“Yeah, well, I guess I was never the best student in class,” Kre admitted.
“I only attended a few years of school myself, so I have no basis of comparison,” the figure responded, possibly as a way to make Kre feel better about his academic inadequacy. “But yes, you were a very poor student indeed.”
‘So much for making me feel better’, Kre thought to himself.
“We have no time to stroke your ego,” Shadow Noj said, waving his hand dismissively. “The hour is late and I do not know when we’ll be able to speak like this again. As it is, I believe there must have been something in the herbal concoction that charlatan gave you that made this remotely possible.”
Kre nodded in agreement, although not fully in understanding, that the herb-based poison he was forced to consume would have resulted in this kind of situation he found himself in. He also realized that though he hadn’t necessarily spoken his last thought, it was still somehow heard by his guest. Or perhaps he was the guest. He still had no idea how this all worked, despite his displays of confidence in this strange mental illusion.
“Now listen,” the shadow figure stated, leaning forward in its seat, “I know you have questions. Questions that I cannot answer… not at this time, at least. I still have significant gaps in my memory and I do not know how to fix that right now.”
It leaned back in the chair and continued through steepled fingers, “Whatever it was that happened to my people so very long ago was a cataclysmic event that afflicted this entire realm. Of course, that’s just his personal judgement based on his witnessing the complete annihilation of our own city-state and that of our people. You have seen them, or at least heard them. They are nothing more than vengeful spirits now, forever locked in this world with no corporeal body nor any sense of self. They live only to feed. Had my father not saved you and your friends, you would no longer exist.
“That’s not to say that all was lost,” it continued, pointedly ignoring the fact that Kre appeared to have questions eager to throw themselves from the tip of his tongue. “Some of the lesser beings survived. The slave races. The best that we could surmise was that they were protected in their slums, where they were not considered a threat by whomever, or whatever, brought this plague upon us.”
Unable to contain himself, Kre blurted out, “How was it that your father survived the madness? How was it that you know all of this?”
The figure closed its eyes and slowly raised one hand in the air, palm facing away, as if cautiously reaching for something. “Somehow, my father had forewarning of the threat, but not by much. We believe it was a divine gift, sadly sent too late to help everyone. I was nearby, as I always was on that particular day of the week. Mother… she used to go shopping and I…” It paused a moment, a look of pain crossing his features for a brief moment. “I did not like to go with her, to the market and the bazaar, spending all day haggling and walking and chit-chatting. How foolish I was not to spend more time with her…”