Ripples of Shadow
Chapter 3 - The Plan and the Reckoning

A woman lay on a hard wooden table, apparently asleep, her clothing in tatters in the center of a dimly lit room with a single small light hung just above the table. A fetid odor crept through the room like some living thing, infesting itself everywhere, permeating even into the woman's clothing. The woman's eyes shot open and she coughed dreadfully, even retching a few times from the smell over the side of the table onto the floor. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, which she noticed was caked with dried blood. Her eyes going even wider, she frantically looked over the rest of her body. Dried blood was everywhere. Her blood? A scuffling somewhere beyond the poor lighting made the woman whip her head around. Or rather she tried to. Her muscles felt as if they hadn't been used in ages. She reached a hand to the back of her neck to massage it and gasped. She had caught some of her hair while rubbing her neck, and it broke away from her scalp. Pulling the hair to her face she stared in a stupor at the strands of brilliant auburn hair in her hand.

"Mmm. Ah yes, so you have awakened." A dry rasping voice spoke from the dark depths of the room, in the same direction as the scuffling. The woman heard the speaker move closer to her table, an island in a sea of blackness. She huddled in on her self, drawing her knees to her chest. “Afraid are you? Mmm as well you should be. Do you have any idea where you are?” The woman simply shook her head, and the speaker continued. “Ah, so then you have no recollection from your turning. You see, we had to keep you mmmm separate. Yes, yes, for if you were bound completely, lack of memory could have ensued and that would never do, no.” The rasping voice grew louder, until the woman was sure the speaker was standing very near her table. “Do you remember your name?”

“I-I think...” The woman spoke with some hesitation. Memories clouded her mind, like something just out of reach dangling and tantalizing her, but her name came to her. “Moria.” She gasped suddenly. Knowing her name suddenly seemed to empower her, memories started to flood back. “And I am a Mage of the Alliance! Where am I?” Her shaky voice grew a little stronger at the end.

“Oh my dear… A mage of the Alliance? No, no longer are you that. No, now you are, or rather will be, something quite different.” The raspy voice grew even closer until Moria could see a vague outline of its shape just at the edge of the light around her table. Her eyes grew wide. From what she could see, she wished she hadn’t seen at all. Flesh hung only to parts of the thing’s face, pale white bone mostly showed through. Disgustingly yellow and green teeth grinned from behind lips that were cracked and broken. “You see, Moria, you are here to give me some answers.” The speaker rested a metal tray with boney hands on the edge of the table, near Moria’s feet. The tray held knives, hooks, needles and other items that made her freeze.

“Answers? Answers to what?” Moria frantically tried to harness her magic, but to no avail. It simply…was not there. “What have you done to me?” The speaker laughed at the question, a dry wheezing sound.

"Done to you? Why, the Dark Prince has given you a second life. This time however, in service to him, instead of against.” The pale, ragged face grinned widely; wide enough to very literally split the decaying visage. “Oh dear, I have gotten ahead of myself. My name you asked, yes? I am Malkalor.” As he spoke, Moria’s hands crept to her face in horror. Some of the skin on her hands was beginning to flake away. She barely noticed Malkalor’s gurgled chuckle. “You will notice skin and flesh will begin to rot soon, and then the stench. Yes, that is quite horrible until you lose the sense of smell.” The speaker laughed again. And she heard more rustling in the room behind her. “You see, as one of the Scourge your memory could have been lost. But you my dear…you are quite separate.” Again the wheezing laugh. “I will have the answers I seek, and I seek the names of all your collaborators and what they know. The Prince’s plan will not be jeopardized in anyway.”

“I will tell you nothing! You’ll have to kill me you filthy unholy beast!” She spit the last into the speaker’s face. But he seemed not to notice.

“Oh my dear, you will make this quite enjoyable for me.” He raised one of the knives from the tray. “You see, you do not understand. Death holds no boundaries for the Lord of the Dark. I will take what I want from your flesh, and when there is nothing left but your soul, then we will reanimate you and start again until you give me the answers I want.” He raised the knife with a wicked grin, and the scuffling from behind grew closer. Moria opened her mouth, and no sound came at first, but then her screams came. Her bloodcurdling howls could be heard miles away…if only there was someone to hear…