Chronicles of the Lonewolf: Welcome to Vaysoom

There was still some time before nightfall, so we returned to the Cauldron where Max and I had a bit of a chat. He'd admitted that he was, indeed, the leading expert in voyahdae lore and that he had left out some information during his previous recap. It had been the voyahdae who had prepared the sanctuary cities and fought tirelessly to save as many lives as possible. It was also the voyahdae dedication to family, education, and defense of others and self drew new adoptees from among the survivors which led to the increased number of sanctuaries during the War of Cataclysm. He'd also explained that one of the main reasons he hadn't mentioned them was due to the belief that they were long gone from Vaysoom and the only stories heard now were often hearsay tales from small groups who claim to have been saved by the voyahdae in isolated locations. I tried not to laugh, but it came out as a snort instead. "We're the UFOs," I blurted out, incredulously. When Max looked at me both confused and concerned, I clarified. "Unidentified flying objects," I explained.

"How did you know that the legends speak of them flying," he said, awed.

I laughed even harder. This couldn't possibly be true and it took me several minutes before I recovered and was able to catch my breath. "Never mind, Max," I said, wiping tears from my face. "What you're saying is, even the foremost scholar in the subject has know idea where to find any remaining voyahdae."

He looked down at his feet, chagrined. "I am sorry, my friend."

I walked over and laid a hand reassuringly on his shoulder. "It's okay, Max," I said, softly. "Strategic disappearance is a part of our culture, after all. I should have expected it." I looked over at him slyly. "But that's why I surprised you when I didn't know the voyahdae history on Vaysoom, isn't it?"

"How are you familiar with the voyahdae and not know their history," he asked. "How can you be a voyahd and not know."

"I told you my world was very different than here," I said. "Where I come from, we're just a small offshoot of clans from another culture who started down a dark path." I thought things over and continued, "Nice to see that we were the ones to save lives when the time came, here." I took my seat again, pulling a baton from each knee and keeping my wrists limber. "So, Max," I said glancing at the darkening sky. "What's this trouble you're worried about, and how is The Claw involved?"

In the week and a half that I'd been here, I had gotten used to the mist rising from the nearby Ustapi River around dusk and thicken to a fog that mostly burns off by the fifth hour. As I sat on the low stone wall looking through my new backpack and contemplating Maximi's predicament, I didn't pay attention to the rising mist.

Some fifteen years ago, the Queen of Phyrefaul, the human kingdom of Northern Vaysoom, took a bride from among the commoners. This was unusual for it was the noble houses that most often caught the eye of royalty. The Queen's new bride was lovely and charismatic and quickly won the hearts of the people, just as she had the Queen. Soon after, Queen Charlandra fell ill and succumbed to it quickly. The new Queen took the throne reluctantly and her beauty and charisma only seemed to grow. The past five years or so, however, the orders of the Queen have become decidedly more and more pro-human. While some, especially within the Academy based in Phyrefaul, became increasingly fearful of the Queen's greed for power, none dared oppose her. Those with the literal power to stop her were either swayed to her side or imprisoned and not heard from again. With his knowledge and research, Maximi saw that it wouldn't be long before he, himself, was targeted. Taking as much of his materials as possible, he slipped out of Phyrefaul in the middle of the night and fled east. Hoping to reach the distant port city of Wooden Planks (By The Sea) and negotiate safe passage from Captain Kayne, Velvet Claw Guildmaster of Deshalak, before his absence was noticed. Instead, I got involved and Kayne may have been contacted by the Queen for Max's capture instead.

All of this was weighing on me heavily by the time I looked up at some strange, soft sounds in the distance. The mist clung to the ground and drifted across making things look ghostly to about knee height. The leafless trees looked skeletal and shadowed as headstones peeked above the slowly moving mist. "Oh, hell no," I muttered, slinging my pack onto my back and grabbing my new compound bow. I knocked an arrow and peered across the eerie grounds. The unusual light from the green and blue moons made things look even stranger in the mist and I could hear my heart in my ears as I crept slowly forward into the proverbial land of the dead.

Somewhere ahead, a voice cried out in pain and surprise and I picked up the pace, but dropped further into my crouch and using the mist and headstones as cover. As I moved forward, I could hear movement ahead and rapid breathing, whether from exertion or fear, I couldn't tell. I could see a dark shape against the somehow lighter darkness of the night looming above the mist. Another step revealed another shape at its feet attempting to scramble away from it. Instinctively I drew back, stood, and fired in a single smooth motion and the upright figure twisted, stepping back as the arrow punched into their shoulder. Part of me wondered if that arrow should have knocked them down just from the velocity, but I was more concerned with the person trying to get away right now.

I darted forward and the person shrank back from me in fear. I took in the wispy thin hair ringing the base of their skull below a bald pate and the pointed ears, but the tusks stood out in the odd light. Something must have convinced them that I was here to help, because the expression quickly changed to relief and they exclaimed, in a reedy, almost wheezing voice, "Thank Narahdoh!" They reached for me and I got their arm over my shoulder and I helped them limp away from the slow moving figure behind us. I handed my bow to them, needing two hands to use it, and snapped one of my batons open in my right hand. When I'd gotten them to the wall, I sat them down and whistled, the agreed on signal for Maximi to come and help me.

I turned to watch for that figure or any other and called back over my shoulder, "Are you alright?"

"No," they said, honestly, and I couldn't help but laugh. "But thank you, stranger, you saved my life."

About this time, I heard someone approaching from behind me and I spun, adrenaline and the environment making me a little paranoid. Maximi stepped from the dark and the mist and exclaimed, "Domfay, good man. What happened?" He crouched and started to examine the injured man's leg.

"Someone came out of the dark and attacked me," Domfay replied. "I know superstitions have scared off some people, but the lights and sounds have not affected anything. I just kept working."

"Until tonight," I pointed out, to which Domfay nodded his agreement. "Did you see who attacked you? They weren't very fast, but must have some strong armor."

"I was doing the usual grounds keeping and they grabbed me from behind. When they threw me to the ground, my knee hit one of the headstones." He turned his dark eyes on me and said, "I owe my life to you, stranger."

"I just did what anyone should do," I replied, shrugging. "No one else was around, so that left me to do it." I looked at Max. "Can you get him safely inside?" Maximi nodded, but was staring at me strangely. "Okay, good. And Max?" He had gotten Domfay onto his feet and handed my bow back to me, but looked up expectantly. "Send my helmet out, would you? This may be more dangerous than I thought." He nodded and they hurried away as quickly as Domfay's knee would allow, but heard Max call for some help on the way. Flayrian, himself, ran the helmet out and I slipped it on, wishing I had my bucket from back home.

Due to the slight decrease in peripheral vision, and the shift to how and where I was hearing sound, I crept even slower into the rising mists. I drew another arrow from the quiver and grumbled about how I'd already lost one, but kept my focus ahead of me. I was hoping that staying low in the mist and keeping to the headstones for cover would give me an advantage, but in a world I know very little about, I had no way to know what capabilities these opponents might have. I didn't make it far before that same figure loomed up before me. I knew it was them from the arrow sticking from their shoulder.

The figure lunged for me awkwardly and I sidestepped as the low light finally revealed their features and I recoiled in revulsion. An eye lazy followed my movement as it rolled within a bony socket, the entire left side of its face missing, down to the skull beneath. The rotting flesh of the far side revealed an empty eye socket and the tattered clothing and flesh hanging from the bones in its arm moved like light fabric in the air. Shobla, zombies," I shouted, jumping away as it swung its rotting arms toward me. My back slammed into a headstone and I heard a crack, the impact loosing my arrow and it flew wild. I feared the worst for a moment as the pain from my arrow wound spiked until the upper half of the stone fell over me.

The zombie wasn't even distracted by the wild shot and closed on me faster than I was expecting. I scrambled from the rubble and slung the bow over my shoulder. My mind raced over Domfay's words, that he'd seen the lights and heard the sounds but that nothing had happened until now. "I should have asked more questions," I said to no one in particular and drew my rapier. I dodged the zombie's next grab and slashed at the back of it's knee, dropping it to the ground as I tried to move to more stable footing. I backpedaled as it tried to regain its feet and a hand fell on my shoulder with a surprising grip. I had just enough time to note a second zombie before I found myself flying through the air.

It's decidedly strange, the things that go through your mind when an undead creature flings you through the air across a darkened graveyard. The first, obviously, is this is going to hurt. I was also wondering how many zombies were loose in the cemetery and how had they gotten there. My eyes noted a couple of additional points of motion in the mist as well as noticing that they seemed to be moving me in a particular direction. It occurred to me that zombies can be directed but rarely have free will of their own before my thoughts turned toward other things when my left arm caught the top of a headstone. My entire forearm went numb and my body corkscrewed through the air until I came to a bone-jarring halt that forced me to lose my grip on my rapier in my right hand. I sat up, slumping against the wall of the mausoleum and tried to catch my breath, my vision fuzzy and consciousness drifting. A strange bubble seemed to be beside me on the ground and it took me a couple of tries to get a grip on it.

I held up the little bubble and blinked to focus my eyes to see a small, glass bottle with a dark liquid inside and a cork. My brain fuzzily connected it to Max and medicine so I popped the cork and drank it down as four zombies shambled toward me. I'd been right, there was a mint base, but the taste of the liquid nearly made it come right back up, but the worst was when it hit my stomach. I gritted my teeth as my side, back, and head suddenly felt like they were doused in flames and I cried out in pain. A moment later, it was gone. Not just the burning, but all the pain, everywhere. "Oh, wow," I exclaimed, reaching over and grabbing my rapier only to find the undead quartet nearly upon me. "Ohsyc," I shouted as I rolled left and kicked out at the furthest zombie, wincing as I caught the knee I had slashed and watching it break backwards. I scrambled back at my first chance and then realized my mistake as the shadow of the mausoleum fell over me and I realized I'd entered the building and trapped myself. I got to my feet as fast as I could and watched the three zombies move inexorably closer, the fourth dragging itself along with its arms. "Great," I muttered to myself. "I'm gonna die playing Call of Duty for real."