The Crypt of Olshar was never a crypt at all. Slabs of pale limestone half-eaten by the ravages of time teepee’d into the semblance of an entrance, bundled cables of ivy and bricklewood obscuring the yawning entrance in a web of greenery. Weeds, brackets of bracken, brambles, briars and burdock, all tumbled together to form a roof more akin to a malignant fungus than overgrown shrubbery. The name ‘Olshar’ had been given on a fancy by a nameless merchant out of Pallin — a passerby too cowardly to unearth its mysteries and too prideful to admit his cowardice — and so the myth of Olshar was born: an evil and dreadful place, dark and dank, where the spirits of the dead never sleep. It was a place steeped in exaggerated mystery, a tall tale that lived only in the lore of nearby taverns. While ‘Olshar’ was a lie, something terrible dwelt within its earthen heart.
Before the Age of Nok, when sun and moon were as one, the slabs of Olshar’s gate were but pebbles compared to the thrumming tower that preceded them. A twisted thorn upon the face of a barren wasteland, piercing the heavens as if to kill the Gods. It was a wound upon creation, home to an unnamable evil that sought to uproot the celestial order. Heroes long forgotten to the annals of time had managed to vanquish the evil, sacrificing themselves to plunge it deep within the hungry soil, a prison of bedrock and thrice-sealed wards.
The magi swore to never forget the heroism and sacrifice that brought about the end of their ancient foe, and to ensure that their foe would never return.
In time, the tower fell, and with it, the power that had sustained it. Monuments were erected, stories told
land reborn. Kingdoms came and went, new foes arose and were defeated in kind and in the passing of centuries all had forgotten the dark forces that had once dwelled here. A fable, a myth. A whisper from a drunkard at the inn. The evil never died.
***
Pain was all that lingered. Not a smell, not a sight, not even a memory. A white-hot bead of sentience that smoldered in the encroaching darkness of oblivion. There was no ‘I’ any longer; had there ever been? What was left, what was lost? All had become one, and yet, all had not disappeared. Time had ceased to be; an illusion that now seemed a reality. Direction was irrelevant, direction and time and pain. I push outwards, digging at granite and grit and ancient stone with a gnawing fury, my hands smearing with the dust of ages. I would scream. I have tried. The impotent rage swells into a tsunami of hate that threatens to snuff out the last remaining vestige of consciousness. My pain has become a self-extinguishing flame. I reach out and briefly feel the echos of time told through the guttural song of shifting earth. Then I feel nothing but the damp earth, pressing in upon me from all sides. I am buried alive. I claw my way upwards. I know nothing but rage and hatred, but these are just words, concepts alone in the absence of true experience. The orb of light in the darkness has begun to flicker. Soon I shall relent. Soon the nameless, faceless foes that linger at the edges of my dreamless recollection will have won.
A vibration in the stone. Not a false grinding, a true quake of rock, the slow churn of nature and the will of a long dead power. The sound of new life descending into the recesses of my prison. It draws closer, closer, closer and finally I can truly feel it. There are several now, but the closest draws nearer by the moment, a footfall of leather upon blacked marble. The surrounding earth suddenly feels less constrictive to my physical form. I am liquid, a formless glob of protoplasmic gelatin squeezing through the crevices and towards this newfound thrumming. It is warm and inviting, a siren-song, a promise of sweet release. I draw ever nearer, the heat becoming unbearable. A flash of light, a brief moment of clarity and a name.
***
Sorrin had never been keen on dungeon delving. The musk of ripened parchment and the soft glow of a libraries candlelight had suited her far better. Her nose, round and freckled, twitched as a plume of dust erupted from the shifting stones and directly into her face; fantastic.
“Curse you, Sir. Briarmane,” she sneered. Her party’s paladin possessed both charisma and a foolhardy disposition, he had convinced them into the barren ruin and now they were separated. Sorrin adjusted her spectacles, pushing them back against her button nose and into the mass of ruddy-blonde hair that crowned her head. She was a mouse. No, worse. A squirrel. The girl had all the ferocity of a housecat. And like most housecats, Sorrin knew how to pout and scowl until someone actually challenged her.
A shadow flickered at the corner of her eye, causing the small mage to jump in alarm. A low hiss escaped her lips and the shadows around her seemed to dance with the echoes of her frustration.
This place — Olshar, they called it — was even more derelict than the ruins of the old monastery. The only things that seemed intact were the towering arches of basalt, veined in a network of silver that pulsated like a heartbeat.
Sorrin could feel the thrumming in her chest. It was a comforting feeling, like being held in the arms of a mother. It spoke to her, sang a song of hope, and she’d needed it. A rockslide of earth and stone had separated her from the party. No one had been harmed, thank the Gods, but now their path had been split.
Sorrin looked down at her feet, and the broken cobblestone beneath her boots. A thin layer of dust coated the stones. They seemed out of place, the remnants of an older time. She kicked at the debris and watched it scatter across the ground, a faint glow illuminating her way.
She could hear the sound of her breath, and her heartbeat, but other than the soft crackle of magic that lingered in the air, the hall was utterly silent. A strange chill settled into the room, causing the hairs on her neck to rise. She took a tentative step forward, her hand outstretched and a ball of blue fire burning in her palm. It was a meager defense, but a defense nonetheless. Unfortunately, the thing that lurked within the dark didn't seem too impressed. Sorrin barely had time to scream before it sprung upon her.
***
Darkness, all consuming. A void, an endless void, a vacuum. The girl was suspended in nothingness, suspended in time. There was no sense of direction and no way to tell which way was up of which was down. The only thing she had left to her was her mind and the panic that consumed her. She was drowning, suffocating, dying. She had no form, no substance. Just an entity, a spark in the dark, an ember in a sea of blackness. She reached out, feeling nothing but the empty apace.
“A suitable host,” I squirmed at the folds of consciousness, suppressing the ancient appetite of a starved predator, “Sorrin.” The girl’s mind was a buffet of memories, emotions, and desiresz The battle for restraint was all consuming as feasting too quickly meant killing her outright, trapping my weakened will in a sarcophagus of rotting flesh. I had to move carefully, slowly, and gently. A process that had never been a necessity before, but a necessity it was.
The girl stirred at the sound of her name, her voice like a bell in the darkness. Her fear was a tangible thing, and it would be all too easy to devour her. But I could not. I had to wait. I had to bide my time. The hunger would not abate, but I could still feel the lingering tendrils of the old power. There would be a way to escape this wretched plane.
Sorrin’s consciousness fought to manifest speech, “Where am I? Where have you taken me? Show yourself! Show yourself, demon, monster, devil, whatever you are!” She thought to her time at the Magus Progenium, years of tutelage under the most prestigious magi in the known lands. A spell, a cantrip, anything that could reveal her assailant.
“Not a devil. Not a monster. Not an I. Not a you. There is only ‘we’.” There was truth in that, “Cease your panic, Sorrin of Lostra, and listen. You are better than this.” I tested the limits of my own budding control, attempting to ease the mage-girl’s thrashing mind. Half of the battle for her soul had already been won, but what came next required finesse.
Sorrin was silent, an invisible wave of anger and frustration lashing out in the form of a psychic riptide. She did not trust the voice in her head, the voice that she could not understand. She did not want to believe, but her curiosity got the best of her. She could still feel her body, trapped and helpless, and wondered if she were not already dead.
“You are a parasite, why would I comply? I’ve read about ‘things’ like you.” No, she wasn’t dead, and that was an emboldening realization. She began to summon up a familiar spell, something to bind the entity, something that would send it screaming into the aether. The harder she focused the more of her physical aspect began to coalesce in the former void. Sorrin, as petite and owlish as she was in the physical, was no psychic pushover. Form was given to shadow and a great battlefield of astral spires and maelstroms swirled about the undulating landscape. A mousy mage-girl stood defiantly against the formless shadow that sought to wrestle away her body, soul and mind; I cursed this weakened state.
“Very well. The hard way.” I tugged at the corners of Sorrin’s incapacitated mind, siphoning the barest traces of her psionic strength. Her body was no longer trapped, it was no longer hers, and that was the first hurdle.
***
Tarry ichor clung Sorrin’s lips as the last of the parasite squelched inward. She had managed to slip the shackles of her mind in the final stretch of its outward assimilation, too late to stop it from claiming her body. Without a proper psychic bonding, the process of assimilation was anything but pleasant. Sorrin’s glasses fell to the shattered stones beneath and was subsequently crushed by her own crashing weight. Pale blue eyes, bloodshot with the effort and strain, gazed blankly at the distant ceiling. Her fingers dug into the dust-caked stones, grasping at the grit for support.
Sorrin had been so close to victory, so close. Her tongue, her throat, everything was clogged and sticky. She could taste the remnants of a foreign entity, the bitterness of a failed repulsion. There was no way to know how long she lay there, the only company the faint and rhythmic thrumming from above. She felt it now, the presence. It clung to muscles and bone, spreading through blood and bile alike in horrifying efficiency. It was a malignant, creeping, thing, and it was consuming her from the inside.
The parasite had grown in strength and resolve, its hunger sated with the meager remnants of her psionic essence.
I whispered along the hollows of her skull, “This could’ve been easier.”
Her teeth ached and her joints popped and snapped in rapid succession, her body contorting in grotesque agony. Muscle, sinew, bone, all were made taffy and pliable. Her back arched and a deep guttural growl tore through the night air. There was no time for panic. No time for pain. All that was left was an empty, aching, pit that filled her from the inside out. She could feel the tendrils of consciousness that crept along the edges of her mind, the parasite siphoning her energy, her strength. It would be so easy to let go.
No, no.
Sorrin refused.
The world was a blur, her eyes glazed over in pain, but she continued to fight.
Was I losing? As the girl desperately sought to reinforce the bastions of a shattered form, an uneasiness now stirred within. Yes, her body had indeed become my own, but with it, the same pain I inflicted was beginning to tear at my own senses. We were indeed becoming one, and the little bookish mage girl was turning the blade outward and into me. Sorrin knew it too. Even as she seized in vein-popping torment, blackened lips curled into a snarling grin.
‘Parley…” I would not be trapped in a corpse, “Desist, child…” the pain was blinding, a burning sensation that ebbed and flowed, waxing and waning, but never ceasing. I tried to concentrate on my own goals. I tried to remember the old purpose. I could not fail again.
S0rrin could feel the slackening of her leash. She had won a victory against me, even if it had been pyrrhic. The girl’s energy was spent and her physical body had been sundered. With every passing second the promise of death came closer to fulfillment; she did not wish to die.
‘Go on…demon…”‘
‘Not a demon.’
'Monster.'
'Not a monster. An old soul. A tired soul. One who has suffered countless centuries in the bondage of stone and soot. Forgive my intrusion, an act of instinct not malice. I did not wish to die here…”
'Neither do I.’ She could not trust my musings, how could she? Though she was still a young girl, barely a woman, and death was a horror in its own right.
‘I can mend your body, quite simply, but I require a modicum of control. Your will shall be your own, but I must leave this place. I refuse to linger here, and all I ask is mere passage.’
'Passage…where…I don't even know where I am…I'm lost…'
'You will be free. That is the only thing I can promise. Now, are we in agreement?' Our mutual agony was becoming excruciating.
Sorrin thought hard about the deal. Her body had been torn apart from the inside, the pain beyond comprehension. Fingernails chipped from scraping the unforgiving sheets of stone below, ligaments and tendons screaming for the sweet kiss of oblivion. Her thoughts had begun to fade and her vision had dimmed. What did she have to lose?
'Fine…fine.'
The pain vanished in an instant, her limbs were once again hers. Her lungs expanded with the cooling breath of air and her fingers closed around her ruined spectacles.
I worked with a spider’s dexterity, refastening the torn cables of sinew with unfettered access. Sorrin’s relief was now my own but frighteningly so; hosts of eons past had never fought with such vigor, or perhaps I was weakening. Regardless, my acquiescence was required for survival and the long game could be played. Im a matter of minutes, all physical ailments had been mended.
She was alive.
Sorrin struggled to her feet, stumbling across the shattered stone. She could feel her heart hammering against her ribs and the ache in her legs as they struggled to support her own weight. It had been a close call. A moment of weakness. She was not prepared for what happened next.
With the physical form complete, the bond was cemented and we became whole.
'Whole.'
The sudden rush of psionic energy that flooded our collective consciousness was euphoric. I had not known the strength of a mind such as hers, so vibrant and alive, so powerful and pure. Sorrin could see the tendrils of her own subconscious now, the psychic strands that linked us together. In brief bursts of memories unlived, Sorrin beheld a fragmented history: a cosmic void of shimmering orbs interrupted by a prismatic star descending from the heavens, a great crash, the expulsion of a tar-like ooze, a great darkness-
I steered her mental gaze from the truth, lest my true nature be revealed, and distracted with a meager sampling of my once might.
Sorrin could not begin to imagine the power contained within. The raw and unmitigated force, a power to alter the very fabric of the universe, a power so great that even gods could fear its presence. She had always dreamed of a power beyond the mortal realm, a strength to surpass the boundaries of man and magi alike. Her eyes widened in amazement, her pupils dilated and her jaw slackened. This was her power, this was her will, this was her strength. And she loved every bit of it. In a frustrating exercise of restraint, Sorrin pulled back from the vision and wrenched control once more.
“That was…something,” She spoke aloud, noting that her spectacles would no longer be needed. Cerulean eyes shone with newfound clarity as the mage-girl scanned the surrounding darkness.
‘Yes, it was, now about leaving.’ I reminded from the dark corners of her reinvigorated mind.
Sorrin nodded, and took her first steps into the yawning darkness, eager to reunite with her friends and leave this horrible place.
‘And for both our sakes, do not inform your companions of what has transpired; I’d hate to meet a paladin’s blade.’
Sorrin gulped, realizing the implications of disclosing her newfound union. The others were kind and well-meaning but wholly ignorant to the nature of magical phenomena. What if they saw her as a tainted, broken thing? She brushed the messy tresses of peachy golden hair from her eyes before nodding in the affirmative.
We were whole.
***