He was back in the abyss, only this time without that monster. He stayed for several moments, unthinking, unmoving.
"Where am I?" Silas asked himself.
In response, a blinding light enveloped his vision and a blurry silhouette stood.
"You are dead," the silhouette said.
For some reason, that didn't faze Silas, like some part of him already knew.
"But not for long." It said with its' deep and imposing voice.
That, however, did surprise Silas.
"What do you mean," He asked.
"Listen to me Silas, darkness has fallen over your world. People live under the tyrannical rule of evil and unjust being. Outside of the walls lies a world in turmoil, turmoil you must put an end to." It explained.
"But how would I stop this evil?" Silas asked, feeling compelled to believe this stranger.
"The being that you defeated in the abyss left your body changed. Locked within it is a power that could leave entire armies decimated." It answered, "A power that the evil hoped to use for itself, until you foiled their plans. For that, I bestow upon you an ability, one that hasn't been seen in the world for many generations."
"What is this power and how do I unlock it?" Silas asked, "And about this ability?"
"All will become clear in time, my child," He responded, " Go now, purge the world of evil."
With that, the light vanished and Silas was left plummeting.
The monks followed the tracks, leading away from the corpses of several of Zhan's men. They stumbled upon this horrid scene while searching for mushrooms growing on the cliff face. They smelled it before they saw it, the smell of rotting flesh emanating from a cave in the cliff. With cloths held up to their faces the entered the cave, inside was some sort of summoning circle, many dark type corpses and a metal table bent and on top of a corpse.
Among the corpse, they recognized one of Zhan's sorcerers, dead with a staff through his heart. The staff was blunt. Leaving 2 monks to clean up the scene, the group left in search who ever, or whatever, killed these men. A few meters away from the cave, tracks leading away. They followed these until they found a corpse of another dark type, face down in the mud. Two monks used their walking sticks to turn over the corpse. It was cold, but there were no open wounds, leaving the monks to believe that something else had killed him. He was dressed extremely oddly, like a human scavenger. One monk pulled back his hood to reveal a wide yellow-furred face. He had sharp pointed ears and a muzzle. At the end of the muzzle was an extremely large yellow mustache. He started saying a prayer as the dark types eyes shot open.
The dark type took a short breath and sat up. All of the monks jumped back and readied their walking sticks. Before it even registered what was standing around him, the dark type's eyes began to glow a dark purple. He let out a scream as an invisible force pulled him into the air. Pain raked throughout his body as a dark purple substance moved up his arms from his fingertips. Once it reached his shoulders, however, it disappeared and he was dropped into the mud, out of breath.
After a few moments of heavy breathing, the dark type began to get his bearings. He looked up and around and noticed several robbed figures standing around him. He immediately flashed back to the robbed figures from earlier, but these ones were different, their robes were brown, not black. He then noticed that one of the figures had his hood drawn back. Its strange face made the dark type fall back in shock into a sitting position.
"Wha-what are you?" He stammered.
"A survivor?" A hooded monk asked.
"No," The yellow-furred one dismissed, "I think we have our culprit."
"He-hey!" The dark type shouted, and repeated with more confidence, "What are you?!"
"We are monks," Another robbed on stated, "We came in search of materials to make medicine."
"And instead we find a cave of dead dark types," The yellow-furred one said, "Now I think it's time you answer your own question."
"My name is Silas; I'm from a settlement, sent out to scavenge for supplies. But we were ambushed by strange beings, ones that looked an awful lot like you!" He responded after a moment's thought.
"Please don't lie to us," A robbed monk said, "The only settlement even remotely near here is human."
The yellow-furred monk gave the other monk a pointed glance.
"B-but I am human," He stammered.
But then he remembered. 'The being that you defeated in the abyss left your body changed.' Silas' head darted around, until he saw a puddle. At which point, he quickly crawled over to the puddle and looked at his reflection. Instead of a human face, he saw a gray furred vulpine face, with red eyebrow-like circles and red eyelids and large pointed canine ears on top of his head. Still in shock, he examined the rest of his body. Instead of normal human hands, he had what looked half way between hands and paws, as well as a small fluffy tail protruding from his rear. Then it hit him.
"I look like that monster from the abyss!" Silas screamed.
The yellow-furred monk lowered his head confusion.
"Let's take him back to the temple," the yellow-furred monk said, "We can ask more questions there."