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[Sethos]

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Darrien walked slowly into the large open courtyard of Moonglow’s elite Lyceum as the morning sun shed its first rays on Sosaria’s most elite school of the magical arts. He blended in perfectly as he stepped carefully towards the central fountain, his robes the crisp deep blue of a professor, his half-moon glasses magnifying ever so discreetly his hauntingly pale green eyes and an arm-full of two or three books.
He looked up at the figures in the central fountain, it was here at this very fountain he sat almost daily as a student with he wife to be, Elizabeth. He smiled briefly as he recalled his younger days. He recalled almost bitterly how his students loved her, how his family loved her, how he loved her. He never truly forgave himself for what he had to do, her expression when she discovered his little side-projects.
She had been ill and bed-ridden for months, at the age of twenty-six. One day, she was so taken by a poem she had written, about their first time at the less then functional Moonglow Telescope that she crept out of bed at an un-godly hour, she must have stood there under the door-jam of his private study for a good ten minutes before he finally turned and realized she was watching him. There stood her husband, her childhood love wearing an apron soaked deep crimson in blood gripping an odd tool, behind him as best as he tried to hide it, she saw it.

A body…

It was one of the young alchemist apprentices, no older then sixteen, who delivered her medicines weekly. His pink flesh caked with dried blood, his once vibrant hazel eyes coated with that film that proceeds a violent death he gazed into the hair his mouth slightly gapped in an expression of perpetual shock. His once broad and fit chest was ripped open with the delicate surgical detail only a scholar or a mortician would reserve for the dead. She ran for a solid twenty minutes to the sea-side, where they would sit and picnic in better days.

She kicked and screamed as her love dragged her to the sea, they were both weeping uncontrollably, her words were quite muffled as he held her under the shallow waters kicking and screaming, gently the waves passed over his arms she looked up with pleading eyes giving up the fight slowly, she looked up longingly at his pale green eyes while he all the while uttered his remorseful mantra of regret:

“It must be this way…forgive me…forgive me…”


Moonglow was moved with sympathy for the young professor, if only he had been there as she strolled on the sea-shore, he could have dragged her out when her seizures took her. He always warned her to not walk so close to the sea in her condition. They watched and whispered in hushed tones as young Professor Church grew more withdrawn, leaving his home to teach only. He looked like he had not slept in weeks, while always perfectly groomed he grew pale, his eyes sullen and his mouth curved in a perpetual snarl.

His students noticed most of all…

His lessons became fast-paced, no one could find in the library the books he made constant references to, his assignments and his exams near impossible to pass, so detailed, so intricate. Only the very rich students managed, their parents throwing large monetary gifts at the charming and tragic professor. Darrien greedily accepted, their children got smiles and aced marks, and he got gold to fuel his now all-consuming work in Necromancy.

As for the other students…he took to new and unusual punishments for the orphans, the poorer students and those who did not play his little games. Beatings, magical torture, verbal and
mental abuse galore. But none bore it as badly as a young mousy boy who Darrien thought was from Jehlom, a John something or another…

Gifted to say the least…desperate and depraved were what came to mind when Darrien mused on the young John. But the boy was weak…emotional and unfocused. He also had a knack for talking back. It’s a wonder Darrien never killed him. In retrospect he wished he had, and he would have had he known the boy would grow up to become the Lich Norture who until his departure Darrien tormented as best he could.

Hearing a local clock-tower chime Darrien shook off the nostalgic moment and walked with haste to a class-room, entering the arched doors he walked passed walls and walls of books and stopped at the large oak professor’s desk near the front, looking at the back wall for a moment he dropped his books and ran his hands through his meticulously neat pre-mature grey hair. Then turning with a huge and charming smile he spoke in the warm and youthful tone of an educated aristocrat of no older then Twenty-Four

“My apologies students, I was detained by the head-master, he did not seem to be so fond of my little spontaneous class trip via gate-travel”


A number of students break into a little polite chuckle as one young female student near the front, the daughter of an affluent politician from the mainland of course, blushed as she addressed the young attractive professor on behalf of the class.

“Don’t worry Professor Paris, when your Headmaster you can teach us what-ever you want…”

Darrien smiled briefly pushing his tongue against the back of his teeth.

“Indeed”

[Sethos]

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Darrien sat there in a large and comfortable looking arm chair within his study clutching tightly and greedily a goblet of fine Yewish wine. His current accommodations while small were quite luxurious on the outskirts of Moonglow City. He sipped the wine slowly, being sure to swish it around his mouth with each fresh intake he savored it, he had forgotten how wonderful it was to indulge his senses and his greedy whims.
He rose slowly from the seat, allowing his soft crimson night robe slide gently down his back as he arched his shoulders back and let out a pleased sigh. The sun was setting, and tonight was among all nights paramount in the Necromancer’s mind. He processed almost stoically to a large dark-wood dressing cabinet swinging the doors open he surveyed it, something he had not worn in ages. He grabbed it laughing lightly to himself and began to dress…it fit like a glove, he could not help but give himself a mischievous glance of admiration in a large vanity mirror.
There he stood, glad from head to toe in glistening black form-fitting leather armor, a thorny vine pattern worked elegantly into it wrapping gently around all the groves and contours of his slender body. He moved his gloved fingers gently over the large skull imprinted across his chest before throwing a rich a flowing black satin cloak over his back, a gorgeous floral pattern gracing its inner lining, a large rose in full bloom on the center of its exposed back. Then the hat…a simple elegant black wizard’s cap cocked stylishly to the side.
He flipped through an old and tattered Rune Book, clearly that had not been used in ages and turning away from the mirror with a smile he bowed with a flurry to a portrait of himself on the right wall before bellowing out the needed incantation “Kal Ort Por!” He was struck instantly by the stale smell of rotting corpses as he glanced about his surroundings the moon shed an eerily calm light about the place, allowing the ancient grave-markers to cast the most peculiar shadows.

He was home…Charnel Hill.

Slowly and silently he made his way up the wide and crumbling steps to the ledge just below the now empty sanctuary of the Ebon Skull, long hours he had spent there in commune with the Dark Throne, in prayer. He remembered almost sadly for a fleeting moment how his Master the elf Admoreth Nazduin stood there with him and first told him the history of Caina. He traced his hands slowly against a harsh stone hewn wall brushing aside vines and an assortment of insects he found it, a seam. A few incantations and a forceful push the wall swung open to reveal a small lab filled with odd relics and piles and piles of dusty tomes, a single throne sat in its center. Admoreth’s private study…comically enough only a handful of the Order’s members even knew this existed most assumed aside from the lower catacombs and the Throne Room the hill was hollow…fools.
Darrien hastily sorted through the odd objects for nearly an hour, each pile over and over again before falling to his knees and weeping bitterly into his hands. They were gone, his one bid freedom, the only way he perceived to reconnect to the Dark Throne. The Book of shadows and the Mirror of Morgaz, forever he feared he was doomed to the wretched frail body of a human-male, forever he was disconnected from the Stygian Empire. He was cursed, forsaken…standing slowly he drew large heavy sobbing breaths allowing a chain of stray curses and “why!?!?” to escape his mouth. But then he felt it…
It began slowly, a small yet familiar pull within his mind…then it grew it called to him, the ancient relics he as High Priest had cared for and venerated, the relics he aided his masters with during the coming of the second age of Skull…someone had opened it, the book of Shadows some fool had opened it and it called to him…yes he saw them, he saw their unworthy hands clutching it pouring over it’s stygian texts, they seemed young, they were mere children, yes he would follow he would give chase the relics were still to be his. He jumped to his feet and threw his head back in a fit of maniacal laughter but as his distant visions began to clear he noticed something about the young one holding the book, the child’s face, the eyes, even the voice.

“Impossible!” he barked out with a loud laugh of surprise

Wrapping his cloak tightly around his form he passed his tongue around his upper lip with a devilish grin. Pursing his lips together he prepared to utter the recall spell, surveying the room once more he could not help but muse on what could be, what would be. He would be a Lich Lord, he would single handedly without the accursed Order of the Ebon Skull wreak a horrid vengeance on the Lightbringers and the Heretics for what they had done to him…