The broken-down wooden façade of the Stonesthrow Inn never looked so inviting to Rashad, given the evening’s content. It was so beautiful, yet it ended too soon.
“Freakin’ auntie…” Rashad mumbled as he walked into the lobby of the inn. There were two people in the lobby that night, not counting the innkeeper. One of the two was a large man dressed in a blue cape and hood. Rashad walked past the main counter and said nothing to the innkeeper, hauled himself to his room and plunked down into the bed. He lay there thinking of the night, and lulled himself to sleep thinking of his night at the Egress Bar.
Rashad slipped into a dream of a sweeping palace in a field of mist and clouds. There was a doorman holding back a bunch of kings and lords. Rashad pushed his way in and past the doorman who gave him a pat on the back as he passed into the palace gates. The columns of the palace held up a vaulting roof with paintings of birds and winds. Each of the birds looked down on the large open space below it, swathed in earthy tones and animal furs. There were many beautiful women there of all races; slight elves, strong Enigman females, sexy humans and sultry Halflings all occupied the open room and had their eyes on the dark-skinned human’s every move. They beckoned him closer and bade him sit on cushions made of bearskin and soft hide. Rashad, bewildered at the number of beautiful women about him, relaxed and let the women point him in the direction of a nearby stage.
Music played as if from nowhere and the curtains moved aside, showing a beautiful elven body dancing enthralled in the melody. The brown leather fringes of the dancer’s outfit snapped to and fro as she tossed about her pink hair and flashed blue-green eyes above a distinct scar on her left cheek. She crawled as a great cat would from the stage, though the throng of beautiful maidens to where Rashad sat. The dancer ran her fingers through his hair and breathed sweet breath onto his face. She arched her back, pointing skyward twice without hands and fell back onto the pillows in wait. As the pink-haired elf lay there, coated in a light sheen of lust and surrounded by all manner of carnal beauty, Rashad could no longer hold back and took initiative.
When he reached for the lacings on her outfit, the high ceiling of the palace darkened to a dull gray stone and the pillows disappeared into the floor as stone tiles. The beautiful women had turned into large chunks of broken stone and Rashad was across the room from the pink-haired dancer. He was armed with his Rock Sword and she held the Grand Trident--but most truthfully, the Trident held her. She screamed for help, but the shaking of the temple walls about them was so loud that Rashad could not hear her. He understood that his wife was in danger of dying again and ran to her rescue to prevent history from repeating itself. He tried to run to her, but his entire body moved slowly as if he were in mud. The Trident grew brighter with each second he wasn’t saving her and ultimately the Trident burst open in a flash of magical energy so powerful, that it melted the flesh from the elven mage’s bones.
The scream she let out was so terrible that it launched the sleeping Rashad up from the bed in a cold sweat. Panting and in shock, he looked around and saw nothing. The moon R'zandol was on its way down past the western Tolym Mountains. Its light broke through the night clouds and into his window, playing shadows on the foot of his bed. Rashad regarded the shadows once more and carefully went to sleep.
As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw Sa-ren’s face melting off of her skull, jarring him from sleep. He propped himself up on the heels of his hands and tried to get these thoughts out of his head. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t his fault that Sa-ren was dead. No matter how he tried, the doubt lingered in the back of his head. Rashad thought that he had gotten over dwelling on who was at fault in her dying, yet he kept thinking: What if it was different? What if he was dead in there? Would Sa-ren mourn for me all her days? Would she dream of me all her nights?
Worst of all, would she try to forget as I have done with her?
Rashad let the subject fly through his mind over and over in an endless loop, pushing him closer towards the idea that he was responsible. The loop was eventually broken by a scratching noise below his window. He reached for the Rock Sword in defense, thinking the noise a burglar. Then he caught himself before he did something silly. He thought no burglar go through all the trouble to scale up to a second-floor room to rob him. All I’ve got, he thought, is my Rock Sword and the clothes on my back. He put the sword down and went over to the window to investigate what the noise was. Looking down through the windowpane, he had to make sure that what he was seeing wasn’t a nightmare.
A black-hooded man was slowly clawing his way to Rashad’s window. It looked like one of the black-hooded men that he had seen from his first day in Karmor’s Bend, Rashad thought. The hood had fallen back and the man’s face was revealed to show what was left of it. The flesh on its face was sagging and gray, with bits of mold and fungus coming from the hole where its nose used to be. The nails of this thing were jagged and yellow, much like the mockeries of teeth that sat in a black pit located smack center in its head. The least strange thing about this creature was that it was climbing the wall using its claws. All this Rashad could see in R'zandol’s light, and he was too horrified to look away.
The creature broke into the room as Rashad watched, crawling through the window on its belly. The broken glass cut into its abdomen as it crawled and it dragged entrails across the floor in complete ignorance of the fact. It stood aright and raised its arms as if to embrace Rashad, but the stench that pealed from this creature surely smelled of rot and death. As Rashad backed away, the creature moved towards him in a shuffling gait and began to move its arms in a swiping motion. The young man realized he was backing away to his sword and warned the creature, “By Toren, you better stay back!”
Undaunted, the creature shuffled forward and exhaled. The funk of month-old fish left in the sun sprung to mind as Rashad gagged, then grabbed the Rock Sword in fear. He swung the sword and hacked off the creature’s limb. A blow like that would repel any living thing; the amount of blood that would gush from a major wound would scare anything. The problem in this situation was that the wound was merely a black hole in the side of the monster: no blood shot forth and no running away for the monster, let alone slowing down. Rashad hefted the Rock Sword again and used the flat of it to bash the monster’s head in. The monster crumpled to the floor in a heap, with its head split open and empty.
Well, Rashad thought, that stopped it…but what was it?Rashad wanted to get away from the creature as far as he could and walked onto the bed to get to the door to the hall. He backed out of the room until he hit the banister and bolted downstairs. Getting the innkeeper’s attention, he said, “Innkeeper! Something broke into my room while I slept! I woke up and a-a-a thing tried to kill me.”
“Yeah,” the innkeeper said. “You kick its ass?”
“Uh, yeah,” Rashad replied. “I think I killed it…”
“Boy, you ain’t killed a darn thing,” the innkeeper said with a laugh. “That thing you just beat up in your room has been dead for some time now. You’re lucky you got away with your life.”
“Wh-WHAT? Already dead?”
“Yep,” the innkeep said nonchalantly. “The whole lot o’ them types ain’t men no more.”
Still in a state of shock from almost dying and trying to take in this new information, Rashad cautiously asked, “Then what are they?”
“The undead,” a voice spoke from the shadowed tables.
He looked over and saw no one but the blue-robed man. The frightened Rashad walked over and asked in a hushed tone, “What do you know about these…things?”
“I know plenty,” the voice came from the hood. “When I tell you what I know, you will also have to accept everything. You must suspend your disbelief, for failure to do so is to risk your life and my own.”
“Then tell me,” Rashad whispered in fear, “what you know. Please.”
“Very well,” the blue-hooded man said. “First things first: we must go to your room and destroy the creature. It shall rise again within the hour if not properly dealt with.”
The two men walked back upstairs and into Rashad’s room. The room was as he left it, but the black ichor from the creature’s head wound had spread so far, it began to creep from beneath the bed. They both waked over to where the creature lay. The creature was a mass of filthy cloth and bloated flesh, unrecognizable as what was once a person, but the voice issuing from the blue hood was quite sure of what it was.
“A ghoul; one of the Black Hoods,” the voice said. He reached inside his cloak and pulled out a vial. As he did that, he turned the mangled creature over with his boot. The flesh of the ghoul may have been corrupted by the dark magic that spawned the beast, but the hooded man was able to make out the name and face of the former: “Gods, it’s Orcheon.”
“Orcheon?” I’ve heard that name, Rashad thought.
The hooded man poured a quantity of the stuff out of the vial onto the ghoul’s corpse. In an instant, the beast was awash in bright blue flame. The flame licked at everything on the floor, but only the ghoul was turned to ashes. As he finished, the hooded man said, “Orcheon no longer, may the gods of Light have you.”
The night had just gotten too crazy for Rashad: crazy dreams, dead men coming to kill him and now this guy has blue fire that doesn’t burn–except when the dead walk. Gripping the Rock Sword in his hand, he asked in a trembling voice, “Who are you, why’d this thing try to kill me…and what in the Hells is going on in this town?”
