The Death of Torva'shi

Torva'shi was murdered in his bed. A knife driven through his chest by a strange assassin. As life faded from him, his soul slipped into what lay beyond.

Your eyes flutter open.
Familiar surroundings greet you: the library you ruled as lord and master for so many years. You’re sitting at the desk that was your space, your seat of power, your throne. The center of the cabal. Its beating heart.
Home.
A familiar place, yet wrong, somehow. Colors are washed out, pale. Edges are blurred. In the distance you see how the long hallways of shelves fuzz out into a wall of fog.
You remember the knife, the pain, then darkness. They are distant things here. You are free from the weight of your body, the aches of years that once lay upon you.
You must be dead, then.
Something moves nearby.
You stand up from the desk, called to see what it is.
In one of the maze-like hallways, you find a figure cloaked in white. A man? A woman? You can’t tell. You can’t even tell if you are looking at a human, an elf, a dwarf, or something else entirely.
It reaches toward the bookcase and the wood of the shelf springs to life where the hand nears, growing new branches that sprout leaves and flowers. As the figure’s hand closes around a book, the flowers wilt and the leaves turn brown. By the time the figure opens the book, cradled against itself, the wood has died again, brittle, dead branches breaking and falling away.
“Torva’shi,” the figure says without turning toward you. Its voice is soft. “Are you ready to hear how your balance leans?”
Recognition dawns on you. “I… Are you?” you manage to mutter.
The figure turns and regards you with a benign smile; a parent patiently answering the questions of its child. But the eyes, two pools of pure darkness, bore into your very soul.
“The Judge of Souls? Yes,” the figure, the god of death themself, says. They turn their attention to the book in their hands. Unsure if you should speak, you hold your tongue.
Zaraah, God of Life and Death, leisurely thumbs through the book, content, it seems, to ignore you for the moment. The silence between you, broken only by the sound of turning pages, grows tense. With a sigh they snap the book shut and tuck it underneath an arm.
“A life lived with a lust for power. A life of callous greed, of taking all you can and giving back as little as possible. A life of secret knowledge used to hold sway over others. Unbalanced in the favor of Law and Evil. That, Torva’shi, is how I judge you.” They stretch out a hand toward you. “You will now go to your proper place.”
“No, he will not,” a new, intimately familiar voice cuts in.
An ancient man, bent with age, a thin, long, white beard just barely touching the ground rounds the corner. He is hooded and cloaked, his face obscured in the deep shadows of his cowl. Agagin, Keeper of Secrets, addresses his sibling deity, “This one is mine, body and soul. I am not yet done with him, so, as per the rules set down in the First Interdiction you have no power here, my dear sibling.”
“Henceforth, none shall have the power to undo the will of another. Yes, Agagin, I know the laws that bind us as well as you do,” Zaraah answers with another sigh. “Very well, brother.” They turn and, with a swirl of white cloth, disappear.
Agagin is at your side with a speed that belies his frail appearance. “You have failed me. But even in death I have use for you, my minion,” he says. His hands grasp your head in a vice-like grip, tattered nails dig into your scalp. The God takes a deep breath and blows pure darkness into your lungs.
You try to scream as the world fades in agony around you.