Ancient Hunter

He had been a man once. Or he dreamed it sometimes. Other times he dreamed he had fallen from the sky, on fire and screaming. From the ancient gaping void, where stars spinned eternally. But those dreams were rare now. Mainly he dreamed of blood, of the sweet terror that dripped from the weak and soft parasites that he allowed to live in His Valley.

They were much changed these Men. They had once been mighty warriors, strong and proud, lords of all they surveyed. capable of incredible feats, with courage to as tall as the mountains that circled their lands. Until he broke them. Until he sundered their realm. His revenge had been terrible. Although sometimes during brief lucid periods when the blood lust lifted he knew he had a purpose. Something or someone was waiting for him in the mountains. He would often gaze at the Black Pinnacles hearing a faint call. One of duty. But the smell of prey would always push those memories away.

Uctilo'rhu, they called him. Some nights while he treaded the spongy ground of the swamps, spongy with decaying leaves and mold covered from the lack of sunlight, he would tremble with each silent step as an ancient memory would rise from the rest. An eternal darkness hung like moss on the swamp, twisted roots and branches, and no wind stirred the ragged, shriveled leaves.

There was a presence in the whole Valley. He recognized the pulsing that permeated the cursed lands. The aura of souls caught in tormented death, unable to pass on to the afterlife. It was a feeling with which he was quite familiar because he was the source of their dreaded state.

He would recall one night long, long ago when flames almost took his life, but he did not die. Men and women with bright armour and shiny steel swords had come for him. Followed by others that walker the air, with flowing robes, speaking in strange tongues. And when they sang, impossible geometric lights exploded around him, cutting and burning his mighty flesh. Melting muscle from bones. Boiling his blood.

Unable to truly kill him they had entombed him. But their wards and glyphs could not hold him forever. Only slow him. Blackened and burned, he was reborn as a creature of Vengeance.

And for more than three hundred years he has walked Arcadia, haunting the Still Valley. Their terrible God. The Devourer in the Mist. He who comes in the Dark...