RAINBOW HEIR
The Crownless Traveller holds a torch, illuminating dusty descending stairs, worn into slippery curves.
The room below is a laboratory, rare glass vessels, astrolabes, and the stench of death from bodies, so many bodies, the freshest half-dissected on a table in a chalk circle at the centre of the chamber.
Emaciated, desiccated arms poke from grey robes, grip a gnarled staff, and with pained, aching movements, the resident rises, pulls himself to a stooping stance. He peers at the Crownless Traveller, glowing eyes from within a hood, tattered by unlifetimes.
"HUMAN" he rasps.
The Crownless Traveller approaches with the cautious footwork of a warrior, stares unblinkingly, brings his face closer until his nose filled with the putrefied stink of the necromancer's breath.
"HUMANS NO LONGER COME. WHY HAVE YOU COME?"
In rehearsed motion, the Crownless Traveller presents his answer, holds forth a longsword in a black leather scabbard, raises it between them. With cautious, steady movements, he holds the scabbard in his right hand, his eyes never wavering from those glowing pits, and with his left, he clasps the hilt, draws the sword, allows barely an inch of blade to show.
Within the blade shimmers every colour, and countless long-dead voices cry with the hopes and fears of countless long-dead worlds. Only when he can bear the screams no longer does he plunge the sword deep within the scabbard once more, pushing with finality.
"With this blade, I will sunder death itself."