As darkness enveloped him, Chris felt his soul begin to fray from his body. The sensation didn't last long until his falling was abruptly stopped, but it didn't feel like he had hit the bottom of the abyss. Greatly weakened but still very conscious, Chris opened his eyes. He found himself in a mysterious new landscape that he had never seen before. It was smoky and dark with blue and red lighting - it almost appeared to be a round room... but also seemed to go forever in all directions? Whatever it was, it looked very ominous.
Before long, a skeletal figure with glowing orange eyes and glasses emerged from the fog. The figure introduced himself as Death, as in THE Death, the figure of legend said to claim the souls of the dead. He apologized to Chris for the fate that had befallen him, and explained that the place they were in was a plane known as the Equidom. As it turns out, the Darkmere Abyss was essentially a portal between the realms of the Living and the Dead, and this Equidom was one of the places where the souls of the Spiral's recently deceased get sorted into their respective Underworld.
Death stated that Chris's situation was one very unique to him: because Chris had already been killed and brought back to life, the Daywalker transformation had not taken place as it normally would on a living person - putting his soul in a state of limbo where it could not properly pass into the Beyond. Chris was at a loss for what Death was referring to with his mention of a past revival, but Death quickly noted that when Westvale was invaded all those years ago, Chris's mother Iris used the last of her lifeforce in her dying moments to cast a spell of protection that would bring her son back to the living when the home would inevitably collapse from the fire. That meant that from a very young age, Chris had been living on the borrowed lifeforce of his mother, with his own having been taken all those years ago. A shocking development, to say the very least.
But curiously... this did not make him Undead. Well... at least not in the typical sense. The sacrificial transfer of life from one being to another was an ancient and oft-forgotten magical practice dating back to the time when Druids dominated the Skyways, but the specific spell Iris used to channel this was an unorthodox one that had been taught to her by her Hoodoo practitioner, Ozul. Now, having been bitten by a Daywalker just before a second death, things had become even stranger.
...But that wasn't even the worst of it.
Death explained that the Vespera (or "Daywalkers" as the Spiral had come to know them) were not of their reality, or any known reality for that matter. While their vampiric effects seemed to function within the rules of the Spiral, none of the Primals - Raven, Spider, or even Bartleby - could deduce their true origin. They chose to simply keep a hands off approach, hoping that the problem would resolve itself but secretly worrying of a greater threat from parts unknown. With the Vespera growing stronger, it was clear to Death that something had to be done.
In exchange for Chris's assistance in eliminating the Daywalker problem, Death promised to turn a blind eye to the matter of collecting his soul, giving him eternal life to roam the Living World as he pleased. Believing Chris's heart to be pure, Death did not worry about the oversight of his superiors, instead predicting that any efforts on Chris's part to get rid of the Vespera would be a net positive for the Universe. Chris agreed to these terms and was soon enveloped in bright light as his body was healed and prepared for its new life. Before long two shadowy, feminine forms took Chris by the arms and lifted him away, taking him through a portal and back to Darkmoor.
Upon being back in his homeworld, Chris quickly noticed some changes to his physical appearance. His skin was paler than before, his pupils were white with black sclera, and his hair had turned an almost blood-red hue. However, he did not despair over this transformation. He was just happy to be alive once more.
With his newfound purpose and immortality, the next hundred years were spent searching the Spiral entire for Chris's former "family." He knew more than anyone that Damien and his Brotherhood were very good at keeping themselves hidden and striking from the shadows, so much so that not even a former Knight of Virtue was privy to any clues.
About halfway through this span of time, Chris befriended and joined a vigilante biker gang known as the Heretics. The gang consisted of a female Polar Fox named Yuka, a female High Elf named Nina, and a male Husky named Jax. Together, they explored many worlds and had numerous fun (and often harrowing) adventures while searching for Damien's Brotherhood. Chris even had an on-and-off romantic affair with Nina, the two bonding over their similar militant upbringings. While his compatriots grew older and their bodies wore down Chris did not age, something that saddened him more and more. He wished that immortality was not a boon that only some individuals got to have.
Near the end of the hundred years, the now-senior Jax of the Heretics was tipped off that there had been a sighting of vampiric creatures on the outskirts of a small and abandoned colonial outpost near Dragonspyre known as Vohonia. The gang took their sky-faring vessel, an ancient Darkmoorian galleon called the Phantasm, and sailed through the Spiral Threads and across the Skyways in hopes of finally finding those they had set out to find so many years ago.
When they arrived in Vohonia, they were not prepared for what they would discover. The bodies of the Clawthorne Brotherhood, strung across the streets of an ancient and crumbling town. It was clear that they were not the only ones who had been told about the Brotherhood's presence. The gang split up in two to scan the area, with Jax attending Chris and Nina going with Yuka. It wouldn't be long before Chris found what he thought he would never find - it was the corpse of none other than Damien himself. And nearby, his loyal daughter and Chris's former lover, Vera. Neither of them looked like they had aged even a day. Chris was filled with a sense of both liberty and sadness but his heart sank as he saw Vera cough up blood. She was still alive.
Vera signaled to Chris to come over, and he quickly but cautiously obliged. Crouching at the side of her body, grief overcame him as he watched his long-lost love dying right in front of him. Greatly weakened and barely able to speak, Vera explained that she had always loved him and that Damien had forced her to do terrible acts for the Brotherhood. She revealed that like Chris, she was once human and became a foundling Vespera when Damien transformed her after destroying her family's home. He had hoped that Vera would grow up to bear children for the Brotherhood, something that would never come to pass by her own machinations. She always held out hope that despite what she had been forced to do, Chris would find the Brotherhood and save her. With one final breath, Vera grabbed Chris's hand and shed a tear as the last bit of life left her eyes, and her face turned to that of a Vespera. Chris used his fingertips to close her eyes, and with the help of his friends they would set up a funeral pyre to honor Vera's tragic life and death.
With the Heretics' main purpose now behind them, they begrudgingly continued business as usual exploring the Spiral and making memories together over the next several years. But when Yuka fell sick, the now-elderly Heretics retired to a home which they all shared. One by one, Yuka, Jax, and Nina passed on, leaving Chris with his thoughts and ever-present immortality to contend with.
To honor his dear departed friends, Chris took on the new surname "DeathRider" as it was important to him - the Heretics had followed the myths and legends of biker gangs throughout history, and one such tale told of the Death Rider, a fearsome undead "Road Warrior" who traveled the lands on a flaming bike made from the skeleton of a Drake. With Chris technically being undead himself, his comrades believed that he was essentially the "second coming" of the Death Rider. Chris leaned into this idea by riding his own bike matching the description of the Death Rider's from the stories.
Over the next fifty years, Chris thought hard but ultimately decided that he would dedicate his eternal life to writing about and preserving the Spiral's history as well as researching the inner workings of the Universe. This would earn Chris a reputation across the Spiral for his publications and studies.
Though he enjoyed his work, Chris eventually found himself missing the feeling of community that he had felt being part of the Heretics, and also felt that he could still do more good than just keeping an eye on the Spiral and studying it from the shadows. After much pondering on how to achieve more, Chris soon put a plan into action.....
