Chapter 6: New friends (Part 1)

Did you ever feel utter despair and fear? An emotion strong enough to freeze you in the spot as your heart feels like exploding, this is what I felt the moment I saw him, Var'Kharzot, My lord.

He dauntlessly stood a few steps away from me, the wind softly blowing his long, black, wavy hair; He did nothing more than smile at me and yet I felt like the sky was falling unto my back, the pressure forced me to kneel down in submission and lower my unworthy gaze to the ground, even if I could not see him anymore I could feel his gaze over my back, like the tongue of a tiger tasting its prey.

“Good evening Adrian, I see you've been doing well.” His polite tone didn't betray his true nature, if anything it felt natural, like a well-educated gentleman from a good lineage, however, I knew who he really was, every word that reached my ears made me shudder. I wondered why he was here, I had been a good servant, hadn't I?

“Oh Adrian, that's what I like of you, you are a man of action, not wasting any time in chit-chat, going straight to the point.” I felt the pressure on my shoulders decreasing and I could finally rise my head, he was still in the same spot, smiling at me with the moonlight revealing some of his features. “You've done surprisingly good achievements on this mission, especially with that little Sol'Har's whore, you knew she was one of the three most powerful casters on the planet? Of course you didn't, because you killed her in cold blood before she could do anything hahahahah.” He started to laugh, suddenly a flashback of the same laugh appeared in my mind, my body started shaking involuntarily as it remembered the pain of having its flesh being ripped out by hundreds of sharp fangs.

“I'm so proud of you, still at your sixth mission and already able to kill one enemy agent.” He did look at me with the air of a proud father, but I still could not shake off the feeling of the many tortures he made me go through. “And this is why I decided to give you a little reward,” he pointed to a random direction and said: “five kilometres that way you are going to find a cave, deep inside you will find one of my shrines, talk to the shrine-maiden she has your reward.”

I looked at the pointed direction, and saw nothing but a dense forest clad in darkness; turning back my gaze I could not see my lord anymore, he had disappeared out of thin air, or maybe he had just turned invisible. I shuddered at the thought of him being around me while invisible. Finally free of the pressure I could get up and decided to immediately head to the shrine, thankfully I had an electric torch inside my backpack, so even in the deep darkness of the forest, I could at least see where my feet were.

As a child I used to go deep in the woods with my friends, we would look for abandoned houses hoping to catch sight of ghosts or just scare the shit out of each other with weird courage tests, one of those tests had left a deep impression on me, 'turn off your light and wait here for two hours' they told me to.

Same as that time I was totally alone in a forest, the pitch black darkness stripping away the comforting beauty of the nature and revealing its true cruelty, away from me I could hear the struggle of life, insects and smaller animals running and fighting to survive another night, something I could not help but deeply admire, it was this same survival instinct that led me to meet Var'Kharzot to become his servant.

As I went deeper and deeper I finally found the “cave”, it was basically a hole on a small hill. Some roots acted as the frame for the entrance from where I could smell something foul coming from its depths, unfortunately, I had to choice but to go. The moment I stepped in I already regretted it, four different growling sounds came from slightly deeper, I took a step back and following me the growls approached the entrance, I pointed my light at them and I could see four enormous black wolves, their little evil eyes shining thanks to my torch.

I had no chance to run away, they would catch me. Fighting was the only option, maybe I could take one by myself without my body being torn apart, but four were three too many. Taking out a poisoned dagger from my belt I prepared to die while taking them all down with me, and that's when a whistling sound came from the depths of the cave, the wolves immediately stopped growling and sat down.

I stared at the entrance and soon a hooded figure emerged from the bowels of the earth with the aid of a curved cane, the tattered robe was probably being worn by a mature woman, at least judging by her voluptuous, *cough* shapes. “Our Lord told me you were coming.” She suddenly kneeled down. “Welcome to my humble shrine.” I looked at her curiously, she was supposed to be the shrine maiden the Lord told me about.

“Please esteemed agent, follow me inside.” she turned around and descended into the darkness, I gave a sigh and unwillingly followed her downstairs. Murals of ancient history covered the spiralling stairs, sometimes I saw wolves or dragons attacking men, others, war amongst men clad in light and a tentacular beast, this murals etched in the walls gave me something to look while descending.

Soon I reached the shrine, a statue of lord Var'Kharzot stood on one side, lazily illuminated by the four torches in the four corners of the otherwise empty room. Miss tattered robes stood on one side of the statue and another girl was kneeling down in front of it, her gaze locked on the statue as if she was staring at something far away. “What do you see?” Asked the hooded woman to the younger one.

She seemed to struggle while figuring out an answer “A-a woman-” before she could finish speaking the cane of the robed woman hit her head, “look at the statue better, what do you see?” asked again. “A child?” She answered and again another hit of the cane. Every time the young girl looked away, the statue would change appearance, at least to her untrained eyes, the robed woman and I could see it was always the same man.

I decided to step forward and give her a hand, patting her back I pointed at his eyes. “Look in its eyes, let them dig inside you without resisting, only then you'll be able to see him.” She seemed startled from being touched by an unknown man but nodded once and tried again, suddenly her shoulders trembled and tears came out of her eyes, “N-no please.” she tried to turn her head but I prevented her to do so. After some more shaking she finally stopped.

The robed woman, unfazed by the scene asked again “what do you see?”, this time the girl replied with confidence. “A man, black hair and eyes, he is smiling at me.”