Splatters of mud coated the horse's sides, painting it with an encrusting layer of blackness at its belly and legs. As soon as the grime was washed away by the downpour, the beast's feet would crash into the ground and blast another layer upon itself. Despite the sunken ground and bottomless muddy ground, the horse somehow maintained its footing and progress, never seeming to sink so low into the mud as to become hindered. Atop it's shriveled body, a grim rider kept his body low, hiding behind the bobbing neck of his steed to shield from the stinging rain. Though obscured by a tattered black hood, the strike of lightning lit up his visage briefly enough to reveal a skeletal appearance, devoid of skin.
Ever onward the horse galloped, breaking past the trembling arms of half-sunken bodies in the mud, and dismissing the battering winds that threatened to throw him from the horse. His destination rose in the horizon like a black obelisk dripping with waters that cascaded down its sides from the uppermost funnels. The hill it rested upon was devoid of mud, and situated around the single staircase leading up sat countless huddled undead who sought shelter from the abyssal mud.
The rider swept past them, up the stairs atop his horse and straight through the heavy stone doors at its entrance. Immediately, the rider jumped from his horse and sprinted across the atrium to a set of staircases leading up the tower. His footsteps splashed water and mud about the dismal place, and given its darkness and emptiness, one was left to assume little care was given to such cleanliness or beautification. The rider found his way to the uppermost floor, down a set of halls, and burst immediately through double doors into a carpeted room. At the window's edge, a woman sat with her right leg dangling out, back rested upon the hole's inner side. Stopping at the door, the rider took a single knee and bowed his head before removing the hood to reveal his skeletal face.
The woman, briefly attentive only to the storm outside, turned her head and greeted to the rider with a forlorn mumble, barely audible in the wind and thunder.
"Miras... What unfortunate business has you riding so swiftly to my presence?"
"My lady, it is news from Hevas. Aroesus, he..." the messenger began, his head still bowed. Nanaeios, overseer of the plane of Malebazus, maintained her gaze out into the endless horizon of her rainy plane, and stretched out a hand into the storm, catching its torrential waters in her palm. She waited for Miras to muster the courage to finish his news. "He... he has died. Slain by assassins." With a smack, Nanaeios clenched her open hand together and turned her eyes to the skeleton in armor. A flash of lightning darkened her face, but failed to dull the vibrant yellow in her eyes.
"Oh?" she smiled, utterly uninclined to feel any semblance of sympathy. "Was it the boy, Lyrikes, perchance?"
"We do not know, my lady. We only know that he was utterly annihilated from the world itself. There is nothing left of him, or Lyrikes for that matter," the messenger stood up and looked towards Nanaeios, and though incapable of expressing his feeling due to the absence of skin, his stance was one of clear worry. He was readied for any task to be hasty and swift.
"And what of the Sharzunates?" Naneios asked, turning again to the world outside. The storm had calmed, seemingly, just enough that one could keep their body upright in the wind.
"The Sharzunates," Miras hesitated, "Aroesus's guards too have disappeared. There is no one there to guard it." Another flash of lightning. Naneios stood from her window and walked to Miras's side, stopping before leaving the room.
"Then we are left to assume that a certain lady has finally witnessed her chance at freeing the Derevi," she solemnly stated, "With great speed, warn the guards around Sharzunates to ready themselves for anything. I will visit Mysia to see if I cannot offer her my condolences." The skeleton bowed and hurried out the room and back to his horse as Naneios walked to the tower's roof.