Shards Of History

[*DigitalDragoon]

Quinn offers what assistance he can to the more qualified physician, such as applying a frost cantrip to a damp rag in an effort to ease the terrible bruises and swelling on the patient's face while they work. He suggests the possibility of trying to localize a minor regenerative spell to help the bones set if the doctor deems it appropriate and necessary.

[*MadJackValance]

It all seemed to happen so quick. The thunderous crash and quake following Odette's barked warning to hit the deck. Vyse clung to his chair for a shocked instant as the ground below him rocked and trembled, refusing to settle. Before he knew it, the ruddy bard was knocked from his chair by Greg's tackle. His palms slapped the floorboards as he tried to catch himself, and through the low grumble of the impact, a sharp rap caught his ear. The pearl he had clutched, the token Terika had given him. He had scarcely put it down since they settled into these quarters, and now he watched it skip and roll away across the unstable floor like a puckish child frolicking off towards a dark forest.

Scurrying in a panicked crawl, he gave chase, ruddy hand grasping desperately after the tiny white sphere. The pearl hopped playfully around the kitchen upon the vibrating ground and sprinted along the cracks between floorboards as pots, pans, cups, plates, and cutlery rained down sporadically with shattering crashes, clatters, and clangs. Vyse ignored the few pieces of flatware that managed to leap from their perches and land on his back, focused doggedly on subduing the iridescent orb. Finally after a matter of frantic seconds he trapped the pearl under a cupped hand and snatched it up. Trinket tightly in hand he swiftly crawled over the mess to take cover under the nearby table.

As the minutes of furious rumbling drug on, he remained still, with a hand covering the back of his head, while the other clutched the precious heirloom to his chest. This could be it... he thought to himself, feeling that any moment the fortress could simply crumble around them, or a great, fiery shockwave could sweep them off in a torrent of pummeling force and debris. His fingers kneaded anxiously at the pearl, eye fast shut, and as he focused on it his thoughts calmed, easing the long minutes of mayhem.

Eventually Ilia's convulsing lessened, the ground solid again, though the earth beneath continued to groan and grumble. His honey hued eye braved a glance around the room. He saw the others, all climbing to their feet almost simultaneously as the room settled, but as his eye darted about it snagged on a spot of uncanny stillness. A sudden weight burdened his knotted stomach as he realized what he glimpsed: the familiar, green garbed form pinned under the toppled shelf. Bound to the spot by the sudden shock, Vyse watched wide eyed as Quinn and Brindas rushed to the mustachioed man's aid.

The teifling slowly pulled himself out from under the table as he watched the doctor and the wizard set to work, blank disbelief on his ruddy mug as he observed the unnatural stillness of his Waterdhavian compatriot. His stomach was unsettled further with a glimpses of Greg's face, familar still, but... off, and wearing a nasty bruise.

The bard stood silent, fingers wringing tightly as he looked on. Behind his pale, worried expression only a couple slow thoughts shambled after one another...

That could've been me. Should have been...

He has to be alright. I can't watch this happen... Not again.

As he tries to speak at first, his voice fails, the words catching dry and wispy in his throat. "W-what can... Is there a-any-anything I can do?" He offers to the healing duo.

[*Brindas]

"It is not overly grievous, even if it looks bad. The regenerative spell would be acceptable, a fine idea, Quinn. Vyse, if you could get hand me the things I need, that would be well enough..."

Brindas glances over to Vyse, noting his expression. His own expression softens such as it hasn't done so since the groups reunited. "You need not worry so much, he just has a nasty clonk on the head, and I wager any number of females have done worse to our dear palyboy."

[*Nimiane]

Running a hand through the length of her hair, Odette breaths out a quiet sigh of relief - both to Brindas' offered diagnosis and the knowledge that the rest of those gathered were present, accounted for and unharmed. Despite this, however, she does not intervene. Odette was a woman who understood her own capabilities, for the most part, and medical aid - aside from the necessary practical slap-dash solutions on the battlefield - it was not an area in which she would be of any assistance, more likely to simply be in the way. Conceding to this and suppressing numerous questions, she leaves the medical specialists to their work; trusting in their skills and knowledge.

Odette herself turns her attention back out to the horizon, brows creased in a deep frown as she considers their next move and patiently awaits the opportunity to depart.

[*MadJackValance]

At Brindas' words a lone note tumbles from the bards lips in an uneasy chuckle. He gives a reluctant nod and once he manages to pry his feet from the spot he stood, he goes to fetch the requested items. After a few moments he hurriedly shuffles back with the medical supplies in hand, and does his best to turn away nervous thoughts by helping however he's able.

[*WhenWizardsWar]

"And In The End"

Illia weeps and cries, and groans in pain. The prime is all alone now, dieing slowly like a wounded animal.

And its all alone...

Gone are the seven hundred thousand men and beast waring against each other...
Gone are her residents, proud people descended from mighty wyrms....
Gone is the northern mountain which was a land mark and source of pride for the prime, in its place a five mile wide crater now sits like a lethal puncture wound...
Gone is the band of strange people who came on flying ships...

The first two attempted to leave through magical portals in an effort to escape Illias death throes.
The third exploded suddenly not to long after a band of hero's paid the volcano a visit.

Illia cant figure out what happened on the mountain peak, but the heros are gone now, vanished from a forest clearing...gone..gone back to where ever they came from.

Illia is all alone...

Nothing left but a dieing volcanic landscape, waring elementals and...wait..whats this?

The man who slaughtered villages, the man enraged by the falling star...he still remains...

And in the forest...whats left of it....one of the strangers stayed behind....she searches for him now...calling his name...a desperate search for a friend and lover on a prime that is drawing its final breath...

One...
More...
Story...

[*Nimiane]

_{Natasha Farrow - Calling To The Night}

Odette had watched Scar slip through her fingers, questions unanswered. [color=818181]Who, or what exactly was Scar and why did the chronomancers force him into an endless loop?[/color] Listened to others call her mad. [color=818181]Had she chosen correctly in letting him walk away a second time, despite lack of understanding and shortness of time?[/color] She had flown over gorges and climbed over mountains alongside her companions. [color=818181]Would the blood of another hundred thousand lives come to stain her hands because of it?[/color] Crawled inside the belly of a dying comet that had passed through countless primes. [color=818181]How long would it be until the so-called "Guardians of T.I.M.E" would come for her once again, warrant still standing, to end her timeline before she could save his?[/color] Met the Lich known as Sammaster, face to rotted flesh, and saw Vyse shoot a dracolich's phylactery from his hand at her command. [color=818181]Sammaster was not dead, even if he were it would be mere days until he reformed once again. Would he seek revenge?[/color] She watched the world crumble and break beneath her feet, felt the key vibrate in her fingertips. [color=818181] How much longer could the planet survive?[/color] Ensured her friends turned and left through a portal, safe and accounted for as it closed behind them. [color=818181]I'm sorry.[/color]

They were all gone, yet so many questions remained.

Clothing and maile singed, form bathed in sweat and blood, she was alone now; her task completed, Sammaster foiled in a whirlwind of unexpected events. There was nothing to lose now, everything to gain. She knew they would be upset, maybe even angry. But the weight of knowledge was heavy on her shoulders - she had asked him to come. Maybe it was all for naught, but Odette couldn't bring herself to leave knowing one soul remained, knowing Kelth still lived. It was not because she had to, it was not because he needed her... it was because she chose it to be. She would not abandon him now, despite her understanding such would be considered weakness had she worn the wings earned in Sigil. Perhaps she was as mad as others seemed to think.

Tearing her gaze from the singed space the portal had occupied, Odette swallowed the lump in her throat and dove for the nearest pillar in an attempt to avoid a larger chunk of falling brimstone resultant of the recent mountain explosion. Her rapier, specially forged and named "Fang" for short, banged and thumped against her thigh in quiet reminder that swashbuckler and weapon were together still. The earth shifted beneath her booted heels, dying in every sense of the word as she hurriedly placed the key, a Bloodiron Ingot, back into her tattered leather satchel. Retrieving a slender, oak wand from a clasp on her belt, the blonde bardess tapped it lightly to her person to coat herself in a protective layer of stone skin.

Odette turned her back on the nightmarish clearing where she had danced a skeleton, on the last glimpse she had stolen of her companions as they departed, and fled for the nearby hilltop ruins with the inferno close on her heels. There she would wait out this particular downpour of molten hell, beginning her desperate, hurried search as soon as she were able.

A single name was bellowed through ash-smeared lips with the trained force of a bard as she began.

"KEEELTH!"

[*WhenWizardsWar]

The pyroclastic cloud that washed over the land like a tidal wave -almost- catchs Odette as she races for the high ground of the keep. She manages to reach a safe height which saves her from the instantly lethal searing cloud of flame and debris.

The cloud sweeps over a good two miles of land after passing her high perch, flatening and incinerating all manner of life and vegitation, indeed the keep itself suffers tremendous damage even more so then it already had, leaving Odette on a delicate pillar of stone once the rest of her perch is blasted away, its a treacherous climb to the ground.

//Some things to consider while this epilog plays out, until further notice the following are constants on illia both on forum rp and when we have in game sessions.

*The temperature on Illia sets at a minimum of 90 degrees at all times, even at night.
*Illias air is becoming -extremely- toxic and if odette and keith dont figure out a way to filter or at least reduce the bad air they intake they will eventually suffocate and die.
*Ash now falls in a constant near endless rain, it stings the eyes and reduces visibility down to a minimum of 30 to 40 feet, as little as 5 ft at times.
*Every hour Illia is wracked by anywhere from 1-3 quakes of various intensity.
*After the mountain explosion, the earth quake involved widened the river that divides illia in half considerably, in Keiths and Odettes search and survival efforts you will need to get creative to cross it.
*Elementals abound, various grades of all elemental types, earth, fire, air and water now battle across Illia for dominance, these are virtually the only signs of sentience and they cannot be reasoned with at all, they attack on site and with out mercy.
*Supplies will dwindle rapidly and given Illias death throes and current state finding suitable sustinance will be -extremly- difficult.
*I will update these as Illias condition worses but dont forget the second most immediate problem aside form reuniting odette and keith and thats...
*FINDING A WAY HOME.

[*Mausman]

"Keith"

The battle field vanishes, gone, as if it never was.

He stands now in a town, intact and untouched by the war on Illia, its streets slick with blood and bile, men woman and children running in terror, fleeing in every direction.

Bodies lay sprawled around him, his weapon in hand soaked with blood, no not soaked drenched. The bodies appear to be the remains of the cities militia who had sworn to protect the village and its people from danger, but now they lay strewn about the pavement.

Butchered.

It's so easy.

Keith regains his sanity for but a moment, long enough to realise his previous visions were just that, images, illusions...lies.

His spine wasn't removed, the people he saw were actually trying to heal him, a fall he took that broke his leg while he stumbled through the mist.

The orc battle? Never happened, instead Keith had been trying to walk on a wounded leg when he found out one of the villagers was of pure orc descent and something inside unleashed the rage within.

He wasnt killing hundreds of orcs with faces of his old friends and loved ones.

He was slaughtering innocent villagers, a mental vision of another time, another place pulled over his eyes.

The orcs regrouped infront of Keith and pressed another attack, the slaughter continues.

Men, women and children run in terror, wondering why this stranger is butchering them.

The king killer comet twinkles over head....

*Kelth had dropped his blade as the final wave of orcs thundered down on him. He slowly opens his eyes, taking in his environment, gasping as he realises what has happened.

In blind sheer panic...sick of what his own hands have wrought, he picks up his blade and tries to move away from the entire village, growling in pain as his body demands his attention at the place of injury. He roars, the king killer surely causing his draconic blood to rage in his veins, but no more, no more of this, his leg needed mending lest he would die for certain...*

[*WhenWizardsWar]

Keith manages to escape from the village, though the comets influence still thunders in his mind constantly for the next day or so.

As Keith finds refuge from madness and a place to finish tending his wound, he is roused from his thoughts by a brilliant magical light show that reachs so high in the sky and is so powerful it can only be something of a destructive nature.

A day later, Keith is woken from a brief slumber by the fiery descent of the king killer when it plummets from the sky and crashes into the northern mountainside. The land quickly become dangerous and even violent and Keiths struggle with his madness turns into a struggle for survival against Illia as it begins its death throes.

A day and a half later, his supplies would be gone and the direction of the forest where he last saw his friends still eludes him, hope might seem lost except for a sudden and cataclysmic explosion far to the north, the volcanic mountain reach where the comet crashed, suddenly obliterated by a terrible and mighty eruption that sweeps death and destruction to all in its path.

When the chaos settles and it becomes clear to Keith that time is running out and he had best find a way home or perish on Illia.

As he walks the bleak hostile landscape, a very odd sound echos from far far away, an almost heavenly sound compared to a groaning, moaning prime about to die.

"KEEEEEEEITH!".