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[Skylocke]

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Chains, rust-coated but strong, dug deep into my dark-blue skin. The chains ensured that I would not move during the ritual, but that was already unlikely. The more I learned of the Necromancers and their ways, the more I realized how wrong I was to resist them. They were not my enemy, and they offered me a mighty gift which would allow for me to watch as humanity withered and decayed. The followers of Entropy were right, everything dies and rots away; life is fleeting, and the sooner humanity realized that simple fact, they will realize how pointless their existence is.

Behind me was a dark, withered tree. It was unremarkable in the sense that the lands surrounding the tower will filled with corrupted, decayed trees just like it. However, one thing did stand out from it: a rotting, convulsing, worm-filled heart, still beating, stood buried in the bark.

Izrem ordered the wraith, Bryelle, to draw blood. Quick silver flashes arced through my vision before crimson replaced them. My blood flowed freely from the wounds inflicted. I staggered slightly, but held my ground. My blood dripped from my chest, arms, and legs, mixing with the rotting roots of the corrupted tree. The blood was drunk like water. Izrem chanted, but I could barely make out what he was saying. A bolt of raw energy rushed through my body at the commands of the Magus, forcing a scream which I scarcely recognized as my own. Bryelle's dagger stabbed into my flesh once more, deep, piercing muscle and organs. The dull coppery taste of blood filled my mouth before blackness enveloped my vision.

The visage of some far-away abhoration came into focus amid infinite blackness which threatened my very sanity. It was large, larger than a city, with hundreds of raw, sinewy muscles overlapping one another in a shape which could almost be identified as humanoid. Blackness rushed through its canal-like arteries, and a multitude of milky eyes adorned a mouth filled with door-sized razor-edged teeth. Warts and boils covered its entirety, and its very aura suggested it was a being of ancient antiquity, older than the shards themselves.

The sight horrified me in a way that nothing material ever could, for no matter how hard I tried to look away or shield my eyes, it remained, seering itself into my memory. Paralyzed by fear, I could do nothing but watch it sink away into the murky abyss I found myself in. I was vaguely aware of a voice, echoing, but far off as if having to travel over thousands of miles of space, which seemed to be meaningless in the infinite blackness. It was Izrem's chanting.

I felt myself sinking lower into the abyss, or it felt that way at least. Deeper and deeper until walls of rough stone came into focus all around me. Light was afraid to pierce the inky veil, and thus little could be seen, but the presence of the walls all around me could be felt deep in my being. I felt, instead of saw, a presence of unspeakable power, far more ancient and consuming than the beast which I saw just a moment earlier in the distance. A fear which I believe to be the truest fear possible, the root of insanity, the infinite, the darkness of all, gripped me like an icy hand. Numbness froze me solid.

At once a terrible howl shook the dark cavern. It was not a sound that any beast of any known world could create. It was the howling of some primordial, terrible, faceless diety which filled me with dread.

I then heard the echoing, far-off voice of Izrem, asking if I could hear Oblivion calling. I muttered yes.

Then everything went red. Just as quick as I had sunk into the abyss, I felt one with my body once again. The chilling howl of Oblivion was replaced by the acute screeching of Bryelle, who shook the entire tower with her wail. The chains which had rent the flesh of my arms were gone, and I feebly wiped blood from my eyes. I was ordered to eat of the rotted, worm-filled heart, and I did, and at once a renewed vigor returned to me.

I managed to stand myself upright, for during my descent my body must have collapsed. The wounds inflicted upon it must have been enough to send me to the realm beyond, but not enough to keep me there. Izrem spoke of my essence now being one with the Entropy that surrounds Charnel Hill and Umbra. The land that is dead and decaying is part of me, and I was part of it. He did not need to tell me that, though. I could feel it. I could feel the wriggling of the worms eating the roots of the dead trees. I could feel the corruption of the worm-filled hearts of beasts which stalked the land.

I had once feared humanity, for they had wished upon me much harm. I now know what true fear is, and I shall send those who harmed me to Oblivion to know what true fear is for themselves.

I, Jaggerauth, was summoned to Oblivion and deemed worthy to carry out its will.
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Sometimes you must lose yourself before you can find yourself.

[Grignag]

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The red haze built around him as Izrem chanted his stygian words of power, the quietest echo bouncing around the crenelations of the Scholomance. He could not deny the slight rush that passed through him as the ritual continued. It had been so long since the Entropy Field Generator had received such a boon of blood. The last had been... Arakad Thorne? It had been quite sometime indeed. Every drop of blood adding something more. Something darker to the lands of Umbra.

Inhaling deeply, that age old scent wafted to his nostrils. Blood. Izrem had been raised as a drow. Taught as a drow. And every drow knew the power of blood. The essence that sustained the life of so many things. It was a source of power that so few knew how to tap. So few dared to. Some might confuse Izrem's preoccupation with it to be some sort of addiction or a form of pleasure. But such could not be farther from the truth. Blood was necessity. And from that necessity, Izrem could draw two things. Power and purpose. The power was a gift to the Order and Oblivion. The purpose?

When Izrem, the Herald Dealthagar and the cadre of deathknights that escorted them had found Jaggerauth, he had been a pitiful creature. Consumed with petty fears and hatreds. So lost in himself that he no longer knew what to do with himself. The Order had claimed him. Made him their own. They wanted his blood and the power that lay within it. And in return? Purpose.

As the gargoyle writhed in pain, blood spilling from open wounds and splattering against the roots of the Sapling of Corruption, the red haze mixed with the dark pall and mist that had been building since the Order of the Ebon Skull had been reformed. As he exhaled power into the darkness of Oblivion, Oblivion filled his lungs and soul with meaning. How that meaning would manifest in the gargoyle, only the prophets could say. But it was there.

Tilting his head skywards, watching the swirling and mixing miasma that gathered overhead, Izrem's mind reached out towards the ethereal and entropic winds that surrounded the land, listening. An endless stream of sibilant whispers echoed forth from that dark place as Izrem concentrated.

And slowly, but surely, he heard Jaggerauth's whisper join them.
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Femmies?! HOWAH!

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