I, Abad-Shai, Master of the Vault, the Black Flame, He Who Walks in Shadows, the Scourge of the Ten Realms, felt myself pulling back together. Piece by piece, mote of essence by mote of essence, my spirit pieced itself together again at the edge of the void.

  I had once been a lord among lords, a magnificent being, beautiful and terrible. I was one of the fragments of the greatest entity to ever walk Reial, a spiritual successor to the Dark Lord himself, yet here I was, a shade barely clinging to existence. I’d been brought low. Ever so low.

  Why?

  How?

  I asked myself those questions over and over again, but the answer was always the same.

  I was struck down.

  And, while I would have been too proud to whinge and whine before my untimely death, I no longer bothered to mask my seething, impotent rage. My current state was too pathetic for even my great ego. I was nothing more than a shadow barely tethered to my rotting corpse.

  Oh, I had so many lofty ideas in life. I had it all planned out. After the great war stalled, I thought of a brilliant scheme. I would mask myself. I would slowly infiltrate the court of Istaera. I would seduce some noblewomen, position myself in high society. I would grow close to the king and his radiant queen. I would twist the queen away from her husband, planting treachery in her heart. I would whisper poisoned words into the king's ear, convincing the soft-minded mortal to take action against his allies, who, of course, would include the Hero, Dark Father curse her name.

  Of course, she secretly wanted his throne. Of course, she had already made alliances with the faction of dissident nobles. Of course, she was readying herself to strike.

  It should have been easy. My victory would have been glorious.

  While my loyal servants and dark siblings—if the various coalesced essences of a dead being known as "The Dark Lord" could even be called siblings—were busy striking down peasants and petty lords alike in the shit-covered plains, I would have watched the Hero's head roll. I would have brought the king low. I would have executed the dissidents, a faction I’d cobbled together from the pretenders and the envious in the court of Istaera, for their role in the king’s death.

  Then, I would have used my position and powers to become the king. Or, if that weren’t possible, I would have put the next king in the queen's fertile belly, thus claiming her dead husband's throne, wife, and kingdom by proxy. Either would have satisfied my refined tastes.

  Instead, I got a holy sword planted three feet into my sternum.

  How could she see me? My illusions were perfect. My weaves were intricately designed to bypass all manner of magical protections. I had personally unwoven the enchantments in the castle.

  How?

  The question was vexing. For the thousandth time, I turned the events over in my mind.

  I certainly hadn’t seen her coming. One moment, I was flirting with the queen in the castle's courtyard after our most recent week-long tryst in the countryside, her husband dying in his chambers. The next moment—POW—holy sword. A few slices later, I was less than half of myself. Only a fortuitous protection spell and a last-resort ring of teleportation prevented me from joining the ash heap of history.

  Not that it meant much. When my body failed, my vault called my broken body home. Once my broken body was sheltered within, I found myself bound to the little sarcophagus I’d crafted on a whim as an apprentice. There I’d remained for many years. For how long? I couldn’t say.

  I’d honestly forgotten about the old thing, buried under pounds and pounds of riches in the back of my vault’s grand hall. I remembered placing a giant's axe on top of it, thinking that the sarcophagus made an excellent display. For over a century of my long life, that’s how it remained.

  For what felt like an age, I floated in darkness. However, in time, I felt my connection to my corpse grow. Once I was strong enough, I willed myself into my broken body and saw for the first time the glowing runes that illuminated my ashen skin. In that moment, I was grateful that I hadn't gotten rid of the old thing to make more room for my collection. If I could go back in time and change any one thing, though, I would kick myself for not making the thing larger. The stone walls brushed against my cracked skin whenever I pulled my soul back into my rotten body.

  Adjustments for later.

  I couldn’t quite remember the enchantments that went into the thing. In fact, I’d forgotten much of my life during my time in the void. Very little remained of the man I was. However, I knew one thing: I would live again. And when I did, I would restore my vault to its former glory. Of that, I was certain.

  Ah, my vault. The most decadent storage space for the most eclectic collection of art, treasure, and artifacts to ever grace the world. Even my progenitor couldn't claim a vault rivaling my own! It was my pride and joy. To think that I had heard voices outside of my sarcophagus. Lousy, filthy, disgusting mortal voices cackling about the score they’d found. My spirit shuddered as I remembered the way they laughed. To think that mortals would dare enter my glorious vault. Day after day, they returned, stealing more and more of my precious belongings. They stole from the man who stole all that treasure.

  The audacity.

  Thinking on it yet again, I vowed, for possibly the thousandth time, that someday I would find them…

  I would remember their voices. They’d been burned into my spirit like a branding iron on flesh. Ooohhh, then I would make them laugh. Laugh, and cry, and scream, and—

  I felt my spirit grow weary.

  It didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was here, rotting in my vault like some corpse. Like a mortal.

  A mortal!

  The thought caused my rotten jaw to twist into a grimace. Then, it fell off. I willed my body to sigh, which sounded more like a dry, rattling cough that echoed through my tomb. Doing so made me actually cough, which caused my arm to fall off. And the stone walls scraped my shoulders.

  I grumbled and groaned before willing myself out of my body and back to the edge of the world between worlds.

  There, I simmered until I slowly slipped back into a dreamless slumber within that familiar restless nothingness that ebbed and flowed, forever.

  I woke up with a start.

  My spirit was dragged back to reality by a soft, metallic, impossibly irritating tapping noise.

  As the haze slowly cleared from my mind, I realized my corpse had been hearing that terrible sound every few minutes for… a year? Time was fuzzy when you were dead. But I knew it had been happening more frequently. And worse—I remembered hearing those disgusting voices again. Not once, but twice.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Oh, I would cook them alive.

  I pulled myself back into my rotten body for the first time in gods-knew-how-long and immediately regretted it.

  The smell.

  Devils below, I would have given anything—anything—to not smell that stench again. My stench. Gritting my teeth (or what was left of them), I pushed some of my essence into my desiccated eyes. They stretched unnaturally as fluid filled them. One of them popped, then refilled. After an excruciating ten minutes, they felt alive enough to use. Carefully, I fluttered them open—and felt my left eyelid split apart. I shuddered, and, of course, my shoulders scraped against the walls of my too-small coffin.

  Looking around, I saw that the space around me was as dark as ever, save for the faint glow of the runes carved into the lid. Listening intently, I realized the sound must have been the wind knocking metal against stone.

  Tink.

  Tink.

  Tink.

  Tink.

  …The wind? My vault was underground. No, this was intentional. Someone was digging.

  The sound made my fangs itch. I hated it. I hated it so much. The rage, the curiosity, the self-loathing—it would have killed me if I weren’t already dead.

  My spirit roiling, I willed my mind out of my body and back into the world between worlds, praying that whatever was making that infernal racket would rust away, or die, or de-animate, or get eaten by wolves, or—

  It felt like an eternity had passed before I returned to my body again.

  Willing essence into my limbs, I found my corpse far more intact than before. Progress. I also realized, with immense relief, that the abominable noise had stopped. Madness had been narrowly avoided. My fangs no longer itched.

  As I settled into my body, I noted with grim satisfaction that the smell had finally diminished. My insides must have dried out completely during my long rest. A vast improvement over the putrid rot that had clung to me before.

  I sighed.

  Would I ever be whole again?

  With that bitter thought, I willed myself back to sleep.

  I was yanked back into my body.

  A loud rumble shook my coffin, making my shoulders scrape against the stone walls. Then, a wave of essence rushed into my spirit. It flooded into me like a sudden downpour, filling my spirit with more vitality than I’d felt in ages.

  I lifted a hand to my face, moving with the stiff, mechanical motion of fingers that had long forgotten how to bend. My skin was thin and cold, stretched taut over my newly reformed bones. My hands, once capable of conjuring storms and calling forth legions, felt weak, and I was exhausted by the effort. But I could see the change. They were no longer rotten.

  They were smooth, unblemished. Like the hands of the fair folk I once called family.

  They were grey, marked by the Dark Father as one of his.

  They were mine.

  Wearied, I set my hand back down—and felt something brush against my fingers.

  Curious, I grabbed it and held it up in the dim light.

  A black orb.

  Magic hummed within it, but its purpose eluded me. It seemed to drink the faint glow of the runes, pulling the light into its depths. Beyond that, nothing.

  Shrugging, I set it back down, and my shoulders scraped the walls again. With a sigh, I willed myself back into the void.

  It wouldn’t be much longer now… I hoped.

  Time passed—how much, I couldn’t say—before I pulled myself back from the abyss to take stock of my pitiful existence.

  My rage had quieted long ago. The void had stolen my memories, my power, even my passion. In their place?

  Apathy.

  A hollow, sinking nothingness.

  I had gnashed my teeth. How, how I had cursed. How I had raved.

  All for nothing.

  I hardly cared to wake anymore. After what felt like decades, a grim certainty had long settled over me: This was my eternity.

  A pitiful, impotent spirit, bound forever to a too-small sarcophagus.

  I hardly cared anymore.

  I didn’t fight it.

  I simply… existed.

  I let myself drift back into oblivion.

  I shifted in my sarcophagus and yawned.

  Rolling onto my side, I coughed as a bit of dirt assaulted my nose. Sneezing, I wiped my face and turned the other way. I listened to the rhythmic beating of my heart as I prepared to slip back into the void—and froze.

  For the first time in… a very long time… I felt it. A heartbeat. My body felt… whole? I didn’t stink of decay. My muscles flexed beneath cold, unbroken skin. My limbs responded to my will. There was life in me again. After years of waiting, my body had finally recovered enough to contain my essence.

  A flicker of hope stirred in my chest.

  I didn’t dare open my eyes, lest I be disappointed once again. Instead, carefully, patiently, I stretched, testing each muscle, each tendon. My limbs were stiff, weak, but alive.

  When I was sure my condition had truly changed, I opened my eyes. My eyelid didn’t split. At first, there was only darkness. But slowly, ever so slowly, my vision sharpened. The familiar runes. They were above me. But I could see them. Not with dead, hazy eyes but living, acute ones.

  I could scream.

  I studied the runes glowing faintly above me, their dull colors dust-covered but still pulsing with power. A spark of pride flickered inside me—weak, ghostly, but there. For the first time since my death, I permitted myself to smile. I was frail. That much was certain. Even a lowly zombie could overpower me if I weren’t careful. But one thing was undeniable:

  I.

  Was.

  Alive.

  Then—a noise.

  "Master… are you awake?"

  I knew that voice. Where had I heard it?

  It came again, muffled by stone and laced with desperation:

  “Master! Please answer me. I felt something. Are you finally awake?”

  My thoughts gathered like mist over still water. That voice… a servant?

  "Master… I don’t want to be alone anymore…"

  So pitiful. It was the voice of… Ah! Angra. My familiar.

  I’d summoned the imp as the crowning achievement of my apprenticeship. My master had demanded I summon a familiar—and, in my arrogance, I’d nearly botched the ritual. I refused to summon a being unworthy of being at my side and nearly died for my efforts. But I survived, and Angra was created.

  Even then, I was too good to die.

  I hesitated, curiosity tugging at me to assess my restored form first. Reaching into my mind, I summoned the metaphysical scroll that contained my essence—a gift from the Goddess during the Third Age, when she brought humans to this world to fight some ancient threat. One far less deadly than my own dark sire. It hadn’t taken long for my kind to turn her magic against the mortals she’d brought to this world. With a faint shimmer of dark energy, the scroll unfurled before me. I sneered.

  “Goddess be praised.”

  

  

Abad-Shai, Shadowspawn Elf Warlock of the Mask 1

  Attributes

  
• Strength: 7
• Agility: 11
• Resilience: 9
• Power: 14
• Will: 13


  Equipment

  
• [Tattered Robes]
• [Presence I]

  Skills

  

1. [Locked]
2. [Locked]
3. [Locked]
4. [Locked]
5. [Locked]
6. [Locked]
7. [Locked]
8. [Locked]
9. [Locked]

  Spells

  

• 1st Circle
• 2nd Circle
• 3rd Circle
• 4th Circle
• 5th Circle

  Talents

  

• [Bind Familiar]
• [Dark Lord's Shadow]
• [Detect Magic]
• [Fey Senses]
• [Magical Aptitude: Animancy]
• [Magical Aptitude: Conjuration]
• [Magical Aptitude: Illusion]
• [Magical Aptitude: Obtenebration]
• [Magical Aptitude: Pyromancy]
• [Quasireality]

  I couldn't help but focus on my ancestry. An elf… I often forgot that my birth mother had been elven. I couldn’t remember much about her—her long golden hair, the sound of her voice, fleeting impressions. She mattered little in the grand scheme of things. The moment my sire’s essence poisoned her womb, her destiny had ceased to be her own.

  Reading further, my lips curled into a sneer.

  My form, once fearsome, beautiful, brimming with power, had withered into something nearly mortal. I had lost most of my skills. My level had reduced by a third. I was reduced to a fragility I wasn’t accustomed to. Worse, my magic was gone. I couldn’t recall any spells. It was as if whole pieces of myself had been carved out of my mind. At least I still had my {Mask of Many Faces}. I’d need it, weak as I was.

  With a sigh, I dismissed the scroll, the weight of my diminished power settling over me like a burial shroud.

  Pathetic. I was little more than a mortal now. The thought turned my stomach.

  “Master, please. If you can hear me, speak.”

  “Yes, Angra,” I rasped. My vocal cords scraped, raw from disuse. “I’m awake.”

  A sound of emitted from beyond the sarcophagus. "You’ve been in your tomb for a very long time, master," the creature said. A weighted pause: "I feared you would never awaken."

  Something stirred in my chest. It felt like… Empathy.

  Empathy?

  Since when did I care? Mercy, kindness, empathy—all useless indulgences. And yet, the thought of this wretched little creature waiting for me, dutiful and alone, for however long it had been wracked me with feeling.

  I pitied her.

  I couldn’t fathom waiting for anything that long. Nothing and no one was worth that kind of devotion. But she waited for me. Why?

  “I’m here now, little one.”

  Shards to make edits, I didn't feel like I was doing it justice. I decided to make the switch.