Lord Alkadian Entaris Beldier III- Final Moments

All the pieces had finally fit into place.

The thought that from the moment they has set foot off the ship onto this untamed wild land an unseen hand had been guiding his every step was hard to imagine, yet here he was. Every major even of the past half year had lead up to this moment. The arrival of the mysterious Varkus Grey. Alkadians death at the hands of the air elemental. The underground passages leading them right where they needed to go. Even the destruction of his beloved Rog Bael. And now the meeting with the powerful King Wanden.

It was all according to plan. His plan.

**********

It wasn't until the third night staying in Wanden's kingdom, after their return from the fallen temple, that he was awoken by the whispers. A flood of chanting viral whispers drifting on the air around his bed. He looked around in confusion and anger, but the voices tickled his mind with the promise of secrets. Secrets he had been seeking since he was just a boy.

Rising from his bed he paced across the cool stone floor to the table that held his belongings. His Grey Elven eyes pierced through the darkness, seeking out the source of the whispers. It wasn't the same voice as before. It was not the dark lord calling to him. This was a new voice. As he desperately rifled through his belongings the voices grew louder. The secrets seemed almost at hand now. When his fingers made contact with the hard wooden surface, he felt instantly as though a bridge had been formed between his own mind and a pool of dark secrets long forgotten to both time and reality. This object had seen the world born, and then die, only to rise again. It held legends and dark truths no man was meant to know. The answer was there in front of him. The words he had been seeking for over 200 years....

He spent the rest of the night scribbling down runes and incantations frantically. His fingers bled. His parchment became depleted, so he wrote on walls, shelves, and the table, all the while laughing an empty laugh.

************

The next day King Wanden came to his room. He was very brief and very serious. He simply informed Alkadian that a room had been prepared for him in his private tower. It was well supplied and would be guarded at all times. It seems a higher power had insisted, and some people you just can't say no to. Another piece of the puzzle fit into place.

************

The process would take over a month. That much time was very valuable to someone of his lifestyle, but then again, time was really no issue to their new ally.

Just as he had been promised the room was stacked to the ceiling with old books, vials or rare components, spools of enchanted thread, and tools of the finest mithril. There was no time to waste. Alkadian closed the door without hesitation, knowing full well what trials lay before him. More pain than he had ever experienced. His mind would be cooked and stretched as far as his intellect could wane. Simply put, it would kill him. He locked the door and set to work without a second thought.

*************

On the final day of the ritual the room had become a dark and horrible place. The candles had burned out weeks ago. Alkadian had not slept. Not eaten. Not so much as rested his eyes. The smell of blood and death hung heavy in the air, like a tepid stew of decay billowing in and out of his panting lungs. His hands moved with care and focus, as they always had.

Over hand, Under hand, Loop, Knot.....


He whispered dryly over cracked lips. The smooth fabric felt so soft and warm in his hand. It was etched deep with runes he had kept safe with him since his days at the Academy of the Silver Tome. These kinds of items required the words that spoke of both life and death to be written and imbued with them. To ensure he never lost them Alkadian had scarred them into the canvas of his body, every morning for his centuries of life. Now they rested before him, slowly folding and wrapping around like wide ribbons. Ribbon made of his own skin. Attaching them to the blade was surprisingly harder than removing them from himself. A piece of the puzzle.

The blade he had carried with him through it all. A long elegant curved blade. Light in its elven design, and wickedly sharp. It was adorned with the symbols of his house, Beldier. The once cutting edge now wrested inside the hardening folds of living flesh. The thread that had once been used to hold together his powerful guardian Rog Bael now infused the item with a terrible stamina. Another piece of the puzzle.

He painted over the scrolls of skin with a dark red substance. The blood of an ancient dragon, supplied by the generous King. It filled the cracks and brought the runes to life. He chanted the words. He spelled out the secrets he had learned in an ancient language that had fallen from no living tongue in ages. He drew a map with his mind. The map of the trails drifting between worlds. He remembered them clearly from when he died. The rivers that connect the world of the living to the land of the dead. All the pieces falling swiftly and terribly into place.

He sang the wretched song. He chanted to the Gods of undeath. His voice was like that of a host of spirits. Each sang in an octave more terrible than the last, and together formed the harmony of immortality. He wove his pale bony hands over the glowing blade like a conductor leading a grand symphony. The blade, now wrapped in a hard shell of living canvas seemed to quiver. Like a worm tearing free of a cocoon the encasement peeled away and melted to a hot black viscous fluid. The runes still blazed brightly around the blade, as if floating on an invisible shell blanketing the now black metal. He was almost done.

There was no strength left in him. He slumped forward in agony, his body finally giving in to the tortures he had self inflicted these past weeks. All at once the ritual came crashing down around him. His eyes went wide and he whimpered in agony and defeat. All his trials..All his work. Gone....


No.

There was still one way to finish it. The last piece of the puzzle.

Drawing forth every last ounce of power he still held in his limbs he staggered to his feet. Calling on all the strength he had put into every step of his long journey he snatched up the blade. The power was quickly draining from it. It's pulsing glow had become a faint hum.

Alkadian shouted out curses against his father. He shouted curses against his friends. He called out curses against every foe he had encountered and those he was yet to meet. His words were iron in the air. His tongue cut through all that was once decent and pure, and the room shook under the force of his rage. The door, triple bolted and barred blasted off its hinges. The books and vials burst and exploded into torrid pillars of green flame. The guards looked in terror, and when their honest mortal ears became subject to the chain of arcane atrocitys Alkadian was weaving they simply fell dead, their souls ejected from their bodies.

With a cacophonous roar against the very world in which he lived, Alkadian lifted the blade high over his head. The stone walls shook and began to crumble around him. If felt as though the whole tower would topple under the force of his blasphemes towards all that was good, so mighty was his conviction. And when at last there was no more strength in his lungs to support his words the flames and tremors all snuffed out at once. With the swiftness of a striking serpent, Alkadian plunged his blade, his Phylactery, deep into his heart. Then he died.