Chapter Seven
He claims supremacy
To be a true caster
But what I have found out
Is insanity is the only true Master
“Brandon. Do please concentrate and conserve your energy. We may have formalities when I see you at Salastar.” 343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOQ1tzkhcBP
“But only if the poor chap makes it,” came the voice of Sedrick. It sounded like Sedrick, but the tone and inflection told the Lich that Sedrick no longer controlled the body of this inhabitant. Master Delver slowly turned, knowing he would see the face of Sedrick. He did not want to seem in a hurry, and he wanted to maintain the control and heading of this meeting. He was glad for the impassive skeletal features that he had been blessed with by his transformation millenniums ago. Had he not, the surprise would have plainly shown on his face. Sedrick had always kept himself groomed carefully; he kept his clothes neat and clean. The man who stood before him had ragged hair touching his shoulders, and in the place of the neatly trimmed goatee, a long beard now adorned his leering face.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡavwQ2HLWVc
“And you must be the one who does now claim the throne to the Underworld? Baine is it not?” the Lich fronted the question with doubt edging in his voice. This man could not possibly be the greatest of the Seven. He looked more like a vagabond than a near God. The ratty looking man walked absently around to stand behind the straining sorcerer on the ground. He constantly seemed to be listening to the air, stopping to hold an ear upwards.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgOpP8mpfYY
“Sarcasm is not becoming of men of our age Master Delver,” Sedrick smiled insanely at him while leaning absently on the top of the sitting Brandon's head, “Your doubt is truly understandable but if you had bothered to show up in person not um-- what is this called? Gimme some help here. I have been out of this type of game for some countless millennium.”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvg8MbiLbU5
He tapped Brandon on top of his head with his fingers impatiently while waiting for a sorcerer to answer. Delver set his jaw hard at the treatment of one of his own in such a demeaning manner. Through a hard clenched jaw, he hissed his answer at the man.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS0VsxN9hFl
“It is called an image, and it is necessary. I am nine hundred leagues away. In all the power I contain, even I can only trans-locate at most ten leagues a day. It would have taken me months to reach you.”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4BDmCGsnem
“Oh, that would put you over in my youngest brother, Lent's domain. Figures you would be across this cursed land and yes I do make a claim on the Throne. You know, being the oldest and true heir to the Throne and all.” Sedrick gave a small, indifferent shrug of his shoulders as he began to pace around the circle marked out in the soil. He had drawn out a knife and was absently twirling it in the air, stopping only to listen to some indiscernible voice on the wind.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxXN8XePM0a
“Well, then before we go much further, do you mind answering a question? A question only Baine would know. It would provide your identity better than me being there.”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnBu7ADRJGd
Sedrick fixed him with a hard stare and gave a small smile, “I truly do see why they have picked you for their leader. You are an intelligent man—err—thing.”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHtwpnABqDc
“My flesh may have fallen ten thousand years ago, but my soul remains second-man, so a man is what I remain.” Master Delver corrected the pompous fool in front of him. He was turning out not to like what was before him, of the seven or not. 343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiN48o4Mdlu
“Tomato--- well you get the picture. Fire away.” Baine gave an absent wave of his hand.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ0apL1lOCp
“I ran across a book not two months back, and now I see it was providence that I have it in my possession. It tells me where the true Baine was reaped. What is the name of the cursed town?” 343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu90EG53F4Q
“So you wish to know where my own dear mother betrayed me and birthed into insanity? Fair enough.” He might have been trying to act casually, but his face was not an impassive skull. Try as he might, color built in his face as he answered.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEQde3HnGnY
“I know not what the town is now called or if it even still exists. It was named for my mother, Thare. Does this please you."343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd3hpwFG65Z
“Truly, Hail Baine. Welcome back from the dead. The message says you sought knowledge. What may I delve for you this day?”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlTnBjkCeU6
The man smiled a crooked grin at the Lich as he walked around the image, “Now that was more like it. I need my body back, the real one. Not this pathetic bag of bones, this one is sort of out of room inside.”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpH2fGgITOl
The son of Grim pulled at his face, revealing his eyeballs in their sockets, making a grotesque mask. The Lich shook his head slowly and sadly at the requested information. He already knew its location but would need time to think of revealing it. He needed, no he required a Council Meeting.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWZsssD393u
“Master Baine, this task is a fool's errand. That body turned to dust after nearly five hundred thousand years.”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs3JFoynEkd
“NO!” the man howled in front of him, tossing his knife through the image of Delver. It quivered angrily in an unlucky passing man behind the lich. The man gurgled, clutching at the knife frantically that protruded from his neck, blood fountaining from beneath his fingers, “ it is not. It is of the direct line of Grim, and it is still buried where it lies. It is not some half breed, little bastard like my brother, like some mongrel bitch. I care not if it is at the bottom of the sea. I shall have it!”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIN2DTUURtJ
Master Delver saw a glimmer of light start to show through. This man was insane, Seed of Grim or not. To give him eternal power would be a folly beyond measure. He proceeded with caution to fish for some more information from the crazy man in front of him.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOdTdB6Ey9u
“Why should I Baine?” Master Delver asked as he crossed his bony arms, “As of now, you have only a body of a First Circle Sorcerer. Powerful you may be but not so much you cannot be stopped. Give me a reason that we should lose you in this world, tell me why it is imperative. We just got rid of one Grim, why install another? We need a reprieve from a Demi-God.”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn2lUL86WlI
Baine laughed a deep throaty laugh and turned into hysteria. He doubled over and fell to the ground, writhing in the dust, kicking poor Brandon, who winced with each rap of the boot.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4Jj8FBbbH1
“Is that what you are worried about?” 343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp83UQQPpC9
The Lich nodded slowly, his green eyes playing on the form on the ground. Baine jumped from the ground to put his face directly in front of the Lich's green dancing dots. His breathing ragged with anger as he spoke softly to Master Delver.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxsYMtvj9zy
“Then listen closely skull-head. It must be hard without ears. When I say I WILL I have my body, I WILL HAVE IT! One way or another there will be a new Grim. I have a filthy little brother out there right this very moment.--” He pointed off to the north with a skinny trembling, hand,”-- He is the true Seed of Grim, the chosen. If he makes it to the Throne before me, it is truly the end of all that is Chaos.”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzHiLapodwP
“Why is that?”343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoxiKuMyMSM
“Because then Order has the one thing it would never create before. My Father becomes a filthy God. A DIETY!!” He emphasized by throwing both hands in the air and lightning flew to his fingertips. Thunder claps could be heard echoing over the Inland Sea. The Lich looked in horror at the once reaper in the realization of the gravity of the statement. His priorities had changed. He would need to seek this boy out, and this lover of life would be required to eradicate this source.
Delfina looked sadly around her cluttered Matron's quarters in the Temple at Doldrom. She continued to work her way around the trash-strewn floor knocking a new item off a shelf here or stooping over to put one back on a shelf there. The old Matron of seventy-five winters had seen more years fly by than any other necromancer known and she was growing weary of the fight. The madness that normally crept into the minds of those who wielded death sorcery never came to claim her as she watched other colleagues, sometimes half her age, succumb to it.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTreqHPqvCU
The Grim, when she took her wedding vows, had promised to take his bride home when she grew too tired to battle Chaos. When she had received the news from the newly installed Matron a month back of the passing of the Grim, she fell into a dark period of mourning. Had it not been for the promise of the new Grim and her current entertainment with these two dimwit sorceresses, then she too would have lost her wits. But with none to pass the torch to here in her Temple, she would be damned to the very Demon's Gates themselves before she would hand the city to those two foul women.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjpnfztqj8w
She wandered the room aimlessly, using her creativity to “redecorate” so to keep up the charade of failing sanity. That was far from the truth. She needed to be able to keep an eye on these two. They were a dangerous pair but if utilized right, even agents of Chaos can be of use to Order. Delfina stopped to lift her robes and squat to relieve herself in the corner by an overturned chair. 343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUe3DppAE02
The only place that was completely untouched in the entire room was by the fireplace. There sat the Matron's sapphire colored, overstuffed leather chair. She slept there at nights in front of the warm blaze that was kept going by her loyal Grim-Guard. Her bed was shredded and had been urinated on to the point of beyond use. She stood with a sigh and a small smirk, that was right in front of the chair that Therese would need to fetch next time she needed to talk to her. Renee' wasn't such a bad kid, misguided but she had a good heart. If Delfina could get her separated from the older, she thought she might even be able to be utilized for the Purpose of Order. Therese was as foul a bitch as ever walked the precious World of Grim. The day Delfina could swing her in a gallows would be a day of a permanent Feast here in Doldrom. She already had the proclamation wrote.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDuE0PsOKTL
She had been able to manipulate them so far to keep them from harming anybody. They had even proved extremely useful in the beginning while they were working hard to gain trust. The two necromancers under Delfina previously had lost sight of the ultimate goal of the necromancer, to care for souls on the World side. They committed atrocities using their powers to gain influence and personal wealth but at great expense to others. No one dared to bring charges forthright against the two and challenge them. The two apostates showed up and charged them with heresy. The indictment didn't quite fit, but Delfina would take it, she knew the ones who had leveled the charges where indeed practitioners of Chaos's Sorcery. She could sense it. Delfina took the two in despite their bald-faced lie of being sent from a Grim a month dead so she could at least keep two sorceresses under surveillance.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZJCV5ekOgF
Then the great game began, she sparred back and forth with them, finding their weaknesses and how best they could be harnessed, just like a trainer would test out horses for breaking. She fell back on this pretense of insanity and still in secret ran every little aspect of the business through runners in the Grim-Guard. Some of the initial ideas the sorceresses had were very popular now; the public schools, taxes of Federation imports, and infrastructure improvements all went over magnificently with the public. Then a few proclamations got released, and she had to reign them in by making any new laws needing to be released on a special watermarked paper that only she had and that had fixed that. 343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2HbQS6w35j
She was tiring at this game and would soon need to end the charade. She just hoped that this youngling, Damon, would be a good Grim and would come to deal with them. If he did not soon, then she would find out if poor old Delfina could still defeat a First Circle Sorcerer, but she wouldn't hold her breath.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoRCsdpJRQW
She walked back over towards the fireplace rubbing her old, knobby hands together and sucking on her toothless gums, looking around the room for any more improvements she could make. She knew it had to smell like a pig pen in here, but her nose had grown acquainted with the stench long ago. A knock came at the door, and Delfina released a tendril of energy to feel who was beyond. The two sorceresses had come to call again. They were trying to push a dangerous proclamation that would legalize slavery in her district as it was in Tharpe. She would not have it here, and it was strictly forbidden. She walked gingerly for her age over to the blazing fire and sat down on a plush blue Claisdane rug, the cracking of her knees protesting the lower elevation. She mussed her freshly brushed thinning white hair into its typical bird's nest and let some drool dribble down her chin and puddle on her black robe. She heaved a heavy sigh and then assumed her usual distant face.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHnuNJY4yAf
“Come in, come see old Delfina.” she cackled in a high pitched whine, looking up towards a distant corner. Her head wobbled side to side a little unsteady, while her hands worked at the rug underneath her. The door opened on very noisy hinges that Delfina had the Sergeant purposefully tighten and water generously with salt water to be as loud as possible. She loved watching Therese cringe at the nail-biting screech they let every time the door opened.343Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlVGWmY63G6
