SPELLSTRYKERS: THE DELVES INQUISITION

“To be born a mystic is a blessing and a curse. For to wield the marvels of magi is to be vigilant of the seductions of darkra, for it can turn you—if not destroy you outright.”

-High Abraa Layla Anai

Spellstrykers are high-level spellbinders who have mastered the coils of the arcaene. This allows them to commune with the aeions, mastering their talents to summon the might of the aeions themselves.

The first notable spellstryker is no other than Norvak, leader of a special unit of spellbinders named The Exalted Mantle. While his strange command over the voydflame remains classified, his knowledge in the arcaene is formidable if challenged.

It has been quite some time since new spellstrykers were born, however. With the special exception of former warden Kelin Taiba and the spellbinder known as Aida J’Lune becoming spellstrykers through unusual circumstances, it is now safe to assume that even we are still oblivious to the true realities of arcaenus.

The same applies to its evil twin—darkra.

The chasms of Agara Abysm. A leafy mesh of bridges, arching transits of stone and earth racing with water. Plunging into the abyss. Where the Deep Seekers sought answers beyond the darkness.

So the stories told.

Myths perfected by the convictions of its disciples. Legends woven by hands that never were. They claimed the heart of the Umbra’khai’s morals, that darkness was absolute. The darkness that was the sacred black. Where Twilight’s Spark birthed the nightrealm and all that was Shadara. And like all born of its womb, the Deep Seekers were a race akin to the umbiri. Wise. Majestic. Transcending.

Vulnerable.

It was the greed and hubris of their highest that plunged the Deep Seekers into ruin. A tragedy scorched in chaos. Shadaran old heads recalled it a riddle in The Age of Fates, an uncounted event silenced in time.

Until freed by the Untold Night.

The Black Strife was an indestructible enigma to etch itself into the fabrics of time. If one were to question this emergence, on how The Black Strife came to be, then their ambitions would be in the wrong place, for the wisdom of the Umbra’khai and the Deep Seekers’ knowledge were one and the same.

For even in darkness, one must be wary of the unknown.

With the Untold Night’s origins obscured, it was uncertain how Diabolist Oujah, unmaker of dreadspawn, acquired The Delves’ location. Though one thing was for certain: the Black Malice was on to Oujah, and she called forth Spellstryker Aida, 4th Warden Razika Amir, and 2nd Blade Kynemba Nightshade to counter Oujah’s expedition.

For she found Agara Abysm, the under-gorge of the Deep Seekers. Hopefully, the wretched creature had yet to unearth its potentially dangerous secrets.

By order of Black Malice, The Delves Inquisition begins.

The Delves of Agara
Darkgear | Shadara
Sometime During The Calamity Era

“Never would’ve thought to see myself down here,” said Razika.

“Feeling’s mutual,” said Kynemba. “Black Malice recovered the intelligence from a well-locked acedia cryst with a mysterial scroll inside. Damn thing took half a fucking cycle to crack. Spellbinders busted left and right to get that thing open, and even then, the scroll unraveled enough cryptic shit to scramble a brain.”

“Malice was smart to leave it in the hands of the Keepers,” Aida said. “We would not have come here if not for the scroll’s reveal.”

Kynemba scoffed with amusement. “Isn’t the power of the Keepers considered… well… cheating?”

“The enemy calls Hellion mommy, and she is mad-equipped with a world-breaking fortress of multidimensional travel,” replied Razika. “The unusual foresight of the Keepers is our trump card.”

“Their sense of judgment… a maze of riddles. They never make it easy to follow.” The air was off to Aida. What waft here was far from inviting, but ominous and cruel. “We’re fortunate to make it this far. Far fortuitous that the unmaker still festers here.”

She could sense the abominable entity lurking deep within the geode chamber, a malevolent presence that beckoned her to end its cursed existence. The air, far from peaceful, bore witness to an unsettling aura, casting a pall of dread over the sanctum. Aida and her companions ventured into the foreboding depths of Delves Agara, driven by a solemn mission to quell the unnatural curse that had gripped this once-sacred place.

Their journey led them to Oujah, and her loathsome creation, the eerie little Moorak, along with their vile minions—dreadspawn of the most sinister nature—all congregating at the heart of the crystalline core, where the very essence of horror seemed to have taken a sinister root.

Out of sight, Aida and her companions studied the mini horde. The dreadful things were investigating something, a tower of flat rock. A massive wall covered in impossible symbols. Strange writings.

The untellable scrawls of the seekers.

This was it. Oujah neared their secrets, though fate had its obstacles. The maker of death came to a halt before a craggy wall infinite amethyst. None shall pass, as one who lacked the logic to decipher its intricate spell of bonds failed to open the way.

Unless one possessed the knowledge of death and its abundant wisdom.

Oujah lifted a bony finger, an index digit dressed in snaking vines and leaves that ceaselessly sprouted, then withered. Slivers of darkra crawled from her finger and branched into the air between her and the gate. The branches of foul magi pulsed as they weaved the first set of spellframes that rotated as if unlocking combinations.

Unsealing spells of that magnitude sealed her fate. Aida led the attack. Oujah must be stopped.

“When confronting dreadspawn of any form, negotiating with their kind is to court death. No matter how intelligent they have become, dreadspawn are perished vessels morphed into existence by the foul manipulations of darkra. Their purpose is chaos against the living, and they are a blight upon Shadaran soil. Kill them before they kill you.”

-Master Blackblade Na’Kaishia Nightshade

“Take heed. To face off against dreadspawn and survive is to endure the wrath of a diabolist, if you so happen to encounter one—which by then you’d have joined its ranks.”

-Dyn Darze

“Seriously. What in the nekrophaging fuck is that thing with Oujah? They say that it has a name. Moorak or some shit. And that it used to be her kid. The Blackmother confirms this to be horribly true.”

-2nd Blade Kynemba Nightshade

There was a strategy to be had when tackling dreadspawn in the presence of their diabolist. First and foremost, throwing a spellbinder into the fray for advanced protection was a must.

Secondly, blades blessed by the lady sovereign herself had a way with death-flesh. The spells bound by Aida’s focus took the chamber by storm. With a wave of her staff, Lunabloom released its globes of umbral light—brilliant explosives, ready to blow.

Alerted by a commotion not of her making, Oujah and Moorak shifted their attention to witness a spellstryker and her companions in their midst.

“Heralds of Malice.” Oujah hissed. Moorak sniffed the air and growled behind his freaky-little rattling mask.

Filled with rage, he pointed a shaky claw at them. It was then that Oujah, too, had thrust her necrotic scepter Finisbringer toward the intruders and, with an impish shriek, the dreadspawn realized their targets and charged.

The Delves thundered like a bomb show. Aida pummeled the field with umbral fire and black lightning. Razika faced what free-willed creatures survived the storm, hacking them down if not bashing the murderous creatures to pieces with his shield, and—as an assassin should—Kynemba manipulated their ignorance with the swift slice of his nimcha trick-blade.

They bodied Oujah’s whole thrall. Expeditiously. Saving their three-pronged pincer attack for the unmaker and her child-like abomination for last. A shadowknight on her left. An assassin on her right. A spellstryker in her face. The perfect assault.

Oujah bounced out of their kill path. Moorak leaped into the air. Aida, Razika, and Kynemba attacked as one, forcing the diabolist to leave spectral afterimages in her evasive wake. Blades and a magical shooting staff struck against her villainous scepter. Moorak swooped in and out of the fray with claws deflecting their prompt advance. Death knocked at every spark and clang. The unmaker parried their three-way assault. She fired Finisbringer at every opened turn, twirling her ghoulish rod from claw to claw, until she lashed forth like a viper at its limit and propelled the shielded Razika across the chamber with a cursed shot of her scepter. This allowed the ancient haggard’s deathly speed consistence, for Kynemba’s leg swooped for her head. Her ghostly aura left rapid trails of her every move as her cadaverous shape bent in ways untold to deny the fury and fire of Aida’s crackling staff, and ultimately blast her assassin in the back with an enfeebled curse.

Kynemba grunted as he hurled into the sanctum’s shadows. Moorak chased after him, leaving Oujah to handle the last. Finisbringer clashed with Lunabloom once more. She faced her prime hunter in the eye. There was no pity to be shared in the scowl of a spellstryker.

“I know you.” A grim green poured from the sinister-shaped eyes of Oujah’s tribal mask. “Little girl.”

Danger crept in her chest. Aida pushed from the grisly hag and spun her staff for her face once more. Lunabloom fired. The creepy threat bent half her form out of the shot path and returned scepter-fire. Aida deflected, returning the favor. The two shot and missed another by a death’s hair relentlessly before a vicious wave of Oujah’s scepter ignited its green flame, and ceased everything.

Razika rose from his crystalline burial to witness the geode chamber become swarmed with an odd gloom. It matched the energy of the scepter that stretched above Oujah’s ornamented head. The origins behind the sudden miasma of unnatural darkness of absolute black above.

The void hung over Aida and its creator. Razika glanced between them and the discovered Kynemba’s lifeless body. The manic Moorak attempted to crack the assassin’s armor, craving the paralyzed meat inside.

Thunder bellowed from the void. The sanctum trembled, forcing Moorak to whip his head to the inky black above. The void reached completion, and a swarm of creeping plants squirmed from its gaping maw.

A crazed cackle escaped the void’s summoner. Oujah seemed to have lost her mind, if she had one to begin with. Her laugh cut short by the inevitable. Aida was upon her. Lunabloom unfurled, seconds to strike.

A vine whipped in between. Aida yelped, flogged by an unruly tentacle. It lashed out again to pierce flesh.

Unsuccessful. Sundered by a single swipe of Razika’s blade.

“The hell’s that?!” Razika hurried to Aida’s side, helping her to her feet. If he had recovered any later, then Aida would have a hole in her chest.

“A Simulacrum.” Aida focused on the void’s passenger. “Remnants of it.” She spun her staff and readied her stance. Barely unfazed by the vine’s prior slap, it would be foolish to abort the hunt. “When the time comes—”

Razika planted a firm hand on her shoulder. “I shall not argue.”

The void spilled its tendrils. One of them plunged into the unmaker’s heart. Aida quickly shot at the impaled corpse. Wicked spellframes rippled in the space between her mark and Lunabloom’s explosive impact. Shielded. Of course. Aida and Razika scowled, there was no other choice but to watch a plague of sickly plants—if they even were plants—fuse into the diabolist, reshaping the wretch into an odd, unspeakable mass of living, dead flesh dressed in serpentine vines and tainted crystal that burned a bad light.

She had transcended into the most profane, assuming the image of her malevolent idol. This was the aspect of Voldrix, a malignant lesser and herald of the creeping death.

Oujah’gul.

As if her previous appearance wasn’t atrocious enough, she emerged like a toxic flower that bloomed only for the malevolent. Finisbringer blossomed and pulsed with a ghoulish darkra. She aimed it at the two, vigilant in their stance, and a den of vines whipped and thrashed after them. Both spellstryker and knight threw themselves into the bushy fray. For every briar and creeper vine broken, more sprouted from its core.

The den of vines eventually claimed him and his partner, then tightened to make a cruel point. Aida and Razika howled. Aida’s glare sparked a black, umbral light. Coiled in the diabolist’s profane-sworn curse, any who struggled to free themselves of Oujah’gul’s grip suffered the void.

Death crept in ways only a serpent of the reaper’s veil could perform, but what was the serpent of death to those who defied it?

He couldn’t move.

Kynemba could only watch as Moorak had a field day on his deadened form. By the blessings of Black Malice, the rabid critter had trouble tearing Kynemba to shreds, despite the enfeebled curse that rendered him unresponsive. Each swipe of the pygmy’s claws sparked against the limp assassin’s shard-armor.

He had been doing this for a while, expecting a different result: a crack in the shard-plates, a splinter in the spell weaving that flickered on impact. Anything for blood. Little that the poor cretin knew, his petrified prey twitched from the rampage until it yelped and sucked for air.

It appeared that Moorak didn’t count on his neck being clutched by Kynemba so promptly. He snatched the critter up like a loose neck bird, shook him, then—after spotting his companions entangled in peril—he violently slung the little beast straight at his maker. Moorak crashed into her face. They both shrieked and floundered along the floor. The mother was down. The son stayed the course until he tumbled into the squirming depths of his mother’s tangled mass. With Oujah‘gul wallowing in rage, the den of vines unscrambled. Razika fell. Aida did not. The air claimed her. She was too stubborn to fall.

Too charged on arcaenus to quit.

Thunder struck the chamber. Aida lifted the crackling Lunabloom overhead and her body crackled. Black lightning. Another upward thrust of her angry staff, and a wave of spellframes ripped across the inner sanctum. Oujah’gul cast her shields. The void’s vines rent and wilted to pieces while the beauty of the sanctum crystal shattered. Escaping the sudden burst of magi, Razika and Kynemba sought the shelter of the chasm. They both vaulted and slid under the strongest stone. Close call, indeed.

“Shit!” Kynemba cursed. He should have known that such chaos would come to this. He knew the end had come, too. “She’s calling in an eidoli? Here?!”

Indeed, although mad. Eidoli power was a risk. It was a risk to battle and claim an eidoli power, as it was, let alone wield the power of Xevioso the Nightbolt deep beneath the earth, where they all could die from a potential cave-in. Oujah’gul, with a thrust of her scepter, cared not for death, for she was just that: death. She lashed forth another den of nasty vines. They swarmed around the spellstryker. Their strikes did nothing to curb Aida’s fury as her staff’s radiant power of black lightning and umbral fire sundered the vines to ash.

Soon, spellframes woke from her strife, and when the unmaker weaved her ultimate curse, Aida’s staff bloomed and crackled in the most magnificent of flowers to ever bloom beneath the earth.

That flower hit like a cannon, Lunabloom her rod of ordinance. A wild torrent of umbral energy beamed into Oujah’gul’s cursed spell-shot, eating both curse and maker. The gaping mouth of black above vanished.

The unmaker was rebuked. Finished.

Aida didn’t believe that one bit. Dreadspawn fight until the end. Their controllers were smarter to flee. The last of her arcaenus ebbed to silence when Lunabloom returned to a pretty bud, and her feet had finally met the earth.

She felt spent, yet undaunted.

Familiar hands met her shoulders, and she found the eyes of Razika seeking assurance. Aida smiled, nodded, and gripped his hand. The amount of power she channeled came at a price. A chink in her focus and she would have turned to ash, as well—just like Oujah’gul.

Kynemba lightly scoffed at them. The two treated this inquisition as if it was just another date night. “Nothing like a good brushing with death to keep the flame going, eh, lovelies?”

Razika slipped the assassin a wry smirk. “Keep your head up. You’ll find yours soon enough.”

Regaining her strength, Aida step away and reached the large gate of amethyst enshrouded in shrubs and darkness. She planted herself where her enemy once stood and lifted her hand to brush fingers through the air. Trails of arcaenic energy came and went like faint stardust, a delicate manipulation of the spell weave required to unlock the Delves’ seeker vault.

“Oujah damn near unlocked the thing.” Razika came behind her. Aida’s interpretations were spot-on, mimicking the diabolist’s spellframe script. “We can’t let these agents of Hellion continue to get one on us.”

“The tables have perfectly turned.” Confidence was rich in Kynemba’s every word. “Black Malice made damn sure of that.”

What was one ring of arcaenic-infused symbols became more. Aida’s way of unlocking the massive revolving mechanism of spellframes moved with meticulous diligence, deciphering its rather complicated glyph structure as if cracking combinations to a well-armed vault.

Aida cracked that vault. The crystal wall filled with light.

“We have as long as time permits,” said Aida as she and her companions headed towards the gate’s retracting crystals. The crystal wall unfolded with each step, giving way to a corridor of darkness, and what secrets awaited them. “Diabolists cheat death.”

Kynemba loosened a hopeless sigh as he followed. “Yeah. I’d be surprised if I didn’t know better.”

They entered, swallowed by the vault’s perpetual darkness. When all else fell to silence, Moorak crawled from the rubble and, to his realization, tilted his head with eerie intrigue at the tunnel once hidden behind a wall of glass.

It wasn’t long before he, too, scuttled into its depths.