A Shadow in the Mist

“The greatest lie of Corruption is that you are different, special. It tells you that despite all others having failed to resist it you will be able to and use its power for good. This is a lie and from it come all manners of evil.”

- High Templar Micheal Re’gaur, 220 AB

Sunday, July 28th, 564 AB

Kole Ramore blocked the massive sword of the Fire Jotunn and teleported behind it with Lightning Step. He drove his glaive through its back ripping out the blade along with a chunk of flesh. The massive behemoth crumpled to ash, the ether holding it together expended and the bit of twisted corrupted ether threads that formed its core were absorbed by his Relic. Kole winced, feeling the heat growing hotter in his core from the constant bits of corruption he gathered from each kill.

Rain poured down on him atop the castle, making the stone slick with water as the last survivor of the town of Ironwood fought to the last. He spun and blasted out a lightning bolt from the tip of his weapon that blasted into the Earth Soldiers moved up the spiral staircase slowing them down and forcing them to move single file. The lightning bounced from one to the other, traveling down the column of djinn and reducing each to dust as it went.

The ether storm had hit just as a natural storm had passed over them and now all manner of djinn were spawning. The flames of the town below the castle were spawning fire djinn, and Earth djinn crawled out of the dirt of the streets, the wards preventing that having long sense failed.

“Come at me foul creatures!” Kole shouted. “I have slain hundreds of your kind this night alone!”

A roar answered him, and Kole looked up and paled. Out of the sky a creature of lightning and blue crystal skills descended. It was the highest tier of djinn, a Dragon. The Storm Dragon roared and blasted the roof of the castle with its breath attack skill. Kole met the attack unflinching; he was a Storm Warden, the passive skill from the Storm Element giving him immunity to Storm damage.

Moon djinn scrambled up the outside of the castle walls and Kole slashed out, unleashing Arcing Cut, a blade of Storm Ether shredding them. He blocked the strike of a Water Demon and drove his glaive into its chest releasing his Discharge skill and obliterating it from within with Storm ether. The Storm dragon landed on the roof and he barely managed to dodge to the side as its jaws snapped down on him.

Kole slashed at its neck, but its scales turned his weapon, sending only sparks into the air. A thunderous roar split the air and Kole felt his eardrums pop and blood trickle out of them from the force of it. He staggered backwards, dazed for a moment and was hit by the dragon’s tail. His body collided with the side of the tower atop the castle, and he felt his bones crack along with the masonry behind him. His relic armor spiderwebbed as it absorbed most of the damage for him. It would take almost two minutes for his armor to regenerate, time he didn’t have.

“I’ll see you soon Katherine,” Kole whispered, ready to be reunited with his wife who had died three days ago when the djinns siege finally broke through the walls of their town.

Because his wife died, he’d had to sleep with his best friend’s wife to purge the corruption from his veins. He had died at the start of the siege and she and Kole had been the last Weaver and Warden left in Ironwood. She had died yesterday and Kole had been in constant battle for almost an entire day now. He felt his core burning with all the corruption he had gathered.

The Dragon chuckled as it stalked forwards, playing with him now, the alien malevolent intelligence apparent in it’ eyes brimming with all manners of cruelty. Kole gripped his glaive and pushed himself to his feet. Djinn swarmed him from all sides; he slashed out, moving in blur as he tore through them. His second wind ended, and he stumbled. The Dragon’s jaws came down as djinn rushed him, fighting for the kill and the experience his death would grant them.

His glaive shot out through the chest of a Moon Demon just before the dragon’s jaws closed and Kole closed his eyes. Nothing happened and he opened his eyes. The dragon had pulled back and all the other djinn were now mulling around, jumping off the roof of the castle to search the rest of the town.

“What…” Kole thought, then his eyes widened as he realized he no longer felt the burning in his chest. “No…no…no..” he stammered, pulling up his character sheet.

There it was, his entire sheet had lost its azure background with blue and white text. It was now a blood red with dark red and black text. He had been corrupted; he was a Warden no longer, his soul twisted into a Warlock. Kole stepped to the edge of the castle, ready to throw himself off and destroy what he had become. He looked out over the burning destroyed remnants of his town and anger rose up in him.

They could have dealt with the ether storm and the siege if they’d had enough Warden’s to hold the walls, but those Wardens had been killed a week before by damned Emmerian raiders. He had requested reinforcements from his king but had been denied. King Calder didn’t want to make it seem as if we were preparing for war by sending more Wardens to the border. When the djinn had attacked, there simply hadn’t been enough Wardens to hold them off and absorb the corruption from their bodies.

“It wasn’t our fault,” Kole said. “My children’s blood, my wife’s blood, everyone I’ve loved…their deaths deserve to be avenged.”

He couldn’t rest, he couldn’t stop; not now. He had to make them pay; make them pay for killing his friends and leaving them vulnerable. Make them pay for abandoning them to their fate. He was the only one left to seek justice against two kings. In a daze, he stumbled through the castle. The djinn were fighting each other now that there were no more humans to fight. A moon djinn stabbed out at him, but an Earth Jotunn crushed it under its massive club.

Kole went down to the castle vaults. Pushing open a stone door, he looked in on the crypt where they had kept those they’d lost in the last few days.

He pulled back the veil, looking at his wife’s face. Even in death she was still beautiful. He turned to the small corpses lined up beside her.

“I can’t do this alone Katherine,” Kole said as he laid a hand on her chest where a spear thrust from a Mist djinn had pierced her heart.

He had never done this before, but knew it was possible from the stories. He pushed at the corruption in his core, he was no Weaver and didn’t know how to pull out the corruption like they did and as a Warlock, he would never be able to fully cleanse himself. He pushed out and felt the corruption willingly answer him like a living being. It flowed out and passed out through his palm.

Katherin’s eyes snapped open. Her eyes, a brilliant blue even before, now glowed with inner Storm ether. She blinked, looking about, then focused her eyes on him.

“Where are we, my lord?” she asked.

Kole smiled. Her voice was slightly different, with a bit of a hum in her vocal cords, but it was the same tone she always had when speaking with him. He looked down at his children but stopped himself; he wouldn’t do that to them. They wouldn’t be draugr like Katherine, just mindless aptrganga, he couldn’t do that to them. Their mother and father would buy them their vengeance.

They would have to hide away and gather strength; raise their army if they were to face two kings. He would also need other allies. One by one, Kole raised the other fallen Wardens and Weavers, their eyes glowing with etheric light.

“We will avenge what was done to us,” Kole promised them.

Next, they began killing any djinn of an element he couldn’t control. He had a Storm relic so he could only control Storm, Earth, and Sun djinn. Luckily for him those were some of the most powerful djinn even if Storm and Sun were among the much rarer types of djinn. Kole mounted the storm dragon Katherine sliding up behind him. They turned to the south-west and moved towards the Mistwall mountains. They could hide there and grow in strength until the day when he could unleash his vengeance.