The variety of beasts across Shalen, for those of a curious disposition are myriad in scope and fascinating, I for one, number amongst the many enthusiasts within the three kingdoms that enjoy cataloguing these wonderful specimens. We all have our favourites of course, my fellow scholar Gerin Maize has a certain fondness for Sky-Juks, small birds of surprising intelligence that skim across the surrounding lakes and rivers in search of algae, these white feathered birds have an amazing capacity to sense danger, giving rise to the thought of domesticating them in the past, to help keep our soldiers safe on the frontier, easier said than done when they can sense you coming from a mile away though.

My own favourite has to be an unusual choice, the Dracanis-Berim, large water drakes that can make their home within any waterway in Shalen, amongst the most dangerous to be sure, it is fascinating to study their impact on the local eco systems, their cunning and intelligence un-matched within the water outside of the open oceans, unlike their draconic cousins on land or air they are not specifically hostile toward sentient races, a famous example being the great serpent that makes its home within the royal sapphire lake by the imperial fortress of Valen, possibly thousands of years old, it has managed to achieve speech, actively conversing with us on more than one occasion, there are many fascinating stories to be told of that ancient drake that have happened through the centuries. How a young girl around forty years ago, struck up a relationship with the Ancient serpent, somehow earning its favour, starting a friendship that lasts to this day, it is thanks to this that she manged to join our leadership, leading my fellow mages within the Valen army and her own power quickly skyrocketing to the Carnelian stage with the assistance of the drake, or even more impressively how ten years ago a surge of darkness swept over the great spinal mountain on our southern border, a great belch of teeth and ravening hunger that spilled over from the long lost kingdom of Faall’eln, it decimated the small fortified towns at its base, somehow the great drake felt the danger approach and its colossal form rose from the depth of the Royal sapphire lake, two kilometres long and six meters wide in circumference, its massive frontal claws perched upon the lake banks, as its long sinuous neck stretched into the sky, dwarfing the city of Valen below it, its gargantuan head faced the mountains, its immense serpentine jaws stretched wide open as if to swallow the very moon in the sky and it released the most powerful amount of pure frost essence I have ever witnessed on Shalen, in a great pressurized stream it shot, straight to where the horde of the deep ravaged, freezing and shattering them all, like a great hammer shatters glass.

Now you tell me, aren’t they the greatest? certainly much more interesting than bloody Sky-Juks.

Kazie Umbre 1st scholar of the Arcanium Consortium

Screeching echoed into the air as a battle-axe impacted against a great claw, Cerus stumbled back a couple of steps, shock running up his arms at the impact, he was in trouble, the nightmare had approached extremely quickly as he finished issuing his earlier challenge, its speed and earlier ponderous footsteps obviously exaggerated, shadow seemed to wrap its feet as it moved, releasing no sound even as it crushed the ground beneath its weighted footfalls.

A sudden shift in movement and the monster was before him again, this time that horrifying mace that seemed to be melded to its left arm came crashing down from above, the air whining, he couldn’t block it, it was too strong, he had to dodge. Cerus used every bit of his strength to throw himself to the side, the ground erupting where he once stood, mud splattering across the full length of his body in a great deluge.

With gritted teeth, he hoisted himself up from the ground with the haft of his axe, quickly attempting to go on the offensive while it was extracting its arm from the mud, with speed and strength greater than three normal men combined, he launched himself in to the air above the titan in a great leap, trying to squeeze every last drop he could muster from his own essence, a considerable amount with a topaz stone, he brought his vibrating axe slashing down upon its armored head.

A great impact resounded, an arc of blood spurted into the air,

“Shit!!” gasped Cerus, a long talon tore through the armor upon his thigh, piercing through the muscle and exiting the back in a small shower of gore, his own axe had impacted the shoulder spike of the kneeling nightmare, a small grey scar marring the black bone the only evidence of his best effort to kill the fucking thing.

The monster was facing him with a turned head, it was laughing, delight plain to see in the eyes behind the cage of armor, despair began to creep upon Cerus, it was playing with him.

Forcing down the rising hopelessness, he swung his axe vertically to catch it off guard as it gloated, even as he wrenched his leg free of the talon, once again, he clashed with the bone armor, this time impacting the plated face, knocking the head back with a resounding bang, eliciting a deep bone rattling growl from the abomination.

Cerus grimaced in pained triumph;

“Did that hurt, you damn cunt!” he shouted even as the terrifying maul erupted from the ground and smashed into his left hip, sending him sailing into the air only to impact against a tall black tree.

Thunderous roars rattled the earth, anger and pain evident as it echoed across the desolate forest, terrifying a group of fleeing knights to redouble their efforts to escape the surrounding hellscape and the walking nightmare behind them.

Cerus’s broken silhouette stirred somewhat, agony wracking his whole body, as his chest rose and fell haltingly under a severely dented breastplate, his head was spinning uncontrollably, probably concussion he surmised, as his thought tried to pierce the layer of fatigued fog that clouded his mind. He was fucked he knew, utterly fucked, though the pain ravaging his body he couldn’t feel his legs at all, with a supreme effort of will he tilted his head down to stare in horror at his lower half, one of his legs was twisted at an un-natural angle, the other missing entirely, the only reason he was still alive being that the utterly crushed plate mail that adorned his waist and hips had sealed the wound and stopped him bleeding out, his regeneration enough to keep him going through the shock and trauma.

‘This is it’ he thought with a weary acceptance, this is how I die, no way out, no shining hero to rescue my sorry self like all the young girls dreamed about, either this kills me or that abomination will, with his remaining will power he glanced around for his missing battle-axe, while his shattered body lent against the tree, a last attempt to end the terrible fate that he knew awaited him, on his own terms.

Cerus spotted it finally, ‘of course’, he lamented, it would be next to that fucking thing as all hope of a swift end left him, staring with dead like eyes at the nightmare as it pounded the ground in abject fury, strange though he mused, although I managed to hit it in the face, he knew that he accomplished nothing, even the vibrating effect of the axe was worthless against that bone armor, ‘why is it so upset then?’ with a morbid curiosity he continued to watch the abomination as it roared at the ground, furious blows raining upon it for what seemed like hours, but could only of been mere minutes.

Suddenly it stood utterly erect, its massive frame standing tall in an instance, a dead silence pervaded the area, the only sounds being Cerus’s breaths rattling in an out in an un-healthy way, obvious internal bleeding within his lungs at least. A deafening silence after the previous tirade, it loomed like that for a solid two minutes before it suddenly spun around to face Cerus, shadows flaring behind its back, once again forming that wall of inky blackness that shifted to consume the nightmares body, wrapping around it like a shifting cocoon.

It suddenly started to slowly walk toward Cerus’s broken body, its own colossal frame almost invisible in the night, only two orb like eyes that seemed to suck in the light to betray its presence, with each silent step, haunting in its grace that shouldn’t be possible with its armor and size, it came closer, stalking toward him, closer still until this shadowy form towered above him, silently staring down.

Rage, malice and hunger were evident within those eyes as usual, but strangely there was something new, something that was missing before, like a found missing jigsaw puzzle piece, something different, something that terrified Cerus even in his current state….. intelligence, a cold calculating intelligence, a horrific mind was behind those eyes, not just an insane creature of the deep, no something had changed, changed as soon as Cerus’s axe had connected with its head, something else was born at that moment.

Cerus felt true fear, it permeated his very being, like he was a rabbit upon a chopping block, those eyes, THOSE FUCKING EYES!

It stood there staring at him, not even twitching, a silent witness to the gruesome scene it had caused moments earlier, eyes boring into him, until something else was different.

Sound, it started with a small barely noticeable breeze, like a sighing in the wind, that slowly grew to a steady moan, then slow creaking, slowly increasing in volume as all the charred looking trees all around started to writher and twist as if in torment, then suddenly massive pressure fell upon Cerus, like a mountain falling from the sky, it felt like it would crush his very body, his very mind.

A voice unlike any other echoed within his mind, a voice cold with dread, a glacier like presence, the true voice of a nightmare.

WHERE ARE THEY

The dark will behind those words pierced into Cerus’s very mind, his very soul, his own conciseness bending under its immense weight, his own eyeballs start to roll uncontrollably back into his skull, as if wanting to shy away from the monstrosity.

WHERE ARE THEY!

Cerus started to seizure as his mind began to crack under the strain, his body shutting down followed soon after, going into survival mode to try and save itself.

The nightmare coldly took notice of this, a baleful plan taking hold as its left arm extended over Cerus’s body, the maul held straight out, its clawed hand gripped itself above the elbow, the claw clenched, and the scythe like blades slowly cut into the armor plating, to the raw meat and bone behind it, sawing slowly through with great effort, with a great wrench it tore the last of the ligaments and strands of muscle from the maul and pitched it over its shoulder, creating a small explosion as it smashed apart a tree far behind it.

It gripped the wrecked stump once again, this time massaging the end as its vital bloody essence gushed out, covering Cerus head to toe in gore, it did this with no change within its eyes and not even a whimper, as if it felt nothing at all. Soon the stump stopped gushing blood, the end of the wound slowly closing itself off and in its place a small slip of bone protruded, slowly sprouting, then picking up speed until it started growing at an alarming rate, a full skeletal arm had formed in mere minutes, soon muscle, ligaments and snaking veins began to stretch across the exposed bone, expanding in mass and strength until it was fully formed, its arm started to bleed once again but this time it did not spurt and gush upon the ground or Cerus, it just covered the exposed muscle like a great liquid glove, soon this began to dry just as quick as the rest of the arm had regenerated, it began to turn black, quickly thickening to a mushy blood like slurry that coated the limb, a dark and terrible essence seemed to flow from the nightmare, wrapping the slurry like glove of blood in pure shadow, tightening and compressing, the arm under huge pressure, until suddenly the shadows dispersed, revealing black bone like armor coating the once exposed muscle, an exact twin to the other hand, it stared at is finger tips, slowly blade like talons tore their way through, gleaming with fresh gore. It flexed its fingers, comparing with its twins on the other arm.

ACCEPTABLE

The nightmare once again looked at Cerus’s gore splattered body lying against the tree unmoving but still alive.

NOW FOR YOUR PART

Its stretched both claws above Cerus’s shattered form, essence darker than the surrounding night flowed from its back and across its arms, slowly drifting down in a cloud upon the still body, engulfing it within, an hour passed, the nightmare unmoving and silent the whole time, as it gazed steadily at the cloud of darkness, suddenly it retracted is arms and the dark essence withdrew, revealing Cerus’s body below. Every inch of him was covered in the same black bone like armor as the nightmare, copying his former plate mail’s design, but far more sturdy, his pelvis, waist and legs seemingly restored to how they were, it had even copied his Battle-Axe down to the last detail, except the runes appeared somewhat different.

A cold menacing laughter devoid of life came from the nightmare as it bent down and grasped something from the floor, standing back up it held it out only to reveal it was a strange grey fungus.

essence once again flowed from the nightmare into the fungus, turning it from its original grey color to a dark red, finished it looked to Cerus and reached down to open his bone vizor revealing his pale face, devoid of blood, it forced open his slack jaw with a claw tip and pushed the fungus within his open mouth, sealing the mouth with its claw it waited for Cerus to involuntarily swallow, as soon as it happened it closed his visor shut, its malicious mirth leaking out again.

Soon the change would begin as the fungus took root within him, soon it would serve, it placed the Battle-Axe within his gauntleted hands and stepped away, the nightmare turned away and began walking into the night, a horrendous cacophony of screaming began behind it from Cerus, trapped within the onyx like armor enduring a pain so strong as to wake him from a coma, but it was just the beginning for him, the nightmare started smiling as it walked. Then it wondered about the Idiotic knight that had challenged it, or more specifically about the knights that had followed him to only flee when it revealed itself…. Well it can’t have that, now can it? It would spoil all the fun it was going to bring to Valen…. And spoil the revenge it was going to bring its betrayers, for it knew now how it was born, how it came into this world and how it left it, it knew the laughing faces, supposed friends and allies, lovers and comrades, the shards of fractured memory complete and it was wrathful, it will bring a pain not seen before in this world, it would create a sea of blood that will wash this land clean, their end will not be swift nor merciful, their friends, their family’s, anyone they have ever met will suffer. It knew why it was cruelly killed and how far the betrayal went, the body count will be massive.

It started to hum a discordant tune as it hunted down every errant knight that tried to flee before its presence.

THE NIGHTMARE WILL COME FOR YOU ALL!!!