull of a horned creature was mounted on top of a spear-like tip. Blue flames poured from its eyes and mouth.

A powerful aura surrounded the being. It was like a cloud of despair, cold sorrow, endless suffering, dark hatred, and fiery rage. He raised his other hand, and one attuned to such things would hear the distant echoes of a thousand whispering voices. The being reached out with his mind and soul - and touched them.

"Friends. Brothers. Sisters..." he called across the Realm of Death. "Hear the call of your Master. Awaken from your slumber. Lend me your pain. Give me your despair. Allow me to carry the bindings that chain you to this restless sleep so you may arise once again to enact your judgement upon the Living who have cursed you. Rise, my brothers, and bring the blessing of Death to the Living. Rise, and fight under my banner, so we may both achieve vengeance..."

"RISE!"

The earth shook.

The sea frothed.

An icy cold mist rose from the water. The fog churned and coalesced into dozens of ghostly shapes. Some were clad in the ethereal remains of armor and carried ghostly weapons that dripped with terror given form. Others were beastly shadows with crimson eyes the color of blood. Water sloshed behind them as dozens of other figures rose from the tide. Fleshless bone glistening with seaweed gleamed in the sunlight. Bony hands gripped rusted swords as their socketless eyes burned with blue flames.

The strange being lifted his staff and pointed towards the island.

"Cleanse."

The horde of undead unleashed an eldritch scream that chilled the soul before charging across the beach and into the trees.

A single living shadow stood beside the necromancer. Its body was gangly and bestial, and its eyes possessed a thirst for blood that was barely held in check by a malevolent cunning.

"What of me, my lord?" it hissed.

"You, Nightgaunt, shall seek out the current ruler of this island." he replied. "Bring him to me."

"Your will be done, Lord Deathweaver."

Chaos, in its rawest form, is still nothing more than variables that can neither be accounted for or predicted in order to achieve what some would consider the highest form of energy. However this was neither the subject of todays lesson or even part of the grander scheme of things. The ancient library that remained outside the influence of normal mortal hands seemed to grow dustier the more it fell into a state of unused disrepair.

Deeper within the library however was an ominous green glow and a withered old man who sat before a large crystal orb which depicted a scene on a rather familiar world. The elderly man simply stood himself up and watched as decades of dust and cobwebs departed from his old brown robes and beard. He extended his reach out produced from nothing a magnificently mammoth sized hat of wonder and awe which he donned quickly.

"To think that my vacation will have to be cut short." a gruff voice escaped his lips as he now placed a single palm upon the orb and watched the sudden onslaught of countless lives being ended by an undead menace. "Typical! Children are always vastly.....vastly...shit what was I about to do..."

The elderly man simply began to stroke his beard and for an instant lost his mind. What was he going to do exactly? Even if he would gather his thoughts correctly there was little time to sort through their meaning let alone learn from this upcoming mistake only to correct it a second time among the spatial zones that surrounded each realm. The Hat quickly took up his staff and took a step into the glowing crystal only to appear within the realm of Gaia at the massacre itself.

A chorus of screams drifted through the canopy. The shambling dead rampaged across the island like a pack of rapid wolves. Not even the shadows provided safety to the overwhelmed pirates as darkness writhed and gave birth to vicious claws and snarling teeth. Wraiths cloaked in mists of dread stalked the woods and slaughtered indiscriminately with ghostly blades.

The titanic Lord Deathweaver strode purposefully inland. His eldritch eyes pierced the shadows and peered into the minds and souls of the frail mortals that fled from him. The ground beneath his feet withered, blackened, and died in his passing. A single brigand charged at the necromancer. His cutlass was held high and his lips parted with a roar. Deathweaver merely lifted a finger and the cry dissolved into a gurgling scream as the flesh melted off his bones.

Gro'chal stepped over the steaming corpse. Its eyes suddenly burst into blue flames before it rose to its feet and fell in step with its Master.

The necromancer suddenly stopped as a presence pressed against his mind. He reached out with his senses and his mandibles twitched. Gro'chal felt something that gave him pause. An ancient mind of great Power had arrived on the island.

"Nightgaunt, accelerate the seige." Gro'chal telepathically spoke to his servant, "We have drawn attention to ourselves. I will deal with it."

Indeed Gro'chal had been noticed but not by the large hatted wizard who suddenly twirled his staff around only to bring it to the side of one of the many undead abominations that went about killing all that stood in their way. His staffs connection to the necrotic corpse suddenly burst into a bright shinning light and then a wave a force that would send the creatures bones flying in all directions and disrupting any who were caught amongst the blast into oblivion and shards of their former selves. Bigsby began to stride with purpose towards what he felt was the source only to smack a few more undead bastards that rushed him every inch of the way doing what he did to the first like he had to the last he dissipated.

A small girl covered in gore and mud began to sob as she sat on his knees and watched the sad and sorry sight of her people being slaughtered. "Someone, anyone, please help me! My mother is trapped!" The tiny girl piped loudly only to t urn to see that beside her now was a large hatted man who quickly forced the wood of her now condemned home to explode into a bountiful bounty of multicolored butterflies. Once cleared and knowing that the child could get to her mother Bigsby turned to face the undead hoard only to shake his head.

"To you all this will be the greatest day of your interestingly notable lives. But for me it will always be a Tuesday, I hate Tuesdays." The large hatted wizard simply pointed the head of his staff out before him and began to trace a circle in the air which seemed to reverberate with a strange eldritch energy. It was from this circle that several thousand blue orbs of energy shot forward and pierced even more of the undead army causing some to explode and others to change their shape into harmless trinkets or bobbles that could be picked up later.

Meanwhile, as the dread lich Gro'chal Deathweaver and the planeswalking wizard Bigsby Big Hat did battle, the siege continued on the inner-most compound of Yggor's Island...

"I said brace the door you landlubbin' yellerbellied excuse fer seamen!" roared a rugged brigand as his boots dug into the earth. "Brace it!"

Half a dozen men pressed their shoulders against the wooden door of the chamber. Wooden beams and rocks were braced and piled against the door while a thunderous sea of screeching and moaning resonated from outside. The door shook like the waves of an encroaching tide as skeletal hands poked through the boards and clawed grooves into the stone frame.

A barricade of refuse and stone pillars was erected only scant meters away from the door. Two dozen men and women armed with crossbows and blunderbusses knelt behind the jurryrigged cover. Some fingered their triggers with sweaty palms and glanced at each other nervously. A few openly wept and whispered prayers to whatever deity would listen.

It happened so quickly. A meteor fell from the heavens and set the sky ablaze. The resulting tsunami was not that devestating, since the islanders were victims of sea storms every other month. The air was calm for a few moments, then all of Tartarus, Hell, and every other dark afterlife broke loose.

The dead arose from their watery graves and slaughtered the living.

Flesh-eating ghouls, soul-eating spirits, and cackling skeletons rampaged across the island - killing anyone in their path. Men, women, children... The old and sick... None were spared. Those that barricaded themselves in the throne room of the ruins knew not the fate of those outside. Though perhaps they were the ones trying to break down the door that very moment.

The symphony of death seeped into their bones and ate away at their spirits. Their cries were like rabid animals that were cursed with a never-ending hunger. A paralyzing chill hung in the air. Distant cackling intertwined with the song as it rose to a crescendo.

And it stopped.

Silence.

Stillness.

The song was silent, and the door was still. The survivors glanced at each other in confusion and barely restrained terror. No one spoke. No one dared to speak. Was it over? Did they give up and move on? Were they already dead and simply awaiting whatever twisted afterlife that was reserved for them?

The whistle of wind blew through the chamber.

One of the men slowly lowered their crossbow.

A frigid gale blew through the ruins.

The door suddenly exploded in a shower of splinters, sending its defenders flying through the air like ragdolls. Darkness - pure, writhing, living darkness - filled the doorway. An ear-splitting scream intermingled with the whimpering wails of countless souls, and the blood of the island defenders turned to ice in its echo. Several of them dropped to their knees and added their voices to the chorus as they tried to tear out their ears.

The darkness poured into the room like a churning black fog. It squirmed with the rattling of chains as the writhing mass of dark tendrils, smoke, and shadows shot out like murderous hands. Three men fell apart with an explosion of gore and viscera. Blackened entrails and icy blood was spewed across the ground as a line of defenders were shredded, flayed, and cleaved like butter against a glowing hot knife.

A crossbowman shot his bolt at the darkness only for it to clatter uselessly against the back wall. He had little time to contemplate the futility of his weapon before he was sailing across the room like a toy tossed by an enraged child. Another brigand - a woman covered in tattoos and holding a musket - was hoisted into the air at an awkward angle by the living smoke. Half-frozen blood poured from her neck like a fountain. The firearm clattered to the ground and went off with a bang.

The smoke and smoldering shadows churned and solidified. Long arms and hands with clawed fingers materialized from the darkness. A monstrous demonic face formed from the smoke, revealing a sadistic grin filled with several rows of razor sharp teeth that sank deeply into the woman's flesh. Glowing crimson eyes glared, unblinking, at the rest of the islanders. They radiated with hunger for spilled blood, violence, murder, and for anyone - anyone - to dare stand against him.

"Unhand her, demon!" cried out one of the defenders. The man's dark blue coat trailed behind him as he sprinted forward with his pistol and rapier drawn. A three-corner hat sat on his head while piercing green eyes glared defiantly at the dark spirit. He slid to a stop and leveled the pistol at the creature's semi-corporeal form. His thick leather boots kicked up a small cloud of dust.

Captain Cooper fired his pistol at the monstrosity. It pounced like a viper, leaving its previous prey dropping to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Cooper dove into a roll, narrowly escaping a swipe of the monster's shadowy claws. He retaliated with a thrust of his rapier, but the shadow twisted around the blade with a snarl. The creature's blood-red eyes burned with murderous glee as it snapped at the pirate with its powerful jaws. However, Nightgaunt merely bit into empty air.

Cooper ducked beneath the attack and drove his rapier deep into Nightgaunt's shadowy mass. The shadow unleashed a terrifying roar of pain and rage as the blade sizzled. His grip faltered as an icy numbness crawled up his arm, but Cooper redoubled his efforts and pressed the blade deeper into the monster's phantasmal chest.

Nightgaunt shrieked in fury and his fiery eyes narrowed like a predator. Ice coated the rapier's hilt and slithered up Cooper's hand. The King of Shadows sneered wickedly before grabbing the pirate's hand with his own and squeezing. His hand shattered like a bundle of twigs beneath the dark spirit's strength, and he fell to one knee in a suppressed groan. Finally, Nightgaunt swiped a clawed hand across Cooper's exposed back.

Captain Cooper screamed as the spectral claws rent flesh and scraped bone. They were like whips laced with razor blades being struck by a goblin slavedriver. An impossibly cold chill reached deep within him. It was colder than arctic rain of the northern sea and more oppressive than the darkest abyss. Nightgaunt's cursed claws were suffering given form - Death made manifest.

His claws drove deeper into Cooper's back and emerged through the front of his shirt. Blackened blood soaked the cloth as his scream was drowned out by the blood dripping from his mouth. Nightgaunt lifted his quivering body from the ground and tossed him several meters away. The rapier, with the guard currently entangled with Cooper's crushed fingers, slid out of Nightgaunt's chest and followed his trajectory.

"Well now..." Nightgaunt hissed as he watched the nearly-lifeless body of Captain Cooper struggle for breath on the ground. "I haven't had a decent fight like that in ages. I will save you for last..."

"Now..." Nightgaunt turned and sneered at the trembling survivors. "Where were we?"

"Heel, Nightgaunt." a voice caused the ruins to tremble.

Nightgaunt and the remaining islanders turned towards the shattered remains of the door. Shadows writhed and groaned as a massive humanoid figure stepped into the room. He stood nearly twice the height of a man, and an aura of pure malice and suffocating despair radiated from him. Tattered dark robes were draped over his desiccated body while he held a long black staff in his right hand. The burning skull of a demon lay impaled on its spear-like tip. Glowing blue eyes peered at each of the islanders through the concealing shadows that clung to his body.

"You have done well, my servant." he said. "Now go forth and ensure the rest of the island has been cleansed. Return to me when your task is complete."

"Yesss, Lord Deathweaver." Nightgaunt replied before vanishing like a whiff of smoke in the breeze.

"Now..." he addressed the islanders. "Which one of you is the leader of this little band of misfit children, hmm?"

None of the islanders spoke in their paralyzed fear.

None of them needed to.

"I'm... hurk... Right 'ere, ya waterlogged..." Captain Cooper groaned as he slowly stood up while supporting himself against a fallen pillar. "... Davy reject!"

Cooper's face was nearly as pale as the skeletons that now huddled outside the doorway. Blood dripped from his belly, mouth, and broken hand as his eyes glared at the lich with steely determination.

"Such spirit..." the lich sneered. "So much hatred... So much restrained rage... You will do nicely, but first..."

He stretched out his hand and pointed a skeletal finger at Cooper. "...You must be broken."

Captain Cooper's body suddenly went rigid. An agonizing hiss escaped from his mouth, but he continued to lock gazes with the lich. The lich in turn curled his finger back, and Cooper's stiff body levitated towards the skeletal abomination. His ghostly blue orbs met Cooper's defiant emerald eyes, and he sneered.

"I am Gro'chal Deathweaver," the lich began, "Master of the Ancient Dead, Bearer of a Thousand Souls, and the Voice of the Damned. Death itself kneels to my will. Who are you to challenge me?"

Deathweaver clenched his fingers into a rigid bowl and Cooper's chest lurched forward. He let out a loud gasp as his eyes widened to diner plates.

"Do you feel that?..." Deathweaver whispered as his clenched hand pulsated. "That is the feeling of your life at my mercy. Do you sense the fear creeping through your mind like a swarm of spiders? Do you finally realize how just frail you really are? Such a fragile shell..." Deathweaver stopped the pulsating for a moment, and Cooper groaned in agony.

"But I will make you STRONG!" he said before clenching his hand into a fist. Cooper let out a gurgled scream as his body convulsed.

Then he was still.

Deathweaver turned to face the other islanders.

The jungle drowned out their screams.

Dusk had come to Yggor's Island. Every other evening was marked by the gentle song of nightfowls, insects, and other nocturnal wildlife. The wind would whistle along the coast and cause the salty aroma of the sea to drift inland while the steady rhythm of the tide lulled the islanders to sleep. However, tonight was different.

Deathly silence gripped the island like a noose. Not even the wind or the birds dared to break the stillness. A blanket of terror laced with the stench of spilled blood and decay was draped over the island. The silence was broken by a distant wailing followed by an unnaturally frigid wind.

Gro'chal strode confidently out of the ruins with a dozen fresh recruits shambling by his side. The illusion of the phantasmal lich had dissipated, revealing his true alien form. His tail swayed as his brow furrowed in thought.

"The stars begin to align." Gro'chal said as he peered at the heavens. "They paint an interesting tale... Things are changing across the cosmos. What say you, Captain Cooper?"

The captain in question stood a few paces behind Gro'chal. His once-scarred living flesh had deteriorated into naught but rags draped over his skeletal form. Necrotic energy flowed from his eyes like smoke. Bony fingers clacked against the hilt of his rapier.

"Then we must act with haste." Cooper replied with a raspy voice. "I can organize patrols across the island while you execute the next stage of the plan. Your will permitting, my liege."

Gro'chal smiled approvingly at the captain's mixture of leadership and submissiveness, which amounted to his face tendrils flicking at the corners of his mouth. The captain would make an excellent commander of his forces on Gaia, but his true worth would be revealed at a later date. In the meantime...

"See to it that no one disturbs my work." Gro'chal commanded. "Have the dreadwraiths begin patrols through the jungle and along the coast, and instruct the ghouls and skeletons to begin construction of the bunker. Tell them to dig - and don't stop digging until their flesh is peeled away and their hands are dust. I will instruct Nightgaunt and his shadows to monitor the shore and surrounding waters as sentries. Dismissed, captain."

"Aye!" the skeletal Captain Cooper saluted and sprinted off into the jungle.

Gro'chal made his way to the village where he battled the wizard after relaying the commands to Nightgaunt. He could feel his presence, along with every single undead on the island. They were like links in a massive chain or nodes in a giant network. Their minds echoed within his own - telling their stories. Deathweaver listened to their whispers as he walked.

He could feel their pain and their sorrow. Many of them were victims of the pirates' barbarisms. Most spoke of hardships and discrimination from living under corruption and cruel masters. Others simply raved within their collective mind like madmen.

Gro'chal quickly silenced those.

When he finally reach the battlefield, Gro'chal took a calming breath and reached out with his senses. He could feel the ebb and flow of the islands energies, but he instead looked downward deep beneath the soil and stone. The Naacani stretched out his hand towards the ground and clenched.

The earth trembled as his psionic grip delved deep into the rock under his feet. He reached for the shifting tectonic energy that originally created the island - the lifeblood of the earth - and pulled. A cacophony of grinding stone grated on his ears, but he stood resolute through the pain. Gro'chal slowly raised his quivering fist as the ground quaked violently before a great chasm split before him. Magma spilled from the open wound and rapidly cooled in the night air.

Gro'chal waved his other hand and caused a wave of boiling lava to wash over the ground and create a basin. He leveled his hand and pressed it forward. The rock groaned beneath the unseen pressure while the lava frothed unnaturally.

This is going to take awhile... Gro'chal groaned to as he raised his hands - commanding another molten geiser to spring forth.



Several hours passed as the dark red glow of the natural forge lit the canopy for a quarter mile. The earth continued to shake from the forced tectonic activity while the scorching heat of the flames and lava burned away any vegetation for fifty yards. Finally, as the sun's rays crested over the sea, the quakes silenced.

Gro'chal fell to his knees and retched. A black liquid matted his mouth and dripped down his chest. He looked up through gasping breaths to behold thirteen massive stones and seven smaller - but still quite large - obelisks. Steam roiled off of their glossy black surfaces even as the ground cooled and solidified. Hundreds of runic symbols were carved into their faces like mosaics, but they were dull and lifeless.

Gro'chal rose shakily to his feet - supported by his staff - and examined his work. The dimensions appeared to be to specifications, and the rune-work was adequate. However, there was no magic in these constructs. They were more dead than the shambling skeletons that patrolled the island.

"That is a project for another day." he thought to himself. "It is time to check in on the construction detail..."

A small vessel, barely large enough to hold a hundred souls, drifted into orbit around the primitive world. It was black as the void it emerged from, and hardly a peep of an energy signature was seen. Faded lettering, long-since eroded by time and cosmic winds, was printed across the bow of the ship, but they were painted over by gruesome red sigils in a harsh jagged script.

“Stealth systems are functioning,” echoed a rasping voice through the dark corridors of the seemingly-dead ship. “Preliminary scans show no patrolling vessels. Start an analysis and search for optimal landing sites. Once we’re sure nothing will spot us, begin a slow entry.”

The ship tumbled lazily in a long arc around the planet, subtly scanning as it went. If nothing was discovered, it would reorient and start skimming the outer atmosphere, taking care to avoid too much friction heat as it descended to the unsuspecting world.

“No reconnaissance found. Proceed with landing protocols.”

“Captain, we have discovered a suitable location for our hideout. Our sensors have picked up a large cave system. Likely an abandoned mine shaft. There appears to be some strong fauna making their lairs in the place, but nothing our own forces can’t subjugate.”

“Acknowledged. Let’s take a closer look.”

The black vessel shifted its trajectory slightly, aiming for a peculiar-shaped continent on one part of the planet. It kept careful control of its velocity, ensuring its atmospheric entry would go unnoticed by any curious skygazers, while its stealth systems and sensors remained at full capacity.

The Deathweaver ship coasted through the atmosphere like a phantom, and a faint hum drifted through the air as the vessel descended to its destination. It soared over rolling hills and darkened grasslands like a sliver of the void that was carved from the darkest corner of the night sky.

Several minutes later the vessel nestled between a grouping of hills, away from prying eyes, almost a mile away from the abandoned mines. The engines powered down, and then a small hatch on the side of the ship opened with a moaning hiss.

A dozen pools of miasmic black ink poured from the hatch and dripped onto the ground like tar. They writhed, churned, and morphed into grotesque humanoid shapes. Ichor dripped from wolf-like maws while long claws, like daggers, hung beside their incorporeal smokey bodies.

Then, as one, they vanished into the shadows and set out towards the cave.

The hunt was on.

As Titania was leaving, she noted that she wasn't alone at the entrance. A bunch of clouds that looked like people were on their way inside, and that simply would not do.

"I thought today was already crazy enough, but holy fuck. Right now I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this shit anymore. Time to send you back to whatever hell you crawled out of." And with that, a quick count of the numbers revealed that even with her whole team, they would be outnumbered 2 to 1. Still, those were her best odds.

"All right, time to hit the gas! Everybody out!"

Six monsters appeared out of bright white flashes, each with a metallic sheen on their bodies.

One sported a mutated horn that looked like it could come alive and take a bite out of something. It turned its back to the group, letting its massive fake maw try to intimidate the lot.

The second looked like a massive, armored penguin, with flippers that gleamed in the ambient light like swords.

A third looked strange indeed. A metal body with three spheres joined to it, and a central red eye looked out at the foe from under a big golden antenna, the entire body floating in midair while spinning horseshoe magnets to generate the force needed to stay afloat.

The fourth looked like a blue jackal on two legs, with spikes jutting out of its forelegs and chest, assuming a fighting stance as soon as it materialized.

The fifth was partially buried underground, and seemed to be three faces with flowing golden locks, moving up and down to keep the soil loose and ready for action.

The last one resembled a massive fruit, but covered in spiked armor, using three vines to keep itself anchored to the ceiling of the cave and swinging about in a threatening manner.

"You don't belong here! I'm sick and tired of these motherfucking invaders on my motherfucking planet!"