Story in progress

Prologue

A man dressed in a robe stumbled through a cave. An orb of light floats to the right above his head and illuminates a small area around him. His blue and gold robes are covered in small pouches and two sheaths, one of which still has the dagger in it. The other dagger is held in the man’s hand with a strong grip. He looks around frantically with a mixture of anger and panic on his face.

Stopping and doubling over, he pulled a hand away from his side to see it a deep red from a large amount of blood. He silently cursed to himself and takes a few strong breaths before continuing on. A stream of red stained his robe and some of his pants, leaving a trail that led to the cut in his side.

Suddenly, strange glow could be made further down the tunnel at a bend. The man stops agape for a moment before a crazed grin came to his face. He rushed forward against the pain and even pulled his hand off the wound to aid his speed. Each step took a great deal of his life with it, but he could care less.

“Finally, I’ve finally found it...” he muttered to himself as he rounded the bend.

He stumbled into the large room and looked around in wonder. Large pillars of rock hang from the ceiling with a faint moist look to them. A slight glisten makes them seem to shimmer and wave in the soft light of the room. The source of the light came from a large pool in the center of the room. There wasn’t any water in it, rather some black material filled with dots of light surrounded by swirling color that made it appear liquid. the pool formed a loose crescent shape on the other side of the room and took up a massive amount of space.

The man’s grin grew at the sight of the large pool. He slowed to a comfortable limp and a pained chuckle came out from his lips. After his brief glance around the room, his eyes locked on the center of the pool and didn’t stray.

“Well, well, well, he wasn’t wrong after all,” the man said, his eyes alight with a fire of drive behind them.

Coming to a stop in front of the pool, he paused before falling onto his knees. Despite the closer distance, the light didn’t seem to shift at all. The man ignored the slight trick of the eyes before wincing as another wave of pain shot through him. He took a few slow breaths before straightening up whispering some incantations.

Incantations were an old form of magic, one which the man hadn’t studied aside from a few years ago. As the words escaped his lips, the pool seemed to shift and stir in front of him. A steady stream of invisible power seeped from his lips into the air and permeated the entire chamber with a low hum. The moisture of the rocks waved and shook and the tone of the soft song until the man suddenly stopped.

His breath paused and his eyes went vacant. An emptiness filled them as the last of his life force slipped out of the large wound on his side. His grin slipped into a dull expression as death crept towards him. He fell to the side with a small thump that echoed in the empty hall.

A few moments of silence passed before the pool started to flow towards him. The immaterial liquid flowed in straight lines like long fingers reaching into his wound and his face. The lines of liquid flowed down his throat from his open mouth and nostrils. Some fingers crept into his vacant eyes and slid through his pupils. Once the filled everything they could from him, they suddenly stopped and a stillness reclaimed the room for a time.

Suddenly, the man jolted back up and began coughing blood from his lungs. He rolled away from the pool before retching up even more blood mixed with his stomach acid. After a few vomits, the blood was emptied from his body and his skin became a deep white with streaks of black fading in and out along his veins. He stood up and looked down at his body and then at the puddle of gore before him. His grin returned again as he stared at it. Letting out a low laugh, he turned back to the pool and his smile turned from a grin to smirk.

“My faith was well placed, I see. Now, I can begin the ritual,” the man said before stepping away from the pool and starting to strip off his blood-stained tunic.