Curse of the Golden Empress - Character Write Ups

Dearest Father Syran,

I do not know when I will be able to send this letter, but while this is fresh in my mind, I must write to you. There are many things that have happened in the past few days that I must import to you.

First, I have accomplished a small part of what I was sent out into the world to do. Upon returning to the town of Crossroads, after dealing with the Goblin threat, I used a portion of my reward to commission a shrine to be built to our Queen. The priest needed some convincing, as this place has suffered much in the recent years, and many of their loved ones have made their way to our Queen’s cold embrace. He also revealed to me that the sheriff of this place has “forced” the worship of Bahamut upon the people, and so was reluctant for another deity to be forced upon these people. I managed to convince him that in times of trouble, the people look to the Raven Queen and they will find comfort in the ability to send offerings to her and to know that she will provide for their dead. The shrine will be built near the pyres where the dead are burned, as is fitting.

Additionally, we agreed to scout for the merchant guild here in town and explore the possibility of the Bandit King infiltrating the Great Mine nearby. When we reached the mine, we encountered a warrior spirit who had been trapped for a thousand years, since the end of the last empire. I have made a pact with him that I will free his soul and those of his brethren. Their fleshly remains were stolen and taken deep into the mines by dark-skinned elves. My Warlock companion, Soreth, described them as Dhaeraow, traitorous kin of the Eladrin.

In return for helping them, these warrior spirits have given us the information that we need to scout out the Bandit King and we will fulfill this mission and then, when we have enough strength to battle this foe, we will seek out these Black Elves and free the warriors from the foul magic that keeps them trapped here, so that they may rest at last.

I hope to send this, and another letter detailing our success at the mine, once we return to Crossroads.

Raven Queen’s Blessing,
Lyra

Seated on one of the boulders in the mine tunnel, Soreth peers around, looking absently at the bodies of the dire rats-- policed and piled into a corner of the cavern with their wererat pack leader. He eyes the corpse warily, waiting to see if the beast is merely playing dead whilst its injuries knit together again, as they did during the fight.

Long silent moments pass. The corpse remains still and silent, quite surely dead.

Nodding to himself in satisfaction, the eladrin reaches into his satchel, pulling out a leather-bound folio.

'No light in these depths... no sky... no stars. No way to observe, record, and predict... At least, not directly.

Soreth opens the folio across his lap, whispering an arcane phrase as he unfolds a sheaf of parchment. The material is printed in blue-black, but at his word, soft silvery lines and marks are set aglow, like a portrait of the night sky, luminous and annotated.

His eyes wander the paths traced from star to star, the marks of constellations, and of lines and arcane notations linking other stars, in less recognizable configurations. Fixing his gaze on the marks of the luminous star chart, Soreth reaches into his satchel again, pulling out another small book. He runs a finger along the chart, tracing a series of lines as he maps the shape of the overhead sky, beyond the vaults and the solid stone hiding the world above.

Turning his attention to the tiny book, he flips through its pages, turning them back and forth, noting the phrases and astrological signs correlated to the observations made on the star chart. Soreth's lips move as he recites the assembled phrases to himself, voice almost silent.

"Seeking the Path of Ashes... Void's Embrace... Herald of Bones... and... Ihbar's Blessing..."

The Eladrin tilts his head in puzzlement at the assembled prediction. Tucking away the smaller book, he continues to pore over the charts, watching little flickers of arcane energy dancing along the starlight ink lines, illuminating the page. One hand strays to his belt, pulling out the elegant close-fitting leather gloves that the lycanthrope carried. The smooth material gives no clue as to what creature's hide was used in their making.

As Soreth pushes back his sleeves, and dons the gloves, a cold feeling seeps into his hands--at first, briefly, bitterly frigid, then a gentle coolness as they warm to his skin...

'...Or am I simply accustomed to their cold?' he muses.

Adjusting them to a firm fit, he turns his gloved hands back and forth, feeling the arcane weavings within them awaken at his contact. He draws in a short, sharp breath as the gloves abruptly turn icy-cold again. A brief flicker of un-light darkens the hide even further, and in that darkness...

His eyes narrow as he watches, in dim, yet somehow pale blue-purple, an outline forms in each glove-- the shapes of his hands... no, the bones of his hands-- before he blinks, and the sight fades. The shadowy luminance is gone, and only the gentle blue-white glow from the arcane star chart and the torches of his companions remain.

Soreth flexes his hands thoughtfully, noticing even the gentle coolness he felt before has been chased away for now. Nodding to himself in thought, he turns to gently fold the chart back into its folio, pausing to thoughtfully trace its lines. A dark, nebulous region catches his notice, marked with a variety of uncertain notes and observations.

'Ihbar. The Veil. Herald of Shadows. The Ashen Cloak...' Soreth taps the parchment in thought, noting the tiny star-mark in the midst of the region.

'...And Hadar. The Devouring Star. Eater of Light. The Ebon Hunger...'

As he stares intently at the map, pondering these markings, something... tugs at him... and the world around him begins to soften...

Just for a moment, reality feels thin... like a shroud of cobwebs he could breach with a thought. The light begins to fade, leaving the suggestion of blackness all around, studded with faint points of light...

With an effort of will, Soreth grits his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. His gloved hands press against the stone beneath him, and he concentrates on that feeling, until the sensation of... impermanence... unreality... ephemerality... fades, and the world grows solid to his senses once more.

His own body feels overly dense, and drawing breath is like swallowing a mouthful of molasses. Gradually the heaviness fades, and his breathing eases. Opening his eyes once more, he looks across the cavern, watching his fellows as they rest, seated or lying down. Soreth keeps his gaze firmly on them, refusing to look down. His hands move by instinct and long practice, as they carefully fold the chart closed and replace it within the folio, before slipping it to the bottom of his pack, well out of sight.

'For now...'

Ninth day of The Month of the Huntress...

Soreth lifts the quill from his journal, tapping the feathered end against his chin, before he continues.

Caiphon rises earlier in the sky every evening with the seasons' turning, just as it should. The Guardian Star's rising should be looked too, despite the consequences of over-reliance on its messages. The passage of the Vengeful Herald comet this year portends something... worse... yet no observations show its true nature.

He stops, checking his notes on the table before him as he sits in the inn room, back in relative civilization. A stray breeze courses through the opened window in front of the table, bringing in cool autumn night air and carrying the scent of smoke from hearthfires. The stars shine in a clear evening sky, among them the enticing violet brilliance of Caiphon as it follows its course low over the horizon. Soreth raises his head, staring intently at its light, before he dips the quill and continues writing.

So few understand the signs, and even with what I know, I am unable to convince others of its truth. The goblin chieftain merely gawked at my predictions, even as he sat in an ancient mine... the ruins of a place left behind because of what was... unearthed.

No one ever sees the signs. If they do, they never believe them. And if they believe, they never think to prepare.

Fools, all of them.

Soreth corks the bottle of ink, resting his quill lightly on the page, fingertips stroking the feather and nib-- and goes still at a flicker in the sky. Caiphon's light dims, then grows brilliant again, hazing his vision in purple as he stares at it, unblinking. Concentrating. Drawn...

"Show me..." the words slip from him, hollow and rasping. His skin tingles, flesh going numb. The haze of Caiphon's cold light blurs his vision, and the world ...slips--

-- the Void is silent but for a distant, atonal piping... a melody barely heard, and somehow this makes him grateful. Something else tugs at his senses in the Void, and as he drifts like a mote in the current of emptiness between... everything... the melody fades.

Not from distance, for distance means too much and yet too little here... instead... in the Void, something consumes the melody, leaving only a roaring, deafening silence. At the heart of this blackness it lies, ever-hungering. And for a moment it notices him.

With an effort of will--in this place it is one of the few things that can be said to truly 'exist'--he pulls himself away, gaining purchase in the frigid emptiness which veils the hungering dark... the barest impression of substance he can feel here, this cold place between hunger and everything else.

As he pulls away, he can hear that piping tune again, following it like a beacon. Yet as he draws closer he can make out just the barest truth of the melody, and it sows terror in its wake. Caught between madness, and hungry darkness, he grips the only thing of substance left, the cold... that chill darkness... and holds tight--

*snap*

Soreth blinks and jerks upright in his seat, shoving himself away from the desk. The impression of something icy lingers on the skin of his hands, and he clenches them into fists. Breathing out a mouthful of cold air, even colder than the autumn winds, he tilts his head, marveling at the cold fog of his breath.

Raising his eyes, he finally spots the reason for the numbing cold in his fingertips: his quill, frozen solid and snapped in two, lies on his desk atop the book. Shards of feather and vane scatter like powdered snow, slowly melting and leaving his page dusted in fragments.

The Eladrin pulls his chair closer, unable to ignore his curiosity. He casts his gaze over the desk, pausing at the unrolled star-chart. Ihbar. The Veil. Herald of Shadows. The Ashen Cloak... and the tiny black mark at the center of the nebulous region... Hadar. The Devouring Star. Eater of Light. The Ebon Hunger...

His mind flits briefly to a confrontation in the depths of the mines. A hobgoblin lunging forward with shield and weapon at the ready... then stiffening in place... covered in frigid darkness as he directed his will through a terrible gesture... sheathed in ice... and shattering into a heap of icy flesh and fragments of metal chilled to the brittleness of dead leaves in deep frost.

Is that where it came from? He wonders. How much is channeled... spreading... making way for the hunger within...?

Above the horizon, Caiphon's brilliance continues to shine, and the faintest of melodies sounds in his mind...

---

Frigid Darkness: Soreth whispers a string of arcane words, his voice cold and hollow. As he holds out a hand, impenetrable blackness wells up from the very air around his victim, tainting them with the chill of the Void as their flesh is numbed, then frozen solid.

Lyra scrubbed her short-cropped hair dry and put on the robe the inn provided while her clothes were being washed, and then sat down at the small writing desk in her room. She luxuriated in the feeling of being clean after so long on the road.

I feel as though it has been years now since I left the Abbey, and yet it has only been a few months. Not that my task chafes, but sometimes I envy my brothers and sisters who were given tasks that involve less traveling.

She grinned at the train of thought and then shook her head.

As if I could handle life in one place for that long… My task may be arduous and baths are few and far between, but seeking out the enemies of my Queen feels more productive than living in a cloister until someone needs last rites.

She unrolled the parchment the innkeeper had handed her when they returned, flattened it onto the desk and began to read the correspondence from Father Syran. There had been trouble near home - many unusual disappearances over the last few months, and then more recently undead had begun attacking nearby farms and carrying off children.

That’s unusual. The undead don’t take prisoners. Someone powerful must be controlling them.

Father Syran suspected that a cult of Orcus was responsible and had sent a few of her brothers out to investigate. She quickly wrote a response, attached to the letter she had written that night in the mines, including her thoughts on the matter and the details of the last week. She rolled the letter into a parchment tube and sealed it with a stamp of a stylized raven clutching a human skull in its talons. She would send the letter out in the morning when she went to visit the priest.

She dressed quickly and then walked downstairs where she could hear laughter and music.

The sounds of life… Perhaps Kyra will dance tonight and Willy will drink too much and insult Borstal’s beard.

She grinned and walked into the common room.

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Month of the Huntress...

Soreth reclines against a bale of hay on the farm wagon, journal in his lap as he stares up at the stars. Tapping his new quill meditatively against his chin, he closes his eyes, letting some of his awareness ... drift...

His hand lifts of its own accord, as if guided only half-consciously, dipping into the vial of ink. A brisk flick of his wrist shakes the excess ink away and the quill scratches and slides across the journal's page...

The Vengeful Herald is in transit, crossing cold silence and meeting The Mirror Star on its journey. Not waylaying. Delivering a message.

Soreth's head tips back, eyes opening and staring emptily into the sky, at something beyond, while his hand continues to write.

The surrounding days of the Huntress Moon cannot illuminate the reaper's cloak. Behind the Veil, I see the Devourer's Visage.

His breath comes in fits and starts, as if his body forgets to breathe now and then, yet his hand lifts smoothly away from the page, dipping the quill just as its ink begins to run out. The Eladrin's head stays tilted up at the sky, eyes full of reflected star- and moon-light.

The light of The Guide Star counters the Veil. Yet its music is its illumination. The melody entices. To rely on one is to free the other.

Soreth's next fitful exhale is mingled with the softest fragment of song, and for a moment the world around him ... slips... the air grows unseasonably, stifling hot, then bitter cold... The faint light at the heart of the crystal flickers, as it sways on its chain around his neck, turning from its comforting whitish glow to a cold purple hue.... and the tip of his quill's feather curls, and blackens, then evaporates.

His hand stiffens, curling into a claw as it grasps the quill. For a moment Soreth tilts his head, lips parting with another fitful breath, as if struggling against something. His hand turns, the quill's silver nib glinting, then drives hard into his palm, drawing blood. His eyelids flutter as blood wells out of his flesh around the metal, filling the tiny reservoir, then spilling in a rivulet across his skin, pattering on the wooden bed of the wagon.

The quill jerks free, crimson masking the silver. A brisk, precise shake flicks a drop from the tip, before the writing continues, this time more mechanical, stilted, as if unfamiliar with the finer points of the process.

This one has cast Ihbar's Veil, Soreth's hand writes, and heralds the touch of Hadar. Caiphon will show this one the way. A price will be exacted.

Soreth's wounded hand lifts palm-upward, cupped, an inkwell for the blood as the quill dives in again, as if thirsting for the fluid. The hand holding the quill moves to the page again, scratching a series of shapes and figures. His eyelids flicker again, and his head shakes as if in resistance to something, eyes still blank and empty. As if in response the hand holding the quill moves faster, nib scratching against the journal's page, dipping into the blood in his palm and continuing the series of glyphs, each one drawn more shakily, more frantically.

"Not ... yet ..." Soreth's voice rasps, and his head wrenches hard to one side. As if fighting with himself, he spasms and jerks. One booted foot lashes out, kicking the railing of the wagon hard, in the process spilling the still-open vial of ink. His eyes shut suddenly at the heavy thud and crystalline clatter, then open again, sight returning to them as he whoops in a deep, starving breath of air.

Soreth rolls his head around, then looks down, frowning at the spilled ink. Wincing at the sensation of pain, his attention turns to his wounded and bleeding palm. Squeezing his hand shut, he looks with distaste at the blood oozing between his fingers, then at the nib of his pen, equally stained... then at the curiously ablated tip of the feather... then to the page with its disjointed and blood-drawn entry.

Tilting his head skyward again, he regards the cold violet light of Caiphon as it soars above the horizon, and somewhere in his mind, faint chiming and droning is heard...

Lyra tucked her hair back behind her ears and sighed – it was getting long again.

I’ll have to trim it again soon… Maybe when we get back to town…

The farmers had gratefully given them the barn to camp in that night, and it was nice to have a hot meal and be out of the wind for at least one more night before heading back out on the road. The slavers had put up a good fight and Lyra was tired and sore and looking forward to the pallet in the loft. Kira the acrobat and Willy the wizard were chatting animatedly with the kids, trying to wipe away their fears after the attack.

We did a good thing today. Fate let us arrive here in time to help these people… My Queen intended for us to save them and send those slavers to her kingdom for judgment. I hope that in the days to come, she will continue to guide our footsteps as we enter the next stage of this journey.

How interesting the changes you see when people begin to fill their coffers with gold again. The Eladrin is certainly one for excess. I have unburdened myself many times when my purse was heavy, though never so excessively as him with his feast in the dingy inn. I keep my purse to myself until we leave this god forsaken gateway into Asmodean domains. Not that this place is the ninth hell itself; there seem to be intrigues I have not yet fully uncovered.

She lets her mind wander lightly as she follows the heavy breathing of the companions around her. Perhaps no one has ever told them they sleep so loudly, since a blind vampiric bat could find them by following the wind they move in their sleep..... But they are safer than before, and there will be many opportunities to be wary soon. There are more evil forces than expected out here, though fortune let us save one small bit of light for a time.

I hope the children are calm again. They are so strong for such simple people..... Though I have found that among many surprises here.

Here thoughts wander back to the rooftops in Crossroads; seeing the would be muggers jumping lithely on rooftops to evade their captures, and the dwarf that seems more at home in the air than underground.

The stargazer had a much closer look at the shadows of this place than I, though under circumstances I have avoided since my first lessons years ago. The two would be muggers would have had easy prey were this our first job together, however we have become an effective force with a harmony I never expected to find in such a line of work. Acrobats work for years in hopes of finding such cooperation and skill. Even the bold Paladin has honed her mastery of diplomacy as she has her keen sword. Or perhaps her sword mastery makes diplomacy more keen.... Both are strong weapons against these outlandish lawmen.

She thoughtlessly traces the lines of a recent wound. There are more these days than usual, and she is not accustomed to such straightforward battles.

Strange lawmen those people have, that are paid by the people to shoot anyone they choose and ask questions later. Those are the ways of lawless places and bandit cities, not sleepy towns. Such a strange background, that dwarf, who likes the sky better than tunnels and rope more than dirt. Perhaps they do not ask too many questions when someone volunteers for such dismal work.

The intrigue of an underground guild is much more pleasant, though their experience seems limited. They are more deceptive than I expected, though, since young guilds tend to shout their names in the streets and I have only just now heard of such with any certainty after weeks. They're not just local kids out for a quick wage.....

She looked down and found she had begun swirling her dagger. She puts it back in the arm sheath to keep close as she sleeps.... in a good throwing position.

These people make me too calm; I will need my wariness for these days to come. This guild shows promise, though, and perhaps all they need is some good direction. If I stay in that place long enough to find out.....

What are these aweful things?? It is as if the bones of my oldest ancestors dug themselves out of the dirt and started walking again.... and thinking. And burning. I do not understand such strange.... things! They should have been hobgoblins or kobolds, or even a dragon; as those are all things that should exist.

My companions did not seem so shocked or disturbed, in fact Lyra seemed almost excited, by us stumbling into these things, which appeared to be guarding the mine shaft to who knows where. She was so focused on that strange disappearing being as if she knew its mind and how it would try to evade us. We hardly have such good cooperation in a typical battle when my mind is not so distracted. It was as if a nightmare opened up in front of us and I found myself sleeping in the middle of the day, with skeletons that shoot bows and beings that disappear as if a ghost to just reappear and attack with fangs as solid as the drakes, and yet they are all.... dead? They already looked dead. Are they more dead now than when we first stumbled upon them? Or when they first died?

I should have been more specific when describing the excellent work of my companions, because that is not completely accurate. Lyra seems to improve her skill with each fight. The stargazer seems capable, though after he was set fire by the trap I fear what I thought to be poor judgement back in town may be bad luck instead. I think I fear his luck worse than if he tripped and fell on his lantern to catch himself on fire, which would have been easier to avoid. Willy seems to throw himself on fire just to see if it will burn. Next time he jumps at my feet in battle I may need to deal with him first. Not that I wish him dead, since outside of battle he can be skilled and even amusing, but if he were immobilized he could do far less damage than were he free to do his will.

I now regret burning so many of the ropes on this lift. We may have to see where the shaft leads afterall, and without a working lift I just gave myself a new place to climb..... alone. Let's hope where this goes the dead stay that way.

Soreth tilts his head left, then right, regarding the heap of icy, splintered flesh before him. Little is left of what used to be a kobold, and much of that unrecognizable. Just scales, fragments of bone, and tissue rendered to bloody-pink shards of frost.

Nearby, his companions interrogate the surviving kobold, arguing over the best course of action... prisoner, escort, mercenary. Their voices echo in the hewn stone corridor, but they sound faint, distant.

The eladrin raises his hands, flexing his fingertips inside the elegant black leather gloves, musing. The pain has faded, and in its place there is a feeling of relief, alloyed with a sense of congratulation.

But is it mine? If not... where from?

He closes his eyes, casting his thoughts back to the memory of the recent fight. Wilifreth tumbling down the shaft, saved from a bone-breaking fall by a loop of rope. The clash of blades wielded by Lyra, Kira and Borstal.

He remembers thrusting out a hand, twisting fate with a gesture and a word, and speaking the arcane words that call into being the pacts he has made, gathering the energies from places beyond. A sling bullet hurtles past his head and he stumbles at a key pronunciation, failing to channel properly. Instead of dissipating harmlessly as it had in the past...

Soreth gasps briefly at the memory, sensation reawakened by the near-trance.

Pain. Brilliant and searing, coursing through his body from no source he could identify. His vision blurs and he staggers a little, in memory and at the recall of the sensation. And yet...

The arcane pattern reforms, much more swiftly than before, just in his sight again, like clouds scudding away from a constellation, blown by a cold winter wind. He turns as another kobold advances, boots scraping little stones and gravel underfoot--he repeats the motion as the memory guides him--drawing on the pattern again. Another hail of sling stones rattles around him and his companions, and as one nearly clips his cheek he ducks, failing to time the proper hand gesture to accompany the syllables.

Pain. This time his vision tinges with violet light, and as he briefly falls to one knee at the agony, he swears he can hear a chiming... In my ears or my mind? ...and the pattern reforms once more.

Gritting his teeth, he stabs out his hand a third time at one of the draconic monsters, twisting his fingers just so, speaking the phrases perfectly. The creature shrieks and gibbers as blackness wells up around it, darker than the tunnel's own shadows, enveloped in the chill of the void. Its cries are swiftly cut off as it freezes solid, then tips over, borne by its weight and momentum. The beast smashes to the floor, shattering like glass, fragments of its body scattered everywhere.

Soreth opens his eyes again, finding himself on one knee, hand outstretched toward the remains before him, as memory catches up with the present.

The chimes. The light. The pain.

He rises from his kneeling position, tipping his head thoughtfully, and sparing a glance at his satchel, and the books within... including his journal with its writing, inked in his own blood, scribed as if by someone unfamiliar with the written word.

"Caiphon will show this one the way. A price will be exacted," Soreth whispers, recalling the last coherent statement, before the series of glyphs began to fill the page.

He quickly pulls off his gloves, flexing his fingers and turning his hands palm-up. He looks down at the palm of his left hand, examining the scar left behind by the stabbing point of his quill. Mostly healed, the skin over the wound is jagged, almost star-like... and still a deep purple.

Soreth curls his fingers, closing his hand into a tight fist, recalling his own half-aware protests: "Not... yet..."

Looking up at the ceiling, mentally mapping the patterns of stars beyond, he asks himself, "Did I even have a choice, then?"

Cross-legged on his bedroll, Soreth meditates on the head of the spear propped across his lap. Carefully polished and cleansed of the gore and filth left behind by its previous owners and victims, the weapon is sleek and deadly looking, and almost seems to want to leap from his grip and spear someone of its own accord.

The eladrin carefully turns the shaft in his hands, watching light reflected from his crystalline amulet flicker against the walls and floor. For a moment a tiny flicker of purple stirs in the depths of the crystal's warm light, like a miniature bolt of lightning, or as if a miniscule flaw in the stone had suddenly cracked.

He tilts the spear back again, using the polished blade of its head as a mirror, observing the light and waiting for the flicker to return. Nothing happens.

Next to him, his journal and starchart lie unfolded. No answers have shown themselves yet, despite careful charting of the stars, unseen beyond the mountain-weight of rock overhead.

The warlock sighs to himself, and tilts the spear further, looking at his own reflection. Dark blue-on-blue eyes peer back at him, and he stares as if in challenge to another party.

Finally losing patience, he moves to set the spear down, and halts... then pulls the spear blade closer, staring into his eyes again. Waits.

There.

Another flicker of that cold purple light, this time in the depths of his eyes.

"Show me..." he whispers, eyes narrowing.

The weapon grows cold in his hands, edges of the blade trimmed in a lace of frost from his breath as the world slips around him.

In the silver depths of the polished metal, cold violet light and impenetrable shadow mingle, like fire and smoke, or lightning and storm clouds. Amidst this roiling background the silver fades, giving way to the void that is there--has always been there, waiting.

Caiphon is not easily called upon. Prices are always to be paid. It is part of what must be.

He cannot tell if it is his own thoughts, or those of another party, yet the violet light swells, bringing with it the cold, consuming shadow that lurks in the void.

Ihbar has heralded the demands of the one who Hungers. The Veil is removed. Hadar must be sated. Soon. Now.

The slowly roiling blackness gives way to something even darker, if that is even possible. Behind the veiling shadow this mass calls, drawing it to him in a comforting, hungering embrace...

Pain.

Brilliant, thread-fine pain lances into his hand

"I have hands, limbs, a body, and"

pulling himself away from that devouring dark, he reaches for the only light he can see, the cold violet brilliance beyond and its chiming sounds and

"I can see it...!"

Soreth opens his eyes again, taking in the environs of the camp, as the others rest nearby, or prepare to move on later. A soft pat under his hand, of fluid raining onto something solid, and a stinging pain at the edge of his palm.

He moves his hand, watching a trail of his blood trickling from an incision at the side of his palm, one drop at a time falling to patter against the blade of the spear. The weapon almost quivers, drinking in the heat of his lifeblood, and the frost lacing its edges fades, while the head of the weapon seems to reach, hungering for more. Its silvery polish is darkened now, not by the blood, but by something else. The metal itself has gone dark, as if a shadow lurks inside the steel, waiting.

"Soon..." he whispers, and he cannot tell if he is making a promise to something, or marking time left before a terrible event.