Happy Valentine's Day weekend!

Dark is the Night, but how darker must it be before it would keep me from the summons of the fairest Isolde. Even the black ashed clouds of Hades' Inner Rings could not have stalled me.

I left my Lady's Chambers at the direction of my maiden's message left on a kerchief. This lead my me to the ruins of the chaple and the tombs of the olden princes in the deep forrests beyond the battlements. The frost seeped through the tunic below my armor but the chill could slow my pace. As I approached the ruins of the churchyard, I dsimounted and approached the great gray wall and iron gate. As I looked into the court, there was my Isolde, her dress glowing white in the fullness of the moon, surrounded by the graves of the heros. A sudden cautiousness I felt melted away in the gaze of the eyes of my beautiful beloved. In the forgetfulness of a dream, I was drawn into the yard as if on an Arabian carpet toward her cherry lips and alibaster skin, but was aroused from sleep by a coldness beyond the bitter breeze. But I could not be drawn away from my sweet until I was at last in front of her. My mention of her name "Isolde" was a magic chant that brought her arms around me and our ghosts intertwined in the warmth of her kiss.

But this green opium could not last when finally the flame of my heart could be drawn in no longer. I opened my eyes into hers only to see no mortal iris but only to pasty grey orbs filling the sockets. My balk broke the spell, her skin began to tranformk from creme silk into cold saphire as the features of her face tightened and shriveled. The black walls of the tombs began to glow with red runes and pentagrams and the wind brought with it the sound of distant pipes. The trap betrayed the succubus disclosed her true identity as her leathery wings appeared and her teeth sank into the blood of my throat. The dark witch laughed with a sound like collapsing windows and her cackling rose me to action. Ravenblade as much materialized in my hand and I gave the cry of my ancient ancestors as I thrust its silvered edge deep into her bossom, quenching it on the black bile that served for the night creature's blood, the sword's bright surface dulled immediately by its corrosive effects. My head split from the shreak of death so that a mindless numbness set over me in time to blunt the ripping of my flesh from the creature's stained nails as the thrust in between the plates of my chest armor. The beast turned to ash but not before her curse had taken me. My strengh began to melt away as the flesh of my feet and legs began to transmute to black glass.

I could not move as my body became cold. My head began to swoon from the stench of the monster's remains and the poison of her claws. The carol of the pipes became closer and transported my mind beyond the pure blackness of yard. I lifted my eyes to the stars and saw the planets allign as if I and they were right ajoined. I saw the moon swelled to fill the sky, turned to blood red, and written over with the strangest heiroglyphics and most dreadful blaspemies such that no serene spirit could be remain peace. As the piping drew near I could see the Great Spirit of the Forrest appear as he marched with his aweful head roved three hundred hand above the tree tops, his great barken hide unscathed by the large tree branches. His heavy face turned to me as he stopped his playing and the last of my sanity was darined out be his terrible face. He reached his hand toward me and I screamed as the obsidian finally closed over my face.