Hidden Monsters
The party entered the last chamber.
It was dark, the wavering glow of Nicodemus’s bone candle flickering blue but quickly absorbed by the pedestal within. Against the black silhouette, floating in space, was a small shard of crystal. It appeared to be a fragment of obsidian, but each time a wave of light fell upon it, the radiance quickly sizzled and was sucked in without any trace of detail. The Void Shard perpetually drew into itself anything and everything that touched it, even light itself.
The party stood in terrified awe. Nicodemus slowly, reverently, approached and grasped it with the guardian’s gauntlet. Once in his palm, the crystal emitted a single resonating tone and diminished its vacuous aura, blue ghostlight once again filling the room.
Sarah slid up to Nicodemus. “Is that it?”
“Yes,” he said, turning it over and admiring its simple spindle shape.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
“Study it. Learn how it is that something can produce nothing.” He continued to stare at it, not noticing her movement around him. In a dream-like tone, he added, “I want to know how a piece of Nothing can exist like this, as a thing. Such a delightful paradox.”
“If the tales are true,” Sarah said soothingly, in an even whisper, “you could be like a god. You could vanquish anyone, anything. Even Zin.”
Nicodemus was still enrapt by the wonder of the Void Shard. He muttered, “I have no quarrel with Zin.”
The other party members stood back, uncertain, seeing Sarah’s sudden change in demeanor.
Sarah went on, “You could take control of the entire Empire.”
Nicodemus snorted, holding the Void Shard aloft. “I have no use for empires.”
“Are you sure? You truly do not want to use the Void Shard for its full potential?”
“Full potential?” He looked at her confused. “The mysterious knowledge this thing holds is far greater reward than any riches or domains. We can gain a greater understanding of all existence. We can finally know…”
Her eyes widened, and a hideous echoing moan scratched out of Sarah’s throat. Nicodemus froze in shock.
She flung aside the golden shield, and drew up her balled fists as she screamed at the ceiling. Her hair became like fire, waving strands encircling her head like savage burning serpents. Great ebony horns punctured out from her brow and curled around her head. Black leathery wings erupted from her back. Blood splattered everyone. Her clothes burned away, revealing a naked human form covered in barbs and dripping with poison, yet she lost none of her sexual allure. Rather, she became wreathed in unnatural waves of glamour, pulling man and woman alike in the room into a strange state mixed with panic and lust. Her fingers and toes elongated into scaled talons, like a bird of prey, and her chin drooped low to her chest, her mouth blossoming with thousands of yellow needle-like teeth.
“Worthless, useless wretch!” she screeched. She leveled her black eyes. “Give me the Void Shard, or perish.”
Nicodemus stepped away from her, his first instinct to bring his hand over his face, and send the humbled spirit guardian between them. As the wraith obeyed, Sarah swiped at it with her claws and tore huge chunks of necroplasm from its form.
It tried to retaliate, but the daemon was too fast. Before a single spectral blow could be landed on the transformed witch woman, six quick slashes cleft the last of the ghost’s form away. Like mist, it dissipated into the air. She rose up, a full foot taller than before, and drew a hostile breath into her flaring nostrils.
“Do not defy me, petty mortal.”
“Stay away from him!” Lady Balthes broke her unholy reverie and leapt forward, the business end of her repeating crossbow aimed at the daemon’s heart.
Sarah spread her hands, fingers splayed, and filled the air with slowness. Balthes’s finger was fragments of an inch from pulling the trigger, but cold mist filled the room, and she could not squeeze hard enough. She floated, at an angle in air, seconds agonizingly long, watching herself fall directly into the monster’s reach and completely unable to redirect herself. Even Nicodemus was trapped in a frozen delay, unable to initiate any action.
Sarah stepped forward unhindered, her claws gleaming, and thrust down at the child’s face.
A green flash of light from the left sent the world working at normal speed. Balthes fell to the dirt. Tessijah leapt in the way of the daemon’s claws, and found her wrinkled form hooked upon their blades. She dropped her quarterstaff, and spewed blood from her mouth.
The party regained their senses and their speed. They pulled away. The daemon Sarah threw down the corpse of Tessijah, which fell to the ground unceremoniously. The creature wiped the shaman’s blood on her naked thighs.
Seeing Tessijah fallen, the nin’ki flew into a frenzy of clicks and hisses, drawing his shortsword and advancing. Balthes too spewed wordless curses and locked aim with her crossbow from her prone position.
Sarah took a defensive pose, and the bolts and sword swipes were deflected by barriers of mystic energy. She looked beyond the two henchmen at Nicodemus and laughed. “Filthy, corrupt human. Did you really think anyone could love you? You are a disgusting, broken thing. Look at you. The more you indulge The Art, the more it ravages you.”
Nicodemus lowered his arms, and his shameful tendril crept out from under his cloak.
“You’ll never find anyone to embrace you. Sad, sick little man. You will always be alone.”
The necromancer raised his head, tendril giving one sharp lash at the ground, and fixed his misty eyes on the daemon.
Balthes rose and the rat pressed on, still trying to close the fight, but they were buffeted away constantly. They did not have the power to touch her.
“I could change that. I can make you pure again. Even better, I can make every woman desire you. Fill them with hunger for you. It’s what I do best.” Sarah sneered. “Just give me the Void Shard, and you shall no longer know the pain of rejection.”
Nicodemus raised his left hand. “Stop, both of you.”
Lady Balthes and the rat looked at him, unbelieving.
“Please stop,” he repeated, a note of dejection in his voice. “Just back off.”
They did.
Nicodemus steadily stepped toward the daemon-goddess, holding out his right hand, the immense gauntlet grasping the Void Shard.
“Here. Take it”
The rat squealed his disapproval. Lady Balthes, through teary eyes, muttered, “Don’t do it, you pitying asshole…”
Sarah held out her greedy hands.
Nicodemus firmly planted the crystal into them.
In an instant, with a whoosh, Sara evaporated into nothingness.
Nicodemus, without moving his steely gaze, looked into the empty space where Sara used to be. “Probably should have asked for the gauntlet first.” He tucked his naked tendril back around his waist with his other hand. “Or at least done your homework.”
There was a moment of silence, then everyone looked at Tessijah’s broken form.
Balthes said “You can bring her back, right?”
Nicodemus shook his head, “I can reanimate her body, but it certainly would not be her.”
They left, reversing their path in silence up through Tremali Keep.