Shape Shifter
Mia speaks, her voice carries an inhuman distortion “I do know something. Not about this room, but it is something that would interest you greatly.”
“What is that?”
“Isn’t it ironic that we should find something like this. A thing in the spot where you would least expect it. That you should find an enemy in the place where you least expect it.”
Leone, Ozzob and Dedrick strain to find a clear view of Mia. She conceals her face in the shadows. Quickly a flash of control lights reveal all. Her skin is grey and flaking off in huge chunks. Her eyes are the definition of red, but not glowing. She has become a gnarled visage of evil with not a single element of her former fair appearance in sight.
Daggers fly from Mia’s hands. Through the air a blade strikes home in Dedrick’s arm while another nicks the edge of Ozzob’s cloak–it tumbles into a wall smashing lights and gears.
Leone rushes at Mia with his weapons drawn. As he moves in a blue glow fills the room behind Mia. He rushes in with abandon but looses his animation as his belly is pierced with a rapier. Dedrick looks on from the side, an energetic blue blade passes through Leone. Slowly he lowers to his knees. Mia retracts the weapon from his body, blue light fades from behind Leone and now floods his face. Leone slowly closes his eyes and timbers over to his left, sprawling out on the floor, unmoving.
Mia and Ozzob exchange stares. Dedrick makes some gestures and accompanies them with an inhuman groan. Suddenly Mia vanishes. Ozzob looks at Dedrick with confusion.
“We have but a few seconds. She will reappear.”
“In the same place?”
“Yes.”
Space its self wobbled–energy waves filled a volume where she was standing. Ozzob looked to the floors and walls–metal everywhere. Pieces of everything began to fly from the walls, innumerable mechanical objects merged and morphed. A monstrous metal groan filled the room and even echoed above. A shape began to form, a metal box constructed its self in the very place where Mia would reappear. Ozzob stepped up to a side of the construct, he reached forward with a hand and a hole folded open in the side. A blue glow could be seen inside the box. Ozzob closed his eyes, hand still in position, he unleashed with a score of flames. He turned away from the metal death room and the hole sealed up. An echoed bang could be heard from inside the chamber. The sound receded and then there was nothing.
#
Ozzob rushes over to the body of Leone and looks at the center mast wound he received from the shape shifter. Moments pass as Ozzob simply stares at the blood leaking out on the floor. Dedrick steps into Ozzob’s vision, he bears a questioning look; not speaking, but asking if he is able to save Leone. Ozzob closes his eyes and waves a hand over the corpse. The flow of blood reverses and Leone’s body begins to take shallow breaths. After a few minutes he is fully animate; only a fading scar and sliced shirt remains of the mortal wound he received.
#
Hours have passed since the beleaguered adventures killed the shape shifter that was hiding as a member of there group. A thorough search of the room has revealed two letters folded together. Ozzob reads the first letter aloud.
“I will be in the guise of a student named Jelelof. Whenever our forces are ready, I open the doors. We will reclaim the Gem of Rhulgar in victory, and may the burnt corpses of our enemies be damned. Signed, Kala’Tan, Master of the Dark.”
Dedrick wears a puzzled and panicked look. He responds to the others questioning stares.
“That is my home the message speaks of… and I am not there to defend it. Jelelof is student to my brother.”
Ozzob reads the second letter aloud.
“Beware
the sorcerer of Woodwake. We used the amulet you supplied to lure away
one of the
Leone speaks, “The doppelganger must have been trying to get close to you and decided to take the likeness of Mia, but why lure us here?”
Ozzob responds, “The only reason could have been to expose this information, perhaps this dead creature had a conscience, or perhaps it did not want to be the only one to die.”
Dedrick looks around the room, throws down the piece of junk he was holding and begins to run out the door and back up the stair.
Ozzob throws up a hand and asks, “Where are you going?”
Dedrick slows and the door and looks back, “I must get back to my brother, I am probably too late already.”
“Where is your temple?”
“Two days walk south from the Pillar of Allum’nar.”
Ozzob approaches and places a hand on Dedrick’s
shoulder, “You will never make it in time.
Please come with me, I know a faster way.”
#
“Events will forever
unfold.” laments the voice of amazement.