Lechuguilla

"She sleeps."

The darkness whispers deep beneath the Plaguelands. A masked and cloaked Mirror Necromancer makes her way down into the depths. Her Servus, a small Fae, flitters uncertainly after her.

"She sleeps."

From the gloom emerges a giant of a Gaoler, an ancient one of olden times. His filmy eyes are white with age, white with darkness, and white with his ancestral element. Yet his back, too, is marked with the stripes of the Mother's touch.

"She sleeps, yes. But now it is time to awaken." The Mirror holds out her left claw in greeting. "I have seen it."

"She sleeps."

The Gaoler grunts. His head turns from side to side in an attempt to see the Mirror. His massive claws sweep the ground; the Servus realizes the Gaoler's blindness and cries out a warning as she darts behind a stalagmite.

The Necromancer sends a massive spike of Plague up from the ground, purposefully missing the Gaoler's claw by an inch. Blind as he is, he senses the Plague and stops, nostrils flaring.

"I have seen it." The Mirror's lip curls in scorn. "Perhaps you have not. You are to Guard, to Protect, to Oversee. That is your task. To see is mine."

"I protect."

He is a little uncertain now. The Mirror beckons her Servus closer, and the Fae unsteadily lights a lamp. Her natural Light magic enables the small flame to light the entire cavern, where many horrors lie frozen beneath the earth. She shudders, and nearly drops the lamp, but her master's look steadies her.

The Gaoler's fur, bleached with the darkness as it is, bears darker patches underneath. The color is duller, browner, closer to the color of the Fae's scales than the Mirror's. The Mancer smiles in triumph.

"You serve," she taunts.

"I serve."

The response is automatic. Without another word the Gaoler turns, pacing down the rows of horrorbeasts. The Mirror follows confidently; the Fae, less so. Ghouls and Lichs without number lie frozen here; beasts of unknown lineage, Shade-twisted; horrors from a forgotten age...the Fae shudders. All this evil, locked under the gaze of one ancient, blind Gaoler. She is afraid.

The Mirror is not. She strides after the Gaoler, eyes fixed ahead on the one creature she seeks. The Gaoler, blind though he may be, knows each of his charges by taste, by scent, by feel, by heart. He does not pause until he reaches the one the Necromancer wants.

"Aaaaah...." She runs her tongue out in ecstasy, savoring the frozen flavor of the Plague trapped within. "Yes, she is the one."

"Are...are you certain, my lady?" The Fae shivers in the cold of the ice seeping from the giant Ridgeback. The lack of a snout indicates that it is a female, and thus more fierce than a male. She seems calm beneath the ice, her expression placid. Surely such a beast could not have gone willingly?

"This is the one." The Mirror gestures to the Gaoler. Then, remembering his blindness, she orders, "Free her."

The Gaoler grunts once more, and rears up, placing his massive claws on either side of the icy ridges. With a rending, crackling screech, huge chunks of ice fall away from the Ridgeback's sides.

Her eyes flash open, burning orange beneath the ice. Flame seeps from her maw, melting the ice around her head. The Ridgeback lets out a roar, and breaks free. Shards of ice crash around them all. The Servus ducks beneath her master's wing. The Mirror and the Gaoler pay no heed to the falling ice.

"Is it time?" the Ridgeback hisses.

"It is time," the Mirror responds.

The Fae peeps out to see that the Ridgeback is no crazed Ghoul as she feared, but rather a Necromancer like her master. Somehow, this fails to reassure her. She stays hidden.

"Your name," the Mirror demands.

"Who asks?" the Ridgeback responds proudly. "But I am Lechuguilla, the fiery menace. My Plagues were unmatched in my day, so much so that the Mother demanded I sleep until called. So I slept, for we all serve the Mother."

The Mirror ignores her question. "Now, you will fight. Creatures like these, from beyond the Void." She gestures to the rows of sleeping horrorbeasts. "They have appeared in Sorneith once more, due to the foolish experiments of the Arcanites. They must be fought. They must be defeated. And, perhaps..." she hesitates just for a moment. "They must be followed..."

The Ridgeback's eyes flame. "Understood. Shall we go?"

The Mirror nods, and they make their way out. Without turning around, she says to the Gaoler as they pass him, "I will send to you another of your kind, one to Watch with you. The Watch must be kept."

"The Watch must be kept," he echoes. And as the trio of younger dragons makes their way upwards, out of the cave, into the somber reddish light of day, his voice rises in a final wail.

"She wakes..."