Steph's Fiction

Hello Readers! Here is Chapter 2. It is entirely fictional and meant for entertainment only. And I don't claim that it's any good. LOL

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Sephria shifted her position awkwardly, both because of the shackles and because of her disgust with the human shell she now occupied. She kept her arms abnormally far from her torso, as if her own body were poisonous to touch.

The soldiers had deposited her in what was both a dungeon and a laboratory. The stone walls swallowed the cavern, blood-streaked and filthy. The large cage in which she was now sitting had enough shackles for five or six other prisoners, though she was alone. The barred doors had been slid open to allow a walkway to her cell from a large wooden desk, cluttered with instruments - some for science, while others, Sephria noted grimly, by their hideous appearance were intended for anything but careful measurement. The only source of light was a fire near the desk that cackled angrily beneath a cauldron.

Only two soldiers stood guard at the moment: one at the cavern's entrance and the other near the "office", as Sephria tried to deem it. The three remaining soldiers had taken leave once she had been shackled; Morgalanth's magical protections would impede prisoner escape as effectively as the three footmen could. Although the wizard rarely worked in the dungeons, having little need for living subjects - unlike his necromatic colleagues - he did maintain command over this one cavern. For this, Sephria was thankful: her master's influence was the only reason why she was not being tortured by necromancers this very moment.

Morgalanth himself was yet nowhere to be seen. Her telepathic abilities were gone; this, she knew moments after her transformation when she'd tried to contact him, and failed. If she could not contact him, she would have to wait. He was likely still preoccupied with authorities, trying to buy them some time to figure out what had gone awry with the experiment, and, most importantly - how to return her to her true form before she was seized and killed for her blasphemous existence.

This was her first moment alone since her capture, though she dared not try to escape. Even if her master's wards somehow recognized her and allowed passage out of the cavern, she could not risk an encounter with the soldiers of the Indigo Brotherhood without knowledge of how her powers would work in this body. First, she would quietly attempt to cast a spell.

Checking that both guards had averted their gazes from her, she organized her thoughts in her mental bookshelf: setting aside her immediate fears of execution, she tunneled deep into her mind and found the core elemental threads that were a part of every being. Ice, she concentrated. Her schooled mind was able to clutch that elemental power, pull it up, up into the forefront of her mind, into her blood, down her veins. Then, she allowed the energy to build into her fingertips... There! Yes, she had it! Now, only to focus the power - she snapped open her eyes, locked her shackles into view, and: Release!

Nothing. Shaking her head in incomprehension, she watched the chain for a moment more. It did not shatter, as she intended; it remained intact. She let out a disappointed breath, feeling much more exhausted than she should. Everything had felt right... the power was there... but why would it not release?

Somehow, she felt, that her last link to her powers was related to her transformation. If she wanted her power back, she needed her body back. And, to get her body back, she needed to re-enact Morgalanth's experiment to reverse whatever had happened.

Hurry, Master. Please!

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For the second time that day, Morgalanth's boots clapped loudly down the corridor between the Commons and Neriak's Third Gate, though this time in the direction of the Commons. He was able to postpone Sephria's immediate execution - if, indeed, the creature was Sephria. His foremost desire was to communicate with creature to establish what exactly had happened. Was it really her? Had he just imagined her face on that creature's body? Either way, he had already put himself at great risk for sparing the creature and requesting that it be kept in his laboratory. He would have to come up with an explanation: his research wasn't exactly condoned by her majesty and his work would be in jeopardy should the outcome of his request cause her concern.

He extended his mind yet again in attempt to communicate with Sephria, angry that she would not respond. Accustomed to posing questions to her telepathically at his leisure, and the length of time that they had collaborated closely to prepare for this experiment, the separation from her was as if a part of his own mind had been shut down. Although he refused to admit that the situation frightened him, he was indeed vehemently furious.

Citizens, young initiates and soldiers alike cowered out of his path as he clipped towards the dungeons. Reaching the gateway, he paused as a guard nervously fumbled with the gate to allow his passage. Don't lose it, he reprimanded himself as the young guard glanced fearfully as he passed. It would not do to allow rumors of his upset to spread. Collecting his calm, he ran over the experiment in his mind.

Translocation between universes required the ability to lift one's identity from one plane and up into another. Morgalanth had long theorized that life and death were merely gateways to move one's primary identity into the various levels of the universe.

Their neighbouring academic body - the widely-loved Necromancers, were obsessed with transferring life energy from the world of the dead up into the world of the living, studying diseases, torture, suffering, and the art of resurrection - anything that lingered on the borders of life and death. With a god like Innoruuk, the Prince of Hate overseeing the Dark Elven population, it was no surprise that the most widely-accepted fields of study would involve the destruction of life. The Necromancers had long-ago perfected the art of raising and controlling the dead. It was not an uncommon sight in Neriak to see an undead creature in the city streets.

Morgalanth believed that these dead, when summoned up from the underworld to serve the caster's bidding, may actually be shadows of the casters themselves from the world beneath. Necromancers, unbeknownst to themselves, could gradually be weakening themselves each time they brought forth the undead. Morgalanth took a different view on magic, and was most interested in exploring the furthest stretches of its power in all directions, beyond the mastery of death and disease, which he believed to be skewed and misguided. The Necromancers held that there were only two levels of the universe: that of the living and that of the dead. Morgalanth knew that there were more, but he kept his controversial theories to himself - for now.

Sephria's ability to move her consciousness beyond into multiple levels - without being killed - would interest the Necromancers, indeed. What would they do if they knew that there was more to the world than merely "living" and "dead"? They would finally realize that their narrow-minded shunning of the True arts, practiced in Morgalanth's own House of the Spurned were even more pleasing to the god Innoruuk than was the art of Necromancy. Imagine the glory he could show to his god were he to have access to multitudes more planes to draw his power upon than those pathetic Necromancers. He chuckled. They would have to re-think their precious religion. Even Neriak's nobility, so closely tied to religion that it was, would be thrown into chaos should such a realization be made. Morgalanth's own apprentice was living proof that Neriak's religious and political leaders had it all wrong.

He would have to play his cards carefully. He paused at the doorway, firelight gently escaping into the hall: she would be in here.

He entered the cavern, nodded at the guard and bypassed his own desk to stride directly into Sephria's cell, out of earshot of the guards. She sat in a shadowed corner, shackles clanking as she stood to meet him.

Sephria's eyes glimmered in recognition as he approached. He quashed his feelings of relief that she was unharmed, and at the same time felt the disgust at the prospect of having a conversation with a lightwalker.

"Why is your mind closed?" he demanded, keeping his voice low and out of earshot of the guards. "Is this deliberate?"

She shook her head. "No- I tried communicating with you also, but there's a... a block or something. I can't hear anything." It was unmistakably Sephria's voice, and she spoke the language of the Tier`Dal perfectly.

Morgalanth watched her for a moment, phrasing his next question. She moved her fingers to her temple to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, then snatched her hand away as her fingers brushed her stubby, pink, and distinctly un-elvish ear.

He was not mistaken. It was her. Would she be able to move her mind back into her true form? What link did she have with this alternate form? Could this effect be reproduced? Most importantly: How would he harness this power, and use it to prove his superiority to the Dark Father? The Necromancers would regret their scorn, when Innoruuk named his Tower of the Spurned the true source of magic for their people!

Mwuha ha ha ha ha!!!