Allologue 6

*Third Wheel of Biltenth, After Calamity 922*

Anguish sat at the bar looking at the empty glasses arrayed before
her. She was interested in mortal custom, and toasting victory after
a hard-won battle seemed to be one of them. She was not expecting all
of the soldiers to want to buy her a drink, however, and she
suspected that even with her fiendish constitution, this was quickly
becoming out of hand. The lights around her blurred ever so slightly,
and a warm, fuzzy sensation had settled into the pit of her stomach.
The room was filled with raucous laughter as her men enjoyed
themselves around her, though she remained firmly rooted to her bar
stool so that she could keep her head over her feet.

It
had been several years since the mortal known as McTavitt had freed
her from her prison within the Tomb of Memory, and longer still since
she had experienced the thrill of battle. Alongside McTavitt there
had been a few roving packs of undead and bandit incursions, and
today’s briefing seemed as if it would promise more of the same
small scale skirmishes. Anguish was delighted to learn that the magi
had more than double the strength of arms than they had originally
assessed. The secret sect of magi had kept hidden the locations of
the four Fanes of the Devoured, locations from which the dark god
could be restored to life or used to some other end. Which one
McTavitt intended, she did not know. As far as he was concerned, it
was enough that he had finally made good on the promises he had made
when he drew her into his fold several years prior. The blood had
flowed freely, and Anguish recalled with satisfaction the moment
when, after breaking their forces, she had crushed under her boot the
skull of one of the magi leaders.

He then clinked his glass against hers and drank deeply. The rest of
the tavern erupted into cheers, and though she downed her own glass
in kind, she was surprised to find her other hand gripped tightly
around the pommel of the sword once known as the Brightblade. She
mentally pried her fingers from the sword, finished her glass, and
set it down on the bar. She then excused herself to her rooms.

The accommodations at the tavern were not those which she was
accustomed to in the palaces of Mephistopheles, but all of the mortal
lodgings she had experienced thus far remained a fair sight better
than those she had suffered while a prisoner of Acererak. She slumped
into the single desk chair provided. When she looked up, a great grin
was plastered across her face.

“So, can’t hold your liquor?” Dyana said.

Though
her words were slurred, Lady Dyana Brightblade was once again in
control of her body for the first time in what seemed like ages.
Immediately she crossed the room unsteadily and opened the only
window. Looking down to see that there was more than street to land
on below, Dyana tipped out of the window and plummeted onto a produce
cart that had been parked below. She sprang out of the carriage to
her feet and began a meandering sprint towards the town’s edge,
hoping to put enough distance between her and McTavitt before he
realized she was missing.

She could see that the tower of the magi still burned, and the smoke
curling up from it was mingling with the thick black clouds overhead.
Though it was daytime, the sky was dim and the streets below were all
but deserted. No one tried to stop her as she crossed the border of
the edge of town into the woods beyond. As Dyana fled through the
woods, making significant headway as she used the Brightblade to
carve a path through the brush, her movement was arrested abruptly.

Anguish
sheathed her blade and turned back the way they came. “A valiant
effort,” she said to the other consciousness within her. “But you will have to do more to be rid of me.”