Shadowgate

Sierra · Joined: 09 Mar 2015 Posts: 17 Location: Somewhere in Dagger

All that follows, was written by Brandobaris. It didn't seem fair to me that only two people be able to read this (meaning yeah, it was in a mail...about a year and a half ago, now). I considered the issue of in-game plot secrets being divulged to the public, but it's been awhile since it happened...and I'm sure everyone can keep OOC knowledge separate from what their character is aware of Smile

Any necromancer of power knows how thin the line between life and death might at times grow, and nowhere does that line grow thinner than upon the Plane of Shadows. Though there had always been those fools who thought the shadows undying, any student of necromancy knows otherwise. Life is not some simple matter of energies, or animation, or souls. Even the darkest and most powerful creatures of this realm must, by virtue of their own being, fall into one of two states: living, or dead. No being in creation, mortal, outsider, or god, has ever - COULD ever - escape this dichotomy. There is what one -is-, and then, after a certain point, there is only what one was.

At its heart, the practice of necromancy is little more than an attempt to forge a third state of being from those inevitable two. Most know this state as "undeath", though it was rare that anyone truly understood the concept. Undeath is not "everlasting life". The wisest of necromancers know this to be impossible - for the longer life goes on, so does the pull of death grow ever stronger. It likewise is not "existence beyond death" (though most incomplete forms of undeath might be described as such) for with death comes inevitable decay and fading. True Undeath means "everlasting existence", and this is what the masters of necromancy have forever fought to achieve: a state of being balanced perfectly upon the cusp of life and death, free from the fates of both.

And there was never a place better suited to chase after Undeath than upon the Plane of Shadows.

...

The problem with a thin line between life and death is that it is not always easy to tell when one has passed from one state to the other. These days, Vhiirtaahk often passed the time trying to deduce the exact moment of his death, but even for a mind as sharp as his (even by draconic reckoning!), he only recalled it as a passing gradient: a single, startling moment when he tore his thoughts from his studies to the realization that his body had simply stopped while he wasn't looking. His mind and soul would remain here, however - he had seen to that centuries ago, when the promise of Shar's eternal peace seemed ideal for the lengthy contemplations his work would require.

And yet, even now that his mind had deduced the answer to the question of necromancy, he had no body with which to gather the necessary components, nor perform the correct rituals. No mouth with which to scream out his secrets, and no beings at hand that he cared to share them with if he could (he had long since soured on Shar's "oblivion", and the creatures loyal to Her that roamed this place). Blast, nobody would ever come even to steal his secrets, for only he knew their value in the first place. One of the greatest necromantic breakthroughs in millenia, and it would all amount to nothing - not even a whisper in the darkness to hint at all he'd learned.

But then the darkness whispered for him.

It grinned at his lamentation, and twisted itself into a the shape of a man. It tripped and tumbled around Vhiirtaahk's remains with an air of biting mockery, filling the air with laughter at the dragon's predicament. It had an odd sort of life to it, at least in the necromantic sense, and a force of will that nearly all shadow creatures lacked - this was clearly no servant of Shar. But what in existence was powerful enough to walk unnoticed by the Mistress of the Night within this plane? His draconic senses should have demanded rage at this being's blatant disrespect, but he found a terrible sort of fascination had overcome him, so he only watched and listened.

How long had the darkness danced, and taunted him? It might have stayed for moments, or for decades - in truth, it didn't matter. When it at last left him alone again, Vhiirtaahk understood things more clearly than he ever had in life. Darkness might be made into more than empty oblivion. It could be chaos, and madness, death and deception. Even life could spring up within it, and the blood it spilled would be as sweet as any. Most importantly, it taught Vhiirtaahk how to whisper, so softly that even the shadows couldn't hear. And from then on, the dragon would whisper to the being he now knew and praised as The Black Sun, of all that transpired within Shar's domain. And not once did the shadows suspect that his allegiance lay elsewhere.

And after centuries of service, The Black Sun returned once more with a gift - a vision of a sister follower who required guidance back to the true path, and of a powerful life that was ripe for the killing. He saw ruins, some human village by the look of it, where the Shadow Plane bled into the Prime, establishing a firm grip upon reality. But most importantly, he saw the means to possess a body of his own once more. No longer would his knowledge go unrecognized, and no longer would he subsist as a mere spirit. At last, the question of necromancy might finally be answered.

He could feel the presence of his wayward Sister, the Black Sun had seen to it that he always would. Vhiirtaahk called upon his voice, and whispered to her...