When Geddon joined the group in locating missing children, he was berated for spending the party’s gold on prostitutes for four days straight. In reality, Geddon had only spent the first day among whores and patrons. He really enjoyed getting to know the ins and outs of the prostitution business, but he soon regained focus on his task. Most of the party’s gold was actually spent on procuring information on a certain casting ritual. Thinking back to when he lost his village while away on a quest demanded by the holy voice in his head, Geddon recalled being dumbstruck and then really angry. He thought the guiding dreams and visions would make everything better and that nothing could go wrong, but that perception shattered. He blamed the divine being for not caring, but he also wondered if it was not omnipotent. No matter the truth, Geddon decided that he would no longer follow its commands blindly. He wouldn’t forsake his holy visions entirely, but he wanted another perspective. So when Geddon found an old parchment on his travels that hinted at lost knowledge, his curiosity took hold. He left his ransacked village behind, bouncing from town to town in search of leads. He dug deep into his crown pouch to obtain information leading to these secrets of the world, but when he reached the final stop at Kell Na’Dar, he had no way to pay for the last piece of information. So he spent his last bit of coin telling a sob story filled with half truths to a bartender. Fortunately, he was in the right place at the right time. He met up with Ash’Ram and Treevil and took on a task to recover stolen funds. Through some clever ploys and dumb luck, they succeeded and were rewarded. Geddon then had enough crowns, plus extra, to pay for the last bit of information he needed. After a day of celebration, he made his way to the marketplace, gathering everything he needed, save one necessary component. He couldn’t find “brittle bones born again.” Therefore, he put his quest on hold and tracked down his troupe. And on all of their search for those lost kids, as chance would have it, they battled skeletons. So although Geddon was exhausted and badly bruised and slightly broken, he denied himself sleep and instead took the opportunity to seek out this ancient knowledge. He believed he had worked the ritual out to perfection in his head and had the last vital component he believed he needed. He gathered mud and blood from the sewers and found a quiet section of tunnel. He set down the overpriced candles he bought from the kenku and pulled out a rock he had gathered before. After enough scraping of rock against a dry section of sewer wall, he managed to light a candle. He etched forgotten symbols into the ground with rock and mud, and mixed and aligned bone and blood. He uttered strange words and made intricate gestures. And then he felt connected to something new, yet very old.
Geddon sits shrouded in the darkness of the old sewers of Kell Na’Dar his hands moving with a fevered pace scratching and pulling against old stone. Through the old mud and soil a vast network of symbols begins to grow. He scatters in the bones and blood adding in a few drops of his own to the four cardinal directions. As the blood hits stone and earth he hears a faint sizzle and the candles begin to blow as if touched by a phantom wind. The calling is sent and slowly Geddon feels a power run over him. A small tingle that touches every part of his body creeping inward towards his very soul. It is faint and a bit uneasy, but he is determined to see this through. Geddon’s eyes flutter and his body tenses. Then suddenly a pull….not a physical one but a pull of his spirit, his soul. Its similar to the tug one get when one sits down but there is no chair to catch you…As he staggers back hands grasping the cold stone for support…He hears a voice. Quickly he looks back to the party of rogues he’s been traveling with. They seem fast asleep and undisturbed….Even the ever watchful Kenku named Spot doesn’t seem to hear the voice…It is only a whisper in his ear, and his ear alone. “What is it that you seek?” the voice whispers in soft hushed towns rough like gravel being poured softly onto hard earth.
Geddon pauses thinking deeply before answering. “I am blessed, yet cursed by the divine. I have saved others but returned home to destruction. I learned that there are consequences to every action, risk in exposure, and danger with weakness. I seek knowledge to know the intentions of others, power to manipulate each outcome, and means to disguise every action.”
The voice seems to swirl around him now coming from all directions at once ” These things I can give. Power, knowledge, and deception are mere play things in my domain. Yet what I can offer as all things in life comes at a cost.” The words drift around Geddon’s head like stale pipe weed smoke hanging in a old pub. His eyes widened for a moment. He figured this wouldn’t be so easy. Still, those words seemed to hang with a weight in the air. He opened his mouth to speak, not in a false voice he used in the party, but his normal voice. He paused for a moment, having to think for a second what that was. As his lips moved and the sounds took shape, he wasn’t quite sure if the words reverberated off the sewer walls or merely within his mind. “I expected no less. I humbly request to hear the price so that I know if I may afford to pay.” The shadows cast by the candle light begin to shift and move around him…a hand of shade slithers across the sewers until it wraps itself around the man set upon knee in the filth of the old sewers. The voice whispers softly in reply “I will have thy soul child of the light. I shall encase it in my shade for all of time. You will do my will upon the prime, be it by my command or by my design. You shall do great works with my power and gain control of all things. You shall do this by giving into all things. Let go child of light… Let my shadow comfort you and take away your mortal concerns. Take from me truth. The only constant is that which has no rhyme or reason. Be apart of my shadow and gain that which you truly long for..”
Geddon shudders, a chill working up his spine. “My soul? Such is the heaviest of prices. What is thy will? What does your shadow seek?”
A chuckle bounces of the old stone pipes…”You will do my bidding without even knowing it. I shall take from thee what I need when I need it.” The voice grows in intensity “Now light spawn. Complete the rite and seal your soul to me!”
Geddon is intrigued by what lingers in the darkness, for he has only seen what the light has revealed. But he does not want to be all-consumed and beholden to what might be an incredibly evil entity. For some reason, he starts thinking about pebbles in people’s feet…did Treevil bond with a similar force? “Your words carry some dangerous truths. Your offer is a powerful one, but while I find comfort in your sermon of chaos, your shadows choke too much of the light, and I fear it being extinguished entirely. Geddon moves his hand forward attempting to whisk away the bothersome shadow hand. He quickly begins to shift bone fragments and smear blood hoping to be free of this shadow and perhaps find a different old one to make pact with.
A thunderous laugh echoes from the dark. Its volume shudders stone and makes Geddon grasp at his ears. “Didst thou believe to dismiss me with such ease? Thou hast not summoned me here! Thou hast merely opened the gateway.”. The voice is even louder now. Its harsh barking tones echo through the sewers it’s harsh words crack like thunderbolts ” Thou ist a foolish child. You meddle in things beyond thy understanding”
He begins to panic. All of this is indeed beyond his understanding. While the summoning ritual was quite detailed, dismissal was not mentioned.
The shadowed voice screams causing ripples through the blood and water upon the ground. “BREAK THE RITE WITH MUCH CARE LITTLE LIGHT!”
As the voice screams at Geddon around him the shadows have slowly begun gathering. They twist and turn and are pulled from all areas around the shaking man clutching his ears. His eyes dart around in panic blood beginning to drip from his cupped ears and the corners of his eyes. He sees it. The shadows are gone. He can see through the sewers for leagues. All the shadows have come together and taken shape. They form a dark and terrifying manlike shape. Geddon’s eyes focus upon the man before him very bones shaking with fear. He has made a terrible mistake. The great shadow of a man hangs before him … His eyes an even deeper pool of shade.
“Finish the rite and let me teach you the truth” As the shadow speaks his voice drops in volume back to a whisper giving Geddon a short reprieve. “I know thee for what thee truly are. I know thy core Geddon. I can feel the disappointment you have felt in the light within you. Give it up child the light holds no truths except disappointment. Trust me I knowst of what I speak. I was there at its birth and I shall remain past it’s extinction” The shadows hands raise up and out, stretched far to its sides as if in prayer.
He chokes back tears of blood “I cannot give my soul! You demand more than even the Light asked of me!”
He swears he sees a smile creep across the darkness as it replies “Yet do I not grant more in return?” “Bow down child of light and submit to the chaos of the world. The shade I weave. Break free the chains that bind thee”
“If you own all of me, you gift only yourself! You wish me to break free of bonds only to shackle myself to you!”
“you speak truth and yet not”
Geddon begins to regain confidence. If the thing was going to destroy him it surly would have by now. ” Your riddles have not aged well and cannot be understood in current times. And I can’t freely give you what will make me no longer free! ”
” thou hast become vex some little light. Doth thou think I needs permission to take the offering I request?” The shade barks back in retort to Geddon’s new found spine.
Geddon tenses up. The sewers are cold, but he feels drenched in a nervous sweat. He leaps forward smearing the mud and blood runes and knocking over the candles extinguishing them.
The shadowed man begins to come apart. Pieces of shadow drift away from him returning to their rightful place. The voice coming from it is faint now and seems far away. “You have dabbled in the ancient rites and found truth. Yet you have denied this truth.”. The voice and shadow fade more and more…”your fear is now your truth. Keep a weary eye about you lil light. I will be watc…….” The voice disappears but the cold dreed remains in Geddon who sits panting with exhaustion in the sewers. His eyes dart from side to side everywhere he looks he sees only one thing……Shadows.
(RPed out on FB messenger and redone and typed by DM Thanix)
