Ebon Skull Archives: Death of a Traitor
From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki
This is reposted from OES documentation for the pleasure of the Atlantic Community. Story by Nagash of OES.
It was a cold day, even for Ice Isle, but Lord Nagash was warmed by the power he held inside of him and the thought of the final victory he would have this day. It had been the most horrible year he could possibly imagine, he no longer could count the times he had held back tears or stifled his gag reflex in the face of the infinite evil surrounding him. He had forced to become friends with those he despised, the Necromancers, Azalin, and the wraith, Mortis. The wraith was what had started this whole damnable crusade. Had Mortis not shown him the Ebon Skull, and implanted the seeds of Necromancy in his mind, and forced him to wander nearly aimlessly towards the siren's call of the dark power, he would have never.... Nagash paused. That had been close. He had almost let his anger come to the fore of his mind. That would have widened the ever-present connection between him and the wraith. As it was he was having enough trouble keeping the wraith out of his most personal and potentially lethal thoughts.
If the wraith ever found out about how he was found by the Light, he would last approximately 3 seconds before being cast into the same Oblivion he pretended to serve. He did not even know which guild he was serving, he only knew them as the Light. Their mages and psionicists had found him when he has so near to the power he had been blindly following. He supposed it was Vesper, but perhaps Minoc where they sensed him. They suppressed his urge for the Skull, and found out that this was the man responsible for the death of the guard in Britain. But they did not turn him in. Having all of their mindbenders come together, they were almost equal to the mind-power of one wraith. They implanted new instructions, ones that override his evil urges, and yet were hidden by them. They would use him as a plant, and when he had gained trust, they would be able to take the Ebon Skull, and destroy it. They would come when the time was right.
That time was now. Nagash had hidden away inside Golgotha, and no one else was there. Also, Mortis had recently risen in power when he became a Wraithlord, and Nagash did not know how long the alternate orders could be hidden. But a small band of warriors from the Light were coming, he had seen them from the rooftop. He would let them in, and then he would join them, his penance for the guard's death over. He started down the long stairs. When he was on the second floor he heard a knock at the door. 'I'm coming', he thought.
He scrambled down the last flight of stairs and threw open the doors. The group of five master warriors lay dead on the doorsteps. He leaned down in shock. No, not dead, he could see them breathing. They were.....asleep?
"And you thought you would never be found out in all this time, Nagash? How could you be so naive." Muttered the slowly materializing form of the Wraithlord. Nagash drew back, and then sank to the floor. He began to weep.
Mortis soon floated several feet above the sleeping mass of warriors. He started to glide towards Nagash. "That was a very foolish thing to do, Nagash. But I am glad that you have solved my lack of entertainment for the night. Those fools will be quite humorous when they awake in their underwear, without any equipment, and with their boat now resting several yards below the freezing water off the coast. But first I must deal with you."
Suddenly the wraith shot his hand out at Nagash, and it sank into Nagash forehead up to his wrist. Then he began to strip away every shred of soul left in the once-necromancer. Nagash's mouth opened in a howling scream, but then his jaws clamped down so hard that he bit off his own tongue. Blood filled his mouth, and he started choking on it. Then his own hands reached up, one grasped the front of his head and one grasped the rear. They twisted suddenly and with inhuman power, and Mortis heard the satisfying sound of a neck breaking.
The wraith removed his hand from the cooling body, and turned towards the still-napping warriors. With extreme care he began to remove all of their armor. This would most definitely prove to be an interesting night.