The Tempest - Shakespeare Meets the Druchii

[Mostly ghostly]

Mirai Prospera was born to the Noble House of Sycorax, in the city of Har Ganeth. She was the heir to her house, and was soon to rule, as she had nearly reached her maturity and had thus naturally already begun plotting her assassination of her father Alonakh. She had even been initiated in the ancient secrets of the Sorceresses and was soon to be one herself. So focused was she on her plans and her forthcoming power, however, that she did not think to account for the treachery of her younger brother Antonath.

Prospera's family had many holdings in the Viper Mountains, and one year, it was her fathers' wish that she go to perform the necessary inspections. She decided to take a voyage, sailing throgh the Sea of Chill, around the Black Forests and down, following the Bleak Coast. Her brother volunteered to go on the trip, and, unknown to her, secretly had the warriors that were to accompany them murdered and replaced by mercenaries under his own pay.

Just before the ship reached its destination, Antonath's men seized the ship and sailed it towards the Sea of Serpents. Once land was far out of sight, he threw the kicking, screaming, biting Prospera over the side, and sailed back to perform the inspections on his own. This, perhaps, would have been the end of Prospera, were it not for a storm that began to rage not an hour after her brother had left her thrashing in the deep water of the sea. She battled the waves and stinging rain for hours, keeping her head above water through sheer willpower. Just as her muscles began to give out, she saw a shape looming before her, silhouetted against the tormented sky by a flash of lighting: a craggy island jutting out of the boiling water. Using the last of her strength, she flung herself upon its shores and collapsed into unconsciousness, the sound of thunder ringing in her ears.

When she awoke, the storm had passed, but her clothes were ragged and she was exhausted to her very core. She would have slept again, but suddenly, the memory of her brother's treachery swept through her and flung her to her feet. Gripped in a fit hatred, she screamed and raged against the rolling sea, vowing her vengeance, swearing to taste his heart between her teeth, to drink his blood and wear his cowardly hide as a cloak. Soon, she was again spent and lay down once more on the island's sandy beach to drift into the shadows of blood-filled dreams.

She slept for two full days, and when she awoke, her strength was restored but she was wracked with hunger and thirst. The beasts of the island had never before seen her kind, and so when Prospera approached a young deer, it did not flee. It had little time to learn its mistake, however, as she had bashed its skull in with a sharp rock within seconds. Sated on blood and red meat, Mirai began to explore the island. It was small, and there was only one feature that drew her attention - a round cave set into the side of the mountain at the island's center, which stared out at the sea like a hollow eye.

Hacking her way through dense jungle and clambering up the crags of the mountain, she reached the cave entrance. It was a shallow hole in the rock, obviously unnatural, and obviously uninhabited. It seemed empty, and Prospera was about to turn away when she noticed something that caught the light at the back of the cave. She stepped inside and walked slowly towards the object. It was a gold mask in the shape of a great Kraken, laid reverentially upon an outcropping of rock crudely carved with the same likeness. As she looked at it, something stirred. A voice whispered to her from the deep places of her mind, a voice that spoke in the language of the depths, of the sea's abyss. But Mirai Prospera Sycorax was unafraid, and she knew what she must do. This mask held power, and it was therefore the only way she had of returning to her rightful place and gaining her vengeance. So, without a second thought, she reached out and placed the mask upon her head.

The moment she did, the thing that lived in it seized her and ate her mind. Or, at least, that is what it tried to do. It did not expect the onslaught of pure, burning hatred, nor did it forsee the savage willpower of Mirai Prospera. The two battled, perhaps for minutes, perhaps for days. Both lost track of time in the roiling tempest that was the meeting of their minds. Eventually, neither was victorious. The mask fell from Prospera's face and clattered to the stone floor, and she picked it up, and set it back upon its altar.

In the years that followed, the mask taught her many things. It showed her how to travel the shadowy paths of sorcery, it whispered the names of the eight fell winds, and told her a hundred terrible secrets and a thousand forbidden names. It told her the way to the Screaming Land, and she strode into it and tore out the writhing Daemon Ariekel, and bound it to her service. So, for twelve years, Prospera learned and hunted and plotted and waited for an opportunity to escape from her island prison.

That opportunity came in the form of Caliban Karakh Mavael, captain of the Pirate Ship Talon of Woe, whose course took him near to Prospera's isle. When she sighted she ship, she called up a terrible storm and spitting obscene words of power into the wind in a tongue older than Elves, she blew it from its course and towards her shores. When the ship landed, the corsairs immediately began to scour the island, but they soon found that their captain was not among them. Behind the rain and thunder, he had heard a voice, soft and sweet and full of danger, which had called him up to the cave at the top of the hill. He did not resist when Prospera took off his helmet, nor when she lifted the mask to his face.

When the crew saw their Captain return, walking through the pouring rain, wearing a strange golden mask illuminated by the lightning, and accompanied by a ragged sorceress, only one dared to ask what had happened. Caliban simply looked at him, and the man began to scream. They left him on the island, still weeping, curled up in a twitching fetal ball. After that, no-one seemed to have any wish to inquire further.

Today, Prospera and the thing that was once Caliban ply the coasts of Ulthuan and Lustria. Twice now, they have sailed through the Underworld Sea with the mask as their guide, to bring terror and death to the towns of the Empire and Bretonnia. With each passing year, their wealth and numbers grow. Soon, their ship, renamed The Tempest, will need to be replaced. News of his sister's survival has not reached Antonath's ears, and that is just the way Prospera likes it. She waits for the day when she has enough might at her disposal to storm the towers of her House, and when she sleeps, she imagines the look of utter confusion that will cross Antonath's face as she rips his heart out.