Sigmar Almighty, what have I done? The next chapter is so damn long I probably hit a dead-end.
When is someone going to adopt this thing? Please!
And a deal to what might
The sky briefly lighted the dead planes with lighting before it returned to the usual bleak and cloudy that it has been since she first entered this realm, a single moon and a huge black circular void keeping the place from being pitch-black.
How long has it been?
How much longer until she could feel some respite?
The witch of the silver spire looked at the depressive place and couldn't even manage a measure of anger at her situation.
Not anymore.
Sitting on some debris next to a mausoleum the only thing she could actually do was ponder on her past and analyze what happened; the possibility of escape nothing more than a distant dream. Once, a rising star of the argent covenant seeking ways to stop the chaos invasions and a powerful sorceress of Tzeentch undercover, now nothing more than a shade surrounded by freaks and morons.
Where did it go wrong?
Sabrina remembers the rumors, fanciful tales of new aelf forces that Sigmar protected from the purges, wholly dedicated to him and wielding arcane powers of wonder and mythic origin, yet no one had seen a single one of the knife ears.
Then there was a change in the realm of Chamon, the dorfs had seen a sudden shift in the way they made deals, and all other communities now had easier access to their precious sky-ports, adventurers, soul-bound and many scholars came and went, all of them talking about innovation and refinement. New schools funded by their Kharadron patrons.
Thousands of new opportunities for the followers of the Great Deceiver to expand his influence. That had been her mistake… in such a rush to expand her own knowledge and climb up the ranks, she had sent a few acolytes to investigate, and when they returned empty-handed, she had gone ahead herself to secure a place for 'her order' and to sway others to her cause.
That's when she met the new aelves.
Curious creatures that felt alien even as the winds of magick slowed down around them. All visitors needed a guide to help them traverse the universities recently opened, but everyone knew they were guards to ensure their cooperation and to keep them from places they weren't supposed to see.
'Stop' she thought. 'The aelfs'
Why were there aelfs on duardin cities?
Supposedly because Sigmar paid a disgusting amount of gold to every sky-port that allowed it but that was nonsense. Because they were preparing something dangerous or daring, many thought. Far more likely.
Because the god-king was trying to make good impressions with his allies.
Because aelfs were learning new technologies that didn't depend so much on magic.
There were hundreds of theories but here, now… she should've seen it sooner.
A trap for the followers of chaos. For those with enough brain to do more than just grab a blade and scream their lungs out about the Chaos Gods. Bait for cultists that went at their own pace and played the long game as the Changer of Ways has always done.
And she had fallen head first into that trap.
All her plans, all her strategies, her ambition, deals made and broken promises, bound daemons and the bargain she made with… that thing.
THAT THING!
The Vile Entity.
Looking like a man waring a horned mask of disturbing charm, not of Slaneesh make or influence yet oddly irresistible and accompanied by a mutt; the Vile entity had appeared during the Morningstar festival, trampling all over a little scheme made to escalate later on to allow her a measure of control withing the blue covenant and remove a… less than friendly fellow from within the pantheon.
He knew.
About everything, about who she was and what she wanted. She had been more than ready to vaporize him, leave nothing behind, when his mutt growled at her and all her gifts suddenly fell silent.
Terror then gripped her heart and as the stranger approach, a weight settle all over her, crushing her. Then his whisper.
'How about I help you?' he said then.
Against her better judgement, she listened. The Vile Entity had shared information on the newcomers, on the schools opened on the sky-ports, on the weapons designed and kept in vaults in Aqshy.
Also on ways to better control the mutations she was gifted by Tzeench, how to avoid his ire and how to gain his favor.
It was all so tempting… so safe. A clear path to Daemonhood. A way to earn her place as Princess of the Crystal Labyrinth, perhaps even enter the manse so that she could take her destiny in her own hands and become Queen like that boorish Valkya. And all she had to do was collect some little gizmo lost by the aelfs to the sky-port of Barak-Zhoff.
Finding the artifact wasn't easy, nor was it rewarding. She had wasted a great deal of resources for a cup. A dammed cup.
Her temper almost got the best of her, but every time she was met with success, she remembered the terror she felt when that thing whispered in her ear. Anger wouldn't serve her.
And just as she was to meet him, of those gold-skinned aelfs approached her. He had done… something to her. The aelf casted a spell on her and before she could actually think of anything like the lack of pain or the eldritch flames that blew her cover, a blade had pierced her heart. Sabrina had less than a second to meet the eyes of her hidden killer, a grey skinned, red eyed aelf, before she was thrown… here.
How long has it been?
At first, she thought this was a realm of Shysh, for the depressive, death-filled realm couldn't belong to anyone else and so she had challenged every undead she had met, but after what she assumed was days of not getting an answer, she had come to realize this was not the case. The great abomination would never skip the chance to gloat.
Then came the painful truth that she was immaterial, completely incapable of interacting with anyone beyond words, and the painful agony ripped from her very soul every time she approached floating crystals.
Then the unbearable humiliation of not having her powers.
So much sacrifice for this, so many betrayals, every opportunity she cheated from others, every backstab, all her studies into the arcane and every painful mutation that wracked her once beautiful body. And now not even her master answered her calls.
Sabrina wasn't the only one.
With the passage of time she had talked with other spirits trapped here. That's when she learned that the Vile Entity wasn't just a 'Prince' of power, wishes and bargains, but also of Trickery.
The oldest ones talked about this place, about their homes and their legends and whatever stupid thought came to mind just to stall boredom in this 'Soul Cairn', how they came across the Vile Entity and how many were willing to ask for their wishes even knowing this, as the Prince takes back his deals or bends his own terms to screw them over, getting them what they wished in the most horrible way possible, but at that moment she only felt like a retard. She had served a Deceiver and thought she could cheat another, and the price for her arrogance was this big pile of nothing.
She couldn't even get a slight bit of relief as other followers of chaos joined her.
How long has it been?
First were fellows of the raven. Confused and horrified, absent of their mutations, of their powers. When she first met them, they never mentioned the Vile or his mutt but they tried to get out. Mass rituals bereft of sacrifices, curses, naming daemons, demands of aid and even direct callings. Nothing worked.
Then came khornates, in raving droves that didn't stop screaming and cursing and making their insignificant oaths. Much like herself and those around her, nothing they did worked, and in their lack of substance most went insane, deprived of the blood they so craved.
Then came the nurglites, devoid of their precious deceases and as they were before their corruption, most were frantically looking for a way out. The poor fools tried in vain to call for their precious ball of filth to deliver some of his blessings even as they worked with a fervor usually lacking in their kind.
There were some hedonists of Slaneesh, but they were not plentiful. Maybe because their god went missing so long ago.
'What do I care. Nothing ever does in here.'
Another strike of lighting., another flash of light but she didn't react.
Some of her fellow shades tried to organize themselves into a measure of familiarity, to retain what little sanity they had in this place, others secluded themselves, resigned to this miserable non-existence.
Those who lost themselves wither threw themselves to the floating crystals to be consumed in a bang of agony, or tried (and failed) to lash out against anything and everything.
The witch could hardly care.
The Soul Cairn is barren and dry, with only dead trees, bushes and soul fissures scattered throughout the realm. That's as far as she could go. The whole land is covered by a blueish and purple misty aura and is filled with graveyards, burial chambers, mausoleums, chapels, a great wall and a few castle structures.
Every time she tried to go… anywhere that wasn't here, she always found something keeping her in place. The first months after her imprisonment she just tried to walk in a straight line only to find herself in the same place over and over again.
How the slaves of Nagash could tolerate this kind of madness was beyond her.
The worst punishment was probably being left alone with her thoughts. Beyond the imbeciles still trying to contact the Four, it seemed she was the only one to recognize what was going on.
They were the forsaken, those left behind in the Great Game, those who simply were not worth the effort and were left to rot. A fate even worse than becoming a spawn.
Sabrina began to think about every single second of her life, just something to pass the time, and it was then that she realized how utterly disgusting she was.
All those poor souls wasted for ascension that would never come. Their screams and plights. The way her flesh twisted and boiled and changed… all of it for nothing.
In all this time, always thinking about her mistakes and all she lost because and sometimes for them, it hurt her the most.
Depression was an unfortunate constant in this place.
Nothing she ever did mattered in the end. All of it just led to this. Curse her ambition, curse her curiosity, curse her power, curse Tzeench, curse chaos, curse Sigmar, curse everything but above all else curse herself.
Curse her a billion times for thinking herself clever and astute. Curse her for imagining heights of power beyond the mortal mind.
Just curse her.
In as she curled into a ball, a soft, understanding laughter filled her ears. She would've ignored had it not felt so different. Beyond the mortal realms, beyond this hellish graveyard; she lifted her gaze and instantly recoiled.
Floating above her was a giant.
Like a monolith above the ground, completely immobile, unnatural. She had summoned many daemons in her time but this was different, wrong. Like a physical contradiction.
In the vague shape of a woman, but with no nose nor eyes, instead two gigantic horns that curved backwards over its shoulders behind its back. Made entirely of bone like substance, with protrusions that formed a bone armor horrifying yet elegant in its desing, it was ivory white starting from the head and went darker and darker until its feet were charcoal black.
Its aura was of malignant brilliance, but unlike the never born of the Great Deceiver, it was… simple. Straightforward. Honest in the sense that it didn't mask its intentions.
"Do you want to get out?" it spoke, with reverberating echoes marring its voice.
Sabrina could no nothing more than lie where she was, but the creature didn't seem to mind.
They remained there for what felt like a lifetime, until finally the former sorceress regained her bearings and nodded, weary of another trap. Every deal she has made only ruined her, but before this presence, all she could do was open herself.
The creature smiled, and a shudder went up Sabrina's phantasmal spine.
"I can help you, if you want" it said.
The fear was replaced with resentment.
"What do I have to give in return?" she spat. Indignation dripping from every word.
The being didn't react; slowly it crouched down still in the air, until its blank face stood before her very eyes, peering down at the witch.
"Everything" it responded, as it offered at hand.
And Sabrina chose to damn herself for the remainder of her days. Taking the had she shuddered even as she began to float, as her flesh reformed and her powers changed and began to flow, in ways it never should have.
And before she could react, she was standing again, holding hands with the giant as a child would hold the hand of its mother. A medallion of an eight-pronged star with a skull of black and white hanging from her neck, and she heard laughter, deeper than any pit and more demented than anyone. And Sabrina knew that others would suffer for her choice.
And she smiled.
Sorry for the delay, things are getting weird again just when I was finally getting on my feet.
By the by, I hate the Soul Cairn. My story isn't exactly ponies and rainbows but that place is just depressing.
My brain is screaming so I'm going to lay down.