21 Chapter Twenty-One – My First Magic Shrine (1/2)

The path caught my eye, because it was winding between the stones. Even with the weight of the beings making it, it was worn down. So, regular traffic. Looked like someone had even wasted time making steps.

You don't make steps to someplace that isn't a) used frequently, or b) pretty important.

Tracks didn't feel common to my tremblesense, so important it was.

I went through various scenarios leading to the looming walls of the valley as I headed in that direction, keeping an eye out for annoyances.

Stakes with skulls on them, anointed with runes blackening the ivory bone around them was not a good start. I studied the misaligned five-point stars, noting that they were actually crafted pretty well despite looking so rough and juvenile.

Ruilvei…

The Queen of Night, the Godwitch, The Dark Crone, was the patron of all black magic… and by extension, patron of all Hags and witches. A coven would be wise to have a shrine on their grounds.

She was probably the one responsible for twisting the Hag Curse into its current form. There was no way I was going to be respectful to her. I was Forsaken, she couldn't see me unless she had an avatar with line of sight to me. It was virtually impossible for a Divinity to register something as ephemeral as a Forsaken. We could give them Faith, but they couldn't hear our prayers.

Tremble whisked out, bone cracked, and the split skull fell to the ground, the star on it hissing as it shattered.

Yeah, no surprises in that thing, nope nope.

I proceeded along the trail, waiting for any guards to show.

Forewarned by the destruction of the skulls, I did indeed hear metallic feet clomping on the stone rapidly in my direction, and glided into the shadow of a stone.

Heavy steps, about the weight of men in armor, pace man-sized, strangely light… probably undead. Four of them. Weapons banging against stone and mail, not carried with much care…

Low intelligence corporeal undead in armor. Wights with armor would be my guess, although a swordwraith team was a possibility, or skeleton warriors… no, too heavy for the latter…

The fact they were wielding wraithblades to channel their energy drain ability was cheering. The crawl of necrotic energy along them was unmistakable.

I came out of the shadows and removed the heads of them whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk as I spun between them, Cleaving them dead almost instantly.

Yes, I was definitely going to need Final Rest or Vivic before I went up against the Hags. I needed better body disposal.

Tremble was happy to feast on the alchemically-treated blades, and I spent a few happy minutes harvesting the residual magic in them. I left the bodies and heads where they were, not particularly concerned with others coming up behind me and finding them.

A crude archway over a split in the valley wall, a shaded offshoot of the valley itself, basically an elongated cave.

And that stone over there was glittering in a way it shouldn't, and was in a great place to look out over the shrine entryway.

I ran for it, and up the wall of the shrine, Dragon Walking up the wall and hacking down with Tremble.

The shiny stone shattered, split in two, and popped out of the socket in the stone where it had been placed. It looked like a crystallized eyeball, which it probably was, as they were the best thing to make Hag Eyes from.

Was there a wail of pain in the distance? While Hag Eyes could be used by any member of the coven who used its matching mate, each member had to be tied to each set, and would take damage if the Eye was destroyed… which would indirectly alert them that the location of the Eye was compromised.

It would take them at least several minutes to send someone here to investigate. I inhaled, and smelled… cow, blood, rot, decay, necrotic energy, brimstone...

With a deep inhalation of breath, the Shrine Guardian stepped out to bar my way, since I wasn't exactly concealing myself by doing that.

A minotaur. Nine feet tall, ogre-sized, massive horns adding another foot. Dressed in wildly impractical armor, all black scale with tusks and spikes everywhere, looking impressive, and definitely enchanted so he wouldn't be a massive danger to himself and his surroundings. He was wielding a great axe with a double-bitted head three feet across. Hugely built, muscular, cloven feet, and fires dancing in his eyes as he faced me.