Drinal (EQ) – Luclin's Light

"Tell us a story," the young Iksar begged of his teacher.

"Yes, yes," the other children chimed together, looking towards the large figure.

"A story eh?" he asked, thinking for a moment. "How about a ghost story?" he asked, smiling with a toothy grin.

The children nodded with anticipation and huddled together as their teacher began.

A ring of elite guards surrounded the aging, fork-shaped stone; its crisscrossing red ovals dripping red with some unknown substance. Their eyes were not cast upon the activity in the center of the ring, but instead were watching for activity that might bring their motionless bodies to life.

Staring at Luclin, Polin waited impatiently for it to reach its zenith before starting his ceremony, "To those gathered here, we are about to honor the dead. Disrupt my ritual and instead of being with the dead you will be one of the dead." He flashed an evil smile to his congregation; his ivory teeth and hair the only thing that could be seen in the umbra of the night. As he started, something from the shadows whizzed by the guards surrounding the circle, moving fast towards Polin.

But as Fate would have it that night, the stone-bite arrow struck the staff of the necromancer, just as he was about to start the ritual.

Murmurs of his assemblage broke the silence as Polin's eyes illuminated an eerie green, easily piercing the darkness of Nektulos Forest. He could see the aggregation of humanoids, waiting with the same stillness intensity of his guards. Then his eyes narrowed, as the amaranthine wisps of his magic traced the path of the arrow back to its source. Lifting his staff to the sky, he chanted something before slamming the gold-capped end into the ground with such force, the arrow dislodged.

The Wood Elf with the bow suddenly broke the silence with a blood-curling scream, as bony claws broke the ground under his feet. Grasping the Elf's ankle they started to pull him underground. His friends grabbed his arms as he was pulled slowly under the ground. The grassy soil turned crimson from the damage to the Elf's body as it disappeared under the sod; his friend's efforts to stop it were in vain.

The general-at-arms stepped forward, upon seeing the gruesome display, ordered the attack. The man was easy to spot among the various forms that were silhouetted in the darkness. He was dressed in plate armor, covered with a new Freeport red tunic. The blue fleur-de-lis and bright yellow crest of an anchor had never seen a day of battle before. He drew his claymore from his back scabbard and held it with both hands aloft.

Humanoids from all the goodly races charged ahead, shaking the ground with their mass. They released all manner of attacks, both physical and arcane towards the protective circle of warriors, who still hadn't moved. Just as the onslaught was about to strike the protective circle, skeletal forms jumped up from under the ground, stopping for a moment the entire raiding swarm.

To be continued…

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