Cursing Darkness
Fifth Day of the Frist Month 294 AC
"We try to recover it, carefully," Yrael was almost surprised to hear the words pass his lips. He shouldn't have been of course, but the habits of uncounted centuries were not lightly broken even once one had chosen a different path. "There is much to be learned from the works of our enemy, all the more so from something as dangerous as this. If this... arch can indeed reach into minds protected by the strongest of wards then we should try to understand how to better guard against it."
The Lord of Volantis nodded contentiously, surprised in turn to have support from such a quarter, but obviously glad to have it. "Indeed, it is obviously a risk to attempt moving the thing, but so is excavating this place to begin with, so is our very presence in this vale."
"My head hears the sense of your words, though my heart is heavy," Benerro sighed.
The task of removing the arch from its resting place amid tarnished bronze and grave goods long since turned to dust proved far easier said than done. It was bound into the bedrock with a lead-jointed socket etched in shards of human bone. In the end the only thing that could remove it was hacking at the joint with spell-steel, though it seemed the very earth wailed, echoing painfully with every blow of Clegane's sword.
Finally it was free and it was with no small amount of worry for his mortal companions that Yrael called out to the Herald: "Take it, keep to the north side of the Wall until someone can study it to ensure it is safe to bring further."
No sooner had the steel dragon emerged from the barrow than the clear afternoon seemed to turn into grey evening, the
unlight of the gate spilling out like a cancer of the spirit, and in that darkness a shadow blacker still
moved. A tattered thing it was and almost without form seeming more wraith than creature of flesh but as vast as an elder dragon, dwarfing the Herald's metallic form as it enveloped the construct and sought to pull it into itself, into the gate from which it had come. Though Yrael still knew not the name nor purpose of the accursed artifact they had just unearthed he knew the name of this thing all too well,
nightwing, the horror of death bequeathed upon the deathless.
For one terrible moment he was frozen in shock. No magic he knew could slay or banish such a thing.
What might it do with one of the Heralds stolen away into whatever hollow realm had spawned it? What would its masters make of it?
Somewhere behind him Zherys spoke a single
syllable, sharp as dragon-steel carving away stone. A line of white brilliant white hotter than any flame cut the air unerringly to strike the hideous mass of shadow, but it only laughed in a thousand voices of the of the dead: "Poor deluded mortal, you seek to unmake the Unmaker...."
Yrael never heard the rest of its boast, for he too uttered a spell, to
tip the scales of fate in this one instance from undying horror to mortal sorcery.
In the span of an instant the flame that had seemed to merely smoke at the edges of its wings burst into renewed life, consuming the dark spirit until naught remained but ashes and a final anguished scream echoing through the mountains.
"My thanks once again, Lord Elaenos," the former lord of the Mysterium nodded respectfully towards Yrael once more. "The remains are not quite as unique as the artifact would have been, but I have no doubt someone in the King's service can put them to good use."
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OOC: Not much of an overnight vote I'm afraid, but this is the natural stopping point for this update. 
