I just stared in horror as the form I knew as Nathan Temple looked on vacantly. The crisp white of the suit seemed to glow unnaturally in the moonlight. The cold night air seemed to freeze around me as the world screeched to a halt. Every time I saw him he looked more alien than the last time. He simply sat there posed like a doll made to look like a person. He brought his hands together in a slow clap that thundered through the still night, he’s eyes never left me.

The long moment broken he finally spoke, “Good. I see you are taking this seriously now. Things are beginning to get interesting. Even now the weave shifts.”

Anger overtook my fear as I retorted, “What the in the sevens hells are you on about? What do you want? Why are you having me and my friends attacked.”

The smile on his face faded as he met my eyes. Without crossing the space between us he stood in front of me. The flickered non-motion hit me with a wave of vertigo as he spoke, “Don’t mistake amusement, for recognition. You’ll dance to my tune or you will not be.”

I mustered my courage to rekindle my anger against the cold sweat that I could feel running down my neck. “So you’ll kill me?” I asked.

His smile returned. “If you test me you’ll wish death was all that I did to you.” His words made me take an involuntary step back. “Oh!” He said. “I nearly forgot my ‘nephew’ wanted to meet you. Nephew is a close enough word, so have fun kids!” He turned as he shouted the last part before he was gone again.

A shiver passed through my body. “He must be turning up the stakes again. I only just survived his last assault so I better be on my S game.” I thought.

I reached into the pockets of my warded coat pulling out a pair of demi gauntlets. Much like my other items they were iron veined with silver. The silver looked much like circuitry that connected the old Gaelic characters I used for shorthand for my spells. The characters themselves didn't matter but what I associated them with did. I placed each of them on my hands. Power poured into them and a cloth flowed from under the iron like a fluid binding them to my hands. I flexed my hands and felt each finger joint articulated perfectly. The plates on my back came free and hovered behind my and my rod smacked into my palm. I pushed power into the rod and it responded. The runes covering my equipment flared to life and the rod extended into my full wizard's staff.

The night was still as a fog condensed around me at an unnatural speed. “I should leave and not test my luck.”

I carefully made my way out. The fog made seeing impossible. I might as well be scuba diving in milk for all the visibility I had. I focused on feeling my magnetic field to get an idea of the things around me but it was more like touching everything around me at the same time than seeing. A series of rapid clicks sound off in the distance as images of a certain movie ran through my head. A fishy rot smell hung in the air taking my mental image away from a more reptilian image to something I might associate with the deep sea. I had to do something about the visibility so I let the air around me grow thick with electricity. I moved the power around me gently blowing back the fog. A figure became visable as the fog cleared a space around me. The shadowed form was tall and almost frail with how spindly its body appeared.

“Oh shit.” I thought. “This thing doesnt look like it was ever human and that cannot be a good thing.”