Ghost Wounds, Episode 15a
Every fiber of your heart and body screams for you to run to Lucan, to treat his terrible his wounds before he bleeds to death before your eyes. But your mind – the mind of a Ghost, heavy with knowledge and grim experience – tells you that something is wrong.
“Rhazion,” you say, “what were you about to say?”
“We should take another way,” says Rhazion, his hand raised in the beginning of a spell, his eyes darting back and forth. “The markings on that sarcophagus…I think this is the tomb of an Ashbringer, one of the pyromancers of the Saddaic Empire. Pyromancy, as you know, inevitably pushes its wielders into…ah, homicidal insanity, so the undead that rise from dead pyromancers are particularly…unpleasant.”
“Caina, gods, please,” groans Lucan, slumping against the pillar, “please, help me…”
Rhazion doesn’t respond, nor do any of the others, and with a chill you realize they can’t see Lucan.
“They’ll use a particularly nasty mind-altering spell,” says Rhazion. “You’ll see whoever you love most, critically injured and begging for your help…”
The pain and the fear drain out of Lucan’s expression, and he sits up straighter, his cold gray eye fixing on your like the tip of a crossbow bolt.
Oh, damn it.
“Run!” you say, turning towards the door. “All of you, run!”
Too late.
The glyphs on the side of the sarcophagus blaze with flame, and Lucan surges to his feet. He shimmers, and disappears. In his place stands a withered corpse in elaborate robes of red and gold, its empty eyes ablaze with flames, fires crackling around its clawed fingers.
To judge from the others’ exclamations of alarm, they can see the burning corpse just fine.
The undead thing flings out its hand, a lance of fire blazing from its fingers. You dodge, and the blast explodes into a marble tile at your feet, blowing it to glowing splinters. Noraster hits the trigger on his crossbow bow, a bolt erupting from the creature’s chest, and Rhazion flings out his hand in a spell. The undead thing staggers and shrieks, the flames blazing in its eyes, and throws out both its hands. Invisible force flings Noraster and Rhazion to the floor, and a wall of flame erupts across the doorway, sealing you in the crypt chamber.
Your hand curls tight around the hilt of your ghostsilver dagger. Undead this thing might be, but you wager your ghostsilver dagger can hurt it. Moresti and Ark race to your side, shields up, broadswords drawn back for a strike, and you prepare to charge…
“Hold, fleshlings!”
The creature’s voice is deep, melodious, beautiful, and its burning eyes fix on your face.
“Perhaps we can strike a bargain, my buzzing insects,” says the creature. “Long my spirit has been trapped in this chamber, and I long to see the world burn, to hear the sweet screams as men burn, their flesh running in rivulets down their bones.”
“Not my problem,” you say.
“Give me one of your bodies,” says the creature. “Let me be clad in your flesh. Then the world shall burn once more. Let me ride in your flesh, or I shall kill you all.”
You notice something. The glyphs on the side of the sarcophagus seem to pulse and throb in time to the creature’s words, and while the air crackles with sorcery, it seems like the flow of power is coming from the sarcophagus and into the creature.
“You,” says the creature, “you have enemies, yes? You are strong. Let my spirit into your mind. We shall be as one. And your enemies will burn. Will that not be sweet? Will not their screams be sweet music to your ears? Let me wear your flesh…or I shall content myself with watching you burn.”
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