*Ascylla POV*
Ascylla stared at the mountain entrance. Granted she hadn't spent much time around mountains and was really only putting up with them due to the scripts she found that promised power in the midst of these. But the cave entrance looked like a bad place to go to her. It was a jagged opening in the mountainside with little assurance that the tops wouldn't just decide to crash together on top of her.
However, when she had been asking directions in the town at the bottom of the Torian mountains, the guide had crossed himself and spouted off in a fountain of excitement and terror, forgetting she couldn't understand his language. When he calmed down enough, he resolutely refused to give her any other directions. It had taken three days, at least a dozen tour guide interviews, and all her silver before she finally found one that was willing to give her the directions she wanted. He had still refused to guide her anywhere closer than a mile of the cave entrance.
So, without a guide she had to wonder if she hadn't chosen a wrong way somewhere. But she'd double and triple checked her way through the directions and it really was the only gash in the side of the mountain that looked like some sort of an entrance, even if it looked like a terrible one. She stared at it for a long while, deliberating.
In the end it was the scrolls she had found in the Citadel library that urged her on. She'd spent months deciphering the text only to find the promise of power to reverse death. The fountain of life the texts called it. Eternal youth, health, power, and all the heart could ever wish for if one was brave enough to seek it and pay for it. The Citadel's magic was the greatest in the known Verarian world, it was true. But no one knew the power of eternal life. Not real eternal life. The vampyres, scaled dragon fiends, and other creatures who fed on blood or magic had longevity. But they still weren't truly immortal. They still needed to find their sustenance. They still relied on nourishment and eventually still died.
Besides all that they could still sustain mortal wounds.
But the scripts promised true reversal. Scylla took a breath and stepped through the narrow gash in the mountain. She didn't want to settle for longevity. She wanted to watch the world die. She wanted it all or nothing.
*Rhys POV*
Rhys the Necromancer had been woken from his slumber a few weeks prior. It happened throughout the years. He was never allowed to slumber forever, no matter how long he'd been alive and that was quite a while. Something from his dark gods always aroused him from his dead sleep for some dark purpose. Normally it involved a lot of war, a lot of death, and phenomenal amounts of power.
So far, his purpose had not been revealed to him this time. But that was no matter. He had ways of entertaining himself. Ever the faithful servant, he was patient. And he awaited his signs from the gods. He had all the time in the world, as it were. Until the sun failed to rise and the stars burned into nothing, he would breathe. And even when there was nothing left to breathe and his body obliterated with the world, his soul might well cling to whatever pieces it could find and float forever in a hell of nothingness.
He didn't know. Hadn't considered it. His gods weren't a kind type though. So it wasn't outside the realm of possibility, but if that were his fate then he would accept it gladly.
Besides, he was not bored by any means. When he'd laid himself to rest he had slumbered with all manner of preserved playthings. The first day after he had risen in his throne like tomb in the mountains he had woken his toys and decorated his rooms with them. He had something like a small piece of a castle deep in the caves. There were lakes of acid, the cleansing liquid fire of his gods. There were bedrooms for him. There were iron cells in a dungeon setup and there were rooms with distorted avatars of his black gods. All of these preserved with the same hideous magic that caused Rhys to draw breath.
But his favorite room was a mockery of a throne room. Decorating his throne room was what he'd amused himself with for the past few months. He had gotten creative with his toys to do so.
The creatures he controlled could be divided into two categories. There were the thralls, creatures who he had raised from death and preserved. These he liked to use as decorative furniture, of a sort. This time he'd taken two female thralls and impaled them on stakes on either side of his throne. The lovely thing about reanimated creatures was that they no longer needed their delicate internal organs. After a week or two he had lovingly pierced the two of them through from anus up through their mouths and placed the bottoms of the stakes in holders on either side of the throne. They were much like grotesque little statues now, both brunette. Perhaps in life they had even been twins. He couldn't remember anymore. Now he only knew them as his lovely toys. He affectionately pinched the right nipple of the one on the left of his throne. In answer the body twitched. There was no sound around the stake, but the thrall twitched as if the little movement hurt her and Rhys chuckled.
From there he'd formed many other modifications. The thralls were his and his alone. He had absolute and total control over them. If he commanded one to stillness, they would be magically forced to do so until either the end of time or until he reverted the command. So he'd carved and reshaped his creatures into reanimated artwork. Another of his favorites was one designed to look like a horse. He had amputated her arms and sewn a horse shape around her head. Black leather formed a harness around her torso and emphasized her bare breasts. His favorite part was the sex between her legs, though. Rhys had taken the lips of her sex and spread them apart, stretching them with weights for weeks. And then he had sewn each stretched labia to the insides of her thighs. When she stood, he made her spread her legs wide apart. She still stood like that. When he passed her and pat her mane of hair affectionately tears fell around the sewn horse head. Rhys paused and soothed the toy's hair again.
"Now, now, no tears. What good could do they do you, my sweet?" She couldn't answer, of course. The horse mouth wasn't made to open. She couldn't even move. She only blinked in misery at him and Rhys chuckled. "You'll grow used to your fate. After a century, you won't even remember how it felt to be any different, I promise."
With that he moved on. The thralls were good, but the next category of creature was his favorite.
The priestesses were reanimated as well, but not by him. Oh, he killed them to aid in their creation, but they were ones who swore to serve the gods and therefore belonged to them. For this reason they had a will of sorts. However, Rhys had proven himself the most loyal of zealots and it fell on him to be the master of the priestesses.
He trained them, instructed them, disciplined, taught, and shaped them into servants. His favorite priestess lay sobbing before his grotesque throne.
Her name was Hallie. He had found her two centuries ago as a pretty, innocent teenager. And he had lured her to the necromancy gods with the promise of true eternal youth. Oh, how innocent little Hallie had been then.
