Southern Glen

Staying to the shadows, Cieara DeAuster was lurking, having sent a few bands to track the mage and thus she could follow with a bit more ease, misted eyes peering from the realm of shade in search of that particular prey now.

Lord Veighn Yhaull stepped from the Shadow Paths, a yawning gate of blackness tearing a rift in mid-air. His right hand held the ebon box of dark-elf make. In his other, he held a very small trinket - it was a rather expensive trapping of magic. Tiny platinum hourglass, its globes made of crystal, and filled with diamond dust glittered in the moonlight. Upon stepping from the gate, he activated the magic using this item as the focus. The spell of Greater Gate's Telling enacted, and he placed the focus one of his belt pouches deep within the drape of his open-front robes. The garments swayed and blew in the winds as the breeze of the lake whipped about him. He made his way to the shoreline, peering into the water.

From a tall branch in a nearby tree Cieara dropped into a crouch, still clothed in darkness unseen, but able to watch from the veil, wondering what this mage was in dalliance with, for the intensity radiating from him was thick on the wind.

The rot of death lingers on the wind. It is a starry May evening, and the moon wanes. In the crowded tree line, a snapping, perhaps a branch, perhaps.. The cry that follows certainly does not support this theory. There, concealed by a canopy, jagged angles are bathed in blood. Animal, thankfully, though whatever it was is beyond recognition.

Yhaull?s left hand swiftly moved across his body to his side, collecting the trim-line of his outer robe's garment with a hook of his taloned fingers, and he swept this aside to reveal the sinister blade at his side. In one fraction of an instant, the black blade was unsheathed, and its alien alloy gleamed in the light of the moon just before he willed the magical runic blade to life. It began to howl with a chilling sound of the alien sentience as the blade came to life, its sharp spade illuminated in a sheath of emerald flame. The fire seemed bound to its aura, and did not lick or lap at he air like the fingers of normal fire.. and he leveled the blade over the edge of the water. It moved deceptively slow through the air, as it became an extension of his own wielding limb. The artful runes flared to light as the blade caused tracers of green energy to linger in the wake of its movements, suspended in the air.

Bits of fur are discarded on the forest floor, skin still attached, guts writhing as the roadkill weeps crimson. The creature revels in its feasting, gorging itself on the opened belly, its face lost in tissue and the outcry of organs, soon silent between her teeth. Then, a pause. Vyndra shoots up, drawing dark tendrils around her prey, allowing these extensions to lay claim to what was left. Seeming shadow sucks the lifeblood free from bone, leaving nothing but a shattered husk. Red-faced, with eyes to match, the small creature turns for the path through bark and brush.

The thrum of magic was upon him, around him, as it soon became audible as three voices had risen from one mouth like the summoning of spirits from a tomb. The arcane speech was uttered in the High Lunithaylian language, a language steeped in far back in the myths of legends and half-remembered stories. The threads of the web weave trailing and spun as he called the mana from the magic rich land, drawing the runic key within the air.

Shadow enshrouded fingers clamped down on her own blade, as Vestia thought to send up a cry to the other bound sentient and stilled that instinct within the dark metal with the touch, allowing Cieara to continue to watch unseen and well masked in the shade.

Luna's fingers touched the lake in silver reflection, and around the glowing orb of the moon, the reflection cast in the water became ringed in emerald flame. It licked at the atmosphere, screaming its discontent as it gorged itself on the mana sweeping to it from every compass direction like a massive fog rolling in across the water. The lake was soon covered in a blanket of fog, pouring into the chasm of emerald fire as the moons reflection, circumscribed by flame, turned black as the abyss.

Veighn chanted and his sword kreened hellish notes, adding to the cacophonous symphony of sound of the High Lunithaylian chants. He lent his will to the magic, bending and sculpting it in the patterns of the arcane as the runes scrolled through the air, burning the atmosphere and leaving the smell of ozone in their wake as they transversed the dimensions. The chant stopped, and the sword grew quiet, and with a deft roll of his wrist, he inverted the handle of the blade in his grasp, slamming it into the earth as the gate opened in the blackened reflection of the moon in the middle of the lake. His voices, sculpted by a trio of narrow tongues, echoed across the surface of the lake blanketed in the luminescent mana rich mists. He finished the spell in the common tongue, calling forth his intent.

?I summon thee demon of the pits! One near to here my call. I raise ye, by my will. By the laws of my magic, I, The Arch-Magus of the Shar'Vae bind ye with my will and spell to my ring of flames. I call thee to do my bidding. Thrice times three, I summon thee, I summon thee, I summon thee!?

The winds picked up, and the water within the circle of flame fell away. The rift opened over the surface of the water, the powerful enchantments of the spell snaring the nearest demon with his magic, dragging it through time and space into this dimension to heed his call.

The thing in the thicket is disturbed, but one could not tell by the look on her face. Blood has coagulated in natural creases, gathering more so around her mouth and above her eyes. Her hair hangs in an odd diagonal over one ear, crooked as her body seems, too many bones and too-thin skin, shining vein between the trees. Her serpentine extensions arise, overshadowing the broken shell below, full of its blood, full and ever-thirsty. They soar high through springtime evening, a stain of black across the dotted dark-blue. They loop around treelimb and at the call, expell their mistress. She is like a missile through the woods, though lacking the tail-ended fire. All of Vyndra's fire is appetite, for blood and flesh and breeding ground. The tattered rags she wears are only that more tattered in the act, snagging on branch here and bush there. This does not matter. Adolescent archetype gives nothing up for the imagination, but all those parts, too, are bloodied. She attempts to pitch her will against what drives her limbs to disobey, but one after another fails in misery. Sucked through space and time, she arrives, furious and wet, and two feet over water...

From the shade Cieara?s smile grew, well veiled as it was and she remained watching, a mere blackness draped along the upper branch of a taller tree with sight unhindered and all senses aware as she gazed down and indeed did spy unseen.

?In blood, ye own, sign.? He withdrew from a pouch, an object. Upon closer examination, as he unrolled it, the strip of white flesh, cut and cured, was seen. The former owner of the skin, was the very Dark Elf archanist whom the Black Wizard had gained the box at his feet from. The man, having in his greed, tried to cheat him, and broke their agreement. He, who owed his pound of flesh. Thus, this, he had pressed to the blade of his sword, and the elven flesh was consumed.

As the flesh was consumed by the emerald fire of his sword, it manifested itself, whole, from the abyssal rift beneath her. Upon the flesh, branded in black words, was the words of the contract. A non-aggression agreement against the summoner, as well as details saying she would obey his word, and upon satisfactory completion of her task, she would gain knowledge of the one known to her as "The Mother."

Black hair, uneven, victim of some ill-begotten axe, falls flat against her face as she lifts it to the sky. To the moon, the creature howls, but the sound is not lupine in nature. It is much more shrill, bird-like even, high to reach such heights. Then, what could be considered a smile engulfs her face. She stares at him simply, and, as per request, offers her arm to her mouth. Teeth sink into the softer inner flesh, the fatter part above the elbow. The wound rushes to receive the contract. Vyndra presses her fingers in the space between, ready to guide red into some scribble of her name.

As her name, written in her own sanguine humors, burned and charred itself into a brand upon the pact as the glow of red Shar'Vae runes overlapped the words of her true name. The pact was sealed. At the end of the agreement, the pact contract was consumed by the magic of the rune, and as it disappeared in flame and foul-smelling smoke, the Shar'Vae pact rune branded itself on the palm of her Right hand. A fire, hotter than the surface of the sun burned the rune into her flesh, then immediately, soothed over with a soul-numbing, chill colder than the black expanse of space. Vyndra was now one of the Pact-Bound.

Information was a valuable thing, and Cieara was sure both her Aunt Belial and father would be interested in this nights bit of business in regards to "Black Wizard" for she was sure they would welcome this knowledge so they might prepare.

Into an X, fingers make her mark, as she, crouching down, still in support by the abyssal air, stares up at him. As the contract vanishes and the brand appears in its place, Vyndra makes no note of pain, no obvious note. There is a twitch of her right eye and a slump of one awkward shoulder. ?The Mother.? The creature repeats, possibly stressing the terms again to portray to him that she would not be betrayed. And she would not betray. No flesh of hers to a plane for writing.

The signing of the pact unceremoniously deposited the child-thing in the water, its magic and its laws abided. She did need a bath, and the fog began to let up, as the magic of the valley laid itself to rest. He removed his weapon from the grown, willing it into silence. The flames extinguished themselves along the blade's length, and he sheathed the weapon at his side.

Vyndra does not seem to mind the pull of gravity, the way tendrils give way to water. And there, beneath the rush of the lake, the creature gorges itself on the fishes, and on all that writhes and wriggles in the deep. The promise of The Mother is all that matters. Vyndra plans to fill herself until she is called.

Through the rune mark, a flash of his image there, standing on the shore line awaiting her arrival, came into her mind, blotting out the sight of her present gorging of fish and amphibians.

The foreign line pulls her back, and tendrils flare from all of her crooked ends, pulling her through water and wave, lifting her to the shore. There, she hovers, eight shadow extensions in place of her feet, which dangle. The blood has been washed cleaned, as has the plethora of guts and grime. Clothing folds over skin, weighted by the water, revealing much to Vyndra's uncaring eyes.

And as silently as she had come, Cieara slipped away, having firmly caught the energy the mage carried and could likely track it down later so deeper into the dark embrace of she shade she faded.

?Seek them now.. seek them swift, dogged and tirelessly. Go...? He pointed toward the treeline. ?I will know my spies, and soon...?

In silence and sudden swiftness, the creature is off, short stature in deadly pursuit.

Gathering his box of toxins born from the venom of deadly serpents, Veighn made his way into the woods, deciding to take a leisurely stroll as he reveled in this new information. The night was full of gifts ripe for the taking.

Vyndra succumbs to the urgency of the message, but first, she must shake the aftermath of invasion. Raw and rattled, she fights her way through the blood-soaked forest floor, a frenzy of misaligned parts intruding on the brush and bramble. Far from sight of any who would interfere, the creature hunkers down between two fallen trees and rids herself of its night feast. Bloodied chunks of the evening's kill are laid to waist amidst the a weeded ruin of rotten wood.

She is lighter now, and swifter on her haunches, and on her two feet, should she decide to use them.

But unlike the vision-dogs, Vyndra will travel by water. Her thoughts are small and simplistic, but her instincts are keen. Hunt, harry, so says the master, the Black One, who promises The Mother, and so Vyndra shall. This method of travel is quicker than most, and Vyndra will be better off unseen, and the rank of the dead subdued.

On hands and knees, but not quite a crawl, Vyndra moves for the nearest river, whilst tendril-shaped shadows shoot up from her spine. They are more than antennae, more than weaponry, more than most would care to guess (if they lived that long).

Submerged, the creature uses its shady extensions as any well-endowed octopus, riding the river's current with unnatural ease. Her call to hunt forces a new focus over Vyndra's oldest obsession: Howe's face, for the moment, replaces that of The Mother's, but at times, they align.