"His name is Alban," the Elfen Lord said, looking down upon his newly born son.
His human son, for this child was not conceived by him and his wife, but by an
unknown other. Their eldest daughter, Adrianna, had found him tucked into a
makeshift cradle of marble and limestone at the mouth of the Moon River. From
within the water polished rocks, barely out of view, she had pulled the babe
and held him in her arms. The skin of his face was moist and cold from the
clouds of spray that had escaped from the river, but the rest of his body was
warm and dry, neatly wrapped in a cocoon of pure, alabaster white, antler
shaped leaves. The twelve-year-old Elfen girl had raced down the mountain,
raven black hair trailing behind her head like the shadow of a comet. She had
hit the edge of the Serenwilde at a run, her body simultaneously moving and
melding through the forest, weaving like a root through trees and soil, using
her spirit to bond with the Wilde until the very forest itself carried the
babe. Moments later she emerged from the undergrowth next to her father’s
forge, lungs and brain heaving, fighting for a bit of oxygen. The Elfen Lord
caught her easily in one hand as she collapsed from fatigue, and slid the other
under the baby, pulling him close to his chest.

"His name is Alban," he repeated, looking down upon the baby, who now lay in a
tiny bed of pine needles that the Elfen family had gathered and piled next to
the Mother's rune-covered totem. It had been several hours since Alban had
first been pulled from the rocks and spray, and now the entire family; father,
mother, and daughter, gathered around him, each one smiling in spite of
themselves, watching Alban as he gave up trying to eat a handful of pine
needles and shifted his attention to trying to wrap his little fingers around
the totem, whose top was not even visible above the trees.

"After my grandfather?" The mother said, lifting her eyes to meet her husbands.

For a moment their gazes locked, Elfen Lord and High Elfen, and during that
moment an eerie silence filled the grove as the two shared a familiar memory.
Then the dark moment passed and the sun’s radiance returned to the blooming
flowers and the chirps of birds once again filled the air.

Her husband just nodded slowly and said, "In the ancient tongues his name meant
something close to the color white, and just before he was...taken...he said
that his spirit would someday return to us, this time armored in ivory." As he
finished speaking he gestured towards the discarded cocoon of white leaves.

"And perhaps it has," the mother said, the beginnings of a smile painting
itself across her fair face.

Alban grew quickly over the years, becoming healthy, strong, and fit, which was
the case with most children in the Seren, who were raised on a diet of nuts and
berries, and learned to climb before they learned to walk. Over the course of
seventeen years his body and mind developed, learning the ways and culture of
the Serenwilde, learning what it meant to live in a commune, and on his
eighteenth birthday he took the mark of his family; a green Elfen hand,
outlined in black, cupped under his left eye. He watched from the sidelines as
political leaders would rise and fall and as wars were won and lost. He felt
safe within the bark fortress of the commune, but just beyond its living walls
he could sense the vastness of Lusternia, and he knew that not all places were
like his home.

His father taught him how to use weapons; both the blade and the word, because
his father lived by both. He taught him how to parry a war hammer with a flick
of his rapier, and how to mold someone’s thoughts with the dreaded sharpness
of a single word. "If you watch someone," his father had said, "You can learn
everything you need to know about them to use your words to influence.
Sometimes the most chilling defeats and glorious victories can be won without
touching the hilt of your blade...but just in case, I will teach you to be a
master of both. If your words do fail you, then you should be sure that your
enemy will yield to your sword."

While he learned combat and speech craft from his father, he learned the
histories and the ways of nature from his Mother. He watched in awe as she
would raise an ethereal forest from a grove of desert sand and boulders, motes
of green light blooming like nebulae beneath their feet as vines and trees,
eager to take hold of life, would slide from the most unlikely of places. Then
she would dance through the flickering forest, her body almost becoming ethereal
itself as her blonde hair shimmered into white, and her green tinted skin became
unrecognizable from the vegetation surrounding it.

Then, as the bubbles of ethereal light would finally blossom and suddenly dim,
she changed from the maiden to the mother, taking her son aside to teach him
the history of his people, the gods, and all of Lusternia.

One day, as the red sun was rising, Alban's father took him to Avechna's Peak
to watch as Lusternia was reborn from the night and into the morning. They
sat, cross legged next to each other, and his father began to speak, which he
did like no other mortal who ever lived.

"All of life, from birth, to death, to rebirth, is about change. Lusternia is
alive, and thus it constantly changes. You see our forest to the west, rising
like a wave of green radiance, and all of it is alive. Even the cities, which
are made up of hard, dead things, and that we conspire to remove, are alive.
One day I will take you to see Celest, and from above you will see that people
move through its streets and alleys in much the same way blood runs through a
vein. In this way, everything is movement, and everything is alive. If you
had the vision of the gods, you could sit atop the moon and watch a year in
Lusternia pass in a day. You would see the tiniest snowflakes, born as clear,
blue water, being changed into vapor and then rising to the sky and falling as
snow, as white as your name. From here on this mountain to the Astral Plane
and onto the far reaches of space, nothing is constant. So why would death be?
One day I will die, and so shall you, and who is to say that on that day you do
not begin another, more glorious life anew, off on some distance star in the
quintessence of another galaxy?"

Alban looked down onto into the valleys and plains of Lusternia, and took in
everything his father said, knowing it was true but not knowing why. Did his
father want to prepare him for something, or was this just some cosmic truth
that his father thought he had to understand before he could be reborn and step
through the Portal of Fate? Thinking that the lesson was done, Alban started to
stand, but his father continued.

"I have heard you say, many times, that one day you will fight against the
Taint, and help to drive it back into oblivion at the point of your rapier.
That is how it should be; the taint is a horrible scar upon the body of
Creation, but I have also heard you say, many times, that you hate the Taint,
and that you hate those who are Tainted. You have no right to say that. Think
of those who are Tainted, really consider who they are. Do you still hate them?
Their bodies have been stolen and their souls raped and perverted by a soulless
being. They are shadows of who they once were, and yet they are still
themselves. Do you truly understand the horror of the Taint? It takes a
beautiful being of Creation and twists them into something that is both
themselves and not themselves. It forces them to do unspeakable horrors that
are a perverted mockery of who they should be. The Tainted are to be pitied,
not hated. Yes, they must be destroyed, but not with a song in your heart."

"Your great grandfather, from whom you take your name, was Tainted. Before
Almighty Kethuru was removed from the Taint, and it was still new, mysterious,
and infectious, your mother and I watched as a legion of Tainted people, our
old friends, dragged him into the dark cloud that was the Taint. We saw it
cling to his body like a parasite, hungry to worm itself into his eyes, nose,
and mouth, until it finally wrapped around his heart, and stopped it. He
became an undead Tainted, some abominable recreation of his former self, and
yet in his face you could still see the person that was he. The last thing he
said before the Taint completely corrupted him was, 'Someday my spirit shall
return to you, armored in ivory,' and then we found you, wrapped in alabaster
leaves."

Alban's lungs were contracting and his eyes dilating, and a lump had formed in
his throat that threatened to choke the life from him. He dropped his head to
his knees in sorrow, and his hair, black as the raven and braided with leaves,
fell around his face like a forest. No other words passed between him and his
father that day, because both knew that the other understood. They sat atop
the mountain for much longer, watching the sun blaze its way from one horizon
to the next, as though it were a burning banner for the beautiful parade of the
night sky that would follow, and then they watched that as well.

Several weeks after his enlightenment upon the mountain, Alban found himself
hunting rockeaters in the Northern Mountains, once again close to the source of
the Moon River. Adrianna was sitting atop a large, disc shaped stone that
jutted out of a crag above the water, watching her brother as he slowly and
quietly approached an unknowing rockeater, his rapier drawn and his other hand
held out for balance. Moments before the rock eater had appeared, she had been
skipping pebbles down the Moon River, and doing so with such expertise that most
of the rocks rounded the bend in the river and entered the forest. Now she had
her hands clutched around her knees, waiting in painful suspension as Alban
drew closer and closer to the stony creature.

A noise suddenly rent the air, vibrating out of the forest and shivering
through the mountain like a hurricane. The rockeater plunged back into the
earth, and all was quiet. Not even the river flowing over the rocks made
noise. Then a sound began to tear through the silence, a vibration not meant
for mortal ears that sounded like stones and metal being grinded and beaten.
The noise grew louder and more destructive, as though it threatened to undo all
of creation. Finally, the source of the noise stepped out of the trees and onto
the bank of the river, and Alban saw what appeared to be a void in space.

The creature was black as the crow and thin as a sheet a paper, standing as
though the shadow of some hulking, star shaped beast had been pealed off the
ground and given life. The noise it made as it moved sounded like
anti-creation, because that is what it was; a being that should not exist but
did so anyway. The shadow-beast flickered in and out of reality, like a dark
flame whose existence was about to be removed by the wind, but somehow it was
anchored to the prime plane.

The monster moved forward with such speed that it made Alban sick to his
stomach, the noise rising to an unnatural crescendo as it drew closer. In
moments it was wrapping its paper like arms around Adrianna, lifting her to its
chest with strength that seemed impossible for something so non-existent, then
it rushed back for the timber line with all the speed that Nil had gifted it.

Alban tore down the mountain path after his sister and the demon, his body
bonding with each nature spirit in succession until he too moved with the
frightening speed of nature's fury, and in this way the two beings raced each
other, nature against anti-creation. Alban's feet barely touched the surface
of Moon River as he cascaded down its watery shoals, his movements looking like
something between a runner and a tidal wave. Fountains of silver water sprang
up behind his every step, and the water behind him foamed like a rabid dog.

He was keeping the creature in sight, and both entities hit the edge of the
forest at colossal speeds; trees and boulders exploding into dust and
nothingness as the monster hit them, while Alban's very existence fused with
nature, his hands clinging to the trees where no limbs existed, and somehow he
climbed them, ricocheting from Moonhart to Moonhart. His body was glowing with
the green of Nature's rage, and at times he passed through the trees rather than
climbing them, his essence bonding with that of the trees, which gave him speed
and power.

They were nearing the Moonhart Mother Tree, each of the two beings had reached
their maximum speed, and all of reality quivered around them, barely containing
their unnatural movement. The dark creature reached the tree first, and did not
even slow, instead it hit the tree at maximum speed and disappeared, entering
the Ethereal Plane as it did so. The bark of the Mother Tree cracked and
smoked, but held strong as Alban also slammed into it, transversing to the
Ethereal Plane.

The new plane of existence that they had entered was beautifully bizarre.
Silver mist hung in the air like sheets of wispy metal, drifting in lazy
circles around the Mother Tree, which, in this plane, existed as a gnarled,
silver testament of power. Antler shaped leaves adorned her majestic limbs
like green wax, and pollen the color of snow drifted down in halos around the
colossal tree. The very air here was alive with light, as though each atom had
been injected with it.

Standing several meters from the tree, the darkness that was the creature
stared at Alban. It had grown. Now standing near nine feet tall, it towered
over a flowering archway that stood behind it. Not only had the transversal of
planes given it height, it had also given it weight. Alban could now see,
barely, two hollow pits where the eyes would be, and ropes of sinewy muscle
that wrapped around the monster's body. The demon nodded once at Alban, then
stepped backwards through the archway, and Alban gave chase once again.

He erupted from the other side of the archway into Faethorn. Ethereal trees
grew here, their leaves buried deep within the earth and their roots blooming
out into the air like so many arms. Alban saw the monster, moving more slowly
now, working its way down the narrow paths with deadly precision, and Alban
understood that whatever this monster was, it wanted him to follow; it wanted
him to catch up eventually. Despite seeing the trap, Alban ran again, not
daring to abandon Adrianna to this beast of anti-creation.

The creature was picking up speed again, its gargantuan legs taking strides
that were longer than Alban was tall, its crow-black muscles bulging and
gleaming under the radiance of Faethorn. The creature soon turned off the
beaten path and onto another one, this one much smaller...and somehow darker.
Alban entered the darkened path just seconds after the monster, and as he did
his stomach filled with knots of dread. The new path looked as though someone
had taken a piece of black silk and draped it over the sky and trees, dimming
the natural radiance of Faethorn. The ground here almost boiled with the
scarring of the Taint, as the beauty of Queen Maeve's realm morphed into
something hideous. The trees here grew dark as a crow's feathers, and large,
amorphous stones filled the scenery. Alban knew where this road led, and the
knowledge filled him with dread.

After rounding another bend in the path, Alban saw that the creature had
stopped once again, this time in front of an archway of stones, so old,
decrepit, and decayed that it looked as though it may fall apart at any moment.
The ground beneath the hulking shadow nearly glowed with ebony light, creating
the illusion that the monster was growing out of the ground like a black rose.

Did Adrianna look different? Her eyes were now open, yet still empty with
unconsciousness. Her fingertips were turning black-blue, as were her lips, and
her very skin had nearly lost its alabaster sheen, like a pearl covered in black
soil. Alban's hand flew to the hilt of his rapier, and he removed it from his
belt, clutching the grip with both hands. Yet he could not keep the tip from
quivering with the fear he felt in his heart. Beads of glistening sweat now
peppered his face, and he realized just how exhausted the chase had made him.
"Yield to me!" He screamed at the monster.

The shadow slowly shook its head, from left to right, before stepping backwards
through the archway and onto the elemental plane of earth. Alban sheathed his
sword and ran faster than he ever had before.

The sight and smell of the Earth Elemental plane tore through him like an arrow
as he stepped into it. It was as though he had stepped into the heart of a
Tainted creature; the walls of the cavern he was now in pulsated in a steady
rhythm, and were covered with tunnels that bended out of sight, like veins and
arteries. The blood of this room took its form as black tar, running down the
clay walls like thick, coagulated oil. Erupting from the center of the room
was the Megalith of Doom, covered in ancient hieroglyphs and tainted cracks.
Gasses swirled up above, twisting in and out of each other like rain clouds,
yet darker than any thunderstorm. However, the most terrifying aspect of the
room was that the black creature was nowhere to be seen, and thus, neither was
his sister.

Alban's breath caught in his throat as his gaze launched from one side of the
room to the other, to no avail. Using the spirit of the wolf, he smelled the
air, searching for the scent of the creature. The air that entered Alban's
nostrils caused his head to spin and his stomach to churn, and brought him to
his knees. He doubled over, both hands on his throat, as he gagged and
vomited; sticky black tar falling from his mouth and splattering all over the
decaying floor. He wiped his lips on the sleeve of his tunic, and stood up,
wobbling on shaky knees. He had smelled the creature, and the scent of the
Taint and decay on it had nearly killed him, but he knew where it had gone: the
Cosmic Plane. Alban gathered his strength, and laid both hands upon the
Megalith of Doom, transversing to the Cosmic realm of Nil.

The creature was waiting for him on the other side, and for the first time it
spoke to him, its voice wavering like the bending and unbending of thin metal,
"It is only a little further." Alban doubled over again upon seeing the
creature, this time in hopeless agony; for he knew that he could not win a
fight with this monster. It had grown another foot in height, and now had two
ivory horns, the size of tree limbs, adorning the top of its head. Each one
grew out of the back of its ebony skull, and then immediately curved forward,
the points ending above each eye.

The shadow beast's figure had become even more defined, though a hazy black
aura still clouded the face. It was as slender as an Elfen, except several
feet taller, with thick, sinewy muscle wrapping its body from head to foot.
The monster's rib cage jutted out from its torso, but in between were five
pairs of thick abdominal muscles, each one armored with a single, ebony scale.
The creature’s hands and feet were both bare, with each finger and toe
terminating in a large, razor sharp talon.

Alban brought himself back into a standing position and leveled his gaze with
the monsters, having to crane his neck to do so. A dark rainbow of emotions
had filled his eyes, clouding them over with anger, frustration, and despair,
causing his pupils to dilate and become glassy. He removed his sword from his
belt again, not even trying to keep it from shaking, and repeated his last
statement, "Yield to me." The power that his father had given his voice was
gone, and Alban bit on his lips in an effort not to cry.

"It is only a little further."

"Then lead! And may the Fates take us all."

The creature nodded once, stepped backwards towards the Megalith of Doom, and
was gone. Alban approached the Megalith as well, and ran the tip of his rapier
down its surface, not daring to touch it with his skin. Using his blade as a
conduit of power, he transversed to the Astral Plane.

The creature was waiting for him again, this time with its arms hanging
casually at its side, and Adrianna lying in a heap at its feet. Alban looked
upon the monster with horror, for the aura of black mystery was gone from its
face, and for the first time the creature looked like flesh instead of shadow.
Its skin was no longer wreathed in complete blackness, but now had a blue
undertone. It was the creatures face, however, that gave birth to nightmares
that would plague Alban's sleep for the rest of his life.

From the top of the forehead to the tip of the chin, the face was white as
snow, and if it had not been for the thin, black veins coursing under the
flesh, it would have looked the same as any other adult male Elfen. Its lips
were pursed into a tight frown, and were blue from the lack of untainted blood
inside the creature, but it was the eyes that made the face truly unique. They
were stones of cold obsidian, gleaming in the unnatural light of the Astral
Plane like smooth black glass, and from the inner corner of each eye trickled
an endless stream of tears, as though the creature were crying.

Alban could barely tear his gaze away from that of the creatures, but he did so
anyway, casting his eyes around the new scenery, praying to see an escape route.
There was none. He and the monster continued to exist only within a small,
translucent bubble of reality, and outside this bubble there was an endless,
black sea of darkness. Occasionally another bubble of reality would zoom by,
like a fish darting through inky black water.

The terrain of the bubble that Alban and the creature stood in was metallic in
nature, filled with swaying iron bridges, steel rails, and an orchard of metal
bars. Keeping just out of site, beyond the rows of metal, Alban could see an
uncountable number of pairs of red eyes, glowing in the darkness like demonic
fireflies.

"Do you know who I am?" The monster’s voice jerked Alban’s attention back
to the hauntingly sad, obsidian eyes. The creature spoke without opening its
mouth, the warbling metal voice seeming to be an echo of the scenery.

"No."

"Do you know why I found you and brought you here?"

"No."

"This was the original source of the Taint, when Almighty Kethuru launched his
attack upon creation," the monster gestured to a disfigured column, slightly
resembling the Megalith of Doom, "Welcome to the Supra Plane."

"I know where we are. You still have not answered either of your questions."

The metal voice of the monster chuckled, and it continued as though it had not
heard Alban, "As such, this is the only plane of existence that I can appear in
my pure…undiluted form. Unfortunately, that means it is the only plane where
you can see my face. I am...surprised that you do not know me. My name is
Alban."

Alban the Human's lungs stopped working at that point. His hand lost purchase
on his sword, and his vision began to swim as his mind reeled, yet he managed
to stay standing as Alban the Tainted began to speak again.

"I was infected with the Taint just as Gaudiguch and Hallifax destroyed
themselves, resulting in a small part of my physique," the monster ran one
clawed hand over his face, "Remaining as it originally was. Fortunately,
beauty is only skin deep...though as you can see, it appears to have locked
into the last emotion I was feeling before becoming...enlightened."

As the creature was speaking, Alban had managed to gather his senses and pick
up his rapier, and he now held it straight out, elbow locked in place. He
began to speak towards the monster, and this time his voice rang out with
confidence and courage, "You are an abomination, not Alban. I am Alban! I am
the only Alban, and I intend to stay that way. You will yield to me!"

"Am I not Alban?" The creature questioned, its metallic voice rising like a
chorus of demons throughout the Astral Plane. Without waiting for an answer,
it launched itself towards Alban the Human, covering the distance between them
in a few milliseconds. It wrapped both its hands around Alban's arms, the
talons digging into his shoulder blades, and lifted him off the ground,
bringing their faces within centimeters of touching. Alban could not help but
to stare into those deep, dark, horrible, obsidian eyes, and as he did he began
to see visions of the past. Or was it the future?

He could see himself walking down a dirt road on the outskirts of a forest,
though it was not the Serenwilde, and his parents stood behind him, waving and
cheering him on as though he were about to do something heroic. Then shadows
began to move in the forest, like ashes rising in a campfire, and he watched as
his parents began to scream and run towards him, each one bonding with their
familiar spirits in an effort to reach him faster. Then the ashes moved out of
the trees, and for a moment they lingered as shadows before morphing into the
various races of Lusternia. Their hands latched onto his helpless body and
pulled him into the forest.

The eyes of the monster became plain obsidian once again, but the vision had
not ended. Alban the Human's body began to convulse in the monster's hands,
his head lolling from side to side as flecks of saliva formed on the corners of
his lips. He was feeling pain beyond anything he had ever known before. His
insides felt like they were being mutilated and torn apart, and he could feel
his very soul twisting inside his heart, like a worm trying to escape a burning
furnace. He knew what this was. It was what it felt like to become Tainted, to
have something soulless shoved into your body and force you to mutate, becoming
something that is not you, and yet still is. Every fiber of his being was
quaking with pain, and then it stopped. Alban the Tainted released his grip on
him, and he fell to the metal floor of the Astral Plane. Then he noticed that
somehow, through the pain and convulsions, he had managed to hold onto his
rapier.

"Do you still think I am an abomination?"

Alban said nothing, keeping his head bowed and his hand on his sword.

"Answer me."

Alban tightened his fingers around the sword, looked up at the Tainted version
of himself or his great grandfather, whatever this being was, and said, "Yes,
but I do not hate you for it." Then, using all the speed that had been born to
him and taught to him, he plunged the silver rapier into the Tainted Alban's
kneecap.

Finally, as though awakening from a dream, the Elfen face of the Tainted Alban
screamed into life, its mouth hanging open and screeching, revealing rows of
sharp, black, oozy teeth.

Alban grabbed onto the hilt of his sword again, removed it from the
creature’s knee, and plunged it deep into its throat. Black puss began to
ooze around the blade’s entry point, and Alban twisted the sword, bringing
forth another ear-piercing wail.

The creature was on its knees now, and Alban leaned forward to whisper into its
ear, "We are both about to change," and then spun around and kicked the Tainted
Alban in the chest. The bones under the monster's pectoral muscles crunched
like acorn shells just before the force of the kick sent it spiraling backwards
and out of the bubble, into nothingness.

Alban gathered Adrianna in his arms, kissed her forehead, and smiled when he
found that it was warm. Then he began transversing backwards through the planes
of existence.