She ascended the winding hallway, passed under towering arched entrance into central tholos. Immol'thar's prison. The soaring vault, once the site of high ceremony, had been converted to a holding cell for the void terror that sustained them. She had cloaked herself in the thin gauze of an invisibility shield- practiced geometry of barrier mingled with delicate spellwork to protect her from the arcane static that whirled through the thick air of the chamber.
She was forced to move slowly in her concentration as waves of arcanic reverb sizzled against barrier in steady pulsation-two pulses per minute buy her count. Her shield would hold fast for a few minutes more, but she must move quickly. A Spellsword stood guard at each pillar, facing outward. Past the central colonnade a score of Summoners surrounded the terror, entrapped behind the raging arcane of it's prison. Summoners stood sentinel, the last line of defense against possible catastrophe.
Her view of the terror itself was obscured by one of those massive pillars. She moved silently- hugging wall. She made her way to the left to get a better view of the thing. She'd only seen it in her mind's eye, imagined, based on Nylora's attempt at description so many years ago.
Terror it was. Violet-black scale overlapping epidermal, it's throat brilliant heliotrope, scored with slashing wounds long-healed. The tail a graceless wedge whipped back and forth slowly, arcane reflecting on glinting spikes. The thing was two-headed, each with a single eye. The gaping maws salivated rivulets that pooled upon stone already caked with eons-worth of it's own foul secretions. She realized with disgust that it must have been consuming whatever it's body excreted, for there was no way the viscera coating the stone within it's confines was all that had accumulated over the millennia. Tongue snaked past razor-sharp teeth in stomach-turning grotesquery. More eyes were set upon several long stalks at the crown, undulating in rippling cascade.
She searched her mind for some comparison. Bear? Lizard? Those wouldn't do. It lacked completely the sturdy grace of bear, the aquiline form of lizard. There was no counterpart to it amongst any fauna she knew. It was decidedly ugly, the anatomy almost nonsensical, clumped muscle stretching scale taut, a perverse mockery of function and form. Yet it moved, pacing the perimeter of its prison, emberous gaze swept over each summoner in turn-seeking weakness. She had assumed it would be as a caged beast, raging, driven mad by millennia of imprisonment. A foolish assumption, now that she thought about it. There was a preternatural intelligence to its movements, an endless patience. The eyes held obvious intent, eons-worth of carefully crafted malice, focused upon each captor in great detail. The constantly-lolling tongue a grotesque taunt meant to unnerve the summoners in it's alien strangeness. Surely it had no need for sleep. How many years had it been at this? Pacing endlessly. How long must the Summoners hold their shifts? Had any ever slipped? Been driven mad?
A sudden wild gale of arcane reverb buffeted her, flickered her barrier out for a fraction of a second. And that was all that it needed. One eye swiveled, locking with her own. High-pitched drone undercut thought, snaking into mind, dreadful unbidden contact to cerebral tissue intimate.
Held under surf of static
Futures unfurl through screaming silence.
Cindered cityscapes endless. Charred world's residue lingers on palate
Viscous pools soluphobic, corrode
Tendon flayed cadaverous, riven resplendent.
Cloven-hooved approach. The fatal softness of that which dwells beneath sings.
Sunken vine cradles stratum.
Cradle turns clench.
Boughs gnaw. Wood warps
Blistered xylem leaks astringent from eyes lambent
A wave of arcane jolted through her, the meagre barrier she'd shielded herself with having dissipated. The ground rose up to greet her. A shout, and the clatter of armor as two Spellswords rushed to her, prone and twitching on the stone. And then she knew only darkness.