Mark of the Shadow Beast

Those are notes, the elf Gaelath Bizeiros made, while venturing in the dangerous Ruins of Sep Ethal.

The most important information I can glean from this book is one of the most adored creatures of this cult. They call them the "shadow wanderer". Probably created by their strange god and just as evil. A kind of monster that can move through the darkness by crossing the line to another dimension and walking right there to reappear where it pleases.

There are some chosen ones who are given a mark of this being. A deep black coloring of the skin. Most of the subjects die if they get marked, but those who do not perish, receive abilities that are very similar to those of the shadow creature. Not that powerful, but quite practical. I'm a little jealous, but the death rate is clearly too high for me to undergo such an experiment. But whoever received a “mark of the shadow beast” was considered a great fighter and was almost worshiped like a god himself.

So the way I understand this ability, you can hide in this shadow dimension and if you focus on interacting with the material world, you can reappear in the vicinity. But you are not completely protected. If a being knows where the Shadow Warrior is, it can still attack it. This ability also has its pitfalls, but I haven't been able to decipher them yet.

So: whoever is here after me: if this shadow beast exists, stay away from it! And maybe there are others besides the beast who have such skills. And if we should ever meet, I'll be happy to tell you more about this cult.

The cult that used to live in the ruins of Sep Ethal and perform its strange rituals has made no great secret of how they have their warriors marked by the shadow beast.

But before there were any warriors who were allowed to take part in these rites, they had to pass some tasks that this temple had been doing for eons. After all, being a shadow warrior was considered the highest honor, as one was worshiped like a god.

These tasks were supposed to show perseverance, loyalty and devotion to Zeoldoras, because only those who served and obeyed the Lord of Darkness, the Wings of Shadow, the Lord of Souls, were worth becoming one of the most powerful warriors in this world. One of the tasks was to spend an entire month in complete darkness. The blackness and the shadows on the eyes, to be seen as a part of oneself; and merge with the darkness. Another task was testing the will. Zeoldoras was a mighty dragon who commanded the souls of the underworld, and it was this underworld that was his palace. So the candidates had to prove that they too knew how to appreciate this palace and they had to stay in exactly the same place.
There were still many of these tests, but what exactly they were is irrelevant. After all, in the end it was all about who was strong enough to even be brought before the shadow beast.

So the aspirants were brought into the sanctuary of the temple, the door locked and reinforced with magic so that they could not escape, and now had to surrender to their fate. And in this very chamber they were supposed to spend 8 days saying the prayers, no matter what happened in there, in order to summon the monster and start the ritual.
So when the shadow walker hears the prayers of the aspirants, he will step out of the shadows and examine them. And then he will dig one of his tentacles deep into her flesh and let them feel the essence of the shadows. Each and every one of them will feel insane pain, but they must not interrupt the prayer. Because as soon as they have been marked, their inner struggle begins. If they are too weak for the darkness, they will be eaten away by it and die in agony or lose their minds and want to flee only to be devoured by the shadows themselves.
But those who endure pain and fulfill their prayers are answered by their god Zeoldoras, and from then on they are considered shadow warriors. Fighters who can move through the darkness and shadows as skillfully as the divine creature, the Shadow Stalker, can, and who are ready to kill all those who want to stand in the way of their lord and master, the lord of darkness, and reject His reign.

Since the cult itself disappeared many centuries ago, as their god Zeoldoras was killed by the "Heroes of Once" themselves, these shadow warriors have not been seen for a long time, so that today we only tell scary stories about these killers in the shade.

"How do you learn this skill?"

So first of all, we don't even know if this shadow beast really exists. And if it does exist, you have to be attacked by it and survive. And very few do that, even in the old stories and legends that we know. No, that's not something you can learn just like that! And nothing to learn either! Pah! If anything, this shadow beast mark is evidence of how rotten and corrupt your own heart is! Nothing worth accomplishing!

Well, that is the general consensus that the scholars who studied the subject must have picked up. I for my part, would not reject such a power out of hand, and all this talk about "rotten heart" sounds far too poetic for a scientist to say. But basically, this thesis seems to be correct.

Get attacked by the shadow beast and survive.

I think the same thing happened to one of those heroes that T. asked for, didn't it? I think I remember Noah mentioning something like that. That would probably also prove that no crazy prayers have to be made to a dead dragon.

And apparently he and my wife saved this Tabaxi and removed the poison that was running through his veins.
Or it wasn't poison at all, but actually some essence from another dimension.

Hehehe...

Anyway, there won't be anyone else who can become such a shadow warrior. After all, these "heroes" have defeated and killed the shadow monster. A perfectly fitting ending for such a fearful legend, don't you think?

correspondence between Gaelath and Dathan, while they were discussing the progress of the chosen ones.