You know, I've gotta say, it's always nice to find a group of people capable of actual pleasant conversation. Especially here in Illinois, land of corn and wannabe gangsters.
For what it lacks in corn, California makes up in an abundance of rich white kinds who I would classify as "wannabe wannabe gangsters." I feel your pain.
What struck Vortigern most was the cold. Not the chill in the air, as he was well beyond worrying about such things, but rather that cold shadow that hung on the edges of his magical senses, sharply honed even before his transcendence, like the frost on a once-fresh corpse left out in winter. He did not need to guess at the origin.
Vortigern gathered his power about himself. To those with power, pale light clung to his person, waving and flickering about like a flame.
The grass crunched under his boots. There would be no sneaking tonight. While the specifics were unknown to him, there could be only one reason Kil'Threx would speak with him. It may have been couched in pretty words, but the truth of the matter was that his future held servitude. He had made his peace with it.
As he opened the door, he briefly wondered if anyone would recognise his robes. The Order of the Stars had changed their sense of fashion a few times over the past eight centuries, but it might still be recognized.
It could make for amusing conversation as we await our benefactor.
The door opened with a creek, a testament to the cottage's age. He stepped in to find it already occupied in part. Some manner of fel magic clung to each of those already assembled. Nodding to each in turn, Vortigern made his way to the ta le. And took his seat wordlessly.
Name: Vortigern Titles: He of Whisper and Shadow [name] The Spiritbinder Grand Magus [name] (honorary, “postmortem”)
Three-word description: Dark Magic Spymaster
Appearance: He of Whisper and Shadow, contrary to what most of those who truly know of his existence believe, is not a formless spirit, jumping from one host body to the next. Vortigern, in fact, does possess a body. As a matter of fact, aside from its remarkably pale skin, Vortigern’s body is in good shape. Its eyes are dark, its hair is long and healthy, and its skin is actually quite smooth. To the more magically sensitive, he would appear surrounded by a thick pale mist. This is part of Vortigern’s true essence, which has transcended his mortal flesh, but still animates it.
On those rare occasions where Vortigern chooses to go out, he usually wears an old set of robes, well-maintained from his magic, of a style used by the Order of the Stars about a thousand years ago. They are largely black, but trimmed and patterned with gold thread, and belted with leather and steel. His hands and feet are covered by thick leather boots, dyed black. The palms of each glove are adorned with heavily stylized circles. He wears a hood and cowl, styled in the same vein as his robes, which obscures his face and hides his hair. In addition, he wears a similarly styled cloak for more decorative purposes.
Magic/Skills/Abilities:
Active Spellcasting: While never his specialty, Vortigern knows how to invoke more direct methods of using magic to inflict harm: fire, lighting, ice, kinetic force, clouds of toxic gas, and so on.
Illusionary Design: Technically a form of Active Spellcasting, but different in function than the rest. Vortigern can bend light to create false images, and distort the air to create false sounds and scents.
Summoning: Easily Vortigern’s greatest ability is to call upon spirits already in his service. Calling them requires very little effort, considering they are already bound to him, and is facilitated by the stylized circles inscribed into his gloves. In a fight, all but the weakest of the spirits under his command can disorient his opponents, and the strongest are capable of inflicting some serious mental harm. He prefers to use spirits over fighting directly.
Spirit Assault: How Vortigern prefers to go about fighting enemies directly. Using his knowledge of the human spirit and mind, he can seriously curtail a person’s ability to use their body. When attempted at a distance, this cannot be directed at a specific individual, and results in moderate sluggishness at worst. Direct physical contact allows for attacks that are far more devastating, including up to total paralysis and unconsciousness. To affect internal organs Vortigern must physically strike a part of the body that lines up with that organ—for example, to stop the heart Vortigern must strike in the middle of the chest. If a person survives being attacked in this method, they will recover from these attacks fully with sufficient time.
Domination: A specific technique related to spirit assault, Vortigern is able to twist a person’s body and mind to serve him. An unwilling subject is hollowed out entirely, rendered nothing more than an obedient husk. A complacent—willing or unconscious—subject retains their mental faculties and personality, but is unable to disobey Vortigern’s commands. Vortigern receives willing subjects either through coercion or through his cult (more on that in a bit). Vortigern can employ this technique to alter the mind and memory of a person who hasn’t been hollowed out.
Transcendence: Approximately eight hundred fifty years ago, Vortigern performed a ritual that altered the nature of his spirit, becoming He of Whisper and Shadow. As a result, his body does not physically age, and nothing short of total destruction will break his spirit’s connection to it. Even still, it is more likely that he will become a powerful spirit after that occurs, like those he controls now but far greater in scope, than it is that he will pass on.
Inventory/Holdings:
Objects:
The Staff of the Spiritbinder. Vortigern’s staff from before he became He of Whisper and Shadow. It is a long piece of an uncertain dark wood, crowned by a crow perched inside of a circle. As per instructions he gave to close associates before his transcendence, it was buried on the grounds of the Order of the Stars eight hundred fifty years ago. Some fifty years ago, it was disturbed and dug up. The leader of the Order took to using it as a symbol of his office. When Vortigern learned of this, he snuck in to the transgressor’s bedchambers, turned the man into a drooling husk in his sleep, and took a number of magical artifacts, including the staff. The staff serves as a means to amplify his control over spirits, but the main reason he created was to serve a function during his transcendence.
Alkor’s Amulet. An amulet created by Alkor the Spellweaver, a founding member of the Order of the Stars, which Vortigern stole while retrieving his staff. It’s consists only of a sphere of brass threaded on a course string. The amulet amplifies the wearer’s magical ability.
Darkblood. A ceremonial dagger of unknown origin, which Vortigern stole while retrieving his staff. Its blade is an unknown black metal, and its hilt, handle, and pommel are made of gold. Purportedly, it alerts the bearer to the presence of demons, but precisely how has been forgotten. It is kept in an unadorned leather scabbard.
Followers:
Spirits. Vortigern has bound a veritable army of spirits into his service. The vast majorities of these are not particularly strong, but are eminently useful for matters of morale. A weak spirit can slip into an enemy encampment, and make all sorts of merry hell to ruin someone’s day—spoiling food, causing nightmares, whispering something in someone else’s voice to start a fight, and so on. Some of the more powerful spirits can whisper dark secrets into a sleeping person’s ear to drive them mad, or false secrets to cause mistakes, or even get a person to divulge their own secrets in their sleep. Some of the stronger spirits are capable of actually fighting, undergoing ethereal manifestation to fight someone as a gfigure identical to a risen ghost. All sorts of spirits are ideal scouts, being invisible. Spirits also serve as capable messengers.
Whispers. About three centuries ago, Vortigern used a handful of individuals he had coerced into letting him Dominate them to found a cult in his honor. Its membership includes every person to join the eight-person High Council that has governed the Republic of the Carnelian Coast for the past eight hundred fifty years, as well as several key figures of governance and trade throughout the Republic. In addition to the more mundane options of having the Republic declare war wherever he wishes—a gross misuse of it as a resource—he can alter the flow of goods as he, and has access to what passes for the Carnelian espionage network. His cult also acts, in part, as his own intelligence network, giving him eyes and ears in places that the Carnelian Coast cannot reach.
Shadows. An loose organization of assassins, thieves, and spies. Spread throughout the land, they provide information and blood to the highest bidder—but only if it is in Vortigern’s interest. Vortigern founded it personally three hundred years ago, and it is run through Vortigern has Dominated, who he taught to summon spirits He bound to himself, through which the servant communicates with their proxies, who distribute orders. Members of the Whispers are not permitted entry. All information its spies gather is recorded, and sometimes Vortigern will send them out on a personal mission (and simultaneously several dummy missions) of different types to achieve a personally desired end.
Personal Army. To top it all off, Vortigern has a vast number of trained soldiers under his employ. They man his hidden fortress (more on that in a second), and are led directly by officers who have willingly submitted to Domination. The only soldiers permitted to interact with Vortigern, namely as his personal guard must first willingly submit to Domination.
Holdings:
Mountain Fortress-Complex. Starting from the long-defunct gem-mines for which the Carnelian Coast was named for long ago, Vortigern has developed massive fortress under the earth, hidden from view. Going down several stories, manned by Vortigern’s personal army, this serves as the nerve center for all of his operations.
Myth:
There are many tales the destitute of the Carnelian Coast tell themselves. For the pleasure of scaring each other at night. To explain the world to themselves. And, sometimes, just for its own sake. One of these stories is of a young mage named Vortigern. Vortigern was the youngest son of Vallirand, then the most powerful and influential merchant of the Carnelian Coast. To oppose him, and take his profits for themselves, a cadre of individually lesser merchants banded together to found the Carnelian Consortium, a body of dozens of merchants that banded together to regulate trade on the Coast—being one of the most prominent centers of trade in the known world. Vallirand was not permitted entry. Vortigern had no care for business, only for his studies, and one day moving west and joining the Order of Stars. But as his father’s business was undercut by the Consortium, so was the funding for Vortigern’s endeavors.
And so, Vortigern had an idea: populism. If enough of the people of the Carnelian Coast could be rallied against the Consortium, and be convinced to not do business with the it, then it was guaranteed to collapse. So Vallirand and all of Vortigern’s brothers and uncles and cousins traveled the length of the Carnelian Coast, saying that the Consortium was taking away the power of individuals and states to do business as they pleased. There was a furor, and Vortigern’s plan almost succeeded, but for a brilliant response from the Consortium: the founding of a republic in the Carnelian Coast. Many of the people of the Coast were swayed, but many were not, and it looked like the region was to tear itself apart. And that was bad for business. Vallirand was admitted to the Consortium, and took up the cause of the Republic. Now there was only the matter of the extant states of the region.
All were city-states, and most armed only militias and city guards, which had now, effectively, defected. There were a few holdouts, but they surrendered quickly. One unfortunate casualty of the fighting, however, was Vortigern’s eldest brother, the only of his siblings he cared for, and the heir to Vallirand’s many enterprises. When all was done, the Consortium sat down to do business in their new capital, and one quarter of them promptly keeled over. This number was Vallirand, and all of his supporters. Only some of the deaths were due to means one could call assassination, not including Vallirand’s, but it was plain to see what had happened. But instead of marshalling their resources to oppose the monstrous injustice done against them, all of Vortigern’s brothers and cousins and uncles squabbled over who got what of their late kinsman’s bounty. All the family was gathered for this in a lavish palace-home than Vallirand had owned. It caught fire.
When the fire had been put out, it was discovered that the body-count was one short, and the vast fortune that Vallirand had kept there was gone. The only member of the family who could have escaped the fire and spirited away the wealth was the one mage: Vortigern. And there was no trace of him. Those living who knew the family said that Vortigern had no interest in business, and so it was concluded that he had taken what was technically his inheritance and gone to join the Order of Stars. Many were sad to see the wealth go—they had hoped to poach it from Vallirand’s successors—but they at least had his many enterprises to divide amongst themselves.
While it is true that Vortigern had no interest in business, he had every interest in revenge. In addition to escaping the blaze with his father’s fortune, he had used his magic to set the fire, and ensure that his family could not escape. He saw his family’s actions after Vallirand’s death as a betrayal of his father, and so he punished them. However, he was not, on his own, even with his magic and the wealth and resources of his father, a match for the remainder of the Consortium. So he left the Carnelian Coast, swearing there, in the darkness of that night, to return.
He journeyed west, as all had suspected, and became an apprentice to a member of the Order of the Stars. Vortigern proved to be an exceptional pupil, and was promoted to a full membership To this day, the name of Vortigern is still spoken, lauded for the advances made by his study of spirits leagues beyond what any one person was believed to be capable of accomplishing.
For most, all of this achievement would have made life satisfying. And it might have done so for Vortigern as well, had his father not been betrayed. His anger remained, and his rage festered like an open wound. It was not enough. He grew ever more detached from his friends and associates, eventually shutting them out entirely. One day, he vanished, never to return.
Some years after, the members of the Carnelian Consortium—which had been integrated into the leadership of the Republic of the Carnelian Coast—began to disappear as well. It began with the oldest members, who had been alive during the founding of the Republic, but once they were gone no person was safe. Soon, people were refusing appointments to the Consortium’s leadership, then the entirety of the Consortium. Then people began quitting their posts. Understaffed and overloaded, the Consortium collapsed, and nearly brought the Republic with it. Once the Consortium was gone, efforts of the Carnelian government ceased.
Still, Vortigern was not satisfied.
Wells were poisoned. Fortunes were stolen. Mansions burned. One-by-one, the entirety of the merchant class of the Carnelian Coast was unmade. Few died. Most were left to suffer.
As the region had always been a center of trade, the economic collapse of the Carnelian Coast rippled throughout the known world, causing the first great economic disaster in recorded history: the Carnelian Collapse. It was clear that it had been precipitated by some driving will, so efforts were made to find and eliminate it. It was a party of two that eventually found Vortigern: a great warrior, and a powerful mage. They battled. In the end, Vortigern cast them out of his domain, but was gravely wounded in the process. But he did not die. To this very day, he lurks up and down the coast, growing in power, his hunger for revenge unsated. He prepares to lash out against the very world, and tear it asunder.
There have been many great mages to pass in and out of the world. Most of them are known only to those mages who come after them. Being scholars by nature, those heirs remember them well—assuming the memories were true to begin with. This is the story, according to the Order of the Stars, of one mage who held some renown in his day, and for a short while after his untimely demise: Vortigern the Spiritbinder.
One day, some ninehundred years ago, in the pale light before dawn, a young man came to the city of Melaron driving a cart covered with thick, course cloth. When he came up to the gates, the posted guards asked him what was in the cart.
”My inheritance”
This was Vortigern.
They lifted the canvas covering the cart to find something they had not been expecting: gold and jewels. Vortigern had such a mass of wealth with him that the guards were utterly stunned. Had he arrived at any other time of day, when the entry to the city was thronged with merchants, farmers, pilgrims, and so forth, much of the fortune would have been lost to thieves before he could get inside the city gates. As it stood, he only lost two jewels and to pouches of coins, as gifts to the guards on duty to pre-emptively thank them for not spreading any rumors.
Vortigern made his way through the city and to hi8s destination: the Order of Stars. Some small handful of mages there were awake, and he was asked his business there.
”To join you.”
Naturally, his ability needed to be tested, and that done the matter of purchasing supplies—both for magic and general living. He proved more than able enough to become the apprentice of one of the Order’s members, and his vast fortune covered any expense he faced.
Ultimately, he was taken under the wing of one Calor Talloman, a mage of no especial ability for a member of the Order, but a skilled teacher. Vortigern thrived under his tutelage. Over the next fiveyears, he fostered a friendship with the apprentice of one of Calor’s associates, one Crutius Vallorn. Crutius would prove to be Vortigern’s dearest friend. Vortigern was hesitant to speak of his past, but opened up to these two. He told them of his father’s war, of his father’s murder, and of his family’s death.
”They were just… they wouldn’t stop fighting. Someone had just murdered my father, and they were arguing over money! I was so, so angry. And I hadn’t been trained yet, not yet—books don’t really count. I wouldn’t have chosen to do it, but I don’t miss them.”
Vortigern had, in a fit of rage, accidentally set fire to his family’s large home. He managed to escape. When the flames had died down, he snuck back in and spirited his father’s wealth out of the city before his father’s rivals could get their hands on it. Crutius would comment, years after Vortigern’s death, that he had struggled with anger over his father’s betrayal all of his life.
Those years spent, Vortigern found himself elevated from his apprenticeship. In truth, this came to pass sooner than was ordinary, but ability was of greater concern than age, and he was not so young as to raise eyebrows.
With his apprenticeship complete, Vortigern chose to study spirits, a subject of stark difference from his former master, and of deep concern to the Order. While the subject was not itself anathema, many people—mages included—connected it to necromancy. Their concerns, however, were unfounded. Some considerable oversight, to which Vortigern consented, showed that he did not stray towards the souls of the dead. If anything, the reports that were compiled showed that Vortigern actively disdained those practices.
After about a decade, he had gained notoriety within the Order. He knew more about the ways of spirits than anyone, and had been able to refine his methods somewhat since the day he banished the spirit summoning the horde. Offers of funding arose and steadily increased—wholly unnecessary, as his inheritance was still plentiful, but still appreciated.
By all accounts, time was a far less plentiful resource. As such, why exactly he chose this point to take on an apprentice is unclear. Maybe he thought they would be a useful assistant with his research, or perhaps he was feeling the pangs of his mortality and wanted some piece of himself to live on. Perhaps it was something else. Whatever was the case, he found an apprentice in an applicant by the name of Saida, a young elven girl who had recently been orphaned. Precisely what made her an orphan is in no surviving record.
Saida was Vortigern’s apprentice for eight years—slightly longer than normal—and remained involved in his work for seven years afterwards. During this time, Vortigern revolutionized how mages work with spirits. He rewrote how mages classify spirits, pinpointed the attributes that cause demonic manifestation—the ability of demons to create a physical body when summoned, long recognized as a key difference between them and ordinary spirits—and developed countless methods by which spirits could be summoned, bound, and banished. While some considerable advancement has been made since his death, the vast majority of modern methods are grounded largely in his developments, discoveries, and even some ideas he wrote down but never tested.
However, he eventually drifted into another subject of study: the human spirit. Once again, this caused concerns about necromancy to arise, but Vortigern’s reputation eased the minds of his superiors.
After another handful of years, it seemed that his research into the human spirit had come reached a breakthrough. But for it to continue, he would need to leave the city on a long journey. He left very specific instructions with Crutius and Saida.
“I need to do an experiment, and I cannot allow myself to perform that experiment on any person but myself. I need to go out into the wilds. There is a very specific cave, far to the east of Melaron. Two years from now—you see this journal? There’s a map in here, as well as the ritual. I need the both of you—and it needs to be two people, and I trust you both more than anyone else alive—to go out to that cave in about two years time. The exact date you need to check inside the cave is in the journal. Don’t look inside the cave before that—details are in the journal. If I’m just, you know, sitting there, it all worked out. If my dead body is there, then it didn’t, and I’ll need a burial. If you find my staff there—just my staff—that’s the worst case scenario. You need to seal off the cave with the ritual in the journal. Then, you need to come back here—and it has to be here—and bury the staff on the grounds, then seal it with the same ritual. Honestly, it isn’t something I even really want to think about, so just read the journal after I leave, okay?”
When Crutius and Saida checked the cave on the appointed date, they found Vortigern’s staff, buried on quarter of its length into solid stone. There was nothing else.
Whatever the truth of Vortigern’s life, whoever knows the truth, he proves a difficult individual to find. Yet the agent of Kil’threx found its way to him, hidden deep beneath crag and valley. And so, Vortigern shall answer the summons of the God of Evil.
Personality: Vortigern is pre-occupied with loyalty—those few of his personal servants who are not mindless husks are either physically incapable of betraying him (a group that includes both those he has Dominated and the spirits bound to his employ) or hysterical sycophants. Somewhat predictably, if someone in his organization betrays him, he responds swiftly and harshly, even when it might not be in his best interest to do so; he is preoccupied with revenge. By the same token, while he may be a distant master, he returns loyalty with loyalty. He will stand by his servants, however low they may be on the rung, as best he can without revealing his existence to the wider world. And when he enters into an agreement with someone, he keeps it, even if he could renege it with little to no consequence.
That is not to say Vortigern is kind. He habitually treats the people of the world poorly, with his actions ranging from distant hostility to outright cruelty. Despite this, he usually maintains an air of amicability. He could easily order someone dragged into the darkness, their screams muffled by cloth and leather, while sounding like he was just recommending a good book to a friend. Not that he has friends, of course; that time has passed.
When not scheming, deceiving, or otherwise active, Vortigern is given to pondering. On such occasions, he enters into a deep melancholy, and often waxes poetic.
There was no light here. He knew every inch of smooth, unbroken stone, and as such did not require torch or spell to make his way, nor did any of the guards or spirits monsters that lurked this far down. The same could not be said of his uninvited guests. Yes. Soon. At the far end of this long hall. That was where he stood. At first, it was designed as a trap for those intruders who made it this far down. Briefly, he used it to experiment with his old studies, and had been considering doing so again. More recently, he had been using it for storage, and it was lined with crates and barrels of fine food for his body, and fine crafts for his work. There wasn’t much he couldn’t take for himself, after all. There was the telltale sound of stone grinding on stone. Yes, that was it. That was them. The sound of crashing metal. A warrior had jumped down ahead of their compatriots. Leather scaping stone. A softer, more nimble landing. Are knights now sleeping with thieves? Has the world changed so much? Or perhaps they always were. It wasn’t the part of the world I lived in, even then. He didn’t hear the next collision, but he did hear something else, just before: the fluttering of cloth. Someone wearing clothes, not armor, had jumped down. Could they possibly…? A shining light broke on the other side of the hall, bright and piercing. So it is. Things may yet prove interesting. “Name yourself, cretin! Tell us what you’re doing down here!” The mage is a feisty one. Vortigern said nothing. “We don’t need to know a damn thing about him, Cully,” said the Warrior, a Dwarf, “We saw his damn army. We just need to stop him.” Vortigern smiled. A hooded figure—by process of elimination, the nimble, leather-shoed one—leaned over to the mage, and spoke in low tones. “Are his eyes glowing?” “Yes.” Vortigern’s voice was soft, and but it stretched throughout the room. “They only do that on special occasions.” “Okay, he’s got good hearing. Good to know.” If only you knew, little thief. “I,” said Vortigern, “am perfect of flesh, and beyond flesh.” “Alright!” The Warrior raised his axe over his shoulder, both hands gripping its handle. “Let’s get this over with.” He charged. “Durmak! Wait!” Vortigern raised his hand, the pale light in his eyes sparking at his fingertips, and almost in no time at all—though the process did seem to linger a while to Vortigern—it had spread down between his fingers to his palm. The air shook, and the Warrior fell forward, collapsing onto his knees, his axe sliding along the floor to Vortigern’s feet. Arrows flew through the air. Most missed. One planted itself firmly in Vortigern’s neck. He did not falter. “Ancull, why isn’t he falling over? I hit him.” The thief who shot the arrows asked the mage. “I don’t think I know, Misha.” The mage looked up to Vortigern, her face slowly twisting in anexpression of horror. Vortigern reached up to the arrow in his throat with his other hand. Slowly, he pulled on it. When it was free of his flesh, blood began to pour down from the hole, staining his robes. The thief began to shake. “I think we may have stepped in it this time, Ancull.” Vortigern’s smile grew. The light in his eyes and hand darkened, turning a violent purple. A light shined from the back of the hall. The mage, Ancull, turned her head to see it. The light was creeping along the walls, the roof, the floor. Creeper to her. Past her. Past Misha. Past Durmak, the Warrior. Past Vortigern, onto the wall behind him. The light flowed into a complex pattern of circles, glyphs and spirals, eventually meeting in the center. Vortigern’s soft voice echoed through the hall again. “Yes, children, you have.” Pale clouds flowed out of the circle’s center. They floated around Vortigern. He heard them whisper to him, but he already knew their secrets. He curled the fingers of his outstretched hand into a fist, save one, pointing in the intruders’ direction. The spirits responded to the command. They rushed down the hall, taking the shapes of beasts and gaunt men, as the flow from the circle grew to a river of pale light. As the came upon Durmak, his armor began to glow; runes etched into his plates hummed with golden light, and the spirits flowed over him. The mage Ancull erected a barrier, a pale blue sphere, and the spirits flowed over it as well. They teared and the barrier, and gnawed upon it, but it held. Feisty, and of some considerable ability. Who taught her? Durmak stood. The symbols on his armor hummed with power, and the spirits jumped away from him. Vortigern lowered his hand. “So, you children know the game.” Vortigern kicked the axe at his feet over to Durmak. “Come, Warrior. Entertain me.” Taking his axe into his hands, Durmak charged. Vortigern sidestepped his down-swing and took hold of his arm. Half a second later, Durmak held his axe in his off hand, and his other hung limply at his side. Another strike, this time a side-swipe. Foolish, but determined. This time, Vortigern aimed lower, and Durmak found one of his legs giving out under him. “Damn.” Vortigern walked around him, slowly. “Is this how you imagined dying, Dwarf? A casualty of your own foolish design?” “Go suck a thousand cocks.” Vortigern kicked him in the side, rolling him over onto his back. “Durmak!” Vortigern looked up. The pale blue light of the mage Ancull’s shield could still be seen under the growing onslaught of spirits. It suddenly flashed. The room was filled with shrieking and keening as the spirits recoiled, recoiling from the shield. Ancull came running, with the thief Misha close behind her. Vortigern placed his boot on Durmak’s chest and faced them. “You three would have been better off not coming here.” The blood flowing from the hole in his neck began fall onto Durmak’s armor, where it sizzled and flashed in his golden runes. “I know what you are. My Mistress told me about it. The ritual designed by the Spiritbinder himself.” For the first time since the fight began, Vortigern’s smile faltered, then vanished utterly. “Who are you, child?” The fell light in his eyes and hand flickered. “I am Ancull of Ardanos.” “I’ve never heard of Ardanos. Is it some village in the middle of nowhere?” “It is my home. My Mistress found me there.” Mistress. That’s the second time she said it. And she knew about the ritual. “Saida.” Ancull growled at him. “That means nothing. You are not strong enough to defeat me.” Vortigern smiled. “Especially since she never taught you to watch your back.” The spirits surged over them from behind. Shieldless, Ancull and Misha were torn away, back into the vengeful cloud of angry spirits.
Vortigern knelt down next to Durmak, whose head was turned away, towards where his friends had gone. Vortigern placed his hand, still glowing, on Durmak’s chest. “Worry not, child. You will not be away from them for long.” Vortigern slid his hand down to the felled Warrior’s stomach, and removed it. “There. If you’re lungs somehow start working, your heart or liver will see you dead. You’ll be with them again soon, child.”
Name: Vortigern Titles: He of Whisper and Shadow [name] The Spiritbinder Grand Magus [name] (honorary, “postmortem”)
Three-word description: Dark Magic Spymaster
Appearance: He of Whisper and Shadow, contrary to what most of those who truly know of his existence believe, is not a formless spirit, jumping from one host body to the next. Vortigern, in fact, does possess a body. As a matter of fact, aside from its remarkably pale skin, Vortigern’s body is in good shape. Its eyes are dark, its hair is long and healthy, and its skin is actually quite smooth. To the more magically sensitive, he would appear surrounded by a thick pale mist. This is part of Vortigern’s true essence, which has transcended his mortal flesh, but still animates it.
On those rare occasions where Vortigern chooses to go out, he usually wears an old set of robes, well-maintained from his magic, of a style used by the Order of the Stars about a thousand years ago. They are largely black, but trimmed and patterned with gold thread, and belted with leather and steel. His hands and feet are covered by thick leather boots, dyed black. The palms of each glove are adorned with heavily stylized circles. He wears a hood and cowl, styled in the same vein as his robes, which obscures his face and hides his hair. In addition, he wears a similarly styled cloak for more decorative purposes.
Magic/Skills/Abilities:
Active Spellcasting: While never his specialty, Vortigern knows how to invoke more direct methods of using magic to inflict harm: fire, lighting, ice, kinetic force, clouds of toxic gas, and so on.
Illusionary Design: Technically a form of Active Spellcasting, but different in function than the rest. Vortigern can bend light to create false images, and distort the air to create false sounds and scents.
Summoning: Easily Vortigern’s greatest ability is to call upon spirits already in his service. Calling them requires very little effort, considering they are already bound to him, and is facilitated by the stylized circles inscribed into his gloves. In a fight, all but the weakest of the spirits under his command can disorient his opponents, and the strongest are capable of inflicting some serious mental harm. He prefers to use spirits over fighting directly.
Spirit Assault: How Vortigern prefers to go about fighting enemies directly. Using his knowledge of the human spirit and mind, he can seriously curtail a person’s ability to use their body. When attempted at a distance, this cannot be directed at a specific individual, and results in moderate sluggishness at worst. Direct physical contact allows for attacks that are far more devastating, including up to total paralysis and unconsciousness. To affect internal organs Vortigern must physically strike a part of the body that lines up with that organ—for example, to stop the heart Vortigern must strike in the middle of the chest. If a person survives being attacked in this method, they will recover from these attacks fully with sufficient time.
Domination: A specific technique related to spirit assault, Vortigern is able to twist a person’s body and mind to serve him. An unwilling subject is hollowed out entirely, rendered nothing more than an obedient husk. A complacent—willing or unconscious—subject retains their mental faculties and personality, but is unable to disobey Vortigern’s commands. Vortigern receives willing subjects either through coercion or through his cult (more on that in a bit). Vortigern can employ this technique to alter the mind and memory of a person who hasn’t been hollowed out.
Transcendence: Approximately eight hundred fifty years ago, Vortigern performed a ritual that altered the nature of his spirit, becoming He of Whisper and Shadow. As a result, his body does not physically age, and nothing short of total destruction will break his spirit’s connection to it. Even still, it is more likely that he will become a powerful spirit after that occurs, like those he controls now but far greater in scope, than it is that he will pass on.
Inventory/Holdings:
Objects:
The Staff of the Spiritbinder. Vortigern’s staff from before he became He of Whisper and Shadow. It is a long piece of an uncertain dark wood, crowned by a crow perched inside of a circle. As per instructions he gave to close associates before his transcendence, it was buried on the grounds of the Order of the Stars eight hundred fifty years ago. Some fifty years ago, it was disturbed and dug up. The leader of the Order took to using it as a symbol of his office. When Vortigern learned of this, he snuck in to the transgressor’s bedchambers, turned the man into a drooling husk in his sleep, and took a number of magical artifacts, including the staff. The staff serves as a means to amplify his control over spirits, but the main reason he created was to serve a function during his transcendence.
Alkor’s Amulet. An amulet created by Alkor the Spellweaver, a founding member of the Order of the Stars, which Vortigern stole while retrieving his staff. It’s consists only of a sphere of brass threaded on a course string. The amulet amplifies the wearer’s magical ability.
Darkblood. A ceremonial dagger of unknown origin, which Vortigern stole while retrieving his staff. Its blade is an unknown black metal, and its hilt, handle, and pommel are made of gold. Purportedly, it alerts the bearer to the presence of demons, but precisely how has been forgotten. It is kept in an unadorned leather scabbard.
Followers:
Spirits. Vortigern has bound a veritable army of spirits into his service. The vast majorities of these are not particularly strong, but are eminently useful for matters of morale. A weak spirit can slip into an enemy encampment, and make all sorts of merry hell to ruin someone’s day—spoiling food, causing nightmares, whispering something in someone else’s voice to start a fight, and so on. Some of the more powerful spirits can whisper dark secrets into a sleeping person’s ear to drive them mad, or false secrets to cause mistakes, or even get a person to divulge their own secrets in their sleep. Some of the stronger spirits are capable of actually fighting, undergoing ethereal manifestation to fight someone as a gfigure identical to a risen ghost. All sorts of spirits are ideal scouts, being invisible. Spirits also serve as capable messengers.
Whispers. About three centuries ago, Vortigern used a handful of individuals he had coerced into letting him Dominate them to found a cult in his honor. Its membership includes every person to join the eight-person High Council that has governed the Republic of the Carnelian Coast for the past eight hundred fifty years, as well as several key figures of governance and trade throughout the Republic. In addition to the more mundane options of having the Republic declare war wherever he wishes—a gross misuse of it as a resource—he can alter the flow of goods as he, and has access to what passes for the Carnelian espionage network. His cult also acts, in part, as his own intelligence network, giving him eyes and ears in places that the Carnelian Coast cannot reach.
Shadows. An loose organization of assassins, thieves, and spies. Spread throughout the land, they provide information and blood to the highest bidder—but only if it is in Vortigern’s interest. Vortigern founded it personally three hundred years ago, and it is run through Vortigern has Dominated, who he taught to summon spirits He bound to himself, through which the servant communicates with their proxies, who distribute orders. Members of the Whispers are not permitted entry. All information its spies gather is recorded, and sometimes Vortigern will send them out on a personal mission (and simultaneously several dummy missions) of different types to achieve a personally desired end.
Personal Army. To top it all off, Vortigern has a vast number of trained soldiers under his employ. They man his hidden fortress (more on that in a second), and are led directly by officers who have willingly submitted to Domination. The only soldiers permitted to interact with Vortigern, namely as his personal guard must first willingly submit to Domination.
Holdings:
Mountain Fortress-Complex. Starting from the long-defunct gem-mines for which the Carnelian Coast was named for long ago, Vortigern has developed massive fortress under the earth, hidden from view. Going down several stories, manned by Vortigern’s personal army, this serves as the nerve center for all of his operations.
Myth:
There are many tales the destitute of the Carnelian Coast tell themselves. For the pleasure of scaring each other at night. To explain the world to themselves. And, sometimes, just for its own sake. One of these stories is of a young mage named Vortigern. Vortigern was the youngest son of Vallirand, then the most powerful and influential merchant of the Carnelian Coast. To oppose him, and take his profits for themselves, a cadre of individually lesser merchants banded together to found the Carnelian Consortium, a body of dozens of merchants that banded together to regulate trade on the Coast—being one of the most prominent centers of trade in the known world. Vallirand was not permitted entry. Vortigern had no care for business, only for his studies, and one day moving west and joining the Order of Stars. But as his father’s business was undercut by the Consortium, so was the funding for Vortigern’s endeavors.
And so, Vortigern had an idea: populism. If enough of the people of the Carnelian Coast could be rallied against the Consortium, and be convinced to not do business with the it, then it was guaranteed to collapse. So Vallirand and all of Vortigern’s brothers and uncles and cousins traveled the length of the Carnelian Coast, saying that the Consortium was taking away the power of individuals and states to do business as they pleased. There was a furor, and Vortigern’s plan almost succeeded, but for a brilliant response from the Consortium: the founding of a republic in the Carnelian Coast. Many of the people of the Coast were swayed, but many were not, and it looked like the region was to tear itself apart. And that was bad for business. Vallirand was admitted to the Consortium, and took up the cause of the Republic. Now there was only the matter of the extant states of the region.
All were city-states, and most armed only militias and city guards, which had now, effectively, defected. There were a few holdouts, but they surrendered quickly. One unfortunate casualty of the fighting, however, was Vortigern’s eldest brother, the only of his siblings he cared for, and the heir to Vallirand’s many enterprises. When all was done, the Consortium sat down to do business in their new capital, and one quarter of them promptly keeled over. This number was Vallirand, and all of his supporters. Only some of the deaths were due to means one could call assassination, not including Vallirand’s, but it was plain to see what had happened. But instead of marshalling their resources to oppose the monstrous injustice done against them, all of Vortigern’s brothers and cousins and uncles squabbled over who got what of their late kinsman’s bounty. All the family was gathered for this in a lavish palace-home than Vallirand had owned. It caught fire.
When the fire had been put out, it was discovered that the body-count was one short, and the vast fortune that Vallirand had kept there was gone. The only member of the family who could have escaped the fire and spirited away the wealth was the one mage: Vortigern. And there was no trace of him. Those living who knew the family said that Vortigern had no interest in business, and so it was concluded that he had taken what was technically his inheritance and gone to join the Order of Stars. Many were sad to see the wealth go—they had hoped to poach it from Vallirand’s successors—but they at least had his many enterprises to divide amongst themselves.
While it is true that Vortigern had no interest in business, he had every interest in revenge. In addition to escaping the blaze with his father’s fortune, he had used his magic to set the fire, and ensure that his family could not escape. He saw his family’s actions after Vallirand’s death as a betrayal of his father, and so he punished them. However, he was not, on his own, even with his magic and the wealth and resources of his father, a match for the remainder of the Consortium. So he left the Carnelian Coast, swearing there, in the darkness of that night, to return.
He journeyed west, as all had suspected, and became an apprentice to a member of the Order of the Stars. Vortigern proved to be an exceptional pupil, and was promoted to a full membership To this day, the name of Vortigern is still spoken, lauded for the advances made by his study of spirits leagues beyond what any one person was believed to be capable of accomplishing.
For most, all of this achievement would have made life satisfying. And it might have done so for Vortigern as well, had his father not been betrayed. His anger remained, and his rage festered like an open wound. It was not enough. He grew ever more detached from his friends and associates, eventually shutting them out entirely. One day, he vanished, never to return.
Some years after, the members of the Carnelian Consortium—which had been integrated into the leadership of the Republic of the Carnelian Coast—began to disappear as well. It began with the oldest members, who had been alive during the founding of the Republic, but once they were gone no person was safe. Soon, people were refusing appointments to the Consortium’s leadership, then the entirety of the Consortium. Then people began quitting their posts. Understaffed and overloaded, the Consortium collapsed, and nearly brought the Republic with it. Once the Consortium was gone, efforts of the Carnelian government ceased.
Still, Vortigern was not satisfied.
Wells were poisoned. Fortunes were stolen. Mansions burned. One-by-one, the entirety of the merchant class of the Carnelian Coast was unmade. Few died. Most were left to suffer.
As the region had always been a center of trade, the economic collapse of the Carnelian Coast rippled throughout the known world, causing the first great economic disaster in recorded history: the Carnelian Collapse. It was clear that it had been precipitated by some driving will, so efforts were made to find and eliminate it. It was a party of two that eventually found Vortigern: a great warrior, and a powerful mage. They battled. In the end, Vortigern cast them out of his domain, but was gravely wounded in the process. But he did not die. To this very day, he lurks up and down the coast, growing in power, his hunger for revenge unsated. He prepares to lash out against the very world, and tear it asunder.
There have been many great mages to pass in and out of the world. Most of them are known only to those mages who come after them. Being scholars by nature, those heirs remember them well—assuming the memories were true to begin with. This is the story, according to the Order of the Stars, of one mage who held some renown in his day, and for a short while after his untimely demise: Vortigern the Spiritbinder.
One day, some ninehundred years ago, in the pale light before dawn, a young man came to the city of Melaron driving a cart covered with thick, course cloth. When he came up to the gates, the posted guards asked him what was in the cart.
”My inheritance”
This was Vortigern.
They lifted the canvas covering the cart to find something they had not been expecting: gold and jewels. Vortigern had such a mass of wealth with him that the guards were utterly stunned. Had he arrived at any other time of day, when the entry to the city was thronged with merchants, farmers, pilgrims, and so forth, much of the fortune would have been lost to thieves before he could get inside the city gates. As it stood, he only lost two jewels and to pouches of coins, as gifts to the guards on duty to pre-emptively thank them for not spreading any rumors.
Vortigern made his way through the city and to hi8s destination: the Order of Stars. Some small handful of mages there were awake, and he was asked his business there.
”To join you.”
Naturally, his ability needed to be tested, and that done the matter of purchasing supplies—both for magic and general living. He proved more than able enough to become the apprentice of one of the Order’s members, and his vast fortune covered any expense he faced.
Ultimately, he was taken under the wing of one Calor Talloman, a mage of no especial ability for a member of the Order, but a skilled teacher. Vortigern thrived under his tutelage. Over the next fiveyears, he fostered a friendship with the apprentice of one of Calor’s associates, one Crutius Vallorn. Crutius would prove to be Vortigern’s dearest friend. Vortigern was hesitant to speak of his past, but opened up to these two. He told them of his father’s war, of his father’s murder, and of his family’s death.
”They were just… they wouldn’t stop fighting. Someone had just murdered my father, and they were arguing over money! I was so, so angry. And I hadn’t been trained yet, not yet—books don’t really count. I wouldn’t have chosen to do it, but I don’t miss them.”
Vortigern had, in a fit of rage, accidentally set fire to his family’s large home. He managed to escape. When the flames had died down, he snuck back in and spirited his father’s wealth out of the city before his father’s rivals could get their hands on it. Crutius would comment, years after Vortigern’s death, that he had struggled with anger over his father’s betrayal all of his life.
Those years spent, Vortigern found himself elevated from his apprenticeship. In truth, this came to pass sooner than was ordinary, but ability was of greater concern than age, and he was not so young as to raise eyebrows.
With his apprenticeship complete, Vortigern chose to study spirits, a subject of stark difference from his former master, and of deep concern to the Order. While the subject was not itself anathema, many people—mages included—connected it to necromancy. Their concerns, however, were unfounded. Some considerable oversight, to which Vortigern consented, showed that he did not stray towards the souls of the dead. If anything, the reports that were compiled showed that Vortigern actively disdained those practices.
After about a decade, he had gained notoriety within the Order. He knew more about the ways of spirits than anyone, and had been able to refine his methods somewhat since the day he banished the spirit summoning the horde. Offers of funding arose and steadily increased—wholly unnecessary, as his inheritance was still plentiful, but still appreciated.
By all accounts, time was a far less plentiful resource. As such, why exactly he chose this point to take on an apprentice is unclear. Maybe he thought they would be a useful assistant with his research, or perhaps he was feeling the pangs of his mortality and wanted some piece of himself to live on. Perhaps it was something else. Whatever was the case, he found an apprentice in an applicant by the name of Saida, a young elven girl who had recently been orphaned. Precisely what made her an orphan is in no surviving record.
Saida was Vortigern’s apprentice for eight years—slightly longer than normal—and remained involved in his work for seven years afterwards. During this time, Vortigern revolutionized how mages work with spirits. He rewrote how mages classify spirits, pinpointed the attributes that cause demonic manifestation—the ability of demons to create a physical body when summoned, long recognized as a key difference between them and ordinary spirits—and developed countless methods by which spirits could be summoned, bound, and banished. While some considerable advancement has been made since his death, the vast majority of modern methods are grounded largely in his developments, discoveries, and even some ideas he wrote down but never tested.
However, he eventually drifted into another subject of study: the human spirit. Once again, this caused concerns about necromancy to arise, but Vortigern’s reputation eased the minds of his superiors.
After another handful of years, it seemed that his research into the human spirit had come reached a breakthrough. But for it to continue, he would need to leave the city on a long journey. He left very specific instructions with Crutius and Saida.
“I need to do an experiment, and I cannot allow myself to perform that experiment on any person but myself. I need to go out into the wilds. There is a very specific cave, far to the east of Melaron. Two years from now—you see this journal? There’s a map in here, as well as the ritual. I need the both of you—and it needs to be two people, and I trust you both more than anyone else alive—to go out to that cave in about two years time. The exact date you need to check inside the cave is in the journal. Don’t look inside the cave before that—details are in the journal. If I’m just, you know, sitting there, it all worked out. If my dead body is there, then it didn’t, and I’ll need a burial. If you find my staff there—just my staff—that’s the worst case scenario. You need to seal off the cave with the ritual in the journal. Then, you need to come back here—and it has to be here—and bury the staff on the grounds, then seal it with the same ritual. Honestly, it isn’t something I even really want to think about, so just read the journal after I leave, okay?”
When Crutius and Saida checked the cave on the appointed date, they found Vortigern’s staff, buried on quarter of its length into solid stone. There was nothing else.
Whatever the truth of Vortigern’s life, whoever knows the truth, he proves a difficult individual to find. Yet the agent of Kil’threx found its way to him, hidden deep beneath crag and valley. And so, Vortigern shall answer the summons of the God of Evil.
Personality: Vortigern is pre-occupied with loyalty—those few of his personal servants who are not mindless husks are either physically incapable of betraying him (a group that includes both those he has Dominated and the spirits bound to his employ) or hysterical sycophants. Somewhat predictably, if someone in his organization betrays him, he responds swiftly and harshly, even when it might not be in his best interest to do so; he is preoccupied with revenge. By the same token, while he may be a distant master, he returns loyalty with loyalty. He will stand by his servants, however low they may be on the rung, as best he can without revealing his existence to the wider world. And when he enters into an agreement with someone, he keeps it, even if he could renege it with little to no consequence.
That is not to say Vortigern is kind. He habitually treats the people of the world poorly, with his actions ranging from distant hostility to outright cruelty. Despite this, he usually maintains an air of amicability. He could easily order someone dragged into the darkness, their screams muffled by cloth and leather, while sounding like he was just recommending a good book to a friend. Not that he has friends, of course; that time has passed.
When not scheming, deceiving, or otherwise active, Vortigern is given to pondering. On such occasions, he enters into a deep melancholy, and often waxes poetic.
There was no light here. He knew every inch of smooth, unbroken stone, and as such did not require torch or spell to make his way, nor did any of the guards or spirits monsters that lurked this far down. The same could not be said of his uninvited guests. Yes. Soon. At the far end of this long hall. That was where he stood. At first, it was designed as a trap for those intruders who made it this far down. Briefly, he used it to experiment with his old studies, and had been considering doing so again. More recently, he had been using it for storage, and it was lined with crates and barrels of fine food for his body, and fine crafts for his work. There wasn’t much he couldn’t take for himself, after all. There was the telltale sound of stone grinding on stone. Yes, that was it. That was them. The sound of crashing metal. A warrior had jumped down ahead of their compatriots. Leather scaping stone. A softer, more nimble landing. Are knights now sleeping with thieves? Has the world changed so much? Or perhaps they always were. It wasn’t the part of the world I lived in, even then. He didn’t hear the next collision, but he did hear something else, just before: the fluttering of cloth. Someone wearing clothes, not armor, had jumped down. Could they possibly…? A shining light broke on the other side of the hall, bright and piercing. So it is. Things may yet prove interesting. “Name yourself, cretin! Tell us what you’re doing down here!” The mage is a feisty one. Vortigern said nothing. “We don’t need to know a damn thing about him, Cully,” said the Warrior, a Dwarf, “We saw his damn army. We just need to stop him.” Vortigern smiled. A hooded figure—by process of elimination, the nimble, leather-shoed one—leaned over to the mage, and spoke in low tones. “Are his eyes glowing?” “Yes.” Vortigern’s voice was soft, and but it stretched throughout the room. “They only do that on special occasions.” “Okay, he’s got good hearing. Good to know.” If only you knew, little thief. “I,” said Vortigern, “am perfect of flesh, and beyond flesh.” “Alright!” The Warrior raised his axe over his shoulder, both hands gripping its handle. “Let’s get this over with.” He charged. “Durmak! Wait!” Vortigern raised his hand, the pale light in his eyes sparking at his fingertips, and almost in no time at all—though the process did seem to linger a while to Vortigern—it had spread down between his fingers to his palm. The air shook, and the Warrior fell forward, collapsing onto his knees, his axe sliding along the floor to Vortigern’s feet. Arrows flew through the air. Most missed. One planted itself firmly in Vortigern’s neck. He did not falter. “Ancull, why isn’t he falling over? I hit him.” The thief who shot the arrows asked the mage. “I don’t think I know, Misha.” The mage looked up to Vortigern, her face slowly twisting in anexpression of horror. Vortigern reached up to the arrow in his throat with his other hand. Slowly, he pulled on it. When it was free of his flesh, blood began to pour down from the hole, staining his robes. The thief began to shake. “I think we may have stepped in it this time, Ancull.” Vortigern’s smile grew. The light in his eyes and hand darkened, turning a violent purple. A light shined from the back of the hall. The mage, Ancull, turned her head to see it. The light was creeping along the walls, the roof, the floor. Creeper to her. Past her. Past Misha. Past Durmak, the Warrior. Past Vortigern, onto the wall behind him. The light flowed into a complex pattern of circles, glyphs and spirals, eventually meeting in the center. Vortigern’s soft voice echoed through the hall again. “Yes, children, you have.” Pale clouds flowed out of the circle’s center. They floated around Vortigern. He heard them whisper to him, but he already knew their secrets. He curled the fingers of his outstretched hand into a fist, save one, pointing in the intruders’ direction. The spirits responded to the command. They rushed down the hall, taking the shapes of beasts and gaunt men, as the flow from the circle grew to a river of pale light. As the came upon Durmak, his armor began to glow; runes etched into his plates hummed with golden light, and the spirits flowed over him. The mage Ancull erected a barrier, a pale blue sphere, and the spirits flowed over it as well. They teared and the barrier, and gnawed upon it, but it held. Feisty, and of some considerable ability. Who taught her? Durmak stood. The symbols on his armor hummed with power, and the spirits jumped away from him. Vortigern lowered his hand. “So, you children know the game.” Vortigern kicked the axe at his feet over to Durmak. “Come, Warrior. Entertain me.” Taking his axe into his hands, Durmak charged. Vortigern sidestepped his down-swing and took hold of his arm. Half a second later, Durmak held his axe in his off hand, and his other hung limply at his side. Another strike, this time a side-swipe. Foolish, but determined. This time, Vortigern aimed lower, and Durmak found one of his legs giving out under him. “Damn.” Vortigern walked around him, slowly. “Is this how you imagined dying, Dwarf? A casualty of your own foolish design?” “Go suck a thousand cocks.” Vortigern kicked him in the side, rolling him over onto his back. “Durmak!” Vortigern looked up. The pale blue light of the mage Ancull’s shield could still be seen under the growing onslaught of spirits. It suddenly flashed. The room was filled with shrieking and keening as the spirits recoiled, recoiling from the shield. Ancull came running, with the thief Misha close behind her. Vortigern placed his boot on Durmak’s chest and faced them. “You three would have been better off not coming here.” The blood flowing from the hole in his neck began fall onto Durmak’s armor, where it sizzled and flashed in his golden runes. “I know what you are. My Mistress told me about it. The ritual designed by the Spiritbinder himself.” For the first time since the fight began, Vortigern’s smile faltered, then vanished utterly. “Who are you, child?” The fell light in his eyes and hand flickered. “I am Ancull of Ardanos.” “I’ve never heard of Ardanos. Is it some village in the middle of nowhere?” “It is my home. My Mistress found me there.” Mistress. That’s the second time she said it. And she knew about the ritual. “Saida.” Ancull growled at him. “That means nothing. You are not strong enough to defeat me.” Vortigern smiled. “Especially since she never taught you to watch your back.” The spirits surged over them from behind. Shieldless, Ancull and Misha were torn away, back into the vengeful cloud of angry spirits.
Vortigern knelt down next to Durmak, whose head was turned away, towards where his friends had gone. Vortigern placed his hand, still glowing, on Durmak’s chest. “Worry not, child. You will not be away from them for long.” Vortigern slid his hand down to the felled Warrior’s stomach, and removed it. “There. If you’re lungs somehow start working, your heart or liver will see you dead. You’ll be with them again soon, child.”
