Hmm, some Victorian age fantasy might actually be interesting. The Middle Ages are fun and all, but some variation would be cool.
Only thing I ever read by Virgina Woolf was To the Lighthouse. Talk about a never ending afternoon!
Anyway, time for another cliffhanger, yay! 
And Patrick gets to have a lot of fun (BRRR!). I hope he’s creepy enough.
Dor’ash unceremoniously dumped Rimtori’s body on the ground, only taking care not to let her head smash too hard against the ground. Somebody had closed her eyes, but that was the only service done to her. Blood still glistened around the wound in her chest, and thick, black coagulated cakes of it weiged at the tears in her ruined robe. The swordsman who killed her had certainly not been gentle, and the uncaring treatment of the bodies afterwards had only served to smear her further in blood. Some of it might not even be hers.
Apart from the other undead men, a second priest joined the group in the temple and he and his companion kneeled down on either side of Rimtori as Dor’ash backed away to give them space. A few of the Forsaken soldiers stood along the slope, making sure that nothing would disturb the strange rites and the elf mage would have nowhere to go once she moved again.
Sarah laid further inside the ruined temple, eye sockets staring up at the ancient ceiling and arms gently stretched down along her sides. Her smashed torso had been repaired, and only the stains on her robe witnessed what had happened. With her mouth slightly open, she almost looked like she was just sleeping.
Looking at Sarah’s body while the Forsaken busied themselves with Rimtori, Dor’ash wondered what she had been like in life. The soul gave no real clues. Had undeath given her a new personality or had she always been that cheerfully sarcastic, not overly pleasant woman?
And, he wondered, now that her soul had been “set free” of her decaying flesh, might her old memories return to her, or were they still locked away? Impossible to say until she was restored. If she did recall having a brother named Simon, Dor’ash knew he would have to notify Thomas Southstone and warn him about it.
A hoarse voice called him out of his thoughts, and he turned towards the undead men.
“Normally, Lady Sylvanas is the one who raises the dead to join the Forsaken, if they have been known to be exceptional in life,” the first priest said. “I cannot guarantee that she,” he touched Rimtori’s bloodstained, cool forehead with his raw bone fingertips, “will not be under the Lich King’s control when she first awakens.”
“What of Sarah, then?” Dor’ash asked, frowning.
“She is already in control of herself, as you know,” the priest assured. “There should be nothing to worry about, as long as we get her out of the orb.”
They waited for him to slowly nod in reply, although he wasn’t sure how exactly to behave in front of something so vile. Necromancy, really now…
The things he got involved with for Sarah’s sake.
Patrick and Lloyd moved up behind a kneeling priest each, spreading their arms like a pair of dark-robed scarecrows.
Someone who already was a Forsaken was easier to call back to ‘life’, their body already wracked with unholy, animating magic. However, Rimtori was not undead (yet), and she had been dead for too long to be salvaged by the magic Dor’ash himself could use. Those shamanistic spells could only jolt somebody back to life if the body was still warm, and the brain had not suffered too much damage from a blow or loss of oxygen.
“Begin,” Patrick said.
The first priest raised his hands and held them out, palms down, over Rimtori. His companion mimicked him, one of his thin hands hovering between the other priest’s. As they began to murmur, a warm, golden glow rose up around their fingers and swept down over Rimtori’s body like an ethereal curtain. That first stage looked perfectly innocent, but then Lloyd and Patrick added their chanting to the spell.
From their hands blasted writhing ropes of darkness, sparks in unclean colors dancing around them as the foul magic joined with the priests’. The snakes of dark power tore through the healing magic, although the priests didn’t react, and wound around Rimtori’s limbs and neck.
Dor’ash stepped backwards, unable to subdue a sound of disgust. The air filled with a scent of rusted metal, a dry, sour tingle. Those energies reached invisible strings towards anything they could entice – Dor’ash sensed it as an oily feeling across his (discolored by corruption) green skin. He glanced at Jonathan, finding that the mage too had half turned away.
One of the priest’s murmuring rose towards a growl, and his hands twitched away from its position above Rimtori’s chest. One sharp motion at the time, the priest pushed the woman’s full, stained lips open.
The dark ropes dove into her mouth, tearing the frail curtain along as they forced themselves into her – not a sound left the elf’s lips, but her body violently arched upwards so far that she almost touched the priests’ hands.
The tail of the last black snake disappeared between her teeth, and Rimtori flopped back down with a hard thud.
Silence fell over the temple.
Slowly, Dor’ash cautiously lowered his arm. He hoped that the unclean feeling in his chest would fade, but suspected that it would take quite a while. Seeing such a resurrection, sensing the powers at work, was something he could have lived without.
Lloyd sunk down on one knee, bowing his head in a mirror of a living person’s exhaust. Patrick, however, remained standing.
“Need water,” the second priest rasped, holding a hand to his throat.
Patrick waved them both aside and they both staggered down the hill. Nobody else in the temple looked away from the elf for a second, however.
Rimtori’s eyelids twitched. It was easy to see when she opened her eyes, as a crack of dirty, yellowish light appeared beneath the dainty, dark eyelashes. For what it was worth, she was supposedly cured of her magic addiction.
“Uhh…”
She moved sluggishly, lifting a heavy arm to her face as she groaned.
“I’ll take that,” Lloyd said, clamping a cold, hard hand around Rimtori’s pink wrist. As easy as if she weighed nothing, he dragged her up in a sitting position.
Her eyes shot wide open and a half-strangled cry escaped her. The weak, kittenish attempts to tear herself free may have evoked sympathy in Dor’ash’s heart, but the sight left him utterly cold.
She blurted something in Thalassian, raising her other hand with an obvious plan to blast Lloyd’s head off with a magic spell. Jonathan grasped that arm and wrenched it up against her back. She winced, then a flash of confusion passed her face as her brain caught up with that it didn’t hurt as much as it should have.
“Orcish, if you please,” Lloyd said, showing of two rows of rotting teeth in a grin. “We don’t speak Prancing Fools.”
“Get your hands off me, you filthy beasts!” Rimtori gasped, twisting against the bony fingers.
“She seems to have her mind intact,” Jonathan grimly commented.
Smiling, Patrick hunched down in front of the struggling elf.
“Do you remember your name, Miss?” he asked in a silky voice.
He certainly looked like he was enjoying himself – and Dor’ash was fine with that, and watching. He might feel bad about that later, but not right then.
“I have no reason to tell you!” Rimtori snapped. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The last was a panicked snarl, coaxed by Patrick reaching towards her chest. His thin fingertips picked at the ruined dress, and a strange sound fled from deep within Rimtori’s throat as she looked down and stared at the blood. Mouth open, she threw a wild gaze between the warlock, the wound, and back again.
“Silly girl,” Patrick murmured, “a scratch like that must have hurt a lot.” As Rimtori crumbled, ceasing all attempts to fight against the men who held her, he added, “enough to kill a pretty little thing like you.”
“No… no, no…”
The hoarse whisper received no empathy in reply.
“You get used to it.” Jonathan paused, then sneered. “Well, you might not have to get used to it.”
Patrick rubbed his fingertips against his robe to clean them of the blood. Why he bothered remained unexplained. Either way, the robe was already so dark and dirty that the new stains hardly could be seen.
“Now then. Magus Rimtori, I presume?” he said.
She numbly nodded, head rising just slightly to stare at the warlock. He reached into a pocket and withdrew the orb, holding it towards her.
“Excellent. Perhaps you would be so kind as to mend this problem you caused our little sister?” He tilted his head slightly, still smiling as he leaned forwards while lowering his voice. “We would… truly appreciate it.”
Rimtori’s head snapped up, her red lips drawing back from pearl-white teeth in a growl.
“And if I refuse?” she asked. Her voice, however, broke.
“I would be delighted to discuss any of your inhibitions, Miss,” Patrick said, leaning forwards still, slow and steady as a tide.
He was so close now that she wrenched herself backwards, gaining about an inch before Jonathan’s grip stopped her. Patrick smiled, stroking the orb with his thumb.
“You see, there happen to be several people here who care very much about our little sister. Including him.” He motioned at Dor’ash, then looked back at Rimtori. “And he is already very, very angry with you, I’m afraid. I am quite anxious to gain your cooperation.”
The back of his bony hand brushed her cold, blood-stained cheek. She threw her head aside, gasping sharply through her teeth – a habitual reaction.
Was there any reason at all for her to feel half as scared of the angry orc, as of the smiling warlock? Dor’ash highly doubted it, having to suppress a wish to scratch his arms to fight the crawling feeling as he watched and listened.
Patrick watched Rimtori for a moment, then nodded.
“Whenever you’re ready, Miss,” he said.
She swallowed hard. Another habit.
“And- and then what?” she croaked, the hand above Lloyd’s grip clenching until it shook.
“Then… oh, I don’t know,” Patrick said. He shrugged. “But since you’ve managed to make so many people angry, well… we haven’t settled on whether our orc friend should decide what to do with you, or if we should.”
When Rimtori’s glowing yellow eyes met his, a dry sigh escaped between his lips.
“I have to admit, Miss,” he said, and the smile faded, “I’m annoyed.”
The pink, clenched hand opened, clenched again, and finally slumped. As did all of Rimtori, her head hanging and heavy, black threads of hair dangling over her stained face.
“Wonderful,” Patrick said, smiling again. “I’m pleased we could reach an understanding, very pleased indeed.”
At his wave, Lloyd and Jonathan roughly dragged Rimtori to her feet and pushed her over to Sarah’s body. Though they let go of her arms, they stood close and watched her every move as she absently rubbed her wrists.
She looked up when Patrick’s hand moved within her sight, offering the orb. With a furious, but just as frightened glare, she took the transparent ball between both her trembling hands.
“Don’t try anything,” Jonathan murmured in a hoarse whisper, close to her ear. “I’m more annoyed than he is.”
Rimtori recoiled from him, which caused her to bump into Lloyd. Snarling a curse in Thalassian, she straightened up and avoided the warlock’s amused grin. She took in a few more unnecessary breaths and then raised the orb to her chest and closed her eyes.
“Good argumentative technique, there,” Dor’ash commented to Patrick as the undead man got a little closer. He looked at the warlock with a mix of fascination and disgust.
“Why thank you.” Patrick symbolically brushed his hands off against each other, causing a dry, jangling sound. “I don’t like to raise my voice,” he added, letting out a hoarse little chuckle.
Dor’ash simply nodded to that, although he could not shake off the feeling that his entire race had just been gravely insulted by that innocent remark. There was just something about Patrick’s faint smile.
“Are you really more annoyed than I am, Schiller?” Patrick asked, looking at the mage.
Jonathan pursed his lips, a strange look flashing over his features. If it was unease, it disappeared just as quickly without a trace.
“I’m rather fond of Sarah, master Hartwell,” he said. “I was one of the first Forsaken she befriended.”
“Ah yes, of course.”
Jonathan completely ignored Dor’ash’s raised eyebrow at the “rather fond of” explanation of their relationship.
Could it be that such things were something the Apothecary Society looked down upon?
“Might I have a moment of silence to focus?” Rimtori said in a chilly voice, glaring down at Sarah’s body.
“Certainly. Go right ahead,” Patrick said.
The elf didn’t reply. Her lips moved, voice a papery whisper of strange words.
For a moment nothing happened, but then tiny dark sparks danced from her fingertips and across the smooth surface of the orb. Voice growing louder for each word until she snarled, Rimtori threw out her hands, and the ball, above Sarah’s unmoving chest.
The sparks flared up with anti-light, crackling loud enough to almost drown Rimtori’s voice. Dor’ash raised his arm cautiously, but the Forsaken stood firm.
A familiar voice howled, and a pink shadow fell from the orb – miniature at first, but rapidly growing as it plummeted. When it tumbled into Sarah’s carcass and faded into it, the soul had the same size as the body. It went past in a flash, leaving only a quick vision of flailing limbs and thin, blonde hair.
The black sparks faded to nothing, and Rimtori flung the orb aside with a disgusted sound. That was all she had time to do before Lloyd grabbed both her upper arms. Jonathan, meanwhile, dropped down and gently took hold of Sarah’s shoulders. Frowning concern at her lack of response, Dor’ash sunk down on the other side of her.
“Sarah?” Jonathan said, giving her a light shake.
In the background, Lloyd dragged Rimtori closer to the sloping hillside, as if to move her closer to the rest of the troop. He stayed within the temple with her, however.
“Urgh…” came a groan from Sarah’s lips.
She didn’t have eyelids to flutter open, so she simply awoke with a start. That mumble was just the warning before she drew in breath to snap.
“I’m not amused!”
Jonathan and Dor’ash grinned wide.
Sarah pushed herself up to standing, swayed but brushed Jonathan aside while waving a finger at Dor’ash’s nose. He just rolled his eyes despite her angry tone, too relieved to see her back into her body to be rattled.
“It was you who didn’t hold on to me hard enough when I went through the portal,” he retorted and stood up, smirking as both her hands balled to fists and waved at him.
“I oughta-”
“As lovely as always, I see,” a third voice cut in.
Another bony hand closed around Sarah’s right fist and she stiffened, turning sharply towards Patrick. His fingers visibly tightened around hers the moment it looked as if she would pull away. With a firm tug he brought her up against his chest.
“You had me worried, my dear,” Patrick said to her thunderstruck expression.
Dor’ash blinked at the display, at the air of familiarity the warlock seemed at ease in with Sarah. The orc had never heard her mention this man, and he glanced at Jonathan for an explanation. However, the male undead mage just stared at the thin couple, jaw set tight.
Confounded by all this as he was, Dor’ash didn’t notice Lloyd whispering in Rimtori’s ear. Neither the way she tensed, and whispered back after a moment.
Sarah finally found herself again, placing her free hand against Patrick’s chest and shoving hard. They moved apart, but he didn’t let go of her hand.
“Don’t you get friendly with me!” she snarled, and the next words underscored once and for all that they did know each other. “I’ve told you-”
Her free hand cleaved the air to emphasize her words, but he caught that too by intertwining his fingers with hers. Bone violently scraped and she furiously tried to wiggle free.
“I came all the way out here just to help you,” Patrick said, smile hardening. “The least you can do is say ‘thank you’.”
As much as Sarah snarled throughout all of this, her attempts to fight back were oddly weak. Just physical struggling, not calling on her usual ability to burn anything that irritated her. As if she either couldn’t, or didn’t dare to – judging by the look on her face she certainly wanted to.
The scales towards too disturbing tipped, and Dor’ash raised a hand, scowling. He didn’t understand, but he definitely didn’t like it.
“Am I missing something here?” he sharply said.
Sarah managed to squirm one hand free, moving as far away from the chuckling Patrick as she could and the still trapped hand allowed.
“Not much, no,” she snarled, “just a sleazebag in a dark robe.”
“Oh, come now.” Patrick shook his head and glanced at the frowning Dor’ash. “Well, perhaps all that sounded a little odd. Terribly sorry.”
He didn’t sound sorry, however, and neither of them seemed in a hurry to explain their strange behavior. Jonathan still hadn’t moved, but his hands clenched at his sides.
Dor’ash opened his mouth to ask just what this was about, when there was a sudden, flapping sound. Between the pillars making up the simple temple, the air shimmered. A shout of warning came from one of the guards on the slope, but it was cut off in the middle, leaving only silence from outside. The faint glow in the air solidified into smooth walls, glowing in a dim yellow.
“What the-”
Dor’ash was about to reach out and touch one of the barriers, but thought better of it. By the time he reached that conclusion, the others had gotten over the very brief surprise.
“What did you do now?” Patrick snarled and whirled around.
“Not my fault!” Rimtori snapped, recoiling from Patrick as much as Lloyd’s grip of her allowed. The frantic tone in her voice was unmistakable. “All your magic triggered one of my experiments.”
Lloyd growled and shook his head.
“Then it is your fault, lady,” he said. “I’d like to ask you to do something about it, but somehow I feel like not letting you move a finger.”
“Have fun trying to get out, then,” Rimtori snarled, mouth twisting into a wild sneer.
“We’ll have fun alright…” Lloyd growled, giving her a rattle to which she only smirked wider.
Focusing on this pair now, Dor’ash didn’t notice Patrick whispering in Sarah’s ear while Jonathan grimly looked on. She tensed, hands clenching. That look she cast off, however, as Dor’ash looked around at the trio.
“Well then, now what?” the orc grunted.
“It’s a mage’s spell,” Patrick replied, inclining his head towards Sarah and Jonathan.
The two of them exchanged glances, nodded to each other and shuffled over to the shimmering wall. No sound came from their hands knocking at the barrier.
“Huh, this is pretty odd,” Jonathan said, pressing both palms against the magic.
“Whaddaya expect, I don’t even want to know what goes on in an elfie’s purdy little brain,” Sarah commented in a distracted tone.
The annoyed sound from Rimtori went completely ignored. Thoughtfully, Sarah ran her hands across the silent, glowing surface. After a moment she looked around, studying the pillars.
“There’s some kind of connection,” she said, face turned upwards. Then she turned her head towards Dor’ash. “Would you be a dear and put your hand against that pillar there?” she said and pointed towards one of the pillars on the opposite side from where she stood.
When he raised an eyebrow, she added with a faint smirk:
“No, I don’t think it will hurt much.”
Letting out a grunt, he moved to obey. Not sure what good that would do, but if she said so…
Afterwards, he would remember that there had been an odd tone to her voice.
Lichen crept up the ancient pillar, and he could hardly feel any marble at all as he pressed his hand to the sun warmed surface. Only the bumpy, dry vegetation under his palm. Sarah muttered on the other side of the small, enclosed area, and Jonathan joined her after a moment. Difficult to tell if they were managing anything.
Then something flared up in the corner of his vision, and he sharply turned his head to the side. A grey blur hung in the air, shifting, trying to take shape, and the weak spirits of the land howled.
An outline, more a shadow than anything, but for just a second the image cleared – a huge wolf, its teeth bared in a growl towards something behind Dor’ash. It flickered, as if somebody was using some foul magic to block the vision.
‘BEWARE!’
He spun around as the spirit guardian shattered, ducking just in time to avoid a demon’s sweeping, crimson blade. But the creature’s other hand smashed into Dor’ash’s stomach, knocking all air out of him. With black spots dancing before his eyes he stumbled aside, grasping for his war hammer and struggling for breath.
The demon grinned down at him, a red giant of muscles in golden bits of armor. A doomguard, its huge leathery wings folded against its back and horned head almost touching the ceiling – where had that thing come from? A backup plan of Rimtori’s?
The others-
A blast of searing pain flared through Dor’ash’s hand and he roared, losing grip of the war hammer. It thumped into the grass. Through the veil of rage and pain Dor’ash looked past the demon, and saw Lloyd standing there, smiling, finger still stretched to point at the orc’s hand. In a flash, Dor’ash took in the rest of the Forsaken, all unmoving – apart from Sarah. She raised her hands behind Patrick’s shoulder, but froze in the middle of the motion.
She did nothing to help.
Dor’ash didn’t even have time to think, no time for drawing breath to curse the treacherous undead. He ducked another punch from the demon, but an unseen power suddenly trapped his arms, forcing them up against his back. The force of it and his own momentum threw him off balance and he crashed on the ground. Immediately the doomguard slammed its foot down on Dor’ash’s chest, snarling in vicious triumph. Struggling desperately, the orc could only watch the huge sword rise above him, sharp edge aimed at his heart. Something blocked him, muting his call to the forces of nature-
“Hold.”
The sword froze at the simple word. A growl left the demon’s throat as it turned around and gave Patrick a disappointed look. The undead man lowered his hand.
“There’s no need to waste a perfectly good shaman,” Patrick said, smiling.
There was originally going to be more to this chapter, but there’s a lot going on in it already and it’s long enough.
That, and I love leaving cliffhangers :mwahaha:
Too bad I wasn’t born in the golden age of pulp, eh? Then again, then I’d be old and wrinkly by now, at best. Haha, I haven’t even seen the Indiana Jones movies, truth to be told. ducks I’ll go tweak the things as per your suggestions, as usual.
The rest of the stories about them will be a lot more serious, until the happy ending at least (I’m such a sap!).