Shluaxtl's Arrest

Shluaxtl paused in his flight away from the Gate Which Shall Not Ever Remain Open and toward the heavens of Yrunn. Ixcthu's glory (were human eyes able to discern it might have appeared as the most intense of purest white, yet somehow silver-tinged, light spilling from the miles-high opening to the third heaven which was Ixcthu's abode. But human words must always fail in describing the things of heaven) faded as he rapidly covered the innumerable light-years between There and here, but still a twinge of that silvery light could be discerned where he now stopped.

Around him the constellation (ed.: need name here) whirled in its marvelous beauty. Ahead, Yrunn's sun and moon, mere specks on a canvas filled with light and starry beauty.

Shluaxtl exercised every perceptive power at his disposal, but still could find no answer to the feeling of disquiet which enveloped him as a damp blanket on a chilly night. No sooner had he paused than his reflection was disturbed. An enemy approached ! He reached to draw his sword, but a lance of pain tore through his shoulder as a missile pierced him, to grievous effect. One after the other, the ice-cold arrows came.

Shluaxtl screamed. He could not unsheath his sword, so great was the pain. Those who had launched the missiles followed close after, daggers in their hands, their faces contorted with hate and mouths issuing foul hisses. Demons, emissaries of Anaphim ! They must have hidden in the orbit of the star nearest him, [ed.: ???], catching him unawares. But how had he not been able to sense their presence as he usually would ?

They were a shadow of their former glory. The longer they remained out of the presence of Ixcthu and his holy abode, the more deformed they became, it seemed. Their 'wings' were no longer feathered with white to reflect the universe's glory, but were darkened and dripped with detritus of unknown provenance. Their feet, once beautiful and unshod and the length of a human man, were curled into hardened hooflike appendages. Their blackish skin was scaled and repulsive to look upon, oozing dark phglem. They were foul not just in nature, but in being.

The leader of this pack - Shluaxtl could hardly count them as they swarmed over him - did not join the fray but gloated, hovered soundlessly in the light of [ed.: name of star].

He felt stab after stab rend his white robes, but the pain was all one giant pain. With a scream, Shluaxtl fled backward, slowed by the weight of the ravening pack that clawed him. They were biting him now ! Sheer hatred led them to discard impersonal instruments and tear at him with their own bodies.

Shluaxtl's screams echoed all the way back to the Gate, his expelled breath vaporizing the space debris left in his wake.

[ed.: this explains why during one session Kyle calls upon Shluaxtl and he is not there. Another spirit has been insinuating its way into his life - through one of the women assigned to 'service' the warrior class - and now presents itself as his rescue and hope on this, the eve of his test to move to -kai.]