History
Soren once lived a blissful life in the city of Kheiron. A skilled mage, his mentors and colleagues often lamented that he could be a successful Head Curator one day, if only he applied himself to his research and craft. Soren was passionate about his magic and fascinated in the topics he studied, but there was always one thing more important; his wife.
Their life was from a fairy tale. Inseparable friends as children, forced apart when her family moved away from Kheiron for the comfort of a slower life in the country. Reunited as young adults, their romance bloomed from the foundation of their childhood. He proposed within the year but none whispered that it was too soon or that they were too young. Most were surprised that it had taken him that long.
Everything was destroyed by a simple twist of fate. One morning and his life is shattered by her sudden death, so swift that he wasn't able to be by her side to say goodbye and ensure she didn't pass alone.
He never returned to the home that they'd shared. He lived in his Library study, if one could call it 'living'. All other work was set aside and his sole focus was on gaining back the opportunity he'd been denied; saying goodbye. He wasn't so vain as to believe he could bring her back, nor would he be so irresponsible if he could find a way to do so. He simply wanted to say the things he should have said. Tell her one more time that he loved her.
It took over a year to find the technique and components. He tested each rigorously before he felt he was ready to put them together and open the window into what he hoped was the afterlife, where the Goddess Thana sheltered and watched over the dead. He completed the ritual and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, he was blown off his feet by a wave of magic, the force of it rippling out from his study, shattering glass and rattling walls.
In the years after, he never did determine what he opened, but it wasn't just a window. The opening was big enough for something to squeeze through. Something that no one had even theorized about before. A creature that seemed to be made of shadows and malice. It slid out of the breach with a chilling, rolling growl, setting its luminous eyes on Soren. Stunned, but with quick reflexes, he tried to send it back, but his magic seemed to only glance off it, as if the shadows and smoke rolling about its body were impenetrable armor.
Completely uncaring of his presence, it loped off out of his shattered study door. Torn between stopping it and closing whatever portal he opened, he made the choice to stay. Luckily, he was able to keep anything else from coming out, though he could feel more of the creatures furiously pushing back against him to be freed. He worked against the backdrop of distant screams, his focus utterly unbreakable from his task.
A day and a half later, he closed the breach he'd created. Leaving his study, he found a destroyed city. The merchant district and docks were nothing but a smouldering ruin. Blood smeared streets and doors, but very few bodies littered the ground. Bolts of shadows darted everywhere, tracking down the people who hadn't been able to escape. He was horrified by the magnitude of what had happened while he'd been focused on his task.
He quickly understood they grew their numbers through death. Right now, they were mostly confined to the city, but once the prey there ran dry, they would leave the walls. Soren had very little time to act. Using his connection to them, for they'd been set free through his magic, he forever cut off the city of Kheiron. Brilliant wards flew up around the city, sealing it in a bubble of pulsing sapphire light with runs rippling on its surface. Their light faded over the next few days until it was no longer visible, but its strength persisted.
Despite his best efforts, anyone he'd trapped in the city with him perished. His wards had trapped the Devourers, as he learned they'd been named, but it meant everyone else was stuck in Kheiron too. Including him.He was inexorably linked to the creatures now, though he didn't realize just how deeply until decades passed. He didn't grow old and he didn't die. His tormenters, the Devourers that were the only other residents of the ruined city of Kheiron, were mostly indifferent to him. They could interact, and they saw him, but simply didn't care.
Wracked with guilt and self-loathing, he bristled at the irony of his punishment, fitting as it was. He'd only wanted to say goodbye, and now he would never see her again, it seemed, as the afterlife was being denied to him. In the 187 years since the Last Day, he'd distracted himself with study, determined to send them back or destroy them completely. But for the occasional round of the city to reinforce parts of the ward that weakened, his life became a monotony of alternating horror and boredom. Occasionally someone both brave and stupid would find a weak part of the ward and slip inside the city, looking for lost treasure or loot, but he very rarely found them alive.
Soren grew accustomed to his isolation, feeling himself deserving of the torturous punishment. He never could have imagined that the Goddesses who had abandoned him would eventually take pity. During one such check of his wards, he found himself face to face with the most impossible sight; his wife.