Adelbert

Adelbert's breath caught in his throat as he heard the High Priestess's words. For a moment he seriously thought he was going to faint then and there, his mind overwhelmed by this on the heels of so much else. He had to reach out, almost as if to balance himself from falling over.

'Thank you Mother Raqiyah, I am honoured. I shall do the Temple proud and I shall do Her proud,' he stressed the capital 'H'. Oh thank you my goddess for shining a trail through the shadows!

After a moment he found his voice again. 'Mother Raqiyah you spoke of courage. I am not sure I have it, for I do know braver men. I do know this however: necromancy is the creed of cowards and imbeciles. What sane man knowing there is such a thing as a soul would bind the immortal part of himself to a shambling corpse for eternity? To abandon the touch of a lover, the taste of food, the rewards beyond death that Morr himself offers? Klammenberg has a certain power but anyone who starts down such a path is a fool indeed.'

He paused allowing the words to sink in before continuing. 'And if the man is a fool how much more so is his master? How many centuries has this vampire swaddled himself in darkness, a slave to wretched impulses, hidden from the world like the runt of a rat litter? Can you even say something that clings to such a beggarly form of existence purely out of terror of death is something to be feared? Again there is power in his magic but examine him in Verena's holy light and we see a feeble creature indeed. No Mother Raqiyah the world will not belong to him or his kind, those absurd mockeries of mankind. The gods are with us. Morr with His wisdom and grace and Shallya with Her tenderness and my own patron the Lady of Mysteries who I love above all others. Those same gods who gave us minds and voices and free will. We'll win, I have not a glimmer of a doubt.'

He felt a smile cross his lips, the first he could remember for ages. 'And one more thing: we hurt the vampire. Oh it was strong as a mountain and old but it is as mortal as any of us and one day sooner or later its time shall come.'