Chapter 6 – A Shaman's Fate
This is a short story I wrote to obtain a certain minion In Character. This is something I'd been planning for a while and the Shaman in question is actually someone we caught during a roleplay event.
Near the gate from the Hero's Canton of the Black Citadel a loud hiss of frustration is heard. A passing Charr looked around in confusion, unable to identify the source of the sound before shrugging and walking on.
A female Charr of small stature jumped nimbly out of the shadows on top of the structure next to the gate. At first glance her clothing looked like a tattered collection of grey, brown and red cloths haphazardly stitched together into clothing. A careful eye though, would see that it's made like that on purpose and that it's not as fragile as it would appear to be.
A belt on her waist held a dagger on the left side and a bejewelled human skull on the other side. The rest of the belt held a variety of different sized skulls. Another belt going over her left shoulder held additional skulls. A strap on her back held a staff made out of several bones with a spine coiling around it and 3 skulls at the top. It was not a very large staff, as it was clearly made for someone of human proportions.
As soon as she landed on the ground she stalked onwards towards the Stockades.
I should have figured that blubbering idiot wouldn't turn up. Waiting any longer is a waste of time.
When she reached the Stockades, she thrust a piece of parchment into the paws of one of the guards as she stalked past, saying grumpily, "I'm here to relieve you of that Flame Shaman in that cage over there."
They both moved to block the way, but the smaller Charr easily dodged away from their attempts and passed them. Before they had a chance to say anything, she said, "I am Greva Bonestorm and I'd advise you to read those orders before you start complaining."
The guard holding the parchment closed his maw and stared at it as Greva walked on towards the cage containing the Flame Shaman, inspecting him as he scowled back at her.
Grudgingly the guard with the parchment said, "Hrmm... This seems to be in order indeed. Very well, you may take him. Glad to be rid of him, actually." He moved towards the shaman's cage to unlock it. "Be on your guard with him though. At the moment he's chained against the backside of the cage and there are multiple protective spells surrounding the cage to block any spells he might still be able to throw at us somehow. That will be gone once you pull him out of here. Do you have a -"
Greva interrupted the guard, "Oh would you shut up? I don't need you to explain something to me that I know a lot more about. Just open the cage already and let me be on my way."
The guard grunt, but stood silent as he opened the cage. The shaman's gaze didn't leave Greva, but instead of scowling, he now looked a bit more calculating, likely wondering what this little Charr wanted with him.
The guard moved to unlock the chains but Greva gripped his paw, "Hold on a moment before you do that."
She moved into the cage to approach the shaman looking down at him. Then very swiftly, her paw came down hard against the back of his neck and the shaman slumped down against his chains, unconscious. She stepped back and the guard frowned, then shrugged and stepped forward to unlock the chains.
"Alright, he's unlocked. Now what do you plan to do?" He snickered, "I highly doubt you can drag him yourself. Despite his stay in the Stockades he's still quite a stocky fellow."
She sniffed disdainfully. "Originally my legionnaire was going to do that job, but since he didn't turn up, I'll have to solve this on my own."
Both guards burst out laughing, believing she's actually going to try to drag the large shaman on her own. Instead, she stepped out of the cage for a moment, detached two skulls from her shoulder, holding one in each paw. She mumbled a short incantation before throwing both to the ground. As soon as the incantation began, sickly green energy flowed out of the skulls, surrounding them. Beneath the veil of energy something grew out of both skulls and in short order, a devourer made of flesh and bone has grown out of each skull. The laughing of the guards stopped and now they were staring at the devourers.
The necromancer took a bejewelled skull, different from any of the others, from her belt in her paw for a moment and mumbled another incantation. A couple of chains made out of the same sickly green energy appeared and bound the shaman completely. She looked at the result for a moment before she nodded and mumbled, "Yes... that should do as a precaution."
Putting the bejewelled skull away she made a gesture and both devourers moved to either side of the shaman tangling their tails around his arms and started pulling him along. Greva started making her way out of the Stockades with the devourers following, leaving the guards to stare at her with open maws, unable to find anything to say. As she moved through the Citadel towards the front gate the surrounding Charr kept staring at her. A select few looked at her and her devourers with approval, but the majority either laughed at her or disapproved of her. A few of them quite loudly. She was quite used to all that though, so she just ignored them and moved on. Usually she might have tried to find a less conspicuous way, but at this moment she was really not in the mood to care who saw what she's doing.
She passed the gate of the Citadel into the village of Smokestead where she got more of the same reactions. Continuing on, she headed north until she reached the training grounds of Tela Range. She looked around until her eyes spotted a metal clad Charr shouting at one of the others training there, "Hold that sword steady or you'll lose your grip on it again, you pig faced cub!"
She walked up to him, her devourers still dragging the shaman's body behind her, and spoke up. "Blackflint, sir. A moment of your time."
He turned and looked at her and grunt. The two sparring Charr stopped and turned to look at what was happening and soon enough everyone had stopped training and was instead speaking amongst each other about the weird Charr dragging an unconscious, bound shaman behind her with bone devourers. Obviously not something they saw every day.
The instructor looked her up and down before he spoke, "I assume you're Greva Bonestorm that wanted to use the little alcove over there. Well, fine by me. I don't know what you plan on doing there and I don't care. Just make sure it doesn't interfere with us. And I hope you have a way to keep those skritt away or you won't be able to get anything done at all." And with that he turned around. "And what are you idiots gaping at? Get back to sparring or I'll be your sparring partner myself!"
From the speed at which everyone returned to their training it was clear they didn't like the prospect of that. Greva didn't notice that though. She was already on her way to the alcove mentioned earlier.
Said alcove was actually a small section of the Northern Wall that had fallen apart, creating a little space behind it. In the past this might have been a passageway to the Diessa Plateau that lays beyond, but probably some landslide or something had blocked that off. So instead it was just a small little area littered with a few ruined parts of the wall. Nothing really wrong about it, apart from the fact that a bunch of Skritt liked to make their home in those rocks and came out frequently to bother those at the training grounds.
Walking into the alcove, she looked around, spotting three Skritt holes. The ground itself was clear, fortunately. In a quick fashion, she grabbed a total of three skulls from her belt and tossed them to the ground after a short incantation. The same thing happened as back in the Stockades, but instead of bone devourers growing out of the skulls, small scuttling creatures grew out of these. Once all three were ready, she made a couple of gestures and they scurried off, each minion going for one Skritt hole where it promptly exploded, collapsing it. It wouldn't stop the Skritt forever, but it should make sure they wouldn't bother her as long as she's working here herself.
She took another look around and nodded satisfied. She'd chosen this place because if anything went wrong with her experiment, the likelihood that anyone else besides herself would be involved would be quite small. And nobody really cared what happened to this little alcove anyway. She gestured once again to the bone devourers who then carried the shaman to a position somewhere in the middle of the place before uncoiling their tails from around his arms. They walked up to Greva, who then placed a paw on each of their skulls that now functioned as their heads. For a second or two the same sickly green energy surrounded both bone devourers and when it passed, they were gone and just their two skulls were left, which she refastened on her belt.
With that out of the way, she looked at the shaman for a short while before extending the magical chains to bind him firmly to the ground. Following that, she unfastened her staff from her back and thrust it into the ground just behind the shaman's head. She held her paw on top of the staff for a moment, infusing it temporarily with a bit of her stored life force. Grabbing hold of her dagger and bejewelled skull, she did the same with those. Now all three of those were glowing with the sickly green energy.
Taking position on the side of the shaman, she took a deep breath before using a large portion of her stored Life Force into her following spell. It swirled out of her paws, through the dagger and bejewelled skull before surrounding the shaman. At that moment, the shaman awakened and looked around, probably not seeing much at all through the thick smoky black and green energy that surrounded him. He opened his maw to speak, but Greva used that moment to put her spell into the next stage and all the energy that surrounded him, started to enter his body through any opening it could find, be it his maw, nose or ears. Bound as he was, there was not much he could do, except to look horrified at what was being done with him.
When all the life force went inside him, she crouched down and made a swift swipe with her dagger at the shaman's throat. Her previous spell had already done part of its work and softened the neck to the degree that she could cut right through, separating the head from the body. Her spell had also put a firm foundation on the separated parts of it, ensuring no blood would leak out.
The shaman was still alive, but even that wouldn't last long, so hoping her spell had softened the bones in the Charr's body enough by now, she stood up, sheathed her dagger and put the spell into its next stage. With her now empty paw she gestured towards the staff while the one holding the bejewelled skull was aimed at the body. Another bit of her stored life force poured off her and swirled around the body. She spoke another incantation and the life force around the body started swirling around violently while the life force and blood inside the body began rampaging as well. Slowly the body was broken apart and soon it was just a big mess of guts, flesh, bits of fur and bone swirled around in a cloud of blood and black and green energy.
In fierce concentration, she used the staff for better coordination of her spell and slowly the big mess moved towards the head of the shaman, which was still intact with him even now, still being kept alive by Greva's spell. Unable to speak, he looked in horror as the big mess surrounded him. Slowly, the head hovered upwards until it was floating in the middle of the big mess and Greva stepped sideways to stand on the other side of it as her staff, still in full concentration.
She prepared herself for the final stage and used up all of the remaining stored life force without using up her own and sent it out into the big mess. Suddenly everything rushed inwards, towards the head. Knowing this meant the shaman just died and the final stage was reached, she used another spell to step partly into the mists. Anyone who would be looking at her, would see a weird green shape where Greva stood. Knowing full well that doing this was a dangerous endeavour and that time was of the essence, she reached out and pulled back the shaman's spirit, putting it back into the head, which was now just a large skull, as the rest of it has been deconstructed and joined the rest of the mess swirling around it.
Stepping back fully into reality, she finished her spell, which caused a blastwave to throw her backwards several meters where she hit the rocks hard and slumped down. Shaking her head fiercely, she muttered, "Ouch, I didn't expect that to happen...".
Then she looked back to the middle of the grounds. There was still a reasonably big mess floating there, but it was different. No longer was there any blood or pieces of the body swirling around in it. Now it was just a mess of black and green energy. Curious, she stepped towards it, hoping she has indeed been successful. As she got closer, she spotted a skull floating in the middle of the energy cloud.
It was not moving though. Not wanting to wait any longer, she reached inside the cloud with her paw, grabbed the skull and threw it against the rock face she had landed against herself earlier. It bounced off and kept floating around again. Then it turned towards Greva and a ghastly voice shouted at her, "What the hell did you do that for!"
At that Greva smiled brightly, knowing that this just proved her experiment has been successful. Except for one final test.
"I needed to wake you up. Now answer my questions. Who are you and what do you remember of what happened to you?"
Almost right away the ghastly voice coming from the skull answered, "I am Vasius Scorchwalker, Flame Shaman and Centurion of the Flame Legion. After rotting for weeks in those Stockades of yours you come along, gets me out, puts me down here and performs some experiment on me where I ... Wait a minute, didn't you kill me?"
A wicked happy grin appeared on Greva's face. "Yes, I did kill you. And I brought you back. You might notice your... state of existence has been changed somewhat, former Centurion."
A short pause before Vasius screamed out loud, "What in the name of Gaheron Baelfire's name did you do to me?!"
Greva sighed. "Really, I'd have thought an experienced practitioner of magic such as yourself could at least make a rather accurate guess. I might indulge you with the long version, but in short, your state of existence has been altered into that of a floating skull infused with a bunch of life force and some other things."
Vasius seemed to calm down. "But... why?"
"Because I like having an obedient pool of knowledge at my side to help me in my endeavours. Be it in the form of advice or any abilities you might have, but we'll look into that later."
Vasius laughed out loud, the sound being quite eerie in his ghastly voice. "Obedient, huh? And what makes you think I'll just be your obedient tool?"
With a smug grin, she answered, "The fact that part of that spell contained a little bit of magic that is probably similar to Mesmer magic. It wasn't easy to pull off in the least, since that's not where my talent lies. This whole experiment has cost me all of the life force I had gathered over the past few months. Anyway, what that little part of my spell does is force you to obey any commands of mine. And since I have to feed you some more life force now and then to keep up your existence, I can make sure that part of the spell does not lessen in strength over time."
Vasius grumbled, clearly not happy with the situation. "Alright then. Guess I'm stuck with you, so I might as well know a bit more about you, right?"
Greva frowned, then shrugged. "Hmm, might as well. I am Greva Bonestorm, Storm warband, Blood Legion."
"Blood Legion? Yea right! I know an Ash minx when I see one."
"Ah, so you're not all that stupid after all. Good. I was beginning to worry I picked the wrong shaman. You are right. I'm not originally from Blood, but from Ash. Maybe I'll indulge you in the story sometime, but for now, we should move on." And at that she turned and walked back through the gap of the Northern wall with Vasius grumbling and floating behind her.