The Curse of Balance » Places

         Aradnia rolled her shoulders, confident in her ability to fight off anything that came her way. This could be a trap, she didn't know, but the surrounding landscape had several escape routes and this one man shouldn't pose too much of a threat if he chose to attack her. Besides, she had been reading him and he didn't seem like the type to want a confrontation. "Sure" she said, "Lead the way. The less travel time the better."

         "If you would like to wait for the Rat King to make her presence known, you might be able to get an audience with her, but when you address her again, I suggest not using the inferior name of queen and instead calling her what she is."

Volund spoke, humbled by his disregard of their customs. "I apologize, we do not have such customs where I am from." Which was, partially true. His people had no ruler, only death. They praised it, and, each ascendance was trapped in a soul stone in the center of town. This stone was believed to hold a connection to the afterlife, and, in turn, to the gods. Of course, this was all before. Now his village was nothing but ruin and ghosts, souls who had escaped when the large stone was broken. As far a Volund knew, he was the last surviving member of the Clan Grimm.

"As for me, I am, what some call The Reaper. Some of what you have heard is true, however, most is undoubtedly ramblings of those who wish to scare their children into good behavior. There was once a large clan of us, almost 100, but alas, I am the last one."

And with that, Volund stepped back into the shadows, waiting for the Rat King to make her presence known.

         There was some relief when the woman hailed him. It was a step in the right direction for how he wanted this encounter to go.

"Hail."

He returned the hail back to her. Around him the air was rather animated with the local land's winged insects. Flies that fed on the bodies frequently found in the harsh desolate land were in surplus around him. A large number of these flies were double their normal size with triple the wingspan. From having fed off Rufus's blood these flies were stronger, able to travel farther and were able to have a far larger quantity of eggs which hatched flies just like them.

In truth only a small fraction of his typical entourage could accompany him through this rough land. The land only really became more hospitable to life halfway along to his destination. Even in the ashen plains however insects thrived. There was scarcely a place some form of insect couldn't call home.


"I want only to travel this here road for a ways. If you'd want I could offer company, at least 'till our paths diverge. I can assure I'll be of little nuisance. If you'd rather not then, well, I can keep my distance for the ways should you prefer."

He had a strange air about him. Not just the buzzing of winged flies, blood drinking mosquitoes and sturdy cockroaches either. He was hunched slightly forward due to his ever lingering injuries and he walked with an eccentric gait, habits picked up from his state of general isolation. The part of his face that wasn't overshadowed by his hat was sorely in need of grooming. All in all his image spoke of a drifter with his fair share of quirks.

         Darkus had been lucky on his walk to Harosa, finding not only a freshly slain bear, but two of the wolves that must have been attacking it. It was quite obvious to Darkus as to what this meant. A free ride and its two guard dogs. The undead hadn't taken much pause before raising the dead beasts with, thankfully, no interruption. There had been some jackass with a bow that tried to kill the kid only to find the two wolves at his throat. With that out of his way, Darkus was ready to travel once more.

---

After a good hour on his new mount, Darkus arrived at the entrance to the ruins of Harosa. I don't see much of a difference. Still dirty and full of filth. I wonder if there are any good corpses here. Thought the necromancer as strolled through the gates on his undead bear. Within moments his slightly rotted wolves found the entrance to life within the city.

As he entered into the city's little housing area, Darkus could only show his darkest, most vile grin and a slight evil like chuckle as he got every mix of looks. Many people shifted away from the child riding an undead bear being flanked by two wolves of the same fate. Some of those people hid, others just tried to keep their distance. Some were lolled by the innocent look of the rider and just stared in confusion and amazement.

Approaching a guard with a shit eating grin, Darkus asked "Who and where is your leader? Don't bother wasting my time, if you think you can play around with me." Then came a drip drip drip from the shaking guard.

         Shaula drifted (quite literally) through the "streets" of the Market, her billowy, black cloak flapping a little as she went. Though sunlight didn't reach to the Depths, the light from the shops was still quite bothersome. She wondered silently how humans could live in places with so much light and noise... and with the overpowering stench of waste and mold, she wondered if they even had a sense of smell. Perhaps coming here to the domain of the Rat King to learn about human nature was not such a good idea. However, perhaps she could determine that it was human nature to live like rats and be done with it.

Lesath, whose tiny, snake-like body was curled loosely around Shaula's neck whispered softly. "These humans are lost shells of themselves, much the same way we are..."

"I do not know what I am to learn by being here," Shaula responded, "What good will it do to learn about humans? I want to learn about me."

"Patience," said Lesath.

Shaula sighed and drifted into one of the less raucous bars and seated herself at a table in the corner. This served two purposes: the first was to give her a good vantage point from which to study the humans, and the second, to remain mostly inconspicuous. In her experience, getting noticed gets you into trouble. And trouble, Shaula had decided, was a nuisance.

         While most despised the ash and darkness of this world, Volund embraced it. His time spent in Kardine had taught him well, while searching for a new soul stone. His search was unsuccessful, which bothered him greatly, but in essence, he had no need for another one yet, not to mention the beast guarding it was nearly immortal. His current stone had yet to be used, and he refused to waste it simply in retrieving another stone. He stepped through a shadow, and landed at the top of the wall, and began heading to Harosa. Rumor was that the Rat Queen was at it again. Volund had never encountered her prior, but knew of her kingdom all too well. Her brutality was known throughout the world. Rumor was, one of her champions carried a soul stone, and if Volund had any hope of finding the immortal that guarded the next stone, he would need a 2nd stone.

Each stone would glow if close to another, but only at a very short range. If Volund was to get two together, then he would be able to increase this range greatly, allowing him to locate the third stone. The only problem would be convincing the queen, or killing the man without disturbing the kingdom. Hopefully, she would be willing to ally with him, and retake the land of the gods, expelling them from the earth. Chaos was the only way about this, order would simply appease them.

No doubt she would've heard of Volund, he was very popular around the cities, being hailed as the angel of death, the eater of souls, but most simply referred to him as the Reaper. Children would hide, families rush home, closing their blinds and locking their doors. Now, he didn't have quite as much of a presence as Darkus, but Volund had a presence none the less.

His journey to the rat kingdom was rather quick, simply stepping into the shadows, and he was there. The kindgom was exceedingly clean, it was almost insanity. There wasn't much or a chance of Volund blending in with this crowd. He raised his arms, and floated towards the staircase, before approached by several rats.

"I require an audience with the queen. Volund Kaah is my name." And with that, he simply made his way back, seating himself on a cloud of shadow. He hoped she would not be too long in her decision.

         The two knights stood before their fallen brethren, each taking a look around where they were. The ruins of some old castle, complete with toppled towers and roofless halls. The most disturbing, to the knights at least, was the fact that the graveyard was empty. The stones that marked the dead remained, but the coffins were all open and where they should be and at the same time empty. When they looked to the scouts the marks of bites and gashes covered them with a subtle mix of what looked like weapon strikes.

It was obvious to them now that this was not simply monster that had moved into the ruins. If it remained there was no telling what sort of horrors it might bring upon those unlucky enough to live close by. Looking at each other, the two knights each took a breath. They could not fail.

"Deal with them!" Shouted a seemingly disembodied voice, a dark tone and mist-like hiss mixed into the words. Turning in time to see the shambling mix of full corpses and skeletons, the knights drew there weapons. However, when they struck the monsters seemed not to be phased by the loss of a head or an arm or a leg. As the monsters began to claw at the armor of the knights the sense of pure dread filled them.

Turning to its source they saw what could only have been described as a shadow demon. It seemingly floated there while waving its hands about and shouting in some tongue neither knight even knew existed. Beside it crawled what could only be described as a dragon of pure shadows.

Charging through the undead, one of the knights struck the hand of the creature. Turning to look the knight in the eyes, the realization of undeath filled the knight as the claw of the monster slid up his armor and sliced the man within clean open. Returning to its vile magics, the monster returned to the corpses before it.

The second knight felt the dread once more. He knew that it was now or never, that this thing could turn the dead into weapons. That this thing needed to die. With a blood curdling scream of war, the knight charged the monster and struck it with a heavy downward blow to the head. The sound of cracking bone let the knight know that his attack struck the monster as his sword fell out of its head.

Images quickly filled the knight's mind. An open plain next to a city. Within the plain was a dark mist that slowly became what he was sure he had just slain. Shaking his head and returning to the reality before him the knight watched as the shadow dragon became soot only to fly in the direction that the knight had a gut feeling the monster was reforming in. Shaking it off the knight turned to see the once powerful horde back to being little more than a pile of rotted bodies.

---

Damn the petty interferences of the mortals! Had they simply accepted their early deaths, then I may have been able to infuse the Gods' Bane! Now it is lost to me because of ignorant fools! Thought the floating head of Darkus as his entirety reformed. Yet another dark artifact that had the potential to bring harm to Khasm was pulled from his grasp by lesser mortals who refuse to accept their place as his playthings.

Moments later, soot began to flow around Darkus. At least I don't have to bring you back, again. Forming back into the shape of a small dragon, the creature bounced about happily as it looked into Darkus's eyes. Reaching down from his shadowy form Darkus petted his companion.

With a slight breath the two were no longer the terrifying monsters of the ruins. Now they were a small male child and a ferret curling around his neck. Quickly looking around Darkus found a stick that was close enough to a walking stick, something that would help his frail form travel.

Quickly finding a place where he could look over the local landscape, Darkus realized where he was. A day's walk from Harosa. Back in life he would go there to find everything from fresh corpses to dark knowledge and the occasion artifact that would pop up. Perhaps the city will be useful this time around. Climbing down from his vantage point, Darkus began his journey towards the city of Harosa.