Arghast, Herald of the Abyss
The vast redness of the sky seemed to reach out towards Arghast, the sun glaring down at him as if looking into the face of some old adversary. What a frail constitution, the sun, to have every day risen above the world as if to call the whole world of man to worship it, only to later sink into the ether and give way to the all-enveloping darkness. Even after abandoning their failed kingship, this idol to their ruined power remains. It too, Arghast thought, shall fall eternal into the void, and the abyss shall replace it.
There echoed the infernal shriek of the drake. Arghast turned his head to the shadowed fortress walls across from the shrine, off of which the monstrous scream had resonated. Headed up the craggy path from there, up to the hollowed township, was the band of undead.
His mind shifted back to that winged foe, red and jagged, who had antagonized him in his early pursuit of the illusive bell. Indeed, the horrendous wyrm had before seared him in fire and rended his flesh with its talons; it had cast him in his death back to those lowly bonfires with less of his being each time. It guarded the path to the bell with an unending vigil, one which would surely threaten these adventurers.
Arghast stood from his place, having moved from the bonfire to the ruins beyond the shrine in his meditations the night prior, and glared at the group. Within him, a writhing pool of intentions suggested to him not only the bounty of humanity between them, but the possibility of rendering them in service to the Abyss. Such was the domain of Caitlyn, who did not so thirst for humanity as he did. Plucking his weapons from their resting place, he was granted a realization which held potential far greater.
The undead’s spirit, its very will to shuffle endlessly towards some goal and keep themselves from hollowing, was linked to the concentration of humanity within them. Arghast had long abandoned the search for the supposed Bell of Awakening, for the fate of the undead did not concern him as a servant to the Abyss. These wanderers, each possessing some degree of humanity, could reach the bell and potentially begin the idle prophecy.
His thoughts churning, Arghast clambered through the ruins to reach a mossy, double-shafted elevator system which lead to that hallowed church of the undead. He’d not follow the group quite yet, he thought; perhaps their first horrific foray may allow them to witness the consequences that the failed reign of the gods have brought upon man.
