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Though dusty and sadden skulls may lay forgotten and lost, their souls trapped in a prison not of their own making, but taking from the youthfulness of life, unfairly, unjustified, cruel and unusual…
Their deaths were meant to serve as a warning or as an eventuality set by their liches or their dark gods, but to us… to us you are living…
We call these prisons by one simple word…crypts! Crypts are a holding cell that the dark mages use solely to fulfill their one single delightful ambition!
And no! It's not for power… and not for their sick satisfaction for filling the dark void in their hearts… No! They use them as a means to an end!
But even as that is so… one cannot deny the fact that once you gain the power to wield another soul… to twist it... To turn it into whatever your soul desires… that kind of power… though intoxicating… OH... SO VERY INTOXICATING! To have that level of control over another is just… just so… fulfilling!
Though it is ironic that we have to give up our own souls first, before we can enjoy that very same feeling of being a master over life and death. But what a simple and easy choice to make! Whether it be to a loa of death or to a lich king of sorts… it doesn't matter who really… it only matters if we can enjoy, in that very same delusion of control! For in magic of old, there is no control, only guidance…
→→→→→→→→→→→→ Excerpt from a journal of a dark mage
As Lanthios held onto the skull of a dead ghoul, its body turned to dust beneath his feet, the skull that once belonged to a man, now rested calming in the palm of his hands. But though it finally receives rest, the scars and chips that were bare to see, showed Lanthios just how cruel and vile, but most importantly how real, this whole situation is!
But while he stared into the sockets of the eyes, Lanthios felt the true darkness that lay in this place, he felt the sadness, the depression, and the loneliness that each and every one of these souls carried!
He felt the light in him stir at the scene! But though it stirred violently in his chest, Lanthios kept it under control, as his mind continued to wander onto this moss cave.
But while his mind wandered, Layla stared at the burning souls that bathed in her purifying flames! As her flames danced in a tint of golden light, just barely perceivable to the naked eye, the souls trapped in the center made faces that she did not expect!
For they were not painful whaling or angry faces… or loudly crying words of madness… but instead… their faces… their faces…their lovely faces were captured forever in her mind! For they were filled with joyous tears!
For in those faces… captured forever in her mind, showed her just how cruel Azrael really is… for in those mixed in faces were those of fellow blood Elves! Teachers, children, masters, none were spared! All souls were equal and ripe for the taking for the man named Azrael!
With furry reaching its apex, Layla stormed to grab Lanthios by the hand to continue forward as more and more souls, who passed by bowed respectively towards her… as if giving thanks…
But right when she was but a hair breath away form Lanthios, he turned to look up and said while he crushed the skull in his hand to dust:
{Of all of your cruelty that you have shown us these past years… none are as horrible as this! Fine then… I'll play your game… after all… you trained me!}
[to this remark, Azrael simply Laughed in a fat gluttonous manner]
As the pair stormed through the caverns, crushing brittle bones here and there, passing creepy spider webs and giant undead spiders, they arrived in a big open room… a spacious room, filled with upside down corpses that hung from above, while aberration of lost elven souls and spirits blended together with the mountain of bones that laid at the center!
As the room filled with ghastly winds and the howls of the dead and the tormented, madding screams of thousands of voices reverberated throughout the caravan!
But as they converted into one single being! The darkness that lay just inside the giant monster's empty skull, lit up with the most beautiful shade of orange the pair ever saw!
With renewed life the monster raised its arm out of the dirt they slept in for centuries undisturbed, though it didn't have legs the monster excluded an aura of pure dusty white flames around its upper half! As the wet floor parted to reveal dying grass and chirping undead crows.
As pale dim light flooded the room, there was one skeleton… one oddly placed skeleton, that rested in the shadow half room. But while it was adorned in beautiful purple flowers, its eyes lit up in an elegant shade of violet.
As it stood its ground, the skeleton bent to pick up a long-forgotten crown that was all but weathered by time. With the crown placed squarely on its head, the bones around it began to shake and come alive! They too formed fully equipped bodies ready and willing to fight!
But to the shock of both Lanthios and Layla, as they feared what was to come! For they were made to watch all this unfold before their very eyes. Scared, they would have to face two forces at once, they tried to think of a way out of this situation, when they experienced firsthand that not all undead can be controlled, can be made to serve, to be made to give up what they once were so easily like tripping a switch.
No! For as that dusty light approached the crown… the skeleton all dressed in flowers raised its sword! Though to the kids, his side seemed to be the loneliness, the saddest, the darkest… it was in fact the brightest side of the room!
For as the pair looked back at the big one, all alone in its so-called warmth of light, they realized the truth… for all the souls that made up its being, all the power it exerted per swing, the light it gave…
it was in truth the most sorrowful, mournful, and miserable of all the undead by far in the interior of this forsaken crypt! For even the skeletons that made up its body fought each other! The souls wined to each other! Its crying roar sounded more like a plea for help than any fearsome roar of destruction! As the pair prepared themselves for battle, they felt more pity than fear!