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[Felrath]

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Quietly he stood once more on the edge of the parapet. Looking out to the west over the stone wall to view the frozen wasteland surrounding the keep. "How many times have I stood here in this spot?" The figure thought to himself. "How many times will I stand here again.....on the brink of greatness, forcing the world once more into the flames of Oblivion?"

With a slight movment Felrath bent down to lean his bony clawed hands upon the stone, the ice and snow crunching under his claws. The old lich fixed his gaze across the other buildings near his own. The wind blowing frozen doom to the living about him. It was a cloudless night, and the full moon bore down upon the valley, casting deep shadows from the surrounding stone. His cloak whipped about him madly in the moonlight, a howl sprang from somewhere far away, though whether it was the wind....or some animal could not be certain.

The crimson orbs that at one time were his eyes, moved about the valley slowly. He spotted a rabit in the snow, looking for some last bit of vegatation to eat. A mirthless chuckle escaped the cavity that once was his chest, as the snow came to life about the rabbit, and ate it quickly, spilling blood and gore about the field. The snow elementals had been restless lately. Always in search of prey. He moved his gaze further across, looking to the stone edifice to his south.

"This building was once going to be the home of the Vampire clans.." He mused to himself, "Not anymore....." Again for the thousandth time he moved his gaze once more to the moon above, casting it's pale cold light upon the world. "It has been so long my lord!" he cried out to the moon, lifting his fist toward it as if it would answer, Have we lost all of the time we sought to gain? Will we ever be able to return our ways to the world?

He looked down to his hand that he had now lowered to his side, moving the fingers slowly, listening to the cracking of his bones in the chill air. It was then, the Darkness answered him.......Felrath dropped to one knee upon the snow covered stone of his fortress. Resting his arm upon his raised knee he quietly listened, then slowly, almost imperceptably, he began to laugh.

The nightmarish ethereal sound echoing off the mountains and stone around him. He rose back to his feet, his eyes seeming to have a new fire behind them, as they blazed in the night. With a swift turn he marched toward the bloody altar upon the top floor. His cloak whipped about in the howling winds behind him wildly, seeming as though it wished to flee for it's own life. He stood before the frozen altar and chuckled at the myriad of skulls upon it.

Almost lovingly he gently picked up one of the skulls, and slowly caressed the rim of it's hollow eye sockets. He stood there a moment, looking down at the mockery of himself held in his own hand. With a chuckle that was fast becoming a twisted laugh of near insanity, he crushed the skull in his palm as though it were paper. Casting the dust back toward the altar only to have it torn free into the air by the winds.

"Yes" he thought to himself once more, "The time has indeed come....they are ready, and those who are not......shall be broken!" With a cackle of utter damnation, he strode once more toward the door leading to the lower floors of the Fortress, slamming the door closed behind him as he entered, the echos of his laugh rebounding off the cold night once more. His only audience, the frozen skulls that adorned the altar, seemed to share in his mirth.......
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Felrath, the Black hand of Oblivion