Nerium

It was a dark and cold night, the steers were mostly empty besides the burly night workers and gangsters that hung around at night. A hunched figure strolled down the torchlit cobblestone road as it turned to dirt and led into a shanty town. It was inside an aboandend shack half torn away by age that she removed her hood to revealing the aged face of a dying dark elf woman. She started a fire in a pit in the center of the room and sat to rest her old bones. Out from another room came a creature, some sort of feline and canine hybrid, it came up to the flame and sat beside her. "Any luck today?," it asked.

"None...", replied the old woman in a frail voice.

"I don't think you'll find a way to restore your power before you pass into the next realm." She didn't answer, only sat on here in silence feeling the sting of failure once more. It was to be a night just like any other for the past couple hundred years for Nerium the former Witch Queen and her familiar Caster.

That is until the flames burst outward and and rose to the ceiling the returned to a more conservative manner but still impressively big for such a small fire pit. Caster had been startled and jumped back but his master just sat there, unmoved by the frightening display. "I, am Omen!," said the flames as they turned into a crude shadow of a face and sounding as if three people were taking at once, one trailing after the other by a few words. "You were once a powerful sorceress, but you were robbed of that power. I can grant you a fraction of what you once wielded. All you must do is go back to the tower you once called home."

Caster looked from the face of flames to his master, "Quite the gift. No one grants such things for free...What do you ask for in return?," she inquired.

"All I ask," answered the demon, "is that you do what I say. Now go! Return to the tower and lay your hand upon the stone and you shall know the power of OMEN!", and as swiftly as he'd appeared he vanished.

Caster looked back once more, "Do you trust him? Are we going back?" The old woman covered her head once more with the hood of her ragged cloak and nodded to the beast. She slowly stood and walked out of her decrepit home and her familiar followed, but not before switching to his transparent ethereal form as to not attract attention. The two walked side by side along the dirt road and into the night away from the city.

Days of traveling had passed and Nerium had only taken a handful of breaks despite her aged form. They had traversed forests, plains, fields and farms, mountains, hills, ruins, deserts, and finally the swamp. The two arrived at the base of the crumbling tower, it once again had sunk into the muck at an even greater angle than before. It wasn't easy but the old woman managed to climb inside and started ascending the tower.

On the top floor was her old throne room where she ruled an empire with the well of magic that had granted her great and terrible powers. It glowed unnaturally in the room shaded by the trees of the marsh thanks to the setting sun. As she neared the well she was interrupted by a familiar voice amongst the rubble, "Mistress?! Is that you?" She looked through the haze of swamp fog and saw one of her old minions, Abrus, a changeling she'd taken in as her servant and jester.

The odd creature had no form of its own and in its excitement transformed randomly several times as he approached his old master. "Mistress, misstress, missress! Oh it has been sooo long! I've waited for you everyday since the collapse. And you've returned! A bit worse for wear I might say...But you're back!" Neri had forgotten how annoying Abrus was when he was excited she she'd often tried to put him down which was hard to do as his life under her service was far better than picking trough scraps on the streets or the cold nights in the woods.

The aging witch pushed past him and moved on to the glowingb stone embedded into the cylindrical rock jutting out from the center of the room. Her two minions watched as she placed a wrinkled hand on the green gem and she was enveloped in a magicgal shroud of dull green mist. She floated in the air for a moment and was soon placed back down on her two bare feet. Nerium stood straight up, her bosom pushing the boundary of her cloak which now revelaved more of the dark skin of her legs, and pulled her hood back to reveal the face a much younger and beautiful woman.

She laughed into the ceiling high above, "I'm back! I have my youth! And, more importantly, my power! I. Shall. Rule. The. WORLD!!!", following it up with a feminine cackle. When she finished, she turned to her minions and pointed to Abrus, "You! Draw me a bath. I'll be restoring my tower to some of its former glory. Off with you. NOW!" With that the changeling scattered downstairs to her private chambers that consisted of the entire floor below to get his master's bath ready. Neri returned to the well and summoned power from within to raise the tower out from the ground to levitate above the marsh. Caster followed her closely after she was done to accompany her while she restored the rest of her old home.