Zamash-ur stood glaring at the unbroken wall of greenery before him, anxious to begin the journey and claim his prize that lay beyond it. A former templar of Abalach-Re, now one of the most powerful warlords in Raam, Zamash stood at the edge of the Forest Ridge, the vast expanse of jungle that lay on the other side of the Ringing Mountains, and he was growing impatient. After the death of his sorcerer-queen, Zamash lost his templar powers, but none of the ruthlessness that came with the role. He soon gained notoriety as a vicious and powerful warlord, coming to dominate a significant portion of the old nobles’ district. Unlike many of his fellow templars, Zamash was a man of action - his body was covered with battle scars, his skin was swarthy from the harsh Athasian sun, and his limbs were filled with burly power, despite how gray his short beard was beginning to grow. He was still remarkably strong and swift for a human of his age; because he was wily and only cared for power, he rejected the decadence and indolence seen in many of Raam’s other former templars, but none of that made him especially good at waiting.

As his restless eyes scanned the forest canopy, they fell upon his chief defiler Ereshkigal. A human woman, she was willow pale, an exotic rarity in the sun-baked Tablelands; her hair was raven black, and she had the lithe body of a dancer. Although frightening to most, Zamash found her beauty was only enhanced by the dark runes tattooed beneath her emerald green eyes - the markings of a defiler, a wizard who drained the very life from the land to power their sorcery. Eresh was dressed in tight, form-fitting black leathers, soft boots, a hooded half-cloak, and a thigh holster of magical wands - clothes more meant to attract attention than survive an expedition such as theirs. In contrast, Zamash was dressed in a simple crimson robe over sunbleached scale-armor, a prize won by his champion after defeating a great crocodilian in the arena, and he carried a bronze shield and broadsword, symbols of his wealth and power in a world deprived of metals.

Eresh must have felt his eyes upon her just then, because she ceased relentlessly pacing back and forth like a caged animal and looked over at him with a smile. It was not a kind or happy smile, however, but a hungry, lustful one that might make another man’s blood run cold. For it was not Zamash’s touch that Ereshkigal hungered for - not at the moment, at least - but a hunger for the very life energy around them, a hunger to feel the rush of defiling energy passing through her as she worked her magicks. Eresh’s first love was power, and she saw herself as the next sorcerer-queen of Raam. Together, she believed, they would conquer Raam and rule as its rightful Queen and King.

As Zamash-ur’s eyes lingered on the beautiful defiler, his personal scout Dumuzid appeared before him, stepping from the forest canopy without a sound. A swift and swarthy half-elf, Dumuzid had quick dark eyes, but still possessed a patchy beard of youth. “I found a trail we can follow. Nothing ahead for at least a mile, warlord.” he said. The stinking half-breed just ran a mile though the jungle and doesn’t even have the decency to sweat! Zamash thought, as he slapped at a biting insect. “Fine.” He said, “Go scout ahead. And spread the word: we’re moving out!” Dumuzid nodded his head and swiftly ran back into the forest, barely making a sound.

It had already been two fortnights on crodlu-back, just to arrive at the Forest Ridge… and now days of traveling through the deadly jungle by foot had taken their toll. The crodlus had not lasted long, the jungle was simply too deadly for the beasts. Several bled out from running into the strange spiked trees, while many others got rot-foot from the marshy swamps and went lame. And their riders, Zamash’s followers, shared a similar fate, enduring constant attacks by halflings ambushing them from the tree canopy with poison darts and javelins only to immediately fade away again. The well trained mercenaries and defilers would retaliate with arrows and black magic to kill scores of them, but the savage halflings just kept coming, and each attack cost him more followers.

Even more deadly than the foliage and halflings were the great beasts of the forest - giant ground sloths and klarr often struck from nowhere and would fight the warband tooth and nail. Even Zamash’s fearsome half-giant mamelukes suffered casualties fighting the mighty beasts of the deep jungle. The warlord’s retinue frequently had to retrieve their heaviest obsidian and bronze axes to pierce the thick hides of these fearsome beasts. The former templar, however, feared no enemy and drove his followers mercilessly, pushing them on despite the casualties suffered. After all, they still feared him more than they feared the forest.

There was little warning when the group finally reached their destination; they were pushing through a particularly thick patch of vines and brush when they literally stumbled into a large clearing. It was barren of vegetation, with three great monoliths rising up from the rich forest floor to surround a worn slab of stone.

They waited in the clearing until the sun went down. Normally, the attacks only intensified when the expedition made camp for the night, but the attacks seemed to completely die off in this clearing, as if the forest residents knew something that the intruders did not… When the two moons, Ral and Guthay, had risen high in the night sky, Zamash snapped his fingers and two of his half-giant mamelukes came forward with a rope-bound halfling. Umum-Hadad and Zar-Shulgi were two of the mightiest and most fearsome of Zamash’s retinue, and had personally drug this halfing from the forest kicking and screaming. Umum held the writhing halfing up, and Eresh quickly spoke an incantation and drew an obsidian dagger across the halfling’s throat. The halfling’s screaming quieted quickly as his blood spilled onto the great slab of rock at the center of the clearing. The crimson fluid ran across the slab and soaked down into the bare stone quickly, as if the rock itself were thirsty and hadn’t drunk so deeply in King’s Ages.

A strange gray mist began to immediately billow up from the stone slab. Thick and hazy, it started to spiral as it filled the space between the standing stones, spinning slowly at first slowly, and then faster and faster until a misty vortex hung in the air before them.

As the group stood staring into the vortex, haunting shrieks of agony and rage could be heard coming from the mist. Zamash-ur drew forth a lantern with a strange green flame dancing within it and then shouted to his surviving followers, straining to be heard over the din coming from the vortex: “We are about to enter the Gray! Do not leave the circle of light from my lantern, or the spirits will devour your life force and then possess your empty husk! We must cross the spiritlands to a strange place that was once home to an ancient vanished empire and their great and powerful relics - and one in particular, is what we seek!”

Zamash held his lantern up high and gestured with it toward the vortex, shouting “Onward!” The strange green light radiated out in all directions, shining through the bodies of the burly warriors and defilers in Zamash’s warband but illuminating the otherwise shadowy and misty spirits that swam through the vortex. Exposed to the green light, the now-solid wailing spirits shrieked and fled from the oncoming host.

Once through the vortex, Zamash-Ur’s band found themselves in a featureless gray expanse, with only the dim light of a strange, glowing stone visible. Rather than earth or stone, there only seemed to be a solid plain of frim gray haze beneath their feet. With a command of “Move out”, Zamash began walking towards the stone. Hungry spirits circled the group from afar, but it seemed that few of them were willing to brave the lantern’s glow. But the journey was not free of dangers: more than a few warriors strayed from the lantern’s light though, enticed by the sight of a loved one or simply because they fell too far behind, only to be attacked by swarms of hungry spirits. Sucked dry of their lifeforce, the stragglers’ husks collapsed to the strange ground, only to stagger back up and strike out at their still-living companions a moment later.

Suddenly, a great shadow swooped down from far above the group and released a howling shrike - something far more powerful than the surrounding spirits was clearly now stalking them. Zamash’s warriors were fierce, and could handle these lesser spirits - as the light from the lantern made them solid and vulnerable to their obsidian blades - but the great shadow felt like an altogether different threat. Looking up, Zamash could see its great winged shape flying through the mists of the Gray, following them from a distance only to occasionally dart off to consume a lesser spirit with a loud, haunting scream.

Zamash shouted “Run!” and charged towards the glowing stone. The rest of the warband lurched into motion only a moment later, with each member struggling to catch up to their leader and the light from his wildly swinging lantern. Most of Zamash’s followers were successful, sprinting ahead into the shifting green glow, but the mad dash seemed to have excited the great shadow, sending it diving down to pick off the slowest members of the group. With each terrifying swoop, the creature - seemingly a cloud ray-like thing composed of nothing but shadow - carried off another member of Zamash’s warband.

As the group grew closer to the glowing stone, the great shadowy beast gave another howling shrike and then flew far above to circle the group once more. Below, the remaining warband stopped before a great glowing standing stone. Appearing to be made of a crystalline milky-white stone with smooth curves, there was a glowing azure glyph on the surface of the stone. When Zamash-ur’s eyes fell upon the glyph, he breathed “Guthay. We’re on the right path…”; at this, his warriors sighed in relief.

Staring at it, Umum-Hadad slowly reached out to touch the massive monolith “So… smooth… so… pretty…” Zamash quickly strode over and slapped the half-giant’s hand away. ”No! Do not touch that, fool!” he said, “We don’t know if it’s dangerous - it could be possessed by hungry spirits or trapped with dark and powerful magicks!” The half-giant just sulked and cradled his hand.

Ereshkigal squinted and gazed into the distance. Pointing her long pale finger in that direction, she exclaimed “There, beloved! I see another monolith through the haze.” Zamash looked and saw she was correct, a second stone was just barely visible from where they stood. But Zamash could also see that the great shadow still stalked the warband, swooping through the gray expanse above as if waiting for them to move on. Much like the light from Zamash’s lantern, the glow from the monolith seemed to keep the great shadow and lesser spirits at bay, but they couldn’t stay here forever.

The former templar looked around at his followers while Eresh whispered quietly into his ear. He cleared his throat, anxiety causing his powerful body to twitch with a barely suppressed dread and said “My warriors, hear me. This will be a most trying time - we must run from this monolith to the other as swiftly as possible, if we are to escape the hungry spirits.” With that, Zamash set himself at the front of the warband. “When I give the word, we must all run towards the other monolith! Stop for nothing and run like your very souls are at risk…for I fear they are. Now, run!”

They ran swifter than Zamash had ever seen them run before, the fear of a horrifying death in this strange place and the urge to live charging the warband with near-superhuman energy. Some warriors, the slowest of the warband - those who had suffered leg wounds or other injuries from making the long trek to the Forest Ridge and fighting the cannibalistic halflings and beasts of the jungle - were picked off by the great shadow above, and those who survived surged at break-neck speed towards the second monolith. As he neared the great glowing stone, Zamash heard a great groan go up from the warband - even as they entered the monolith’s protective aura of light, another stone could be seen in the distance; it seemed their journey was far from over. The former templar put his head down and simply shouted “Keep running!”

The warband ran past two more monoliths before Zamash called for them to halt. He feared what might happen if they stopped, but his lungs had begun to burn and his breathing had grown labored. Watching the last of his band stumble into the stone’s protective glow, Zamash saw a worrisome sight: even though many of them still survived, it seemed they had drawn even more attention to themselves, as several of the great winged shadow creatures now stalked them. As he considered this, Zamash saw that his mamelukes Zar-Shulgi and Umum-Hadad were bringing up the rear of the group; but, as Shulgi ran across the bleak landscape, he stumbled, sending him charging headlong into the monolith! The half-giant mamluk crashed into it and when Shulgi’s head hit the stone, a resounding CRACK went up for all to hear.

Zamash-ur could only look on in horror as a fracture appeared on the surface of the monolith, quickly spreading top to bottom. As the members of the warband stared at the cloven stone, purple and violet lightning began to play across the cleft, growing stronger by the second. Suddenly, a massive lightning bolt shot up from the stone into the featureless gray sky above. The omnipresent gray haze above immediately began to churn and boil until a great indigo cloud filled the sky above the monolith.

“My love!” shouted Ereshkigal, “This ‘spectral storm’ could be quite dangerous. We need shelter!” Even as she spoke, the roiling clouds of obsidian and dark purple let forth a shower of sickly-green rain upon the warband. Wherever the rain fell, flesh went numb and old wounds reopened.

“Yes!” Zamash bellowed back, fighting to be heard over the storm. “Raise one of your protective barriers!” At this, the defiler grinned evilly. Stepping to the edge of the monolith’s protective light, Eresh reached out and caught one of the lesser spirits flitting about and, intoning the words of a spell, watched with glee as the it wailed horribly and faded away, its very soul-energy being used to power her spell. The casting complete, a shimmering blue barrier sprang into existence, arcing up over the monolith to protect the warband from the mystical storm.

Zamash let his followers huddle beneath the forcewall for some time, but it soon became clear that the storm was in no danger of dissipating any time soon. Indeed, minutes after the sorceress had raised her barrier, the storm had grown to such intensity and size that the great shadow creatures had even given up their pursuit of the warband, winging off with hateful shrieks into the plane’s gray haze. “At least the storm chased off the shadow rays…” Ereshkigal had quipped, but the former templar knew that if such great denizens of the Gray feared the growing storm, his band was in dire trouble.

As the storm wore on, Eresh’s protective spell-wall began to flicker and fade in places. It had already lasted far longer than a spell of it’s type should, in no small part to the defiler’s knowledge and extensive experience, but Zamash knew it must soon fail. Searching about for a solution, his gaze fell upon something in the distance, a barely visible suggestion of swirling fog and pulsing light - the gateway! The warlord glanced over at Eresh and saw that she was concentrating on the spell, straining to keep it in place at all. Zamash still had a few magical trinkets with him, and knew that they would protect him long enough for him to make it to the vortex if he ran quickly, but it would mean leaving his lover Eresh and most of his followers behind…

He did not think of it twice. Zamash took off like a shot, racing towards the gateway like the Dragon itself was after him! The half-giants Umum and Shulgi saw him launch into a run and, not understanding what was happening, charged after the warlord into the wounding rain. Zamash-ur was already halfway to the vortex when he heard the two mamelukes scream out in pain and terror; surprised by his mad dash to the gateway, the spirits of the Gray were still far behind him, but that put them within easy striking distance of the two half-giants, and glancing back, he could see that the hungry undead were lashing out that them, draining them to empty husks even as the spectral rain burned them. Still Zamash ran on.

Ereshkigal must finally have noticed his absence, for just as he neared the vortex, he heard her scream: “Damn you, Zamash! How could you betray me Like this? I was to be the future sorcerer-queen of Raam!!!” The vortex was just feet away now; Zamash-ur could still feel the searing raindrops as he lept into the spiraling gateway. As he passed through the misty vortex, he could still hear her cursing and screaming “Take me too! You can’t leave me like this!”

Blinded by the mists of the gateway, Zamash felt his head strike something hard and unyielding. As he quickly lost consciousness, the warlord could feel the wet, cool grass and earth beneath him. Zamash barely managed to gasp out “Am I…” before the darkness took him.