Enly’air had been waiting outside the closed off dungeon heart for Xir’ain to emerge, having finished her conference with the few remaining runners relatively quickly. There wasn’t much for her to say that she hadn’t already told the master, so she’d ended up simply repeating herself. She wasn’t alone as she waited on Xir’ain though. An imp waited with her, and after much coaxing Enly’air was able to strike up conversation with the creature.

The two were still speaking when the black curtain that separated the heart from the dungeon proper finally fell. A cold and cruel laughter echoed out from the heart, freezing the dungeon’s black water and sending ice down Enly’air’s back. She was frightened by that laughter.

A figure emerged, but it was not the dark master that had gone into the heart. The dungeon’s waters melted and warmed as the figure smiled. His laughter wasn’t cold or cruel but musical and infectious. Enly’air found herself laughing as well. Strange, the imp named Af was gone.

When she finally could stop herself from laughing, Enly’air was finally able to see clearly the being that stood smiling before her. He was like a human, but he was absolutely beautiful. His newborn skin was flawless, unmarred by age or accident, his hair was falling waves of gold thread, his smile shone with childlike sincerity, and he looked into her with his luminous golden eyes. He was dressed more richly than any noble, a tight suit of the smoothest black fabric embroidered with gold and matching pants and shoes. Staring at him, she knew she was already lost. He had her enthralled simply with his presence.

“Enly’air…”

She dropped to one knee in the dark waters. “My lord?”

“Enly’air… is this form passable as human?”

She looked up at her dark master. “Yes master, it is passable.”

Xir’ain nodded. Good, so his first attempt at mimicking the human form was a success. Now all he had to do was walk into the city and have a look around. The keeper stared down one of the chamber’s dark side tunnels. 

Enly’air blinked her eyes shut and saw that Xir’ain was looking towards the imp that she had been conversing with while waiting. Af must have fled upon seeing an unfamiliar face emerge from the heart. True, the being standing before her looked nothing like the being of living blackness that was her master. His entire feel had changed, but somewhere inside this person she could feel the cold void that was her master’s unbeating heart.

“Enly’air, the runner?” 

He was speaking in particular about the one that had tried to fight off Balon before she had arrived to join the fight. The runner’s body had not been completely destroyed by the giant’s rot, and she had brought it with the other corpses back when she had returned to the dungeon’s center. Enly’air pulled on a rope of black thread and a cradle carrying the body was pulled up from the bottom of the chamber.

Xir’ain’s new face openly showed its sadness. Tears like black oil ran down the keeper’s mask. “He was the first runner I created,” he said softly, unable to accurately convey the choking voice that should have some with his tears. Enly’air would later tell him that tears were not black like the water of his dungeon as well. He would have to hone his acting skills much if he was to fool anyone for any length of time.

But the keeper did feel something for the dead thing. Instead of feeding the corpse to the eels like all the others, he had had his construct carry it all the way to the center of his domain, and he now immortalized the creature into the stone surrounding the entrance to his dungeon’s heart. With the gentlest of pushes the runner’s body was submerged in the rock as if it was tar, and the rock flowed around it into the carved shape of the runner curled asleep around the heart’s opening. Xir’ain was proud of the being that had been his first true success. The eels were fine and all, but it was nothing like the feeling of taking a creature already made and remaking it as something never seen before. 

“You will be reforged and reborn again when I call,” the keeper promised the carving.

Xir’ain turned to Enly’air. “I have more work to do. I only wished to know if this appearance was acceptable.” He laughed, and she thought as if the water inside the dungeon would boil from the heat. “Thank you for your help in creating this,” Xir’ain said, his voice unsynced with his mouth. The keeper returned to his heart. There was much to do before he left for Ensis’Lucas.
---
Enly’air emerged from the black lake and stood at the edge of the still water. She looked up at the red sun and fell back onto golden grass. Had the world always been so bright? 

[hider=Status]
[b]Third Minion Creation: 0/8[/b]

Location: The center of the grasslands on the southern end of the continent, S17E02.
Dungeon: An underwater maze of black water, the only visible sign from above being a black lake with a diameter of a half mile. The tunnels spread just below the ground in all directions.

Minions: 
100 aquatic imps
80 black eels (and counting)
17 black runners (and counting)

Constructs:
Enly’air – Previously Human

Infrastructure:
Dungeon Heart (underground spring)
Summoning Chamber

Resources: All the golden grass you could possibly want and an endless source of water from deep below the ground.

Compendium
Xir’ain, the dark abyss. A layer of black skin over a bottomless void, Xir’ain is the soul of an old keeper of the void, but he merged with the first thing he came into contact with in this world: water. Now he is of the abyss, the void at the bottom of the blackened sea. Though his body is close to that of a human, any who see him would be put off by some unnamable wrongness in the fluidity of his movements. His black skin pollutes all it touches, and his mouth is the bottomless pit of the night sky. To look into his eyes is to be reminded of your childhood fears of what lurked in the dark, and to lose the false notion that you had somehow conquered those fears.[/hider]