Remy Zephyr: Shadow of Peace

[RomonaBlack]

Due to the recent death of my father and the revelation of my elven heritage, on my mother's side, I have decided to start writing a record of my journey's.  This record will help me remember details and important people that I will meet that may shed light on my mother and her heritage so that I might regain the piece of me that was her's in order to fill the hole that has been in my life in absence of my mother.

Janra 20, 1384
  As I leave the only home I've ever known I have begun to recall more and more of my childhood.  My father's funeral started the memories.  He was burned on a pire as his close friends and admirers looked on.  One of his friends approached me, after my father's ashes had been scattered to the winds, and gave me the small will he had left behind.  The will consisted of his hickory bow, some arrows, about 300 GP and a necklace that I had never seen before.  The friend had also been given the job of delivering a message that Father had left in case of his death. He said, "Your father told me to give this to you so that you might understand..."  He pulled out a small letter with my father's handwriting on it, it read:
              Dear Son,
              I know that if you are hearing this that I am dead.  You might think after you hear the full contents of this letter
              that I am a coward.  Please think about all of it before you judge me.  You my son have made me proud in
              everything that you do, but I know that in your life you have felt like you were out of place in our small little town
              and I am to blame.  When I was about your age I met your mother.  She was the most beautiful woman I had
              ever met.  She entranced me with her talents and her mind.  Your mother was very intelligent and she could
              compose and sing the most beautiful songs.  I fell in love with her instantly and we were married against my
              parent's wishes.  You see your mother was not human, my son, she was a high elf.  That is why you are different
              in our small town of humans, you are half-elven and please be proud of it.  I repected your mother and her heritage,
              yet there was always something about her talents that frightened me.  When you were born it was midnight, on the
              blackest night there ever had been.  She held you close to her breast and kissed you whispering elven words into
              your ear that I could never understand.  She looked up at me and smiled, tired and sweating from giving birth and
              said, "K'Tal, he will be my child of the night, my follower of Mist, my Remy."  I shuddered at the way her voice sounded.  
              Your mother had always had this darkness about her that was to me at first, intoxicating; but now it was frightening.
              I myself had always been a follower of Toran and had been unaware that you mother followed and enemy of my God.
              I honestly had not followed Toran religiously but I did not want my child raised by a chaos driven goddess.  You mother
              started making plans to raise you under her religion and her tutelage.  I could not have that.  Let's just say that I
              removed your mother from our lives.  I dare not tell you what I did.  I regret it now as I look back and I do not know if
              she is dead or alive.  I did what I thought was best for you at the time, I am sorry that you never had a mother and I
              hope you can forgive me.  I want you to travel beyond our borders and discover your calling.  You mother
              seemed to know what it was from your birth and I am sorry that I do not know what it is that she knew.  She would have
              told you to look within yourself and you will see yourself.  I love you, Remy.
              Your Father,
              K'Tal Cochoran
As the letter drew to a close I remember the anger I felt inside.  Anger toward my father for what he had done to my mother.  The longing inside to know my mother grew tenfold.  Then for some strange reason I remembered a song that my father used to sing to me as a young boy.  It was a song about storms and how they in the end bring rebirth.  I knew at that point that my father had tried to raise me as close to how my mother would have raised me; a follower of Mist.  My anger toward him began to melt then and I decided that I must fulfill his wishes as well as my mother's.  One of the two hopes my mother had for me was to be a follower of Mist and the other one was to be a child of the night.  I did not know what that meant and I still do not know.  I hope to find out as I journey beyond these borders and discover what my destiny may be.  I renamed myself Remy Zephyr, leaving my father's sirname behind, not in spite, but in hopes that someone might hear the name Zephyr and recall my mother, Chenoa Zephyr the high elf.

I am tired...I must camp for the night.  Tomorrow I will be at the gate of the dragon and then I will be in Hlint.

[RomonaBlack]

Febra 28, 1384
   It has been awhile since I opened your pages.  I need to gain more discipline in that area.  A lot has happened since I entered Hlint.  It is a strange town.  So many people pass through here.  I have met a Halfling named Balit that I have grown to trust with my life.  Another friend I have gained is a Dwarven wizard by the name of Oholibama.  He blessed my sword and made it glow.  Maybe he saw something in my nature that he wanted to illuminate.  A darkness left by my mother.  Other than Balit and Bama there have been no other’s that have really gained my trust yet they are friendly and will help a young adventurer like myself if needed.  
   I remember entering Hlint for the first time.  Some thing that intrigued me was how many places that were covered in shadow the majority of the day and night.  Excellent place for hiding out.  I had decided that I needed to chose a career for myself and the best fit turned out to be a Rogue.  Sneaking and hiding always came so easily for me when I was a boy and Hlint is the perfect place to allow me to practice my techniques.  The shadows bring me comfort and security where they would make most others uncomfortable and uneasy.  I have to go…Balit is meeting me to show me the goblin caverns.  Goblins are nasty little creatures but Balit, whom is also a Rogue, and I can sneak by them.  I’m going to contemplate Bama’s reason for making my sword forever glow.  I was grateful at first but now having a part of myself lit at all times makes me uneasy.  Shadow seems to be becoming my second nature and I like it.

[RomonaBlack]

Augra 5, 1384
   I have been struggling to keep up this journal due to the marching of Blood throughout our world and his army’s movement toward Mistone.  I have met some more colleagues that share my ideas about the defeat of Blood and the Drow that long for necromancy to rule the world.  I have been recruited by a secret organization that longs to rid the world of Necros and I have been on the lookout for people who believe that necromancy is acceptable and who actually use it.  
   It has been a tiring journey and I have been haunted by dreams, or should I think nightmares about my mother.  In all of the dreams I see what I think to be my mother, hooded and engulfed in shadow, call to me from a great distance away.  I run to her voice and she continues to be the same distance.  I can never seem to be able to gain on her in any way.  It is very disturbing.  
   There have been some good things that have occurred in my life as of late.  I have made some friends that I trust with my life other than Balit and Bama.  Jacchri a half-elf ranger and a beautiful and mysterious Rogue named Ashiel.  She has entranced me.  I find that when I have with her I am at my calmest state.  She hides her face from the world and seems to except that shadow it casts on her face.  I wish that I could be that at one with shadow; maybe then the dreams I’ve been having will stop or I will be able to reach my mother.  I recently helped my friend Jacchri find his mother.  It was a wonderful feeling and I hope that I can be as lucky as he is someday.  During the quest I spoke with Ash about my thoughts on shadow.  It felt good to be able to open up about those feelings to someone whom I have started to care for so deeply.  She compared my longing for the shadows to her need for the shadows in order to keep her from harm.  I told her that I felt like I was hiding in the daylight.  Strange to say something like that, but after I said this it seemed to make so much sense.  My mother wanted me to be a shadow like her.  Ashiel told me that there is a person called a shadowdancer.  Maybe that was what I mother was?  She and I were interrupted before she could explain to me what a shadowdancer truly is and how one might become one.  I set up a meeting with Ash to discuss it more.  I am looking forward to seeing her again.
   After the search for Jacchri’s mother I had some drinks with he and Ash then retired for the night.  I dreamt again.  The same has before my mother is in the distance calling to me.  I can’t seem to reach her.  Then suddenly the shadow that encompassed her moves toward me and surrounds me.  It’s think and choking.  I’m coughing, trying to breath but it over takes me.  I fall to the ground, I feel like I am dying.  The I hear a voice… “Allow it to become one with you…then you will know the truth…”  It is the same voice that was my mother’s.  I stop resisting and take a deep breath of the shadowy cloud.  It fills my lungs and burns them.  I breath in again, and again.  Then the burning stops and there is a euphoria that covers me.  I close my eyes and savor the darkness.  It feel at peace for the first time in my life.  Then I awaken and the peace is gone.  It was just a dream but maybe it will provide another clue to my mother’s heritage, perhaps she was this shadowdancer, and the whereabouts of my mother if she still lives.  
   I must make a note to tell Ashiel about my dream, maybe she can help.

//here's the link to the whole conversation that Ash and I had about shadow: http://www.layonaraonline.com/forums/photos/show-album.asp?albumid=211&photoid=2990

[RomonaBlack]

Oclar 31, 1384
   My journeys have taken me far and wide across the beautiful lands of Layonara and I have yet to hear any word that could lead me to any clue about my mother.  The guild that I belong to has kept me busy so I have not been able to write.  I did get to meet with Ashiel as I had hoped.  It took awhile to get in touch with her, as we seem to miss each other at all of our destinations.  She looked radiant as always.  She seems to move as smoothly as a rushing stream and has the grace of a flying bird.  She allowed me to see her face, something that she always hides.  We spoke for a long time while her beautiful face was exposed.  I wonder some times why she needs to hide so?  I am worried that she may be journeying down the same path as I have.  She seems to feel at peace with shadows as well.        We discussed our fascination with shadow and it moved into her telling me more about what a shadow dancer is.  She knows very little about it herself yet she tried to give me all of the information she knew.  I left her that evening in deep thought.  I thought about her and my growing feelings for her and I thought about what a shadow dancer is.  A shadow dancer is someone who lives in the middle of good and evil, and is at one with the shadows.  I’m not evil though…This perplexed me and then my thoughts turned to my mother again.  Was she evil?  Is that why my father feared her near the end?  I know I must find out even more about this art.  Someone once told me about a great library that existed in another continent.  I must reach that.  I will write more once I have gained the knowledge I need from the library, if it has the information I needs.  Until then I will dream of my mother as always; but now some of the dreams have been different, they are filled with Ashiel.

…I had to continue writing, it is almost midnight and I was awakened by another terrible dream.  It began the way it always begins and I was trying to reach my mother but this time she looked different, younger yet still faceless.  I was growing closer and closer instead of remaining the same distance away from her.  She called to me, “Remy…” her voice sounded familiar.  I finally reached her out of breath, feeling like I had run for miles.  The shadows parted from her face, it was not my mother it was Ashiel!  The shadow had enveloped her and she was struggling as I had before.  I reached through the thick dark haze and I grabbed her arm trying to pull her out.  The shadow grew thicker and thicker moving around me as well.  She was crying out trying to breath.  I was not gagging as I did before.  I could breath as if the air was clear and clean.  I remembered at the moment that when I had struggled that that’s when the shadow became unbearable.  When I had given into its grasp was when I was set free and felt the peace.  I pulled her as close to myself as I could and called to her, “Ash! Let it take you; let it become you!  Don’t struggle!”  Her arm relaxed and she fell away from me.  The shadows parted and she was gone.  I searched for her and I could not find her.  I dropped to my knees wondering if I had done what was right or if I had doomed her to an early death.  
   I awoke at that moment, out of breath and shaking.  I sat up in bed and the mirror in the Inn’s room was casting my reflection.  Yet it was not a reflection that I recognized; I could not see the majority of my body.  I lifted a hand in front of my face and saw shadow dancing around it, I looked up again at the mirror and it was again normal.  I must leave for the Great library tomorrow and not return until I understand what is happening to me.  I pray that my mother was right.

[RomonaBlack]

Decilar 31, 1384
*written a little less neatly and the ink gives of the look of the pen being held loosely and tiredly…*  
   I am exhausted.  I have spent many months reading and studying in the Great Library and I still do not have all the answers.  As Ashiel told me and I read in the library and shadow dancer usually travels in troupes.  This means that my mother must have had others like her that traveled with her.  Blast!  If only my father still lived to help me with some of my questions.  He must have met one or more of her troupe.  I also found out that there used to be a troupe of entertainers that traveled Layonara that could disappear and reappear at will, mesmerizing their audiences.  They had a leader that called himself Ephesis.  He was an elven man that had a daughter that the records depict as a beautiful pale elven girl with long dark raven hair.  The records did not state her name.  I have decided that my best bet would be to find this Ephesis and question him.  I must rest now.  I long to see Ashiel to tell her what I found out.  It is almost a new year.  I feel like it had been twenty.  

[RomonaBlack]

Janra 1, 1835
   When I awoke from my dreamless sleep I felt the darkness of the early morning around me and it gave me peace.  I feel the shadow that was born into me trying to break free but I do not know how to release it.  My body seems to drift in and out of the disguising haze of that evening in Oclar that scared me so badly.  I need control.  It is trying to take me over without my will for it to do so.  I will not let it…not until I have procured training.  If a shadow dancer is on the border of good and evil, then I am playing with fire and do not want to get burned.  I do not want to fall into the hands of Blood and his armies because of something I never asked to be given.  My mother must have been an shadow dancer, there is no other explanation.  I always knew that I was different.  Not only am I half elf but I am a child of shadow and I shall master its secrets for good.  I will be a Shadow of Peace.
   I know that I will find answers about my mother and her heritage when I find this Ephesis.  I have confidence that if I post a flyer in the local Inns asking if anyone has heard or seen an elven man named Ephesis that I will get a response.  I am off to do that now and to find Ashiel, maybe she can help me find him.

[RomonaBlack]

Janra 20, 1385
I have been searching for Ephesis.  It is not going well.  I have not been able to find Ashiel either.  My dream about her still haunts me.  I hope that it never comes into realization.  The world is becoming more and more dangerous as Blood spreads his evil and the drow is on our doorstep.  I have been traveling lately looking for Ephesis and even the safest roads are not safe anymore.  I hate to think that I may not ever find my destiny before it will not be useful in helping my friends and comrads in arms.  If I can master the shadowy arts of which my mother knew then I may be able to help rid the world of Blood.  I need to continue searching.  I will write more as I discover it.

[RomonaBlack]

Febra 10, 1385
   The shadow has been closer than ever to me lately.  I have felt driven to cloth myself in darker colors and hide my face from those I do not trust.  The guild that I am a member of has been attacked by the followers of Lucinda lately and we have decided to keep a lower profile.  I have needed the shadows more and more because of that.  Sneaking around and hiding in the shadows.  I still have not seen Ashiel in quite a while.  I hope that she will surface soon.  Maybe she is going through a lot of the same things that I have been going through.  I am off again to seek guidance for my quest at the Great Library.  Maybe I did not find all I could about Ephesis and his band of entertainers.  I will write more soon.

[RomonaBlack]

Mar 4, 1385

  I found him...I found Ephesis!!  I was unable to truly meet him or get to know him but I found him.  I was coming back from the Great Library  to go pray in the Temple of Mist in Leilon and it happened.  While I was discussing many things including my search formy mother and the shadows with some of my friends: Jacchri, Bama, Amari, Rawkin and Ashiel (who was alive and well, my heart could finally rest, she was safe), an Elven woman towing a servant halfling was coming down the dock.  She mentioned that they were bringing food to Ephesis.  I asked her about him where she had heard of him before.  She said that he was camping outside of Leilon near Lake Paldon.  I knew I needed to follow her a find Ephesis.  My friends and I came upon his camp.  A gypsy camp.  
 
  He was a gypsy chief and he told us a story.  A story of my mother and father and what tore them apart.  My mother became mad in the head when her father stopped her in the middle of her first shadow dance.  My father rejected her because he couldn't handle balancing her darkness with his light.  Ephesis asked me a lot of questions...some of them were very hard.  He told me that I needed achieve balance in my life.  He told me of a man named Erva in Fort Velensk that had been the last man to see my mother.  The gypsy chief, Ephesis, disappeared into the darkness.
 
  We traveled to Fort Velensk to seek out Erva.  He was  a dwarf that works at the arena.  He said that my mother worked there for a while, Cheny he called her.  He said that she was vibrant and beautiful.  One day she disappeared and when she returned she was different.  She was dark and brooding, she had hate.  He said that she left him something, a dreamcatcher.  He agev it to me a told me that he thought that she had gone to a dark forest.  My friend Bama mentioned that it was probably the Dire Woods so we headed there.  I needed to use the dreamcatcher to find my mother, a tortured soul in the dire woods.
 
  We fought our way around the woods and I tried to use the dreamcatcher to call her.  A tortured soul approached us as if about to attack and I tried talking to it, but the companions that had been summoned by two of my friends attacked it to save me.  They killed it.  We traveled on to the center of the wood and a pale figure appeared to me.  I tried to speak to her but she said nothing. We had to get out of there it was too dangerous.
 
  Once outside the woods a Dark hooded figure appeared to me and told me that the tortured soul that we had killed has been my mother.  I wept and dropped to my knees.  He chuckled as he told me that she was released from the wood but that she would never be freed.  He told me that now I have a choice.  I could choose the darkness of a shadowdancer or I could remain what I am now, a humble Rogue.  I choose to become what my mother had wanted me to be, what she had felt my destiny was.  I am a Shadowdancer and always will be.  
 
  I must train a long time now to achieve the skills required to truly master the art but I have hope.  Th shadows still hount my dreams but now I can accept them as my nature.  I feel myself becoming more serious and brooding over things.  I have been trying to hang on to my personality but it is slipping from me.  I hope that my choice was right and that I do not live to regret it.

[RomonaBlack]

Jular 13, 1385
  I spoke with Ashiel today about her past.  She sent me a messenger bird so that I would meet her.  We traveled to Blackford Castle and sat next to the waterfall for some privacy.  The moon was bouncing off of the water and the light illuminated her face beneath her hood.  She is so beautiful.  She told me that a man killed an elven couple that had taken her in and she is searching for him to get revenge.  She wants to become strong enough to take him on.  I told her to be cautious of vengence.  I reminded her about what had happened to my mother, when she had let anger control her.  Ashiel allowed me to hold her hand for a moment.  It fit perfectly in mine.  I still hope that someday she might love me as I love her.  I now know that she only feels comfortable talking to me about her past.  I had thought for some time that she might feel towards Jacchri in the way I feel towards her, but she told me that he is just a friend.  I was quite relieved.  I must try not to dwell on her as much as I do...since she is not ready for love, but it is hard when she intoxicates me so and makes me feel the greatest calm I have ever felt when she is near.  I have sworn to help her in her search in any way that I can, and I will.  As I train to master shadowdancing I feel my joy leaving me day by day.  She helps me keep a grasp on what is left of me so that the shadows do not take it from me completely.  I know that when I finally master the art of the shadows that Ashiel and the rest of my friends will help me keep my sanity and my joy.  Until then I live for the days and moments I get to spend with Ashiel Relvin, my angel.

[RomonaBlack]

Novlar 1, 1385
  Milara is moving.  I was walking in Hlint on a beautiful clear winter evening when the sky started to quickly darken.  It was unlike anything I have ever seen before.  It was not  like a heavy cloud layer moving across the sky...it was more like a dark and evil shadow covering the beautiful night sky.  As anyone could guess I was not the only one who saw this occurence.  A large group began to gather and discuss by the well.  A few people had had the lady of the wood appear to them and tell them that we needed to find Rhizome and tell him of what has happened because Milara is moving into Mistone again.  Some people also saw demons when the sky was covered.  I still question my yearning for the shadows when something like this happens but I was trek on with my training.

  We all journeyed to the High forest to seek out the caretaker there.  She knows Rhizome and might know his whereabouts.  We battled our way into the dark forest and found the lady.  She told us we could find Rhizome near Lake Paldon.  We all felt frustration because we had passed by Lake Paldon on our way to the High Forest.  We headed back a new found speed to find him and we did.  Thus a gathering of heroes was made and we discussed the latest happenings.  After the long discussion about Milara what he might have planned and past encounters, we decided that we needed to know more before we take he and his armies on on his lands.  Thus we scattered and warned those that did not know what had occured.  Now we wait.

  I wonder sometimes what our world is coming to.  Most the people on this vast world are useless to the powers that hold us in their tight grasp!  pardon me I should not speak so darkly of other.  I find that my personality slips into darkness and shadow leaving me in a sour mood.  I struggle against it everyday now as I get closer to achieveing the ways of a shadowdancer.

  On recent news...the Grey Circle has disbanded.  Our guild headquarters were burned in the riots of Port Hampshire.  A list of some of our members was found and all of our evidence was lost.  Kobal decided that it was better to disband than be so out in the open which is a terrible danger to us all.  He has decided to still standfor what he believes in but that we should no longer be involved.  I believe that it is a shame that a group so bold and wise should fall but that is what our worldis coming to.

*a scowl creeps across his face as he continues* Shadows...they are becoming me...I must continue balancing.  Layonara may be doomed but it doesn't have to stay that way.  I shall become a shadow of peace on this world and if I have to fight wars to bring that to pass I will!

[RomonaBlack]

Janra 25, 1386
  It has been two years since I started my quest towards the path of shadow dancing.  I have been speaking and tutoring Ashiel what I know so far since she desires the same path as I.  I worry about her as I travel deeper into the shadows.  I am worried that she will have a hard time balancing the light and the dark since she has based her quest on revenge over the murder of an elven couple that were like parents to her.  She has told me that she will not take revenge but instead seek justice, yet I still worry.  I have found that the deeper I tread into the path of shadows the more I have to strive to keep myself hopeful and pure of thoughts.  The way that I was endowed with these talents makes it very difficult to keep my moods light and cheerful.  I find myself becoming even more dark and moody.  Ashiel still remains my light in my darkness,  If she ends up changin from her travel into the shadows I do not know what I would do.  I msut meet up with her soon.  She must have found out something about her prey by now.

[RomonaBlack]

*no date is written and everything looks rushed*
   I have received the worse of news.  Ashiel has left to take on her enemy by herself and she may never return.  I must go off by myself for awhile to contemplate what must be done.  I do not know whether I should try to find her or leave her alone and try to move past my love for her.  I feel as if my soul ha been torn into pieces.  My study of shadowdancing must wait...my heart needs mending first.  I shall journey far away and try to gather myself...I do not know when I will return.
*A tear stain runs a few of the last words...*

[RomonaBlack]

*no date is recorded; the writing is crisp and fluid, as if the author knows exactly what must be written*
       It has been a year since my search for Ashiel, my true love, began.  I thought at first that finding her was my only choice, but as I traveled I discovered that the reason that I set out to find Ash was to truly find myself.  My travels took me far and wide and as any trace of her started to vanish my heart started to slowly die.  After many months I was in a bar drinking my worries and I had a vision.  Ashiel was clad in shadowy garments and was smiling at me.  She reached out to me and I took her hand in mine.  I pulled her close and let the shadows take me as well.  I looked up and I could see her beautiful eyes staring into mine.  She was happy.  I awoke from my vision and sighed, "whether dead or alive she was happy".  That one thought carried me on through the rest of travels.  Instead of looking for her I was finding myself and discovering my shadow.  I knew that when I decided to become what my mother wanted me to be; a shadowdancer, that I had decided to allow my moods to change that I would no longer always be who I once was, BUT I embrace it now, because Ash has.  My love for her will never die and as I embrace the way of the shadow I shall become more and more close to her and more in love with her, here on earth or the great beyond.
*some scetches follow the writing, a beautiful woman is pictured, enveloped in shadows smiling*