[CENTER][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/220530/c302a996ae2e87688ede1ed5322205fe.png[/img] [/CENTER] Recycled nightmares, or perhaps merely memories, stretched and distorted as the cerebral scenarios played across a dormant mind. Some things were more vivid than others. [i]She hugged her mother for the last time… [color=a2d39c]…the smell of death…[/color] She came to the new, terrible world… [color=a2d39c]…the smell of death…[/color] She realized that the back-up battery was no longer working… [color=a2d39c]…the smell of death…[/color][/i] Once-rapid movements of closed eyes had long, long since stilled. She no longer had eyes to move. The desiccated lids pulled away from each other, revealing slivers of the hollows within. All of her softer tissues had withered, clinging to the long bones that had slowly slumped downward, freed from those tendons and ligaments that had held them in order. How long had she been dead in this damned box? No way to tell, though it felt nearly as long as she’d spent alive… awake… free… Nothing got in, nothing got out. That had been the point, hadn’t it? And it worked. Whatever eons wheeled through the firmament far above could thrust no trace deep enough into the earth to reach her. Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing, until that faint, quivering, feeble halo pulsed into perception. Fluttering life force, miniscule web of mana wrapped around vital organs, fragile like a butterfly, fragile like… …A human? [i]Oh, that was so much worse…[/i] [color=a2d39c][i]How many would it take? What if it was just the one?[/i][/color] A moment’s pause for a deep breath, as if she still needed one, as if there was any air left in the damned box, as if her lungs weren’t mixed into the same homogenized pool around her ankles as was all of the rest of her. [color=f7976a][i]“Blessings and curses both lie in the beholder’s eye.”[/i][/color] Or some such sentiment passed on by that bitter bitch who’d raised her. She had been too stubborn to die, too. That’s how she’d ended up here, after all. …fragile like a butterfly, body and mind, ready to crack like spun glass at the slightest tap… [color=a2d39c][i][b]DIG[/b][/i][/color] She watched the pulsating emanation flare for a moment. [color=a2d39c][i][b]DIG[/b][/i][/color] Another swell in the mortal’s mana. [color=a2d39c][i][b]DIG[/b][/i][/color] A tremble, then a flicker, and the web turned a more familiar shade. [color=a2d39c][i][b]Good.[/b][/i][/color] Whether days or hours passed, either way, other halos joined the first and the more there were, the faster they approached. So close. So very, very… One orb descended rapidly, then extinguished altogether a moment later. [color=a2d39c][i]Poor bastard must have fallen… Whatever happened to the-[/i][/color] A new shape appeared. Two in fact, though one was thoroughly eclipsed by the brighter, stronger force. No pulse, no life to be found in either of them, only a steady emanation from both. Different from her own and yet still… [color=a2d39c][i]Undead.[/i][/color] As that pair approached, the miners busied themselves with lowering each other into the vault. She watched their little lives huddle around her, felt the vibrations of their tools as her sheer will alone, that whispering compulsion, gnawing on their minds, forced them to swing again and again with all their might until- At last what she could only assume was the mortals’ master, or masters, finally arrived. Quicker than her sluggish, rousing consciousness could process, someone pried the lid from her horrible little prison. Putrid fluid spilled out immediately, releasing all the stenches of rot. She heard, for the first time in- the wretched gods only knew -how long, several pairs of feet skid backwards on the sand-dusted floor. [color=a2d39c][i]Sand? All the way down here? Impossible! Even under this wretched world...[/i][/color] Huddled bones remained within the tiny chamber. Frail, dead hands wrapped around some… something… glowing just enough to cast a sickly green fog over a slice of the room. The miners spoke quickly and fearfully to each other in their simple language, already-pale faces turned nearly white beneath the verdant mask. One of them bolted for the rope and crude harness attached, clear across the vault. The green glow brightened, and the miner’s legs buckled. Sand swirled slowly around the chamber, sticking in the rancid puddle just before the casket. The miner tried to crawl towards his escape, but instead began to slide towards the growing light. One by one, his bones began to snap as he neared the little chamber, starting with his feet. When the next bone snapped, the previous one contorted, twisting his legs around like so much bleeding candy being shaped, until white fragments pierced his skin. The mortal’s agonized wails couldn’t cover the sound of his pelvis splintering beneath some crushing, unseen force. The harrowing seconds finally brought him within reach of an incredibly long arm. The skeletal limb whipped out like a viper’s strike and snatched the human’s mangled ankle. Remnants of skin cracked and fell away from her with the movement, while little threads of that same green light wrapped and flowed around the bones beneath. With one hand removed, the source of the green glow was revealed to be not in her hands, but jammed deep into her exposed sternum. Little webs of healed bone wove around the junction between the strange stone and its vessel. The stone had been there for quite some time before she had died. The other miners found themselves frozen in terror, except for the quivering of their legs, as if every muscle tensed in anctipication of their flight-response restored. Forced to watch by their own fear, they saw their fellow man hollowed out until his remaining bones collapsed and were ground to dust by the power of the stone, or the corpse. Every speck of the miner was swept up in some fel wind and twisted around the skeleton in the box. The empty hand opened as the arm retracted to grip one edge of the sarcophagus while the other hand reached out for the opposite side. The sounds of clanking bone and crackling skin accompanied the jilting movements of the thing as she pulled herself up and out of her prison. The remnants of long garments hung from the figure, swaying with her as she stood, while the magic threads pulled each of her displaced bones home and began to knit them back together with… whatever was left of the miner. The sarcophagus, which had seemed unnecessarily large just moments before, was apparently barely tall enough to contain her extended frame. She loomed over all others present by at least a full meter, though, presently, she didn’t seem to notice any of them. Tendons stretched down her fingers while she watched with her empty sockets, testing the new movement at her apparent leisure. Her head tilted slightly as she turned each of her hands in kind. Ligaments began to fill in the hollows of her jaws and throat, though the empty blackness where her eyes had once been remained unchanged. In these idle moments, the mortals found their footing again and darted towards the harness. They nearly tripped each other, perhaps purposefully, in their mad scramble to escape. Ne’hekara’s head jerked, like a hound sighting its quarry. She snatched up the closest heartbeat easily in her long reach. The second miner lifted with ease in her grasp, despite his kicking limbs and clawing hands. At least she drained every last fiber of vigor from him straight away. No need to cripple what she’d already caught. The wiry man went limp, just before his remaining soft tissues rapidly dissolved as she tossed the corpse away, sending his loose bones clattering across the vault’s alloy-tiled floor. With the particularly horrific scent of masticated bone, every remaining piece of the miner slithered in dusty veins to join with Ne’hekara’s legs as the tendrils trailed upwards, turning into red and yellow vines of connective tissues. Another human clung to the rope, inching his way up with his own hands and feet; there was no one left at the top to pull him. The other mortals’ fingernails began to peel away, one by bloody one, as they clawed at the seamless walls in futile desperation. Their quickened hummingbird-hearts looked like tiny strobing lights to Ne’hekara’s internal vision. An echo of subtle, sinister laughter bounced about the chamber, a fitting accompaniment to the dry smirk curling Ne’hekara’s skeletal features. In quick, due time her graciously provided feast was finished while the other two entities remained placid. When she had finished, her form had mostly filled the remnants of her discolored garments, the cloth stained with all the muddled hues of decomposition, in stark contrast to the pale flesh beneath. Visible, too, through all the holes in the tattered cloth, was a network of lines that seemed embedded in her skin. Metallic glints flickered in the light of an untended flame from a shattered lantern, destroyed minutes before in the death struggles. The lines twisted and twirled in ornate patterns that covered her body, from her bony feet to the empty sockets of her eyes. An audible throb radiated out from the green stone, sending ripples of verdant light along the metallic lines in a flurry of crackling sparks. The sparks illuminated the ornaments along her sleek black braids, all beginning just below her narrow shoulders, twisted and plated in intricate patterns that wove their way down to the floor and rested in neat piles at the discolored hem of what had once been her billowing robes and fine gown, all rotted to shreds and dingy with decay. Her hair had clearly continued to grow after she was entombed, with loose strands falling over a golden circlet on her brow. Finally, Ne’hekara seemed to remember the others as she glimpsed them again through her slightly thickened fingers. With a few long strides, she approached them. Eyes had finally filled her empty sockets and she blinked repeatedly as she leaned down towards the larger of the pair. With each blink, the reflected light over her eyes changed hue until she straightened suddenly to tower over him once again. Her head tilted further with each syllable she spoke, like some unsettling owl. [color=8dc73f][b]“Fe-renc-zy?”[/b][/color] The ligaments in her throat moved visibly with her words, though the rasp of her voice cleared slowly. [color=8dc73f][b]“The last time I saw you, Drefen had you chained to a wall in Cur’Chu’Al’s dungeon, feeding you to that paras-”[/b][/color] Ne’hekara paused and curled a finger over her thin lip. [color=8dc73f][b]“Oh, I see. His experiments were eventually successful, then.”[/b][/color] She brought her face close to Ferenczy again, so quickly this time that the breeze her movements made carried her scent, that of moldering books in a damp and disused library, though thankfully rid of the stench of rot. [color=8dc73f][b]“And what a fine little lab rat you did turn out to be, after all. How many centuries have you survived, then? Perhaps millenia?”[/b][/color] Ne’hekara inquired, her head tilting again with the same ravenous curiosity. She glanced briefly over her shoulder at the containment pod. [color=8dc73f][i]“Perhaps I have been out of the great game for longer than I thought.”[/i][/color] She whispered to herself.