Description: There were several entities which posed a problem for Jedah during his displacement of Metro City - and one of them had never truly left after the chaos that ensued. Questions are asked, and more questions arise...
The light of a crimson moon casts a dark pallor onto the desolate and barren banks of the River of Blood. The moon is occluded by thin veins, barely visible upon the impermeable membrane which serves as the boundary of the pocket dimension, distant enough to act as the very skies above.
The air in Majigen is typically thick with the odor of pestilence and decay, but here on the west bank, the reason is a clear: a mountain of waterlogged corpses -- possibly several thousand. To one unfamiliar with the situation, it would look as if waterlogged corpses were tossed into one loosely-organized pile. But the truth is that, at one point, these bodies were tightly woven into the form of a sea creature. A colossal leviathan, the size of a giant blue whale with the muscular definition of a tyrannosaur. The sinew and muscles of the component bodies corded together into sinew and muscles for the whole, while the souls had merged into one collective being.
The massive creature had stomped onshore, animated by the desire for unequivocal desire for vengeance. And through the efforts of many powerful individuals working together, it was felled, slain... and the individual souls allowed to be released. Their singular focus, however, was granted to them by another -- without her, they would have remained docile, aimlessly meandering throughout the River of Blood without purpose or goal.
That individual was swallowed by the beast in its moment of awakening. The gnarled tree, which once towered well beyond nine feet, lies intermingled with hunks of asphalt, rebar and concrete, discarded kunai, broken branches, and assorted other detritus from the circumstance under which it was devoured.
But it is no longer surrounded by the towers of iron and concrete, as it was when it ran aground. No, the city of Metro City has been returned to its rightful place, the lord and master of this domain having seen fit to return it, whole cloth, to the earthly realm. But here in the realm of the undead legions and eldritch horrors, it is most unusual indeed for so many bodies to be held intact for so long.
Science is partly to blame. A field of pale blue energy encircles the corpses, a perfect cylinder rising to a towering height overhead. Thirteen large devices placed at regular intervals appear to be the power sources for the barrier, though. Each is comprised of four glass tubes filled with viscous green liquid, bound together with a golden metal alloy; the technology would not work at all without the blessing of this realm's master. The barrier hums faintly, allowing nothing but light and sound to pass through it.
The barrier's primary purpose: to keep the corpses from the millions of flesh-devouring creatures which call Majigen home.
The barrier's secondary purpose: to keep whatever's inside from escaping.
The mound begins to shudder.
There was movement, like, a mole burrowing beneath the ground, beneath the carcasses. The corpses rise, and fall, the creature worming through the death and rot. Limbs and torsos tumble from the sides of the heap, the mound shaking and shuddering. But nothing breaks free from the coccoon of death. Not immediately, at least. It takes about 8 hours of the strange movement, the rising and falling, the swells of flesh upon the death. Going higher and higher, the swells soon reach the very top of the mound, a festering pustle placed right at the peak.
And it finally breeches the heap of bodies.
It bursts from the boil, straight towards the sky, still halfway buried. Its jaw distends, screaming silently to the sky. Empty, oozing sockets of black slime stare blankly into the crimson sky. It was a long, tarry frame, bearing what seemed to be stick arms and long, clawlike branches at the tips of them. The limbs writhe like snakes, groping around the corpses blindly. It spasms, a retching motion coming from its upper body. But the thrashing slows. The motions become more deliberate.
And the creature grows calm.
It's jaw does not close, or cannot close. Tarry smears continue to leak around the creature, dribbling upon the heap light. It draws itself higher, pulling itself free from the depths of the corpses. Taller and taller it rises, as extended legs pluck themselves out. The branch-like limbs crack at they are tugged out, the stench of turpentine mingling with the decay. The creature, thin and nearly 9 feet tall, bent over as it stared at the barrier, body twisted as it kept itself below it. Slowly, it begins to take step and unever step down the heap, a stray limb idly winding down to pluck up a corpse by the back of its skull. Down, down, down it stalks, its knees nearly to its hollow chest.
Stopping short of the barrier at the base of the mound.
The creature stops short of the energy field, the corpse still dragged along behind it. Holding it in place, the monster's tilts its head up, somehow observing what was before it. It was still hunched over, legs crooked and arms twisted. But slowly, not too far from the pillars, it begins to lower down. Down and down, down into a crouch. And finally, it takes a seat. Dragging the corpse into its lap, its oozing eye sockets weep tar down its blackened face. It jaw suddenly snaps, opening and closing wildly as to test it out. It places a hand down hard on its prize, and with a wrench, tears off a limb.
And contemplates, chewing the rotting flesh.
Locusts make for particularly good guards; they can fly at a decently high altitude, high from any predators which might swat them out of the sky. Their compound eyes are keen and excellent at spotting unusual activity.
Such as movement from the long-inert pile of bodies which had been resting ashore for the past few weeks. The benevolent Lord of Majigen had needed to recover from the events of the Metro City visitation, though most of his armies knew better than to question his authority.
He tends to dislike that.
But the locusts have good cause to disturb his rest now.
A good five minutes after the tar-weeping monster begins gnawing on its snack, a single drop of blood appears on the parched shore before it. The carmine pool steadily grows larger, as if the land were sweating it out.
Without warning, two horned winglets protrude through the shuddering surface of blood, followed shortly by the head of the Black Messiah himself, his eyebrows knitted in discomfort. He rises steadily from the pool of blood, as if from an elevator platform. His hands are twined impatiently about the haft of a scythe nearly his own height.
As soon as the purple-garbed blood weaver is fully formed, he takes three strides forward, levelling his surly scowl upon the figure.
"You."
The lower tip of the scythe indents a divot into the riverbank, dry soil hissing as it erupts into a cloud of dust. He seems to be struggling for the words -- a rarity, indeed, for a man with all the time in the world.
But he finally manages another set of words, a few moments later, his rage barely held in check.
"You turned my creature against me. Explain yourself."
It was a painful few weeks.
Eadni, as she once named herself, swallows the flesh painfully. A pool of tar was building underneath her as she sat crosslegged. The flesh tasted foul, even for the woman. But she was hungry. And food would hasten the process more and more. She had to return her strength. The barrier was powerful, very powerful. But Eadni had time. With time, all power faded before her. A comforting thought, and soon she idles with thoughts of her children.
But soon she is no longer alone.
Eadni does not react to the arrival outwardly. She might not have been able to express a reaction yet; her features were still black pool of ichor. As the lord of the realm manifests from the pool of blood, however, she does take a moment to swallow. Tossing the limb back behind her, the woman waits, placing her hands on her wiry knees to let the Black Messiah fully manifest. The creature asks her a question. The being hesitates a moment.
And the creature bows.
Spreading her arms forward, she pushes her chest to the ground as she prostrates herself before the vampire savior. Humbling herself, she fixes her face to the earth, lower and lower. Black tar pools around her form, as gracefully, she gets on her knees, head facing down as she keeps herself balanced. And then, the mouth moves. And a beautiful voice rises.
"Lord Dohma~"
The words are sweet and kind, with the delicate, measured candence of a mother speaking to her child's teacher. In spite of her twisted form, Eadni's voice was just as delicate as it always was. The woman keeps her eyes fixed to the earth, as she continues. "It needed to be done, my lord, you must understand~. There is a natural order, a higher order that all must be subject to." She pauses a moment, before lifting up her head. The dim intentations of facial features form shallow pools upon her tarry expression, but she stares towards Jedah with those weeping sockets.
"Have you come to ~torture me?~, my lord?"
Jedah Dohma had a grand plan. The displacement of Metro City served the plan, however sub-optimally. But the creature formally known as Eadni was not an element in the plan: she was a harbinger of chaos and discord. Where the heroes were bothersome at best, this one was a straight-up nuisance.
Jedah listens quietly, his posture remaining regal as ever while Eadni prostrates before him, his disdain dialing back only a nigh-infitesimally small amount. But when she speaks of natural order, any good will she may have attempted to earn is undone. His response is a quick snap, "Torture is for those I plan to keep. To instruct. To make -use- of."
Irritably, he flings his scythe aside. Here in the master's domain, it does not fall -- rather, it floats a good distance away, bobbing while suspended in mid-air. "The -natural- order of things is for the strong to triumph as victors. The -higher- order of things is for the wise to guide their livestock to the choicest feeding grounds. What heresy of you, to presuppose that you know -more- than I. To condescend to me in word while splaying yourself on the ground."
Jedah draws in his breath, resting his palms upon his stomach. He steeples his fingers, such that he is less compelled to demonstrate his unease. "There are few who could place a harness upon the leviathan. Fewer still with both the skill and a good reason to. But... surely you felt that. Surely you felt the conflict of the untamed masses as they swallowed you whole."
The scowl is fading, slowly but surely, but it still has some way to go. "If your sole reason for coming here was failure to turn my possessions against me, then surely you accomplished that much."
""I meant no offense, Lord Dohma."
"I would cut out my tongue if it would please you lord, and if I had one to cut out~." The woman grovels softly, lowering her head again. "I would not have drawn your rage if it was not something I must do. Know that I did not act to simply ruin your plans. Your plans were already ruined from the beginning, when you struck out into the world. When the Leviathan came, it was already a path of ruin. I had to intervene, to prevent disaster in your world and the next." The woman's words were almost sincere.
But a witches promise was poison.
"Levithan seeks to devour, you know that well." The woman explains, still prostrate. "To harness the souls into a single creature in order to control it, and use it as a tool... but it is not a simple beast you can subdue, to keep in a cage. You could cow it; My Lord is more than powerful enough to make it tremble and turn. But it would break free from its chains, in a hundred years, in a decade, in mere months, as it has done countless times before through the vague passages of time. It does not matter how strong you are, it is in its nature that it grows larger and larger, until it is strong enough to overpower its master, to rip free from its grasp. That is how it earned its legends of power, Lord Dohma."
"And what would you do, my lord?"
Her words grow more rapid, the syllables clicking over her tongue. "Would you hunt it down to destroy it? Attempt to throw another harness over it, to control it? Would you let it roam free to tear apart this realm? Or maybe it would drift into the Earth Realm, in an attempt to harvest more souls... and I, a guardian of the Earth Realm, would have had to act. And then, it would be heaped rotting at the shores of some Earth ocean, its souls gone from your grasp. A single outcome, out of a hundred more from your bold actions, Lord Dohma." She lifts her head up again, the humanoid features becoming more pronounced, with half-formed eyes peering from tarry sockets
"I would have been pleased to consult you, if you had only asked~"
Lord Dohma tends to be slow to anger, but this particular brand of anger has been bubbling up over the past few weeks. And similarly... he is slow to calm down. Not -as- slow, but still.
His plans were 'ruined', says the tree. Had to intervene, it says. He listens, pressing his fingertips together. Normally he's flaunting his height, hovering about as if that makes him superior. But now, he feels threatened. Challenged. The words she speaks are, technically, without fault, but the matter he questions is being lost in the chaff.
Which is to say, she destroyed something of his without his permission.
The cross expression stays upon his face until Eadni is done speaking, until her visage begins to resemble that of a human rather than a rotting tree. "You speak well, and at length." Slightly petulant, that last word was, but the Black Messiah is from a time when polite discourse was the only kind of discourse. Thankfully, Eadni recognizes that quality.
"There are several points to consider in your words, and I shall spend time thinking upon them. But... let it be said that -you-, of sound mind and presumably body as well, tampered with an experiment in progress. I'm left with nothing more than your words, your cloying reassurances that you acted in my best interest, in exchange for two months of work."
He's not sulking. He's frustrated. And as long as Eadni remains in that prison, her best and only means of defense is to use her treacherous words upon him. She would be allowed to continue casting doubt upon him in such an obseqious manner. "You say that you would be pleased to ask me, if I ask you first. In contrast to the ludicrous nature of your riddle, I will make this point clear."
His fist balls up, and the blue field shudders with electricity, the air within it growing dense and heavy.
"Do not toy with my experiments again." There is no threat -- threats do not go well with polite conversation. But what's more, there is no sign of weakness, or further admission.
A platinum blonde eyebrow raises as that frown flattens. The air in the cylindrical prison grows less dense. "If you feel compelled to boast further, enlighten me as to what you would have done differently. Failing that, I would be delighted to escort you back to the earth realm where you belong."
Eadni is a very old woman.
She could remember the time when noblemen like Jedah once was would turn to her to settle petty disputes. Knights in service of Bohemian kings, seeking power, seeking love, and seeking life. They all came to Eadni for advice, for her guidance. An older time, where people were more free to approach the old tree woman. If Jedah had asked for her help and guidance a thousand years ago, just like those knights had?
He would have joined them in their fate.
"For my lord to have power? Power is not impossible, but there are easy paths, and secure paths. This is what I mean by natural orders, my lord~. There are natural orders, between this world and the other realm." The woman continues, voice growing less sweet. "Souls drift from the Earth realm, returning to the spirit realm, and soon they reform and drift back into the mortal worlds. A balance of souls. But there are rules seperating the two, Lord Dohma. Just as so much as one so powerful as you seeks to reap the souls of the mortal world, there are mortals seeking to seize the soul of the spirit realm for their own power. By presenting yourself to the world, you not only exposed Earth as a source of power... but allowed yourself and your realm's power to be tapped into and secured by those outsiders."
"Those creatures of the Earth Realm are well capable of stealing the powers of the spirit realm, as you know."
"But outside of not exposing myself, I would not have done too much different. You did well to enlist minions to service; if they harvest souls on your behalf, then you can always come to collect when they are no longer useful, yes?~ Or you can simply recycle them with the soul stuff. Spirit creatures are... easy to bring back to bear, once they have fully crossed over. Your only mistake was that the Levithan was simply too large. When it was time to collect, it would have been disaster for all. Smaller, less powerful minions are much more easy to control than near demigods after all. And when it is time to harvest your cattle, well..." The woman gives a light chuckle to herself, and speaks with a hasty whisper.
"You know only too well what happens when you consume too much power at once."
"Do not misunderstand, I do not boast." She exposes her palms, now free of the tarry blood, as she tries to skip over her last comment. "My Lord is a god here, a being of unimaginable power. Your intellect is infinite, and your power is unstoppable. How quickly did it take before the Earth people saw to take you down? You were fortunate, My Lord, that that the strongest of its warriors did not confront you. You weren't only seizing a city, after all, but very world itself. And one as strong as yourself would very likely draw the attention of not only the most powerful warriors in the world... but even the gods themselves might open their eyes and peer down." And now, a smile begins to form on Eadni's face. Her features were craggy, but the tar was beginning to dry. She was regenerating, reforming herself. And she was nearly complete, judging by the hard, jagged hide that wrapped around her bony frame. "My advice, then, of what I would done different?" And with grey eyes, she stares at Jedah with cruel certainty.
"I would have woken up a god."
Jedah's frown remains cemented in place as the tree becomes less so. Considering his existence as a fluid held in place through sheer will, he can appreciate that not everyone has as concrete a body as others; he's certainly not offended by that.
But what does offend him is Eadni's tap-dancing over the line between submissiveness and condescension. He is used to dealing with vampire lords who are just straight up -older- and -wiser- than he, but still smart enough to know their place and not remind him every other sentence. Eadni... is striking several chords with him, and none of them suit his ego.
Perhaps the topic is the problem. The Leviathan is repeatedly affirmed as a 'mistake', when in Jedah's mind the mistake was hers.
"It was -not- impossible to collect. If a bunch of irritating upstarts were able to pick it to shreds, how much trouble would it be for a cohesive army of minions to sever those bonds? You speak of the /Leviathan/ as a failure when you yourself have been lying here for days on end as a direct result. And this... with the collective thoughts all aligned towards one goal -anyway-."
The jab of 'consuming too much power at once' arouses only a small sneer. He doesn't consider it to have been too much power. His only regret was in fact relying on -too many- people that ended up turning against him.
The only remark of Eadni's that seems to bring even a small uptick to the nobleman's frown is the awakening of a god. To -use- a god... rather than attempt to draw them out. "It is curious that you mention gods. For the primary purpose of the brazen tournament was to see how many gods -would- have turned out. And the answer, as well you know..."
Here, he finally gives a thin smile. "Is one. And the strongest champions -did- arise. Only two had the power to even give me pause, and their minds were so closed as to be rather... disappointing."
Jedah shrugs mildly, hands going to either side. "If there are Gods, they dare not tread on this ground. And for what it's worth..." He looks up to the sky, and it pulses back in response, each of the veins beating as if the entire dimension was a mere extension of Lord Dohma.
It, in fact, is.
"The path is blocked. No one enters here without my awareness, now." Not after those damned mercenaries.
Eadni was much older than many the eldest.
But compared to Jedah, she was not a font of power. No, as Jedah makes the ripple in the sky, she casts her tarry black sockets towards above. The way was in fact sealed, and the only key was Jedah. Her jaw slackens a bit, in awe at the sheer power; she was far away from her home, the Earthrealm. But slowly, she responds. "Not champions, my lord~."
"I mean -Gods-"
A religious frevor seems to come over the creature, as she begins to pace with smooth, unsettlingly elegant strides. She raises her limbs to the air, worshiping an invisible presence. "Entities sealed away beyond our worlds... within them. Do not pretend you've forgotten them. Most have forgotten us, but we never truly forget them. Buried under mountains, bound by artifacts, or sequestered between realms, they cast a long shadow over everything we've done, everything we know. What you are to Majigen, they are to all. You believe they do not dare?"
"They simply do not remember."
The creature rubs her long, tendril fingers together. "I've found one dreaming, my lord. Fast asleep, but it is now dreaming. And I've seen its dreams. When they dream... their innermost desires can consume souls, devour minds. And what it desires is... revenge, my lord. And that dream is festering, building in it like a frenzied nightmare. It will wake in time, I can sense it. Can you imagine? A blind, furious god, seeking revenge against everything and anything that has been rotting within its heart. It will tear a scar in the world, and there will be death, death, death beyond even the Earthrealm." The smile spreads across the wicked maw of the creature, revealing the rows and rows of splinters that formed its teeth.
"What would you do with such a tool, my lord?"
Lord Dohma is fully aware that Eadni is much more powerful than the simple creature he sees before him -- no simple dryad or earth spirit could have created a rift in his own pocket dimension, after all. But he also knows that Eadni's powers rely on a great deal of time and preparation; things that can be upset by the simple manipulation of pieces. Or the hastening of a pace. That is why the imprisoning field is there: a persistent reminder of who is really in charge, in this realm -- and that is why he does not intend to keep her in this realm for very much longer.
The Blood Weaver takes long, languid strides in front of Eadni, knowing full well that she won't be able to do more than follow him with those sickeningly tarred eyes. He gestures with his slender fingers, enumerating the points that show he was at least giving her a portion of his royal attention. "I know of those who slumber. And... perhaps I may have use for them."
His fingers clasp into a light ball as he looks up to the veined sky of his own creation. "What -I- should do with them is my own prerogative. But would -you- do..."
His frown grows, as he scrapes a thumbnail across his wrist. A crimson gash appears across it -- and from therein, a drop of blood is loosed. It hovers, growing larger and larger as it draws a steady stream of new vitae from the Black Messiah's wrist. Before long, it becomes necessary to hold the arm out so that the globe of blood does not interfere with his view of the tree-witch.
"The world is an unclean step towards perfection now..." he claims, and the surface of the globe resolves into a semblance of the planet Earth. "Adding simple -destruction- to the mix would serve only to cleanse the Earthrealm, and foment disorder." Stochastic ripples crawl across the surface of the globe, as continents reform -- and yet, the more change that occurs, the more violent the disruptions become. "Chaos is... not my goal here. For when you awaken a slumbering beast, you must also be prepared to kill it when it runs out of your control.
He squeezes his hand closed, and the globe 'pops' into a violent and impressive explosion... only to re-form, as he opens his hand once more, into a very different semblance of the planet Earth. The continents are similar, yet the features are more stark and severe. Hills become mountains, and mountains become spires, while the Pacific Ocean is anything but peaceful -- instead a roiling maelstrom of energy. "Within each feature must be evidenced the hand of the Creator and His Divine Plan... Do you really think that our plans could possibly be so compatible to make cooperation beneficial?"
His lowered eyebrows suggest that he... has doubts.
Time was all that Eadni had now.
As Lord Dohma slices himself open, the hag watches with rapt attention. Her expression was still twisted in that smile, but her actions halt for a moment to watch, and listen. The lord's blood was power, beyond power. She could sense it even from there. Beautiful power, overwhelming power. It was beautiful, and for a moment, Eadni coveted it. A desire of power, a lust for it... that she had long since learned to control. Jedah shows his vision, and his concerns. After all, what good is chaos when it simply interferes with what you wish to control. When he shows his doubts, the woman springs into animation, her pause broken.
"When, my lord?~"
And Eadni finally holds up a fist, a flicker of flame glowing in the pits of her sockets. "It will awaken, my lord. Whether you ignore it or not, it will awaken, and it will not be stopped. I've seen its dreams, as I've seen dreams many times before. And if it awakens on its own concern, you will only have chaos to harvest. You are too young to remember, my lord, the rampage of Pirwa that crushed the distant lands of Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. The whole world fell into darkness then, and the child of order was nearly smothered in the cradle of civilization upon the Earthrealm. You do not let a God wake up when it pleases. Until then, it will only gather power, build in its rage. And when it awakens... where your plans be if they do not include the strength of a God, my lord?~"
"As for my plans..."
She lowers her fist, turning towards the remains of her tree. She continues, a tone of idle fondness as she remembers. "Perhaps you remember the darkness from the yawn of Krakatau? When the seal of Al-Batra shattered? The Mei Long of Shanxi? Even the rage of Hebo was barely even a century ago. A god only wishes to sleep; fools in the annals of time have awaken gods from their slumber, only to be destroyed by its divine wrath. But a god who returns to its slumber... will sleep peacefully. Chaos becomes a mer
Chaos becomes a mere tantrum, not an apocolypse. A dark age merely becomes a tragedy. I will awaken the god early, and let it waste its energy in idly lashing, before falling back to sleep, back into peace for countless eons once again." Eadni turns to stare into Jedah, gripping its fingers in a pleading gesture. "And it must awaken early my lord, for the sake of the Earthrealm. If you do not care for the power of the Gods, then at least let me free to ensure their power does not destroy what you hold dear. Otherwise..." The woman lowers herself down, sitting crosslegged within her prison.
"I will have to let the world be shattered."
The bloodweaver's frown turns from one of irritation into one of boredom. The eldritch witch knows of her history in ways that Jedah does not -- and cares not. She speaks of those who came before, where the young demon lord's attentions have never dwelt among the past. Ever.
He wants her gone, and as quickly as feasible. But to be rude is not his nature, and to be callously dismissive simply invites retaliation. An eyebrow arches, as Eadni once again utters a statement which could liberally be interpreted as a threat -- and just as easily apologized for as a misunderstanding. She is slippery -- and Jedah has never cared much for word games.
He reaches towards Eadni, as if offering the crimson globe to her. "Your offer is appealing. I shall think upon the matter." But then his outstretched fingernail pierces the bloody tether keeping the globe anchored to his wrist.
And the sphere loses all integrity, splashing into the ruddy ground between himself and Eadni. As the blood pools, the highlights reflect not Majigen, but visions of another world -- Earthrealm. The blood pool opens to a verdant field not far from Metro City, showing the local time in the realm to be quite a few hours before dawn.
The blue cylinder flickers, and then fades away.
"For now, I tire of this tedium. Do as you must, but if I find you to be working against me... a shattered world will be the least of your concerns."
Jedah's scythelike wings spread wide, as he prepares to lift off once again. The Black Messiah is no longer in the mood for negotiation.
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
But to get rid of the witch was fine by Eadni's sake. She was bored of Majigen. It was a pleasant world, to be sure. But Eadni needed the rich taiga and heart-filled mountains again. She needed nature, she needed life. And Majigen... was sorely lacking in life.
She does make a note to conceal her pleasure at being banished from Majigen.
"The offer will not stand for long, my lord~" The hag coos politely, bowing respectfully to Lord Dohma. "But I will have it stand as long as I can. You know how to summon me... or if so need, I will summon you~" She approaches the pool, and as if she was dipping herself into a bath, she quickly sinks beneath it. The world she would return to would be society, would be life, would be... a place where her still newborn form might have challenges. But she would make due. She had no true intention of giving Jedah what she offered. But Eadni does not truly work against anyone.
She only works for the world.
Jedah is a prophet -- a seer. His eyes are on his objective, far in the future from now. His utopian ideals are much too lofty and important to delegate to anyone else. Let the historians tell him how plans like his have gone awry, and he may deign to change them. But to listen to the lunatic ravings of those such as Eadni, and take them at face value? Lord Dohma did not get to where he is today by appeasing the weak.
No. Folding his arms before him in a regally condescending stance, Jedah watches the tree-woman inch away. There is a chance he may exercise her offer in the future, but the closest to approval that his mildly discontent sneer and lowered eyebrows will reach is 'Maybe someday.'
As soon as the woman disappears, he lifts his right hand. And snaps his thin, narrow fingers.
A dark cloud erupts out of the nothingness on his right. The miniature thunderhead swirls about, growing larger in mere seconds. Two bat wings unfurl from within the cloud, followed shortly afterward by two legs, then two arms, and a head. The cloud dissipates, leaving behind an impressively powerful (and even more impressively aged) vampire lord -- who immediately drops to one knee in an expression of dedicated fealty.
A moment later, a second vampire lord appears, and a third, in similar fashion.
The first addresses Jedah: "Yes, Milord...?"
Jedah scarcely moves an inch, his gaze fixated on the pool he's left open to the Earthrealm.
The vision in the pool shifts somewhat -- as if the grass drops away sharply. Or rather, the link between the two worlds moves up to the skies.
"Enoch. You and your two companions will follow the earth witch. Should you fail in this simplest of reconaissance missions, you deserve whatever wrath she chooses for you."
For once in a long while, a cruel smirk returns to Jedah's lips. "Let her think what she may."
The eldritch vampire lord Enoch knows the youthful demon lord well enough to take his odd mannerisms with good grace. In an even tone, he nods his head, bowing just a degree further in obeisance. "As you wish, milord." And with a gesture to his underlings, he transforms back into a bat and flaps into the portal. His wingmen follow, in close pursuit.
Jedah drapes his fingertips across his forehead, chuckling as he slowly closes the portal to Earthrealm. He is eager to see how Eadni acts when she's given free rein, and anxious to catch her in the act of betrayal he knows to be inevitable.
Log created on 22:59:11 09/24/2015 by Jedah, and last modified on 06:33:17 12/21/2015.