Out of Character:
A monster filled the room with its ethereal girth, a thing of such twisted malevolence to afflict hardened devils with a lifetime of recurring nightmares. Its torso was reminiscent of a man’s, twisted by unholy psychosis and made flesh, and said torso rested upon a body of six crooked legs. Its face was horrible in its relative simplicity: bald, eyeless, split by what passed for a mouth.
Xem'zûnd himself defied the ceiling of the chamber, and from beyond death his voice rent the hearts of his enemies.
"I…" he boomed, "am weary."
Even as he spoke, The Necromancer’s form began to lose definition. The horror faded, became a darkling silhouette, and then was lost amidst a misty cloud that churned upon itself, and then recoiled from the walls and corners of the chamber that housed it. The cloud gathered densely at the center of the room, and then swirled downward and clockwise like a furious hurricane in miniature. In time, the cloud was gone, consumed by a pool of bright blue liquid that gradually came to a rest.
The liquid began to emit a serene blue light, which revealed the silhouettes of twelve men seated in a circle around it.
After a long moment of silence, one of the silhouettes spoke. “Grandmaster,” he said, “we have not forgotten what it is we fight against. Why would you show us this again?”
A thirteenth silhouette approached, once concealed in the dark recesses of the chamber, and the pool’s light began to illuminate him. His eyes smoldered like golden sparks, and he came nearer to the pool than any of the other men dared, and crouched at its edge. He was close enough now to the source of the glow that the basic details of his face were discernable: he was very old, and his thin white facial hair contrasted to the clarity and intensity of his eyes. He was ancient and weary in body, but his mind was as sharp and robust as it had ever been.
“The Necromancer has been dead before,” the Grandmaster said, staring down into the scrying pool. “These images don’t tell us how it is he fell this time, if he did truly fall at all. Brothers, we can’t risk the possibility. We all vowed that nothing like him would rise again – we cannot ignore the possibility that Xem'zûnd, himself, could still be the world’s undoing. It wouldn’t be the first time our Brotherhood failed. I won’t permit it.”
“What are you proposing, Grandmaster?”
The ancient knight sighed and lifted his cinder-eyes, examining the faces of each of his fellows in the dark. “Our heroes have not yet sacrificed enough,” he said.
With that, the Grandmaster rose to his feet and began to step away from the pool. A quiet susurrus played across the liquid’s surface, and then the scrying water began to turn again, ever faster, until a whirlpool of remarkable speed formed. From it arose the thinnest wisp of steam, which coalesced in the air above and thickened, and it became a churning storm cloud complete with flashes of light within its nebulous depths.
The cloud expanded then, filling the far corners of that mysterious chamber, until the chamber was replaced by a scene from a different time and place: deep beneath Raiaera, where a trap had been set. A brazier there burned, calling out to the enemies of Xem'zûnd, summoning them to what should have been their demise.
One by one, the unlikely heroes of Raiaera – indeed, of all of Althanas – began to appear. When they numbered six, the flame was extinguished, and The Necromancer laughed.
“Stop,” the Grandmaster said, and the laughter faded. The scrying mist churned and slowly, very slowly, the brazier’s glow filled the chamber again, illuminating the faces of The Six.
The Grandmaster materialized amidst them, and his movement disturbed the mist, causing the scene to ripple and shift – revealing it as little more than magically colored smoke. He walked amidst the assembled heroes, disturbing their images and making them ethereal and misshapen.
“We know some of these,” he said as he walked. “This man, for example, is Godhand Striker. He is confirmed dead. And this one calls himself Blueraven in the recording. We’ve since confirmed that name. We’ve tracked down all of them, and even now our knights watch for any sign of unholy corruption in them. All but one.”
The Grandmaster paused next to a small, pale girl, barely out of girlhood or so it seemed. Her eyes were wide, blue. She was what one would expect from a girl of her age, modest and perhaps a bit timid. She was incredibly out of place.
The paused recording began to play again, set back a few moments before The Necromancer sprung his trap. The girl moved as one would expect her to move, showed fear, hesitance, but she was resigned to the grisly fate that surely awaited her and those gathered around her. “I’m Lillian,” she said, and her voice echoed eerily in the vaporous reenactment.
Once again the scene was jarringly frozen.
“Until now, that’s all we knew about her,” the Grandmaster said. “She’s in Ettermire. A cell of scribes caught wind of some exciting goings-on there involving unknown parties. The details are still fuzzy, but the Aleraran army was brought to bear against what sounds like Valinthe survivors. It’s unimportant. What caught our attention was that a girl was described in passing. Pale, small, dark hair, blue eyes, unassuming, easily forgotten – except that she was so out of place.”
“Why does she interest you so, Grandmaster?” came the voice of one of the other knights, obscured by the image they were all witnessing.
Without a word, the Grandmaster faded beneath the scene again, and it played out for them just as it always had. Xem'zûnd sprung his trap, and a battle ensued. Death was narrowly avoided at every turn, great magic was summoned up, and their heroes began to do the impossible – kill the dead.
Only once again, the scene paused, and the Grandmaster emerged from a place behind the veil. He crossed the dark chamber, stepping through slung spells and the risen dead, until he was once again beside the pale girl. The recording shifted in such a way that every stomach of the men there assembled turned, and their heads reeled. When the recording once again settled, the girl called Lillian was as massive as The Necromancer’s true form had been. She was a giant, leering down on them despite her narrow frame and small stature.
And her unmoving face chilled every heart.
Lillian’s eyes were no longer blue, but black and glossy and consumed with undeniable darkness – darkness that seemed to reach from heart and mind. In the sight of any paladin, black magic collected around her small, pale body like unholy dew. To that council, the sight was as troubling as looking upon the Enemy’s true form: something of equal malevolence, but hidden.
“We must assume nothing,” the Grandmaster said softly, “but nor can we risk everything. I don’t know what this means. This may be Xem'zûnd's newest face, and if so we must destroy her before it can be made so. If it isn’t, the answer is the same. I don’t know who or what this girl is, but if she does not die, one day she may be the death of us all.”
The scryed recording dissipated for the second time, but no less dramatically as the first. When at last it became the calm and familiar blue pool, and the silhouettes were the room’s only inhabitants again, the Grandmaster scanned their faces.
“The months since The Necromancer’s death have been trying for us,” he said at last. “In some ways, biding our time in secret was easier. But now we must act, to prevent the need to hide again. No one must become as powerful and threatening as Xem'zûnd was. Never again. We will crush down even the smallest threat, excise the cancer before it grows. Who will kill this girl?”
There was a pause of no more than fifteen seconds, and then one by one every man there offered to take up the challenge. In the end, however, the Grandmaster chose only one.
“Ivan Amalthis,” the Grandmaster said, looking upon his chosen man. “Go to Ettermire in Alerar armed with your best. Watch the girl, learn about her. In time I will send support to you and on the day of their arrival…”
The Grandmaster nodded, his mouth becoming a grim line. “Kill her.”
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