Emwonk T'noduoy - You don't know me.

[Nehetsrev]

IC Portion
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Curled up in a room not quite familiar to himself, upon a futon, Emwonk slept.  Hours before he'd been, of all things, dancing.  The darkness curled about him, wrapping him up as he dipped and swirled within it.  The only thing stationary was her pale face, rimmed by long, flowing, smooth, silky white hair.  Within that pale beauty her eys looked back upon him, amethyst windows into which he strained to look at her soul.  There was something sad in them, or perhaps he imagined that, but even so those eyes held his attention and mezmerised him.  He craned his neck until it hurt so he could continue to gaze into her eyes.

The lighting changed and now he could see his own reflection in them, sparking as it does, and something else...  Something in the reflection standing behind his own.  He leaned in closer to get a better look and as the figure came into focus his mind froze with fear.  A Warden had found him!

In the darkness Emwonk spun round to confront his foe.  His power had grown since he'd escaped the Wardens, and he felt ready to test it against this one.  Birds with spoons rushed to place themselves between himself and the Warden as Emwonk summoned the charge for a powerful surge.  A moment of blinding light and fury and suddenly the birds writhed in agony beneath snaking ripples of bright blue energy.  The Warden stood still as the birds toppled to either side of the lightning bolt.  It laughed, the echos of it's mad cacophany bombarding Emwonk from the shadows.  Emwonk unleashed a second surge and struck the Warden square in the abdomen, but the energy did nothing!

"You can't kill us," the cold, hollow voice of the Warden spoke, tearing at his mind with spikes of frost and ice.  The pain was un-bearable and Emwonk screamed.  The serpents began to tear at his back as well.  Again and again they tore away strips of flesh and soul.  Emwonk fell to his knees, or would have if the chains binding his arms did not prevent it.

He became dimly aware despite the pain of something lurking behind the Wardens.  Something black as the shadows themselves, and filled with all the malevolence that Emwonk had ever known.  Not one, but two he sensed.  Unlike the Wardens they were not much bigger than himself.

The Warden spoke again, as always it's voice dripping with contempt and mockery, hate and loathing, "You will serve us.  You will bend the Current to your will, and we will bend you to ours.  There is no escape."  Each word tore at him from within, so cold that they burned his mind, chilling him into despair.  He felt defeated and looked down at where the floor should have been, watched as his own blood dripped from his knees to pool upon firm nothingness below.  He could see his reflection beginning to form in the pool of blood that slowly spread before him.  There were others there in the reflection, standing with him...  Those who'd flowed with him in the days since his escape.  Fear left him and he began to smile.  "Good grounding," he whispered to them all, and then he looked up.

She stood before him again, an angel in his demon-plagued mind.  Singular, her beauty held his gaze.  She gingerly knelt down to his level and he wrapped his arms around her neck with gentle embrace.  For a moment he lay his head on her shoulder next to her own as he gloried in her pressence.  He pulled back at last, just enough to brush her cheek with his lips.  Barely a kiss, but he reveled in the feel of her creamy skin against them.  And then he released her from his embrace and stepped back until the shadows wrapped him about once more and he awoke.

His eyes took in the room about him in the darkness, and he began to remember where he was.  He could hear Shiff breathing on the other side of the room, and wondered if the medicine he'd made for his friend was helping any.  Something called to him though, the familiar voice of the Current.  Not so much a voice as a feeling really.  He needed to flow elsewhere.  He hoped Shiff would understand.  Quietly he gathered his things and snuck to the door without a sound.  Not even the faintest creak of a wooden floorboard under his feet could be heard as he slipped out into the hallway, and then out the front door into the cold Leringard night.

"Infinitum for additonal charge for surge," he muttered to himself once in the streets and then set off in search of prey.  He would face the Wardens again one day, and when he did, he wished to be ready.

[Nehetsrev]

OOC Portion
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Not much new going on for Emwonk.  He's been on a few adventures with friends 'building charge for surge'.  The relationship seems to be growing between himself and Amireana.  He still also holds Tariana in high esteem, though his feelings for Kinai have dwindled to simple friendship.  Since Cederic's departure, he's seen less and less of Ariel as well, and he may be drifting further away from trusting Ariel to be the Voice of the Current he has placed faith in her to be...

[Nehetsrev]

OOC Portion
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With those whom Emwonk felt closest to either self-exiled or self-secluded, and their near-constant influence gone from his life Emwonk's own personality has begun to become more withdrawn.  His drive for revenge against the Wardens continues to build, free from distractions for the most part.  His remaining emotional outlets, so to speak, are mainly Amireana and Shiff, and to some degree Tariana, Tragor, and Ben.

In his spare time, Emwonk has begun to draw up some patterns and designs for a special kind of armor made mainly of spoons inter-worked with cloth, fabric or some other such flexible yet durable material.  Once he's satisfied of his design specifications (assuming he reaches a satisfactory design) he may begin to work toward gathering the components to make his "Spoonmail" armor, which he believes will provide him special advantage against the Wardens and their minions in future infinitums....

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(As a special side-note about the "Spoonmail" armor mentioned above, I'd like to work with a DM a bit in regards to making this item a reality sometime in Emwonk's future.  I have some ideas already for how his quest for the gathering of the materials for the item and it's actual assembly might go.  If you're reading this and you're a DM who may be interested in taking a somewhat dedicated hand in assisting with this, please send me a PM, otherwise eventually I'll sellect a DM from those available for CDQ's at a future time when Emwonk is actually more ready for what I'd like to accomplish.)

[Nehetsrev]

IC Portion:

Eyes heavy with the sting of salty tears from hours on end of uncontrolled emotion, pure and raw, Emwonk drifted into another reality shaped by the dark shadows of his mind.  "How?," came an echoing thought in the darkness now all around himself, "How could they?"  Sorrow and fury waged war for dominance within those words.  "Betrayers!," came another echo, rasping like a whisper, but loud as the thunder he'd unleashed on random objects in his passing hours before.  He had trusted them, hadn't that meant anything to them?  Yet he'd heard from their own lips...  She was fraternizing with Wardens, and He stuck up for them!

The hair on the back of his neck rose sudenly and a chill crept like a snake slithering up his spine.  He knew they were there, the Wardens, back again to feed him bad soup and mockery.  He sensed the Wardens behind himself even before he heard the spine-tingling chuckle followed by the wicked mantra, "You will serve us. You will bend the Current to your will, and we will bend you to ours. There is no escape."

He felt himself once again hung from the chains.  Once again the serpents tore at his back amid the cacophany of cold-heartless laughter of the Wardens.  A rivulet of cold soup dripped from his chin, a small bit that hadn't gone down with the rest when the spoon was shoved in his mouth a moment before.  He could feel the cold spreading through his body like the tendrils of an octopus made of ice.  His heart pounded and felt as though it would burst from his chest.

He became aware of them now as well....the shadows that watched the Wardens do their worst to him.  Something was different this time...  There were usually only two, about his own size, but now two more had joined, tall ones.

"Betrayers!," he screamed in rage, and then promptly broke down into rough sobbing as the darkness closed about him....

[Nehetsrev]

OOC Portion

Emwonk now finds himself almost completely alone in the world once again.  With Cederic and Ariel no longer adventuring, or at least nowhere to be found in Emwonk's knowledge, and with his recent falling out with Amireana and Shiff, Emwonk has precious few 'Good groundings' left to adventure with himself.

His current state of mind regarding Shiff & Amireana is that they are 'betrayers' and working with his mortal enemies, the Wardens.  Thus, Emwonk won't trust anything the two might say to him directly, and will usually seek to keep out of their pressence entirely if given the option.  If they're to make amends they'll have to find a 'middleman' to patch things up between Emwonk and themselves.

In the meantime, Emwonk has decided it may be best to find new 'good groundings' and/or seek out others with whom he's already familiar.  Those he trusts (for the most part) still include Benjamin Poetr, Tragor Kronk, Tariana, Kinai (and to a lesser degree Hawklen).  He also somewhat trusts Storold and Mylindra, and some of the Angels guild members whom he's had business relations with.

[Nehetsrev]

OOC Portion

Emwonk was found in Hlint by someone claiming to have been sent by the Wardens to take him back.  He managed to escape rather easilly, and doubled back through the town to elude his would-be captor.  Taking care to hide his trail, he swam across the lake between Hlint and Haven, emerging into the woodline on the other side and erasing his tracks with a fallen branch as he moved further away from the area.

Stealthilly he made his way through the Haven community and past Spellguard, through the desert and back to Port Hempstead.  He calculated his odds of finding help would be greater in Port Hempstead, and went there seeking any familiar, and somewhat trustworthy face he could find.

Upon his arival there he spotted Jennara Creekskipper gathered with a few others at the pond outside the city.  Remembering that she carried the crystal orb he views as his own property, and a possible weapon or source of power, he attempted to plead with her once more for the orb, explaining he needed it to fight the Wardens.  Acacea and Drexia also joined the discussion when Jennara called them over to help her try to understand Emwonk.  Not able to convince Jennara to return the orb to his posession, Emwonk appealed to her for protection from the Wardens and their minions.

During the course of the conversation, Emwonk became susrprised when he was able to say the word 'family' without an alternate word in its place.  The fact that the word had been spoken in reference to his parents, the Traitors, proved to subdue the joyous excitement that would have otherwise accompanied this significant event.

[Nehetsrev]

Emwonk lay out several pieces of hickory parchment recently baked by himself in the kitchen of the Scamps Mug.  They covered a large area of floor in the room he'd rented there, and several were already filled with the non-sense words his scrambled brain forced his hands to write instead of those words he thought clearly within.  The black of charcoal dust covered the side of his hand where it rubbed the parchement he currently wrote upon, but he continued writing with determination despite the smearing.  His face, partly covered with black as well, shown the grim determination of his effort and focus.  He'd tried this exercise countless times before in the years since his escape from the Wardens, and would continue to attempt it until his reason for doing so ceased to exist.

"T...r...u...e...s...," he thought inside his head, "Metallic circular conduits," his hand uncontrollably scribbled upon the parchment.  He grimaced, as he had countless times before.  Still, he would not give up, not ever.

"Trues," he thought firmly once more.  His hand began to write, this time something felt different, "MetTallric ciurculear consduits," appeared in shaky, jagged letters on the nearly filled parchment before him.  Behind the mirrored lenses of his goggles his eyes widened for a moment as he looked at his work.  His breathing deepened and hastened with increased excitement where before there had been near boredom.  As well, his heart beat like a fluttering butterfly within his chest.  Quickly he thought the word again and wrote, the result was once more the same, a blend of the word in his thoughts and those words substituted by whatever dysfunctional piece of his brain had been sending odd replacements for the words of his thoughts since so long ago.

He continued, repeating the process over and over, the results remained a twisted combination of letters each time.  Finally he ran out of parchment upon which to write, and his exercise for that day was forced to end.  He sat upright, looking at his work for long minutes.  His earlier elation now somewhat tempered, he wasn't sure what to think of this event.  Was it truly progress, or had he only worsened the condition?

He wondered for a moment, thinking the word once more, "Trues," this time trying to speak it.  The result, verbally, was the same as ever, and out came the words, "metallic circular conduits."

He let a long sigh escape his lips and thought to himself some more.  Eventually he decided that at least his spoken word hadn't become a jumbled mess like his written one had.  Still, as he cleaned up the many pieces of parchment and threw most into the fire of the stone fireplace, he kept that first one upon which the jumbles of thought and writing had appeared.  Eventually he decided he would, after all, have to think of it as progress, because further degradation was something he didn't think he could face.

[Nehetsrev]

Seplar 10, 1462
 
 *Emwonk paces the confines of the small cage he's been placed within for holding until his trial.  Muttering occasionally to himself, if only to drown out the rumblings of his empty stomach.  Whenever Silverguard Sergeant White enters the chamber Emwonk greets him with an icy, challenging stare, made colder by the piercing, electric blue of his now naked eyes.  The guards, of course, had confiscated his mirrored goggles along with the rest of his belongings, save the clothes he wears.  At least he still has the rather expensive 'rogue' leathers he'd purchased from the the Angel's Guild some time ago.  Unfortunately the guards had been thorough in searching him, and had removed all his hidden potential means of escape.
 
 As to the Angel's Guild, Emwonk wonders seriously if any of them can ever be trusted again.  For it was right after exiting their shop, after having paid his last debt with them, that the Silverguard first attempted to capture him.  Had they betrayed him?  He was certain at least one of them had.  Daniel, and the woman named Bella.  Emwonk curses himself for ever trusting the woman for even a moment.  How could he have been so foolish?  He'd let down his guard after years of running free.  There was a new score or two to settle now, aside from his revenge against the Wardens.  Emwonk fantasizes as he paces his cage of how given the chance he will exact an equal measure of pain in form of lightning upon firstly the abusive guard Sergeant White, and then upon Daniel and Bella.  Though some tiny part of him struggles to whisper it would not be the will of the Current to do so.
 
 What seemes the measured interval comes and Emwonk bellows out as loudly as possible, "Emwonk requires Emwonk's good grounding Jennara!"  Silverguard Sergeant White bangs his iron hammer against the bars of the cage to discourage Emwonk, and Emwonk's retaliatory reach for the bars is just a fraction to slow to make contact and send another jolt of current into the man.  Emwonk grins ferally despite the failed attempt.  Watching the anger seeth on Sergeant White's face.  Behind his own cold, electric blue eyes, Emwonk wonders if Jennara will come in time, if at all.
 
 The date of the supposed "trial" was drawing ever nearer.  Though in truth, Emwonk knew it would only be for show, the outcome decided already by the so-called Lady Saida and her Trues and other influence.  She was dangerous and powerful.  Her spell upon him, though it had soon worn off, had easilly compelled and controlled his mind.  Above that, she was planning on returning Emwonk to the Wardens, "when everyone thinks you're dead."  Her words to him.  He'd been surprised to hear the word "Wardens" come from her lips when she'd come to taunt him.  Though, something about her voice seemed familiar, he was sure he'd heard it before... the first time Destiny had captured him and left him chained on a tower roof.  His mind was foggy when it came to Destiny, perhaps from his deaths at her hands, but could she and this Lady Saida be the same person?  Emwonk shivers at that thought.
 
 Emwonk's thoughts continue on in his mind.  He rationalizes that he must find a way to escape during the trial itself, even if it means harming friends and foes alike.  He will not be returned to the Wardens, not at any cost... and should the cost become his life, he decides he will rather return permanently to the purity of the Current, then live again in the hands of the Wardens.  But then, who would stop them if not himself?