Krobelus was a Death Prophet--which is one way of saying she told fortunes for a price, but only for the noblest and wealthiest of those who wished to look beyond the veil.
After years of inquiring on behalf of others, she began to seek her own fortune. More and more often she gazed into the face of death to see if it knew her, and what it might have in mind.
For her clients, who wished to know not only their living fate but what awaited them beyond life's exit, no price was too great to pay, and she passed along to them the cost of her investigations. But the ultimate price, her life, proved insufficient. Death disgorged her again and again, always holding back its deepest mysteries; and in her soul the greatest of jealousies grew.
Others could die for eternity--why not she? Why must she be cast back on the shores of life with such tiresome regularity? What was it that haunted the realm of death, unknowable, yet so set against Krobelus that she could not prove herself worthy of the one thing all other living creatures took for granted?
Still, she would not be discouraged. After flinging herself into the abyss times beyond counting, she began to make some headway. A minuscule shred of her substance, she believed, was lost to the grave and replaced with the faintest whiff of ectoplasm. She gave a little of her life with every demise. Did this mean that the end was in sight? Could Krobelus win this war of self-attrition?
With her dedication to death redoubled, and no client other than herself, she threw herself ever more fervently through death's doors, intent on fulfilling the one prophecy that eluded her: That someday Death Prophet too would be no more.
