Aleron's first lesson.

I should have listened… Aleron thought to himself. I wasn’t ready...

His head was swimming. The smell of mold and black water was something that couldn’t be ignored. The small bit of sunlight and moonlight trickling through the cracks of the old cavern was just enough to support the small amount of life growing on the porous rocks.  Not like vegetation Aleron had seen back in Baraz’Bar, but something odd and strange, clinging to life on only the small bit of rainwater that occasionally runs down the interior edges of stone. This land was different.

It was cold without his armor. His tunic lay several feet from him, torn and soaked with his blood. His hands were bound so tight that blood occasionally seeped from the open sores around his wrists.  

“I should have listened,” he murmured…

Since the emergence of the fallen, Aleron had traveled for many years with Hale, the elder of Baraz’Bar. They stayed in Loxhen for several years, helping to rebuild.  Aleron’s family from Valor Heights moved there and helped in taking care of him. His grandmother opened an herbs shop there and employed him.

At the age of 16, his time had come to take on the duty that Hale had placed on the boy many years before. He was to travel to the secluded hiding spots of the eleven elders and bring the magic they wield back to Hale.

He thought he was ready…

He left Hale a week ago to travel to Corbus peak - just a several days’ travel on foot towards the west from Corbus Keep. There he would meet a contact that knew the location of the 11 elders. Hale had asked Aleron to stay and wait for Thane, a trusted friend of Hale, who would be traveling alongside him in search of the other elders. Aleron had decided that he had waited long enough.  He gathered his supplies and moved forward in the night without Hale’s knowledge, and against his orders.

He moved silently in the night, and stealthily through the day, making sure his trespassing would not be noticed.  Lunalla, an elderly woman who is said to wield dark arcane controlled these lands. Being captured would not be wise and even more so, being captured in these dark lands. Aleron had warned him that the fallen are not the only creatures that stir beyond the border of Baraz’Bar.

On the fourth night, Aleron safely reaches the basin of Corbus peak. Shadows stretching over the ground as the sun descends beyond the horizon keeps him from pressing forward.  

He dared not pitch a fire. Instead, Aleron gathered brush, twigs, dead pine bark and pine needles. His make shift bed was as comfortable as it needed to be, and the brush provided a suitable camouflage.

His was instructed to reach Lunar spine by the 7th crest to meet someone. Hale only knew this person, and Aleron often speculated as to why he would not tell him this person’s name.  Only that he will know him when he sees him.

The night waned on and Aleron scanned the tree line for suspecting sounds of movement.

Surely I am out of sight. I am here beyond all knowledge but one man…

The night took over Aleron, his exhaustion taking its toll. As he slowly loses his grip on reality, he could not control his thoughts or actions, but could, in a sense, think for himself.

He scuffles slightly; startled by a pinch in his thigh.

Foul insects, leave me be!

A strange euphoric sensation moves over him as he slips back into his dreams of mighty kings and wizards playing through his thoughts. But these dreams suddenly turned violent. Faceless kings were forced to the ground, slain without mercy. Their bodies were thrown aside by something dark and evil; a large entity moving relentlessly through the crowd, towering over all the bodies of its victims.

This entity…seems familiar.  It stops; the black silhouette pulsating with deep breaths. Aleron can feel its presence as it stands, gazing at him, measuring him. The form and shape could not be described in words, it could not even be imagined by any means of a sane man…it was otherworldly. It begins towards Aleron.

A clawed hand reaches forward as icy tendrils sweep over Aleron’s face as if a cold dead hand gropes his flesh.

He is suddenly awoken.

Searing pain shoots through his face as his head smacks the ground.  Tears mix with blood as they roll down the bridge of his nose dripping on cold granite.  He had fallen somehow, but how?

He tried adjusting himself to sit up, but his body was weak. He struggled against something; binds held his arms and legs together.

He had been captured.

He struggled through the pain to regain his composure. The pain…it was everywhere; his back, his chest, his head, face, hands and even feet.

His mind was not straight and he assumed he owed this to some type of poison.

He stopped and tried opening his eyes. A large dark silhouette emerged, something larger than human, almost nine feet tall.

His eyes were too cloudy to make out anything. The blow to his face had filled his eyes with tears and blood, and Aleron could see a strange array of colors as if he was close to unconsciousness.

“Awake nah awn’t wee?” He heard from the shadows.

“Yeh took a nice beatin’ yeh did!” Said another from behind him.

“Sit taught yeh will, she’s gat plans fer yeh sapplin’.”

She?

The two bellowed a deep laugh and moved for the exit. They had all his belongings, even his grandmother’s ring, given to him before she passed.

A full day had passed, only known through the change in light coming through the cavern ceiling.  It was raining apparently – the continuous dripping had increased, creating small streams slowly searching for an exit.

Pain was an uncommon thing to Aleron. He had only been in a fight once with his neighbor when he was a child. And even then it was only a bit of a scuffle over who-killed-who in their imaginative sword fight.

But this was real.  He was on the verge of death. His back was cut open, his wrists were bound to his feet tightly, and his face was nearly unrecognizable.

His eyes finally cleared enough to get a good gathering of the cavern. Behind him he noticed an entrance crudely carved out by years of eroding. Nothing much else was in the cavern, besides the shackles that held him securely together which was pinned to the floor.

The rain persisted now.

It was mentally comforting. The sound of rain moving in waves over the top of where ever he was. It brought him back home; lying in a sash stretched out in his small room listening to the rainfall over his roof. A fire crackling and popping as his mother prepared dinner for the night.

…mother.

Suddenly he heard noises…

From behind him he could hear the rustling of armor and laughter moving towards him from the opening. He pressed his forehead against the ground.

Fear struck him. His pain was no longer an issue as he strained against the bindings hoping for some luck that they might break – freeing him to have a standing chance against their advance.

But to no avail, they entered the room.

There were seven or eight he assumed, from the sound of footsteps. He slightly peers out of the corner of his eyes as the room illuminates from a single torch. These were no humans at all. Some stood taller than the first he had seen, almost ten or eleven feet tall.  

They were armored with strange black armor, iron probably. There faces were deformed and grotesque, with protrusions around the eyes and mouth. Large sharp blackened teeth peeked out from beneath dark peeling leathery lips. Their hands and feet were tremendous in size. He had never witnessed a creature like this.

The first moved forward, gripping Aleron’s head like a small fruit, forcing him to look at him.

“She sayin’ yeh nehbody!”… His breathe smelled of decay as spittle hits his face.

Another stepped forward, the largest of the group.

“That menz yeh belongs t’us sap…” His throaty response shook Aleron. He assumes the worst.  The monsters have no need for him and imaginations run through his mind about what exactly they plan to do with him.

Pain explodes through Aleron as a something contacts his spine, shattering several vertebrae. His legs are useless.

All of them laugh as Aleron squirms against the bindings.

He can’t concentrate… The pain envelopes him as the deep throaty laughter echoed through the room.

His vision starts to blur as he moves into a state of shock. He is dying.

I wasn’t ready….

He curled back into his ball pressing his face against the floor.

I should have listened…

Anger was building in him…his flesh moved and tingled from the tip of his toes to the very top of his head.

Why didn’t I listen!

He forced his head harder against the stone, his knuckles turning white at the pull on his bindings.

I wasn’t ready!

The laughter stopped.

“Ay! We wan’ see yeh squirm sap!” The largest grumbled.

The largest of the group stepped forward, unsheathing a small crudely fashioned cleaver.

Aleron was no longer aware of his predicament. He lost all sense of fear as the hulking beast moved towards him.

He was a broken man; the shattered bones throughout his body, the loss of blood – the pain was giving rise to a rush of anger, a rush of hatred and malice, mixed with angst and a sense of hunger and need.  

The dank smell of the waterlogged cavern dissipates as his eyes roll to the back of his head. The pain that once felt crippling was now subsiding – being replaced with a cool breeze flowing briskly over his bare body from the small crevice in the ceiling.  

Aleron could feel his surroundings - see them without seeing; hear them without conscious thought or perception. The very ground which was soaked with his blood was now a part of him. He felt a pulsing sensation - he could feel his captors looking at him with grisly anticipation. He could feel where their bare feet stood on the slick granite.

The strange hunger was growing. He needed something, something close. He craved it, he deserved it, whatever it was it belonged to him and he will have it. His eagerness was growing stronger, fueling a force unrecognizable, and unseen by his abductors.

He was enraptured as the feeling of course flesh tightly gripped his neck closing his windpipe… The hunger was enveloping him….

He hungered for their life.

The hairs on Aleron’s head stand on end as the beast hoists him into the air breaking his shoulder blades against the pull of his shackles.

YES

It didn’t matter, every muscle in Aleron’s body clenched in excitement.

The dried blood covering Aleron’s face cracks as a subtle smile appears.

“Stay ehwake yeh will sap… We likes it when yeh scre…”

The grip on Aleron’s neck is loosened - Before the others can react the brute is thrown against the interior wall, knocking two others out of the way, putting out the only torch.

The sound of feet scuffling around tells Aleron that his captors are fearful.

“Shhhh, quit ruddy moven!!!” One of the fumbling captors persists.

“Wut is it? Theh noises it makes…”

Their movement stops as they all focus on a strange noise…

Cracking and popping can be heard. Little hisses and whines and cracks and drips.

The room quickly ignites in a bright white then back to black as the beasts try to flint strike their torch.

There fear is growing in the darkness as the strange sounds bounce around the cavern.

With a loud whoosh the torch is relit. The smallest of the group scans the room quickly but it’s still too dark to see to the other side.

He continues around the perimeter, staying clear of Aleron. He backs away suddenly and stumbles over his feet, tripping and falling against the entrance.

The source of the sound is their leader…

His body is being completely crushed into the small crevices and pits of the wall. The larger of his bones are projecting through his skin and even some of his leather armor. His skull is pressing firmly against the wall – the all-too-familiar look of fear washed over his face as his eyes scan for help, focusing on the light of the torch. Air is forced from his lungs as his iron armor smashes his ribs. His eyes are jolting back and forth as the pressure forces them from their sockets.

A loud crack tells Aleron that his time is over.  

The fallen torch lay next to Aleron, illuminating his now standing body; his feet slightly above the cavernous surface.

Without hesitation three of the creatures advance on Aleron. Others follow their instincts, breaking away for the exit.

…NO!

Before the swing of any weapons: before the fleeing monsters take their second step - the room detonates with a deafening clap.

The audible clues of death slowly come to Aleron as his consciousness comes to him.

The sounds of plops and splats reverberate around the room - blood and entrails dripping in rhythm with the heavy rains just above his head. The smell of clashed iron and rust wake him from his strange dream-state.

His feet touch the ground…

Aleron opens his eyes and takes a deep breath…the first breath since his victims entered the hollow.  

Streams of thick crimson flow around his feet and in between his toes…

Minutes pass by as Aleron’s eyes adjust to the small trace of moonlight bouncing around the room.

He felt as if he was reborn – stronger than ever.

He crouches down quickly, scanning for a hiding place, unaware of the prior engagement.

‘Where are they?!’

He quickly moves to find his tunic that he spotted earlier, but it’s gone.

He moves to the wall, searching and probing, it’s warm and wet.  

Suddenly the striking of flint startles him…

Light envelopes the room as a robed man raises a torch, stepping into the cavity, just before the exit.

The small pops and fizzles of a wooden pipe light up a familiar face…. It’s Hale.

Hale observes Aleron standing in the center of what he thought may have been his tomb.  His enemies are crushed against the interior walls. A glint of a yellow hue is seen in Aleron’s right eye...

Hale’s pulls a draw on his pipe and deeply exhales as he discerns the situation and Aleron’s newfound ability.  

“You are ready.”