Somewhere in the middle of a large forest, a large purple portal opened as 100 dark, murky, humanoid beings emerged from the portal. As soon as the last being stepped out, the portal snapped shut behind them, leaving them in such an unfamiliar environment.
As soon as the light and energy of the portal vanished, an unfamiliar sensation washed over them, a terrible sensation as though they didn't belong crept into their very being as a sense of vulnerability shook the young shadows. Alsvid looked around him.
They were in a small clearing where a bright orb of pure energy bared down its wrath onto them, as though trying to exterminate an unwanted parasite. The shadows slowly begun to realize to their horror that their lustrous sheen was gone, having been replaced by a dull, murky, black matter, worse of all they were transparent, they weren't solid like before.
Looking around some more, Alsvid found that whatever sort of existence they had been reduced to was a common something in this new realm as everything solid around them had this exact existence underneath it possessing a bit of the object's integrity within.
He was about to move forward when.
"What do you think Alsvid, what's your call?" One of the shadows nearby asked.
"Well, whatever sort of existence we've become seems to be common around here." Alsvid replied.
"Yeah, that much is obvious." One of the shadows quipped.
"I know, but notice how this sort of existence is flat and unmoving." Alsvid said unbothered.
"Great observation, oh look were standing on the ground, wow, the thing above us is the sky, so glad we had you to point out the obvious." The same shadow taunted.
Not saying anything else, Alsvid moved towards a nearby tree at the edge of the clearing.
"What are you doing Alsvid, it might be dangerous to do things on your own, forget that idiot but tell us your plan so we can all stick together." A different shadow tried to warn when he saw Alsvid make his move.
Without so much as a simple reply, Alsvid stepped into the shadow casted by the tree and immediately disappeared from view.
"Alsvid!!!" One shadow yelled as the rest huddled together.
"Relax guys." Alsvid's voice came from the shadow of the tree as he slithered out of the shadow of the tree, having taken the form of a formless blob of shadow in a 2D form rather than a 3D.
"My experiment worked, if my guess is correct, those things are shadows just like us, except they're inanimate, this world can't support living shadows naturally, we are an anomaly that can share the same properties as already existing shadows in this world." Alsvid explained.
All the other shadows were fascinated with this new discovery as one by one, they approached the shadows of the nearby trees. Some went in, and came out in 2D while others went in and came out still 3D, the process wasn't natural and the shadows needed to actually mimick the inanimate shadow properties but for now, they were still learning.
Moving a little deeper into the forest but not too far from the clearing, Alsvid wanted to know all that there was to know about the shadows in this world. It didn't take long before he witnessed something new. A large creature, with orange fur and strange black stripes going across different parts of its body, was stalking a smaller creature with brown fur and strangely large horns on its head.
Moving quickly, Alsvid attached himself to the creature's shadow to get a better look at the situation. Just when the smaller creature let down its guard to eat a fruit from one of the trees, the muscular orange creature pounced. It jumped out of the bush and onto the smaller creature but its landing wasn't perfect so it ended up severely wounding the smaller one rather than killing it.
Alsvid acted quickly, manifesting a strange murky spike out of his shadow, he stabbed the bigger creature straight through the head before it could continue its assault but it was already too late. The smaller creature was too gravely wounded and was bleeding out.
The shadow from the bigger creature merged with Alsvid as he detached himself from it and went towards the smaller creature in his 3D humanoid form.
"Am sorry little one, for not acting fast enough. Let me put an end to your suffering." Alsvid said as he knelt down and stabbed his spiked hand into the smaller one's head, ending its suffering.
He watched on as the creature's shadow came to life and merged with him, not showing much of a reaction as he moved back to the clearing.
When he got to the clearing, the other shadows had gathered and were doing a head count. Once the last shadow was accounted for, Alsvid revealed himself to the others.
"Alsvid, we've talked about not straying too far away from the group, where were you?" One shadow asked.
"If you guys keep cowering together in a single location you're going to waste your time waiting for a miracle to show you the way. Also, I was conducting research about this place and I got some fascinating information." Alsvid replied as he walked over.
"First off, this place doesn't have as heavy of a restraint on our forms as the void, the catch is you'll waste more energy keeping up a form than just merging with and hiding in an already existing shadow. The shadows in this world are bound to physical objects, I learned this not too long ago when I killed two living creatures. Their souls ascended to the void while their shadows destabilized, I assume the shadows would have dispersed if they hadn't been drawn to me. In exchange for taking them in, I've been filled with the knowledge of the form of their original owners, which means I can now change my form to that of the creatures that I killed." Alsvid said.
In order to demonstrate what he just said, Alsvid desolved his humanoid form as he became an amalgamation of murky, shadows before they begun to twist and turn in unnatural ways. In but a few seconds, Alsvid's transformation was done. Standing in front of the others, Alsvid smiled, his two tails waving in the wind, his four limbs planted firmly on the ground and he was no longer transparent.
In front of the shadows stood a pitch black, four legged, muscular creature with vicious looking claws and teeth and two tails behind it. The creature was made entirely out of condensed shadows and its raw power could be felt by everyone there. Just looking at the creature made the shadows excited.
However, before they could go off into the forest in search of creatures to kill, a crackling sound was heard from the middle of the clearing as another portal appeared. Another veil was sending in their agents.