It had been several days now since the human went off into the temple, the same temple that claimed the lives of her two friends. Cullen did not expect that the foolish thief would return, after all what could he accomplish that the 4 of them combined did not? She would survive. After all she was once a centaur. Circumstances beyond her control gave her the body of an elven woman but she would forever be a centaur in spirit. Her late companions lay by the lake. She placed flower petals around them in remembrance of their adventures together. However she could no longer sit with them as the death stench hung heavily around their decaying corpses. She had made her shelter within the wooded areas near the temple and claimed hunting grounds in this area. There were challengers but they met with swift defeat. This was the fate that often befell those who mistook her elven form as weak. These woods were now her home, however she did not realize at the time exactly how brief that residence would be.
Today marked the fourth day since the passing of Jax Bladesinger and the trickster cat-man known only as Komuso. It seemed things would start the same as any other day. Cullen drew her bow and started to hunt for the day’s food. However as she started out she spotted something, one of the benefits of this elven body was the keen adjustment to her vision. Before she strayed too far she noted movement by the lake preceded by a flash of light. Creeping forward she kept to the trees with their plentiful hiding places. What she saw defied anything that she had previously seen; the bodies of Jax and Komuso were moving albeit slowly and clumsily. Accompanying the now mobile bodies of her slain friends were two creatures. One of them was a small creature that would look like a halfling were it not for the fact that he seemed to be stitched together. It seemed as if this being were comprised from the parts of several other beings. The other seemed to be a human in all ways except that he seemed to have no visible hair, and was completely devoid of wrinkles. The second being’s eyes seemed hollow. Looking at this being made Cullen uncomfortable, it seemed that there was nothing natural about the creature and she desperately wanted to look away from him.
She strained her ears to listen, what she heard did more to confuse her than anything else. The small man looked up at the second and spoke: “Master I feel her gaze, the lady of pain she is on to us. We must leave this place immediately, outsiders are not foreign to Faerun and she will know us if we are seen.”
The second spoke in a voice that was almost too crisp, almost too clean, like that of a child. “Then we shall leave, we have harvested more for our purpose and have no further use for this world.” With that he began waving his hands and speaking draconic words that could only be the phrases of wizards and magic. Soon a portal appeared preceded by a flash of green light. Jax and Komuso stumbled through the portal their eyes had been eaten by birds of prey and their skin seemed to scarcely hold their rotting forms together as they moved. They were followed by the two figures, the portal stood open with the area vacant. There was no reason for her to do so, she did not know them well, but she found herself pumping her legs in an all out sprint. She would try to save them; she would not see the bodies of her companions used towards unnatural ends. But she was not to succeed today. Her sprint was ended prematurely by an unexpected road block.
The day seemed to shift into night as the light of the sun was now blocked by the colossal form of a long, sinuous dragon covered in silver-white scales that seemed to gleam in what little light was left. The face of the dragon lowered and looked right into her eyes. The head of this dragon nearly as tall as she was she her line of sight had to stare up the immense snout of this beast just to meet the dragon’s gaze. Its eyes were of the deepest azure blue she had ever seen and resembled those of a cat. She froze before this creature, she could not move, her body was frozen as she looked upon this magnificent beast with a mixture of utter terror and immense awe. She tried to scream but terror stole the sound before she could make it. The dragon winked at her, and she was filled with an immense calm; she was still paralyzed but no longer with fear. Her eyes became heavy as if weights had now become attached to her eyelids and they slowly closed. As an elf she had no need for sleep but she was oddly compelled to slumber, she felt the gentle command in her mind and she obeyed it willingly.
The things that she saw next were in the unreliable and ever-changing realm of dream.
To Be Continued?...