If honour is truth and a lie is respect, then a secret is sacred.
Confide in me my friend and I shall love you like no other.
[This is a lot of bits of random writing from ALFA - NWN1. Altogether it gives a general history of a character that I never thought I would play again. Obviously 5 years on and the planes open doors for such a character that were closed by a more narrow setting like Toril. This is also a server where the potential to RP out a character is not inhibited by horrendous metagaming and sociopathic DM's]
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Kail 'The fiend'
by Cynon » 06 Nov 2005 03:14
Kail walked through the halls of the tower. In his right hand a small wooden sword, in his left a tiny wooden buckler, almost a tower shield beside his infant body.
He looked up at the bald tattooed head of one of the men in red robes who had just left his mothers laboratory. He walked past seeing through a gap in the door, his mother scrying runes of her own blood onto the floor. As he tried to peer through the gap closer, the man stepped back and closed the door so that he couldnÂ’t see.
Kail carried on to his mothers chambers and went inside. He sat and played, hitting the open lid of a wooden chest with the wooden sword repeatedly, trying to copy the knights he had watched in training outside that afternoon.
Eventually the continual bashing broke his toy sword. He sat and cried, his mother would be angry, she would punish him for breaking his toys. She had before. He rested his belly on the edge of the chest and leaned in trying to pick up the top half of the broken toy sword. He rummaged through the rags and felt something cold.
Visions of battles and murder shot through his mind, hundreds of images of the deaths of men, elves, orcs, dwarves, dragons, fey and many other beings, cut down and slain.
For a second he tried to scream, so much horror for a child to bear all at once. He couldnÂ’t he was stunned with fear.
Something called to him, he looked into the chest still. The pommel of a giant sword lay before him, uncovered. He wanted to touch it again. The thoughts excited him, it was like nothing he had ever seen.
His Hand reached down and gripped the cloth the sword was wrapped in. It was heavy, very heavy. He lifted it straining, pulling one end of the blade up onto the edge of the chest and then the rest of it up over.
The blade hit the floor with a heavy and deep thud, dampened by the cloth.
Kail unwrapped the sword, it surface was pure and dark, a window into the void itself. Dark forms moved through the dimensional space he saw within, shadowy figures looked back at him, malevolence in their red eyes.
A faint mist rose from the blade, not a vapour, more a trace of darkness that seeped through from the other realm.
Kail reached down and wrapped his fingers around the grip. Black veins coursed up his hand and arm and across his face. His eyes drained of colour, white as those of a winter wolf, his skin darkened to an unnatural grey shade. He leaned forward wincing in pain unable again to scream. The visions swarming through his head again, horrible things, terrible things, images of battles won and lost, in some he felt himself cut down and experienced death, others he fought off hordes of enemies, murdered people in their beds, and beat down those whom could not defend themselves.
Suddenly a blow to his side lifted him across the room, the blades touch was lost to him. He lay on the floor looking up at his mother, her tattooed face sneered at him in anger and disgust. She reached down and picked up the blade, a look of intense concentration upon her brow.
“You had a choice Kail! You could have been like me! You could have been powerful, but no you had to mess it up again, just like your bloody father!”
With that she gripped the blade in both hands raising it up strenuously above her shoulders and brought it down awkwardly through the air towards the face of the screaming child.
It seemed to Kail that the darkness came upon him almost before the pain of the blade striking.
The pain did not last, just the falling, he fell endlessly it seemed, echoed voices in his mind speaking of him, of things he could not understand, until his left eye opened. The muscles of his right eye throbbed as they tried to pull apart lids engorged with blood, swollen shut and still bleeding.
He looked across his own small chest. A huge, clawed, black gauntlet gripped the material of his shirt tight, lifting him, he swung through the air as the dark warrior walked, like a vision of hell itself the fiend paced forwards unaware that Kail was awake.
The eyes of the beast glowed red tracing lines of staggered red light through the air where they had passed. Dark black horns came down curving around itÂ’s jaw, a ferocious jaw lined with horrible dark metallic teeth.
All across the beastÂ’s body it was scaled and plated with the blackest of plates and scales. Kail closed his eye in fear that the thing would look down at him, swaying through the air for ages, petrified of what would become of him. Doors opened and closed, his feet bumped on steps as they ascended, until he felt himself laid down on something soft, a bed perhaps.
Nearby and he heard calm comments of men with strong voices. A door closed and he was left alone.
What would become of him? He felt alone and lost, in a strange place with no-one.
Alone the boy lay back, trying to fall asleep, hoping he would wake again tomorrow in his bed back in the tower, awoken by his mother as if nothing had happened. He knew it wouldnÂ’tÂ… he knew everything would never be the same again and so he cried himself to sleep. Into sleep he fell, crying for himself.
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Kail's body magically enhanced by the magics of the elves and the hin priestess lumbered through the dark, strapped across his back was the body of amelor and on his shoulder the dead human female killed by the giants.
The others left the path behind him, taking a shortcut across the river, Von'ness the elven warrior ran off into the trees left of the bridge as they crossed.
There were the sounds of battle. Kail's souless eyes twitched in thought for a second... he looked to the hill tops wandering if he could make it. He upped his pace and dissapeared into the darkness of the kryptgarden forest and began the long dangerous trek north through the wilderness... alone, only the limp body of his only friend as company.
No one followed and the rain beat down, the magic that fed his muscles finally wore and he dropped to his knees exhausted and battered. It mattered not, he had arrived.
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The priest raised up his head and looked at kail from under his dark hood.
In the distance his minions carried of the naked female body on a crude stretcher, dead and limp kail thought only of what they planned for her corpse.
"you waste my time WORM! this elf is not one of us."
Kail looked on sadly, Amelors face bruised and broken, his only friend now dead.
"Maybe he could return as one of us if he wishes? I beg of you!"
A dry laugh came from within the darkness of the priests robes.
"He wishes not to return..."
Kail closed his eyes, a tear running down the deep scar on his cheek. Times had gotten worse and worse of late. He was now completely alone. A week ago he had wanted for nothing, he thought back to Waterdeep when he and Amelor had been drinking ale in the dripping dagger. He thought of the good times and the happiness he had felt for a small time in his life. What had gone wrong, why was this happening to him?
The priest reached into Amelors pack and took the cluster of trade bars as payment for his services.
"I will take him away now, I must dispose of the body"
The priest stood up uncaring, and dissapeared into the dark.
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As the moon rose high in the night sky Kail loaded the loincloth wrapped body onto the caravan, east of triboar. Beside the body he carefully laid a pack of Amelors most prised possessions. A purse of gold he had mustered, from the sale of the rest, he placed into the hand of the elven merchant.
"I thankyou sir, we will ensure the safe return of his body to the house of his uncle. I have the note kept safely also."
The merchant raised a small envelope from his breast pocket slightly and tapped it back down, nodding reassuringly.
Kail looked upon the body solumn and empty eyed.
"It never ends does it?"
"what's that good sir?"
said the elf.
Kail simply turned and walked away, pulling his hood up over his head and seemingly dissapeared into the very shadows of the road.
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Kail's eyes opened suddenly sweat beads covering his face, the sheets were soaked, stuck all to his back and his legs.
Images of terrible battles and murders filled his mind, of death and horror, of things he had not seen since 28 years ago, since he touched the sword.
How long had it been this time, just a couple of minutes... he looked out of the small round window over the the waves to see yartar fading in the distance. He couldn't sleep, the nightmares seemed always to just hit him the second he dropped off.
Kail froze in fear, sweat ran cold down his neck as he looked into the dark.
Across the room, sat in the shadows was a dark figure broad and tall. It's eyes, deathly red orbs luminous in the dark. As the boat turned south the moonlight came in through the portcullis a beam passed through the image of the fiend, scales and plates all visible but not tangible in the light.
It looked right at him hate and malice in it's eyes.
Kail was paralysed in terror unable to move, the fiend was static also, never moving, never making a noise, it just sat there staring back.
Hours passed, Kail's eyes were red and sore from the weeks of sleeplessness. His eyelids bobed up and down, fear kept him looking across the room at the fiend.
It was a sleep, but not a sleep, he was not really awake, yet he was not asleep, his fear kept his eyes open.
As the light of the morning rose over the ocean the room became lighter and so did the image fade. He was alone again in the room on his own.
Exhausted, his muscles untensed and he moved a little. His bones ached and his head spun. He pulled back the covers looking around the room cautiously. Nothing was there. It was safe for now.
Kail pulled his trousers on and washed his face, the taste of salt on his tongue made him feel sick. Nothing got rid of the sickness, he was hungry but when he ate he felt ill. His gut churned from the lack of sleep. Acid sat in his throat constantly.
He looked up into the mirror above the water barrel and gazed upon a face that was not his own. He lurched back surprised, it was his face but it was not him.
The man in the mirror spoke, his lips moved and the voice seemed to come from within. He turned about confused looking for someone else in the room.
"Why do you fight it? I am you Kail."
"No!" kail shook his head and covered his ears. He looked up pained, the man in the mirror held his ears also, though he grinned back menicingly.
"You were lost without me, you were nothing, i could make you whole again... like before."
Kail straigtened, his eyes empty and soulless,
"I don't need you, i'm better this way, without you in here making me feel all the time, like... like everything i do is bad!"
The man in the mirror chuckled,
"But it is bad, all of it, your still bad Kail, you just think it's all alright because you don't feel anymore. Remember how good it felt when i was there? Their screams are empty now, there is no guilt when you kill. There is no pain in their cries. It's still wrong Kail.. you just don't know it anymore. Come for me Kail, i will help you."
Kail looked at the mirror, tears streamed down his face, "I don't need you i am better now, I am Kail, you were just a soul, I am Kail now!"
Kail punched out at the mirror but as he did the reflection's face changed, it's mouth opened wide, lined with black teeth, it's eyes turned white and empty, it's skin darkening to the darkest grey.
Skales ripped through the skin across it's shoulders and a mighty black clawed gauntlet shot out meeting the mirror.
Glass exploded across the cabin spraying Kail with shards. He fell back wide eyed, looking up where the mirror had been. Blood dripped from his right hand, pieces of mirror stuck into his knuckles.
"What the... Damn!"
He looked down at the pieces of broken mirror around him. A face smiled back from over his shoulder.
"AMELOR!"
Kail twisted back and looked up but there was no-one there. Just an empty room. Swaying slightly as the boat moved over the sea.
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The little boy turned around terrified as the door to his bedroom exploded into splinters. A toy cart dropped from his hand to the floor, his mouth agog.
"mommy?"
he said as he stepped to the door
"mommy..." he said again, this time more of a worried wobble in his voice.
"mommie!" he walked into the hallway to the sound of an eirie silence, a tearful echo resounded against the stone walls.
There was a scratching from up the hall, around the corner, something was there, something wasn't right.
"the boy stood panicked, where was mommy?"
Something lay on the floor near the corner, a blue sparkle on the floor, a sapphire in the torch light.
The boy stepped a little closer, he looked around, shadows lurked by the wall where the corner turned.
"mommy?" he said as he looked around one last time then bent down to pick up the gem...
Mommy was already dead, mommy was stuffed in a crate down in the pantry.
The little boy never saw what came for him around that corner. He was of wealthy blood, it was in his nature to pick up the gem.
Soulless eyes looked upon the made bed, the figure of a little boy beneath the sheets, his calm face looked almost as if he was sleeping.
There was the sound of doors closing and then silence.
The warmth of the sun would not warm the cold chill that swept through the Tespergates villa this morning. The light of the sun could not drive back the shadow that the previous night had cast upon Waterdeeps most prominent lathandrite residence.
How long would it be before anyone noticed the curtains remained drawn? How long before the watch would come find them?
Perhaps a few hours, perhaps days.... who knows, it wouldn't make any difference. They were dead.
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Kail sat in the bar of the dripping dagger. Rosie was nowhere to be seen, the quirky fellow in beige and the dwarf he had so carefully equipped during his last visit to the deep were also absent.
He finished his last glass of wine and adjusted the cuff links on his fine tuxedo.
Eyes raw and red after the sleepless journey to the deep stared around a busy bar. He was in no mood to be waiting around. Trying to act rationally in public was a hard enough task as it was. He couldn't tell if he was awake or dreaming or both of late.
As he walked to the side exit of the inn he noticed the bulletin board. Perhaps the journey had not been a waste. Adverts for available work and jobs were posted all over.
*Kill some rats in a warehouse* No thank you!
*Baby sit for the Tespergates on Friday evening* Tempting but no?
*Turnip eating competition* God damn no?
*Cooks required to cook turnips* Kail squinted his eyes and rubbed his temples
*Investigators required, report to house Amecathra*
The door shut behind Kail with a thud, a pin bouncing across the floor boards in his wake.
The street lights danced in front of his strained eyes, a blurry haze in his tormented state of tiredness. Shapes danced in the shadows, eyes looking at him from the back lanes. A man of obvious class passed through the neighbourhoods, rich and poor alike. He cared little for his attire.
A hand shot out from a doorway and grabbed his arm. "Hey there buuy pass us yer purse, if you know what's good fer y..." He didn't even stop to see the man's face. His hand had loosed the hilt of his blade from under the tails of his tuxedo and a quick flick of his wrist left the man's arm lying on the floor. Kail stood motionless, strain across his neck as he held the gasping mugger by the scruff of the neck waiting for the spray of blood to die down. Control was imperative in such a situation. He had a fine tuxedo to preserve. There was business to attend.
As arterial pressure lessened Kail threw the man against the door where he dropped, sprawling, leaving just enough time to allow for stepping out the way of the river of blood coming out across the cobbles and keep his shoes clean. He leaned down and wiped his blade off, on the man's shirt. Eyes full of hate and pain looked up into the empty face of the soulless one. The man turned his head away instinctively biting his tongue, an act of self preservation, until Kail had departed.
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Interesting what is this? Tyrion stood looking behind a tree close to the cliff face.
Kail stepped up behind to see the strange area of light radiating from a circle of runes on the ground behind the tree.
What is that?
Tyrion looked hard at the light and runes, Most likely a portal. I'd be thinking this is a way in to whatever we are looking for.
The half elf stroked his pointy beard in thought.
Go on then.
Kail sighed. Me? Damn it's always me! shaking his head he stepped into the portal and everything turned dark.
As his eyes adjusted to the low level of light he looked about trying to discern the area he had been ported into.
It was a large cavern area, with solid paved floors built into the surrounding area. Directly ahead the paved cavern floor seemed to end with a sudden drop into the darkness, stretching out from the dead end cliff into the darkness spanned a heavily built network of bridges and gated platforms. A large table surrounded by chairs was illuminated by candles far away to the left. Kail began to walk towards them wary of what might lurk in the darkness around him.
All was silent, not a sound.
He found the table laden with paper work and what looked like a platform for business operations right here in the cavern. The paperwork was covered in coded writings that meant absolutely nothing to him. Tyrion came from across the way, he leaned over the table lighting a torch over a candle.
It's official crap. Might be of some use? Kail said, organising the papers into bundles and stuffing them into his pack.
Tyrion nodded, I got contacts I can call on to try and decipher that sort of thing.
It was obvious the half elf was thinking on the same wavelength as Kail. His words showed his intention was to assess their findings thoroughly before considering turning anything over to the Amecathrans. Kail nodded back impressed.
"Lets take a look around eh, see what else we can find." Kail walked ahead looking about, seemingly more at ease in the dark than out in the light of day, his strained sleepless eyes rested by the low lighting.
"I hate dungeons." Tyrion was a man of gossip and social activity, it was clear. He had the garb and the weapons for the excursion that awaited them just not the sense of exploration. He toed the head of his finely built crossbow and efficiently pulled up the crank. Resting the bow upon the floor and the torch in his other hand he loaded a bolt and lifted the crossbow up with his right hand cautiously looking off into the darkness.
Kail stopped. There was a small bridge leading over a small ravine and into an entrance in the cliff face the other side. To their left was the first of a series of bridges leading out across the chasm.
"Let's check this way first." Kail decided. It seemed less of an exploration than going across the bridges, a simple doorway. Tyrion made a note of the dried blood that covered the boards of the bridge this way, sniffing the air as he went.
"There is a foul smell about this place." His face grimaced.
Kail simply shrugged.
As they came through the doorway the two halted, Kail pointed to a fine silk like wire running across the corridor. "Careful as we move on." The two agreed.
They had not stepped five paces down the corridor when the whole place began to shake beneath them. Dust fell from the ceiling and the stones of the floor seemed to jump beneath them. "What in the hells was that?" Tyrion flattened to the nearby wall.
Kail looked about legs braced wide and his shield held above his head. "Damn, it was a quake or something. This place must be unstable."
"Uh I think we should go back."
"You what?"
"Uh it's obviously not safe, this place will come down around us if we don't get out for sure."
Kail sighed, "Tell you what, I'll go ahead and check out what is up there, if it's safe I'll come back and get you, if it's not safe well we'll see eh?"
As Kail carefully moved on Tyrion looked about behind him, he shook his head and raised his crossbow, cautiously stepping away from the wall and following Kail at a safe distance.
It was at that point a huge rat came flying out of a crack in the wall, foaming at the mouth with a scraggy wet matted coat and a tail that whipped around behind it, bald, pink and hairless.
Kail raised his shield defensibly and the beast skid across it flying across towards the opposite side of the corridor. There was a click and the rat hung twitching from a wooden support beam. A finely aimed bolt pinning it's head firmly in place.
Tyrion's face was marked with a stern expression. He locked and loaded another bolt swift and efficiently. Kail span his blade full circle through the air and turned to carry on.
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They weren't sure if this place was a control room or a laboratory or perhaps both but it seemed to be the brains of the site. There was a table covered in distillation apparatus and bottles of alchemical substances at the far side of the room. To one side lay a pile of books and to the other a strange mirror, it's surface seemingly liquid in appearance.
Kail stood near the table of chemicals looking at a book full of symbols and checking bottles while Tyrion stood in the centre of the room observing a tall tube full of green light and covered in more runes and symbols. Around the tube was built more apparatus and a strange furnace. Bits of ore lay about all over the floor and the familiar stench that came with it.
Tyrion looked at the eight levers surrounding the central apparatus, his cat like eyes reflected the strange green light that bizarrely affected the immediate area about the tube. Only when you were close to the tube and in it's aura of dark light did the big glowing numbers appear on the floor by each lever.
"Alright, here goes nothing" Kail picked up a small bottle full of green glowing fluid, on the glass was engraved a strange symbol of cube, it's three visible sides marked with eyes.
He walked over to the mirror and ran his finger over many of the symbols around it's frame.
Tyrion walked up watching. His previous attempts had involved banging the mirror frame repeatedly and kicking the stand. Unfortunately it hadn't been that simple. Kail hesitated, wary after his experience with the levers on the floor, his head still spun slightly and he wasn't in the mod for further shocks and side effects of the mechanisms in this room.
Into a small cup marked with a matching symbol he poured a small amount of the fluid. A fluorescent line flowed down the frame igniting other symbols into luminous green light and setting off mechanics within the device. Small levers flicked and mechanisms whirred.
The two stepped back eyes wide as the watery surface of the mirror exploded and undulated like a pond that a pebble had been dropped into.
"HA HAAAA!" Kail threw down the book and placed the bottle back on the table as the mirror settled and an image of the gates in the cavern beyond came into focus. He was sure he would be the one doing the cavern exploring, there was no way he was pulling those levers again. It seemed a fair deal as Tyrion obviously had no love for the exploration of such a place.
"Watch were I am and look for my signals to open the gates. Oh and keep an eye on the entrance here, don't want anything sneaking up on you while I’m trapped in between those doors eh." With a cheeky wink Kail vanished again back into the corridor they had earlier come through.
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Tyrion watched as Kail came into view. Earlier he'd tried to force the same gate open and resultantly had a very small portion of his life force sucked from his body. It had not been at all pleasant.
Kail stood motioning at the gate, sword and shield at the ready, eyes scanning the path ahead. He seemed unusually at ease in the cold, dark and almost claustrophobic atmosphere of this place, perhaps even more so than when they had walked through the sunny woodlands above. The man had obviously not slept for a very long time and was acting a bit twitchy before they had come into the darkness of the cavern.
The first pair of gates opened to the distant sound of Tyrion cussing. Kail almost smirked in amusement but sleepless paranoia kept his eyes focused on the path ahead. He skipped along the wooden beams steadily but also judging their stability as he moved. As he reached the next closed gate he heard the previous pair close down behind. Nothing happened for a while, he waved his sword around and pointed to the gate ahead, it was possible that Tyrion was still shocked from the lever? He waited patiently aware of what it could mean if the half elven man in the control room had taken a dislike to him or even possibly met a sticky end.
Still he waited, nothing happened for at least five minutes. Kail began to worry. He looked back. There was no way around these gates, just a drop into the fathoming depths below.
In the distance another yelp could be heard and the gates ahead of him clanked and lowered down to the bridge's structure.
He sighed in relief and moved on, gate after gate opened, the cussing and foul language that followed each lever pull became more and more distant as he worked his way through the complex until finally he walked onto mining platform built into the cliff face on the far side of the chasm.
Ahead of him was the scene of a terrible rock fall. Huge lumps of rock and ore lay all about, amongst the collapse could be seen arms legs and body parts, men who had been too slow to escape the collapse. Beneath one huge pile of rock was a man in more official garbs, his whole body and head beneath the boulder. Kail could make out a piece of blood stained paper.
He bent down and slowly pulled at the paper. It tore and half of it came away in his hand. "Gaaah!" Kail took a step back and in a fit of rage dived into the boulder wrapping his arms around it. With an almighty heave he lifted it back and got his hand down to pull the rest of the note out. The paper pealed away from the blood that stuck it to the dead mans hand beneath. Kail let the rock drop with a dirty squelch back down onto the corpse.
He put the two pieces of paper together and made out the words.
This is the last piece of pure ore we have left. Don't screw it up. It's heavy so have someone help you to get it to the lab. Our last shipment is delayed so use every little piece of chunk.
"Interesting?" He looked around and nearby was a huge piece of iron ore, he stared at it knowing what he must do. He stood there staring a little longer thinking if he really cared enough. Perhaps it was worth some money though.
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Kail crawled on all fours across the bridge, a huge 200 lb lump of ore strapped across his shoulders. The bridge creaked and moaned under the weight and pieces of rock dropped from the ceiling of the cavern. Sweat ran down his forehead and dripped from the tip of his nose onto the wooden boards beneath him. He knew this was not good, he knew he had to move faster.
Tyrion watched as the human pulled himself from gate to gate, barely making it to each one before it closed behind him. The walls of the control room rumbled as the cavern strained under the weight crossing the bridge.
If they actually made it out of this place before it all caved in, they would be very lucky men. One thing was certain though, the whole place was coming down with or without them.
Large chunks of rock and boulders dropped from the cavern roof taking with it bridges and other mining structures. Wooden supports splintered and exploded in the tunnels and torch light and candle were extinguished as nature reclaimed the inside of the mountain.
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Kail: The ruined enclave
by Cynon » 28 Feb 2006 17:46
The soulless one climbed up the wall blocking off the ruined Banite towers in their forest enclave. The moon glinted of his new grey and blue enamelled armour giving a ghostly appearance to him as he carefully braced himself atop the heavy wooden structure.
He looked down at the dead grass and empty suits of armour that remained from the dead orcish, Banite force that had fallen protecting this place when the army of shadows had invaded.
It had been a slaughter. Not long had it been since the towers had returned from the shadow plane they had been sucked into after the carnage. So much disrespect had Kail been shown by the dark mage whom had delivered the favour unto him, making him feel so small and insignificant for his request.
It had not been such a loss. The people of the hin village had their souls back, even if he still didnÂ’t. Perhaps that favour would be remembered of him at least. He had passed through there on his way here. Some didnÂ’t even know him without his old fiendish looking armour, some did though, the children who had their souls back, somehow they knew. They would dance around him as he walked through on his way up and down the road. So tiny, like their souls had been, smaller than human babies yet running about and playing so agile and full of life.
Kail pulled his helmet from his head and looked down with white, wolf like eyes, empty as if of a corpse, yet moving about searching the floor of the enclave. He stroked back, out of his face, his oily black hair then began to fasten a rope to the top of the hefty wooden wall to make easy his departure.
KailÂ’s feet hit the ground with a thud. The shadows swirled and swept back avoiding the impact of his feet. A form rose up from them, a ghostly and twisted face of one of the Banites, now shadow. It groaned menacingly and came towards him. Kail looked dark, his grey skin almost black now out of the illumination of Selune. He responded with a dart forward towards it, eyes wide and a cold empty expression upon his face. The shadow buckled and twisted sweeping back low to the ground and flowing away into the trees and dark corners, accompanied by the many others that abided here since it's return to the material plane. Strange moans followed their departures.
The doors of the towers were locked, as the main gate had been. Kail would have to see to that as soon as he could. This place was needed now, it was to be cleaned out, and used for a new purpose. It would serve the entire region, any who wished, would use it to gather men of skill for tasks the militias could not handle. Those of cause, noble or selfish, he would bring them together in unison, People to map out the lost places of the Delimbyr, those who sought treasure from deserted underdark areas, those who wished to fight something and had the means to rally others, here, those who needed help would find those who would help. Maybe some would help him find his soul, maybe some would help him make those responsible pay.
As Kail paced into the field beyond the towers, the huge shrine to Bane lay desecrated and broken, strange things flitted, swirled and moved amongst the broken stones in the dark.
A cold chill went up KailÂ’s back as he heard a voice, his own.
He stood in the safety of moonlight looking into the shadows at an image of himself, his old self. A black cape swayed in the breeze revealing dark and hideous armour crafted like muscles and sinew, large spikes protruding from elbows, knees, and shins. From the sides of the helm arked down huge black horns around a devilish grining face lined with obsidian teeth, eyes humming with a dull red light.
“I will be free Kail …soon”
Kail stood frozen. He tried to talk but he could not move his jaw to speak. The fiend clutched one horn and pulled itÂ’s helm away from his head, looking back, eyes full of hate, eyes full of life, not empty as KailÂ’s were. Kail stood staring back at the image of himself as it spoke unto him again.
“If honour is truth and a lie is respect, then a secret is sacred.
Confide in me my friend and I'll love you like no other.”
At that moment the sun cut over the trees darting like a rod of fire right into the image before him and across KailÂ’s back making his armour appear as if almost white in the light of the dawn. The fiend vanished leaving Kail screaming and falling to his knees. He clutched at his heart in pain, sweat dripping from his face.
“Passion, anger, love and hate, is it really better then the void? My tortured friend, do I really want you back?"
The enclave of the towers stood empty, the sun rose and the birds began to sing. Kail raised his forehead from the wet grass and looked about. Maybe this place was cleansed now. It was as it had been offered to him, now. What he had seen in the night, perhaps just a warning. He was a man of two minds, and many decisions to make. How was this going to work, until he knew what was in store for him. Was he even a person without his soul? If he took his soul back, would he even be human?
Kail lay down flat on the grass, exhausted with despair. What was to become of him, when would this end?
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Kail: Forgotten Pains
by Cynon » 02 Jun 2006 15:12
Kail pushed open the door to his house and entered cautiously, his eyes flitted from left to right in the darkness.
There was no noise, no movement, but only the presences that had lurked there since he had acquired this place.
He closed the door behind him and continued into the dining room.
An empty glass and plate covered in crumbs lay on the great oak table. The scent of fine exotic tobacco filled the air. His giant glass bong had been used in the last few hours. The coals still glowed slightly atop the fascinating structure. He smiled slightly and carried the empty glass and plate to his kitchen.
He shook the crumbs into a dirty barrel and filled a new glass with brandy.
His guest seemed to be out of the house for now, probably in the bar across the street.
After removing his shield and scales he sat comfortably in his purple coloured loincloth on a cushion next to the bong and sipped his brandy whilst concocting himself a curious goodnight mixture of kif, fine nelaxian tobacco and a drop of watered down centipede venom.
Misty blue smoke bubbled through the water as he sucked in, hard on the end of a woven read pipe. Kail's wolf like eyes gazed out from the haze of the smoke for a long while, a look of sadness upon his face.
He looked down upon his grey arms and legs and watched as his tattoos broke out into movement, coursing around his body like terrible black centipedes, eyes glowing, horrible and red, unreal in the smoky haze. He blinked twice and gulped down on his brandy, finishing the glass.
Again he looked about the room. Everything seemed normal for a moment, books in shelves and chairs around the table. Smoke rose up around the chandelier and twisted across the ceiling like spirits trying to escape his presence.
He started and nearly knocked over the great bong as he heard the sound of his own laugh echo from the walls of the room.
He looked down at his tattoos, they were still again, nothing more than the classical designs and family crests worn by all those on his motherÂ’s side of the family. Worn by red wizards of Thay.
He nodded his head in amusement. The irony!
Lying there for more then an hour, Kail rose up finally, sweat beading on his chest and face, something clenched inside his chest, in his lungs. He could breath but it felt like there was no air.
Across the room he stumbled, the cupboards swayed and blurred before him and the chandelier swung down like the mouth of a dragon making him duck and fall sideways.
He grabbed out at the hilt of his sword on the table and swung it through the air foolishly landing in a heap on the floor.
Five small shadows, the size of infants, crept in from the far corners of the room and lifted him up from the floor in unison, carrying his body up through the floors of the house eventually laying him on the great four posted bed in his attic bedroom.
He lay motionless for many hours, tears running from his eyes as he slept, torments of an eternity left behind, pain for a reality he was part of once again.
In the darkness of his room, Kail lay sleeping, remembering the sadness which changed him long ago. Kail remembered a woman and a child, far away, in Sembia.
He remembered the spiders coming for him and the way he was left poisoned and broken in the woods. He remembered the way her mother had looked down on him and the way her red eyes smiled with arrogance as she saw him weak before her. The way the darkness had given her power over him. The way he had been betrayed by the one he thought had loved him.
Kail lay in his bed asleep, his arm clawing out into the air of his bedroom. In his mind, touching out at the dust of the forest floor, touching the wet soil where his son's tears had fallen.
He remembered his hands upon dark skin, his cheek on her perfect white hair. He remembered affection and what he had once had. He remembered being loved once.
How he wished to seek it once more but he was afraid. Love, a lie, never to be trusted again.
He wondered if his little boy searched for him now as he had searched for his father. He smiled in his sleep. He imagined a grey skinned youth, with dark blue hair and pale white eyes. His mind flickered through possibilities. Could he be out there...? Sadness filled his soul as he accepted the inevitable truth. He imagined him wrapped in chains in a drow noble house, whipped and beaten and treated like filth for his impure blood. For possessing the blood of man. Yet unknown to the boy, the blood of Onifhet.
........................................................................................................
Kail woke to the sound of birds singing. His room dark still, without windows. A sadness filled his heart, yet he could not remember what. Perhaps he had been dreaming again. He rubbed his eyes, knowing he had not slept well. He hated that he could never remember his dreams. His mind was weak, why could he not remember. It was as if some magic blocked his memory.
He shook his head and thought of it no more. Beneath him he could hear his guest performing morning prayers in the room below.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kail knelt in the dark musky store room of the darkest house of Waterdeep.
He packed his bags quickly, renewing food and water, checking over the items on his belt and the supplies laid out on the floor.
The shelves were full of nick nacks and general supplies. Some he could use, some he knew he could and should not.
As he scraped the last of the supplies, a small pouch of trail rations, that he would need for his journey south, off the shelf above him he noticed a small bundle of fur on the floor poking out from where it was caught, under the lowest of the wooden shelves.
He picked it up between two fingers of his black, clawed, chitin and obsidian gauntlets. His pale eyes looking it over in the dim light.
"Cat fur..."
A slight smirk crossed his face as he remembered fighting the werecats in the hallway outside the store room. They had been tough, very tough. They would have probably killed him if it had not been for the blessings channelled onto him by the priestess.
His smile faded.
"Yes... yes we need her." His pause made the room seem more noticably quiet. He felt as if someone was listening for his next words.
He stood looking down still at the fur as he dropped it to the floor. He tucked the necklace hanging around his neck back under the scales on his chest. His mind feeling reassured and certain for the first time in many years.
"We need her as she was maybe..."
He turned and looked towards the light of the corridor, outside the store room, behind him.
The dark menacing figure he expected to see listening to him was not there. His eyes lowered and looked upon the visage of a small child.
Perfect, uncut, neck length locks of soft, fair hair framed a beautiful grey face. A pair of large crimson eyes stared back at him looking him over, with a slight expression of nervousness.
Outside a gianourmous helmed construction floated past humming as it moved along. The child jumped forwards and stepped fast and awkwardly towards him with a slight cry of surprise and fear.
Moments later Kail found himself holding in his arms a smiling half drow infant, fixated with trying to put his tiny fingers in Kail's mouth.
Something ate away at him inside, he couldn't figure out what, but he knew what he wanted to do, he also knew what he had to do.
"I'll be back in a day or so, you'll see her again" he winked at the little boy and placed him back down on the floor rubbing the top of his head and letting him waddle off again.
He watched as Istvan stomped about in the corridor, watching his own feet, amused by the sound his sandals made on the stone floor.
The road would be long, perhaps more in spirit than in actuality.
"It was never her who was tested, it was us."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The wind blew and the rain lashed down. Kail stood motionless at the forest's edge, amongst the criss cross of shadows and twisted boughs.
Rain poured down over his broad armoured shoulders and ran down his fiendish scales. Underneath he was wet through and sore.
His hood stuck to his wet face, leaves blew down from the trees and stuck to him. Still bearing a calm expression though, for one in such a terrible and tormenting situation.
She had not come yet, she was supposed to be here near a day ago. Still he waited. It was what he was good at. Ten thousand years in the hellish plane of negative had made him patient.
Others thought him a fool but he had faith. Not in his god, but in her. His god he served because of his blood, it was loyalty unlike that the others posessed. It was loyalty by design. Ancestry could not be escaped.
Perhaps he was misguided to believe she was the same person she used to be. Perhaps he was a fool to himself. He saw what the others did not. None of them had suffered this much and so she was more deserving of a chance. One he knew he should not be giving.
Was it for her though or the child? Was it for himself, for his guilt. Guilt was not a trait associated with those of his order but he felt it for some reason. He had never felt it before and he didn't like it. So many secrets he held from so many people and so many did he owe his allegiance to. So many secrets he knew were kept from him. Hierachy mean't nothing, he would face failure willingly. Any punishment dealt could not be as bad as how he would feel if he could not save her.
Perhaps he could have stopped this long ago but where was he then, where was he when she fell. He was afraid, too scared to help. He watched her broken and remade.
...Remade, what a joke.
Broken is broken.
Torment filled the shadowed statue standing in the rain. A grey face and white wolven eyes remained expressionless stairing out at the crossroads. His stomach churned with hunger, his bones ached from the cold and his eyes were sore from not sleeping.
It was all he could do.
Disciples Of The Void
-
*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Requiem
by Cynon » 06 Jul 2006 20:34
The calm trickle of the river, in the valley below, filled the warm summer night with atmosphere more beautiful than the plane of Arvandor. Small faerie flies twirled in the warm crimson of the sunset upon the hill top and the moths began feed upon the nectar of night blossoms.
The heat haze of the day fell into the clearness of the evening and the dry grasses upon the warm rocky cliff of the hilltop swayed lightly, by the calm breeze sweeping in with the night.
All was peace, all was calm.
Could it ever be any other way?
This place was pure, this place was true.
The golden dome of Lathander came to rest behind the forests of the Kryptgarden trail to the west. A dull hue of blue crept silent across the road to Westbridge. Nothing moved, not man nor beast. Something terrible had happened here. Here it was cold. Here the shadows of trees reached out from the woods, across the road, across trampled over, blood soaked soil. The shadows reached out for something no longer there and passed the dirty marks on the road in the manner water passes pebbles in the stream.
Did anybody here know?
The sound of merrymaking and cheer echoed from the taverns in the town, as farmers and travellers alike, shared wine and mead over warm bread and cooked meats.
They did not know, how could they, it was a different world in there. In the safe, warm, womb of civilisation.
Westbridge, Shadows moved over Westbridge, fast and swift. There was no moon this night to stop them. Over hill and dale, over forest and stream. Shadows moved within shadows, fast across the lands, until only one place was still touched by the last hopeless rays of the setting sun.
The calm trickle of the river, in the valley below, filled the warm summer night with atmosphere more beautiful than the plane of Arvandor. Small faerie flies twirled in the warm crimson of the sunset upon the hill top and the moths began feed upon the nectar of night blossoms.
The heat haze of the day fell into the clearness of the evening and the dry grasses upon the warm rocky cliff of the hilltop swayed lightly, by the calm breeze sweeping in with the night.
All was peace, all was calm...
Dark clawed fingers dug deep into the rocky cliff edge of the hilltop, metal talons cured in blackness. They scraped white powdery lines into the chalky rock and braced hard, pulled upon by the form that followed them up from the dark below.
A heavy armour clad head and shoulders pulled themselves silently through the air and up over the talons. Dark horns arched downwards around a masked face of obsidian razor teeth and ruby red eyes trailing faint red light as the form rose from the cold below.
Chitinous scales covered a hideous and spiky humanoid form as it rose upon its own inertia, into the air above the warm dried grasses, swaying their last before the form came down to rest upon them.
Dark taloned feet dug deep into the chalky rock and broken grass. The form straightened itself, rising tall. The sun fell finally and darkness prevailed upon the land. His dark cape wrapped around him lovingly in the cold gust of wind that ensued, his arm raised up true and straight before him holding a single item.
A dark metal disk with a razor outer edge made to kill.
Through it's centre, the red eyes of the fiend flared brighter in the dark as it stared upon it's focus. The dark empty space within.
Empty...?
Only for a single perfect moment.
Candle lights and magical orbs began to illuminate the great tree. Figures in long flowing robes, with beautiful silky hair and graceful features, walked about the great stairways and rooms within it's boughs.
All was peace, all was calm.
The fiend lowered the disk looking upon it's perfect surface, somehow a sadness in the gate of his head and shoulders.
He took it within both hands and snapped it's fragile form in two.
Before the two pieces even hit the ground, his shape was there no more.
All was peace, all was calm.
Requiem
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Tale Of Loss and Legacy
by Cynon » 20 Jul 2006 15:36
Shame, he had never felt shame before, it was something the body had accepted many times in his absence but the soul had never felt it once. The soul had been proud, it had lived a thousand times longer than the mortal body it now occupied.
Mortal bodies were simply that, ignorant, short lived and incredibly selfish. He had given again and again and now he was spoken down to, treated as if he was a traitor, when he was one of the few who had been loyal to the end.
For it was the end, he had done nothing but wait for so long now, so long he couldn't remember the last time he achieved anything, so long all the others had died, left or become traitors to another god. The mundane walk of the road and the constant hiding were achieving nothing.
He could bear it when there was something to fight for but now he was forced to be everything he had never been, forced towards a path that was not what he was supposed to be and ignore what was his duty. He had been better before, when he served her and not those who had been corrupted by their own power on the prime.
Kail wasn't sure what made him wander into the sword mountains, he wasn't sure why he moved silently past the ettins and hill giants.
They were big but they weren't big enough. There was something he was heading for but his mind hid it from him.
Familiar rocks, familiar mountains he passed, the lava roared and poured out of the hillside and down into the glowing red lake. He walked through the heat, the poisonous fumes made his dark fiendish black armour oily and even more alien looking that it had ever been.
KailÂ’s hand ran along the wall, fingertips bouncing across the rock surface until he felt it. He looked left and saw the impression he had just touched. Strange dwarven runes but unlike those that he saw within the lost temples of dwarves and their kin back in the Delimbyr
He pushed and the stone moved, it turned and so did he, passing into the dark embrace of the mountain.
The Azur guard startled. "Hold! What do you seek here?"
Kail thought on it for a second, he tapped the chin of his helmet.
"Are you seeking to trade or perhaps help us with our problem?"
Kail stepped forward. "Your problem?"
"Yes the Xorn's, they have infested the mines...."
She continued to rattle on about the Xorns but Kail's mind was not on her words anymore.
He walked on through the doors, into the Azur stronghold, he walked down familiar halls, dark, lit only by the light of the lava, further, deeper beyond the halls.
He remembered this place, this place from long ago one of his greatest losses came from here and one of his worst memories. He remembered his elven friend fall, he remembered the terrible moment he found Amelor's soul would not return.
He turned his head to look at the mines, next thing he knew he had entered the mines, why? He did not know, he was drawn, he couldn't know why, he kept it from himself.
He kept it from himself until the moment he saw it.
It came from the darkness like a beast from the depths of Baator itself. The biggest Elder Xorn he had ever seen. He turned, terror in his heart knowing what his soul was driving him to, he ran, stopped and turned. He threw an axe. It bounced from the things shell without even scratching it.
And then it was upon him.
A huge boulder like body thrust itself at him, heat like that of lava itself scorched at him. He dived and rolled, he dodged the mighty downward sweeps of the creatures burning nose. It tried again and again to floor him.
The blade, the image of the blade he'd crafted in the void, it swung through the air cutting deep into the Xorn, Molten rock poured out over the ground.
Kail rotated the blade, swept low with his frame and cut upwards into the beast again.
It roared with anger beating down upon him. He fell, hitting the ground hard. It felt good, all the pains of his life were forgotten, all he knew was the sheer fear of the end. It beat down again and again, his shield taking the brunt of the attack, good solid Thayan construction. It was a good shield, it had served him well.
He rolled sideways and came to his feet again, cutting up as he did so, again the Xorn screamed, roaring it's hate at Kail.
It came in at him a last time, he stood this time fearless, knowing that what he wanted would come.
Kail watched as his body fell, He stood in the dark just far enough away to watch as the Xorn tore through his armour and ripped into the body within, rolling it about like a defenceless worm in dust of the rocky tunnel floor.
Kail watched thinking, why had he returned? He had no idea. Perhaps he hoped his body could have achieved something, perhaps his soul felt that it was duty bound to aid those he knew. He felt betrayed by the church though. They thought him a slave and yet he was a master. He did not have to suffer their pettiness for his own sake.
The fiend spread his wings, Black demon wings that he had done without during his return to his physical form. He reached down and picked up the blade, the soul of the blade he had never obtained, forged in the void by a desperate soul.
He could not pass it on to his heir, but neither had his father to him. This battle would be fought by another soul.
They were better like this, like this they could do what had to be done without being dragged into the petty affairs of mortals.
Kail watched as the Xorn dragged his body up into the Avers home followed by the screams of fear and sounds of battle that ensued.
The door to the mine knocked closed again and he stood still in the darkness, only the faint red glow of his eyes and the blade in his hand. He stroked it with his dark talons. It was pure, it was all he had left. As soon as he was ready he would take it back to it's physical body and make it whole again.
He would leave it lost once more, for his heirs to find, for the one who would make amends for his and his fatherÂ’s failings.
KailÂ’s wings beat down and he passed once again into the plane of shadows. Deeper and deeper he soared through the dark, into the underworld. Deeper and deeper, where dark magic grew and the prime came closer to the shadow than anywhere else.
In a dark city far from the surface, a young half drow slave stirred in his sleep. Scars covered his body, the marks of a whipping, fang marks and surgical wounds. Sorrow filled his soul and despair tore his heart. But for a moment in his dreams something cruel told him he was important.
For a moment in his dreams all was still and the world became empty but for a single presence, a single terrible presence that wanted him. Fear made his heart beat hard in his sleeping chest, palpitations that would wake him if the thing in his mind didn't have such a terrible hold on him in this dark dream.
The fiend looked back at him raising it's blade and pointing it right at him.
If his hand he found a copy of the blade, Solid, different somehow to the fiends own. He stood looking back at into it's red eyes, stood looking back at what he knew would in the end become him too.
Something made him lash out and in the dark of his mind he met his past and his future, as they locked blades, in his mind he became more then just a slave. He was being taught, shown the way.
Locked in his mind forever, a link to an eternal darkness and place where he would fight one on one with this fiend, He would see this scene every time he slept, every time he closed his eyes for even a moment.
Locked in his mind forever came an ideology. He became somebody's son.
Dumah awoke startled. Sadness filled his heart. Something about this life now bit at him. He had accepted what he was long ago, but now a promise filled him. A terrible promise that he could be saved. He looked around in the dark of his prison, he feared the drow and their spiders no more.
There was something beyond them, the very darkness itself.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An eerie silence filled the peaks of the Sword Mountains. The sun has risen in the east melting the dew upon the rocky tops and setting flowers open in their lofty abodes.
Down low, low where the sun had not yet reached the twilight still loomed. An eerie time, this place knew only daylight for a few hours of the day when the sun rose to it's zenith.
Here the ugly things walked, ogres, trolls, ettins, giants of the hills and mountains. Here they roamed, here they lived their violent and miserable lives, lives that for millennia had shaped and crafted their races apart from the orcs and goblins. Hardships and brutalities that had spawned races 20 foot tall and 8 foot wide, hideously over muscled and with lives so deprived of interest and mental stimulation that only the most stupid and brute strong could ever bear to survive.
.........................................................................................................
Upon the wreck of a broken air ship a raven pecked at a small chainmail gauntlet, caught up on the highest point of a great slanted mast. The bird's attention was not yet upon the gathering of it's brothers in the sky above.
A dark blot cast in storm clouds lit by the rising sun.
Before long the caws and cries of the crows were enough to make it look up, to make it notice.
A flit of it's wings and the raven was off on the journey to join the great funeral in the sky.
.........................................................................................................
Lava swirled and ran from the rocks. The cold night air had set it's surface hard in places, now in the warmth of the day, the fury of the fire beneath, fought back, cracking the surface. Lumps of new rocks spat and lunged from the pools and lakes of molten ore, noxious gases flowed like rivers out over the canyons beyond.
Nearby, close to the lava, the mountain side moved. Only a speck in the great side of the infinity of this place, near a fallen ruin of some old settlement. A door opened and several dwarven folk poured out of the mountain into the open, driven from their home by some chaos within. From their shoulders and backs, flames roared manes of fire.
The Azers were in turmoil, screams of a giant Xorn, echoed through the valley, but there was nothing here to hear them, not in this place of fire, perhaps only the birds in the sky.
Perhaps only the ravens, that swirled and grouped above.
In their panic none noticed the ravens until they came, hundreds poured through the valley through he clouds of steam and over the rocky islands upon the lake of lava. A wave of blackness swept by and lanced forth through the gateway to the Azer abode below.
..........................................................................................................
Back inside the mountain, Azer bodies lay scattered around the entrance to the mine. The great beast thrashed away at the chains that had been thrown over it. It's great fiery nose bashed down severing the attempts to hold it down.
Magical energies flung forth from a mage, punishing the beasts shell but simply angering it further.
An axe wrought of flame pounded hard upon the Xorn before the brave warrior wielding it was thrown back into the ornate stonework of the wall behind. The Azer ranks began to falter, their mage ripped healing scrolls from her belt trying to save those on the floor, but things were taking a turn for the worse. The great stone door of the mines thumped with the sound of other Xorns behind it, those coming to aid their Elder.
As she cast her last scroll the mage turned to drag the body of one she knew, away from the scene, but there upon his chest sat a single raven. She gasped in surprise, her white hot glowing eyes looked through the flames at the bird of ashes, then beyond to the wave of darkness that followed.
All about, the ravens swirled and turned, culminating into a whirlwind of black. Change crept upon the chaos until with a burst of black tendrils the birds came forth into the figure of a walking fiend.
From it's back, great wings of darkness erupted and at it's side hands, or maybe talons, long dark talons of pure shadow, swept out knocking her aside.
The beastÂ’s clawed feet split the tiled floor as it stepped by her face and on towards the Elder Xorn. It stood still for a second, a second that seemed an eternity as the Xorn rose up over the dark shape.
The Xorns great roar was deafening, a bellow of flame and noxious gas from within the creature, a battle cry directed towards what it saw as a mere duplicate of what it had killed moments before.
It's cry was nothing, nothing compared to the abyssal scream of Abgaziel. In comparison the xorn seemed a whimpering kobold.
A talon lashed out throwing the body of the beast back through the mine door. Rock and metal twisted and splintered. The fiend moved in, seeming to jump the gap on it's enemy in a twisting mist of shadows. Two clawed fists cut deep guages into the creatureÂ’s torso. Other Xorns scattered and fell all around from the implosion of the door.
Abgaziel stood in the dark of the mine looking out over the Xorns. Time passed faster here then he was used to. He watched the forms of the alien creatures correct and right themselves and the Elder in front of him twist and squirm in pain.
His arms flung wide as he chanted a prayer in abyssal, his scales moved and unlocked in places, dark muscles rippled beneath as he grew in size.
Two fists punched forth, together, pounding down the Elder Xorn and cracking it's stone shell. Abgaziel's wings beat out holding him firm as he punched.
From the dark tunnels to the right, other Xorns were flung and cut asunder by the approach of a tall, dark blue Vrock. To the left a similar sight, as a hideous doom knight armoured in flesh and bones, cut through several with a gigantic sword.
Abgaziel looked down upon the broken body of his son. He turned and looked back upon the tool of Kail's demise. Behind the terrible face of his fiendish helm, eyes welled in fury as he lunged forward mercilessly rending the Elder Xorn apart piece by piece until nothing but rubble and the peaceful silence of victory remained.
An Azer face peered through the door upon the trio, quickly and wisely withdrawn back where it came from.
"Where is he?" echoed the grim, undead voice of the Doom knight.
AbgazielÂ’s reply didn't come, for he had no answer. His eyes scanned the halls, looking deep into another plane, searching for a figure resembling his own.
Kail had plans. He was not ready yet.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Somewhere far away in a lost place deep in the plane of shadows, a man sized figure stood beneath a great sky of black and whirling darkness. His taloned feet sank claws deep into a cliff edge, the soil of which could be compared not to any ground or rock in the material plane.
Upon the edge of forever he stood, nothing but himself, at last, and let go of everything he had never been able to achieve.
In this most lonely place the shadow of a fiend once again shone like the soul of a simple man.
Now he had finally become everything he had ever been meant to become.
With his wings spread wide and a calm smile upon lips, Kail took his final step, into the void.
by Cynon » 06 Jul 2006 20:34
The calm trickle of the river, in the valley below, filled the warm summer night with atmosphere more beautiful than the plane of Arvandor. Small faerie flies twirled in the warm crimson of the sunset upon the hill top and the moths began feed upon the nectar of night blossoms.
The heat haze of the day fell into the clearness of the evening and the dry grasses upon the warm rocky cliff of the hilltop swayed lightly, by the calm breeze sweeping in with the night.
All was peace, all was calm.
Could it ever be any other way?
This place was pure, this place was true.
The golden dome of Lathander came to rest behind the forests of the Kryptgarden trail to the west. A dull hue of blue crept silent across the road to Westbridge. Nothing moved, not man nor beast. Something terrible had happened here. Here it was cold. Here the shadows of trees reached out from the woods, across the road, across trampled over, blood soaked soil. The shadows reached out for something no longer there and passed the dirty marks on the road in the manner water passes pebbles in the stream.
Did anybody here know?
The sound of merrymaking and cheer echoed from the taverns in the town, as farmers and travellers alike, shared wine and mead over warm bread and cooked meats.
They did not know, how could they, it was a different world in there. In the safe, warm, womb of civilisation.
Westbridge, Shadows moved over Westbridge, fast and swift. There was no moon this night to stop them. Over hill and dale, over forest and stream. Shadows moved within shadows, fast across the lands, until only one place was still touched by the last hopeless rays of the setting sun.
The calm trickle of the river, in the valley below, filled the warm summer night with atmosphere more beautiful than the plane of Arvandor. Small faerie flies twirled in the warm crimson of the sunset upon the hill top and the moths began feed upon the nectar of night blossoms.
The heat haze of the day fell into the clearness of the evening and the dry grasses upon the warm rocky cliff of the hilltop swayed lightly, by the calm breeze sweeping in with the night.
All was peace, all was calm...
Dark clawed fingers dug deep into the rocky cliff edge of the hilltop, metal talons cured in blackness. They scraped white powdery lines into the chalky rock and braced hard, pulled upon by the form that followed them up from the dark below.
A heavy armour clad head and shoulders pulled themselves silently through the air and up over the talons. Dark horns arched downwards around a masked face of obsidian razor teeth and ruby red eyes trailing faint red light as the form rose from the cold below.
Chitinous scales covered a hideous and spiky humanoid form as it rose upon its own inertia, into the air above the warm dried grasses, swaying their last before the form came down to rest upon them.
Dark taloned feet dug deep into the chalky rock and broken grass. The form straightened itself, rising tall. The sun fell finally and darkness prevailed upon the land. His dark cape wrapped around him lovingly in the cold gust of wind that ensued, his arm raised up true and straight before him holding a single item.
A dark metal disk with a razor outer edge made to kill.
Through it's centre, the red eyes of the fiend flared brighter in the dark as it stared upon it's focus. The dark empty space within.
Empty...?
Only for a single perfect moment.
Candle lights and magical orbs began to illuminate the great tree. Figures in long flowing robes, with beautiful silky hair and graceful features, walked about the great stairways and rooms within it's boughs.
All was peace, all was calm.
The fiend lowered the disk looking upon it's perfect surface, somehow a sadness in the gate of his head and shoulders.
He took it within both hands and snapped it's fragile form in two.
Before the two pieces even hit the ground, his shape was there no more.
All was peace, all was calm.
Requiem
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Tale Of Loss and Legacy
by Cynon » 20 Jul 2006 15:36
Shame, he had never felt shame before, it was something the body had accepted many times in his absence but the soul had never felt it once. The soul had been proud, it had lived a thousand times longer than the mortal body it now occupied.
Mortal bodies were simply that, ignorant, short lived and incredibly selfish. He had given again and again and now he was spoken down to, treated as if he was a traitor, when he was one of the few who had been loyal to the end.
For it was the end, he had done nothing but wait for so long now, so long he couldn't remember the last time he achieved anything, so long all the others had died, left or become traitors to another god. The mundane walk of the road and the constant hiding were achieving nothing.
He could bear it when there was something to fight for but now he was forced to be everything he had never been, forced towards a path that was not what he was supposed to be and ignore what was his duty. He had been better before, when he served her and not those who had been corrupted by their own power on the prime.
Kail wasn't sure what made him wander into the sword mountains, he wasn't sure why he moved silently past the ettins and hill giants.
They were big but they weren't big enough. There was something he was heading for but his mind hid it from him.
Familiar rocks, familiar mountains he passed, the lava roared and poured out of the hillside and down into the glowing red lake. He walked through the heat, the poisonous fumes made his dark fiendish black armour oily and even more alien looking that it had ever been.
KailÂ’s hand ran along the wall, fingertips bouncing across the rock surface until he felt it. He looked left and saw the impression he had just touched. Strange dwarven runes but unlike those that he saw within the lost temples of dwarves and their kin back in the Delimbyr
He pushed and the stone moved, it turned and so did he, passing into the dark embrace of the mountain.
The Azur guard startled. "Hold! What do you seek here?"
Kail thought on it for a second, he tapped the chin of his helmet.
"Are you seeking to trade or perhaps help us with our problem?"
Kail stepped forward. "Your problem?"
"Yes the Xorn's, they have infested the mines...."
She continued to rattle on about the Xorns but Kail's mind was not on her words anymore.
He walked on through the doors, into the Azur stronghold, he walked down familiar halls, dark, lit only by the light of the lava, further, deeper beyond the halls.
He remembered this place, this place from long ago one of his greatest losses came from here and one of his worst memories. He remembered his elven friend fall, he remembered the terrible moment he found Amelor's soul would not return.
He turned his head to look at the mines, next thing he knew he had entered the mines, why? He did not know, he was drawn, he couldn't know why, he kept it from himself.
He kept it from himself until the moment he saw it.
It came from the darkness like a beast from the depths of Baator itself. The biggest Elder Xorn he had ever seen. He turned, terror in his heart knowing what his soul was driving him to, he ran, stopped and turned. He threw an axe. It bounced from the things shell without even scratching it.
And then it was upon him.
A huge boulder like body thrust itself at him, heat like that of lava itself scorched at him. He dived and rolled, he dodged the mighty downward sweeps of the creatures burning nose. It tried again and again to floor him.
The blade, the image of the blade he'd crafted in the void, it swung through the air cutting deep into the Xorn, Molten rock poured out over the ground.
Kail rotated the blade, swept low with his frame and cut upwards into the beast again.
It roared with anger beating down upon him. He fell, hitting the ground hard. It felt good, all the pains of his life were forgotten, all he knew was the sheer fear of the end. It beat down again and again, his shield taking the brunt of the attack, good solid Thayan construction. It was a good shield, it had served him well.
He rolled sideways and came to his feet again, cutting up as he did so, again the Xorn screamed, roaring it's hate at Kail.
It came in at him a last time, he stood this time fearless, knowing that what he wanted would come.
Kail watched as his body fell, He stood in the dark just far enough away to watch as the Xorn tore through his armour and ripped into the body within, rolling it about like a defenceless worm in dust of the rocky tunnel floor.
Kail watched thinking, why had he returned? He had no idea. Perhaps he hoped his body could have achieved something, perhaps his soul felt that it was duty bound to aid those he knew. He felt betrayed by the church though. They thought him a slave and yet he was a master. He did not have to suffer their pettiness for his own sake.
The fiend spread his wings, Black demon wings that he had done without during his return to his physical form. He reached down and picked up the blade, the soul of the blade he had never obtained, forged in the void by a desperate soul.
He could not pass it on to his heir, but neither had his father to him. This battle would be fought by another soul.
They were better like this, like this they could do what had to be done without being dragged into the petty affairs of mortals.
Kail watched as the Xorn dragged his body up into the Avers home followed by the screams of fear and sounds of battle that ensued.
The door to the mine knocked closed again and he stood still in the darkness, only the faint red glow of his eyes and the blade in his hand. He stroked it with his dark talons. It was pure, it was all he had left. As soon as he was ready he would take it back to it's physical body and make it whole again.
He would leave it lost once more, for his heirs to find, for the one who would make amends for his and his fatherÂ’s failings.
KailÂ’s wings beat down and he passed once again into the plane of shadows. Deeper and deeper he soared through the dark, into the underworld. Deeper and deeper, where dark magic grew and the prime came closer to the shadow than anywhere else.
In a dark city far from the surface, a young half drow slave stirred in his sleep. Scars covered his body, the marks of a whipping, fang marks and surgical wounds. Sorrow filled his soul and despair tore his heart. But for a moment in his dreams something cruel told him he was important.
For a moment in his dreams all was still and the world became empty but for a single presence, a single terrible presence that wanted him. Fear made his heart beat hard in his sleeping chest, palpitations that would wake him if the thing in his mind didn't have such a terrible hold on him in this dark dream.
The fiend looked back at him raising it's blade and pointing it right at him.
If his hand he found a copy of the blade, Solid, different somehow to the fiends own. He stood looking back at into it's red eyes, stood looking back at what he knew would in the end become him too.
Something made him lash out and in the dark of his mind he met his past and his future, as they locked blades, in his mind he became more then just a slave. He was being taught, shown the way.
Locked in his mind forever, a link to an eternal darkness and place where he would fight one on one with this fiend, He would see this scene every time he slept, every time he closed his eyes for even a moment.
Locked in his mind forever came an ideology. He became somebody's son.
Dumah awoke startled. Sadness filled his heart. Something about this life now bit at him. He had accepted what he was long ago, but now a promise filled him. A terrible promise that he could be saved. He looked around in the dark of his prison, he feared the drow and their spiders no more.
There was something beyond them, the very darkness itself.
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An eerie silence filled the peaks of the Sword Mountains. The sun has risen in the east melting the dew upon the rocky tops and setting flowers open in their lofty abodes.
Down low, low where the sun had not yet reached the twilight still loomed. An eerie time, this place knew only daylight for a few hours of the day when the sun rose to it's zenith.
Here the ugly things walked, ogres, trolls, ettins, giants of the hills and mountains. Here they roamed, here they lived their violent and miserable lives, lives that for millennia had shaped and crafted their races apart from the orcs and goblins. Hardships and brutalities that had spawned races 20 foot tall and 8 foot wide, hideously over muscled and with lives so deprived of interest and mental stimulation that only the most stupid and brute strong could ever bear to survive.
.........................................................................................................
Upon the wreck of a broken air ship a raven pecked at a small chainmail gauntlet, caught up on the highest point of a great slanted mast. The bird's attention was not yet upon the gathering of it's brothers in the sky above.
A dark blot cast in storm clouds lit by the rising sun.
Before long the caws and cries of the crows were enough to make it look up, to make it notice.
A flit of it's wings and the raven was off on the journey to join the great funeral in the sky.
.........................................................................................................
Lava swirled and ran from the rocks. The cold night air had set it's surface hard in places, now in the warmth of the day, the fury of the fire beneath, fought back, cracking the surface. Lumps of new rocks spat and lunged from the pools and lakes of molten ore, noxious gases flowed like rivers out over the canyons beyond.
Nearby, close to the lava, the mountain side moved. Only a speck in the great side of the infinity of this place, near a fallen ruin of some old settlement. A door opened and several dwarven folk poured out of the mountain into the open, driven from their home by some chaos within. From their shoulders and backs, flames roared manes of fire.
The Azers were in turmoil, screams of a giant Xorn, echoed through the valley, but there was nothing here to hear them, not in this place of fire, perhaps only the birds in the sky.
Perhaps only the ravens, that swirled and grouped above.
In their panic none noticed the ravens until they came, hundreds poured through the valley through he clouds of steam and over the rocky islands upon the lake of lava. A wave of blackness swept by and lanced forth through the gateway to the Azer abode below.
..........................................................................................................
Back inside the mountain, Azer bodies lay scattered around the entrance to the mine. The great beast thrashed away at the chains that had been thrown over it. It's great fiery nose bashed down severing the attempts to hold it down.
Magical energies flung forth from a mage, punishing the beasts shell but simply angering it further.
An axe wrought of flame pounded hard upon the Xorn before the brave warrior wielding it was thrown back into the ornate stonework of the wall behind. The Azer ranks began to falter, their mage ripped healing scrolls from her belt trying to save those on the floor, but things were taking a turn for the worse. The great stone door of the mines thumped with the sound of other Xorns behind it, those coming to aid their Elder.
As she cast her last scroll the mage turned to drag the body of one she knew, away from the scene, but there upon his chest sat a single raven. She gasped in surprise, her white hot glowing eyes looked through the flames at the bird of ashes, then beyond to the wave of darkness that followed.
All about, the ravens swirled and turned, culminating into a whirlwind of black. Change crept upon the chaos until with a burst of black tendrils the birds came forth into the figure of a walking fiend.
From it's back, great wings of darkness erupted and at it's side hands, or maybe talons, long dark talons of pure shadow, swept out knocking her aside.
The beastÂ’s clawed feet split the tiled floor as it stepped by her face and on towards the Elder Xorn. It stood still for a second, a second that seemed an eternity as the Xorn rose up over the dark shape.
The Xorns great roar was deafening, a bellow of flame and noxious gas from within the creature, a battle cry directed towards what it saw as a mere duplicate of what it had killed moments before.
It's cry was nothing, nothing compared to the abyssal scream of Abgaziel. In comparison the xorn seemed a whimpering kobold.
A talon lashed out throwing the body of the beast back through the mine door. Rock and metal twisted and splintered. The fiend moved in, seeming to jump the gap on it's enemy in a twisting mist of shadows. Two clawed fists cut deep guages into the creatureÂ’s torso. Other Xorns scattered and fell all around from the implosion of the door.
Abgaziel stood in the dark of the mine looking out over the Xorns. Time passed faster here then he was used to. He watched the forms of the alien creatures correct and right themselves and the Elder in front of him twist and squirm in pain.
His arms flung wide as he chanted a prayer in abyssal, his scales moved and unlocked in places, dark muscles rippled beneath as he grew in size.
Two fists punched forth, together, pounding down the Elder Xorn and cracking it's stone shell. Abgaziel's wings beat out holding him firm as he punched.
From the dark tunnels to the right, other Xorns were flung and cut asunder by the approach of a tall, dark blue Vrock. To the left a similar sight, as a hideous doom knight armoured in flesh and bones, cut through several with a gigantic sword.
Abgaziel looked down upon the broken body of his son. He turned and looked back upon the tool of Kail's demise. Behind the terrible face of his fiendish helm, eyes welled in fury as he lunged forward mercilessly rending the Elder Xorn apart piece by piece until nothing but rubble and the peaceful silence of victory remained.
An Azer face peered through the door upon the trio, quickly and wisely withdrawn back where it came from.
"Where is he?" echoed the grim, undead voice of the Doom knight.
AbgazielÂ’s reply didn't come, for he had no answer. His eyes scanned the halls, looking deep into another plane, searching for a figure resembling his own.
Kail had plans. He was not ready yet.
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Somewhere far away in a lost place deep in the plane of shadows, a man sized figure stood beneath a great sky of black and whirling darkness. His taloned feet sank claws deep into a cliff edge, the soil of which could be compared not to any ground or rock in the material plane.
Upon the edge of forever he stood, nothing but himself, at last, and let go of everything he had never been able to achieve.
In this most lonely place the shadow of a fiend once again shone like the soul of a simple man.
Now he had finally become everything he had ever been meant to become.
With his wings spread wide and a calm smile upon lips, Kail took his final step, into the void.
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*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
The soul of Onifhet released from it's mortal prison wandered the dark void of the plane of shadow and onwards into darker negative planes. At times it was like a man and other times like a singularity a simple point of existence moving through what seemed like endless time and space.
At one such point it came to be like an orb of black water falling infinitely through the darkness, falling through nothingness until finally it began to descend on a great ocean of lightless water like a single drop of rain.
The droplet fell into the great expanse the echo of which to be the only deafening sound in what had been a silence since the beginning of time.
Under the water a memory formed in the depths, the moment of a body's death. The mind saw the body of Kail tossed about and chewed up by a Xorn, burning his armour and flesh until nothing was left but bloody ashes.
It seemed now an eternity had passed yet 'the moment' was there still, present in the mind of the soul.
As the Ashes drifted upon the cave floor the cave melted away and all colour with it until all that was left was a grey and wasted place of dust and lifelessness. The skies themselves were a mass of swirling ash and dust raised by the winds, the landscapes only features were those of bones and old pieces of armour from other such disintegrated bodies, jutted from the ashes here and there.
Here was the end for the body, the soulless remains. But this body knew soullessness. These ashes had lived without the soul for so long. Blood clung to dust and dust hardened into bone. Dry grey colourless skin crawled upon paper like muscles beneath the surface until within the dusty ashes of the grey wastes formed a body.
A hand reached up from beneath the ash and dusted a face clean. A new face, unmarked and fresh without the scars of life. This was the afterlife yet at the same time a soulless one. Somewhere far away a soul wandered the void but here and now, a body rose from the ashes. Grey and dusty he shook clean his hair and opened his eyes. White hollow eyes almost lit from within by some terrible emptiness.
Kail reached down and took hold of a pendant, a single black disk on light silver chain. His goddess Shar had brought his ashes here and through the pendant reformed her servant.
He arose naked, dust swirling away from his body in the wind. His first breath he took as if he didn't actually need to, a breath taken with only one purpose.
Across the emptiness a cry echoed out. A cry of agony and misery from a mind tortured by it's separation from a life and soul that has been so cruel.
Footstep by footstep the body began to make it's way towards a feature in the distance. As he began to get closer it started to look like a grey and twisted image of a town or city.
Soon he came to pass a sign, for some reason posted in the middle of nowhere. 'Nifleheim --> ' it said.
At one such point it came to be like an orb of black water falling infinitely through the darkness, falling through nothingness until finally it began to descend on a great ocean of lightless water like a single drop of rain.
The droplet fell into the great expanse the echo of which to be the only deafening sound in what had been a silence since the beginning of time.
Under the water a memory formed in the depths, the moment of a body's death. The mind saw the body of Kail tossed about and chewed up by a Xorn, burning his armour and flesh until nothing was left but bloody ashes.
It seemed now an eternity had passed yet 'the moment' was there still, present in the mind of the soul.
As the Ashes drifted upon the cave floor the cave melted away and all colour with it until all that was left was a grey and wasted place of dust and lifelessness. The skies themselves were a mass of swirling ash and dust raised by the winds, the landscapes only features were those of bones and old pieces of armour from other such disintegrated bodies, jutted from the ashes here and there.
Here was the end for the body, the soulless remains. But this body knew soullessness. These ashes had lived without the soul for so long. Blood clung to dust and dust hardened into bone. Dry grey colourless skin crawled upon paper like muscles beneath the surface until within the dusty ashes of the grey wastes formed a body.
A hand reached up from beneath the ash and dusted a face clean. A new face, unmarked and fresh without the scars of life. This was the afterlife yet at the same time a soulless one. Somewhere far away a soul wandered the void but here and now, a body rose from the ashes. Grey and dusty he shook clean his hair and opened his eyes. White hollow eyes almost lit from within by some terrible emptiness.
Kail reached down and took hold of a pendant, a single black disk on light silver chain. His goddess Shar had brought his ashes here and through the pendant reformed her servant.
He arose naked, dust swirling away from his body in the wind. His first breath he took as if he didn't actually need to, a breath taken with only one purpose.
Across the emptiness a cry echoed out. A cry of agony and misery from a mind tortured by it's separation from a life and soul that has been so cruel.
Footstep by footstep the body began to make it's way towards a feature in the distance. As he began to get closer it started to look like a grey and twisted image of a town or city.
Soon he came to pass a sign, for some reason posted in the middle of nowhere. 'Nifleheim --> ' it said.
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*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Kail stood adorned in his fiendish scales, armour of deep black metal and black silk cape flowing int he cool air.
He was stood on a ledge looking over a rotten and decayed village atop a great hill, looking down upon a large wood filled with apple trees. Far in the distance he watched as the people of a small town named Ciderbrook ran in circles trying to decide what to do.
There was nothing for them to do, their world was about to end.
Far in the distance a floating city dropped from the sky and crashed down into another great city below. Flames erupted here and there but the visage was soon obscured by a great dust cloud. Kail nodded impressed, the death toll in that instant was likely beyind the comprehension of most and he admitted he could only contemplate the awsomeness of what he had just witnessed. It seemed the greater the order of a place or object the more destruction it wrought when it came to fall apart. It was mere logic really.
In the east lay a great river and beyond a frozen mountain top with a huge woodlands below. The woodland seemed dark and quiet and almost seemed to distort in his vision as if it was simply sinking into a shadowy plane all of it's own leaving a great void of darkness behind. How strange a thing he had never seen but it panged of the powers of a deity much like his own. Darkness was after all the great water that connected all things in chaos before the order of light shines upon a world and organises in ones mind what can be seen and experienced.
In the sky the moon eclipsed the sun and darkness spread over all. The only light now a faint shimmering arora. It was beautiful, the the eclipse signified an amageddon, this eclipse did not pass it hung and remained. With darkness came coldness and all around the trees began to sway with a terrible wind.
The moment was near, Kail would have to leave soon or go down with this world.
A tear ran down his face in apreciation of the beauty of such a thing.
In the dark silence wails could be heard on the wind, the screams of terrible creatures spreading out across this world and beggining to consume all life and order.
This world had taken too much and now it was being taken back. Such a beautiful concept.
Kail turned and put two pieces of a dinner plate sized stone together. They glowed with a blue light as the runes upon them lit and the stone fused. Before him a great crack opened up in the mountainside. It was immense, this portal had been built for something large to pass through.
With the emission of the power of the portal six figures formed in the village below.
They looked up to him.
He knew they were not mortals, he had seen gods before.
"I don't think so." Said Kail as he sank back into the black watery barrier of the portal. For a moment the surface shimmered before one broken half of the stone flew back through and smashed into parts upon the floor.
With that the mountainside closed and left only a rock face behind.
Kail stood in a stange room in an old abandonned part of undersigil. There were seven statues in the room, three each side and one had the head broken off. At the end of the room looking over the other six was a larger one, perhaps the leader of them infront of an altar.
Several dead illithids that he had killed earlier lay on the floor.
Kail dropped the second half of the portal stone letting it shatter on the floor and then pushed each statue over breaking it.
"What an experience, the end of a world."
He said to himself. "Kind of addictive..."
Secretly he wondered to himself if anyone escaped. if they did it was likely Sigil was the place they would turn up.
He was stood on a ledge looking over a rotten and decayed village atop a great hill, looking down upon a large wood filled with apple trees. Far in the distance he watched as the people of a small town named Ciderbrook ran in circles trying to decide what to do.
There was nothing for them to do, their world was about to end.
Far in the distance a floating city dropped from the sky and crashed down into another great city below. Flames erupted here and there but the visage was soon obscured by a great dust cloud. Kail nodded impressed, the death toll in that instant was likely beyind the comprehension of most and he admitted he could only contemplate the awsomeness of what he had just witnessed. It seemed the greater the order of a place or object the more destruction it wrought when it came to fall apart. It was mere logic really.
In the east lay a great river and beyond a frozen mountain top with a huge woodlands below. The woodland seemed dark and quiet and almost seemed to distort in his vision as if it was simply sinking into a shadowy plane all of it's own leaving a great void of darkness behind. How strange a thing he had never seen but it panged of the powers of a deity much like his own. Darkness was after all the great water that connected all things in chaos before the order of light shines upon a world and organises in ones mind what can be seen and experienced.
In the sky the moon eclipsed the sun and darkness spread over all. The only light now a faint shimmering arora. It was beautiful, the the eclipse signified an amageddon, this eclipse did not pass it hung and remained. With darkness came coldness and all around the trees began to sway with a terrible wind.
The moment was near, Kail would have to leave soon or go down with this world.
A tear ran down his face in apreciation of the beauty of such a thing.
In the dark silence wails could be heard on the wind, the screams of terrible creatures spreading out across this world and beggining to consume all life and order.
This world had taken too much and now it was being taken back. Such a beautiful concept.
Kail turned and put two pieces of a dinner plate sized stone together. They glowed with a blue light as the runes upon them lit and the stone fused. Before him a great crack opened up in the mountainside. It was immense, this portal had been built for something large to pass through.
With the emission of the power of the portal six figures formed in the village below.
They looked up to him.
He knew they were not mortals, he had seen gods before.
"I don't think so." Said Kail as he sank back into the black watery barrier of the portal. For a moment the surface shimmered before one broken half of the stone flew back through and smashed into parts upon the floor.
With that the mountainside closed and left only a rock face behind.
Kail stood in a stange room in an old abandonned part of undersigil. There were seven statues in the room, three each side and one had the head broken off. At the end of the room looking over the other six was a larger one, perhaps the leader of them infront of an altar.
Several dead illithids that he had killed earlier lay on the floor.
Kail dropped the second half of the portal stone letting it shatter on the floor and then pushed each statue over breaking it.
"What an experience, the end of a world."
He said to himself. "Kind of addictive..."
Secretly he wondered to himself if anyone escaped. if they did it was likely Sigil was the place they would turn up.
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*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Kail Enters the hive ward with a sack of gold in his right hand, his buckler as usual fastened on his left arm.
He makes a big deal about the purse, swinging it around by it's tie chord on his index finger and occasionally dropping it then picking it up.
One time he drops it by the feet of a homeless man sitting near the tatoo shop. As he picks it up he shakes the purse near the man's face then backs away.
"Now do I scatter these like I'm supposed to... or does someone want the whole lot?"
He taunts as he looks around at a some eager eyes street urchins and local whores.
A burley looking half-orc pimp approaches, with one hand on a club in his belt and two mean looking orc body guards behind him.
Kail tips his head low so only his smile can be seen below his hood as he simply tosses the gold coin pouch to one of the henchmen. The pimp instantly grabs out at the coin purse.
A knife glints in the air as the second henchman guts his boss and then tries to reason with his mate for a share of the gold but in moments a kid sneaks up and tries to snatch the purse.
A scuffle breaks out and soon there are loads of kids all over the two men and bloody footprints all over the cobbles.
Then the begger dives in with a cackled cry of desperation. "YAAAaaaAAA!"
Kail walks away with a shake of his head.
"This is all they expect."
He slips from his pocket a flask of alchemists fire and slings it over his shoulder.
'Boom' He mouths silently as it spins through the air.
He makes a big deal about the purse, swinging it around by it's tie chord on his index finger and occasionally dropping it then picking it up.
One time he drops it by the feet of a homeless man sitting near the tatoo shop. As he picks it up he shakes the purse near the man's face then backs away.
"Now do I scatter these like I'm supposed to... or does someone want the whole lot?"
He taunts as he looks around at a some eager eyes street urchins and local whores.
A burley looking half-orc pimp approaches, with one hand on a club in his belt and two mean looking orc body guards behind him.
Kail tips his head low so only his smile can be seen below his hood as he simply tosses the gold coin pouch to one of the henchmen. The pimp instantly grabs out at the coin purse.
A knife glints in the air as the second henchman guts his boss and then tries to reason with his mate for a share of the gold but in moments a kid sneaks up and tries to snatch the purse.
A scuffle breaks out and soon there are loads of kids all over the two men and bloody footprints all over the cobbles.
Then the begger dives in with a cackled cry of desperation. "YAAAaaaAAA!"
Kail walks away with a shake of his head.
"This is all they expect."
He slips from his pocket a flask of alchemists fire and slings it over his shoulder.
'Boom' He mouths silently as it spins through the air.
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*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Kail entered the basement of a derelict Sigil building. Perhaps once it had been a family home, it was likely this place was abandonned after the anarchist and mercykiller fued in the hive.
The point of this building to him was that it had suffered substantial damage and as a result the Dubus were unable to prune the razorvine in places around it;s faoundations. it seemed that the plants were almost holding it together in parts.
Kail dropped a bag of tool and took out a saw. He set to work cutting several beams but minding not to cut any vines that were around.
He also chissled a few bricks out of the walls in places making the buolding even more unsecure. It was a careful process but when the Dabus next came to prune the razorvine the result would be the collapse of the building or a the choice to not prune the vines and let them grow out of control on this building at least.
Hopefully this plan would work out.
The point of this building to him was that it had suffered substantial damage and as a result the Dubus were unable to prune the razorvine in places around it;s faoundations. it seemed that the plants were almost holding it together in parts.
Kail dropped a bag of tool and took out a saw. He set to work cutting several beams but minding not to cut any vines that were around.
He also chissled a few bricks out of the walls in places making the buolding even more unsecure. It was a careful process but when the Dabus next came to prune the razorvine the result would be the collapse of the building or a the choice to not prune the vines and let them grow out of control on this building at least.
Hopefully this plan would work out.
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*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Kail slipped out of the portalÂ’s watery surface. Droplets of ether clinged to him like water but quickly evaporated into a cold blue steam as he moved away from the stone circle that housed his route back to Sigil.
He slipped three crystals back into a pouch, one yellow, one red and one green. They were the keys required for this portal.
Now he had pretty much seconds to slip out of the portal room before that crazy mage Halaster was on his case.
Quicklly he drew and fired his crossbow at a switch lever across the room then jumped sideways kicking along the wall before grabbing a wooden chair which he tossed at the open dorrway.
As Kail's feet came down on the floor, wards fired off and the metal grating dropped onto the chair clanging loudly as he ducked and rolled through the small gap.
Behind him he heard a burst of negative energy, sizzle and implode, turning the wooden chair to ash before the metal bars of the iron grate came down hard onto stone.
He drew out a compass, followed it north down a corridor and then watched as it span around to face back where he had come from.
Kail turned around and walked back the way he come until he came to a door. Seemingly the one he had just left moments ago.
He reached through the bars and pulled the lever. The door opened up and he stepped through into a room with a watery pool inside instead of a stone floor.
He walked into the middle and lay down so that his whole body was submerged except for his face.
Kail held his breath and closed his eyes putting his face under the water.
For a moment he listened to the bubbles from his nose drifting up and the echos from elsewhere in undermountain.
Suddenly there was a rush of air and a falling sensation and then he was underwater again.
He sat up and gasped.
From the shores of an island on a small underdark lake he was now sat on he looked out over Skullport. Behind him a rothe sniffed at his cape and nibbled at his armour.
The very wet blackguard patted the animal on the nose and pushed it firmly away as he looked out over the town.
He slipped three crystals back into a pouch, one yellow, one red and one green. They were the keys required for this portal.
Now he had pretty much seconds to slip out of the portal room before that crazy mage Halaster was on his case.
Quicklly he drew and fired his crossbow at a switch lever across the room then jumped sideways kicking along the wall before grabbing a wooden chair which he tossed at the open dorrway.
As Kail's feet came down on the floor, wards fired off and the metal grating dropped onto the chair clanging loudly as he ducked and rolled through the small gap.
Behind him he heard a burst of negative energy, sizzle and implode, turning the wooden chair to ash before the metal bars of the iron grate came down hard onto stone.
He drew out a compass, followed it north down a corridor and then watched as it span around to face back where he had come from.
Kail turned around and walked back the way he come until he came to a door. Seemingly the one he had just left moments ago.
He reached through the bars and pulled the lever. The door opened up and he stepped through into a room with a watery pool inside instead of a stone floor.
He walked into the middle and lay down so that his whole body was submerged except for his face.
Kail held his breath and closed his eyes putting his face under the water.
For a moment he listened to the bubbles from his nose drifting up and the echos from elsewhere in undermountain.
Suddenly there was a rush of air and a falling sensation and then he was underwater again.
He sat up and gasped.
From the shores of an island on a small underdark lake he was now sat on he looked out over Skullport. Behind him a rothe sniffed at his cape and nibbled at his armour.
The very wet blackguard patted the animal on the nose and pushed it firmly away as he looked out over the town.
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*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Kail paced through the streets of Niflheim. His hood hung low as he approached a ghostly merchant.
“What may I do for you Lord Onifhet?”
Kail’s mouth formed a smirk. “I think you must have me mixed up with someone else. I am no lord.”
The apparition flicked through some pages of a tome with his transparent fingers. “That is most strange, you appear to look exactly like someone else. Though I must admit your accent is a little different.”
“I need some poison, centipede venom.”
The ghost clanks through a box full of bottles but then pauses.
“You know, there are some who blend this venom with a certain plant resin that one can smoke. It is a potent narcotic with memory affecting properties.” The ghost lifted a small vial of black liquid up infront of his misty face. “Are you sure you are not Lord Onifhet?”
“Kail chuckled, no no, really just a sorry berk wandering the afterlife, I gave up such aspirations a long long time ago. Back in my old life.”
The ghost wafted a hand towards Kail. His hood inflated with air and blew backwards off of his head uncovering his face. His pale eyes lit the area like lanterns in the gloom.
With a flick of his cape and a pace backwards Kail drew one of his two blades. ItÂ’s edge rippled with white flames and runes upon itÂ’s hilt that spelled out a powerful enchantment against the undead.
“Easy Lord Onifhet, I mean you no harm.”
Kail looked at the ghost with the utmost contempt and pulled his hood back up over his head, blade still pointed towards the apparition.
“I am no lord and I shall take my business elsewhere if you are quite finished.”
The ghost raised his hand and the small vial floated towards Kail.
“What did you find in Skullport child?”
Kail took the poison from the air and placed it back into the ghostÂ’s box of bottles.
“The moth never flies far from the flame.” Stated the ghostly merchant.
“What in the hells is that supposed to mean?”
The ghost waved a hand almost dismissing the comment completely. “It matters not. He will find you soon, now that you are here.”
“What? Who?”
“The Hellmoth of course, Lord Onifhet.”
Kail slid his blade away. “I told you already I am no Lord.”
“I didn’t say you were.” The ghost shook his head in return and slowly put away his stock. “It is the funniest thing how you can spend an eternity looking for something, trying to do something and when you finally stop trying and get on with things, it all just happens.”
“What may I do for you Lord Onifhet?”
Kail’s mouth formed a smirk. “I think you must have me mixed up with someone else. I am no lord.”
The apparition flicked through some pages of a tome with his transparent fingers. “That is most strange, you appear to look exactly like someone else. Though I must admit your accent is a little different.”
“I need some poison, centipede venom.”
The ghost clanks through a box full of bottles but then pauses.
“You know, there are some who blend this venom with a certain plant resin that one can smoke. It is a potent narcotic with memory affecting properties.” The ghost lifted a small vial of black liquid up infront of his misty face. “Are you sure you are not Lord Onifhet?”
“Kail chuckled, no no, really just a sorry berk wandering the afterlife, I gave up such aspirations a long long time ago. Back in my old life.”
The ghost wafted a hand towards Kail. His hood inflated with air and blew backwards off of his head uncovering his face. His pale eyes lit the area like lanterns in the gloom.
With a flick of his cape and a pace backwards Kail drew one of his two blades. ItÂ’s edge rippled with white flames and runes upon itÂ’s hilt that spelled out a powerful enchantment against the undead.
“Easy Lord Onifhet, I mean you no harm.”
Kail looked at the ghost with the utmost contempt and pulled his hood back up over his head, blade still pointed towards the apparition.
“I am no lord and I shall take my business elsewhere if you are quite finished.”
The ghost raised his hand and the small vial floated towards Kail.
“What did you find in Skullport child?”
Kail took the poison from the air and placed it back into the ghostÂ’s box of bottles.
“The moth never flies far from the flame.” Stated the ghostly merchant.
“What in the hells is that supposed to mean?”
The ghost waved a hand almost dismissing the comment completely. “It matters not. He will find you soon, now that you are here.”
“What? Who?”
“The Hellmoth of course, Lord Onifhet.”
Kail slid his blade away. “I told you already I am no Lord.”
“I didn’t say you were.” The ghost shook his head in return and slowly put away his stock. “It is the funniest thing how you can spend an eternity looking for something, trying to do something and when you finally stop trying and get on with things, it all just happens.”
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*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
In the Yawning Portal inn in Waterdeep the pully at the top of the rope, used to raise and lower adventurers into undermountain, began to squeek and move. Before any could hoist whomever it was up a black gauntlet hand clasped over the top of the large well in the centre of the inn and Kail lept over the edge.
“Well I never, Mr. Kail sir it’s been years!” Durnan the innkeeper finished polishing a glass and drew out a ledger from under the bar. “Three Harbour moons you owe me on your tab. Where did you get to anyhow? Last I heard the Church of the moon burned out your secret temple under the city, and were hunting you down with that snooty clan of elves up on the long road.”
Kail tossed back his hood and slipped a medium sized back of planar jink on the bar. “I died.” He said calmly with a nod.
“Ah, well… I could see how that could affect your delay in payment. In any case, will ye be having a drink now that your back in the world of the living?”
Kail looked around and for a moment let in the warmth and comfort of an old life. “Sure Durnan, one for the road eh.”
Durnan poured out a brandy for Kail. “Where ye headed for?”
“Yartar.” He replied with a solumn nod. “I have unfinished business there and perhaps many places along the road.”
“A trail of blood I hope your not going to be leaving Mr. Kail. I can see your slightly more equipped than once you were.”
Kail looked over himself for a moment and then at the many nobles and adventurers around the bar all curious and looking at him. Indeed some of the enchantments he now bore on his equipment since hopping the planes were far more increadible than he had ever had access to in his life here. He smirked with a mild amusement and took his brandy from Durnan.
“I won’t be able to promise anything there Durnan, you know how it is. Me and mine were badly wronged.”
Durnan looked at the man he once knew with concern. “You spent your whole life hiding because they were always trying to kill you and they damn turned you into the one thing they were afraid of didn’t they?”
“True, ironically true my friend. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be off to the plinth, I have a score to settle with an old mentor of mine.” Kail turned to leave.
“I’ll be back a moon from now… probably.”
“Well I never, Mr. Kail sir it’s been years!” Durnan the innkeeper finished polishing a glass and drew out a ledger from under the bar. “Three Harbour moons you owe me on your tab. Where did you get to anyhow? Last I heard the Church of the moon burned out your secret temple under the city, and were hunting you down with that snooty clan of elves up on the long road.”
Kail tossed back his hood and slipped a medium sized back of planar jink on the bar. “I died.” He said calmly with a nod.
“Ah, well… I could see how that could affect your delay in payment. In any case, will ye be having a drink now that your back in the world of the living?”
Kail looked around and for a moment let in the warmth and comfort of an old life. “Sure Durnan, one for the road eh.”
Durnan poured out a brandy for Kail. “Where ye headed for?”
“Yartar.” He replied with a solumn nod. “I have unfinished business there and perhaps many places along the road.”
“A trail of blood I hope your not going to be leaving Mr. Kail. I can see your slightly more equipped than once you were.”
Kail looked over himself for a moment and then at the many nobles and adventurers around the bar all curious and looking at him. Indeed some of the enchantments he now bore on his equipment since hopping the planes were far more increadible than he had ever had access to in his life here. He smirked with a mild amusement and took his brandy from Durnan.
“I won’t be able to promise anything there Durnan, you know how it is. Me and mine were badly wronged.”
Durnan looked at the man he once knew with concern. “You spent your whole life hiding because they were always trying to kill you and they damn turned you into the one thing they were afraid of didn’t they?”
“True, ironically true my friend. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be off to the plinth, I have a score to settle with an old mentor of mine.” Kail turned to leave.
“I’ll be back a moon from now… probably.”
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*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Near the north gate of Waterdeep kail followed the roads along the wall to a quite cluster of back streets where most houses were those of nobility and then through to a small street filled with the houses of those who worked as their maids and servants.
He slid along the shadowed side of the street where the moonlight did not fall and came to row of houses that backed onto the high walls of the City of the Dead. Waterdeeps great park and cemetery.
He pulled a key from a purse and opened a door, just a crack.
His fingers slipped through the crack and up the door unhooking a wire loop and then down to pull a pin from the doorframe.
Cautiously he opened the door and stepped well over the doormat carefully. Once in he reset the traps and pulled back his hood allowing his eyes to dimly light the room in what before had been total darkness.
A carpet pulled and a trapdoor opened. Kail went down and into a lower room where he opened a door in the wall and walked a dirty tunnel until he found himself at a door. He pulled out some lock picks and fiddled the doors lock until it opened and entered a tomb.
He slid along the shadowed side of the street where the moonlight did not fall and came to row of houses that backed onto the high walls of the City of the Dead. Waterdeeps great park and cemetery.
He pulled a key from a purse and opened a door, just a crack.
His fingers slipped through the crack and up the door unhooking a wire loop and then down to pull a pin from the doorframe.
Cautiously he opened the door and stepped well over the doormat carefully. Once in he reset the traps and pulled back his hood allowing his eyes to dimly light the room in what before had been total darkness.
A carpet pulled and a trapdoor opened. Kail went down and into a lower room where he opened a door in the wall and walked a dirty tunnel until he found himself at a door. He pulled out some lock picks and fiddled the doors lock until it opened and entered a tomb.