soul reaver

 

PROLOGUE

Surfacing from that water did not emit any feeling of a threshold overcome, merely yet another obstacle completed. Turning to look over my shoulder into it’s murky depths, I cringed at the reflection that faced me down there, resounding the body of water I had emerged from; as deep and hollow as any abandoned pool may be. It’s surface rippled with the fresh drops of liquid trickling down my arm, and indeed down my entire sorry body. I waited for the water to settle, then, took a gaze at what I had indeed become. Fragments of humanity were spared only in my eyes, the rest of me, I noted, was not so much human anymore. Then again, it had been a long time since I was anything resembling a mortal man. A fall of hair across my face was only just enough to bring me to my senses. From wallowing in this paradox of life and death. Another droplet rippled the water’s surface, allowing my reflection to distort for just a moment. I held onto this distortion, hoping I would not again see my true nature. Demon, beast, vampire, what was I? Once settled I took a slight glance and threw my head away in disgust. If I had a stomach, it would have wretched with sickness at this morbid portrait. My cowl fluttered around my torso and settled back into the indents, where bone and flesh were no longer present, reminding me once again of who, or what, I was. I looked ahead of me, and laid out like a map before me was Termogent Forest, though it resembled a dissolute swamp more than it’s supposed name implied. Green lights suspended from crude sticks lit the way, the skull it sat in laughed and tormented those who dared to follow this unholy path. No less unholy, was I. And so I followed the green lights, the ignis factuous, into the decaying landscape that was Nosgoth.

 

My cloven feet were just enough to keep me steady and aloft. Quicksand-like swamp water made it near impossible to navigate without seeking for a dry marsh every now and again, which hindered my progress, and my pace. Easy enough was the resistance of Moebius’ small army, littered throughout this green wasteland as scattering dog’s might be in a field. The first thing I encountered that posed any kind of puzzle to me was a shrine of sorts. It’s black winged guardians disappeared eerily in clouds of green dust, flapping towards the sky on my very presence. The raven’s aside, this shrine emitted the first pulsations of a dark force, long forgotten and long undisturbed. 

I cocked my head inelegantly to one side, quizzical at my first door. I was not starting off well. From it poured, like blood, blue light, identical almost to the winding soul of my reaver. Like a lock and it’s key? I straightened my posture and delved the reaver into this spot, slowly and then surely, as the door parted heavily and made way for me to pass through. In silent self praise I entered, as a loud crash of the closing door startled me from behind. A peculiar room this was. A dish, two doors, and a model of some eclipse in the center. Racking my mind, I found that twisting the massive dish towards the eclipse caused a literal tunneling of light, causing one side to dim and the other to enlighten. Peering from behind the reflective dish I watched as a small altar opened up, and, spewed forth a dark entity. Moving forwards, my curiosity once again betrayed me, as the reaver came to life. I felt the pull of my arm, a mass of twirling, blinding energy coiled down it and formed into a long, spirit blade. The blade hummed contently, drawing me magnetically to the altar. I was taken. Plunging and almost causing a loss in my balance, the reaver sucked in the dark entity from the altar, draining the shrine and imbuing it with dark energy. Shaken, I fell back and landed heavily on one side. The reaver stayed alive and danced along my arm happily, as I tore myself from the floor and knelt. Dark entity… I could only fathom what trouble the blade could have adopted from this manifestation. The soul reaver became my key out of this puzzle, opening the door I had come through in much the same way as I had done so beforehand. The spewing light was not blue, but a dark shadow. Outside at last. The blade receded and faded from my right arm, and I rubbed at the spot it had coiled with my other hand, cloven like my feet. The noise of the door slamming and sealing itself did not move me this time, and I strode forward not more than three paces, before, something else did. Standing esoterically before my eyes was someone I had only but heard legend about. Finally my pursuer had given up the chase, and we stood face to face. Upon realizing who this was, I casually adjusted the top of my cowl so it covered more of my face, ignorantly maybe, or perhaps cynically. Vorador was not amused.

“I’ve been watching you, winged one. From the moment you emerged out of that... stronghold…I have had my eye closely on your progress.” Vorador paced so that he stood next to me. Turning his head to study what I had left of my own.

“Vorador.” I said simply, annoyed already by his inquisitiveness.

“Ah I see, you have heard of me then? I do hope my reputation is not a bad one, in your eyes at least. Tell me, why is it you crawl around these parts? Clearly you are not lost, are you?” He paced around to behind me.

“I cannot interpret your meaning. I am here to do solely what I wish,” I looked ahead of me and spoke to an invisible face. “And that can surely be none of your concern.”

“But it is, but it is!” Vorador, I heard, strolled casually so that he was again in front of me, and I watched his yellow pupils trace down to my boots and back to my face. By the time his gaze was back on me I had a look of utter discontent waiting for him. “Your quest, it is unclear is it not? I advise you seek out your answers elsewhere, I, and this time, have nothing left to offer. There is more at stake than your petty disputes and callous journeying. The corruption of the pillars, the ones that bind this land together, have befallen a fate no one could have comprehended. And so, I find you here. Is this co-incidence, or orchestrated? Are you here to rectify this land or condemn it?” He finished sourly, inquisitive to too many things. I didn’t know the answer, so evaded.

“I am here, to condemn the one who condemned me. I apologize for not having the answers you seek, perhaps I am not the one to be asking?”

Vorador watched my eyes narrow, and I watched him. He was divine, animal-like and demonic in appearance. Centuries of self banishment developed his ancient form, a higher transgression than even Kain, I wondered? Vorador was aloft, sensing my evaluation of himself. He responded with a small grunt, and then shook his head as if to forget an unpleasant thought, looking at me and adjudged to figure out what or who I was. I wished him luck in this small quest.

“No, perhaps you are not the one I should be asking.” He said after a short period of silence. “I warn you now, little demon, tread carefully. Nosgoth is not the same as the one you think you knew. Indeed, that we all knew.” With that he vanished, like the ravens outside the shrine, into a cloud of green dust.  

            I wondered what he could have meant by that. Nosgoth was certainly not how I knew it, as this was it’s past. Strange, it seemed, others were aware of the current wrongness plaguing this land. It was no time to query the affairs of Nosgoth, or of the legendary vampire Vorador for that matter. It was best I kept moving on, but now where would I go? With the new reaver I could amply find my way back to the stronghold, and perhaps gain entry where I had once not been able to. First however, traversing the swamp would have to be my first priority.