The heat blurred the horizan and the air in the sky... Infact Rhy'Din may have never looked so clear of clouds. The sun bareing down heavily onto the scorching sand with light winds whipping particles of sand into small whirlwinds - the dunes were forever moving, there was no stopping them...
And where was this location? Far south deep into the great deserts that littered the Southern Rhy'Din continent, past Cadentia, heck no one in their right mind would come here to set up camps, settlements, or even to hide out in crappy built shanty towns if they were on the run! This place was bone dry and not a thing could survive here, well, not anything humanoid and living anyway.
A small sand-like lizard skittered across the desert's sand, leaving small footprints to be covered up as quickly as they were placed by the small creature... It stopped atop of a small mound, and quickly realised that it was much colder than the rest of the sand and so stood to perch there - it's tiny head jerking side to side curiously. He could hear a raspry... Wheeze?
The sand just moved unnoticably below it, and as it was about to set off back on it's journey for desert-based insects and scorpians, it was clenched tightly within the grasp of a bone hand that quickly moved up from under the sand... The mound moved, it was growing as the sand fell from it's form... Something or someone was leaning up... Like rising from the grave...
Firstly, the glinting silver crown's spikes gleaming in the brooding sun... Then a hood, skull... and robe...
The lizard squirmed in Renna's grasp she moved to stand, tilting her head down - sand escaping out from the holes that were her eyesockets. A quick squeeze, a squelch, and that lizard moved no more...
How long as she laid there in the sand? Two days of travel to be only taken by suprise by that damned violent sand storm which passed that cold morning...
Glancing side to side, now able to see due the storm's passing, quickly saw something off in the distance... Was it Cadentia? No, it was something else... Something ruined.
The lizard's blood dripped from her fingertips, the fingers clenched as she turned to walk away from the strange shape off in the distance, glareing down a long hill like dune before slowly out stretching her hand down to the bottom...
A loud shuffle, the sand bulged as the Army of Black Monks rose from the sands like the walking dead. Much as like Renna they were berried in the sand storm, and heck, it looked like she had loads more than she had to begin with when she left her Fort those many days ago... Lucky for her, this desert was littered with the unfortunate fools who attempted to take on the perils of the desert's might, and taken them into her own army. Some recent, some not. A body was a body and any would suffice to swell her numbers... Six hundred now? She lost count, she could careless.
Turning, she began to walk off towards the strange building not far away... Well, it was a good ten miles walk, but from atop of this dune she could damn well see over the flat expanses of the deserts which seemed to run on forever!
A hand moving to the Morning Star at her side, the other to the silver musical note pendant idly fiddling with it between her fingers... Walking now down the dune, and out towards the ruins, while her arm followed, letting up dust to rise up and be visible for miles around.

What had she to do?

Return North to Rhy'Din? She had nothing up there now, if she was seen by anyone they would let surely Brian know, and then everybody would be after her head not to mention she apparently had a hefty bounty on her head before she left...
Renna ruled silently, like Jodiah Ayreg had ushered to her in their last meeting... But still, people would move against her... Her own daughter... Brian of whom she had a pact turning against her... Damn them... Again she had no one but Ayreg and he would hardly help her in any case!
Though, she did have two minions left in the City of Rhy'Din, one keeping tabs on her dear daughter and the other one hiding out searching for the allusive Lord Ayreg... To deliver a message - or rather a plea for... help.

The cold night air came... What was with the deserts and their freeznig cold nights??? It made no sense since the damned mornings and afternoons were so hot to cook an egg upon the sands.
No matter, the army was finally amongst the rubble of this strange place, some sitting, some laying down as if they were sleeping - but Renna was still sitting upon the low wall of the once large hall-like room, her head downcasted and her body unmoving, she simply did not move - it was like she herself had fallen into a mortal sleep and oddly she felt awake... It was like she was torn between two worlds - her mind asleep but her body still awoken...

...

...

She had awoken and stood now suddenly, her her hands moving to her head - the skull's jaw parting as if a great and sudden pain screeched out inside of her...
A dragon?! It's scream was met by others...
Her body thrashing she turned to stare about herself... What? She was inside something... But yet she wasn't... She could see her Black Monks scattered about the place, but some were sitting in almost semi-invisible walls... Something else moving about them, spirits... Spectres of some kind, and then it suddenly dawned on what was happening. She was using the Shadowsight Jodiah had taught her...
"But how?" Renna's hands moved infront of her skull, and what she saw somewhat stunned her. Like the spectres that Black Monks could not see and only she could at this moment, she saw her own flesh-like body over the solid bones... It was like her flesh wa still there.
"... This place," Her hands once more went to her head, holding it, the pain carving through her mind once more as again a whole pack of dragons screeched out from the outside of the spirit-like walls...
Turning she ran out of the building she was in, and came out into almost a courtyard-like opening surrounded by a large, dark wall...

Doomhammer...

The word came to her, she didn't think it just simply wa snatched out of the air as her head tilted up to meet the gazes of the dragons that were flying about over her head - leveling the walls, the keep, the smaller buildings that too littered to the courtyard...
Fear came into her eyes - don't look at them! They must not notice you! Renna's head downcasted, though her bones did tremble - her soul was locked away in the most tedious and obvious of places, but she had learnt from Jodiah that if they had noticed her using such a sight, she surely would not be here ever again.

Effectively dead, with no way of returning.

Don't look beyond... Control it, Renna urged herself; she really needed to stop this before the worse did actually happen, but by mistake she had now realised that she still had the "sight," somehow... Was it always in her mind? Had she th ability to do this? Is this what Jodiah simply urged out of her?

Was she a lich?

A demon yes, but a lich? She had no idea... But wait, Renna had always the ability to bring forth back the undead, like Emma's body which currently has only a a week left of run-time - so to speak - left... A look down to her body...
And the spectre-like flesh was gone... She tilted her head up suddenly, there was no shadowsight now and sighing almost mentally, came to raise her voice to her minions.
"Rise!" She walked among them, again moving in a quickened pace now moving North once more. A day left of hard walking and they would be home...

But as Renna moved, she looked to her hands all the while... Focusing... And attempting to cross the boundry of the shadowsight, and to almost recreate her flesh at will.
It could be done. After all, she managed to get Emma back, even if it was for a short time.