Egress Peloar sat cross-legged, forming the magical gestures with his gracefully interweaving hands. The gentle rays of an early spring sun shown through the peaceful Windsaeve forest, in the land of western Calador, around the stealth field which hid the two robed figures from the eyes of the world.
The pale, alien, five-inch-high mushroom in front of him glowed with a faint green light, as the otherworldly magic took hold, and the obsidian-skinned uzruul elf stood up from his heinous task.
“It works,” he said, almost indifferently.
“The first step toward victory, my friend,” came the reply from behind him.
Egress looked back at his companion.
The exposed facial bones and empty sockets were complimented by a bony shell, covered in once-splendid but now dilapidated robes. The sight of a lich wizard was unnerving to most people, to say the least. But Egress considered himself not like others, as he calmly replied to the undead Maguleth, “The first of many, my master.”
“‘Master’? Not ‘friend’?” Maguleth asked with all civility. “Are you not happy to be a part of this great plan for which we have spent so many a year preparing?”
It was always impressive how a mouth lacking proper lips could form words so eloquently, Egress reflected. Raising up his right hand, exposing the enchanted Green Nail on his thumb, he stated, “I have never forgotten why I’m here, master.”
He had a moment to display the seal of his curse, before Maguleth made a gesture of his own, with his right thumb and forefinger in a pinching motion.
The Nail followed its master’s command, and a searing pain, like burrowing barbed tendrils, shot up Egress’ arm, doubling him over and bringing him to his knees.
Clutching his wrist, he gritted his teeth silently, denying his tormentor the satisfaction.
“Yes. You’re right,” Maguleth said. “It’s good that we always remember our place in this world. And power is what defines that place.”
Egress caught his breath, as the corpse-like wizard turned away from his suffering, and toward the small flock of tattered vultures waiting under the shade of a nearby great tree. As Egress struggled to his feet, Maguleth recited an arcane phrase, and the birds – which were more constructs than living things – promptly melted and rippled into a silvery substance, flowing like liquid mercury to form a shimmering pool, 15 feet in diameter.
Wordlessly, he joined Maguleth as he stepped into the liquid portal, and walked down as if on a set of stairs.
As the wizards disappeared from view, the pool shrank and disappeared as well, not leaving any trace that it or its users had ever been there.
The glow faded from the mushroom. The birds sang in the trees, and the serene woodland bathed in the warming sunlight, blissfully ignorant of the nightmare taking root.
