Lesser Bloom

Within the walls of The Crystal Spire, nestled deep within the Spire's crystalline vaults, the sound of soft scribbling echoed between the walls of polished bone and etched crystal shelves groaning under the weight of infinite tomes, scrolls, and grimoires. - Oswin Dragonbane, 19, Frontline Berserker, killed in a skirmish with goblin wolfriders. - Phelan Steelwind, 23, Frontline Berserker, died defending the camp from undead hordes. - Jorah Nightshade, 41, Lieutenant, perished in an avalanche triggered by enemy magic. - Nolan Steelwind, 35, Grenadier, fell in battle against orc raiders. - Thrain Doomhammer, 29, Battlemage, perished in a cavalry charge against orc champions. - Hadrian Ravenscar, 21, Mounted Archer, sacrificed himself to destroy an enemy war engine. - Timothy Stormheart, 20, Lieutenant, killed by an enemy's pike. - Leon Ashenfal, 63, Reserve soldier, perished while covering the retreat of his comrades. - each page a soul's ledger, inscribed with birth, deeds, demise, and damnation in ink distilled from the essence of the departed. - These mortals are really not giving me a moment of peace. - Jergal murmur before he stopped for a moment to contemplate what he had been just written down. After a few moments, he sat back to his colossal central desk of petrified oak scarred by eons of quill-scratches, piled with fresh parchments fluttering in an unfelt breeze. Jergal hunches there, a skeletal figure in tattered robes, his bony fingers wielding a massive Raven quill that drips ethereal ichor, eternally updating the Great Record amid the faint rustle of undead scribes shuffling volumes in alcoves. Dim, pulsing light filters through translucent walls, casting long shadows that twist like unraveling lifelines; the air reeks of musty parchment, faded incense, and the metallic tang of inevitable decay—no comfort, no color, only the ceaseless tick of a cosmic doomsday clock echoing from unseen depths. Here, fate is audited in silence, every name a footnote in the world's slow entropic unraveling. Jergal grabbed the old Raven quill, his long, fingers scribbled relentlessly the thousands of names and their stories, whose lives got lost in battles that were way too insignificant for a God like him to care about. As he wrote the next name his eyebrows frowned. He softly mumbled the name like a forgotten oath. - Lady Lirael of Aerindel... 15, half-elf healer, died of exhaustion and grief... - Jergal stopped. This had been his whole existence now, yet from time to time, when he saw a soul this young, something slightly stirred inside of him. Dismissing the faint sensation, he took a glance on the paper in front of him. His shining eyes opened wider as he realized, all of the names he had been writing down, disappeared and that could mean only one thing. He stood up, his dark hardwood throne screeching onto the volcanic stone floor. Jergal grabbed meticulously the latest parchments in front of him and headed towards the double sided doors. He closed the doors behind him with a slow motion, since neither him nor his tasks were in a hurry to anywhere. Once he was out of his study he snapped his fingers and found himself in the demigod's study that he despised the most. Velsharoon's study, the necrotic heart of Death's Embrace, is a decadent chamber of profane opulence: a cavernous vault with walls of blackened ossuary brick, veined in glowing green runes that writhe like parasitic worms, and vaulted ceilings dripping viscous ichor from illusory bloodroses. Jergal frowned at the scene in front of him as the self crowned Archmage of Necromancy, grinned sitting at his black marble desk looking at a bleeding white rose. - Velsharoon. - Jergal called and the grin froze on the demigod's face. He turned towards the God with disgust. 10-foot-tall skeletal sovereign in worm-riddled purple robes and tarnished silver crown, eyes abyssal pits flickering with malevolent green flames, put the rose down and looked at Jergal without trying to hide his annoyance. - Jergal... My old friend! - He said with faked kindness. - What may I thank your sudden appearance? - He asked and Jergal with his usual calmness, that pissed Velsharoon and anyone of slightly more level headed temperament off, spoke in a low deep voice. - You have been tampering with the dead again. - Velsharoon shrugged with a mocking grin. - That's my specialty! You should thank me to be fair, I'm just trying to take off some of the load from your shoulders. - Jergal kept looking at the young Demigod waiting patiently for an explanation and when he didn't receive any, he said. - I don't remember asking for any assistance. You shouldn't meddle with the most fundamental law of mortal existence anyway. - Velsharoon rolled his eyes. - What borns must die one day, is most outdated rule of all! But if you are so worried , I can give those souls back to you. I've had my fun anyways. - said mockingly trying to get an ounce of reaction put of the stoic old God, without a success. - Care to provide and explanation? Jergal asked showing the empty parchments. - Velsharoon motioned on the blood red leather sofa in front of his desk with a wide grin. - Take a seat old man, this will be a long story. Velsharoon sent one of his servants to fetch some tea. The servant returned with a mug made out of vines and human bones handing it to the God with trembling hands. - Gray willow bark tisane, steeped in water drawn from the colorless rivers of the Fugue Plane itself. As plain and bitter as yourself Jergal. - The God didn't pay attention to the mockery of his younger hated peer and took a sip of the hot liquid. - Enough of the pleasantries. What have you done? - Jergal asked mentally preparing for the damage control that might be necessary after Velsharoon's latest experiment. That's how he called whenever he granted a favor or tampered with the souls of the living. Velsharoon's necromancy represents a profound cosmic perversion—a vile meddling that defies the inexorable order of death he, Jergal, has meticulously recorded since time immemorial. As the ancient Lord of the End of Everything and eternal Seneschal of the Dead, Jergal views death not as a tragedy, but as the ultimate, orderly fate awaiting all things: a final accounting where every soul is tallied in his endless ledgers before passing into oblivion. On the other hand, Velsharoon seeks to shatter this balance by twisting life into eternal undeath, binding souls to decaying husks and denying them their rightful end. Jergal actively combats these efforts, pouring his weary but unyielding focus into thwarting Velsharoon's schemes to "prolong life into undeath". Therefore each time names dissappear from his parchments and records, not only his hard work goes into the abyss, but also he has to make sure those names return where they belong, and that's in his files, as soon as possible. - You are no fun. - Velsharoon said and Jergal kept staring at him, waiting. - You probably know about the current ongoing war between Lord Aerindel's army and recruits and the Orc raiders from the Crags and Neverwinter Wood's endless skirmishes. - Jergal nodded. The latest names he had written down, all passed away during that war. Velsharoon grinned. - Well, this little eyes of mine saw something so peculiar that I couldn't just turn a blind eye on it. A young half-elf mage with such an immense life force and natural talent that it would've been a real petty to let it go to waste. You see, she was mourning the fellow soldiers that unfortunately lost their lives due to some selfishness, and I, as a good Samaritan, decided to offer her some aid. - Under offering some aid, you mean to use her for your own selfish joy. - You really can't loosen a bit right? I just helped her to bring her friends back so all her hard work won't go to waste. - That explains why all the names disappeared. - You worry too much. Take a look at those old parchments you are carrying around like treasures. - Jergal took a peak on his documents and saw that most of the names had reappeared on them. He took his time to read through the names and looked at Velsharoon. - One is missing. - he said and the Demigod Shrugged. - I hope you didn't think I'll just give you back a favored soul of mine. That little lady belongs to me now. But you can write her name down on your ledger, because the one known by the name Lirael of the House Aerindel, is dead. - Jergal looked at Velsharoon and his always stoic demeanor broke for a single second at what he heard. He got up, picked his parchments and took one last look at Velsharoon who was staring at him expectantly. - I'll see you around Velsharoon. - Jergal said and headed towards the door. Velsharoon's grey hand held his own cup a bit harder and as soon as the timeless God were out of his study, he groaned in anger and threw the cup against the door. His minions started to clean up but tried to stay out of sight of their angered master. "Damn old skeleton..." - Velsharoon thought before he spanned his fingers to order his assistant to get him a new drink, something stronger this time. In the meantime, Jergal slowly shuffled back to his office. Every step was pleasant, comfortable, and deliberate. After all, he was in no hurry. His fingers carefully gripped the stack of papers he had brought with him. His shoulders ascended and descended slowly without a sound as he took a look around his surroundings, before he kept his journey back to the Crystal Spire. The grotesque spectacle that surrounded him reminded him why he didn't visit here often, apart from the fact that Velsharoon wasn't exactly the apple of his eye, if he had any favorites at all. From Death's Embrace's fetid crypts, he emerged onto Mungoth's scorched slopes: rivers of molten filth snaking through ashen dunes under a sky choked with sulfurous haze, where marraenoloths ferry damned souls and yugoloths scheme in bone-forged citadels. Dodging herds of osyluths and the plane's petard winds that hurl shards of obsidian, Jergal—shrouded in his tattered cloak. He continued his journey, through the roiling Astral Sea, silver-dead and mummified with ancient god-corpses, evading githyanki astral raiders or astral dreadnoughts drawn to divine auras. Till reaching to Fugue Plane's eternal gray where the Crystal Spire towered into the wast sky. His arrival, just like his journey didn't culminated into a celebration, Jergal walked back into his own study. No fanfare, no rest—just the scratch of ink on parchment, fates tallied, as if the detour to thwart undeath was but a tedious footnote in entropy's endless tome.