A Mutual Disgust

   Mezmerane's presence in Olai, despite Terrandus's fears, has been nonexistent. Ever since that first dream, he'd been worried that eventually, he'd return to a razed town. But no such thing has happened in all the times he's gotten to see it in the distance. No fires, no obvious signs of dismay, no news of mass desertion. The man himself said that he had no immediate interest in going there. He amended "yet" to that statement, sure, but he sounded like he was just trrying to be mysterious.

There is very good reason for that.

   Months before the adventure began, Mezmerane sought to return to his old stomping grounds, and engineer a finish to what he had started. He walked down the street in the dead of night, having emerged from the shadows of an alley to bypass the guards. He whistled, gently, as he looked around, trying to sense someone who would be most vulnerable to his magic. Eventually, however, he heard someone else was awake at this hour.

   The cleric, intrigued, moved to investigate. Perhaps this was the one he would turn. But as he drew closer, just around the corner, he noticed that what seemed like a lantern's glow at first was green in coloration. He heard something wooden being knocked around, and things falling to the ground. A thief, he imagined. He could work with another one of those.

As he rounded the corner, he was met with a stange sight. One that, somehow, managed to make his blood run a bit cold for a reason he couldn't place yet.

   He looked to the bandit, hunched over a cart of vegetables as he cleared his throat. He held a sword in one hand, and a shield in the other, shuddering to himself as his antennae twitched. Mezmerane could practically smell the madness dwelling within. And so, he approached. Inching closer, silently, before stopping just short of breathing down the man's neck.

"Aaah, who might you be?" Mezmerane said in a disarming tone. It was then that the individual whipped around. The cleric squinted as he backed away and realized that the man carried no lantern. The light came from his eyes.

The two stared at eachother, both speechless for a time until the thief broke it.

"YOU... YOU WOULD SHOW YOUR FACE HERE AGAIN?!"

He drew his sword and took a stance as Mezmerane felt a chill run down his spine at the sound of that voice. Before he could recover, he felt the swipe of a sword at his cheek as he ducked away.

"And- Who takes offense, may I ask?" he said, trying to maintain his smug demeanor. The man pointed his blade forward, eyes literally alight with ethereal flame.

"THE KNIGHT WHOSE MEN YOU SLAUGHTERED! THE MAN WHOSE LIFE YOU LEFT TOTTERED!"

And that's when the voice, the shape of the blade, dawned on Mezmerane. And he felt his heart race, as he forced his lips to maintain a hazy grin. "Ah. R-right. My delightful brother in law."

He knew now who this was. The former captain of the town guard, Korinja. Or at least, what was left of him. And despite his best efforts, Mezmerane was not prepared for this. He hadn't expected him to have such a boundless resolve as this. He snapped out of his contemplation and drew a dagger of stone from his cloak to block the knight's oncoming strike.

"WHAT A DELIGHTFUL TWIST THAT FATE HAS CAST! NOW I SHALL HAVE VENGEANCE, AT LONG LAST!"

Mezmerane had a quip on the tip of his tongue. 'I would have thought the twisting of your neck would've been fine enough!'

But he couldn't get it out. All that came out was "I... would-"

"YOU WOULD DO NOTHING BUT LIE, LIE LIE! AND NOW IT IS TONIGHT YOU SHALL FINALLY DIE!"

Korinja brought his shield up, using the bladed side of it to leave a gash across Mezmerane's face. It didn't hurt, and yet he yelped as he forced himself away from the clash. "No. no no no NO NO..." He dashed forward, dagger drawn. Even as he felt a vague twinge as the man's blade impaled him through the torso, knocking Korinja to the ground as he drove his own weapon into the knight's head, over and over until he felt it cave in.

"NO! NO! NO! YOU! STAY! DEAD!"

He wasn't laughing. The panicked rasping could hardly be mistaken for laughter. He kept stabbing until he felt the dagger hitting dirt. He watched the light fade from what remained of his brother in law's spectral eyes as he began to calm down somewhat. A brief chuckle escaped inbetween labored breaths.

But then, he felt a hand grab at his face. He was picked up by what should've been an inert body and tossed aside, off the blade as what he knew for a fact was a beheaded corpse walked over to the cart, pulled a gourd off it, and placed it on the broken vertebrae. Mezmerane muttered again. "no. No no no. You can't be th-... this strong..."

Mezmerane knew a wraith when he saw one. And even wraiths typically fell when the head was destroyed. But as he frantically searched the previous pile of mush, he realized there were no skull fragments inside. Only pulped vegetation and seeds. No one's soul should be able to function like this without some semblence of a head to keep them focused.

Korinja was no normal wraith. Mezmerane didn't know how to deal with this.

He ran. Ran as he heard Korinja's voice begin to echo once again.

"A COWARD YOU WERE THEN, AND A COWARD YOU ARE NOW! SHOULD YOU RETURN, I WILL SLAY YOU, THAT IS MY VOW!"

A laugh echoed through the city streets. A laugh that was not Mezmerane's. That laugh made the cleric forget all about his undying body, his vast power. As he ran past a checkpoint, The guards wrote him off as a bandit that got scared off by something that would be their problem relatively soon. As he reached a hill far away from the city, he stopped and looked back.

   He saw that green light peeking out from over the buildings. He knew he couldn't go back there. Not directly, not where that stain of a man could see him. At the very least, he took some vague solace in knowing that the town already had a madman roaming the streets. But outside of this... All he could think about as he left the area was memories he tried to forget the details of, rushing back and reminding him of just how much a slave to his own mind he really was. Of why he hated this world.