Evol

Emit: Prologue

Sometime in the Warped Midlands

The tall man wore a midnight-black cloak.

It was drawn up over his head, concealing a mop of dark curls. The gusty wind stole up the cloak, blowing it out like billows of black cloud behind him. A low grunt escaped his pursed lips as he climbed the last mossy rock.

Long journeys were something he had always detested. If only he still had the power to fly. . . But that was long gone.

The grey sky loomed above him - the surroundings were drab, with vicious waves the colour of blue ice crashing below him; at one point, he had wondered whether the cliff he was scaling would collapse.

Now at the top, the man swung one leg over onto the grass, and hauled himself up. Starvation had weakened him, but the determination growing with every passing day was lit like fire in his stomach, and it spurred him on. Tumbling onto the grass, his cheek hit the mud hard.

He fought back the fury. It was shocking, that he was having to do this. Ridiculous. Preposterous. Inevitable.

Staggering to his feet, the man stopped abruptly as the sounds reached him.

They came from across the vast grassland before him - low, rough, strangely harmonized. The unfamiliar words lifted into the air, pitched like a song.

Like a chant.

His sharp eyes zeroed in on a circle of figures - they were hunched, old stones covered in brown rugs. Their hands were interlocked as they stepped to the side, a steady rotation, an ongoing dance.

There was a green fire spitting in the centre, and with each line of chant, it roared.

The man's lips curled into a smile, the hairs of his beard itching at his skin. "Yes. . ." He whispered, and reached to clasp the handle of his sword, stuck into his belt. "I've found you."

And with that, he strode toward them, eyes glinting murderously. Toward the old casters.

Toward the Ancient Ones.