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The Forest Lord #14; by Tucker McCallahan:
The first shadow unicorns were the product
of an unholy union between a unicorn and the infernal nightmare who corrupted
him.
According to the legends, a nightmare who
had grown weary of her entrapment in hell sought out the perfect creature to
despoil. She found a proud unicorn who had as his requirement for retaining
purity the task of guarding a small wood. Since she wasn’t able to leave her
hellish imprisonment, the nightmare visited the unicorn in his dreams,
masquerading as a black unicorn. She flattered the unicorn, appealing to his
sense of vanity and his tremendous ego. When he was smitten by the beautiful
ebony-haired unicorn, she told him of a vast, unclaimed forest, desperately in
need of a guardian.
Night after night, the nightmare appeared
to the unicorn, preying on his sense of self-importance. She assured the
unicorn that the denizens of the forest would not only be obedient and respectful
should he come to serve as their Forest Lord, they would be thankful as well. After
all, any inhabitant of the grand forest would be lucky to have such a
magnificent creature as their lord. The nightmare took advantage of the
unicorn’s loneliness, a secret which the proud beast had kept hidden from the
world. She promised him both her gratitude and her heart if the unicorn would
leave his wood and take charge of the forest she offered.
Wooed by the nightmare’s promises and
blind to her deception, the unicorn forsook his sacred duty. He abandoned his
wood to journey to the vast forest he had seen so many times in his dreams. As
he removed the final protective glyph from his borders, a wrenching sensation
shook him right down to his hooves. No longer pure, his aura now bore a
tarnish.
Though deep down he knew what had
happened, the unicorn shook it off. He was convinced of the rightness of his
choice and continued to justify it as he journeyed. His wood would survive just
fine without him. The forest he traveled to needed his protection. More
importantly, he went to join his female. She occupied his every waking thought
and his dreams as well. He would gladly suffer a smudge on his soul if it meant
he might finally have a mate, foals, and a family.
When he reached the forest, though, all
was not as his beloved portrayed. The forest was indeed vast; it was far too
large for one unicorn to guard. Its need for protection was far more desperate
than had been portrayed. Factions of various monsters had divided the land up
into territories. Their violent wars left huge swaths of the forest destroyed.
Parts of the forest were nothing more than bloody, churned up, smoking ruins. The
forest inhabitants who hadn’t been killed were conscripted into serving in whoever’s
army was in their backyard.
Worst of all, the ebony-haired unicorn was
nowhere in sight.
The unicorn fell into fitful sleep and
thankfully, his beloved appeared in his dreams. The Goblyn King had discovered
her call for help, she claimed, and his fear of the unicorn was so great that
he captured her and even now held her in the center of the forest in his dark
and evil lair.
The unicorn despaired. Alone, he couldn’t
possibly reach his beloved and set her free.
For days he stalked the edges of the great
forest, despondent, until in mad desperation, he hit upon a solution.
He would forge an alliance with the giant
spiders. They were the sworn enemies of the goblyns, and for a small amount of
territory they would aid him. A small voice inside his mind rebelled at this
notion, screaming at him. We make no
alliances with monsters! They are your sworn enemies! But the dream vision
of his beloved in the clutches of filthy goblyns was more than he could bear,
and the unicorn ignored that voice, ruthlessly shoving it to the furthest
reaches of his mind.
Worried that one alliance wouldn’t be
sufficient to defeat the goblyns, the unicorn and the Queen of the giant
spiders agreed they would need another. To ensure he could free his beloved,
the unicorn sought out and secured the gnarigs. Giant two-legged rodents
covered in long peppery red hair, the gnarigs had human intelligence, were as
physically dexterous as woodland elves, and had the hearty constitutions of
dwarves. Their weaknesses lay in their need to move and work as a pack, their
extreme sensitivity to light, and their tendency to become easily distracted.
Nonetheless, the giant spiders and gnarigs had been allies before and firmly
believed in the tried and true saying, “The
enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
As the pact for the dual alliance became
final, the unicorn was once again assailed by horrific, wrenching spasms that
wracked his entire body. The tarnish that began as a smudge on his soul spread
to encompass more than half of its surface area.
The unicorn could not run from the effect
its actions had upon it.
Despite that, the unicorn remained
determined to rescue his beloved. With an army of giant spiders and gnarigs
flowing behind him, the unicorn plunged into the forest and set off for the
Goblyn King’s Lair. When at last the war
broke out and the unicorn dealt death with its long, sharp, spiral horn for the
very first time in thousands of years, the tarnishing became total.
The nightmare claimed the unicorn’s soul
for all eternity, just as she’d planned.
The nightmare trapped the unicorn in
bondage, and used him to escape from the infernal pits. Their mating was not
the blessing the unicorn had hoped for but a devastating tragedy, an unholy
union between two creatures who were never meant to produce offspring.
According to the legend, from that very
first mating, the first shadow unicorn twins were born. They destroyed their
infernal mother, devouring her as they were born. Once they consumed her flesh,
their link to the infernal plane was secured and their reign of gloom and
terror began.
Nobody knows what happened to the unicorn.
He might’ve perished from the nightmare’s betrayal and subsequent grief over
the loss of his purity. More likely he is still wandering the vast forest,
hopelessly seeking some way to redeem his progeny as the ghost of his beloved
wails on the forest winds and stabs her fiery horn through his cold, cold
heart.
*
The group arrived at the Orespen Bridge,
with the Professor’s story still fresh in their minds. A massive structural
marvel of both engineering and magic, the Orespen Bridge allowed the Great
Eastern Road to pass from the western Adintana Forest to the eastern Adintana
Forest while spanning the Mazu River. None of them spoke as they set up camp.
Each was lost in thought, images of the Professor’s words swirling through
their minds. This foe was unlike any other they had ever faced.
According to the Professor, because
Orespen Bridge marked the precise center of the plane it was a convergence
point for all sorts of magical, spiritual, and mystical energies. The shadow
unicorn wouldn’t be able to use its teleportation ability to ambush them here
for the same reason that their group hadn’t been able to teleport directly to
the Bridge from the Professor’s Mountain. They wouldn’t be caught unaware.
As night fell and a thick mist rolled up
off the Mazu River obscuring sight in every direction, every member of the
group including T’Riss wondered just how much of the Professor’s legend was
true… and whether being ready for an attack would be enough to keep them all
alive.
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Thanks so much for reading! Comments are, as always, craved and appreciated.
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Be Well ~ Tux
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