Ready or Not...

''The darkess is lifting... my eyes are no longer blind... I can see...

... the truth...''

As Lombard heaved his decrepit form from his bedspread, the goblin physicians who had cared for him for the past few weeks prepared themselves for yet another nightmarish subdueing. But the elderly man looked around, unsure at first, but he then seemed to relax. Until he saw his body.

Lombard stared blankly at his deformed and shrunken hand, terror written across his face. He got out of his bed and began to walk. The blood rushed into his legs and made him stumble to the floor. The physicians tried to help him up, but he swung at them with fear. He fled to the nearest mirror, and let out a terrible scream.

His face, which had once been a handsome thing, even in his old age, had become a monstrosity. Saggy flaps of skin hung limply on the left side of his face. Most of his hair was gone on that side of his head. He couldn't see out of his left eye.

A huge hump emitted from his back, forcing him to bend forward in his profile. He could see, even beneath his bedrobe, that it was bumpy and deformed.

Trembling fingers trapsed over the skin of his hand, which was rough and flaky to the touch. The skin of his face was sickeningly soft, like clay in a bag.

Lombard fell to his knees, with difficulty, and began to cry. Pitiful, weak sobs uttered from his throat.

After several minutes of weeping, he stopped. His job was not yet finished. He didn't have the Eye of Mazthoril, which he had paid for with these deformities. But his job must still be done, else the civilised world would end.

Ready or not, here I come...