Character Development > Development Journals and Discussion

Journal of Stygian Achnuman

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Rowana:
Life has been rough, and the road bringing me to where I am today has been twisted and dark. It seems like ages ago when goblins attacked the caravan I was tagging along with. The murderous little creatures killed most of the merchants and their families, and I still wonder to this day, why they chose to keep me alive and sell me into slavery to Acron Grinille. *shudders* The leering face of that evil little man is burned into my brain. His torture and abuse have left scars on my body and soul. He thought his little bracelets would bind me to the house for as long as he wanted to keep me alive, but how wrong he was. How very wrong. He did not comprehend the depth of my will, the power of my focused mind. *chuckles*Acron laughed at me because he thought I was trying to starve myself to death, and he threatened to raise me with his necromantic magic as another of his undead minions if I died, but he was so stupid for not seeing the bracelets getting looser and looser every day.I wonder what went through his mind when he woke up to the sensation of the blade of his own knife slipping between his ribs, seeking his black little heart? Only the Gods would know, and I wish I could be privy to that knowledge so I could savor it like a fine wine aged in an oak barrel....(Stares blankly at the large black book in his lap) Now there is this. Acron's book. I watched and learned from a master of death. This book holds power I am too weak to understand. Some day though this knowledge will be mine. I will never be the slave of another.

Ravemore:
I hear the calls of the book constantly in my mind...The hissing promises of power are a seduction I can no longer forebear. I opened the book and immersed myself in dark secrets and cryptic arcane formula. Over the course of about a week, I have mastered several dark magics. I can cause a burst of life draining energy, direct a ray of the same substance, and cause my touch to replicate that of the horrid undead ghoul. I entered the goblin badlands and tested my newfound proficiencies to terrible affect. I felt nothing. The pit of my stomach was hollow and cold, even after slaying some of those who represented the cause of my past enslavement… I shudder to think where this road will lead me. My feet are on a path that leads into shadows and darkness.

Ravemore:
I am beginning to see that the undead run rampant around Hlint. It is turning out to be a good location for the studies I have begun, at least in regards to some of the lesser of the restless ones. I am documenting the types of the risen, and attempting to decipher the enchantments that hold them in thrall. It is slow going though without a laboratory and a specimen…

The book is disclosing clues to hidden secrets that intrigues my mind and motivates me to focus more intensely. Secrets that may bestow the power to conquer death itself. If I stay the path…

Today I assisted the small one, Gilli, with a mission into the crypts. A Cleric or Paladin assisted us. I will have to exercise caution, as there are Orders and Secret Societies that would not look kindly upon my academic endeavors. Gilli is a breath of fresh air, and actually makes me smile and laugh. Both of which have been in meager supply lately. Sometimes I feel like I am hanging from the precipice by my fingernails, the abyss waiting below to swallow me whole. I do not feel that way when Gilli is around.

I hear rumors that the war is going badly. Perhaps my art can be of use in defeating undead elements of the enemy force, when I am stronger. We will see…

The book beckons me…

Ravemore:
The power contained within the pages of the book is a narcotic....and a poison. I feel it eating me up. I have stared into the abyss, and it has entered into my soul. If I still have one. I can escape it for days at a time, but the incessant whispering overcomes me and I must obey. I fall into the weave of dark magic’s and do not eat, do not sleep, and feel the transfer of power with every symbol and word that is memorized. The other day I awoke from a stupor on the edge of the swamps, a crossbow in my hands pointed in the direction of friends, reason returning was like a splash of cold water on my psyche. If Gimli and Gilli had not arrived, it is hard to say how long the book would have held me in thrall.....

Ravemore:
I slipped into the brambles and briars infesting the under story of the forest surrounding the fetid swamps of the high moors. I easily made my way several hundred yards into the trees and crouched in the shadow of an old, gnarled weeping willow. A slight breeze made its way through the foliage bringing the acrid smells of rotting vegetation and mud, and ever so slightly moved the draping blankets of moss hanging from blackened branches. I watched and listened for any sign of followers, my dagger unsheathed and ready to find a mark. The silence was tangible. Even the insipid whispering of the book in my mind had ceased. I waited until my knees began to throb and I could feel the familiar sensation caused by restricted circulation. There was no sign of potential interruption, so I began the task I had gone there to perform.

I cleared a nine-foot patch of forest floor of leaves, weeds, and other debris, sweeping it to the sides with a handful of sticks. After baring the earth, I scratched a small circle containing a triangle into the earth with the point of my dagger, about three feet in diameter. A thaumaturic symbol used in the binding of spirits and outsiders. I pulled the book out of my knapsack and laid it next to the circle, the hissing whispers once again flooding into my head. I stood up, raised my arms high into the air and summoned my familiar Glothnid. After the brief flash of light, the conjured raven hopped close to me and cocked its head regarding me curiously. I winked at him and said, “Watch this little friend…” I kneeled next to the inscribed circle and pulled a small pouch from my pack. I poured powdered silver into my palm and began sprinkling it into the lines etched in the earth. Following directions from the book, I then drew letters from a long dead arcane language around the perimeter and began reciting the accompanying incantation. The sounds were repetitive and vibrated with power. They were intoxicating, and resonated with memories from hellish places no mortal man has treaded, realms of shadow and flame…
The interior space of the circle began to shimmer like the horizon of a desert on a hot summer day and the vague figure of a small humanoid form began to materialize and coalesce. In a few very short seconds the hunched shape of a small demonic being was leering at me, slick crimson skin pulled taught over a bony frame, razor sharp teeth protruding from a gaping maw, and a flexible scorpion-like tail poised over its shoulder, the tip glistening with a shiny black ichor. It hissed in common “and to whom do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” as it motioned to the smoldering powdered silver in the conjuring circle. I replied with a grin, clucking my tongue, “Tsk tsk infernal one…. You know the danger as well as I in the trading of names.” The little devil chuckled, “It appears this will not be as easy as I hoped. Do you know why the book instructed you to bring me to this world of weak creatures?” I replied casually, “Pray do tell?”
It hissed, “To test you, to see if you are worthy of the power the book can teach you. Many before you have failed, and the consequences of that failure are…….serious. Do you wish me to test you?”
I replied in the same casual voice, “I do..”
Quicker then the human eye could follow the creature lunged for me, its tail whipping around in an arch, seeking to inject its venom into my heart. I did not move. I did not flinch. The inscriptions around the circle flared white, and the lines of the circle itself flashed violet and the creature fell to the ground twitching as if electric current had entered its body. It gasped for breath. A perplexed look on its angular face.
Still without moving I said, “Now, let me explain what has happened to you. The test the book had in mind was passed even before you arrived. I easily discovered there was a small portion of the symbology of the containment circle intentionally left out of the instructions. I insured it was added.”
The creature screeched in rage, circling in a feral manner, “And what do you want of me?”
I put my finger to my lower lip, tapping it in apparent thought, “Now that is a question I think I can answer. Really, the only thing I wanted was to see the look on your face when you nearly electrocuted yourself. The book is already giving me its secrets.”
The creature hissed, “You lie! The book does not give the power that easy.”
With a blank look bereft of emotion, I began to chant and the glowing lines of a gate flashed nearby and disappeared. The devil began laughing. “I see….”
What he was going to say was cut short though when the ground where the gate had disappeared began to push up and a skeletal hand erupted from the damp sod. Its eyes widened as the skeletal warrior pulled itself out of the earth. The undead creature shambled towards the devil and stopped within an arms length from the circle and me. Glothnid cackled in the branches above us. I snapped my fingers and the skeletal warrior thrust its rusty blade into the body of the little devil and it screamed as it died in agony…

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