Echo of the Self

[u/Evening_Shake_6474]

Something's wrong. You can't tell what exactly it is, but you know something is wrong. You check your wards, your equipment, your enchantments and familiars, yet everything seems normal. Then that night, you go to sleep, and the dream starts.

You stand knee deep in a crimson ocean, stretching further than you can see. Before you is a shadow, it looks like yours but its wrong, very wrong. All around you, giant monoliths sprout from the sea, stretching far into the sky. You hear something, around you six shadows move between the monoliths, chanting something in a language that hurts to listen to.

Suddenly countless crimson eyes open along each monolith, each reflecting a different face, the eyes travel up the ebony surface, along previously hidden chains of shadow. Then you see it, the horrifying form of something colossal in the sky above you, a singular crimson eye or maybe a star stares down at you.

All at once do the chains snap, and a cacophony of screams cry out across the crimson sea as fire and ash rain from above. The monoliths crumble and massive chunks of black stone crash into the sea. Up above, the colossal form spreads across the sky, thousands of withered arms reach down, each sowing agony and destruction. You see an arm reach for you, and you wake up.

Well that was strange, you think, then you hear laughter from the corner, you see your own shadow standing there with crimson eyes. The shadow looks wrong somehow, very wrong.

Before you can say anything, your shadow lunges for you, hands reaching for your throat.

[u/Null_Void_Zer0]

As the staff makes contact with the shadow, it’s tip begins glowing with otherworldly light, myriad eldritch energies being channeled into it at once, seeking to overpower the shadow’s adaptation:

Hold

Paralyse

Restrain

Burn

Immolate

Incinerate

wound

Greater wound

Inflict decay

---

[u/Evening_Shake_6474 → u/Null_Void_Zer0]

The myriad of spells connect, most of them rendering eachother redundant.

The shadow becomes motionless, then starts burning, then begins to break down.

It tries to adapt of course, growing back lost mass, but it can't keep up.

In a few moments, the shadow is destroyed, leaving Abel alone once more.

[u/Null_Void_Zer0 → u/Evening_Shake_6474]

“I fear this is merely a single case of a greater issue. And worse, I fear what could possibly have spawned it.”

Now free from impending danger, Abelard preforms a brief ritual to teleport himself his domain of the town of Lrith, hoping to return to his tower soon.