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Three days of uneventful travel and by late afternoon on the third day both Leadyl and Celedryl with their friends were coming upon the Pine Hallow Trading Post from different directions. Both groups knew that their worst fears had come to true when they saw hundreds black scavenger birds circling high in the air above the trading post never dreaming the orcs would venture this far south. As it happened, Leadyl’s group was the closer of the two and began seeing the remains of both human and ork scattered about the area in a frenzy of fear and death. The stench of death permeated the area from bodies half in decay and half-eaten by the scavengers, interspersed with spears standing upright with heads of adults and babies impaled on them.
Trying desperately not to hurl his stomach, Mitch led the way followed closely by Cormyr and Leadyl between the burned buildings and carrion toward the front of the burned-out husk of the trading post. The stoop was still there and one wall on the west side is still standing. The stench is unbearable now with no breeze to dissipate it. Hurrying to get away from the stench of death, they ran toward the river, passing burned-out wagons and more bodies along the way.
Suddenly, they slammed into a palpable wall of dread originating from a wraith like creature appearing from around one of the burned-out wagons. Freezing them in place with a powerful fear attack, it inexorably floated toward them. The wraith is average human height and shape with its long black cape open at the front revealing carrion, bones and rotten remnants of clothes. The cowl is laid back revealing a skull with pieces of skin and hair lying sporadically across it. Where eyes should have been nothing but darkness so thick and so black it looked as if it went on forever filled the eye cavities.
Struggling mightily Mitch used his imagination to build a shield against the pervasive fear slamming into his mind. Quickly glancing eastward he could see people running toward them with a vague feeling in the back of his mind that one of them was he sister. With no time to think about that, the creature decided to attack with an outstretched boney hand emitting a streak of blackness straight at Mitch. Thankfully Cormyr was the quicker of the two his outstretched pure white sword blocked the attacked absorbing it but the force of the attack threw him to the ground. Drawing his sword quicker than the eye could follow, the wraith suddenly attacked again with two quick strikes of darkness that Mitch blocked with speed far surpassing normal ability. The bright pure light enveloping the blade absorbed the darkness, drawing it in, absorbing it to the very core of the sword. If the creature had been able, it would have surely had a shocked expression on its decomposed face.
Lunging forward with his outstretched sword Mitch drove the pure white blade directly in the center of the creature's rotten chest. The pure light of the sword melded with the blackness emanating from the creature threatening to climb the white of the blade and onto his hand. With all his power of imagination, he fought the darkness as it tried to overwhelm him and suck him into it. He felt drawn into darkness, similar to when he and Leadyl were almost lost in each other’s imagination, but dreadfully worse. The more he fought it the more he pressed his imagination for more power when suddenly the unrelenting pull of the darkness stopped as another pure light blade pierced the creature from behind protruding from the decayed chest abruptly releasing him from the darkness. He thought his head was about to explode trying desperately to rein in his power and with one last effort he fell forward into blackness.
Games of the Powerful Page 31
