Epilogue

The 16th day of Rzandol, Axian Year 7803

The world is now a completely different place.

My master has seen fit to give me another chance to perform in the world of the Living. In its infinite mercy, I was pulled from the sublime embrace of Death by its hand and given many new powers. What would surely end the lives of others is now a mere nuisance to me. While I was given these grand gifts, I still had to pull myself from beneath a boulder.
Upon freeing myself, I saw what was a factor in my initial death. A Halfling male, aged 38, lay prone and broken at my feet in the ruined temple I created for my master. I looked about the broken walls and the ruins of my home above and thought that I should feel some feeling, yet I did not. Was this yet another gift from my master: the ability to know, but not be taken over by emotion?
True to the will of the Benefactor, I was indifferent at the knowledge that I escaped death at the hands of a sworn protector of a misguided male notion of what is “good” yet again. Males: always a thorn in the side of justice and what is truly right in the world. The claims of right and wrong issued from their mouths are but a hollow gesture to the women who have paid with their lives and their freedom in the wake of their wars. The only way, some males may say, to achieve peace. After many years of contemplation and experimentation, I have found another way.
It is my discovery that frightens the established world of thought, as have the necromancers who have preceeded me on this material plane. The idea of order and balance in the world of mankind is aberrant to the minds of most males and their wiling whores. They see the actions of my like-minded practitioners as evil for evil’s sake. Nay, my work is not evil, but it fails to meet the ‘holy’ approval of the janissaries of the false gods. That is enough to knock the feather from their caps and label my work as they see fit.
Would they deign to know about this work and its practitioners, they would know that it is we—the mortal masters of the undead—that achieve what they can only promise in theory: peace and everlasting life. It is a form of mercy unknown to the false gods and their followers. The world has chosen not to follow the path of what is good and holy, relegating it to the back room as if it were a secret shame.

In response to the faint glow of my Adventurer’s Guild medallion, I believe that I should resume my duties as an Adventurer—nay, a Crusader, for I seek adventure no longer. I now seek to implement a solution long overdue.
It seems that my master has agreed with my decision, for it has showered me with all the tools I would need to complete my mission. Old texts and manuscripts, and even older artifacts have fallen through the gaps of the rubble and stone above my head. They are all useful components for my future campaign, my maps of Kinjeti in particular. Their proximity to the fallen Halfling’s helmet reminded me of a place I had not been to in some time.
The Collection Room had not changed since I last crossed the dimensional door from my basement (when it was still a basement) into the pristine white marble walls and myriad trophies. I passed by the shield of Bors the cleric and the last three daggers still locked in the bandolier of Va-shi the elven battle-mage, to an empty manikin head. I placed the helmet of the fallen Halfling paladin onto the manikin head, recalling the male’s name and writing it on the plaque below: Cyan.
As I left the dimensional door, the night’s gloom was of no comfort to me as it once provided. I looked above and saw Rzandol shining down. I climbed out of the chasm that was my home and laboratory and stood upon a sturdy part of my collapsed roof. The light of the moon flashed blue on my pale skin…and it reminded me of young Inia.
I had many applications for the positive results with my experiment in ectoplasmic and incorporeal manipulation and the resultant proof of my hypothesis that an incorporeal being, such as a ghost, can be returned to the world of the Living through spells. The details of my initial experiment with Inia’s immortal soul are detailed in an earlier log, but this latest development could only be a side effect of the resultant simulated aging and brain development of the average teenager. Falling in love, rebelliousness and general ignorance of the world around her was a sure sign that my experiment with Inia was far too successful.
There were to be no interferences in her life and my control of it, but an unanticipated variable entered into the equation that was my calculated experiment.
I’ll be damned if it wasn’t a male.

As my young subject goes off to the west, I can only look on through the cloud of iridescent green dust for I must not fail my master a second time with the foibles of mortality, such as impulse. I will plot. I will plan. When my machinations are beyond the restrictions of any possible failure, when my grand army of the undead is a mighty force I will strike at the world and charge roughshod over the kingdoms and potentates of mankind. Then the world will join me in peace.

Whether they want to or not.

-Blackheart the Destroyer