STEEL Dominion

It's been a busy day for Velociryx, who today, expressed grave concern for the wildlife in the region.

"Look...we understand that many of the jungle's creatures can be used in crafting and enchanting items...we get that, and we're by no means putting a stop to all hunting in the realm...what we are saying, however, is that poachers caught killing and or harvesting inside our sovereign territory will be killed on sight.

It's our intention to give the wildlife a place to grow in safety, and when we feel the time's right, we'll cull the herd ourselves."

This decision was reached after hearing arguments from the Council of Lords, a newly formed advisory board of land owners on Devil's Island about fears that all the wild animals might soon go extinct on the island because of rampant, unchecked hunting and a rapidly expanding human population.

"Between the two of us (ed: here, the HighLord refers to himself and his Scribe), we have far and away the largest contiguous landholdings on the island, so it just made sense to locate the preserve here.  It's a joint venture between the two of us, and applicable to the full extent of both territories.  The rules are simple...effective immediately, poach, and you risk life and limb.  Selected hunting and harvesting permits will be considered, so interested parties should contact us to work out the particulars."

He told this reporter.

~Nicholas Hanby, reporting for the Blind Scribe

The rest, you can guess.

The General, or rather, whatever twisted thing came back when we tried to work our magic, went home to Calimba.

Once there, he killed the Lord-Mayor of the city and installed himself as the undisputed Master of that place, forcing the Court Mystics to mask his true form from the general population, and killing any who would not bow to him.

As soon as his base of power was secure, he declared the city to be wholly independent, and began making regular patrols within a day's ride of the city gates to enforce his will, and I responded with the only option I had left, in my estimation.

I rallied my own forces and marched on the city to lay in a siege of it, which I had been planning to do anyway, but in mocked up style.  Now, it was for real, and I was as terrified as my men.  Nonetheless, we had to root him out.

Two days after the siege began, it became clear that the General would not come quietly, and in fact, he had taken to beheading the corpses of those slain by our siege efforts, and displaying them atop the wall, while shooting the headless bodies back at us.

Whether this fascination with headless bodies was a specific strategy designed to dishearten us (which it very definitely did), or some after effect of his own death and headless state before we partially restored him, I cannot say to this date.

In the end, all I do know is that my men kept up the pressure on the mighty gates of Calimba, the city of light and music until at last we sundered them, then charged in and gave battle to those who remained inside.

In all, I lost more than two thousand men before we brought the creature low with enchanted weapons and silver.

We re-beheaded the body and burned it, sealing the ashes in a silvered urn and dropping them into the sea so as to take no chances, and while that solved the immediate problem and brought what was left of Calimba into my fold as planned, none of it would restore her glittering spires, nor put notes of joyous music back into the air of her streets.

I was touring the damage...walking along a dust and corpse strewn lane that had once (as near as I could tell) been a market district, when Velociryx found me.

"Are you coming to dinner tomorrow evening?  Main Hall, Cerilon?"

I shook my head and bowed it.  "I'm surprised you would even invite me after...all this."  I said wearily, not meeting the HighLord's gaze.

I saw his shadow nod in the late day sun.  "Aye...there's much to recover from, tis true, but this was not all your doing.  My own stubborn pride surely played a role...had I been content to let that one promise to a dead man go, I could have saved thousands of lives.  It is a mistake I'll not make again...I...I sometimes forget that in this position, I must temper my decisions based on what's good for the whole, and not what's "right," because the two aren't always the same.  Mostly yes...but not always.  I forgot that, and it cost us.  It cost us dearly."

"Don't be so hard on yourself."  I told him.  "No matter that it was a bit sloppy and bloody, we came through, and I'll rebuild her.  Down to the last spire and fluttering banner, I'll restore her to her former glory.  You have my oath on it."

He smiled wanly at that.  "Everyone else will be there, and they'll not understand if you can't come.  In fact, it could start a rumor that I had you murdered or banished you, or something equally silly.  Promise me.  The rebuilding can wait a day."

"What's the occasion?"  I asked him.  "Why are we all getting together?"

He seemed surprised, but then shrugged.  "I guess perhaps you would lose track of days, being in the field with the troops and all.  Thanksgiving."  He told me.  "The fall festival of our Mighty King, and despite these recent troubles, we have much to be thankful for."

And that was certainly true enough.

"I'll be there."  I told him.

And I meant it.

Where else would I go?

That word entered my mind again.

Where else indeed.

I wondered if was even possible for me...for any of us to leave this island (which I increasingly thought of as cursed), and resolved to put that to the test, not long after the Thanksgiving Day feast.

~Scribe

To this day, I cannot tell you exactly what went wrong, and I'm an Elf.  Elves and magic go together like...tree houses and chocolate chip cookies, and...well, never mind.  In any case, I can tell you that the spell that got cast wasn't Elfin magic, though my own Wizards wove it out.

No, this was...an abomination.

I will not apologize, nor make excuses for us.  

Yes, had we been more watchful, we could have shut it down (I oversaw the process myself), and even after the spell was complete, had we been more decisive, it's possible that we could have killed that which we had just created (or reanimated, or...whatever it was we had done), but the sorry truth is...we didn't.  We weren't as vigilant as we should have been, and thousands ultimately paid the price.

It started off mundanely enough.  

A group of elderly, stately looking Wizards in the finest of their finery, solemnly joined in a circle, swaying slightly as they chanted the words to a spell nearly as old as time itself, in a language even older than that.

It was beautiful, in its way.  Stark and terrible in its beauty, and I was caught up in it, as I am when I see most things magical.

But less than a quarter of the way through the ceremony, just after we had reattached the fallen General's head with a binding incantation, something...happened.

A gust of wind blew in, powerful enough to extinguish all our candles and the three fire pots as well, bringing with it screeches, screams and cries from the night.

Then came the thunder...A fierce, growling thunder.

Had the word occurred to me then, perhaps that would have been the catalyst, but alas, it did not...only later did it re-enter my mind, and by then of course, it was much too late.

The wind, the thunder and the sudden darkness though...these were all mere trifles.

Distractions.

The main event was what happened with the spell.

An oily tentacle rose in the midst of the room, composed of nothing but shadow and thought.

It coiled itself around the energies that was our spell...that had been, to that point, steadily feeding into the body of Gavin Hargreves, and slowly...ever so slowly and carefully was breathing life back into that corpse, and then....

The energies darkened and intensified.

No longer did they feed into the lifeless body in measured steps, but rather plunged, deep and sudden, that empty vessel taking the full measure of those energies in a single instant.

There was a crash and an Elven scream, then more than one, though how many, I could not say.  I only know that when I regained my senses, my voice was but one of a chorus, and that although we could not name the reason for our fear, we also could not stop our own screaming.

In time, however, the limits of our own bodies took care of that, and one by one, our screams died in a series of hoarse, rasping coughs, and a short while after, the angry whine of those mystic energies faded as well.

I was about to breath a sigh of relief at that when one final growl of thunder rumbled, then went silent, and dear gods what took its place...

....a heartbeat.

A deep, slow...almost ponderous heartbeat that was loud enough for all of us to here there in the quiet after the maelstrom, and with every beat, I swear that each of us in the room jumped.

Jumped and flinched at the thought of...but no.  There was no thought then, because it was only half formed.

The truth of it was that we couldn't complete the thought.

It was that terrifying.

Then, our worst fears were realized when the body of Gavin Hargreves twitched once.

Again.

Then began sitting up on the stone table where we had lain him.

Somewhere screamed anew...I know not who, and three of my Wizards fled the room that instant.

I ordered the members of my House Guard I had with me to bar the doors as I gave chase, with my remaining Wizards just behind me.

Get the Wizards back here...reform the circle, then reenter the sealed chamber and put that thing down.  That....whatever it is that we have created.

That was the plan that flitted fleetingly through my mind as I raced to calm my men, and in time, I did.

Calm them I mean.

Courage and nerve restored, we went back to the sealed chamber to end the matter, but of course, it was far too late for that, and the chamber was not nearly as sealed as it had been when we left it, which is to say, it wasn't sealed at all.

The door, a sturdy brass and oaken thing, had been reduced to bits of kindling, and the half dozen guards I had posted outside...all slain, and tossed about the hall as though they were a mad giant's forgotten playthings.

Six lifeless, broken Elven soldiers.  The best of my personal guard, gone.

I wondered with dread how many more there would be before we contained this beast, and ran to rally more of my men, and that's when the word occurred to me.

The word that had been following me in one form or another since I first tried to leave this cursed island.