Whispers in the Dark

Bitter cold air bit at his flesh as he lay with fingers entwined in the shadow chains tightened around his neck. His eyes opened, glowing like hot embers in the darkness of the caves where he lay restlessly unaware of the time that has passed him by. He drug himself from the ground to his feet his eyes taking in every detail of his unfamiliar surroundings. His gaze passed from tunnel entrance to tunnel entrance, seeing little of value to him in any of what lay before him but broken stone of a collapsed keep fallen deep into the earth. He slowly walked toward the heap of rubble, running his fingers over the cold stones as remnants of his memories flashed in his mind. This was the wall that had separated him from her before he was ripped from this world. Shadowfyre flowed through the air around him but soon settled as he leaned against the stone, sliding down to the ground. He lied motionlessly against the stones for days, his stillness reminiscent of death with eyes closed and mind lost in despair.

He could feel, almost sense two very distinct breezes. One was obviously from above ground, the world of men and elves where he had lived and loved for so long, but the other was moist, damp and almost smelled of darkness. This collapsed keep was so far underground, it has become a mid point, like a way station between the over world and the dark expanse of massive caverns known as the under dark.

After a day he would suddenly get a flash, like being hit by lightning but it was knowledge, but fractured, only partial. He felt vague knowledge almost a concept, of a long absence, a thousand years of something.

It wasn't long before it set in that these stones were old, and had crumbled long ago. He hadn't just been knocked unconscious through some natural event but had been gone for an age. The sorrow that once filled his mind soon turned to hatred, then to desires of vengeance. Another day of stillness passed before he rose, the hunger setting in as he looked to the paths before him, he stepped into the darkness.

As he stepped down towards the darker areas of the cave, leading down into the under dark he would get the sense that he was seen by something. Not necessarily watched or followed, but something had already seen him. The cold dank air of the passages would feel familiar to this dragon of the abyss, but at the same time different. Time had warped the sensations so they were new to his body but familiar to his mind. Darkness permeated everything he saw and even though it should be an easy task to see in such a place, he found his wretched human eyes had to adjust to the light.

The darkness shrouded everything as he following the tunnel darker, the familiar aura not lost to him with this sense of watching. The shadows flowed around him, converging into a blade of shadowfyre as he continued. Whatever was watching him may end up becoming his prey as the hunger set in so deep that the flesh around his eyes began to turn red and the lens once white turned black.

He was far enough away from the rumbling so it wouldn't be to intense for him to continue walking. He was just very aware that somewhere to the north the under dark was shaking. It happened three times within three hours, but after that it seemed quiet.

Eventually, once the cavern leveled out and he was fully in the Under Dark, he could see he was being watched now, from the shadows near what appeared to be a lake in the dark. The eyes were dark, but slightly shining and low to the ground. But as soon as they saw he could see them, they vanished behind rocks.

He raised the shadowfyre blade in the darkness, all but blindly slashing toward the rocks at water edge. The shadowfyre coursed through the air and scarred the ground as if huge claws had ripped through the earth, the rocks broke and crumbled but may have deflected most of the energy from what cower behind them. He squinted, trying to pierce the shadows with human eyes.

The small creatures darted away from the attack into the water, he saw blood and a small reptilian looking arm on the ground, so one of them was severely hurt. But because of these creatures being so used to the under dark and being rather fast, they managed to dart away just in time.

The iron smell of filled the air, the intoxicating scent filling his lungs and blinding him to anything but the origin.  He walked forward until he could almost taste the blood, finding the severed arm at his feet.  He crouched to the ground, never touching his knees to the soil of the earth below and picked up the morsel of flesh and bone.  His human form made eating this large piece of flesh difficult, by the time he had finished blood rolled from his mouth and covered nearly half of his jaw.

As he gorged himself on the arm of his victim, he could feel his strength being slightly bolstered. It was obvious he would need to eat more to feel one hundred percent but this was a start. He would feel the shadows around him begin to pulse slightly, and hear a feminine voice, one he had not heard in a very VERY long time.

"Eating  Kuo-Toa? Oh Lucaerys...how low a thousand years of imprisonment can bring you down." A slightly feminine form of shadows appeared behind him, it appeared like her hand was resting on her hip.

He rose to his feet, eyes lost in hunger and bloodlust, he drew his sword in a crescent around him in the dirt to his side at the ready. His human eyes strained to see the woman in the distance, darkness shrouding almost everything in this place.

"Who are you?" he asked in a hoarse soar voice weakened from the thousand year slumber.

"You've forgotten me already? It's me, you're lord. Rhyxali, the queen of shadow." She stepped forward, her slender form clothed in robes of darkness, her jet black dagger hanging at her side.

His eyes flickered like burning flames and the shadows of his sword dissipated into the surroundings. He slowly fell to the ground, kneeling before her.

"My lady." he spoke slowly, saying nothing more in respect for the shadow lord.

She smirked and let out a low, rolling laugh, it held a dark quality, but almost seemed more playfully evil than anything else. "Well at least you still remember your manners. I'm glad your back Lucaerys, the world has changed much, and many of my servants here have perished."

"How am I to serve you? I am nothing more than a lowly human," he said as he remained kneeling, his head down and eyes facing the dirt below. His weakness showed as he slowly attempted to change forms and chains of dark souls tightened around his throat, holding him in this weak putrid body. He relented the transformation and gasped for air, unable to break the chains that bound him.

"You stand before the Abyssal Queen of shadows and say a human spell is keeping you from serving me? A human spell that used your own shadows to imprison you, if I am not mistaken. Do you think it is beyond an Abyss Lord to break a thousand year old human spell?" She sounded a bit annoyed at him now.

"What must be done to break these bounds?" he asked solemnly

"Oh nothing Lucaerys, I'll break it now. I just need you to serve me again, and like you said, a weak human being is of no use to me." Her eyes glowed a bright gray color and he felt a searing pain shoot through his entire body, and he heard a shattering sound, each chain began to break one by one, and each chain breaking felt like a bone. It may be a consequence of breaking the spell, or it's part of her spell. But by the end of it he was free from the spell that was holding him.

"Now you should probably thank me on your knees, I've freed you." She smirked and giggled maniacally "I also come bearing gifts, so you can be formidable down here in the Under Dark. It's a much more dangerous place now."

He growled under the power of her spell surging through his body, each link broken crushing him beneath the weight of the souls that were trapped with him.  The last links broke and the chains dissipated from his neck his power erupted and his body was engulfed in shadowfire.  His roar echoed through the underdark and through the crumbled halls of his old keep to the surface as his feathered wings burst through the black aura around him.  His claws dug into the earth below, eyes flickered against the black scales of his face. He stood towering over the shadowlord, the ember glow beneath his feathers dimly shining in the darkness.

"Are you trying to frighten me," he asked, his voice echoed with a sinister quality in the cavern.

She smirked and stepped back slightly "Oh No of course not, you're a big bad shadowfire dragon! Nothing scares you" She said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She found him just a bit humorous. I have five things for you, you will accept them, but first you need to proclaim your service to me again. It's been too long, you may have changed allegiances."

A glint of animosity burnt in his eyes but soon dimmed with the realization that without her he truly had nothing.  The coldness of that fact chilled him to the bone, unwillingly drawing him into her counsel once more.  The towering beast bowed his head to her.  

"I have always served you, my lady." she spoke slowly.  He dare not lie to a shadowlord in his state of weakness and yet, he spoke not the whole truth.

She smirked and let out another low laugh "Of course you will. Now, you are in a world very much unlike the old one. Drow and Ilithid have formed entire empires, instead of existing out of City states alone, monsters are smarter than they once were, and it seemed the Abyss is leaking into this world at two points here in the under dark, they aren't from my plane so I can't sense them. To help you combat these new threats, I am giving you five gifts."

She pulls out a small red and black metal nugget, shaped like one of his scales "This will allow you to directly channel my power when you make your shadowfire blade, so it will be able to pierce anything except perhaps the strongest metals, or those blessed directly by a another demon lord or a deity. To use it I have to rip one of your scales out, and replace it with this. I'll do that once I have finished explaining the rest."

"The remaining four are creatures I found and twisted over the last two thousand years. They were once proud warriors and adventurers, but now they are my slaves known as the Abyssal Knights. All you need do is will them into existence, and they will come to you." Suddenly he felt knowledge pour into his mind from her, he saw the four Abyssal Knights, and sensed their names. Knowing he would have to call their names out to summon them.

"So, are you ready for the scale?"

Abian

Gherman

Wyn

Yorian

The images of these lords of cinder flashed through his mind like storm winds surging through the air. Their frame, figure, and names rushed his consciousness and the magic to summon them coursed through his veins.

"Abian, Gherman, Yhorian, Wyn..." he spoke each name in turn as his eyes turned to the shadow lord before him. "What of this scale, what power is gained from weakening your own defence?"

She laughed loudly and looked at him with a some what quizical smile "Weakening your own defense? Lucaerys I'm not asking to rip out all your scales, just one, it could be a scale on your hand for all I care. Anyway this scale is nearly as strong as a natural one so it won't weaken your defenses by much at all."

"A defense already weakened..." he spoke as he stretched his neck into the air.  Below, where she could not have seen on his chest a scale was missing from his battle with the mages.  The wound had closed in his human form, but he was unable to replace the scale while he was chained down.