Aliases are alternative forms of a reference. They can include actual aliases for characters, nicknames, plural variations, gendered versions of some [Classes], and even typos.
“Take one other of the Chosen and locate this Runner, this Human girl. You remember her face? Of course you do. Track her down; follow her trail. To that purpose, Ijvani or Oom would be best suited to accompany you.”
The woman, the armored knight made of bone, Venitra ignored the question. She and her companion, Ijvani, were on a mission to find the girl, the Courier, the Runner. They had been sent by their great master, Az’kerash. Being lost was…not acceptable. It couldn’t be happening.
Venitra and Ijvani stood among the remnants of the dead Goblins that had ambushed them. She recognized them as belonging to the Goblin Lord’s army, but she felt no qualms in butchering them. They, like all things not created of her master, were lesser things.
She was speaking to a Goblin who stood in front of her and Ijvani. He was pale and his eyes…there was something wrong with them. To Venitra, the eyes were reassuring, comforting, even. They reminded her of her master, Az’kerash. It might be presumptuous of the Goblin to emulate her master so and perhaps under other circumstances Venitra would have plucked the eyes out herself. But as it stood, Venitra considered the Goblin Lord an…ally of sorts.
Ijvani’s voice was closer to a hiss, and there was an unsettling echo to her words. The Goblin Lord looked at her. He did not speak, but one hand rose and pointed.
He grinned. And turned away. Venitra paused, and then turned. She and Ijvani began walking through the snow. To Liscor. To find the accursed Human named Ryoka Griffin.
Venitra turned her head to regard her companion. Ijvani usually travelled in a cloak of woven shadows, a production of magic that protected her from sight as well as attack. However, she too had exchanged her usual garb for a simple traveler’s cloak. It was just as well no one was around, however. A single look into either undead woman’s hoods would reveal a nightmare.
Two kinds of nightmares, in fact. Where Venitra’s hood would have revealed a sculpted face of bone, something similar to a Golem but far more unsettling, Ijvani’s cloak concealed a different secret. An unsettling one. A thought—inspiration from the Necromancer’s mind given form.
Two burning golden eyes stared at Venitra. They were placed in the hollow, grinning skull of a skeleton. That was what Ijvani was. A skeleton mage. No ordinary mage, though. Her magic was on par with any Gold-rank adventurer. Yet even that did not set her apart. It was her body.
Bone, yes. Reanimated, yes. But her bones were not the pristine white of Venitra’s form, or the yellow of bones left to rot. Instead, Ijvani’s bones shone. They shone black.
