Heinrich was not pleased to return once more to the Shadowfell, and the horrifying depravity of the abattoir Blackroot had created shook him inside. The others hardly noticed and strolled about as if through a garden, inspecting the potent ritual magic or the lord of the domain. But Heinrich was accustomed to showing nothing of his personal thoughts.

He was surprised when the corrupted elder spirit invaded his mind with questioning images of the Firewind Blade exploding into action against Blackroot’s rotted form. While he wasn’t exactly certain why the two most devious of their coven had wanted to approach Blackroot rather than proceeding onto Durthu, a quick glance at his compatriots seemed to show the Viscount wanting to discuss strategy and timing and the collective host of the Necrarchs seemed to be studying Blackroot’s ritual. While the Dread Master had always been a collector—of knowledge, servants, power, personalities, lairs, and more—there didn’t seem to be any reason to believe there was a betrayal looming. Or at least the featureless mask he wore over his twisted visage did not betray one. Unsure of quite how the communication worked, Heinrich simply shook his head and briefly envisioned himself burning through the air like a shooting star into Durthu’s massive trunk.

Seemingly appeased by this, the last of Heinrich’s thousand lacerations from Durthu’s faerie spirits’ many swords faded and closed in the twisted version of Blackroot’s healing emanations. Satisfied that whatever the conflict was had been resolved, the Warden went back to contemplating the war that progressed back on the material plane. He questioningly sought Blackroot’s thoughts again. While he knew that Blackroot’s many powers were countered and held at bay by Durthu’s similar but opposite nature, he wondered if with his seemingly inevitable defeat if Blackroot might provide a form of aid in the much more uncertain events that played out around Templehof. Blackroot’s response was patronizing, an ancient creature’s assured belief that the vampire coven would be destroyed when they assaulted Durthu. Heinrich however was completely unmoved, he had given up understanding how he and his allies kept accomplishing the implausible with an astounding degree of success but he had enough empirical evidence of it at this point to simply accept it and confidently returned image after image of impossible victory being forcibly taken from the jaws of defeat. The images were remarkably easy to conjure as there were a multitude of them and Heinrich had had up-close and personal views of each.

Heinrich didn’t care if the twisted tree believed him. It would believe soon enough when it was accomplished momentarily. So, he pressed on with images of necromancers summoning reinforcements in front of and behind the invading armies. He imagined the high elf armies evading the undead legions and shattering Arkhan’s ritual, and he stressed his point by picturing all the wasted effort around him should the source of the eldritch energies being channeled at the Nine Daemons stone circle be disrupted. Finally he sent images of necromancer’s reinforcements again, this time sped forth into battle through shortcuts in the Feywild and Shadowfell to engage the invading forces from every angle before they were able to escape, for added measure he added lumbering undead treefolk and treekin to his picture engagements and awaited Blackroot’s response.

They fought across world falls where dark and light echoes of the realm they knew met and blurred. Life encroached on death and once again Heinrich found himself fighting on the side of death. Maybe the despair of the Shadowfell was getting to him but as sped across the battlefield defending his allies as best as he could, time and time again he was too slow and was stabbed or slashed, hurled to the ground, impaled, and crushed. The evil forces of death would not let Heinrich fall though and continually stoked the light burning inside him causing him to rise and struggle on.

Eventually the vampires carried the battle and the fey spirits encroaching on Blackroot’s corrupted demesne were put to flight. Heinrich looked around and considered the ramifications of what he saw. He was well and truly a planeswalker. He had seen multiple versions of his home realm, he had traveled to the ashen wastes of Chernoggar in the Astral Sea, and he had warred with twisted abominations straight from the Warp. The world and its struggles seemed more petty and insignificant by the day and here amidst the conflux of realities the once lowly shepherd began to ponder what it would mean to ascend beyond.

The horizon dawned with magical energies. To the enhanced senses of the Dread Master of Liches, the ritual’s progression had become a growing beacon. And if he could see it, so could their enemies. This fact went unnoticed by Zeigfried and his daughters nearby.

“Will Lord Mannfred elevate you further, my Lord,” one asked of her sire. To his credit, Zeigfried feigned apathy.

“I doubt my concern will be with Mannfred for much longer. Soon we will call Nagash our Lord.” The daughter (whose name escaped the Dread Master- for who could keep up with their names?) was crestfallen at this answer and began to pout petulantly.

He took his leave from these family matters. In chorus, he could sense the relief of the other three in his mind.

He joined the Grand Marshall at the edge of a recession in the land. Rollo was pensive, arms folded, gaze resting upon the contents hidden in the recess below him. “Will it fly?”

It will do all it did in life, save one thing, replied the Dread Master in Rollo’s mind. The tension in the air rose as Rollo steeled himself for disappointment. It will serve your every command without question, even should it lose its life. Have you given it a proper new name?

Silence was his answer. The Grand Marshall adjusted his warhammer and hopped off of the edge before him, then levitated to the ground where the undead white dragon awaited him, hidden from the eyes of elven scouts. It would need a name, and the Dread Master suspected Rollo undertook such a duty with all the graveness if any other.

Their group had never been more fractured or more important. The pulsing glow on the horizon was a constant reminder of the stakes. Wealdmar was attended by any number of scouts, issued orders and convened with the other Wight Kings. Emissaries of the Tomb Kings supplicated before, of all people, the Warden of Templhof! Recognizing his authority but ignorant of his station, they spoke to him as if he were equal to the others.

The invisibility glamour wore off of the Dread Master. He was spotted by an Apprentice within moments, his name spreading amongst their ranks, and he was quickly accosted by requests, sealed missives, and hastily scrawled scrolls.

The business in the eastern horizon would pass out of his consciousness. It was a matter for souls more ancient than his now. A trial for figures more important than he, for those whose names were already grey with age in the ink of dusty tomes. Despite all of the accolades and accomplishments he and his allies had earned, against impossible odds, despite their seeming importance and those who deferred to them in the war camp, the Dread Master couldn’t help but struggle with the notion that his role remained that of a pawn, dangling at the end of a hand of unseen players, moving according to their unseen will.

But not for long…

Orion had fallen. Though in truth his light was extinguished when he fell to corruption, a death far more telling and possibly more lasting given his previous cycles of rebirth. The scattered remnants of the wood elves that survived the Great Deception were already corrupted by Orion’s descent into madness, but now they were leaderless in the horror steeped abattoir that was Sylvania. The Asur and the Asrai were always the most susceptible to the blight and the Asrai were in the thick of it now. Heinrich looked over the reports of the necromancers working furiously on the vast fields of fresh corpses before and behind the human forces. Soon their slow-moving artillery, bogged down in the thick bogs of sucking mud, would be ambushed as the already black sky would rain down in fell bats and their larger undead brethren. They would not escape, just as the Grand Theogonist before them could not. And when the proud front lines of Empire had turned to aid their beleaguered artillery crews then the twisted woods to the south would unleash their horrifying legions of spectral black coaches to scythe through their lines and drag yet more souls down to be damned. Meanwhile the hexwraiths would scatter and route the soft ranks of crossbowmen that were exposed and there would be another morass of another failed crusade staining the wet marshlands of Sylvania red.

But that still left the Asur, proudly marching through the eternal night, absurd conch helmets gleaming only by the firelight of their fiery phoenix. Heinrich wondered if their princes might speak with him. He wanted them to live, he wanted to know how they had survived so many previous incursions from the Warp, he wanted to know if they knew the secret to avoiding the madness that whispered to him from its twisted reaches. The madness that seemed to have its claws deep in Tovus or the Dread Master that had already consumed two of the four personalities residing in the Necrarch collective. Heinrich wanted to know if the princes had a plan for this incursion. Why they found it so imperative to stop the rebirth of a human necromancer when the greatest Chaos incursion in recorded history was simultaneously sweeping across the known world and assaulting Ulthuan itself.

He wanted to know if he could help. If he should help. Abhorash fought alongside the forces of the Lady in Brettonia. Perhaps the ancient champions of the Asur had a worthy plan in place, a better plan that would not leave the entire world as quiet as a tomb. Or perhaps they had already been seduced by Khaela Mensha Khaine and were working to cast the world back into the Warp.

It almost made more sense to see them in this fabricated astral plane as their four separate incarnations. Zacharias the student of Melkhior the student of W’soran the student of Nagash.

The fourth, the Dread Master of Liches, who once gave the name ‘Oliver’ but frequently shed appearances and appellations had a name as well. Tomus, he thought he heard one of them whisper. The student of Greghor, the student of the Necronium written by W’soran and Melkhior and the most recent of their students but not the one who ascended. Heinrich shuddered as he considered again the way the horrifyingly disfigured monsters ingested their predecessors, tearing them apart bit by bit and grinding their bones to bloody shards. It was this Tomus that was their current physical form but it housed them all. For a moment, Heinrich envied his ability to give physical (astral?) form to the voices that whispered in his mind.

That and their unified purpose

He was surprised that their intention with the twisting imprisoned expression of Ereth Khial was to bind her to an artifact rather than just… eat her.

The agent of Slaanesh that knew her dark master treasured elven souls above all made more entreaties for the prizes sealed within the Dread Master’s astral seed and was apparently becoming more desperate as she loudly broadcast her pleas for all within to hear. As if Heinrich or any of the others were going anywhere near a deal with one of the four lords of Chaos. But just as she was about to depart with promises of consequences that was just what Tomus offered. He offered an impossible promise for the vague reward of assistance or cooperation or at the very least a cessation of threats.

But then again ‘impossible’ is all we seemed to do. Heinrich could not remember the last time they entered an arrangement or undertaking with any form of advantage or even hope. His own inborn starlight dimmed further becoming a colder center of steely resolve to keep pushing forward resolutely towards whatever end was surely soon in store.

The agent either accepted the bargain or was at least amused enough to court the chance of seeing it happen. Tomus offered many times bound and divided and anchored soul of W’soran’s master, Nagash. Not for the first-time Heinrich considered the cold loneliness of death. The utter disregard for master, apprentice, ally, in exchange for power or the promise of continued cold existence. The deal to betray their former master struck, the necrarchs returned the rest of the vampires to Sylvania to find that Orion in a fit of genius had captured their apprentices.

The Viscount, Grand Marshal, and Dread Master each turned to regard each other at the news and all fell to laughter. Inside Heinrich his star grew colder.

We have use for that one, bring it to our demesne.

Heinrich was unsure why it required the Grand Marshal and the others, whatever plot this was the Dread Master was concocting but his mind was still mostly on the million elves, men, and sundry beasts of myth of and legend coming to destroy the one tenuous shot at turning back the Chaos incursion he was aware of. And given that that plan involved resurrecting a weakened Nagash but then empowering him as the manifestation of Atropus so that the world can be converted to a Tomb World. Saving it from being cast into the Abyss, but damning it all the same—who was to say that they were not on the wrong side?

The Dread Master and the Grand Marshal were nodding excitedly in agreement over whatever it was they were plotting. Something to do with parading around the fact that elven souls could be trapped in undying shells just as human souls could, just as Heinrich himself was. Show the elves that their goddess of the Underworld could not protect them from the vampires of this desperate age and hope that it routed a portion of the elven forces who were willing to risk their lives to prevent the return of Nagash but perhaps not their eternal souls. Heinrich struggled again with whether that was something he wanted anyone to be able to do, whether it was necessary to save the innocent, or if anything he was doing anymore was of any benefit to any innocents at all.

However, the Dread Master’s presumption to cast his lot into the war between the Pale Queen and Slaanesh and make away with even a single object of their greatest desire was met with extreme resistance. Heinrich was no expert on the elven afterlife, or really any afterlife, he recalled that many of Asur and Asrai bound their spirits to tokens or trees to spare themselves from ‘She Who Thirsts’. While this practice is apparently accepted, the conclave of Necrarchs that now made up the Dread Master’s consciousness succeeded in creating a perversion that was decidedly not.

In a feat of power or pride or both, the Necrarchs successfully held their little pocket plane closed long enough to complete their blasphemy. But divided or perhaps even united, they were not yet gods to be able to bar access to the divine that actually were, and so the Pale Queen and her dark gatekeeper manifested personally. Both times Heinrich had been present when a god or goddess chose to manifest Heinrich had been extremely unnerved, but at least previously he had been largely ignored. Not this time.

Nethu and the Pale Queen drifted ethereally through the Astral Seed directly to Heinrich and proceeded immediately to attempt to tear him apart. The Warden vanished in a flash of fire and tried to regroup and process what had just occurred. He fell into Wakeman’s Invocation defensively only to have Nethu send one after another of his allies after him.

“You are skilled,” the Pale Queen whispered to Heinrich, “I have use for you.” Heinrich was repulsed by the elven goddess’s implication and reflexively banished her manifestation as she reached out for him. His magic was unable to cast her out however and merely shunted her form a short distance away. She clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

Throughout the intrusion, the Dread Master shifted rapidly between supreme confidence, outrage, madness, and despair seemingly fighting a battle with himself, with the invaders, and with voices unseen. The ephemeral reality he had shaped into being flexed and warped as he imparted his will upon it and resounded thunderously with his imperious demands and declarations. Heinrich was taxed to his absolute limit merely trying to survive the sheer power and speed the divine avatars brought to bear but a few of the Necrarchs phrases and thoughts stuck.

THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! ALL WE HAVE EVER DESIRED IS FREEDOM FROM THE INTERFERENCE OF YOUR KIND!

Heinrich had had some sense in the past that part of the Necrarch’s desire to damn all living things to eternal undeath was out of some desire to deny the gods. He had never put much belief into it, gods were not something to be denied and killing everything in the world seemed a childish and destructive way to do it. And yet here they were, forcibly denying multiple gods physically manifested to stop them.

And they were winning.

The Pale Queen’s form was battered and she fell back to attempt a retreat, but the Dread Master’s voice boomed triumphantly.

I! AM! GOD! HERE!

Heinrich could feel everything crushed under the weight of reality shaping itself to the Dread Master’s will as he somehow slammed shut some kind of trap around the portion of Ereth Khial’s essence she had committed to this task, severing her from the Astral Sea and Mirai beyond and consequently destroying the link that allowed her minions and Nethu to be present.

This is who you want to back Heinrich? This doesn’t seem at all a bad idea? Rewriting the rules of the cosmos to MAYBE frighten some nearly immortal idiots into returning to defend their besieged homelands?

Heinrich sagged back against a nearby pillar and sighed. This was a terrible idea. But they were all terrible ideas. What other option was there?

The apprentices lowered their arms as the Circle flared to life, its labyrinthine runes burning with a bright white light. The Dread Master stepped in first and faded from existence. Four skeletons bearing a litter with a chained captive atop it shambled obediently after him/them. The apprentices looked at each other.

“Seems like a lot of trouble for one elf,” one hazarded aloud.

“If it works,” suddenly came the voice of Wigalf the Gaunt from the doorway, where none of them had detected him, “Then any expense will be trivial compared to what we learn. First, the Grimoire Necronium knows more than you can imagine. Second, that the elves can know true fear.”

…………….

Tomus exulted His senses expanded into his realm as a formed weapon into its sheath, snapping in place as if made to fit his mind. In truth, his mind had formed its very borders, and thus they expanded along with his own imagination. The Grimoire Necronium rose from his hands at his bidding and alit upon a stone plinth. The skeletons which followed him lowered their litter and the elven captive they bore drifted as easily as the ancient tome to where another plinth rose from the grey slate floor to meet him- all of this controlled by a single act of Tomus’ will.

Three beings bearing the image of the Dread Master stepped into the room from doors which only moments before had not existed. W’soran, Melkhior and Zacharias could easily be mistaken by an untrained eye for one another, but to their witchsight, each looked as different as could be. Only their ties to the dark magics bound them.

“Does it have a name?” asked Melkhior, Their voices came from nowhere since their faces lacked any features. “The name is the power. The power is the light. The light is the undoing! The-”

“Hush,” said Zacharias, “for all our sakes. He does have a point about that, though.” The Everliving approached the plinth and tore the hood from the elf’s head, then pulled down his gag. “Well go on, tell us who you are.”

The elf, a male, was likely the pinnacle of some sort of elven warrior regimen. Lithe, powerful, proud, and ancient. Now he was blood-soaked, beaten, swollen, chained as tight as his flexibility would allow and barely conscious. He looked from one of them to the other, “What-? Why can I not… feel my magics?”

“I’ve severed them from you,” stated Tomus. The elf looked back at where the sound came from but couldn’t tell which of the four figures around him had spoken, only that their voices were different. “Moreover, I’ve taken you where your gods cannot reach you. Your only hope at finding your way home is acquiescence.”

“That means playing along,” added Zacharias.

“I’m sure he knows what it means,” said Tomus shortly.

“Are you as sure about keeping out his gods?” This was W’soran, breaking his silence uncharacteristically.

“I have never tested the barriers of this fledgling plane against the will of a god. I am eager to try,” he would have smiled but felt his tone carried the effect well enough.

The four of them each drew magic into the grey chamber. Nearby, the Circle’s magics finally spent and sputtered out. For nearly an hour they orchestrated what could best be described as a walling-off. Invigorated by what he had seen at the ritual of Nagash’s return, the Dread Masters attempted to forge a barrier within the plane and indeed around the elf’s very body. It required a combined assault upon his mind, one which he resisted nobly but fruitlessly. With the elf’s name in hand, the rest was easy enough. At last, the blow was struck, and the elf (his name had been Ithayldin) was dead.

Instantly, Tomus was struck by two blows. His avatar winked out of existence and he entered a mindscape not unlike his dealings with Blackroot. There were impressions, less than images: Anger. Violence. and also, Hunger. Seduction. His mind, and indeed the fragile young demi-plane, was shaken under the assault of divine will. Against this, he could only struggle…

“One mention?! And they called me a necromancer!” Lord Viscount Zeigfried Von Carstein crumpled the elven Wayfinder’s note and tossed it over his shoulder. The Dread Master caught it midair with a cantrip and levitated it over to his eyeless face, uncrumpling it as it traveled. A moment later it drifted toward the Gorgon.

Whilst Zeigfried ranted, the Dread Master mused. Four minds wordlessly conferred in his rotten skull, and at least one of them was sane enough to contribute to the outcome.

It was a new way of thinking. When one creates an entire plane of existence, and becomes aware of every mote of dust in it, one’s mind is irrevocably expanded. Where once he struggled with the oft-inane voices in his mind, now he/they communed easily.

The Gorgon had finished reading, “Orion wants us for himself. We could use that,” he intoned in his cavernous voice.

_{We agree. Let us take our disguises once more and draw him to us when the battle is joined. Let them see their avatar fall from the sky in disgrace.}

“I like it,” added Wealdmaer, “it’s not enough to stop the army. Not by a long shot. But it will help.”

“We can hope the Grand Marshall’s thought of something on that front,” moaned Zeigfried, “I could use some good news.” The Dread Master joined him, standing above the unconscious body of one of the assassins.

_{I would like this one. I believe I can turn it.}

…………

The grand doors to Castle Templehof opened, admitting the Dread Master of Liches. Behind his left shoulder walked Wigalf the Gaunt, and behind his right shoulder he was joined by Oliver Darkh. Each reported on the progress and lack thereof made by the team of Necrarchs.

“The master necromancers have requested the return of their apprentices,” said Oliver.

_{Remind them that they have no more apprentices. If the masters fail in the coming battle, they will no longer be welcome in our ranks.}

They continued to walk as servants opened doors for them and candles were magically lit merely by their presence.

Wigalf spoke next, “We are moving at an accelerated rate toward your goals. Few have seen rituals cast at such a pace. The elf you brought is prepared for transport.”

_{Excellent. Time is short here. We want all of you in the Tower when we leave. If the enemy assails the walls, take the Portal to Drakenhof. There is nothing noble in sacrificing yourselves for Von Carstein glory. You will have a place in the coming world, this one or another.}

The Wayfinder orders were telling in what they said and more telling in what they did not. They ordered the elimination of Necromancers either to hinder the ritual to resurrect Nagash or to prevent the vastly outnumbered armies of the undead from reinforcing. If it was the former, they were fools, the necromancers involved in the ritual were sequestered away and had spent considerable resources reinforcing their location before even beginning their work. If it was the latter, Heinrich wished them good hunting as he was disgusted by the necromancers’ pitiful offerings. The necromancers had been sheltered and protected from every attack, they could work in their own country rather than on the march, they had all of Sylvania’s history of violence to draw upon, they had a fresh human crusade slaughtered just outside Templehof less than 5 years past, and still every battle the Warden marched into was woefully lopsided in terms of unit composition and hopelessly outnumbered in terms of total forces available.

Not for the first-time Heinrich wondered how much of the Von Carstein arrogance was seeping into his nature despite his abhorrence to the appellation and disgust for their (and his own) kind. For now, he dismissed this latest disdain as rightfully earned and not another sign of his becoming the same arrogant, self-destructive, short-sighted, hypocritical, vainglorious monster as those that forcibly sired him.

The High Elf intelligence on the remaining members of the Midnight Aristocracy was impressive, but their stated goal of destroying necromancers while targeting Ziegfried and the Wight Kings revealed that while their knowledge was wide, it was shockingly shallow. Unless they were specifically concerned with Ziegfried adding to his collection of beautiful daughters…

Also of note was the specific forbiddance to target those that had recently deceived Orion into waging war upon the Empire of Man. As the Dread Master’s and Viscount’s well perforated raiment could attest, the elves had no idea who had performed this act. Just how stupid were they? Ziegfried was actively mocking them with the stag head of their deity while they were stabbing him. Ziegfried himself was named above as a target and had the most accurate (and impressively flamboyant) depiction of all the listed targets. So, they were ordered to avoid Orion’s prey with absolutely no knowledge of who that was. Utter imbeciles. Still, it was reassuring that the elite forces of the elven army were given just as mutually exclusive and impossible to accomplish missions as he himself constantly was.

And there was more to be gained as well from between the lines. Orion was obviously incensed to the degree of sacrificing expedient victory and the safety of his forces for his own personal vengeance. He was willing to give up the advantages of numbers, the chance to safely at range eliminate key forces (and he had no idea how key Heinrich thought with renewed disgust in both the necromancers and the leadership), and indeed willing to put his own forces at risk by handcuffing them with the order to leave those who tricked him to him personally to deal with. If that was not an opportunity that screamed to be exploited, then nothing was.

If indeed the battle ahead was a foregone conclusion, utter suicide, a ludicrously inferior force outnumbered and outgunned; then the only possible objective was to inflict maximum harm on the invading force during the inevitable crushing defeat. Orion was providing one such opportunity. By parading ‘Kurnous’ above the army, boisterously mocking this Orion’s historic failure, they could likely provoke immensely powerful components of the invading army into recklessly abandoning their forces to personally engage his nemesis. So, while the black coaches and savage orc boar boyz big’uns charge into enemy sword masters, eternal guard, and glade guard unleashing their considerably destructive power on the enemy infantry the Dark Stalkers can attempt a task more suited to their unique skills.

Infiltrating the bastion of their most stalwart foe’s capital and stealing ancient artifacts under their noses? Seemingly impossible, but done. Negotiate courtly intrigue and diplomacy with beings thousands of years older whose very existence is steeped in subtlety and plots? Way outside our comfort zone, but complete. Plan for five simultaneous incoming crusades after barely surviving one with half our city destroyed? Insanity, but nearly accomplished. Impersonate gods and deceive their closest followers as well as the living incarnation of their will? Laughably improbable but somehow accomplished. Assassinate an enraged being of extreme power in close combat? Finally, something we are supremely suited towards!

Yes, so chariot and cavalry charges under cover of skeletal archers and Dead Eyez rock lobbers to inflict maximum possible casualties before being utterly routed while simultaneously drawing off powerful enemy assets to engage and destroy apart from the main front. The losses will be catastrophic but only one army can reinforce. But only if we can keep our necromancers alive, and, Heinrich looked at the Wayfinder orders again and sighed. That’s a big if.

Wigalf the Gaunt watched as the Dread Master slowly dismounted the illusory pegasus and handed its reigns to a stable hand. The magic disguising the felsteed would hold for several more hours, confusing the servants to be sure. As much as he wanted to find out what it was all for and how it helped them, he knew better than to ask in this moment.

“I have gathered your scions,” he said, approaching his telepathic master needlessly, “as you instructed, my Lord.” Behind Wigalf waited a cadre of Necrarchs drawn from the ranks of Drakenhof’s necromancers in the preceding two years, eight in total, including his rival, Oliver. The Dread Master regarded them all with a sweep of his empty face, instilling them with an inexplicable unease. His mood was as inscrutable as his intentions.

~ Come with us. ~

Us? He and the Master? How many had heard that? Wigalf gave it no further thought as the Dread Master produced a sealed parchment.

_{This is a list of rituals we require. It is the final task we have for you, Apprentice, for once it is complete, you will take our place as the Dread Master of Liches.}

Wigalf’s unbeating heart exulted! If his nerves still worked, his hand would have shook as he took the parchment.

…..

In the moldy corner of a rotten basement of an abandoned warehouse where light hadn’t reached since it was first carved from the ground a century or more ago, a pitiful creature slept fitfully.

Since the night he had met her in that alley and made his promise, since she had gone to her debtor and freed herself, she had drifted in and out of lucidity. Her old johns had tried to find her and take their advantage, but each time they had stopped short, sensing the taint on her and turning away in revulsion. She had convinced herself that she was saved for him, he who would had promised her that he would return.

Then the nightmares had come. Not the nightmares of madness that were her own, for she had been touched by his darkness, but new visions. Visions of new things.

_{Prepare a place for me. I am coming soon.}

Her listless existence had taken on a new purpose. She still clutched the pouch of gold he’d given her. It kept her fed and clothed, despite her low status. Now it had purchased her this place, this hole, this dank and wretched place that was so perfect for her and only her, where she would meet him and her purpose be fulfilled.

Emile picked herself up from the dirt floor and struck a candle. Then she set herself to preparing.

….

Closing the tome and running his deformed hand over its cover, Wigalf then clenched his other hand into a triumphant fist and motioned for a nearby skeleton to carry the stack of books. The pair began the long, labyrinthine journey back up from the vaults to the Dread Master’s auxiliary quarters in Drakenhof.

Hours later, they arrived. The Dread Master was just as he’d left …them?…him?

“One of the rituals has eluded me, my Lord. I beg your forgiveness,” better to beg humility, he reasoned, lest the task be given to Oliver instead. He could imagine no worse a fate at this critical juncture.

The Dread Master rose from where he/they studied the Grimoire Necronium and opened a drawer across the room with a cantrip.

_{Bring our seal and a note from there. We grant you access to the Black Library. Find that ritual. Time is short.}

Wigalf’s vision swam as his body willed itself toward the drawer. His imagination and curiosity overwhelmed him. He dared at last to question his Lord,

“What…if I may, my Lord….what will become of you when this is complete?”

A pregnant pause. The Dread Master fixed him in place with his eyeless face.

_{We will at last become who we are.}

Wigalf could stand it no longer, these enigmatic and evasive answers, “And…who might that…be?”

The Dread Master turned back to the Grimoire and spoke, actually spoke, aloud,

“W’soran.”