[center][h3][color=45318E]The Hermit[/color] [color=black]and[/color] [color=9e0b0f]the Priestess.[/color][/h3][/center]
From his perch, The Hermit watched the shifting white shapes far below. The Shadowlings went about their work, diligently searching through the ruins for anything their master deemed intersting and important. They would know this by a soft tug on their mind from The Hermit. He could feel them in the back of his own mind and was able to glance into theirs and give them direction without words. It was a useful tool he exploited whenever possible. It left him time to conduct his own search of the labyrinth. There was a power in the walls of stone deep below the sands of the desert. With a soft rustle of robes, The Hermit melted into the shadows and was gone from the perch. His departure was barely noticed by the Shadlowlings on the stone walkways stretching from different positions along the walls and connecting in a stone circle around the massive, ichor-filled tube.

The shadows shifted, a vague humanoid shape forming there. The form stepped from the shadows. The shadows swirled and writhed around The Hermit as he walked down another corridor, his staff tapping the ground every other step. His corridor was far above the tube of ichor and Shadowlings, closer to the surface. Leaving the dark corridor behind, he stepped into a small square room filled with scrolls and books heaped on any surface they would fit. These were the result of his searches thus far, these and the artifacts he had hidden away deeper within the labyrinth. It would be foolish to keep all of his research with the artifacts. He was less concerned about the artifacts than his books and scrolls; he was even known to occasionally give the artifacts away to individuals who found their way into the labyrinth entrance and sought him out for wisdom. That brought a smirk to his pale features, obscured as they were by the shadows swirling around him. He still remembered a time when he was that young boy struggling up the mountains toward the Wisdoms, seeking their knowledge and power.

He shuffled through his books but was brought out of his trance when he sensed movement; a great movement coming toward him. More than one person was heading toward his labyrinth, laboring down the mountains.

[hr]

Cerys strode away from the mass of the camping army where they sprawled at the feet of the Godsfang Mountains. Her fellow Chiefs, Delyth and Merrion had stayed behind to see to the ordering of the camp, or so they said. They were both simple fighters at heart and unkeen to step foot into the shadowed Labyrinth or to parlay with its equally mysterious keeper.

To her left marched Rhys Blackwater, a near immovable presence since she had confimed him in his position of Captain of the Guard. Cerys felt that having his constant watchful gaze upon her was one thing she would never quite get used to.

"Are you so determined to protect me that you'll hazard the Hermit and his shadowlings?" She goaded, trying to push the stern-faced man into some other expression.

"It is not you I protect."

"Then who?"

"The Arakkai."

Cerys stopped in her tracks a moment and looked at him. After a few more paces he stopped as well. "Everything I do is for the Arakkai," she told him seriously.

"That remains to be seen. For now, someone must protect them from you," he said, his voice level and his eyes fixed on hers. "So yes, I will brave the Labyrinth, if only to keep you from selling our people to the shadows within."

Cerys blinked at him, stunned, and then shouldered past. If he could believe that she would do such a thing, then only her actions would convince him otherwise. In a few more yards, she reached the entrance to the Labyrinth and stepped inside the dark hall.

[hr]

The Hermit set the rat tail down on a separate table filled with other similiar gifts from the shadowlings before stepping from his library, causing the door to melt away and form back into another section of stone wall with a tap of his staff. A moment later, he rose from the shadows near the entrance of the labyrinth but did not step from them. He instead stayed put, hidden in their embrace. The woman with silver hair stepped through the archway and into the shadowed halls. A power emanated from her.

"What is it you seek here," he asked, his voice drifting to the woman like the rustling of a leaf.

The woman stopped and looked around at the sound of the voice, and was joined a moment later by a tall, brooding man. "Do I speak to the Hermit?" she called.

"You do," again his voice came close to her ear, little more than a whisper. He watched the pair for a moment longer before stepping from the shadows, though his form looked to be made from a current of shadows twisting up and around him. Just enough of his face was visible to see his eyes aglow with power. 

The man remained stoical and the woman's face betrayed only a sharp curiosity, almost akin to hunger in its intensity. "I am Cerys Shadowborne, and I have come for information, should you be willing to part with it."

"My willingness depends on the information you seek."

Cerys glanced uncomfortably at her companion, then reached out with one hand to display a globule of shadow, swirling and adorned with runes and hovering just above her palm. "There are very few that have been touched by the gods as we have," she started, still hesitant, "And while the farsighted wise women of my people have well documented the effect of my power on our future, they have little knowledge of its affect on me."

The silver-haired woman squared her shoulders with the semblance of someone facing some great discomfort, and said vunerably, "Hermit, what is happening to me?"

His eyes narrowed at her words. This was different than other meetings he held with the people of the desert. Usually they would come to seek some shred of wisdom concerning an artifact they uncovered or to win one from him for braving the labyrinth. He was still unsure how they got that idea in their heads. 

The Hermit watched the swirling glob of shadows in the woman's palm. It had the same shifting nature as the shadows around his own form. The runes too held a resemblance to those softly glowing along his staff. This meant something; another like him. He'd heard of others touched by the shadows but had only been the presence of a handful.

"The shadows have marked you. In time they may take you," as he spoke he raised his arm, shaking the sleeve of his robe down and shifting the shadows away slightly. He revealed an arm of almost pure white skin with sections of swirling blackness.

Cerys stared in morbid curiosity, touching her own arm, pale but no more than normally so. "Have they taken you, Hermit? Or is this just a sign of their growing hold upon you?"

"Yes... and no. I have been given the unique ability to meld with them and call upon them as servants."

With a sharp flick of impatience, Cerys banished the shadow in her hand. "You waste my time, Hermit. I may not weild this power the same way, but it is mine to use nonetheless. How long before the shadows begin to take hold?"

"It is difficult to say for sure. There different factors that come into play. Mostly your strength of will to stave off the shadows. It could begin soon, or you could prove able to keep them at bay for years to come."

Cerys nodded, her face set in grim determined lines. For the first time, the man behind her spoke.

"I will kill you before it comes to that," he said seriously, his voice devoid of malice.

Cerys spared him a single glance. "I'm counting on it."

"You mistake me. The shadows will not take you and turn you to some crazed mutant like those exposed to the ichor. They will simply... take you. You will become as they are, wisps in the corners of forgotten, hidden places. You may even retain your sanity and self there - I know of several who have - or you make simply drift along, swirling about as they most do. Perhaps, you may even be called upon by myself or others with my gift," as he spoke he raised his arm again, bringing a trail of shadows up to swirl slowly as if in a soft breeze.

The man seemed to relax, a little anyway, and Cerys hid her shudder in a dry laugh. "I think I'd still prefer a blade through the heart before it comes to that; I don't suppose you'd mind, eh Rhys? But enough of this. I have been warned and I'm not too proud to take it to heart. The shadows will not have me easily."

"No, I don't think they will, Cerys Shadowborne," with that the Hermit melted into the shadows around the entrance way and vanished from view.