Scroll of Basilisk

The Fifth Scroll of Lylanth: Basilisk

	Mycenae, 880 BCE.
	searched for hundreds of years. Her trail became more difficult to trace. Her method of torture more subtle. She manipulated entire civilizations into war with others, she destroyed families and left the children to endure the grief. She began to master the art of suffering. I hunted her through Nubia, Egypt and Assyria; always arriving too late. I wish I could say I’d gotten better at tracking her, but it was pure luck that led me to find her for the third time.
	I traveled north along the coast of the Mediterranean. The few nomadic tribes I encountered along the way gave me no indication as to the whereabouts of Lylanth. It wasn’t until I found my way into Mycenae, the lands now known as Greece, that I found my first clues. Many local legends spoke of a monstrous witch with writhing serpents for hair and whose gaze could turn the bravest men into stone. They called her “Metis” or “Medusa” and they believed she lived in caves on the island of Crete. I traveled there with the hopes that this monster they spoke of might be Lylanth.
	As I approached the cave I saw what appeared to be hundreds of statues strewn about in a haphazard and chaotic fashion. I examined one of the statues closely, only to realize it was really a person who’d been transformed into stone. I could see the fine detail of each hair as it desperately tried to break free from the hard surface that was once soft and malleable. I was further stunned to see that this person was still alive! Only his skin had turned to stone and, in a morbid twist of irony, his own flesh had become a tomb from which he could not escape. His eyes darted around madly as he desperately sought my help. His cries and moans muffled in a mouth that would no longer cooperate. I reluctantly examined other statues only to find they all suffered this same fate. To my relief I found that most were already dead. Then I noticed another statue that had fallen over and struck the walls of the cave. The stone flesh of its victim had shattered, revealing a morbid display of blood, bone and gristle. I teetered on the brink of sanity. In my revulsion, I could do little more than retreat and regain my composure.
	“This is madness,” I thought to myself. “What a horrible way to die!”
	I needed a plan. If I wasn’t careful, I might fall victim to her new and hideous power as well. I shuddered at the thought of being trapped within my own skin and left to share that slow and agonizing death with the other victims. I waited until nightfall before approaching the cave again. This time I searched among the victims until I found what I was looking for, a clean and well-polished shield. Now I was ready, and could only hope that my plan would succeed. As I approached the mouth of the cave, I could see a faint, greenish glow emanating from deep within. I approached tentatively, the blood-hardened sand softly crunched beneath my feet. The aroma of seaweed and dead bodies mixed unpleasantly in the air. As I crossed into the cavern itself, the air grew deathly still. The temperature plummeted. I was overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu. The sense of foreboding and fear that I first felt back at the caverns along the river Alph returned. This time I hoped that I was prepared for what was to come.
	“Hello there Lover” She said menacingly.
	I turned but didn’t look directly at her. Instead I watched her movements through my peripheral vision, paying special attention to avoid looking directly at her face. The dim lighting in the cave made this task easier. All I could see were brief glimpses of her distorted shape as she approached. Her skin seemed somehow reptilian and her hair was alive in an orgy of slithering fervor.
	“What do you think of my collection?” She hissed as she gestured towards the mouth of the cave. “I have you to thank for their exquisite pain.”
	At first I didn’t understand what she meant. How could I have anything to do with the horrors she inflicted on these poor souls? Then it hit me. Of course! She had twisted the ability stolen from me into a weapon to be used against innocent people. Instead of benignly transforming my own shape into stone, she forced that transformation onto others. Without the ability to change back, the victims could do nothing more than die in a prison of stone. I shuddered at the thought of having anything to do with these tragedies; That my past mistakes could come back and haunt me in such a horrific manner. My knees grew weak and I could feel my resolve falter under the overwhelming guilt of this realization.
	“No!” I thought to myself. “She is the one who has done this. And now she tries to twist it around onto me. To make me believe I’m to blame!”
	She was a loathsome creature indeed, now trying to use my guilt as a weapon against me, much like she used my love and compassion during our last encounter. This time I was ready for it. Just as she drew close, I spun around and maneuvered the shield between us. Her screams of pain and rage were deafening as she saw her own reflection in the shield. Soon her own cries became muffled as her flesh hardened into stone. She was now trapped by her own twisted powers. I lowered the shield but carefully averted my eyes from her face. I was still wary of her and would not become overconfident now that I had the upper hand.
	“What now?” I thought to myself. “How do I destroy this thing that my friend has now become?”
	It was apparent that I needed to understand more about what she was before I could figure out how to end this. The only way for me to do this was risky. I would have to link our minds together and see what happened to her in that dark abyss so many years ago. I would have to share the pain and misery of the last moments of her life before I could find a way to free her soul from bondage.
	I moved around behind her and placed my hands on her head. Her stone flesh was cold to the touch and I could still feel the scale-like, reptilian texture of what it once was. The feeling was unsettling. I began to concentrate, trying to free her consciousness from its stone prison. It took a great deal of effort before our two minds merged. Our thoughts intermingling as one. It was difficult to tell whose thoughts were whose at first, but soon that chaotic flurry subsided. I could now see her memories. I was now with her as she walked along the base of that great waterfall. I could sense her fear and sorrow as she walked away from her comrades who had also fallen down the waterfall; their lifeless bodies twisted and broken against the rocks.
	“How did I alone manage to survive such a horrendous fall?” She thought fearfully to herself.
	The darkness this deep within the caves wasn’t as overwhelming as she would have first thought. There was a faint greenish light coming from up ahead. Smoky tendrils of mist twisted and wrapped around her ankles, beckoning her forward. The deafening roar of the waterfall slowly diminished into a faint rumble as she proceeded forward. The light grew stronger and more persistent; hinting at warmth and freedom. She was wet and cold as she tried to block out thoughts of dying alone down here in this pit. As she entered a large alcove, she found the source of the mysterious light. The walls were covered with a soft, luminescent moss that pulsated in harmony with the beating of her heart. It’s cold light strangely hypnotic, she soon found herself enraptured by its rhythmic gate. The mist that had once beckoned her was now thicker and more substantial. It slid along her legs, moving upward and grew heavy against her skin. Entranced by the soothing rhythm of the pulsating light, she hardly noticed the mist as it seeped into her pores and transformed into something else. She found herself floating outside her own body, looking down upon it as if it were a different person. She could see her skin move as hundreds of live snakes writhed just under its surface. She could feel none of it. She felt herself drift into another place. Peaceful. Serene. Blissful. Then something pulled her violently back to her body. She found herself suddenly deluged with unceasing pain and agony. She could now feel the serpents underneath her skin. They coiled and struck, again and again. Not at her flesh but at her very soul; the venomous fangs piercing and tearing at her without remorse. The pain was all she could think about. That and the ravenous, suffocating rage of something that was as powerful as it was malevolent.

	“I wish my description could adequately describe what that powerful malevolence was,” he said sadly. A bit of the melancholy I first sensed within him had returned. “But it is far beyond my feeble words to explain.”
	“Does it have a name?” I asked.
	“From what I could sense in the few moments I was connected to it, no,” He paused for a moment. “About the closest thing I could relate it to is something my ancestors called Nullstrom.”
	“Nullstrom? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
	“Put simply, it is the twisted force of all death and destruction.”
	“It sounds a lot like the devil.”
	“I understand your concept of evil in the afterlife. And I believe that she was unjustly trapped in a place very much like what you call hell. But I don’t know if your religion can adequately describe the horror that exists there.”
	I sat in silence, not quite knowing what to say.