by Marty Myers
The Darkness could feel a devotee seeking its presence, it turned a portion of its attention towards the call and found Provoas, one of his less powerful disciples awaiting him. “ Why do you Call upon me Provoas?” “ Master, I have some news,” the lich said. “ I have had my familiar imp out looking for me a builder of dungeons to build another lesser dungeon to begin rebuilding your forces of darkness here in the kingdom.”
“ However, when he returned the one he brought me has the makings of a necromancer or Dark One but his story is most odd. I thought to beg your counsel before proceeding.” “ What is so odd, even you Provoas should be able to nurture the growing darkness in a young one.” “ Master,” Provoas said “ he is full grown, with a lot of potential but absolutely no learning at all, also he is not of this realm. I commanded the Imp to search far from here so as not to arouse suspicions of my whereabouts during his search for the builder and when he left to search he somehow inadvertently teleported clear out of this realm.”
The Darkness rippled in agitation at hearing this and immediately commanded Provoas, “ Bring this man before me that I might see him for myself.” Provoas sent a command to the skeletons at the door outside Hanks room to carry him to the altar room swiftly. Once there he had them lay the man upon the altar and retreated from the room. The Darkness came forth appearing to rise from the surface of the altar in its favored form, a midnight black boiling cloud and roiled about the man’s body studying and probing him carefully. “ Yes!” He was truly not of this world! The Darkness found his servant spoke true and that he did have a potential for dark magics, most notably necromancy. Best of all he had never received the blessings or attention of the Lords of Light from this world. Never had their cleric’s prayers directed at him, nor had his ancestors been meddled with and put under the Bans. Literally, he had none of the protections or the Bans restrictions that had been placed upon mortals for millennia in this realm. The possibilities this man represented were staggering! The Darkness boiled, and for a moment the air literally spit and crackled before settling back down.
The Darkness began an even more exhaustive examination of the man. It looked into his heart, mind, and dreams. It forced a tiny bit of itself into his mind and soul and began to learn all that was there. Hanks body writhed and he began to scream at the hideous intrusion before the Dark paralyzed him so it could study him in peace. It kept most of him unconscious and protected from the worst of itself so as to not break him so he might be of further use. Studying him like an entomologist would a new and interesting bug.
“ Provoas you have done well indeed. I want this one’s body for my own purposes, but I will reward you for its gifting to me with both knowledge and power.” Provoas was alarmed, but also excited. He had not thought that bringing Hank to the Dark’s attention would bring more than a minor boon onto him. Now he didn’t know what to think. The Dark then commanded Provoas to have the imp fetched so that he and the contract and man could all be studied further.
Once that was done to his satisfaction. The Dark was silent for a while before it explained. “ This body is without the limitations and protections set upon mortal kind in this realm oh these many ages. It is nearly the perfect clay to shape and form a vessel to hold my greatest servant, the Dark Prince, who was vanquished so long ago. Once he is restored back into the world, we can raise all of my hordes and dark hosts once again, rebuild my dark citadel to its full strength and set about conquering this world once more. It will take time to shape and rebuild this body into the proper vessel though so in the mean time I will help grant your wish for a secure dungeon stronghold. While I am working this body can not be moved from the altar so you and your minions will also need to keep this alter room perfectly safe within the dungeon.”
“ This Hank your imp recruited is not exactly what your demon thought he was. it is amusing how misconceptions arise,” the Darkness chuckled to itself. “ Even were I to let you have him back as he is, he would not be able to build your dungeon in the way you think. But I have a solution. Come Here Provoas and lay your hand upon the altar and I will impart to you the wisdom of a powerful necromantic ritual used millennia ago by ancient sorcerer kings to create and safeguard their tombs. Long ago I recovered this knowledge from a far distant place and refined it to my own purposes,” the Darkness boasted. When this complex ritual had settled into his mind Provoas was ordered to begin the preparation for the ritual.
Meanwhile, Alastor fearfully sat in his cage and wondered at Hanks fate and thought of his own misfortune. He had rarely been in the presence of the Dark Lord much and while he was a demon even he was fearful of it. As far as he knew it was an amorphous disembodied personification of darkness and evil that many thought was a god. Others claimed that it was a cast out remnant or fragment of a godlike being’s mind who had long ago been driven insane and tried to destroy that within itself which it detested.
Finally after hours of preparation Provoas finished and checked over everything. He had had to gather his grimoires to consult as well as various implements and ingredients that were required for all that the Dark had given him to accomplish. But the groundwork and preparation were just about done. Suddenly out in the hallway, he sensed a demon’s presence other than his own bound imp. The Dark commanded him, “ go get the couriers package and send it back from whence it came.” Provoas did so with little grace but he dared not anger the Dark Lord.
He brought the cloth wrapped bundle over to his temporary workspace and opened it. Within he found a severed dwarven head, so fresh it still bled a bit. “ This dwarfs brain,” the Dark said, “ is to be treated with the ritual to consume the knowledge of the dead and fed to the man, Hank’s body while he lays here under my ministrations. You will need to oversee this phase of the plan closely so that he doesn’t choke while eating every bit of it and so he absorbs all the knowledge of this master stone mason from the Iron Beaks clan. It will supplement this one’s own dearth of such know how.”
“ Meanwhile, I have been contemplating an alteration of the ritual I have bestowed upon you. One which could make great use of this man’s actual ideas about dungeons in a new improved fashion.” The Dark Laughed to itself as it thought about its plans and even Provoas and the imp shuddered to hear it. The Dark then spoke of its maniacal idea, inspired by Hank and his memories of fantasy gaming to not only cast the ritual which split Hanks spirit off from his body and made it a kind of undead spirit builder, guardian, and caretaker of the dungeon. But to also utilize Alastor in the ritual binding him to the dungeon and Hank and trying to tie his teleportation powers into a summoning circle meant to provide monsters and minions to replenish any loses the dungeons defenses might suffer at the hands of adventurers and heroes of the Light.
The Dark also had Provoes place the oldest and least of his Grimoires under Hanks Head upon the alter so that he might easier shift some of the teachings and spells of the Necromantic College into Hank’s spirit/mind. Provoas stood back looking at the whole affair as his skeletons took the other grimoires and ritual tools back outside of the room. Well, he had just last night wished he would be remembered as having added to the Necromantic College’s works and if he managed to cast this altered ritual properly as the Dark foresaw it, he surely would be remembered for it. Only a select few dark ones had ever joined the Lord of Darkness in creating a sentient dungeon. Not since the second ban had it even been possible to try such a thing. But this man suffered not the bans of this world and so they were free to turn him into a dungeon spirit.
Provoas thoughts were interrupted as the Dark’s voice rang out. ” I have given you profound knowledge and now as we prepare to cast this great and awful ritual I grant you a taste of true power.” Suddenly Provoas felt a great influx of dark energies such as he had never experienced before, and not just an increase in his mystical power but also a strengthening of his undead body and maybe even his mind and spirit.
Provoas gloried in the moment and then began to chant, he repeatedly had
to tighten the chains of the familiar bond as Alastor desperately tried to escape his cage and the ritual in vain. Ever greater energies began to build up in the already power filled altar room and the circles and runes scribed all about the room filled with ever more power and purpose. Nothing with mortal lungs or voice could have uttered or sustained the Dark chants of the ritual as he did. At the crucial point, a second deeper darker, even more fell voice joined in, that of the Dark insinuating itself into the casting with Provoas.
As the ritual continued all the bonds of master and servant lit up on down through the mystical chains from Provoas to the demon imp and on through the contract and into the man’s soul and back again filling with more and more energy as the spell wove around and about all through both Hank and Alastor bringing with it irreversible changes upon both their flesh and their spirits. Impossible hours went by as the insanely complex ritual continued to build up to its climax and eventually, Provoas began wondering if even his Dark granted strength would hold out. But all at once at last, the ritual rushed to its completion, ending with the sound of an impossibly deep bell tolling both near and far. It was heard not just here but also in every church and temple of every village and city. The holy bells did echo and ring a sour note as if wrung in sympathy and warning of dire tidings for they sang out the news that the Bans were being broken at long last. There would be another Great War between the Light and Dark visited upon the world.
Chapter 7
Hank felt like hell, he must have been slipped some bad drugs somehow because he was on the worst bad trip ever! Everything was mixed up in his head. First the sudden earthquake, then seeing those bright strobing lights and weird sounds and feeling the nausea, then seeing the talking skeleton, then the light show and excruciating pain coursing through his body. Yeah, definitely a really bad trip. Then darkness and fear filled him and the nightmares and indescribable pain came and made the previous experience seem like a pleasant dream. He had screamed until suddenly he couldn’t scream anymore. He was pinned down in this nightmare where the skeleton fed him brains from a severed head and chanted incomprehensible gibberish at him and made him swallow every bit. Eating it somehow made his head hurt even more and unfamiliar images began popping up making his head feel like it could burst at any moment. Then things got much much worse as he felt something truly evil somehow slip right into his body and mind like a dirty oily hand trying on a new glove. He felt the Darkness take him under like a shark taking a swimmer and then after an eternity of pain and anguish he knew no more.
Hank awoke with a start and flailed all around him, he was disoriented as his vision swam like he was spinning around and he finally saw he was somehow floating up near the ceiling of the altar room. He could see through his arms and hands as he waved them around in front of himself to try to stop his wild gyrations. When he tried to touch his face he could just barely feel it and could see even more clearly through his hand to the black altar below where his apparently solid body lay.
A softly glowing silver cord extended itself down from him up here to his body down there, but there were odd colored pulsing lights and weird sigils running up and down the cord and there was a big complex Gordian knot tied in the cord a foot or so above his body that sent a shiver of dread into Hank. A second thinner red and black cord tied into and split off at the knot to trail over to a large bird cage sitting next to the altar where some strange winged creature sat huddled inside.
The thing was red and black and scaled all over with bat wings and a long thin tail. Now that he was focused on it he thought it looked somewhat like the old fantasy idea of a small demon, maybe an imp. The things yellow slit goat eyes looked up at him this time and a familiar voice spoke up. ” Awake, at last, are you,” Alastor said. I have been instructed to try to answer some of your questions and to see about getting you started on building the dungeon today if that is possible.” “ What, what happened,” Hank cried out! “where am I, I mean are we? I am still very high Alastor. I must have gotten dosed with some very bad drugs because you look like some type of demon stuck in a birdcage to me right now and I feel like I am having the worst out of body experience ever.”
Even Hanks voice didn’t sound right as he made this declaration. His voice was just barely above a whisper and it sounded like he was speaking from out of the bottom of a bathtub. “ Or maybe we did have an earthquake at the con and I got hit in the head really bad Hank continued to guess. Either way, I hope we’re in a hospital right now because nothing makes any sense.”
The demonic creature shrugged his shoulders and looked dejectedly away from him. “ We are where we are, and we are what you see we are Hank. I don’t know how much of that awful ritual you were actually awake for and aware of last night, but trust me the less you remember the more likely your mind is to hold together. Master Provoas and the Lord Darkness he serves are recovering their powers right now so this may be one of the few chances we can speak freely to each other and frankly, I got to tell you we are screwed. I doubt anyone could untangle the mess they have made of us.”
“ I feel terrible, Alastor said, “ they warped my body and my magic’s somehow. I have been ripped to pieces from the inside out and slammed back together. And I got a lot less of the treatment than you did. Your soul bound to the dungeon now, your demon contract bound to build it and the ritual locked you out of your body over there while the Dark shapes it to be some kind of sacrificial vessel for the second coming for the Dark Prince to take over.”
“ You and I are tasked with building and defending a dungeon to house and protect this abomination and before where we just had this kingdom’s heroes looking for us, now with the Darkness trying to pull this world wrecking resurrection magic off, every hero and force of the Light there is in the entire world is going to eventually hear about it and come looking for us! ” Alsator paused his tirade at yelling this out.
Hank floated above him for a second as Alastors speech sank in and then shouted, or at least he tried to. “ Alastor you’re responsible for this, you screwed me! If not for you tricking me, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I would not be here where ever I am, bound to any of this and yes I remember enough of the feelings of the Darkness and your master ripping and tearing through me before it all turned into unbearable pain and I was shunted aside into oblivion.”
Hank could feel Alastors embarrassment and shame and his wretched self-loathing at having been involved in another’s binding. As each feeling came to him he saw a light pulse up the slim red and black cord between him and the demon. He took a few minutes to get ahold of himself and calm down a bit.
“ What is this,” Hank asked? “ They tried to alter the secondary familiar bond between you and me to support some weird idea the Dark dug out of your mind to aid in building up your dungeon guardian powers,” Alastor explained. “ The bond exists but I don’t know if it’s going to work like a normal familiar bond or completely different, that knot of magic it passes thru is some really complex magic. To me, its got a fuzzy feeling about it. I think it’s not fully settled in yet. I can’t tell you much without some time and trials to test it out.”
“ So you don’t have anything more to say about all of this crap happening to me then,” Hank growled. Alaster hung his head and said, “ yes I did it. I am sorry Hank. I was commanded to find you or someone like you to build a dungeon just as I said. I am a familiar which is a fancy word for a magic slave. I have been enslaved through familiar bonds for most of my life and been ordered to do many bad things. But this mission, It was supposed to be fairly straightforward with a job to be offered for building a dungeon for a lich to hide from the forces of Light in and then get paid like the contract said. I had no idea any of this would happen like it has. The Darkness got involved and made everything so much worse, which is what it does I am afraid.”
“ Now you and I can either try to make the best of it or those two will punish us, which amounts either to endless torture or if it’s possible they may turn us into
something even worse than whatever we are now. If I had been free to choose, when I reached your world I would have never come back here. But these bonds are mystical chains which no one can deny for long and they carry right into the heart of any being who wears them. Such as you and I do. They cut right through our defenses for those who hold them, they can always command or harm us until we obey and even after we have given in to their demands. No distance is too great, although it does weaken their control somewhat, even apparently traveling to an entirely different word is not far away enough to escape these tethers.” Having said this Alastor shut up and slumped even lower onto his perch.
Hank meanwhile floated over near his body but every time he tried to touch it or get any closer the Gordian’s knot was there blocking him from it. After a few more tries he attempted to touch the knot itself which let out an angry buzzing sound and with a flash of light he was thrown clear across the room. After he recovered from the shock and pain he had felt he floated away towards the door. Alastor looked over. “ I wouldn’t keep messing with that if I were you,” he said.