The flame was a feeble stand against the horrible chill.
It was night, first off. Always the coldest of the days, came at night.
To make it worse, it was the far, far north. Certainly not the farthest north. To be fair- there were pockets of relatively temperate forest not far from here. This lake, among others; it had the potential to not be freezing, to not be life threatening, some of the time.
Tonight was not one of those nights. Tonight was absolutely frigid, straight to the bone cutting frigid. No amount of campfire was going to ease the cold. The cold was the very state of the universe at that point, and nothing was going to change its strict hold on the physics of possibility.
Yet wizards, as a lot, are arrogant, and see their own interests as the interests of the universe. So it was that Daelardgalon and Ehruldrion made their camp on the tiny island in the middle of the night in the middle of the near frozen lake in the near center of the northern frozen wastes that night.
It was cold.
The druid went off to commune with the forests, and summon what food he could from the frozen wastes. The wizard sat there. He was honestly not disturbed; he knew not hunger or really much physical discomfort at this point.
Daelardgalon was quite powerful at this moment in time, overall. Between his mastery of basic magicks, and his proficiency with portals, his might was bordering on demigod status. In fact, and unbeknownst to the mage, his power had grown to the point of being universally distinctive- he was one of a very few that could weave direct tunnels between the various worlds, and had now done so on multiple occasions.
It was this particular talent that brought the evening’s visitor.
Erupting from the frigid lake as an icy volcano, a hideous figure leaped up and landed on the edge of the small island, just at the edge of the campfire’s illumination. Icy water ran from its skeletal eyes, long since rotted to bare bone; its clothes lay damp and clingy to ribs long barren of meat. A long black blade waved menacingly in one hand, weaving in a graceful and hypnotic dance.
The wizard backed away, nearly to the edge of the water, and raised his hands, beginning a spell. While he did so, he greeted the newcomer, hoping it might not be a monster but a man such as himself. He’d seen many sights no less strange in his travels, and certainly this was no mindless zombie.
The figure made noises that resembled speech, but the figure lacked the physical capacity to make intelligible sounds. Instead of sentences, all it could make was a torn, moist clacking noise.
The wizard tried again, but now the figure seemed annoyed. It began to spin the sword around faster now, clearly threatening, its stance moving into the easy grace of a martial artist. The effect was so disorienting. He’d never seen a creature like this, so clearly dead yet animated in such a lively and graceful manner.
So lively was it, that it struck with the swift bite of lightning’s own strike. The wizard was robbed of his last moments of breath to finish the spell as the figure’s long blade sliced into his body, cutting with unnatural ease. In a moment, the wizard crumpled to the ground, very nearly in pieces. The figure seemed suddenly shocked at what it had done; it shook its head, sheathed its sword, and began jostling the body to see if there were signs of life. Instead there were signs of horror, as bits began to slide off and roll into the grass, wet chunks of life slipping into the cold waters of the lake.
Ehruldrion saw enough as he returned to the camp to guess what had happened, and hesitated only a moment before attacking. The mighty druid was enraged, and let his anger flow through and change his form into an enormous monstrous bear like animal. He charged the skeletal warrior and dashed it to pieces, crushing the bones in his enormous maw. In moments the campsite became a horrific gorefest of scattered bones, blood and flesh.
Once satisfied that the foe was vanquished, and indeed partially consumed, Ehruldrion resumed his true form and bent over the mangled form of his friend. Weaving ancient magics wrought from the seeds of life itself, the druid brought the wizard back together, piece by bloody piece, until the form was intact again; seemless as though violence had never touched it, though the clothes bore the wicked slashes as testament.
It was long hours into the night before Daelardgalon could be recalled to life. Once he was awake again, the dawn was just cresting over the horizon, casting the shadows of the nightmare night to the winds.
