Darkness and Death

[Deirdre]

If anything rivaled the abundance of darkness in Tarthia now it was Death. The stink of it hung heavily in the air, bloated bodies, dismembered pieces of Sedi, and a seething sea of vultures. Gorging themselves on the death. It wasn't surprising she was left behind, Laying among a pile of twisted body parts, covered in blood and bile, and unconscious as she had been. In fact by all rights she should certainly be dead, she thought to herself as she looked down at her body, and the bone blade that thrust up out of her stomach covered in her own blood and entrails. Why she could still move and think was beyond her understanding.

Hours passed as she lay there, at first she cried out for help, until it became clear that only the vultures remained alive to hear her. Death was her element and so she could feel the souls of her fallen friends and companions around her, searching for each other among the carnage. Her powers let her hear them, but she could not speak to them, it was becoming too much, the whispers, and caresses of the dead in a field of carnage. The stink of it made her dizzy. If her stomach had still been in place she would have thrown up. That thought made her even more sick.

Pain was just a distant memory, that should have clued her in, that and the cold. She couldn't feel anything anymore just cold, darkness and death. It was all there was left, her last thought as she slipped from life was of her father, surely he would save her.

“It is complete.” The voice was a whisper of her own deep in her mind, she was dead, she knew it, her heart no longer beat in her chest, her lungs no longer filled with air. Pain was gone completely now, and she could no longer smell the sickly sweet aroma of rotting meat around her body. But something was not as it should be. Her soul was not free to leave her body as the other ones were. She was pinned here, by something.

Her cold dead fingers twitched slightly, then rose, curling around the bone blade, and pushed it out her back, the sword coming free and falling to the side with a sharp clatter startling away the vultures and ravens starting to close in on her body. Her dead eyes opened and fell upon what she had been impaled upon. The Arc of Death, it could only be, and her a Death Sedi, dying had attached her soul to it, yet since no one had killed her with it it belonged only to the body last living touching it... Her own. So even in death it had reanimated her, to give itself its own purpose.

Her hand clasped around the hilt of the weapon, and power filled her corpse, surging through her, bones snapping back into place, body parts regenerating skin sealing up as if never wounded, the whispers of the dead around Tarthia turned to screams of horror as they suddenly were bound to the land, unable to escape or ascend to the after life.

Her mind raced trying to hold onto itself in face of the power that undertook her, but failed and snapped. She was dead, surrounded by the screeches of the damned, in a field of dismembered body parts, and now to top it all off completely insane. She rose to her feet, ruined clothing falling in rags around her, her pristinely healed naked body glistened with the blood of herself and her fallen comrades in patterns, the patterns slowly moved about her flesh, the blood sinking in and turning black like the ink of tattoos, depicting horrible beasts and symbols. She turned the blade downward and gripped it with both hands.

Her lungs filled with air and she screamed. The deathly scream of a banshee, dead in soul and mind, insanity incarnate, ripped forth from the land of eternal night, and the Arc came down. The point buried itself in the soil and an unearthly green flickering light streaked the heavens above Tarthia. Like incandescent ethereal flames.

“Rise! You fight once more, never to rest, never to fall! The Sedi will never die!” She laughed as the flesh melted away from the bodies of the fallen Sedi. Bones snapped together, and pushed themselves up out of rotten fleshy hulks, eyes glowing with the same eerie green glow that the sky held. Slowly ¾ of the Sedian Population, rose to their feet, souls trapped in skeletal remains, soft auras of their individual elements rising up around them.

[Sitherack's Soul]

It was into this madness that a midnight black sphere of Darkness exploded. The power was intense, the light of the sky and the eyes of the risen undead Sedi was the only light visible. As the sphere melted away. Sitherack and Zinerva stood facing the undead hoard, Deirdre at their head, and gaped in shock.

Shock quickly turned to rage as Sitherack looked at the Fallen Sedi and back at Deirdre. Then his eyes caught the Arc of Death in her hand and he smiled softly. The look of fresh insanity was clear in her eyes, and here she was in the land of eternal night, the darkness here was his, her experience with the Arc of Death was minimal at best, but with such a fresh field of corpses... he flung out his left hand, and Darkness enclosed Deirdre's body, slowly shrinking into her, If she had had her sanity she could have consciously fought it, but insane there was nothing she could really do against him now. The legions of undead started forward to protect their mistress but stopped short at a sharp command that resonated from her throat.

“We are your's Lord Sitherack, may Death and Darkness reign in this land forever, command us.” Her voice was hollow, her eyes empty, the darkness had infected what mind she had left, and he was now her puppet to do with as he pleased.

[Lucretias Sedi]

Te fire inside her body was intense; the impact of flesh upon earth was smarting already. Luckily enough for her, she’d had more resilience in her body or she’d probably have broken something. That wasn’t to say that she wasn’t hurting – every muscle protested its use, and even as she tried to push herself up a soft groan escaped her and she collapsed upon the stoned earth, her mind giving itself into Darkness. Her last thought was a triumphant thought that they were at last, home…


“Wake up, girl. Can you understand me?”

Blurry vision of something, a face amongst many trying to nudge her awake; and she understood then that she was alive and that it wasn’t a dream. One of the Life Sedi that had managed to heal her up enough to move, she pulled her legs under her and gave a short nod in answer – which was almost a mistake in itself as the world tried to collapse within itself. She bit down on her lip as the woman moved on to find others that survived, but she was certain that she’d been crushed by… something. Her eyes started focusing and for a minute she wished they hadn’t – bodies and parts lay strewn about her. Lucky enough, if she flinched every time she’d seen a dead body she’d been kicked out to some kind of civilian life at one point.

She felt the bile building and turned away, ignoring the pangs of regret that rose up within her at seeing what were once her fellow comrades in pieces. She pushed herself to her feet, slowly, feeling the tatters of her clothing cling to her. She felt her eyes water and blamed it on the d**n dirt that coated her once pristine flesh, and looked around her. They were home – however many survived – they were home. She was wondering idly if here house were still intact with some fresh clothing when she heard a disturbance – from all around her. A banshee scream, something that sent the hairs on the edge of her body dancing, all of her instincts telling her to run as fast as she could.

However, luck would not side with her. Parts of bodies were twitching moving, and the bile burned at the back of her throat as she watched the calling of the Death Sedi at work. She watched flesh melt, bones move, those that were in tact start to stand where rights they should be put to rest. The bile was burning and a small tight knot formed in her heart a mix of rage and wonderment – as she felt the ground beneath her moving, quivering – answering the call she stumbled backwards, somewhere in the mix of all this and laughed to herself.

Of course, until her eyes caught sight of Sitherack and she saw the light fade from the girls eyes, couldn’t hear the words but saw the mouth moved. Luc’s eyes narrowed, and she felt herself trying to melt somewhere away from the dead bodies, trying to hide from them. It would seem somewhere that the Arcs had been separated, split from their original holders and somehow now were finding new hands. Though even as she felt her footfalls carrying her away, she realized that she needed to find the Arc of Dreams – somehow.

She had no ties to it beyond the fact it could give her great power – but it would be hers somehow…. Somehow.