3of3
Alarad awoke in a cold sweat, his heart racing in his chest, his gnarled hands shook. For most of his life, since the ogre attack, when the gnome closed his eyes to sleep, he had seen flames. When he learned to control them, the flames started to shape his dreams, as though the pictures there, in his mind, were made fire, for which only he knew that all in his mind was made of fire.
Now though, amongst the flame a shadow had set in, a darkness that did not match the inferno. He knew immediately it was not anything his mind could conjure. His mind was fire- this was something that made sense to him. That darkness was something else, something invading.
He hopped down from his bunk and shifted through piles of books stacked around his chamber. He knocked them away in frustration and summoned that which he sought with a spell. Erupting from under a nearby pile, a single tome hovered through the air to land in his outstretched hands. Clearly written across the iron bound cover was a single word: Demon.
Not a second before the white haired young gnome had turned a page, than the shadow conceded, and showed itself for what it was.
The demon was a tall twisted thing, with twisting horns, and sharp hooves. It towered over the gnome and above all the piles of ancient books that filled the young mage’s tower, buried deep in the wilds.
The demon had hoped to pray on the gnome’s dreams for years before he made such a bold approach, and was baffled that the gnome had discovered him so quickly.
The gnome had no intention of sharing with the demon that his mind was unique, and far sharper, than the demons sad darkness.
The fire was bright in the gnomes eye, and he had already deduced why such a being would be here, especially now.
The demon knew he was at a disadvantage, the mage had grown in power, power forged in the burning flames of revenge, though the demon knew the soul would be so much sweeter to the darkness after it had been bathed so in the flames. The demon would be rewarded greatly for such a powerful being. The grin split across its face as it opened its hands as though to reveal the gnomes deepest and greatest desires.
The gnome was no fool, demons were foul twisted things from a place of darkness no light could ever reach, the closest thing to ever nourish those trapped there, were souls, a gift of the light itself.
Demons were ancient faunon, or wild-spirits, those that evaded Order’s decree by hiding in the darkness. The darkness twisted these spirits, spirits born of the wild, into evil craven things, for nothing is meant to exist outside of light’s reach for so long. The vile demons became agents to the darkness, offering up what tidbits of light could be whisked away; an offering to keep them hidden from death’s grasp. The easiest tidbits, of course, were souls. In granting ones deepest desires, would plunge lights greatest gift, to those starved in the darkest depths.
The spell started as a very thin thread around the demons throat, barely noticeable, felt like a stray hair at an odd angle from the twisted creatures mane. The demon rattled on, its insidious offer blatantly ignored by the silently casting gnome, the thread barely brushing at the demons neck as the discomfort increased, though quickly, mid sentence, the demon was suddenly shocked as his throat was clamped shut by the ring of arcane magic the gnome had summoned around its throat.
The ring grew tougher and choked at the creature. With a thought the gnome raised the demon off its hooves, more beams appeared around the creatures body, the fiend was bound tight, hovering. Any idea of offering the gnomes ‘deepest desires’ flushed away in the twisting torment of the gnome’s arcane might.
Such things were not dealt with in darkness; such things were brought to light. The gnome’s magic was such that he brought the vile creature to the wild tree, strung up as a prisoner. The young gnome blew the great horn that would summon as many of the elders and wild elves that were nearby, as quickly as possible. His adoptive siblings amongst them.
The wild elves were aghast at the presence of such a being. And the Elders were not without notice of the sheer power the gnome exerted to trap such a fiend, and much more, for the magic itself, a thing they no longer used or practiced, surely summoned such a foul spirit as this. Though clearly the gnome was wise in his desire for light, for knowledge of all those to know what was put in their midst was surely wise, to keep such things in darkness was to be enveloped in darkness.
The threat of demons could cast out the gnome, and the attraction of darkness to their home could not be tolerated even from the blessed.
And of this it was decided in the light, that the gnome would be sent back, back to his own kind. The fear of approaching darkness was far greater than any love of the ancient bear that had blessed this gnome.
Such an arduous journey would not be taken alone. His wood elf brother stepped forward to see the gnome brought safely to his people.
It was upon the verdict of the demons destruction that the insidious darkness crept back into the young gnomes mind, all in some last desperate attempt to win the gnomes curiosity of what he sought; a last desperate attempt to stay the executioner’s hand.
The demon could not speak aloud for he was trapped tight, but the shadow was there amongst Alarad’s fire, showing him the ogre, showing him a bulbous eye covered demon, and showing him something smaller still, a gnome perhaps, someone living with evil, freely. Along with something he recognized- a Loch.
The flames burned it all away, the demon collapsed in ash as Alarad willed the arcane light to burn the fiend out of this plane of existence, the shadow vanished from his mind. The information was appealing, though could never be trusted, even as a desperate plea. Alarad had seen more than the demon had intended though, and he knew his journey truly was before him, and his desire for revenge was all falling, fatefully, into place.
The Loch was where he needed to be.
Wood elves handled long distance travel much different than those of the gnomes and their fancy wagons. It was for them, easier to invoke the old ways. Not through the arcane, nor that of demonic pacts, but that which began with the first tree, nature’s magic itself. Alarad and his companion, two beings that had always been so different, were transformed from wood elf and gnome, to two great, fluffy white owls. Forms borrowed from nature to carry them swiftly back to the homeland of the gnomes.
It would be wise to mention here, that never has a spell of any source, been cast near or around Alarad that he did not immediately see a way to recreate it. This may have been the first time he’d taken such a form, though would not be the last.
The leagues would be covered swiftly in the night, whilst the days would be wasted away sleeping in some dark hollow, or the very highest of tree branches. There was no natural hunter that could take down an owl this size; not here, nor in any region from here to the Loch. The journey should be a smooth one.
One must remember though, that a demon is but an agent of the darkness. And the darkness had already invested much in the gnome. The darkness would stretch universes to see its investment to fruition- even if the gnome burned a legion of demon in the fires of his arcane might.
