“Can you finish the story now?” William begged. The boy was fresh faced and in his light sleeping blouse. Gerard eyed William and then looked to his wife. It always came down to her say-so in these matters. Shar rolled her eyes at the two of them, but gave an approving nod and a pleasant smile. Gerard sighed at William and gestured for the boy to come sit and warm himself by the hearth. William was only too eager to comply.
“Alright, alright,” Gerard said once William had finished wiggling into place beside him. “Now where were we?”
“The thirteen had just brought the Old Masters to the elder evil’s cradle,” William answered excitedly.
Across the room, Shar’s smile turned into a sharp line. Gerard returned a sheepish grin at her. He knew that the Tale of Bardin’s Gate wasn’t a tale that she particularly enjoyed. He often wondered if William’s love of this particular story was only because his mother disliked it so much.
“Ah, uhm, yes,” he said with a cough. “So the thirteen used their newfound kinship with the spirits to bring the Old Masters to the cradle of the elder evil.”
The elder evil was an immense creature of hunger and power. But even so it was still a young creature, barely more than an infant. And though it was a creature of unfathomable size it held no form that the thirteen could recognize. As for the Old Masters, well, I can’t say for certain how they perceived it. Still, even the Old Masters were hesitant around the elder evil, something that the thirteen had never seen before.
With little use for the thirteen once their quarry had been reached, the Old Masters pushed them aside and set to studying the elder evil. From their vantage places the thirteen watched the Old Masters work their magic and learned. Most of that magic was beyond their ken, but the thirteen had learned enough to increase their own understanding tenfold. But even their newfound power couldn’t prepare them for what came next.
The Old Masters had finished their preparations and were ready to wake the elder evil from its static slumber. As powerful and hungry as the being was, the Old Masters knew that their magic was stronger. The thirteen had no way to know, and no way to prepare for the onslaught. It was simply that one moment they were watching the Old masters for something new to learn and the next the elder evil was striving against them with a vast hunger which sought to consume all existence.
