Terrors Reawakening

The moon hung low over Solhaven's bayside, silvering the waves that lapped against Baron's Bridge. Parwyn Galanodel walked beside Bakarus, the undead pilgrim whose cadaverous form moved with an unnatural grace, his tattered rags whispering against the stone. Green light flickered in the hollows of his sockets, and the air around him carried the faint metallic tang of old blood and serpent scales.

They had begun in Liabo Plaza with casual words—custard pastry crumbling in Parwyn's fingers, a floating green eye hovering like a spy—then wandered south through the causeway to Niima's Temple. There, amid alabaster dolphins and seafoam frescoes, Bakarus spoke of sacrifice: a devotee who had leapt from the widow's walk into Charl's embrace, calling it a pleasure. Parwyn winced, but her sea-green eyes remained steady.

Higher they climbed, to the bell tower and the narrow widow's walk where wind tugged at her malachite cloak and honey-blonde hair. Bakarus's wyrmwood torch flared sickly green, shadows bursting briefly from his skin like living ink. The views stretched somber and vast: rolling waves crashing against the Fang breakwater to the west, Kraken Sands glinting in moonlight to the southwest, and the quiet lights of Fisherman's Quay southward. Bakarus offered knowledge, protection, a place in the Order of Eternal Light. "There is room for those who walk in the light," he said, voice a low hiss.

As they strolled the walk's iron-fenced perimeter, he probed deeper. "How is your friend... Eono or... Euno or something?" Bakarus asked, his tone casual but probing.

"Euno," Parwyn corrected flatly, her voice carrying the edge of irritation. "Very well."

Bakarus smiled, decayed lips pulling taut. "You seem happy with that. I haven't seen you smile... often. He is Elven as well? Little, like you?"

She nodded, glancing at him sidelong. "A legionnaire of the Nation, and he takes his training fairly seriously."

Bakarus nodded understandingly. "Boys and their tin cans... playing soldier. I understand."

He pressed on. "Which of the Arkati does he follow? The blade in the night, Ronan? Or perhaps V'tull?"

Parwyn pondered, then panicked. She knew the answer, but it would not come, quickly she muttered with a touch of embarrassment, "Pretty sure Ronan..."

"You have an inquisitive mind," Bakarus replied, shadows tendriling briefly from his form. "I would welcome Ueno... we could all discuss openly our allegiances. Should he accept."

She chuckled to sober herself, annoyed at his purposeful butchering of her companion’s name. "I doubt he would join these walks. I'm surprised I did." Then, glancing down at the wrought iron fence and the drop below, she added, "I've had my fill of the open sea."

Bakarus inclined his head, his gaze lingering on her for a long moment. "Are you and Euno married yet?"

Parwyn's laugh was soft, almost disbelieving. "We are not, and that is just fine. We are a long-lived folk—no need to rush into things."

Bakarus's smile widened, thin and knowing. "An open invitation then—to you, to worship Zelia as you please, and to your friend. To join the Order. I know you will think what you will of me, but I promise I do not represent many under the banner. They seek knowledge in areas I am forbidden. It is all harmless, you can trust me. Your knight in armor can even come to protect you, though I assure you it would never be necessary."

They descended, crossed bridges, passed the spartan yard of Fasthr's Lance where training dummies bore jackal-head scars. In the tower's crown, high above Cairnfang Bay, Bakarus kindled a fire in the infirmary hearth and placed a Luukos statuette on the obsidian altar. "Many are saying I should join Voln," Parwyn said quietly, rubbing a downy bed for a moment's distraction.

Bakarus glanced at her sharply. "Why? The effectiveness of Voln is... laughable. I would offer to debate it, but I'm not sure how anyone could. Wildly ineffective in its mission—the undead spread throughout the land more than ever. Each time a new land is discovered, there are more. Forests rot and decay. If you need proof, I can show you. Your friends are... misguided. And weak."

"To help curb the undead, to free those souls bound," she replied, shrugging. "I believe they are doing something righteous... but as with most orders of the land, it does not call to me. And if I could release you somehow, Bakarus, I would—but for whatever reason, I am sure you would not yet be called for the final time."

Bakarus laughed, a dry rattle that echoed in the stone chamber. Rage gleamed in his eyes as he pointed his ghezyte serpent anklet at her, uttering a sibilant prayer. Viridian flames erupted around Parwyn, warping the air with phantasmal heat and screaming emerald cinders. The flames subsided, leaving a faint odor of death. "Release me," he mocked, standing. "From what? This is ascension, dear Parwyn. Even you fade and vanish before my eyes. You actually angered me, for a moment. But it has passed."

He grinned wryly. "Brother Aenternoll is a member of Voln. I suggest you talk to him about this. We recycle things... to make them stronger. It is a conversation I cannot have with you... yet."

Later, in the shadowed Garden of Death beside a brownstone crypt, he knelt before a bronze idol of serpent and skeletal hand. The air thickened with turned soil and blood. "We are not so different. You are better than them, dear Parwyn, Mother of Shadows," Bakarus said, and then his voice turned chillingly focused. "And I will continue to look after you, let us pray"

Bakarus chanted, scales shimmering across decayed skin. A massive emerald serpent filled her vision, its golden eyes transfixing her like hooks in her soul. Forked tongue darted out, tasting her fear, as darkness swallowed the image whole. Overwhelmed by a greater spiritual power, Parwyn's mind recoiled in horror, her body betraying her as she fell dazed and blinded to her knees in unwilling divine reverence, ears filled with a soft, insidious hiss that slithered through her thoughts. Terror gripped her, raw and unrelenting, as she felt the inexorable pull of domination, her will crumbling like dry leaves under an ancient force. It dragged forth buried memories of the Ur-Daemon's grip—tentacles of shadow coiling around her essence, stripping away autonomy in a void of endless hunger—leaving her trembling, trapped in the echo of that primordial violation.

Bakarus recited: "Under His banner or in His horde."

Sight returned in fragments: the garden's red-veined creepers, the brownstone crypt looming, Bakarus standing with that patient, knowing smile. Clarity flooded back next, then movement. Parwyn surged to her feet in one fluid motion, hand snapping over her shoulder to seize the manchineel bow. The fungal particles showered in a bright, urgent cascade as she nocked an arrow without conscious thought, the string taut against her cheek.

She did not speak. She did not wait for his next word or gesture.

She turned and ran.

Boots pounded against the flagstones of Eastbridge Lane, then the cobbles of the bridges, the wind tearing at her cloak as she sprinted north through Solhaven's moonlit streets. Past the Liabo temples, through the plaza where the pastry had been shared hours earlier, out the northern gates and into the wilder roads. Her breath came in sharp bursts, heart hammering with the aftershock of violation and the old terror it had unearthed. The dappled elf-owl wheeled overhead, a silent shadow keeping pace.

She did not stop until the frozen air of Icemule Trace bit her lungs, until the snow-dusted spires of the glacier town rose against the northern sky and the familiar chill of home wrapped around her like armor. Only then did she slow, bow still clutched white-knuckled, sea-green eyes scanning the dark for any flicker of green glow or slithering shadow that might have followed.