Tick. Tack. Tick. Tack. The sound of deliberate steps echoed in the spacious hallways. The eerie emptiness might give place for most to imagine the most wild and terrifying reasons, but Sherelle had learned long ago to control her fear. The most powerful advantage an enemy has is control of your fear. Many spend their lives trying to face terrible and horrifying things with the false belief that they can somehow face every dreadful thing this cruel world can produce and in so doing they can beat fear by brute force. Sherelle knew long ago that there was no limit to the horror that could exist; for as long as mankind inhabited this realm there would be no end to the atrocities they could concoct. She also learned that fear itself is not evil. Fear was a name humans have to anything that threatened that which we treasure most. What was evil is how despicable men manipulated this instinct to spread death and destruction. "Knock. Knock," she called out in a wicked sing-song voice. Here, in this hall of evil mages, it was she who was the harbinger of fear and she knew it. Somewhere in this spiteful tower the self proclaimed dread Lords sought refuge. "I have a joke for you," Sherelle continued, "did you hear about the mage who tried to An Ex Por the door?" She paused for dramatic effect. The key to any performance was presentation. She laughed in anticipation of her own punch line. "His head fell off and his hands were severed!" She continued her practiced laugh which sounded much like the edge of lunacy. "Haha hahaha. Do you get it? He's dead! And his severed hands will be cleansed upon the shrines of virtue. That's right. Your time to pay for the blood on your hands has arrived. And. I'm. Coming. For. You!" She stopped abruptly and peered into the crack of a stone wall. "We must face her Mordicai! We're all as good as dead or worse if your spell of shadows fails!" "Silence you fool! It will not fail. The recipe was my own and it is perfect. The bones of a hundred heroes and the virtue of a dozen pure maidens went into this spell. It was a spell I was saving for another, and yet for your stupidity I am forced to cast it here." As the cowering mages tried to wait out their nightmare, Sherelle pulled out a stool and began tuning her lute. "Let me see! What's she doing now," another mage hissed. "I said silence! She has no power here in our halls, must I remind you of the price we will all pay if we fail to deliver?" Sherelle plucked out a song of folk lore from an old and forgotten time. She always trusted in her fingers to pluck the perfect tune. From the back of the huddled mages frenzy and panic began to erupt, "that's impossible! How could she know THAT song? I personally butchered every man, woman, and child that would ever have heard that! She must be after me!" With the skill beyond the best of bards, Sherelle deftly changed tunes. "No, she's after me! That's the song of my beloved whom I sacrificed to gain my cloak! Let us out Mordicai, or else!" "Or else what?," Mordicai sneered. "Or else this, Corp Poh...." before the assailant could finish his words he gagged and fell to the ground. His flesh began to rot almost immediately as a cracked jar of green venom lay shattered under his feet. "Anyone else?" With all the animosity he possessed, Mordicai stared down the remaining cowards. But he quickly saw that his demonstration of power was no match for the panic that had already taken root. He muttered, "Damn. What a waste of a shadow spell." The rest of them may have allowed this singing lunatic to manipulate their fear, but he would not stick around to see the end result. He quietly removed a black potion jar and threw it towards the far wall. Once the smoke erupted he would only have a few moments to make his escape before the entire room was decimated by frantic wizards.
Dorbraine walked with his head held high, shoulders squared, and his chest thrust forward. He was proud of his station, and rightly so. He absently ran his right forefinger and thumb along the ruby encrusted hilt of the dagger at his side. He could feel the power thrumming through the golden, wire-wrapped hilt, and he smiled a wicked grin to himself. The smell of putrid, half-rotten blood hung thick and heavy in the air. Dorbraine drank it in with each breath, deep through his nose and slowly, carefully out his mouth. In the shadows, the mages and wizards that had given their souls to the shadow cringed, their unnaturally pale faces contorted in tight masks of fear and loathing. No sunlight ever reached this deep into the bowels of Shame, and the dark servants slowly became ghastly shades of the men they once were. Dorbraine would have pitied them if he hadn't been sonsumed with a bone deep loathing. These puny worms could never know what it meant to truly be committed. They thought they tasted of the rewards of devotion, but they saw only the image and the illusion of power. Dorbraine stroked the hilt of his dagger, and smiled. Mordicai would be pleased. Dorbraine climbed the steps of the tower, his steps echoing hollowly off the close stone walls; click.....clack....click.....clack. He reached the highest tower, and pulled open the heavy oaken door with confidence. He stepped into the room, and immediately a new darkness pressed down around him. The wax candles in the room seemed too feeble to assault the oppressive darkness that lurked here. Mordicai, the Dark Lord himself, raised his eyes from an ancient volume of dark magic. His baleful, jet black eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What are you doing here, hound?" Mordicai grated, his body suddenly shifting to stand instantaeously before Dorbraine, "I sent you to spill the last drop of blood from the House of Brae." Dorbraine turned a bow more elaborate and graceful than he would have thought possible just a handful of years before. He swept his hat off with a flourish, and hung his head low to the Dark Lord. "It is as you have said, Master," Dorbraine said, his voice soft and seductive, "The line of Brae is severed. I felt my dagger drink in the last life and soul of the woodsman Veyttin of Brae. He is dead and beyond reach, now. You have nothing to fear." "FEAR!?!?" The Dark Lord grated suddenly, his hand shot out and seized Dorbraine by the throat and lifted him easily into the air, "And what is it that you think I need fear, hound? You have simply failed me. There is another through whose veins flow the blood of Brae." Dorbraine's eyes widened in sudden fear, and tried to speak, but could only manage a hoarse sputter. "Yes," Lord Mordicai hissed, "There is another. The Axe Wielder. I have seen him the blood visions, and he must be slain. Otherwise he stands athwart the prophecy, and will bar what is to come. Now, do I have your full attention?" Dorbraine mannaged a slight, painful nod, and Mordicai dropped him to the flagstones. Within a blink of an eye, Mordicai was back at his table, beant over the tattered, faded volume of dark spells. Dorbraine coughed roughly, spat a bit of bled before him on the flagstones, and managed to pull himself to his feet. He faced his Master on weak knees. "The next time you come before me," The Dark Lord hissed, leveling a single finger at Dorbraine, "Do not come with failure, or it shall be the last time. Now go." Mordicai dropped his finger with a cold note of finality. Dorbraine had nothing to do, but turn and leave. As he descended through the tower, several of the dark mages actually presumed to cast him looks of contempt. In the bottom layers, one brazen prelate presumed to bar his way. Dorbraine smiled. In one smooth motion he drew his dagger and thrust it deep into the mage's ribs, and gave it a single, hard twist. The dark mage spasmed once, and there was a brief flash as the dagger consumed him. Dorbraine smiled as he felt the power of the dagger shiver up his arm and into his shoulder. It was almost as if he could feel the thing purring as he sheathed it. He looked darkly at the rest of the servants of darkness now cowering in the shadows and corners of the tower. "Anyone else?" He asked simply. No one moved. Dorbraine smiled to himself as he walked across the bridge to the main floor of Shame. Two blood elementals moved to flank him as he walked, but Dorbraine ignored them. He had an axe wielder to find.
