A Pale Shadow of His Past Self

DATE: IMMORTAL REIGN 1023 MONTH 3 DAY 15

Once again, Ruxian woke on a cold, hard floor, this time with the added bonus of a skull-splintering headache. Moaning, he hauled himself up hugging the mossy wall. It was so dark that he could barely make out the jail bars from the flickering flames. Wherever he was, the Targonians clearly didn’t think to install light glyphs.

As his eyes adjusted, the grim dungeon bared its fangs. Encircled in damp brickwork, there was only one exit: a serpentine staircase that coiled up into shadowed heights. His many cellmates snored blissfully, most probably from the drugs they ingested during the banquet. He toes the nearest man in the nose, drawing nothing more than a slurred groan. Already, Ruxian missed Palemoor.

Beyond the rusty bars, men robed like Lucius dumped bloated sacks from wagons into a giant pit, the gaping maw of some eldritch horror. The rhythmic, wet thud had Ruxian fighting – and losing to – the urge to hurl. Instinctively, he knew the slumping silhouettes were body bags.

Ruxian’s dread climaxed when a cart pulled up before his cell. The door screeched in alarm as hooded monks as they entered. Face obscured, they seemed more demonic apparitions than men. The hypnotist retreated into the corner, tripping over a sleeping woman as he tried to shrink into the walls. Destora would no doubt have gone down kicking and biting. By comparison, he screamed and sobbed as they reached for him. Mercifully, his magic misfired, triggering a psychic shock that knocked him out cold

Searing agony pierced his solar plexus. His body, however, refused to move. He wanted to scream but his lips did not part. He could not even shed a tear as the flame spread, as if someone had skewered him with thousands of molten needles. With no escape from the pain, Ruxian thought he would go insane.

Then came a loud crack, like the sound of shattering glass. The pain had vanished, leaving him to ponder if any of it was ever real. Ruxian looked down at three bewildered priests surrounding his body. Pointing at an empty flask, the trio whispered among themselves until an elderly cleric stomped over, thrashing his subordinates with a staff before stumbling.

“One time!” screeched the senior priest. “One time my grandson achieves something and you manure heads sabotage him!” Pausing to catch his priest, the old man continued. “This man could easily fill ten flasks. If you fail to extract blessings out of him, His Highness will have your head!”

Ruxian still could not grasp what had happened to him. He had assumed it was an out-of-body experience he had seen in a documentary, but that couldn’t be right. Unlike popular accounts, he could move, though the how still eluded his jumbled mind. For starters, he felt weightless and the cold didn’t bother him.

His vision now a cone instead of a line, Ruxian got a clear view of the chamber. Scorched into the urn-shaped cavern was a large ring of Targonia. The flickering sconces hugging the walls reminded him of cult-themed horror movies. Men and women lay atop stone platforms that resembled surgery tables. Around the slumbering specimens, priests sang a low, resonant hymn while hoisting vials that gradually filled with a white, foamy liquid flowing from the open mouths of their subjects.

Fear, disgust, and rage assaulted Ruxian. So, this was why Lucius had Susie bring him to Immortrium. Was Dramien in on it? Was that Dracon girl actually trying to save him? Why had he not tested his power as Palemoor did? Did that old bastard outfox his pursuers? Or had he become another body at the bottom of the pit?

The morbid industry continued until only Ruxian’s body remained. More and more priests joined the droning, lifting containers small and large to no avail. Their elderly leader, throwing himself to the chorus, looked up as if to beseech aid from the Goddess. That was when he fell on his backside, pointing at Ruxian with a shaking hand.

“Call the templars!”

The clanging bells, sharp and crisp, set off the clamouring of steel boots. Warriors with giant hammers and rods stormed into the ritual chamber. Instinctively, Ruxian recoiled from the blue glow. He realised too late that the sorcerers were equally, if not more threatening.

Encircling Ruxian, the men lifted their staves and conjured a dark cube around him. Slowly, the magic closed in, leaving him no place to escape. Nothing he suffered so far could compare with the pain of touching the barrier. Someone might as well have lodged a blade into his skull – did he even have a skull? More importantly, it seemed the suffering, rather than subduing him, made Ruxian glow an angry red.

Ignoring the oddities of his transformation, Ruxian trained his focus onto one of his tormentors. He tried to snap his fingers without knowing if he had any left. A crisp pop sounded, immediately sending the targeted enchanter to the floor. If the man had any psychic defence, Ruxian didn’t find it.

Everyone holding a staff is trying to kill you. The hypnosis, now delivered as a psychic message, sprung the subject to his feet. Screaming at the top of his lung, the sorcerer unleashed slashing gust that made a wet thwacks as if tore a row of men asunder, smearing the floor with scarlet streaks.

A swinging hammer splatted Ruxian’s puppet, plastering a mangled corpse against a distant wall. Before the body could hit the ground, the hypnotist surged from the broken cube and sent an arm – an ethereal appendage he thought was his arm – at a templar. Upon contact, Ruxian felt something akin to a wall. Ah, so this is how they were guarding themselves. But this time, the psychic armour had the durability of wet tissue.

A burst of mental images flooded Ruxian’s vision, trapping him in a kaleidoscope of unfiltered memories. Panicking, Ruxian quickly withdrew, fleeing from the phantasmagoria back into the dungeon. The abrupt disconnection left his victim on the floor, twitching and foaming from the mouth.

With the templars on the run, Ruxian charged towards his body only to pass right through. He tried repeatedly to reclaim his flesh until a hammer struck him. In that instant, the dull pain scattered his ethereal form, shrinking his field of vision. Mustering what remained of his existence, Ruxian flew upwards. Another blow from the enchanted weapon, and he would cease to be.

Despite his speed, he felt no resistance from the wind whistling past. Whatever this form was, it had removed all delay between thought and action. In an instant, he had climbed the full height of the dungeon, leaving all the pursuers in his ghastly wake. The locked door, however, posed an unexpected obstacle. With the shouting below drawing near, Ruxian had no choice but to charge at the rusty gate.

He slipped straight through without the least resistance. He felt like celebrating, but had no fists to pump and no voice to yell. This loss reminded him of what he left behind. Redirecting his perception, Ruxian scanned his surroundings. He had emerged from the underground dungeon onto an interior courtyard. Wasting no time, Ruxian took to the night sky moments before the guard on the spire blew his horn, stretching the low note until the entire castle lit up.

Drifting through the castle walls, Ruxian arrived at the lake again. Skimming the waters that barred his previous escape, he finally got a look at himself. He was a grey wraith, a sentient mass many times larger than the boat that brought him to the palace. This was no way to escape. With a single thought, Ruxian compressed himself into a sphere and dove beneath the surface. No splashes. Not even a ripple.

The absence of friction, fascinating at first, drove home the devastating conclusion. I died! While not exactly true, Ruxian could not think of anything else to describe his current state. He was a ghost. They killed me! Though he had no tears to shed, his new body emitted an icy hue. Those bastards killed me! This time, he glowed a bloody red.

The brief burst of colours, however, invited a barrage of spells in his direction, ripping the water with loud bangs. Immediately, Ruxian sank deeper and compacted his form. Directing his attention towards the river racing downhill, his foggy body tingled before he the first templar emerged with the iconic hammer.

This time, Ruxian struck with vengeful ferocity. He roared, or rather, delivered such a psychic pulse so potent that it stunned the entire squad. One of you is possessed by evil. Exorcise it. With that, he left the warriors to descend into a flurry of crackling spells and banging steel.

His unrestrained outburst, however, left a ringing in his…ears? His thoughts slowed to a crawl and his vision shrank. As he cruised down the narrow back alleys, the noise receded and his awareness returned again but the sluggishness stuck to him like a red wine on white shirt. It seemed his magic had its limits.

Following the Grand Waterway, Ruxian slipped out of Immortrium just as the morning sun pierced the clouds. The light lent him a long shadow but he felt no warmth. He wondered where he would go from here. He came expecting a way home only to lose his body, perhaps forever. Had he eyes, he would’ve cried himself blind.

“Seize him!”

Something heavy pressed Ruxian into the ground. Unable to move, Ruxian gave off an ominous black light and set off a sound resembling a single clap. Release me. This time, however, his mind control produced sniggering responses. He had not the magic for hypnosis.

“A boon from the Goddess,” laughing, a sorcerer stood over Ruxian and pointed his staff at him. “I think we just caught –”

A white flash set the rod ablaze. The man had not even time to scream when a chain brought down a blade, hitting his skull with a nauseating crunch, splashing the earth with red.

It was Naya.