"Looks like you two are getting along," Zarath remarked, smugly as he looked at Lyra.
Sha'lara shrugged nonchalantly. "Lyra has an eye for detail. She appreciated the nuances in our body painting traditions. It's rare to find someone outside the Felinar who takes such interest." Lyra blushed slightly but grinned. "It's fascinating. Every pattern tells a story, and Sha'lara told me that the gold mixes well with my fur." Zarath looked at the patterns painted around Lyra's eyes, the gold did mix well with her red and gray fur, it would definitely draw the attention of most boys their age. Both Sha'lara and Alaric quickly picked up on the attraction between Zarath and Lyra but didn't say anything. Before anyone else could say anything both Tharon and Dagna came bursting back into the room, both their arms loaded with snack cakes and sweet breads, Tharon holding a roasted duck in one hand, both of them laughing as they dropped the food on the table everyone was gathered around.
"Did you see the look on the cooks face when he saw you, I bet that was the first time he'd ever seen a wolfkin as large as you Tharon." Dagan smacked Tharon on the lower back since as a dwarf she couldn't reach much higher anyway.
"I think he was more shocked to see you down that whole pitcher of wine in one go Dagan." Tharon rubbed his back. It was rare for him to meet someone who had just as much appetite as him or someone who could hit just as hard as him. The group began to snake on the liberated food as Dagan put it, each talking about a few different things asking mainly what Zarath, Tharon and Lyra were doing here or what the plan going forward was. Sha'lara after her body painting session with Lyra didn't seem as openly hostile to share her table with lowly mutts as she would normally say. After about an hour, Emrick returned with another Elf. This Elf wore the standard gray plate and leather armor of the wardens, mixed with blue cloth. Instead of the white griffon insignia, he had an open book and sword symbol. He carried books attached to his belt with a leather strap instead of a weapon. Adjusting his glasses, the bespectacled man spoke.
"It has been decided by me and my fellow keepers of the wardens that the three newcomers will undergo the Rite of Shadows as all warden recruits do, I will ask those of you who have already undergone the rite refrain from speaking of it."
The bespectacled elf pointed at Zarath. "Your dire wolf will also undergo the rite, now the three of you follow me and Warden Emrick." With that the elf turned and left without another word. The group slowly entered back into the main hall of the building by the entrance all the wardens had gathered even the ones the group did not see when they first entered the building. The Keeper walked to the middle of the gathering where a tall female human stood her hair was tied back into a burning red ponytail. Unlike the other wardens she wore nothing but gray plate mail with a large tower shield strapped to her back the sides of the shields designed like wings, a two-handed longsword on her hip, unlike most of the humans in Eldoria who had sun kissed or burnt skin from a long life on the coast, her skin was pale and her eyes a deep blue, Emrick stood next to her and it was easy to tell that the human women was at least a foot taller than the half elf and taller than most of the men in the hall.
"I Wing Commander Thalia Winterborne commander of the wardens here in the town of Frontier call forth these recruits to take the Rite of Shadows." As Wing Commander Thalia spoke the wardens around the group stomped their boots in sync against the stone floor.
"By my honor, my blood, and my soul, I take this oath. In life, I am a guardian of the light. In death, I am the sword against the darkness. In sacrifice, I find my eternal purpose." All the wardens spoke in a low tone even Emrick and the bespectacled elf, three cloaked figures stepped up and held out a silver chalice each with a dark black liquid.
"All three of you, Zarath, Tharon, Lyra have been touched by the blight and in order to save yourselves have come here to us, though what you seek is not a cure but a burden, to be free of the blight is to be one with the blight." Wing Commander Thalia stepped forward towards the group. "So, drink and understand the corruption you now chose to fight."
The three looked at each other than at the three silver chalices being handed to them, the dark liquid was strange almost like tar but still moved like water. Zarath quickly recognized it, the black blood of the blighted creatures they had been fighting, the same blood he drank when the blighted wyvern died on top of him. But his eyes could also see the traces of magic, the blood had been altered with purification magic. Slowly he reached out and grabbed the chalice from the hooded figure in front of him, his friends slowly doing the same thing. All the wardens, even the three recruits they had just met, watched as all three Zarath, Tharon and Lyra downed the dark liquid.
The first to feel the effects was Lyra, her throat burned and she doubled over in pain as the blighted blood slide down the inside of her throat, passing out on the floor. Tharon went to reach for her only to grab his head the fur on his body standing on his as a mind splitting headache forced him onto his knees, suddenly the sound of metal hitting stone. Everyone turned to look at Zarath, the hooded figure had dropped the chalice and backed away from the young wolfkin.
Zarath was lurched forward the claws on his fingers extended, his lips pulled back as he bared his fangs, the veins of his body glowed red visible even under his white body fur, his tail frizzed out and his eyes looked wild, he foamed at the mouth black oz dripping from his tongue. Some of the wardens reached for their weapons only for Wing Commander Thalia to stop them, the bespectacled elf looked on in gripped curiosity. "Fascinating in all my years I have never seen someone's body take the blight so easily unless they were already one of the blighted." He stepped toward Zarath, "Yet the boy still appears to be completely unfazed by the corruption." Zarath's body convulsed once more, his muscles tensing and straining under the blight's influence. Despite the violent reaction, he remained conscious.
"You have already ingested blighted blood before, haven't you?" The Elf grabbed Zarath's mouth, forcing it open to examine his fangs. "Is your white fur caused by the ingestion of the blight blood." Zarath growled and snapped at him almost taking the elves fingers off.
"I am Grak'Shrak death stalker of my people and Raxvashk of Fenraya my people's goddess of the dead." Zarath was still feeling the effects of the blighted blood breathing heavy all of the fur on his body standing on end, until he slowly began to lose his balance, falling backwards, and the world going dark as he the blighted blood finally took hold.
As Zarath fell to the floor and the lights faded out he quickly found himself back in the dreamscape. Only this time it wasn't the dark void that normal surrounded him or the endless grasslands of his patron and adoptive mother the Goddess Fenraya, no this time he found himself in what seemed almost like a private study inside someone's home a large glass window at the end surrounded by shelves of books, a desk with papers of star charts and other oddities in one corner with a stack of books next to one leg. The floor was a cool blue marble, Zarath looked around confused, he did not recognize this place, had some other god taken him to their realm as he slept.
"I see you have consumed more of my creation." The voice came from no where it was deep and melodic in its tone. Zarath turned to see the Shadow that had been tormenting him since this all began. Only this time it appeared in a more physical form two legs, two arms body and head, only it remained faceless, said for its glowing red eyes. Zarath took a few steps back.
"Ah apologize, you were expecting." Suddenly the shadow burst back into its formless snake twisting and bending around only for it to quickly return back into its faceless almost human form. "Yes well, most of the creatures that come into contact with my creation are not how you would say, dead, but you're not truly dead are no, like myself you are a mortal who lives in between life and death."
Zarath kept his eyes on the shadow as it moved towards the desk. "Your creation, you mean the Blight?"
"Is that what you mortals call it, hmm not the name I would have chosen but I guess it will do, then again I was imprisoned inside the device for hmm, tell me what year is it outside." The shadow didn't even seem to care about their past interactions or anything really other than its own train of thought. Zarath debated if he should tell this thing anything.
"Seven Fifty-Six, the fifty-second year of the Age of Vigilance." Zarath couldn't smell anything from this shadow, no fear, no lies, to him this shadowy form wasn't even there in the room with him, but here he was having an actual conversation with the thing that just claimed to be behind the creation of the blight.
"Seven Fifty-Six, hmmm so more than seven hundred years, has passed since those fools imprisoned me inside my creation, I must remember to punish those idiots that swore to free me." Without knowing it this Shadow just gave away some rather vital information, but Zarath knew no one would believe him, to them it would probably be just some fever dream from whatever was going on.
"Never mind that what I am interested in is you, not human, nor elf, not even an annoying little dwarf, hmmm." The shadow pulled a book off of one of the shelves a thick leather-bound book colored blue. "One of the beast races then, I remember when your kind first came into the world, even then your kind where primitive." Opening the book up and flipping a few pages and running his formless finger along the words of whatever he was reading.
"My Blight. As you mortals as improved so many of your kind of the centuries but in truth you are the first being ever to see me as more then a mindless being that wants to consume everything." Zarath watched as the shadow paid him no real attention, almost as if he was just another oddity in the room.
"What do you mean improved? You mean turn them into mindless monsters." Zarath couldn't hold back the bile or the growl as he spoke to this formless being.
"Mindless, No. Well, granted it does take them a few centuries to learn how to reuse tools and speak again. So, I could see why you would say mindless. But that is just a small side effect of what I granted them." The shadow closed the book hard, gently placing it back on the shelf. "But no what I gave them was a gift, immortality, the chance to be like gods, to beat death, of course I was imprisoned before I could finish my work, and those fools' destroyed years of my research, before sealing my lad away." The shadow seemed to stop and think rubbing its formless chin.
"Oh well it would appear our time is up, the gods of our world do not seem happy that we have had this little chat, especially your goddess, but do not worry this will not be our last conversation, nor will this be the last time I try and turn you to myside in this war long forgotten by you mortals." The shadow waved its formless hand as Zarath seemed to be almost ripped way into the void. Only to jolt up from his bed inside the barracks he was assigned yesterday. And yet something was different, a low hum of music and a smooth voice filled the room.
"Of all the stories that e'er I have heard, and all the stories that e'er I've told, none compare to the tales of old. When kings would ride int..,," the music stopped and was replaced by the sounds of crumpling paper. "No that doesn't sound right." Alaric the half elf, he had met yesterday was strumming on a lute and writing down lyrics on paper.
"Where are the others?" Zarath asked, his voice slightly cracked as he spoke, and his mouth felt dry. His body ached as he sat up in the bed. "What time is it?"
"By the gods your awake, glad to see you still among the living." Alaric got up off his own bunk placing his lute down beside it as he walked over to Zarath. "Honestly thought the corruption had taken you after that show at the joining ritual."
"What are you talking about that was just last night." Zarath rubbed his hands across his face, his small, elongated muzzle feeling the fur on his face was tangled and knotted as if it hadn't been brushed in a few days.
"Zarath you've been in bed for well over a week, your friends have already started training with me and the others, but honestly the high keeper as well as our menders couldn't do more than keep you comfortable, even my own healing magic wasn't able to much except easy the pain a little." Alaric explained what happened from Zarath burst of rage at the joining, about how he collapsed and unlike the others Lyra and Tharon who were back on their feet after a few hours he remained in a dead sleep for just a day over a week. Eventually the Wing Commander gave the order to leave him be, he would either wake up a warden or he wouldn't wake up at all. Lyra and Haru where the first ones to visit Zarath who had managed to get out of bed and move about the barracks a bit, some of the other wardens now his brothers and sisters in arms were shocked to see him up and about, slowly one by one his friends, Tharon and Dagna stopped by still busy with there training to talk for long, even Sha'lara the Felinar stopped by only saying "At least your not dead."
Emrick, Wing Commander Thalia, and even the bespectacled elf High Keeper, the three commanding officers of this chapter of the wardens now stood before Zarath, as it was explained to him what had happened in an official compacity.