The arcane language spilled from Blackheart's mouth as she spoke the uncanny phrases in a guttural tongue to start the summoning spell. The words of magic completed a spell that forced the drained blood of the corpses in the next room to pool in a reservoir below the altar and rise into the piping that ended in the basin hollowed out in the top of the altar. The crimson claret coalesced in the stone sink, and the necromancer smiled. She craned her head back and looked into the moonlight of Rzandol, shining into her black eyes and the blood-filled basin from the faux well overhead to hear the sounds of her reckoning coming to bear.
She has done exactly as her master had commanded: sacrificed a great many on the eve of the rise of Rzandol and dedicate all their blood to her master, for it was trapped. Stuck in an ethereal prison and only able to act through associates like herself, Blackheart met her master when she was at her worst. Now, she felt it necessary to repay the gift given to her by a powerful creature from beyond that saw fit to save her life, by any means possible. The idea of such an act of justice as an appetizer to an even greater justice that would soon come, levied against the mortal world of Cordoba, made the necromancer feel as if she was in tune with the very earth itself.
The dark mage reveled in the sounds of the earth around her head as she heard the worms burrow and the roots of trees spread themselves through the ground. She could hear the dead stirring in their graves, scratching and pounding against coffins in a rhythm Blackheart found musical. The thought of even more of the walking dead at her disposal, in addition to the several ghouls that sat before her in the temple pews, was enough to make the dark necromancer's smile stretch from ear to ear as she continued to chant.
Suddenly, a shout from the upper levels of the basement broke her concentration, disturbing the chant that would deliver her master from his prison to this world. Blackheart cursed her intruders for their poor timing and stepped away from the altar. She almost tripped over the prone Inia? body as she walked out into the central aisle of the temple and stared at the front doors to the next room, where the bodies hung and bled. She looked to a couple of ghouls and said, "We have a visitor."
The necromancer didn't bother to guess who her intruder was as she looked back at the unconscious form of her niece.
Rashad. That damned male has come back to soil my home a third time, the necromancer thought. He's escaped that incompetent Doyle and now he thinks he?l defeat me. The little black bastard thinks he can just walk in here, do what he wants and take my niece away to be some breeder? Aside from the truth, she said to herself, that male will be in for one hell of a surprise.
Turning away from the door, Blackheart felt her old Adventurer's Guild medallion shift in her bosom. Touching it through her clothes, she continued her stride to the altar and took her place at the altar and continued to chant. As she chanted, voices could be heard floating in from the useless windows to the abattoir. It seems that the little male has brought friends, the necromancer mused. Her black eyes glinted with amusement as she chanted, making sure to position herself under the moonlight as she did before. As she expected, the group of intruders made their grand entrance into the temple. Blackheart had not seen many of these people before, but some she knew and one of them she knew very well.
The first of the intruders came dressed in blue armor; she could tell that from the reflections of the moon's light bouncing from the floorboards. The necromancer had not met him, but she did know his symbol: the brotherhood of Brash. Blackheart had tangled with only one Brash acolyte prior, and she wasn't satisfied. Two Enigmen--a female cat and a giant crab of some sort--stood with the armored warrior. Four humans walked through the doors. Two were dark-skinned and males, like the fool Rashad who walked with them, but of the two only one was a mage. By the look of his aura she could tell he was an ice-mage of some power, but not enough to sway her will or her master's will.
The last human was a slim woman with long black hair, carrying a satchel. A quick glance showed that the girl had no real skills to speak of, and would be no threat. Her eyes scanned over the last member of the crew--an elf, she could see by the ears--bore a strange resemblance…
Moira, the seamstress, had come to reclaim what was once hers. But from the elf's excessive cowering, it looked like the spell she put on her was still in place. The elf had cost her so much in the past, nothing would be able to negate the spell. So why was Moira here? Blackheart pushed the question out of her head and decided that the elven seamstress would die first, but changed her decision when the blue-armored warrior sealed his fate as the first to fall: he opened his mouth and spoke.
"In the name of Brash, I am sworn to strike down evil wherever it may lay! Beware, Blackheart the necromancer, for you now face Cyan--warrior of the Brotherhood!"
Only slightly aware of what he would face on the inside of the temple walls, the halfling went full tilt into his lines, remembering the honor of the Brotherhood and forgetting the full situation. While sent here on his own to deal with a claim of ghouls in the town of Karmor's Bend, many friends have joined him in his mission. No one in their party, not even the ice mage, was prepared for the scene set before them.
The temple, cold and lit only by the moonlight falling from the well above the necromancer's head, was a mockery of the temples built to Toren the Assistant and his Master Hamar. Instead of the Tetra-Sphere that would adorn the walls, that same diagram of the eye reaching skyward with tentacles took its place. The walls, adorned with tapestries bearing the tentacled eye, were carved from the surrounding stone and supported by smoothed columns. The ceiling of the temple stretched over their heads and curved upwards into the base of the fake well. Past that, a smooth wall with an arcane diagram in the shape of a circle stood out in relief with the moonlit form of Blackheart the Benefactor juxtaposed in the foreground.
The necromancer's eyes flashed in the moonlight as she looked down on the ghouls in the pews. The stinking corpses moved in response to her gaze and rose from their seats to attack the group of intruders. Charging into the pew, the first ghoul met his second death at the end of the Rock Sword. More ghouls came onward, and they were dispatched by Cyan's dancing sword. Kitty and Barcrab joined in the fray, actively going after ghouls and fighting them claw, tooth and nail. The two Enigmen barreled through the rotting wooden pews, taking whatever pieces of broken wood they could and using them for weapons. Shuya, Wyle, Donovan and Moira stayed by the door and fought off any ghouls they could, using the fire poker, Donovan's ice axe and Shuya's potions. As Shuya's potions lit up the floor around them and cast a bright blue light in the temple, Donovan's eye caught a glimpse of the circle behind the chanting Blackheart.
He had seen that circle somewhere before in a manual at the Academy, in a book on summoning, but what would a necromancer want to summon? Regardless of what the dark mage wanted to summon, he would have to stop her. "Cyan! Rashad! She's trying to summon something! See if you can stop her!"
The two nodded and cut a swath to the altar. After wading through the ichor and rotting body parts, the Halfling and human raised their weapons to strike Blackheart down. Their blades struck her arms, but were deflected by some sort of magic. Using the advantage, Blackheart thrust her arms out and the two men went flying to the floor. As they picked them selves up, Rashad noticed a curly mop of hair sticking out from behind the altar. He looked up at the necromancer with a grimace of anger and shouted to Donovan, "Inia's here! You have to stop her!"
In response, Donovan pulled a potion from Shuya's satchel and encased it in ice. He launched it at the chanting woman, hoping she would not be able to stop the projectile. Blackheart was involved with the chant, and she was struck full in the face and staggered back as the ice shattered across her nose. The necromancer rose, her face covered in the brown liquid of the potion hidden in the ice ball. She wiped her face off and looked at her hands as they burned a light blue flame from her fingertips and palms. The dark mage looked at the intruders with her black, almond-shaped eyes and continued chanting to release the ethereal bonds of her master.
She was not able to complete her chant, for a significantly large piece of broken pew came flying at her, forcing her to hurl herself away from the altar and Inia. Blackheart landed hard against the stone floor, shielding herself from the shower of wood splinters. As the necromancer began to right herself, Barcrab shouted, "RASHAD! GET INIA!!"
Snapping up and rushing to the altar, Rashad knelt by the unconscious Inia and grabbed her by the arm. He dragged her to safety, just as Blackheart lunged at the two with her silver dagger. The blade missed them both by inches, and the dark mage screamed her rage. She prepared to cast a spell, but Cyan charged and slammed into her back. As she landed on the ground, she spun and blasted the Halfling with a burst of green energy, sending him flying towards Kitty. The Enigman cat-woman was ready and caught the armored Cyan before he hit the ground completely. "No worries; I've got you," she said.
"Thanks, Kitty," Cyan said. "Are you all right?"
"Yes; more importantly, are you alright?"
"Whatever that monster's hit me with, it's made me tired." Turning to the others, he said, "We gotta stop her…no matter what."
Blackheart heard that and started to chant again. Donovan heard her chant and cast a spell that froze the pipes of the sink inside the altar. The pipes burst, cracking through the stone and toppling the altar over. The necromancer could only look on in annoyance as the intruders congratulated themselves.
Suddenly, the sound of a clearing throat echoed through the temple. "You peons have come this far to have an audience with me," the emotionally charged Blackheart spoke. "You've fought my undead minions and interfered in my current plans."
She stared at the slowly waking Inia as she continued, "You've tampered with my life's work, and there's no shortage of pain I could inflict on you all for such transgressions. Yet I believe that you all would not have done these things if there were not a reason…even in your limited scope of 'reason'."
"I want revenge!" Shuya shouted across the temple. "You killed my father, mother and brother! Your hands are stained with their blood."
"I'm sworn to staunch the flow of evil in these lands, and your time is over, Madam Blackheart!" Cyan brought his sword to bear and said, "By the will of Brash!"
"You've cost me my job," Rashad said as he held Inia, "and the lives of others have been changed or ended because of your actions! I've dealt with your kind before: mages and the powerful that thought they were beyond the reach of Good. You think you're all that matters, that everyone should follow your path or die. I am here to tell you you're wrong--dead wrong--and you will pay for your crimes against the world."
The necromancer looked over the battle-ready group, as they breathed heavily from the evening's fight. Covered in the blood of the fallen ghouls, they all meant business and brought their weapons up. Blackheart looked at the poor fools…and began to laugh. The anger that washed over her from the aspiring heroes made Blackheart smile from ear to ear. The necromancer said as she clapped her hands, "Oh, such rousing speeches, all of you. I'd spare you all for such performances, if mercy was in my nature. You must excuse my amusement; I've heard those words far too many times."
The necromancer continued with a sly grin, "Your family meant nothing to me. They were merely a sacrifice to my master. All of Sumptor, and I gave it to my Benefactor.
"As for your 'sworn quest' against evil, you backwater hirsute," the necromancer leveled at Cyan, "you need look no further. I doubt you'll be able to defeat me, because I eat misguided male "heroes" like you for lunch." Her eyes narrowed to slits as she said, "You will fail."
Turning to Rashad, Blackheart said, "And as for you, you wanna-be adventurer, you dare walk into the mouth of danger a third time? For the hand of my niece, you certainly went the distance. It was all for nothing, for you would fail, just like your hairball friend here."
"Hey I resent that!" Kitty piped up.
"Not you," Rashad spoke through gritted teeth.
"Oh."
"I don't like you. You've lied to my niece Inia and to my face! I'll not stand by as my niece becomes a breeder for some male who lies about his achievements. Adventurer's Guild, indeed; your medallion isn't real!" The Benefactor continued, "You're nothing but a one-shoe hustler!"
"By Toren, I am an Adventurer!"Rashad shouted. "The Guild has changed! I was there myself when it changed recently. Why don't you believe me? Is it because you hate me for being with Inia?"
"YOU ARE A MALE! ALL MALES LIE AND I HATE ALL OF YOU FOR THAT!" Blackheart's shout echoed on the walls. "YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY LIFE'S WORK FROM ME TO SOW YOUR FOUL SEED, FOR I AM THE DESTROYER OF ALL MEN! I WILL--"
"Auntie!"
Blackheart stopped her rant and looked down on the face of her niece. The tanned teenager's skin shone in the moonlight, her cheeks streaming with tears. "Is this how you truly are? Why?"
"It's lying males like this dark-skinned dunderhead that hurt me in my younger days."
Inia returned, "But you don't have to do this because some guy broke your heart--"
"BROKE MY HEART?!?!" The necromancer's face flushed and turned a bright purple in the moonlight as she said through gritted teeth, "Is that what they're calling it now? Is that what you've learned from the world of males? That rape--my rape--was nothing more than a matter of the heart?!
"You foolish little twit! After all the time I spent on you," Blackheart said with a cracking voice, "you turn into a blithering trollop who can't tell when a male wants you. You don't need that male."
"Auntie," Inia said, "I know. I want Rashad. It's you I don't need."
What, Blackheart heard echo through her head.
Inia continued, saying, "I'm a big girl now, Auntie. I have to go and do what I can to make it in the world. I'm a grown woman. I can't live under your wing forever; I want to see the world and its entire people--all of the MEN and WOMEN and the world they live in. The world I was meant to live in."
The rage on Blackheart's face was barely hidden. She dipped her head and closed her eyes. Bringing her face back to see her intruders, it was completely clear of all anger as she sucked in a cool breath and said, "I can see that trying to coax you from the side of your male is quite difficult, and will take more time than I am willing to invest. It's time I owned up to the fact that my experiment was a failure."
"E-experiment?" Inia stuttered. "W-what do you mean?"
Rashad took the young woman's hand and said, "C'mon, you don't need to listen to this madwoman rant any longer. You're with me now."
Rashad took her to Shuya and the others and said, "Watch out for her, this'll be a nasty fight."
As Shuya nodded, Blackheart looked at Donovan and said, "It's only natural I terminate my unsuccessful experiments. You understand, don't you?"
A bolt of black lightning shot from her hand and flew towards Inia as she stood in shock. Rashad threw himself in front of the blast, taking it full in the chest. He flopped to the ground and lay still. Inia leapt on top of him, shaking him and screaming, "NO!!!"
"HA! RIGHT ON CUE!" Blackheart laughed a maniacal laugh and said, "EVERY HERO IS THE SAME! YOU ALL GIVE YOUR LIVES FOR NOTHING! I'VE TAKEN THE LIVES OF MANY HEROES OVER THE YEARS…AND NOW YOU ALL SHALL SHARE THE SAME FATE!"
(Note: This movie is part of the Dungeons & Dragons Movie Series. For more movies, see the entries for the 2000 movie and its 2005 sequel).
