Realization

[The Burninator]

A bony, black gryphon awoke from her hibernation-like sleep in the shrine in a daze, her mind not registering her surroundings. She blinked her golden orange eyes, trying to bring them to focus, when a voice suddenly greeted her.

"Greetings", a mummy welcomed.

The gryphon sniffed and peered around, her eyes landing on the undead. All she could do was nod stiffly, still slightly confused.

"Pardon mummy, but .. where am I?" the gryphon asked. "This place seems.. vaguely familiar."

"Grendel's Shrine," the mummy answered.

"Grendel's Shrine.." the gryphon repeated, nodding slowly. "Yes I remember now.."

The beast took a deep, hallow breath and turned towards the mummy, but any attempt at a formality was lost to impulse. "Who are you?"

The mummy introduced himself as Itus, a co-leader of the Dragoon Army, and added a bow to his introduction. It was during this time that the gryphon learned that her former clan, the Shadow Sentinels, had faded away with the passage of time, but the gryphon inwardly refused to accept the Sentinels as gone. Anxious to return home, she excused herself from Itus and excavated her long-dormant magical abilities, hastily teleporting herself into the Sentinels lair. What she saw shocked her.

This wasn't the extravagent, greatly stocked lair she remembered. Only what was left of the entrance remained, it's once great walls now crumbling into ruins from the unkempt conditions. The sign that once flaunted the name of the most feared clan in Uthgol was now faded and deteriorated. Not even the smell of undeath that was so strong it saturated the surrounding land had remained. Just the stale air..

The gryphon, Toasty, shook her head in sheer disbelief.

This.. can't be..

Stupified, she exited the lair in one last desperate attempt to debunk her fears, hoping her rusty teleportation had landed her in the lair of some forgotten clan miles away from where she had intended be. But the action only confirmed her fears, for the lair was surrounded by the gooey shadow deposit, the Dead Forest, the Dead Swamp, and the Plains of Letum. The exact location of the Sentinel lair.

No..... "R-Rozial? Mabon? Atropos? R-Ralimere.. Anyone.." she called out pitifully, pacing restlessly, putting all her energy into the blind hope that someone from her family still remained. Trembling, she came to rest upon the deposit of cold Shadow and finally laid down from anxiety exhaustion, sinking into the chilling goo, barely a relief to the realization that everything was gone.