Chapter Three:
Casual Phantasmagoria
Kain and Vorador dissipated from view as if consumed by coastal fog. The world warped and twisted, becoming cooler shades of blue and teal. The ambient silence of the ruins gave way to a muted cacophony of anguished voices lamenting what was lost. Raziel felt instantly calmed to be in a familiar setting. As nightmarish as the spectral realm was it far more welcome than the ceaseless nothingness that was inhabiting the Reaver.
Still on the ground Raziel brought his legs beneath him and sat up straight. He then realized his well-worn cowl was draped about his shoulders. Glancing down he gave pause to find himself returned to his skeletal form. His exposed muscle and tendons were again a rich cerulean blue reflective of the spectral purgatory he occupied. The Wraith Reaver remained, jutting from his right palm as a blazing ethereal blade.
"Welcome back, then." He thought aloud to himself. The white light pulsed and flickered softly as if in response.
"Oh!" A startled female voice bade him look back up. "Raziel? It is you." Ariel had appeared, now bathed in spectral colors. Her slender, frayed hands were clasped at the front of her dress. As she nodded her head forward her ever-roiling curtain of blonde hair followed and danced in a frame around her face. There was no aggression there.
"It is." Raziel replied, trying to recall the last instance he had met her. "And you remember my name?"
"I do. You told me."
"I told you?" He didn't remember doing so before. Then he remembered the broken silence in the Reaver. He remembered being more than happy to talk incessantly. Although freshly freed it seemed so distant and again surreal being trapped in the sword. His head tilted to the left in thought, his cowl yawning at his opposing cheekbone.
"Was that real?" He wondered.
Ariel pressed her lips thin in a subdued smile as she drifted down to the wraith's level.
"Yes, that was real. As is this, I'm afraid. Just as I have been freed from my prison with a swing of a generous sword you too have come to be free." She spoke gently as if reassuring a cornered animal. In this instance Raziel didn't mind.
"With much less benevolence in my case, I suspect." He remarked as he stood. Energy returned to him in his own terms over time in the realm of the dead. In fact it seemed to be quicker and more substantial than her remembered, but then remembering things was proving to give him trouble at the moment. Raziel afforded the lost souls a passing glance while they meandered aimlessly to and fro. Those that were curiously observing then hid, darting behind crumbled leaning walls.
"How long…?" He began. Words weren't coming to him as quickly when he was searching for them.
"Since what exactly?" Ariel filled in.
"The fall of the Pillars?" Raziel asked tentatively, trying not to linger on the horrid events that followed.
"It has been 400 years hence." The underlying sorrow in her voice spoke to a unique understanding.
Raziel's now bare ribcage heaved with another sigh that moved no air. Too much. Everything was far too much for him to be expected to handle. Yet he continued. Even as events became more and more convoluted, more and more sinister, he persisted. It was quite literally the only thing he could do anymore. In the face of it all: persevere. His claws came to his forehead in frustration then ran back through his hair in a mannerism he'd had for over a thousand years.
"Why are you here?" he inquired at length. "In fact what in dawn's name is Vorador doing here? Where is here?" As the wraith's questions began to beget only more questions Ariel held up a hand to him.
"Kain needed to locate this temple. Much of it is in ruins. I was searching for perhaps another way in." She spoke after he quieted. She knew full well what he meant. She wagered it would be more helpful to bring him into the present. Raziel picked up on this, only speaking after another pause.
"Very well." He said at the end of one last habitual sigh. "A moment, if you would." His cowl slipped from his face given a gentle tug. Ariel did her best not to flinch at the extent of Raziel's maimed appearance. With the entirety of his lower jaw once again missing his mangled exposed throat flashed with bright light emanating from within him. Ariel, with the leftmost half of her once beautiful face sheared off in her distant murder, had little room to judge. She had, however, seen the SoulReaver in action as Kain wielded it. Any fraction of such terrible power was more than worth giving some space.
The specter silently shifted from one realm to the other. The spectral pale drained away, returning the world to its dark saturation. She turned to see both vampires remained now leaning against the same wall. She was secretly impressed. Neither of the two were particularly agreeable nor did they make a habit of communicating their intentions. It would not have surprised her had they wandered off.
"That was certainly the spirit trapped in the Reaver. How did such occur?" Ariel inquired. She tried to use a neutral tone this time. The combined hubris of the aged Kain and Vorador was not something to invoke offhand.
"The Hylden occurred." Was Kain's somewhat agitated response.
"Hylden sorcery, was it?" Vorador followed wryly.
"Anyone can make a summoning circle…" Ariel said quietly, earning a rolling of the eyes from Vorador.
Before the elder had anything to say about it both vampires became aware of the ground rumbling. A hand quite suddenly burst forth from beneath the scattered stone. Vorador had drawn his sword by the time a full figure clambered out of the ground before them. Shaking the dirt and detritus from itself it proved to be very blue.
"Well than-" came Raziel's voice as bone and flesh shifted into place. A second surge of transformation seized him by surprise. In much the same grim manner his entire vampire visage returned to him with violent torsion. He only cried out when a new set of bones erupted from his back and drove him to his knees. In the second of silence that followed his cowl fluttered to a rest across his right shoulder.
"Well, than." Kain echoed, bringing his talons to his jaw in a gesture of contemplation. Raziel remained kneeling, waiting out the waves of pain sweeping through his now full body. His claws dug into the newly disturbed earth. From his shoulder blades large bat-like wings curled in the same tension, delicately half folded over his hunched form.
"Do I merit an explanation yet or did you plan to kill me once I got you where you wanted to go?" Vorador snapped impatiently.
"Calm yourself, old one. You'll get your answers soon enough." Kain responded in what may have been a lackluster attempt to be reassuring.
Vorador continued to be incredulous. Ariel payed him no heed as she tentatively dropped her hands from her mouth. She drifted down to Raziel's level in a motion reflective of their previous conversation.
"How did you do that?" she asked just as incredulous as the vampire. She did not think it possible for a creature of the spectral realm to manifest directly into the physical plane.
"Hm? Oh. I- I suppose I could show you at a time." Raziel answered after he had shaken his bangs from his eyes, recovering his scattered senses. Ariel's hands retreated back to her mouth with a small gasp as he lifted his head to face her. Raziel may not have been able to register her visually while trapped in the blade but, as well as remembering him previous, she could perceive him. She had grown accustom to the skeletal blue wraith. So much so that it didn't occur to her that he was once something else. Despite the pointed ears, the dark lips, and even the otherworldly light burning behind his eyes his features were now undeniably handsome. Ariel knew what it was to lose everything but the wraith was unrecognizable. She couldn't imagine what it had taken to destroy him so completely.
Raziel had merely given her a solemn nod in acknowledgement before going on to address Vorador. "I apologize sincerely, Lord Vorador. To answer your question I am a very specific type of ghoul. I am a wraith." He said, taking on a calmer even tone. This seemed to quell Vorador's aggression.
"And what is the difference?" The elder vampire asked with an arched brow.
"Diet, mainly…" was Raziel's reply. Kain and Ariel gave him very similar looks of concern. A small smile graced his face for a moment before he spoke again. "There is much I could sit here and explain. To do so would take ages. Therefore, presently, may I ask where we are exactly?"