"Abrahms, you continue to be the same deluded fool Mother always accused you of being."

Continuing to push through the underbrush after his brother, Jebidiah Essington cursed whatever gods would listen. Why did his brother have to be so single-minded? Why did he insist on accompanying him on his quest?

Cursing again as a branch snapped back and left a thin line of blood along his cheek, Abrahms hurried to catch up with his brother. "Jebidiah stop!", he cried angrily. "I will go no further! This is madness! Do you even know where we are?"

"Close, my brother, very close.", Jebidiah replied, a cold smile finding its place on his narrow face. Without another word, he turned and continued into the forest deep within the southern plains, a forest that, by all reports, had sprung up where none had been before. A forest thick with thorny branches that resisted all attempts to penetrate it.

"And my bullheaded brother thinks he can get through.", Abrahms snorted. "Well, I've followed him through worse situations than a few thorns before, I suppose." Twisting to avoid another bush riddled with barbed thorns, he continued on after his brother, cursing every step.

After what seemed like days, the thick, angry forest gave way to a clearing. As the thorny brush parted, a circle of dead earth came into view, barren, bereft of even a single blade of grass. As Abrahms watched, Jebidiah walked to the center of the cracked circle of dirt and sank to his knees. "Ahhh... just as I dreamed, brother!", Jebidiah crowed triumphantly. "This is the place our Lord will return. This is the... what... what is happening?" As Abrahms watched, from the edges of the dead circle of earth, figures ruse from the ground... skeletal figures, figures of rotting flesh, wispy ghost-like figures, figured wrapped in burial cloths grown stale and mouldy, and one figure, tall and pale, with glowing eyes and sharp fangs evident in its mouth. Each rose to stand facing Jebidiah, ringing him in unearthly power. The fanged creature stepped forward to stand before Jebidiah, who knelt still in the center of the ring.

"Greetings, Jebidiah.", he said, his voice full of power and malice. "You have been called here to witness the re-birth of your Lord and Master. You should feel fortunate. However, you were to come alone." Turning to gaze at Abrahms, he said simply, "Therefore, for your disobedience, he will be the first sacrifice to the Master. Kill him."

"No!", Jebidiah screamed, rising to his feet, but the fanged creature fixed him with a steely gaze, uttered a phrase of powerful magic, and froze him in his tracks. As his bones turned rigid, his eyes saw the creature wrapped in burial rags lurch towards Abrahms, who had been blocked from fleeing by a wall of skeletal creatures. With a single word, the creature extended a hand, causing unearthly blue fire to erupt from within Abrahms's chest as the magical word forced his soul out of his body in one massive rush of pain. As Abrahms collapsed to the ground, dead, Jebidiah tried with all his might to break the stasis the fanged sadist had inflicted upon him, but the paralysis held, and the creature merely laughed at his imprisonment.

"CEASE THIS POINTLESS BICKERING." A voice like rock and magma rumbled from the ground beneath the circle, knocking every standing creature from their feet and breaking the paralysis that had held Jebidiah from reaching his brother. With a strangled cry, he lept from the circle, calling upon his training the arts of the Monshai to carry him over the heads of the creatures rising once again, and carrying him to land beside his brother's body. "IT IS DONE, I AM RETURNED ONCE MORE." The ground within the circle erupted, sending a shower of death earth over the clearing. When the shower cleared, a creature unlike any before it, stood there. The lesser creatures of skeletal bone and rotting flesh had been destroyed by the eruption. Only the wrapped creature and the fanged creature remained, although the burial wrappings had been virtually ripped off by the force of the eruption. Jebidiah saw none of this, blinded by anger at his brother's death and vengence towards the creature that had imprisoned him.

"WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS, SKALAR?" the voice asked, no longer shaking the ground with its rumbling, but no less harsh and powerful. "You bade him come alone, Master..." the Skalar replied, "I merely sought to ensure things would be to your likUUGH..." The voice ended abruptly in a gurgling gasp. This sound penetrated Jebidiah's anger and he turned to look back at the clearing. There, standing the height of several ogres, stood a skeletal dragon, bones bleached a gleaming white, as if steamed clean of all offending flesh by the heat of a volcano. In its talon, the fanged creature writhed and twisted as the skeletal dragon brought it up to fix it with glowing red eyes. "YOU FOOL. LOST IN YOUR SHORTSIGHTED LUST FOR POWER AND GLORY, YOU HAVE KILLED ONE WHO ALSO WOULD HAVE BEEN MINE. THIS LACK OF VISION WILL, FORTUNATELY, NO LONGER BE OF CONCERN TO ME." With a twist of his talon, the dragon ripped the fanged creature in half, dark red blood spewing out all over the clearing, but strangely enough, not marring its own white bones.

Watching in glorious horror and fascination, Jebidiah watched as the creature turned its dead, impassive gaze on him. "JEBIDIAH, YOU HAVE COME. GOOD. PUT AWAY YOUR GRIEF, IT IS WASTEFUL. YOUR BROTHER WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU." Jebidiah heard a cough, turned, and saw Abrahms beginning to rise, breathing steadily. "Thank you, Lord Zhalith, for the life of my brother and the death of my tormentor," Jebidiah said, his voice becoming steadier as he helped his brother to his feet. "AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, SO SHALL IT BE AGAIN. MY POWER IS DEATH, PAIN, SUFFERING, AND THE CORRUPTION OF THE NATURAL ORDER, EVEN THE EARTH ITSELF. COME FORWARD, BOTH OF YOU."

Walking forward, Abrahms beheld the draconic skeleton with a mixture of terror and fascination. How could such a thing have happened, Zhalith returned to the Realms once more? Responding to Abrahms thoughts as if spoken aloud, Zhalith rumbled, "MY POWER IS SUPREME. JOIN ME, AND I WILL SHARE THIS POWER WITH YOU. YOU AND YOUR BROTHER WILL BE MY FIRST, AND YOU WILL BRING WORD OF MY POWER TO THE IGNORANT WORLD." Without another thought, Jebidiah knelt, followed quickly by Abrahms. "I accept, dread lord.", Jebidiah intoned. "I will follow you, and I will bring word of your return to the rest of the world." Abrahms nodded and agreed, "As shall I, Lord Zhalith. We will follow you unto death... and beyond."

Chuckling, a sound like rocks grating upon one another, Zhalith rose up. "THEN TAKE THIS, MY SYMBOL. KNOW THAT THIS DAY, THE CLAN OF JHEHERRIN IS ALSO REBORN. KNOW THAT I BRAND YOU, JEBIDIAH, MY MORTAL VOICE, MY SERVANT OVER ALL OTHERS, AND YOU, ABRAHMS, HIS LIEUTENANT. IT FALLS TO THE BOTH OF YOU TO SPREAD THE WORD, AND TO BRING OTHERS OF LIKE MIND INTO OUR SERVICE. DO NOT FAIL ME." Lowering his head to stare at Jebidiah, Zhalith uttered words of power in a language neither knew, and suddenly, Jebidiah's body contorted, as if hit by lightning. When the sensation cleared, Jebidiah felt in his mind once more the knowledge of Zhalith's power which defied death, fueled creatures by the corruption of the power of the earth and the natural cycle of life itself. Looking up in cold, arrogant joy, Jebidiah smiled a slow, cruel smile, and looked at Abrahms. "With this knowledge our lord has given me, we shall succeed, my brother." "INDEED YOU SHALL.", Zhalith rumbled, sinking slowly back into the ground. "KNOW THAT I WILL AWAIT YOUR FIRST SACRIFICE IN MY NAME. BRING WORD OF MY REBIRTH TO THE WORLD, AND LET THEM TREMBLE, BOTH AT MY NAME, AND AT THE MIGHT OF JHEHERRIN. GO NOW." With that, he sank into the ground, and the clearing resumed its dead semblance.

All at once, the ground beneath their feet began to rumble once again, knocking them backwards, away from the spot where Zhalith had stood. Rising up like an accusing finger pointed at the heavens, a massive bonewood tree broke through the surface and rose towards the sky. "KNOW THAT THIS PLACE, I FORCE INTO BEING, AS A SHOW OF MY POWER OVER THE NATURAL ORDER, FOR YOU.", Zhalith's voice rumbled from deep below the ground's surface. "THIS SHALL BE YOUR MEETING PLACE, YOUR SANCTUARY. WITHIN I HAVE PLACED THAT WHICH YOU WILL NEED. ONLY MAGICAL ENTRY IS POSSIBLE, SO USE YOUR SKILLS TO GAIN ITS ENTRY. GO." The rumbling voice faded, the earth stilled, and all was quiet once more. After thinking for a moment, Jebidiah spoke a word of magic and disappeared, reappearing within the base of the tree. Speaking another magic and summoning his brother, he dared to look at what his Lord had created for him. Smiling with the promise of pain and power, Jebidiah murmered aloud, "Thus begins my life...again...finally" Chuckling softly, Abrahms followed his brother as he began to explore their now home. "Indeed, Brother", Abrahms said under his breath, "And what a life it will be."