Send the Pain Below

[Raevyx_Araya]

I awoke with to the horrifying sounds of bones crunching together, as if something was munching on the large piles of bone fragments. I stood quickly looking around the room and much to my surprise. I saw my skeletal servant placing the pieces of broken bones into vaguely human forms. My servant must have gotten bored during the night and took it upon itself to make use of the bone fragments that were in heaps near the alcoves as well as those that were scattered about the room. As I examined the five it had in front of it, I looked around and noticed that it had not just made five, there must have been over a thousand skeletons laid out from the charred bone fragments in the caverns. It continued to sort and set the skeletons on the cavern floor for several hours before it stopped and returned to a position near me. However, it did not stop and fall into line behind me, instead, it began a dark chant and with each word, its bone fingers began to glow with a deep red aura. The dark chant continued for an hour or two before my skeletal servant stopped chanting and bowed. The thought of my servant breaking through its mental bonds and creating skeleton mock-ups on the floor of the cavern was beyond me. What happened next truly left me speechless. All of the skeletal mock-ups began to shudder violently before rising from the floor to stand on their on accord. My skeletal servant rose from its prone position and turned towards me. Its eyes flared brightly as it grinned at me before moving towards me. It stopped in front of me and bowed its head a bit then spoke, “You have served me well Raevyx.” Before I could say anything in return, its fiery eyes returned to its normal dull shade and it just stood there in front of me, staring mindlessly at me, awaiting its orders. What an obvious and great gift it was.

[Raevyx_Araya]

Raevyx blinked slowly as he forced himself back into consciousness, hoping that whatever assailed him was either no longer here or preoccupied with something else. As he regained his senses he was obviously still not in any condition to fight let alone in any condition to take in everything that had just happened. Something had knocked the Drow clear across the cavern. His eyes slowly began to focus and the darkness that once enveloped this room was gone and the grand cavern could now be fully taken in. The cavern was large enough to place an entire city within its walls and from the looks of it, it once did. He sat there taking in the cavern floor and the ruins that littered it, and then he turned his attention to the ceiling and noticed that he could not really see the ceiling, even when his eyes dropped into the infrared spectrum. Not only could he not see it, but he got the feeling that it was moving.

He stood slowly and quietly; then immediately sent out a mental call for his minion trying to figure out its location within the cavern. Hopefully, it stayed right at the vertical entrance. A dull mental ping returned from his right and he quickly turned his head and sought out the form of the minion. Raevyx searched for several moments before a dull grey head began to bob around inside the vertical entrance. The minion had retreated.

Raevyx made it to his minion and gave it a good once over to make sure nothing had happened to it. He also fitted the skeletal servant with a bow and two quivers that were found on the expedition. For a moment, the minion seemed to grin as the bow was placed on it back and the quivers at its side. Raevyx stopped and looked at his minion then shook his head and returned his attention to the now writhing mass of darkness that claimed the cavern ceiling. His infrared eyes could not penetrate the darkness above and his concern was expressed on his face. He continued to scan the ceiling to find some sort of break in the unnatural darkness, but none presented itself until a deep red hue began to plummet from the ceiling. The object, whatever it was, slammed into the cavern floor with a sickening thud which also caused the majority of it to explode into bloody chunks of what he now recognized as a torso from something. He sent his eyes back up to look for what ever dropped its meal and to try and ascertain what ever it is. He narrowed his gaze as a jet of darkness arched downward which then lead to an even greater portion of the darkness. In a matter of seconds, Raevyx knew exactly what he was up against, a Shadow Dragon. A silent and dark prayer quickly went down to his Lord, “By the Grim Lords will, I shall meet you in battle.” Another quick mental command to his minion caused it to ready the bow and draw an arrow. This was either going to a quick death or a long fight.