Only The Dead Have No Imperfections

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Closed to Krugor

Dawn dew glistened on the waxed surfaces of Concordia’s plants and on the leaves of trees poised high above the forest floor where Shinsou Vaan Osiris strode purposefully. The sun beat down on his face, illuminating his stern expression, and burst into a million fragments across the greenery as the branches above split rays of light into patchwork ahead of him. A brisk breeze stirred behind him, rustling the foliage and stroking the surface of the skin on his neck in such a way that he wasn’t quite sure whether or not the feeling was that of an insect crawling on him or whether it was just the wind. To be sure, the Telgradian slapped at the irritated area.

He wasn’t at all pleased to be back in Corone. Just being on the island was enough to stir painful memories of the loss of his one true friend on this planet, Bane Stark. The former ranger had come into his service not a million miles away from where he walked now, about a year ago. The charred remains of Bane’s house were visible from the forest’s edge, the amalgamation of the scorched slabs of stone and blackened timber beams forming a silent monument to the memory of the ranger’s family. They had perished in the fire, at the hands of the Kinshara. Bane himself was buried in an unmarked grave in the northern frozen wastes of Salvar, having met his end by Temperance’s own hand. Shinsou didn’t want to remember. His heart stopped beating every time the Telgradian watched the Jal Shey lord’s bone-clawed hand pierce Bane’s flesh. There was no scream. The ranger’s voice was held prisoner to paralysis. Those terrible claws drew rivulets of watery crimson from that gaping chest wound before crushing his heart into dust before his eyes. Why did he willingly relive this moment?

He had deserved so much more, Bane, but whilst he couldn’t save his friend from that horrifying end, maybe the Telgradian needed to cling to that memory until the moment he would avenge him.

That moment was a lifetime away though. Today, Shinsou had a different problem.

“So you won’t share your dark matter with me voluntarily, then?”

The strange voice had belonged to a strange face. The conjuror was curiously nondescript, framed only by dark hair the colour of tar and garnished with eyes of silvery steel. Only the irises stood out on first glance, the stare of someone of a higher power locking onto Shinsou’s own soft, golden eyes. The Telgradian had met that gaze with a fierce, unwilling look as he tried to resist the wizard’s attempts to subdue him. Suddenly the scenery of the forest’s edge around him had crumbled from sight, torn apart by a maelstrom of dark magic. The air around him gathered force into what felt like a gale wind, and needles of black and purple replaced the wide blue skies. Shinsou could not see any further than three paces ahead. The stranger manipulated the shifting environment and then drew from the Telgradian a bubble of marbled purple and black, the source of his dark matter magic. It hurt the Telgradian immensely and once the core was extracted from him Shinsou felt his ability to call upon it wane. All the while, those cold irises pierced Shinsou, penetrated him, daring him to ask what the purpose of this was. Who was this man? Why did he want his dark matter?

Even now, a couple of hours after beginning to track the man’s movements through the gargantuan labyrinth of Concordia, Shinsou’s instincts told him something terrible was going to come of this. The dark matter he possessed was pure energy, a by-product of a Telgradian’s life force, and in the wrong hands it was a destructive force that could wreak havoc on any the magician wished it upon. Shinsou had to assume, for now, that was what was going to happen. However, whatever the conjuror possessed magically in means and obvious will, he lacked in stealth and guile. Shinsou smirked as he found another sodden footprint in the mud ahead of him. It was fresh, the morning’s rainfall pooling in its recess, and it was pointing east.

“Heading to Underwood, are we? I’ll see you there soon. Very soon.”

[Krugor]

“You can’t run from justice, undead freak!”

Hiding in the thicket Krugor tried not to make a single sound as he heard the thundering voice slowly fading away. Freedom was so close he could smell it. The moment he stepped into the grand forest of Concordia he had become a fugitive, he knew that. Running from the law wasn’t something he wanted to check off his bucket list, but dying twice was more than enough. The death penalty would be such a hassle right now. The skeleton had other business to attend to.

Krugor watched through the leaves of the dense bushes as his pursuer moved further and further away from him. Justice seemed to be truly blind this time. A sigh of relief escaped him as he crawled from his hiding spot. With one of his bony hands the skeleton brushed some leaves and dirt from his vest and pants, while firmly holding his trusted ‘quarterstaff of shrooms’ with the other. Another sigh escaped him as he stared at the mushroom on top. How it had failed him only days ago.

Krugor wouldn’t be here right now, hiding in bushes and running from the law, if the damn thing had only done what it was supposed to do. The feeling of betrayal came over him once more, as he thought back to that night in the justice’s court, where he fought to protect and save his former master Talidus, only to be left for dead by him and his three ostrich companions. A Coronian judge had sentenced Talidus the necromancer to death by hanging and out of some sort of strange loyalty Krugor had organized a jailbreak. Loyalty proved to be a cruel mistress however, as the necromancer got out but left the skeleton to be taken by the guards and sentenced to death himself.

It was with quite some luck, and help from a third party, that Krugor managed to escape, successfully fleeing from the city and hiding in the forest. The last of the Coronian guards chasing him had just lost the skeleton’s tracks and it was time to get back to more important things. Like how he would get out of here.

The skeleton observed his surroundings, not really knowing where he was or where he needed to go. Lush and green bushes covered most of the ground around him, the leaves rustling in a warm breeze. A magnificent, sturdy looking, tree stood between them, seemingly touching the heavens with its immense canopy, blocking out some of the sun and making Krugor feel rather insignificant. No matter where he looked, he couldn’t see the main road that would take him back to the city. Brushes, thickets and trees as far as the eye could see.

Krugor was about to give up and just spent the rest of his life in the forest as a hermit when he noticed the varying shades of green and brown on the horizon being pierced by hints of black and purple. A dark force split the woodlands and he could instantly feel a darkness creeping up on him. Black magic of the purest kind, the kind he hadn’t seen in a very long time. Only a powerful magician or warlock could conjure such a darkness in a lush place as Concordia.

I’m going to slap you so hard, Talidus! the skeleton said to himself as he made his way towards the darkness, determined to find the source of it and strongly hoping it would be the necromancer.

Krugor tied his quarterstaff to his backpack, which was now bearing the weight of the heavy staff and the chef’s pots and pans, and he unsheathed his plynt dagger. Flailing his arm around like some sort of maniac he tried to cut through the bushes in front of him. He would get his revenge, even if it would take him all day.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

"What the fuck?"

Shinsou muttered the curse to himself as the sodden tracks left behind by his assailant eventually led to the mouth of what he could only describe as a vast labyrinth of pastel greens and browns. He could see that a great deal of vines and trees had been forcefully ripped from their natural places in the forest to form a construct of twisting and contorted walls that jutted in random directions. From what Shinsou could see, as he peered into the shady mouth of the maze, it appeared that the two metre wide passageway formed a long, convoluted corridor that bent to the right about twenty foot in. Though only narrow, the construction of thorns and knotted branches towered above him and dwarfed his meagre frame. There was no way to bypass the corridor either; whoever had built this odd place had made sure of that by building a twenty foot wall of thorns and jagged wooden stakes either side of the corridor that seemed to stretch for miles in either direction.

No way round, and only one way through. Got to be a talented geomancer, whoever did this, and I would put my money on it being the asshole from before.

It seemed as if fate had chosen to guide him astray today. The Telgradian shuddered at the thought of entering that winding corridor only to saunter, apparently aimlessly, through miles of thorny passages for hours on end, but knew that he didn’t really have a choice. He had to travel towards Underwood and find this prick before he did something terrible.

It’s so obviously a trap, but what can I do? Dark matter is too potent for a human to wield, and without the proper care…

Shinsou’s irritation at his seemingly ominous course through the maze ahead was somewhat dampened by the sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach about having to deal with that magician without any of his magic to call upon. As the Telgradian finally plucked up the courage to enter the forest labyrinth, he put that thought to the back of his mind and rested a hand on Enpera’s ivory hilt.

“Here goes nothing…”

Shinsou, deciding haste was the best course of action, broke into a run and swerved right, almost diving into the mouth of yet another of the briar corridors. As he did, the Telgradian snagged his foot on a stray tree root and stumbled over a jagged branch, crying out in astonishment. The tip of his sword came to his aid and dug into the dirt underneath him, preventing him from falling.

“Come on Shinsou. Sort yourself out.”

The former emperor scalded himself for his clumsiness and took off again at a brisk pace, crashing through a brittle wall of brambles as he went. Shinsou trotted forward down a long section of thick wooden corridor, feeling for a moment he was making good time. It wasn’t long before the alleyway of foliage twisted into another left turn and, as Shinsou carefully but quickly negotiated a plethora of loose vines and exposed tree roots, the dense pulse of something un-natural and dark reverberated through his body and made him grind to a halt. The feeling was strong now, so much so that the next wave of power sent a ripple of nausea into his stomach.

"What is that? Is that man using my dark matter?" he murmured, ducking to avoid a low-hanging branch as he clenched his stomach. The throbbing power he sensed was about two miles away, just on the outskirts of Underwood by his reckoning.

Shinsou chewed his lip again at the thought of having to confront a powerful wizard, armed with his own Telgradian magic, outside of the safety of the Citadel’s walls. If it was his dark matter he was sensing, then Shinsou was sure he would have a whole host of new problems to contend with at the other end of this maze. The Telgradian had little idea of why their paths had crossed, but he cursed the gods that governed the fates that, today of all days, he had allowed himself to be made such a fool of.