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[Martin Willow]

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Molly’s words sat at the center of Martin’s mind, has he lay in the garden on the roof of their home, holding Molly gently as she shook slightly and slowly fell asleep. The way she had spoken to him, of the hopelessness of the situation, and torn at his heart. Never had he heard her speak that way, but, while it left him stunned, his determination did not falter to find a way to save her. This messaged played over and over in his mind, has it eventually surrendered in to the demand for sleep….

The dream was the same as before. The nightmares changed to pure black shapes, Martin was again thrown from his as it tripped, plummeting him into the endless black hole again. The nausea overwhelmed him as it had before, and he bruised his head on the sudden floor that leapt up to greet his outstretched hand. Molly lay still, in the circle of light, and once again sank down into the transparent floor when Martin reached to wake her from the nightmare, paling as she descended once again.
Martin found himself starring desperately down through the floor at her again, his hands silently working as though they imagined themselves digging through the solid stone to his love. Not a mark was left from his initial attempts, so his hands contented themselves with imagining success. Molly lay peacefully unaware of his anguish above her, the pale tone of her skin in sharp contrast to the usual, beautiful copper tone.
The scraping began again, and Martin looked up to once again be greeted by the ebony skull who had visited him every time he had relived the dream. It dragged itself into the light, closer than it had before and once more grinned up at him with that toothy smile that seemed impossibly exaggerated. It rolled once again back, and inverted in on itself, dissolving into the red mist that formed the word Oblivion. It hung in the air before Martin for some time, and he could imagine it almost laughing at him with its now nonexistent smile.
Then, Martin was not jolted awake. The mist swam in the air before him, and collected to form a red cloud in the air in front of him. The cloud congealed, and then thrust forward and through him. Gasping, feeling as though the wind had been torn from his lungs, Martin collapsed to the ground, a painful cold filling his body. Lying face down, he once again was confronted by Molly’s serene face. His hands twitched again, but Martin focused himself on the newly aggressive cloud of red. Forcing himself to roll over, Martin sat slowly and looked at this menace.
The cloud was floating directly in front of his face, still without any solid form. It seemed to bubble, as though it was slowly boiling in midair. Expanding, the cloud again took on a misty appearance, and slowly sank. About three inches above the ground, it crashed down with the slush of water striking a solid surface. Pooling around Martin, the circle of white light slowly obtained a blood red outline. The sound of a drip reached Martin’s ears, and suddenly the red water drained and dropped below the surface of the stone.
Martin could clearly see it now, once again congealing into a foggy mass, directly over Molly’s sleeping form. He stuck the clear floor, damning it forever for allowing this unknown, possible threat through to his wife while he was trapped above. The red mist began to orbit, and formed into a spiral, with its focal point moving and settling over Molly’s head. The red spiraled down and vanished within her, and the pentagram that Molly bore on her forehead, no longer faded, came into clear view. Then, it vanished.
Slowly the color to Molly’s skin returned, the gentle copper tone in itself calming Martin. But a faint shimmer distorted the view of her body. And outline of Molly, glowing a bright gold and projecting light in all directions, floated free of her and drifted off to the side.
Molly’s body suddenly rose back up through the floor, and into Martin’s arms. He embraced her, holding her closely to him, but she did not move. Examining her, she did in fact breath, and was very much alive, but something was missing. It was not something he had noticed was gone before, with nothing to compare to, but having witnessed what he did, Martin could feel it now. As he thought of this, Molly’s physical body before him slowly seemed to shrink and waver. Trailing like a stream of gas, her form gently flowed into Martin’s chest, on his left side at his heart, vanishing within him. Molly’s familiar warmth filled him, and Martin smiled for a moment.
Then, the sound as though water was crashing on something reached his ears, and Martin looked down once more. The golden silhouette of Molly floated in the place of where the pale one that Martin had reclaimed had been. The stones separating them shifted, and up heaved, throwing Martin back several meters, where he landed on his back. The crash of the stones being thrown themselves and landing elsewhere echoed in what had been a totally silent blackness. Sitting up, a massive, circular hole and formed where Martin had been standing.
A rush of air struck Martin, and as he looked up from this immense gap, it seemed as though faint figures were rushing towards him from all sides. The ones behind him slammed through him, filling his body with unimaginable cold, and then left him shivering on the ground. Slowly regaining his composure, Martin stood and walked cautiously towards the gap. Peering down in it, the sight that met his eyes nearly overwhelmed him. Spinning back and forth, without any real direction, were thousands upon thousands of human-shaped wraiths, many crying out in pain, some simple crying, and some with the deadest of looks in their eyes, as though they no longer cared. The forms tore around the circle in the ground rapidly, changing positions and moving eccentrically. Martin starred in awe at what he saw, until what he wanted to see finally fell into his vision.
A golden silhouette was framed against the bleak colors of the other wraiths, its body still intact, as it looked around the whirlwind uncertainly. Molly’s golden figure’s eyes found Martin, standing at the brink of the hole, and she drifted toward him. Standing on the edge of the gap, the wraiths spiraling within reached up and ran their hands through Martin’s legs, chilling the points they touched but unable to gain purchase by simply desiring to be free. Martin focused his eyes on Molly’s form, ignoring the growing chills as he laid down on the edge to be better able to reach his arm for her. Molly’s arm reached for his, though he couldn’t feel his any longer, numbed by all the passing spirits. Their fingers came just out of reach of one another, closing slowly….
Blackness covered Martin’s vision.
Light returned to him, and he was once again in his circle of white light, with nothing around him. Molly was nowhere near, but he could feel the warmth her presence always filled him with in his heart, just as he had when he first recovered her physical body. A clicking got his attention, and Martin spied a skull, much like the one that had tortured him with its Oblivion message, roll into the light. It rolled across and vanished into the blackness on the other side. Then footsteps, slow and careful, echoed through the air. A man garbed in dark colors, with the pale look of someone who has seen and worked with death, walked into the light. He paced after the skull that had rolled past, apparently unsure if he was following the right trail.
As soon as he vanished, the skull rolled by from a different origin to a different exit, and the man followed. This repeated many times, sometimes with a different grim necromancer following the rolling skull, just out of eyesight of his goal. Finally, the ebony skull that had tormented Martin before dragged itself into the light, and sat in front of him again. It gave him the exaggerated grin he was beginning to hate it for, and held it for some time.
Just as Martin was about to speak, perhaps waiting for the moment, it inverted on itself as he opened his mouth. Again forming into a clouded mist, the fog hung in the air for a moment. Its blood red hue waved, lightened, and then changed to gold, bright as the aura that had surrounded Molly’s form. Forming words, it hung in the air before him:
They are the Seekers of the Skull…..
The words stood still, then convulsed and changed a putrid red, an infected variant of what was there before, and formed more words:
What will you go through, what will you do, for the one you love?

Martin’s eyes snapped open again, but he did not jump up. Molly’s familiar presence next to him comforted him somewhat. She had stopped shaking, and slept peacefully by his side. Committing his dream to memory, Martin gently slid himself free of her embrace, and went to procure writing materials. Writing every detail he could recall, Martin produced an account of his dream for Molly, with a note of what he was going to try to do, and when he would return.
Returning to the garden, Martin carefully slipped his dream account into Molly’s arms, and kissed her cheek. With a look at her, Martin slipped both his bracelet of binding, bound to an identical one she wore, and his wedding band, onto his hands. Smiling at her, Martin whisper and he slipped out of the house, “I’ll return in a few days, love….and I will save you.”
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Grand Paladin of THG