Wander

[Roger Smith]

All but crawling across the fog-shrouded moors, Mumm-Ra continued to make his uncertain, inexorable progress toward the goal he knew awaited him here. He know not to where he went, or what threads of fate would draw him there, but he did know one thing: his evil was needed. Ever was it needed, in a place as this. And he was all too willing to provide it, and further the slow decay of this place.

A lazy wave of one sickly, blue, bony limb swept aside the fog before him with a simple effort of his mind, revealing more of the sad, sorry state of the place for a brief moment. Slowly issuing forth like steam, more fog and mist hissed out of the very ground even as the swirling clouds he had swept aside rolled back in, showing all the movement of a lazy sloth, but undeniably steady in their means to shroud everything they could once again. It was certainly an appropriate enough thing to witness, but did little more than cement the ancient sorcerer's belief about this place. Something terrible had happened here, once upon long ago. It was a question to ponder over later, perhaps when he had secured his place of rest. Just what could have occurred to leave such a desolate, barren scar upon the world?

Winding his way through the misty, chilly landscape was an exercise in monotony for the ever-living. There was naught to be seen, save for the occasional hole or ditch torn in the earth, a copse of scraggly, black trees, or the lone boulder or rocky outcropping. It was a land that seemed deserted, and devoid of life. But there had been vast stretches of Third Earth which seemed deserted and devoid of life...and yet held terrible secrets. Creatures hidden in the blackness. Cruel monsters lurking out of sight in caves and on high ridges. Fiendish beasts crawling right below the feet of those who walked in those desolate, quiet places. And sometimes, things far more sinister. Rivers and lakes of acid and the fell creatures who survived within them, sentient sludge which spelled certain doom to any who so much as touched it, the terrible caverns where air flow over jagged teeth and bones of stone, worn impossibly sharp by time and waling a siren call into the canyons around them...

There was far more danger, always lurking, than could ever be seen merely with the eyes. Mumm-Ra knew that well; much of that danger he had fostered, planted seeds for it to grow when suitable creatures and fiends of lesser evil stumbled upon the blasted world. There was likely to be similar such danger and hostility here, lurking behind walls of mist and under jagged rock. It merely waited for someone foolish or unwary enough to stumble across it and disturb it before it would strike.

No sooner had that certainty been cemented in his thoughts did a noise reach him, among all the other oppressive silence: that of another creature...slowly walking. An even stride, in no clear hurry, and with the faint rustle and sweep of...a long cloak, or robes, perhaps. Someone else was out there, among the fog. They had gotten all too close without the ever-vigilant source of all that was evil taking note; and this both alarmed him and grew his ire for the accursed child-deity that had brought him here to new heights. To strip even such a basic thing as his vast perception of the world, how dare he?! Mumm-Ra would not stand for this; he would be made to pay!

"Well, now...what do we have here?" The faint sounds of movement within the surrounding fog came to a halt, and a voice spoke up.It sounded...incredibly dispassionate and distant, almost disinterested in whatever it was up to. It wasn't quite a cause for concern, but it was a cause for curiosity.

Mumm-Ra slowly swept his gaze this way and that, peering through the fog like an old, blind man might desperately look about for the source of some minor, disquieting sound. "Do you intend to...hide in this fog...?" he rasped out, his red eyes narrowing slightly. "Or will you not let yourself be seen, and speak face..." He hissed out part of a breath. "...to face?"

There was a stirring in the fog, and a few rustling footsteps, and the form of a man materialized into vague form, still half-hidden by the swirling fog, but easy enough to see. "I trust...that will suffice? I'd hate to come much closer; this fog is quite thick, of late, and doesn't make seeing even very close things very easy."

"I have noticed..." the mummified sorcerer grumbled, doing his best not to roll his eyes.