Sacrifice

“My name is Ylla-”
“Your name doesn’t matter here.”
The Veilspun barely had time to flinch before the Imperial backhanded them, almost casually swatting them through the air. The mage sucked in a breath to scream only to have it rammed out of them by the Imperial’s next tail swipe that sent their broken body crashing through the air.
Erkan loomed before them, all crimson scales and madness. Faceless shapes moved behind her as the Forgotten gathered to watch the lone traveller’s execution.
“You don’t matter here. You’re a sacrifice, a tribute.” A simple flick of the talon, and the glint of an executioner’s axe flashed at the edge of his vision as thunder cracked in the distance. The storm rumbled overhead, pelting the two dragons with buckets of water that gently washed away the Veilspun’s blood.
“You’re a burden.”
The Executioner tilted their head as they approached, their ink-splattered scales not heeding the whipping whips that tore at them. Mercy was just another listener to Erkan’s mad preachings, watching execution after execution to their Empress that won’t even care.
Fearless had never been one for such thearetics.
“P-please! I came here to hunt for the dreadlord in the-”
“The dreadlord in the mists?” Erkan sneered as the Imperial ever so gently began to trail one bloodied talon down the Veilspun’s delicate wings, perfectly and gruesomely tearing apart the frail membrane with her claws. “It appears you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere then!”
Maddening chuckles from the Forgotten forming the circle of dragons watching the slaughter of the Veilspun, almost as if what Erkan said was terribly funny. The breaking of timelines had formed this mockery of a world, one ruled over by a mistress who cared not for right or wrong, only strength and vengeance.
The laws of the gods did not apply here.
No laws applied but their own.
Mercy raised their axe, but the victim did not seem to care. The Executioner almost seemed to smile grimly as the painful realization dawned in the Veilspun’s eyes.
“We aren’t in the dreadplanes. We’re in the In-Between, the monsters’ Wonderland and the God’s Abyss. And as for us? Oh, we’re the locals.”
The merging of worlds have left scars on this plane, half-formed souls who wander for completion, pure-magical zones where mages screamed as their flesh melted off their bones and magicless areas where dragons struggled while their own anatomy began to unravel.
It was madness made into reality, the unsane forged into creation.
“You are a Sacrifice, little Veilspun. Our Sacrifice to the phiran and a little poisoned gift for her friends.”
The axe slammed down.
Sacrifice awoke in darkness, screaming pleading begging with not words but broken sobs from a broken mage.
No one answered, no god came to his aid.
It could have been an eternity. It could have been a minute. No one knows, no one except the phiran herself, the very mistress who held enough power to mock the gods in her domain. The lady of all this madness and chaos.
The Veilspun had clawed and bashed and slashed the lid of the stone sarcophagus he found himself under, not a single one of his blows or tears fazing it the slightest.
It felt more like years and eternities had passed before the lid was violently thrown off, and the sunlight streamed in.
The sun…the blessed sun…a sight Sacrifice had forgotten in the mists and in the Spires. The rays that grew cancerous tumors, the radiant light older than time and with tentacles of pure flame. The orb that was born surrounded by the corpses of its still-born children had never been more welcome to the broken Veilspun, his sobbing and begging stopped by the muscular arms of his savior as she easily lifted his emaciated body from his stone prison.
“Easy now, the Rifts aren’t known for being hostile. You alright?”
Most certainly not. But were you seriously going to say that to the face of the phiran herself?
Sacrifice’s first attempts at forming words came out as garbled gasps for air, his miniscule claws grasping at the warrior’s armor and weapons as he first fought for freedom against her grasp, then for safety in her strength.
“Hm…most certainly not. Hush…the land cannot harm me. You might think your prayers went unanswered, but that’s a far cry from the truth.”
The phiran almost seemed to smile as she commanded the Veilspun’s wings to grow back strong, his wounds be healed before her.
“After all, you got my attention.”
The shattered mage wasn’t sure who or what he had been speaking to, an eldritch goddess from beyond, a simple Ice exalt offering solace, or a rowdy warrior with a sharp tongue, or had he been conversing with all three? Fearless was an enigma, a contradiction in this land of madness.
Perhaps she was the Godslayer, a monster from both the past and the future. Perhaps she was just Fearless, warrior priest of the Icewarden. Perhaps she was neither, or maybe she was both.
Sacrifice will never know.
“I would like to offer you a second chance, mind if I do?”
How could he have refused a god?
“You will walk among the living, perfectly identical to the dragons. You will visit clans and live your life. And then you will die a mortal’s death, and your soul will return to me. My dearest warlock, you will be my sole link to a world that exiled me so long ago, a messenger to the Icewarden that his loyal paladin survived the Rifts and horrorbeasts, and she yet still dares to wait for him. I will be your sword and shield, and I will offer you solace should you need it.”
There was never really a choice.
Sacrifice reached out, and grasped her titanic claws with his.
And he felt his soul restitch itself together, breaking and reforging itself under her aura, magic filling its cracks and vengeance flooding his veins instead of blood.
“Welcome back to life, Sacrifice.”

Greetings Clan Chapagapoo,
My most generous guardian angel wished for me to visit. My name is Sacrifice, I’m a Warlock. I am writing this message from a nearby Clan’s outpost, I woke up here not long after…an accident. It would be an honor if I could rest among your clan before I prepare for the journey ahead.
With thanks,
Warlock Sacrifice

Lore by StormcatcherHere