Last Journal Entry of Ryukan
As I write this, My life is slowly leaving me from multiple cuts and slices all over my body. My Precious Truthbearers are holding the fortress nicely enough, but even they are no match for the power that I awoke deep in that cave.
It was last week, I found a clue on the whereabouts of the item I have spent my life trying to find. A cave that was located on a desolate world, devoid of ALL life. I wondered this world, past ruins of once great cities and fortresses, skeletons of children and adults littered the ground, ashen wastelands surrounded the cities and were the predominant feature of this world.
The item in question was a trivial thing in hindsight. Though immensely valuable should one find it, I dreamed of being the one to find it since I was a child. A sceptre. The Sceptre of Riviera. One of the most powerful objects in the multiverse. I should have known better than to think it would be unguarded.
In my arrogance, I entered that cave alone and only lightly armed. I slowly walked, ever deeper. Through twists and turns, down and down I went. Farther than even the deepest of dwarven mines. Days was what the journey was measured in. Around the third day, I started hearing it, slights scratches that followed the ground behind me. At fist, I chalked it up to my active imagination. But, after the fourth day, they persisted.
And finally, On the Fifth day, I came across it, a small door. Wen I opened it, I was greeted by a small chamber. No dust was present, the air was deathly still. I made my way to the far wall, and the Throne that sat against it. The throne was empty but for a small cloth bundle that, when I opened, contained the most beautiful sceptre I ever laid eyes upon.
My marveling was cut short by a screech that rent the very air. I looked out the door, and a set of eyes greeted me. These eyes, were not of any mortal being, blacker than the abyss, they only stood out in the blackness around them by being even more black. I felt something that I never felt before, nor ever will again.
It lunged at me, I barely dodged it and I ran. To my eternal shame, I ran for the life and love of all that I ever held dear. The sprint up was the most horrible thing I have ever endured. It stayed with me, toying with me, cutting me and slicing at me with claws that were several feet long. I only ever got one glimpse of it, a small creature of a warped body, grey and dry, with elongated limbs with claws that looked like scythes. That image only served to keep my body in even more panic.
After only hours, I made it to the surface, I turned to look at my pursuer, only to see it stop just short of the light, a mocking name to what that dying star produced, more like an eternal twilight. It looked at me and I paniced again and ran.
After a while, I found an old ruined castle, and I summoned a detachment of Thruthbearers. To my folly, I should've just left that world, but I needed that sceptre which I had dropped in the chamber. I was almost patched up and we were ready to leave to challenge it, to show it that nothing makes a fool of me.
I was a fool.
As night fell, we were waiting for our scouts to report back, when that screech once again rent the air, even more unsettling than before, how could one creature emit a scream from every where at once? We soon had our answer.
Only one of the three scouts came back, and she only weakly said one word "Run!" before succumbing to her wound, a pierced chest.
I ordered the gate shut to the castle, I ran to activate the portable portal, but it wouldn't open. I then heard, on the wind, a voice of pure hatred and evil chanting powerful words of entrapment. We were stuck in the castle.
I manned the wall with my troops. I gazed upon the ashen wasteland, and beheld a sight that will stay with me until I pass from this world. An army of these creatures swarming towards us.
It was a slaughter. We lost the outer walls in 5 minutes, the inner walls in 7. I was wounded in the retreat. Now I sit here in the keep with the last 12 Thruthbearers. Even now they are using their bodies to slam the stone with reckless abandon. I hear their screeches, I am frightened. This room is the same one as was shown to me in the portal back in Doomforest. I can only hope some one comes to our aid soo----
*Blood covers the last pages of this journal*
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Airith puts the journal down.
"Has his body been interred yet?"
"There was none madam." Says her secretary.
"I was there, there were several." Airith says angrily.
"Yes, but his was not among them"
"What. How could his body not be there, the blood pooled there was more than enought to die from bloodloss alone?"
Ryukan, where are you... Airith wonders to herself as she is lead to be crowned the new Headmistress