Chapter 1
Born to a life of service in the church, this cleric sought nothing more than to be a beacon to the lost and the hopeless; seeing his purpose in life as a servant to those who needed his love and kindness.
One rain-filled night came a loud crashing upon the doors of the holy home in which he dwelt and throwing the doors open he beheld a disheveled woman. Dressed in finery soaked in the pouring maelstrom her form looked crooked, torso bent forward to shield a bundle within her arms. Thrusting the bundle into his arms she fled the torchlight, disappearing into the night as quickly as she appeared.
Perplexed, the cleric pulled back a fold to reveal an infant, but not any other human child; for this one bore lavender skin and budding lumps of bone upon her brow.
Resolving to raise the abandoned child, she soon joined the clerics life; transforming from an unexpected burden into a beautiful young woman. With a mischievous grin and games of wit and chance she brought a new sense of light and purpose to his world, filling it with matters of the heart both fair and tragic as he counted every day his newly adopted daughter spent with him a surprised blessing.
Such times of joy ended when armed men came upon the cleric. Enjoying the tart berries she had picked from the nearby forest with flowers decorating her elegant horns, the pair met with the party. Their leader requested that the clerics daughter accompany them to a castle in the kingdom over yonder as she was their long-lost princess, kidnapped when her mother fled the chambers where she had given birth to her!
Unsure of their story the cleric asked his dear daughter what she wished. Wanting nothing more than to remain with her father and sing her melodious songs in the nearby tavern she refused. Her reticence was not accepted as the men drew their blades and continued to insist. Refusing once more they attempted to take her by force.
The cleric, a peaceful and kind soul who had bandaged the wound, tended the sick and mended the broken, took up a nearby pitchfork and slew two of the knights party. Placing his body between the kidnappers and his daughter he bade her flee to the forest and find refuge in the twisting glades which she had taken to as a second home as a girl. She fled with tears in her eyes as his body was pierced by gleaming steel and fled into the dark brush, leading the attackers into many dark corners and leshen-held groves from which they were never seen again.
Returning to the church, sacked and ruined as it was from the knights companions raiding the sanctuary for the precious icons and tributes given, she wept over the bloodied torso of her father, the only parent she had ever known.
In a fit of emotion she took a glowing crystal which she had discovered in a cave within the forest, half buried beneath dirt and rubble from a mad warlock long dead, she pierced her hand and poured her blood upon the stone. Once sufficiently bloodied, she rammed the trinkets pointed end into his heart.
Flashes of light, noise and a roar so fierce it sounded as if the gates of the hells had been thrown open, his body lifted in the air. Shielding her vision and hearing the woman lay fetal until the storm died.
Looking upon the clerics corpse she beheld a fleshless skeleton, garbed in the still-bloody robes he wore when murdered. And inexplicably, the skeleton rose. Looking around as if unsure of its surroundings it looked upon itself, beholding with a sight beyond that granted by his vanished eyes.
Alabaster skull turning to see his daughter she held back, unsure of what the shard had wrought, but tears streamed in rivers as the digits of the skeletal hand cupped her cheek, embracing her father as her joy of his return was boundless.
Now, unsure of whether another band would investigate the disappearance of their brothers in arms, the pair departed. Traveling the land together as the daughter sung at taverns and courts in far Kingdoms as she danced with her unliving father in their ball rooms, unsure of what would happen to him in this new form, but glad of his new lease on life as he continued his ministrations, journeying with his beloved daughter as he adjusted to this new form of unlife, but grateful for his continued blessings.
