Life follows Death follows Life

Caligari Calarook trudged lightly through the snow, leaving shallow footprints in the white powder. She’d made this same trek well-nigh daily for many years and even by the moonlight her feet knew which bluffs to avoid and which were capped in the least amount of snow. She had not always known the lay of the land in such detail, but she’d learned early on how to contend with the hostile frozen lands surrounding the Necromancer’s Citadel.

The clawlike arm of a tree springing forth from a leaning boulder was straight ahead, though still in the distance. She briefly lifted her face and shielded her eyes to check her course; her thick cloak billowing out behind her in the harsh wind that blew and gusted perpetually across this desolate land. Beneath that cloak she wore very little to protect her from the frigid conditions and the greater part of her pale flesh (though not the best parts) were exposed to the elements. By any reasonable standards she was insufficiently dressed for this climate or civilized company, but there was no civility to be found in the frozen wastelands of the north and she lived the life of an exile, keeping to her own council. She romped around dressed this way with a euphoric smile on her face, half out of her mind by the befuddling effects of a self administered corruption flowing through her veins. It was a home brewed medley of various fungi and lichen cooked down and reduced to a potent concentrate that, when applied under the skin caused a fire in the blood. It was enough to fight off the worst of the chill, but most would have preferred contending with the cold rather than infusing their body with that toxic concoction. Wearing pants would have been another option, but she was a necromancer and they were a notoriously unconventional sort.

Up ahead the night sky around the landmark rock began to brighten and soon it stood out in relief wearing an orange halo. Was that a campfire? Caligari’s heart skipped a beat; would today be different than all those before? Had a foreign party of questing strangers chosen this night to push the prophecy forward into its next phase? Tiny pellets of ice shook free from her dark headdress as she picked up her pace and closed the distance to the massive boulder which shielded the party from her view. She cursed her luck for having arrived on the side used for an impromptu latrine; the smell was revolting. And you knew a smell was revolting when it soured a necromancer’s stomach. She sidestepped the worst of it and scrambled up the gentle slope of the natural slab, loosening her cloak and letting it drop at her feet. Caligari bent her knees and perched at the tip of the rock, listening to the talk below. These people were on a quest to enter Hel itself! These were those she’d waited nearly twenty years to encounter! Longer still if you considered the years prior to that to be preparation for some related purpose. She stared down at their firelit faces absently scratching at the raw surface of her left knee. She was ecstatic and itchy and suddenly aware of just how high she was. By the gods her drugs were wild!