"Victory will soon be yours

With the armies of the orcs

Over one town and the next

Opposition will be hexed"

A hand with long, bony fingers reached out to the crystal ball as it went silent and slowed to motion of its insides, flowing somewhere between the states of gas and liquid. The hand reached out to it from beneath a dark red cape and with its fingers consisting of nothing more than bone and greenish gray skin with the texture of cray paper, took up the crystal orb and with the aid of a few muttered words by the rest of the thing under the cape, made it levitate from a stone tablet near the center of the room to an open cabinet attached to the wall. Along with the mysterious orb, the cabinet held an assortment of jars of pickled heads, a simple wand, several shiny magical objects and an old, decaying scroll whose edges had curled back and yellowed with age.

The clear glass door to the cabinet shut seemingly without physical assistance. Footsteps were heard coming down the corridor and approaching the large but eerily empty room. A small boy in cleric's robes poked his head inside the doorway, trembling slightly before the hooded figure.

"What are you doing in here?", the ominous thing in the dark cloak asked, his voice emitting from under his hood in tones low enough to send chills up the younger boy's spine as they echoed off the barren walls. "This room is off limits to you."

"S-sir, the orc leader insisted on seeing you now", the pre-teen cleric managed to stutter despite his obviously great fear of the figure he was addressing.

"DO NOT INTERRUPT ME!" He waved his bony hand and sent the young cleric flying back down the corridor and into a wall some 100 feet behind him. Tears welled in the boy's eyes as he slid on his back down the wall, turning the flesh near his spine somewhat akin to liquid shit. Sitting on the ground and still pressed against the wall, movement was out of the question for the time being. Through his twitching eye socket, he way the elder cleric sweep past him, seemingly gliding across the floor and to the left down the hallway.

"Fffffffffigrbleeaagh" (Translation: Should I curse him? Or will the plague weasels of Parnus come to eat my nose like he said they would? My blood hurts.) His line of vision became even blurrier, fading into blackness as he gave up consciousness, though still with open eyes, staring down the hall to the empty pedestal.