Hand of The Eldritch God

Tayin’s winds swirled around her as she scoured the mountainside. Her winds mingled with the natural chaos of the rising thermals around the high mountain. In an absentminded moment, her winds weakened as she stared down from a high peak. A strong gust swirled around her, one not of her own. It took her hood and long blond braid from its tightly wrapped position around her head. As the green hood and blond braid fell together, the sides of her delicate face were shown.

Her ears were tipped, pointed, and long. An unnatural grace was about her slim body. Though thin, it was regal and powerful. Light danced on her skin and an undertone of blue shone under the paleness of her. No woman who walked in the sun had skin as she did, for it was supernatural.

Her chin was delicate, yet it was strong and came to a near pointed edge. Blades have been known to be far less dull.

Most of all, she gave the sensation of being above others. This was no high and mighty attitude, nor was it a particular power. It was the very mark left on her soul. For some, a mark was a curse, for others a particular mark could separate them from all others unlike them.

Her blood, from a faraway world, gave her such grace and beauty. This was not all she possessed, as winds came to her again, she too possessed great power from such a mark.

Her face regained its predatory edge. There was no doubt in her mind anymore. What she had done was right. There was no way around it, she could not let the warlock of a void God, and Eldritch

God, a devourer, a scourge upon life, a ruiner of hope, and unmaker of joy exist in this world. She knew it then, but she also knew the kind of innocence that was in Ren.

She had seen it on his face when the red-faced embarrassment hit him at times, and when he looked at her, unaware of this world, innocent of it.

Why his flesh and soul were sold to such a being, she couldn’t know, couldn’t understand. What darkness had eaten him, and why would he give himself to such a thing? Did he understand, or did he do this ignorance?

The questions still ate at her, and so did the guilt of lying and deceiving him into thinking she was his true friend. She had a duty, to find him, to kill him. The new mark that had come to her had been when she betrayed him. When her hands shook knowing she lied to someone and they would be destroyed, killed by the clerics of the Silver Goddess. The god of mercy, love, and kindness.

Tayin knew such titles were lies. No God could be benevolent. No God ascended by means less than killing every other being who stood in their way. Killing, and devouring all of the power within the world until no other could challenge them. To take and devour the divine spark within every other lifeform that touched such great heights as to kindle it within themselves.

Mortal men, humans, and likewise were just the cattle to them.

She shrugged off the anxiety that played within her and her eagle eyes looked down on the landscape below. No signs of life escaped her.

Below, the trees danced in the wind as birds fluttered through them. On their branches were squirrels and other such creatures. A large feline beast slowly stalked a large deer through the woods and it approached a clearing. The feline pounced, large and powerful jaws snapped the neck of the large antlered buck. The cat dragged its prey over to a tree as Tayin moved her eyes.

A powerful cleric paced in clearing nearly a half mile from where the buck had begun to enter in at. She watched as the man laid down a ritual and began to pray. He held aloft his holy symbol of the silver triangle bisected by a line. The chanting continued as she turned her attention further away.

Tayin had caught a glimpse of someone traveling, and to her dismay, it was only a merchant on a cart. His wagon was pulled by two beasts of burden, either horses, donkeys, or mules, she was unable to tell at this distance. Though, his massive sign of the wagon made it obvious he was advertising himself wherever he went.

She paused her search as she glanced out to a large plateau on another peak not quite a mile away. She moved quickly to find a new vantage point. While she traveled, she took glances down at the ritual where the cleric was working.

The man was in his later years, elderly usually meant powerful when it came to clerics. She had no doubt this man was likely on the same playing field as Hollwin was. Ascended three times, the elderly man was a monster when it came to healing magic. His defenses were barely enough to stop her own attacks, though he could bring back the dead as long as the body was fresh.

The one below held the same wise and aged look to him. His pacing had ceased as his ritual had begun. The ethereal mist came forth in silvery clouds and slowly collided together into four distinct forms. The mist took form slowly as the shapes began to transform into wolves. The tracking ritual had not yet been used. Reinforcements came shortly after a message was passed on by the Lord Paladin who had been visiting the Master of the monastery. The reinforcements had come swiftly and in great strength. They had not planned on using the tracking ritual, as they did not expect Ren to be able to escape. Instead, they had brought nearly a dozen separate ritualists in hopes that their combined power could be enough to break the hold of the Eldritch God on Ren.

It was just a nice perk that one of them was adept at tracking using rituals. She didn’t want to work alongside such fanatical religious men, but she had no choice. She was the one who was tasked with learning the ways of the Westerners.

When she reached the new peak to look out from, she saw the misty wolves had run into the wilds. As the clerics had said, the wolves could track people for weeks after they had left an area. Even if Ren had made it past the mountains and dozens of miles away through the difficult terrain, the wolves could find him.

Tayin herself had been one of the many who had been sent to search for him. Nothing they did showed any signs of tracks. Hollwin had theorized that Ren used the corruption of his eldritch powers to destroy the very tracks under his feet. It was an odd thought, such a thing would require an immense level of power. As a gate-keeper, Ren had been likely granted some kind of power by his patron to better understand and use magic. However it would have made sense to his mind, that the holders of gates were usually granted power by the God of their world.

The powers granted by an Eldritch God had been a mystery to the people of this world. Tayin had heard of such things as she was connected to a deeper history of the many worlds in existence. Each world existed in their own ‘pocket.’ This fact was something many Gods never let their subjects understand as it undermined the very holiness of their God.

Therefore, the humans of this world had never really understood that they were only one little dot on a map that expanded over countless parallel worlds. She understood at the very least that Ren shouldn’t have any ability with mana innately. Eldritch Gods devoured all of the energy within a world and turned it into their own source of energy. A unique power that was little understood even by the Gods of worlds that existed as hubs for different dimensions.

Tayin sighed, staring down at the sights before her. The world was beautiful, yes, but it also got quite boring staring at the same mountains day and night, day after day. She caught sight of one of the misty wolves searching for a trace of Ren. Her days had gone by slowly, they were forbidden from fighting anything so as not to get distracted. Tayin just hoped that this would all end soon.