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Author Topic: Too Frail a Thread  (Read 732 times)

RollinsCat

Too Frail a Thread
« on: September 06, 2012, 11:08:50 am »
[SIZE=16]History viewed from the inside is always a dark, digestive mess, far different from the easily recognizable cow viewed from afar by historians.[/SIZE]
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In Center, by the fire, stories will be recited and sung - the rise and fall of the great and the terrible; sieges and wars from eyewitnesses; tsunamis, gods, the deeds of the living and the dead. World-changers young and old are invited to speak or listen so we are not doomed to repeat.

Discussion of current events and involvement will inevitably come up.
 
The following users thanked this post: miltonyorkcastle, Anamnesis, Pseudonym, ShiffDrgnhrt, Lance Stargazer

RollinsCat

Re: Too Frail a Thread
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2012, 05:02:25 pm »
Several stories are lined up to be heard; Storold's son is said to be speaking, and Andrew Reid on something about dragon blood pools, and a special guest all the way from Belinara.  Others have been invited who, if they can make the trip, are sure to tell stories that will bring history to life and perhaps give perspective to some of the harder choices being made in the new century.
 

RollinsCat

Re: Too Frail a Thread
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2012, 11:29:19 am »
Andrew arrives early bearing a box magically cooled; sneaking a peek will reveal nothing more exciting than an array of Huangjinite delicacies such as fish wrapped in rice and decorated with slivers of ginger.  The box is secured in his room at the Bulls Eye.

There are no decorations, no fluffing or fancifying.  A fire is lit and wood stashed to keep it going; food and drinks are set out and covered on makeshift tables, but nothing that would exceed the daily fare of a hardworking Layonaran.  It looks to be a very low-key affair.
 

RollinsCat

Re: Too Frail a Thread
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2012, 08:29:17 pm »
For storytellers: How to swap from word to screen easily.
 

RollinsCat

Re: Too Frail a Thread
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2012, 10:29:54 pm »
For those who could not make the Center fire on that warm, rainy night in Jular, the stories are told and re-told.

Captain Argali Trueaxe:

"She iz starting with the Path of the Claw. The Path of the Claw iz old, olderr than the conflict we arre currently experiencing. If any of you arre of the druidical perrsuasion, perrhaps you arre asking yourr superiorrs about this.  And if you arre having no superriors, she suggests that you arre getting some. It iz alroight to be blowing like the leaf in the breeze, but now iz the time to be standing togetherr. Because the Path of the Claw imbues the zuccessful...walkerr with the formidable powers.

"Forr some reason, the Path is opening during ourr conflict with the Green Dragon Cult. Zis iz having the pecularly affect on zome of the drruids. It alzo draws the attention of the drragon Ractraferioz, who, until that time (to the best of her knowledge) had not been on the scene, oh, except when he bashes down the Gate to the Kuhl capital, and then he iz the anonymous drragon.

"Also appearing at zis time, iz the Ruben Wintersby, who has the familiarity with the Path. Argali zuspects that Ruben, has, in fact, walked the Path. Again, the people of the druidical persuassion need to be asking theirr mentorrs about zis.  Because, it iz to her shame, that she, and the group she was with, were unable to be stopping the leader of the Green Dragon Cult, Molvaren, from successfully walking the Path.

"The Cult had attacked the Hurix, and made us to be splitting our forces. Alas, we were over come in the caverns, despite the valiant effort frrom all concerned.

"It should alzo be known, that one of ourr grroup, may have alzo walked the Path as well, at least partially. That was the Aerimorr, who she understands is one of those blowing in the wind leaf druids who needs to be pulling his zocks up and making the ztand.

"Zo, again, the druids amongst us, if you arre meeting the Aerimorr, be pressing him for the information."

There was another.
 
"Ah, yes, the Amgine. Zis was most unexpected, no? Alas, he iz no longerr with us.

"Then, to be adding the inzult to the injury, the verry Molvaren, afterr he iz walking the Path, but beforre he iz full empowered...he iz in ourr grrasp. But slips away. We have not had much fortune in this regard. Zo, Molvaren iz now likely fully imbued with the powers of the Path. Zis makes him verry harrd to be defeating in the personal combat. We will likely be needing ourr own champion in zis regard, zomeone who has walked the Path. Orr, perhaps zome way to undo the Paths powers on him.

"Zo, druids amongst us, we arre zeverely needing yourr help!"


Andrew William Reid:


"We gathered at Hilm Castle, in a back room; servants and messengers dash by but as we each arrive and stride to our muster, we become nearly invisible to them all, either by pity or necessity.  Hilm prepares for a war of its own.  

"The tension in the castle is sung in the murmurs of the scores of defenders lining the inside and outside of the castle walls and the nervous clopping prance of the cavalry horses.  It is muffled to us.  We await Connor who will portal-walk us to our drop-off point.

"Steel, who leads us this mission, lays out the rules of engagement.  Jennara gives Gel and Ferrit one vial each of Xora's cure that saved my wife and so many others, to create arrows for defense while Tralek details the peeling back of scales to jab into the soft, decayed flesh of a dragon should it be necessary to do so.  Such things as I've never had to discuss before and it all feels a bit surreal and yet I listen and nod and wonder just a little if it I'll remember everything in the middle of blood and metal and claws.

"Each of us has his or her own way of dealing with the stress. The Copperstones joke with Tegan, Wren, Vrebel, and Tralek; Gel'larian tunes his bow, for our departed friend would pluck music from his weapon as surely as I do my instruments.  That is a sound I greatly miss.  Hardragh cracks his neck and back in a way that makes me want to ask if there was a long-lost Stargazer brother; Daniel and myself pray, Jennara seems familiar with much of the instructions and radiates her usual internal calm. Steel, projects confidence, mild yet firm of tone and expression, although the blue man's body is wound as tight as a gnomish coil.  It is perhaps the only time I've ever seen him thus and yet in he uses the tension rather than being controlled by it.

"Protection assignments are doled out and Daniel and myself are tasked with healing.  I would have fought, you see, but my rapier arm, and more specifically my resistance to being hacked to pieces, was less robust a few years ago.

"We form off into smaller teams, parts of our whole, to lend each other support. Connor arrives and we discover he is needed elsewhere once his transport of us is complete; we are of course regretful that he cannot join but invaluable as his talents are, it's difficult to argue.  We are to be dropped off near the River Vesper and so we gather with our partners. What odd bedfellows the forge of war makes, I think; and Ilsarian cleric and a Rofirinite cleric side by side in common goal and friendship and I am pleased to say it has remained thus.  

"I muse on this and then all too soon there is no more time for musings.  

"Ferrit slips up as Connor leads us to the library.  He stands at the periphery of the portal there, extending his hands with eyes closed, and I measure the moments in breaths as he concentrates.   By some nerve-driven temporal trick minutes and hours take on the same meaning; we banter to try and anchor ourselves. The shift and brief flare from the portal is sudden, commanding a stop to conversation.  Connor opens his eyes and lowers his hands but it would seem his whole being is focused on that golden pool of magic.  

" 'It is ready.  Good luck.'

"This is our only chance to reconsider and none of us do.  We shuffle through one after the other and in that split second of disorientation our feet leave paving stone and touch soft grass.

"It is a gorgeous day near the river.  I still marvel at that, you know; we are off on what is surely a suicide mission and the birds sing, the sun pours from a bright blue sky, bits of light scattering on the ripples of the river coursing south toward the sea.  At that moment it you can almost forget there was a war.  At that moment, you can almost forget why we are there.  Almost.

"Ferrit and Wren vanish into the tree line as soon as they are touched by a light Belinara wind.  I begin to play some bright music as excessive stealth has been discarded in favor of speed.  We all watch the skies.  We're close to our destination, Stormcry Hollows, past the bay that the Vesper empties in to; a long day's walk and into the night.  Not ten minutes into our trek native dangers rise.  Ancient guardians; golems, hidden in craggy terrain and under leaves and debris.  Wardens that strip magical protections with each hit.  Even as we return them to rubble they made us weaker, so by necessity we began to cohere to play off our strengths.  It was, in hindsight, good practice.

"There are hours of marching gradually south. The river widens and the water slows and the land rises on both sides.  Grass and trees gradually drop out of the race for survival and we are above the water now on bare, rocky crags.  While remaining vigilant, we have relaxed a bit, which is wiped away by Wren and Ferrit returning to us with news that the enemy, the actual enemy - not merely denizens of the landscape - have dug into the ground ahead.

"The new masters of Kuhl.  Molvaren's army; the Drach.

"They peer through narrow cracks and Ferrit thinks there is a tunnel system connecting them.  Steel's instructions are clear: No quarter.  No mercy.  

"Before we can make battle plans, a warning from Ferrit; flying shapes to the south.  Hundreds, by her estimation, of myrdrachs.  Everyone hits the ground and scrambles for cover but the flying Drachs continue south of us.  We all wonder if we'll be fighting them later.  With that threat passed, we advance; Steel draws fire so we can set an ambush.

"Drach Tesak and Tesak Dead Eyes, Footpads, and Rippers boil up to shoot or slice, dropping into the trenches for protection from our archers.  Blood is drawn and a few heartbeats after that a muffled GONG is heard below the ground and south of us.  They know we're here and are calling for backup.  

"We've cleared the entrance to what appears to be a tunnels system with no casualties but we can now expect company - and a lot of it.  We dive in, taking up positions and wading forward like a swift and unmerciful disease.  Eyes are sharp for more Drach and as we venture into tunnels we are not prepared for the massive THUD that shakes the ground under our feet...and the claws of the Cult-poisoned black dragon in front of us.

"Have you ever faced a poison-maddened dragon in combat?

"Well, I didn't.  I hid behind the rest of them and sang and threw potions.  Not terribly heroic, but extremely necessary.  Just ask them.  But the battle is as epic as you can imagine, with soil and rocks exploding under each stomping claw and the multitudes of slashes weakening the creature by degrees.  As the dragon starts to list, Ferrit shoots her special, cure-laden arrow but alas for the dragon is already dead from Wren's carefully placed final stab when the vial shatters against the soft flesh under its scales.  That first of two precious vials of cure is gone.

"Leaving the body, we wind down the tunnels, running into small pockets of Drach Garra and Tesak - warriors and spellcasters - but such a juggernaut are we that they give us little pause.  Nothing survives in our wake.  No mercy.  No quarter.  Time becomes strange in the enclosed dark and I can't tell you how long we walk before we come to a well, and in it a ladder whose rungs vanish into a dusky blackness that echoes with the sound of running water.  

"I think we are in an adrenaline trance as we don't spare a moment's thought and climb straight down, stepping into a shallow cave that faces the river almost at water level.  There are torches here in posts that just from low bridges criss-crossing the river.  There are no patrols but they're out there, it's only a matter of time.  Movement south of us, torches bobbing.  A second of quiet, then soft flapping, leathery - wings.
 
"Drach Garra Frenzy spring up around us - ambush - and worse, Myrmidons and Myr'Drach from above; pikeman, warriors, assassins, we are surrounded and fighting back to back.  I don't know how many of the hundreds spotted earlier we fought, but I'm willing to put money on most of them.  The gore piles up and deft movement becomes difficult as there is so very much blood slicking the ground and bodies everywhere underfoot.  We fight our way across a bridge and still we must fight our way through patrol after patrol.  It seems as if they are more to slow us down than to stop us, anymore; as if we're not be destroyed but simply weakened...seasoned, pre-cooked...for something else.

"It isn't long until we find a place where the riverbank has collapsed under its own weight and we scramble up the avalanche of rock and mud into sunshine again.  There is a path much higher up.  It is a long climb and again we are accosted, and again.

"Realize that we have not yet even crossed the entrance to where the Broken One must lie, and we've run through a lot of our spells and songs.  This is as the enemy intends, we now know; leave us naked of protections and tired and bled out, easy pickings for the final defenders of Molvaren's broken toy.  Simple and effective if you have the troops to commit, and Molvaren does.  It seems we fight for each step we want to take.  So when we see a mithril golem, a summoned creature, fighting a Drach you'll forgive us for thinking WHAT NOW?

"Our explanation saunters down once the Drach is dispatched, with golem in tow.  Not an enemy from Kuhl but from another place entirely - a Black Wizard.  Here, at the doorway to the Broken One's not so final resting.  

"Some of us - perhaps most of us - are taken aback, but one blue head betrays no shock.  The Black Wizard smiles and nods to him, and mentions repaying of a debt.  He brings with him a group of very capable appearing warriors, fiends, and half-orcs.  And after what we've been through in just under two days, with sticky gore caked to our clothes and the sweet smell of rot staining every ration we put in our mouths, we simply assimilate them into our ranks and press into the single entrance they guarded.  We don't refuse a gift horse, even if it is a nightmare.  Although, most of us won't stand near the Black Wizard - there is just something, not merely disquieting but...predatory?  No, not merely that - calculating, better - suffusing the man's demeanor.

"The door is cut into the stone and only feet inside we are attacked. This place we expect to be well-fortified and we're not disappointed, although the extra muscle and spells Steel arranged for do help quite a bit.  But this latest resistance is not your usual yut-yut soldiers; no, we face layers of Ori, spellcasters, supported by what appears to be every kind of Drach in existence.  It's nice to pretend that you're powerful...until your enemy starts flinging hellballs.  We hold nothing back.  We're fighting for every forward inch, we lucky thirteen plus our temporary additions, against a literal army.  My hope, running through my mind with each note sung and each healing potion flung, is that if they are here they are not at Hilm.  Hilm has a chance.  We have to give them that chance.

"We have by now progressed on the one level, a very hewn series of large rooms and tunnels, and some of us sense the wrongness...a very unsettling feeling...and we know we are still far above where we need to be.  We press on through yet more Drach; Jennara naturally assumes a lead position in battle, she is Section Commander Creekskipper after all.

"Finally, a lull.  Tunnels that are not hewn roughly from the native rock but shaped and bricked.  A livable environment.  We know we're still far from in the right place - no one would put their quarters near a bloodpool.  And yet Tegan's brow furrows and she's turning.  Something...something.  The Black Wizard is still with us, although some of his minions have perished.  He seems nonplussed.

"Tegan leads with that same wrinkled brow to a door and a room.  It is a laboratory and it has been recently used.  Shelves are neatly arranged, beakers set out, body parts reside in jars and dried.  The room appears to have seen quite a bit of activity.  

"We each are drawn to different areas; Steel and I bump into each other as the bookcase draws us like a magnet.  Ferrit searches for records while Tralek and Tegan immediately head to a pulsating contraption at the end of the room.  It is magical, it is mechanical, and we who are sensitive to magic can see, actually SEE, strings of the Al'Noth stretching above and to the sides and below, as if it were a great magical spider's web.  The Black Wizard affects a mere passing curiosity but no one believes him out of principle.  Gel thinks we've found Molvaren's lab and I agree.

"There are other objects that always throw me when I see them.  A harp, for instance.  He plays a harp.  Who would have thought?  It's the presumption that beauty follows good, and I'm as guilty as anyone else, and here I am presented with my passion in the hands of a twisted madman.  Always a shock to me, although I know it shouldn't be.

"I digress.  We eventually cluster around the machine and each of us tests the limits of our magical senses and understanding to figure the thing out.  Tegan hits on it - it is creating the massive illusion that prevents this location from being noticed.  Not just the top but all around, a sphere of non-existence to eyes in a scrying pool.  It's powered from below.  Not one of us likes the way it makes us feel.  We decide to leave the machine and attack the power source and we believe we know what that will be found near.

"Exiting, two things; the Black Wizard has vanished somewhere in our examination of the contraption, which only deepens our foreboding, and there are cages further in the hall.  Poison-sickened test subjects.  We have forgone rest at the expense of our songs and spells, we have fought through to get to the bloodpool we chase, and here, we are stopped not by our own needs but by simple compassion.  There is one living creature not yet destined to die.  One starved, disfigured, filthy dwarf, and for him, we stop, if only for a few minutes. His body is twisted and badly beaten and covered in cuts as well.  He begs us to let him out, how can we refuse, despite some debate on the matter?  If we forget the meaning of one person when one person can be saved, we give up a piece of our soul.  

"The dwarf will clearly say anything to be let out; it doesn't matter.  Steel kicks the lock off the door and some of us give him food. We tell him how to get out, that we intend to destroy this place, and we leave him to his own exit.  It is all the compassion we can spare.  At least he'll have a chance.  He will not die a caged thing.

"We press on down the hall.  We have not stopped moving for two days straight.  We have run nearly out of spells, both Hardragh's voice and my own are ragged, and the archers and sword-wielders bear blisters on their hands that will leave permanent scars.  Up until now we'd thought each major battle was worse than the last and this holds true in a way that we can't imagine.  The worst is truly yet to come.  

"The last room is a barracks.
 
"It's open, with only a few pillars supporting the ceiling for cover; they have the advantage of numbers and we have no surprise to leverage, and so this fight becomes a swirling chaotic mess, with each one of us trying only to keep our comrades on our feet.  We have precious little tricks up our sleeves and so fall to pure combat madness; everything in the room must die.  I dashed around one side, Daniel the other, myself singing and the both of us trying to keep everyone healed.  

"The battle goes on and on.  Numb is the only word to describe it - you become numb, the creatures and men before you morph into interchangeable amalgams of metal, screaming, and blood spray.  Your arm goes numb from the jarring connection of sword to bone.  Your voice goes numb - you are making sounds but they don't seem like they're from you, merely associated with you.
 
"And we fight.

"And we fight.

"And we fight.

"And we fight....

"Daniel is surrounded and is chopped to pieces.  Gel'arian is snapped in half.  Jennara, surrounded to the point of being completely hidden in the scrum, succumbs to her attackers; somehow the rest of us stay up and...I can't tell you how long, because it literally felt like hours, but at some point the last death rattle fades and the barracks are a gore-sodden mess.  We have to dig Jennara out from under the bodies she took with her.  Our dead are raised and we take a standing rest, knowing that we have to continue.  Up until now I've thought that they intended to weaken us only; that battle, ladies and gentlemen, was the one that was supposed to finish us.  It's nice to be underestimated.  

"In the center of this room sickly, smoky light leaks from another well, a larger well.  We move to examine it, kicking and shoving Drach out of the way, and find the hole has a chain running down its length and a giant bucket, large enough to hold several people; you can lower yourself down.  Fumes such as rise off a decaying body wisp around the bucket and swirl in the dead light.  The feeling of bad magic - it's hard to describe, the magical equivalent of a whiff of sour milk - is tangible.  The well reeks of it.  The room reeks of it.  Since the slaughter, there is no noise and no distraction and even the least magical of us choke on the sensation of pure wrong.

"There is a brief bit of post-battle chatter, decompression really, and we begin to descend a few at a time.  The bucket can't hold all of us.  I recall singing a prayer over and over as each crank of the chain drops us closer to the wrongness.  Finally the great metal bucket clangs on bottom and we look around the most massive chamber I've ever seen.  The air is thick with the sulfuric fumes and decay we smelled above.  I don't remember ever adjusting to it.

"It's more than the environment, though.  Our wills are taxed - we drag our feet and the new battle for every step is with ourselves.  Some of us visible bend with the perceived weight of this place.  We can see cliffs leading around the chamber, quarry-like, spiraling slowly down to a central depression.  It is to that depression we head.

"Ten minutes, twenty, we make it to a lip and the miasma clears enough for us to see her; the Broken One, a dragon that in life must have rivaled all but Fisterion for size.  She is on one side and mists rises from the corpse; bits of rock, streaks of mineral-laden water from the ceiling, a glittering we can't make out, and other debris dust her scales.  As the mists swirl I think that it's a bit like coming up on a shipwreck except on dry land.  Near her we can just make out something glowing.  In our gawking we forget one crucial thing, though:  We are exposed.  Arrows and spells are launched from below and we duck back quickly and prepare to work our way down and through the defenders.  

"Our archers, finally having high ground, are put to good use; after many skirmishes and what we pray is a final assault, we have descended to the bloated body of the dragon that lies before us, fetid, formerly green but now a debris-dappled grey and black.  Only the very center of a few scales hint at the jewel tone this creature held in life.  There is a magical device, the glow we saw, another contraption and likely connected to the one above.

"The smell is simply indescribable.  Poison, rot and gas mixing with the sensation of fouled magic.  Most of us gag, some of us lose whatever meal we last had.  She is covered in old wounds, scythe wounds by the curve of them.  None of them ever had time to heal and now we see the glittering is steel wire sewing the gashes tight shut, as if she were a rotten water sack being desperately stretched for one more use.  

"In places along her neck are small hatches with locks, a way to access the beast's insides.  They run along the stitching; wait - one shifts a fraction.  Animate locks?  We look closer.  She's still as death and at the same time not.  Jennara sees it first.  There is movement under her skin, not the movement of maggots as you may have encountered before, no.  Ripples.  Waves moving all under the scales.  It takes a few moments standing too close to that evil for the reality to sink in but then we fully understand

"There is no blood pool on her, under her, by her.  She IS the Bloodpool.  Her entire body.  And the Bloodpool is waking up.    

" 'Kobal said that Xora's vial would not work if the pool was active.  And that if it moved it was active.'  Gel's voice is calm, too calm.  Jennara is staring, horrified, unable to whisper.  Steel asks her to finish what she started; no one touches anything on the dragon's body except for her.  We have only this one chance.

"Actions seem to take on a flip-book feeling; Jennara is moving toward the body.    

"Jennara is at the body

"One bard sings. Then the other.  

"Daniel moves to the pulsing contraption; Tegan and Tralek do the same

"There is a table near the body, hidden from our earlier view, with alchemist's tools, vials, plugs, and even metal syringes; Vrebel is there, examining.  Not touching - we touch nothing.
 
"The body is too much to take in, overwhelming sad as much as it is evil, and some of us; a lot of us; gravitate toward something we can at least attempt to understand, the magical contraption.  Tegan...Tegan explains.  This is the "mother" device and it is not magic.  It draws from the souls of the dead that make up the bloodpool and funnels that power to the device upstairs.  The Broken One hides herself.
 
"We waste precious time thinking of many ways to calm or deactivate the bloodpool.  Our bickering came from nerves, and, well, Tegan said it best; it was foreign but familiar, and like having to learn to do something you've done a hundred times, backwards.  Some of us try to sing calm, assuming the bloodpool might respond; alright, that was my idea; and then we form a circle of the magically sensitive to try and sever the pool's connection to the device.  
 
"A failure in one way but if we had not, we would not have felt magic virtually erupt not far from us - violent and fast portal magic.

"He has sensed something is wrong.  He is coming.  

"In the face of a sudden deadline, simplicity wins the day.  Jennara and Ferrit move forward.  There are no keys to the locks on her neck and so Ferrit risks Ilsare-knows-what to attempt a lockpick without slipping and touching her body.  It is as delicate an operation as I have ever seen attempted and I am in awe to this day of her skill.  Without grazing a single rotted scale, she picks a lock and access to the beast's now writhing interior is ours.  

"I do not know the story that must exist between Jennara and the Broken One, but I wish to, for she yells, that whispering halfling lady, for all of us to GET OUT!  I had never before heard her raise her voice above normal tones, and even then rarely.  She is growling, yelling; this is hers to finish.  And yet at the risk of court-martial for some and merely being annoyingly pigheaded for others, we stay with her.  No one will leave her to possibly die alone.  Commander Creekskipper gives up her bid for us to go and opens the hatch, pouring her precious Xora-given liquids in; speedy but careful as only she can be.  

"She does not wait one second to see the results.  As soon as vials are empty she takes off running.  She did tell us to go, after all. And we are right behind her - pelting feet headed for the bucket, with no idea what we've just done.  Even as we bolt off we can feel the change, all of us, it's that powerful.  There is a reaction brewing inside the dragon-bloodpool and it's happening fast.  The ground starts to shake; a tremble; a tremor; an unleashed rumble.  This place is coming down.

"We reach the bucket and some start climbing the anchor chain, unwilling to wait for the transport.  So intent are we on getting away that we don't notice at first, until the bellow comes:
 
'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!'

"He's climbed the sheer rock wall and we are all, Molvaren and our group, among the bodies we left behind.  He leaps with a nimbleness and speed that rivals Jennara's.  I remember us moving to engage, and I remember answering his question as well:  "Irritated you".  Although I believe I phrased it somewhat more crudely, so use your imagination.

"He has walked the Path of the Claw, Molvaren, as we heard.  He has many forms.  For this he is considered immortal.  I will be honest and say I am terrified.  My job is to keep them alive and I do that as very best I can, and I am glad that I am not in Vrebel's place, or Wren's, or Jennara's - he has so many attacks it's hard to see him moving.  Hands, feet, teeth; fire and acid and ice and spells, and he stops time with contemptuous ease.  To those who fear him as a god, I understand.

"But I also know better as do we all.  We have fought through unbelievable odds and this one man-thing is not going to stop us now.  Even worn to spell-less nubs, we are Tralek; we are Vrebel; we are Wren and Tegan; we are Jennara and Daniel; we are Ferrit; we are Haley and Kylie, and Andrew and Gel'arian, and Hardragh.  We are Steel.  We will not fall.  
 
"He knows this now, that he can't fight us hand to hand.  He leaps back and in midair he shifts, morphing into another form, pale and spidery and hairless and clawed.  With all twenty-six eyes upon him we all see that it's not effortless.  He is in pain and he lets out a groan.  Immortality has its price.

"This form resists Ferrit and Wren's carefully placed blows and still we battle him back, and he cries out in pain again and jumps to the ceiling, running spider-like across it.  When he finally falls, his shape reforms yet again.  Now we can barely scratch him and his dodge makes him like wind, while he runs among us, slashing and pounding.  But we will not fall and with all of us together we circle, harrying him like hyenas, bleeding out another of his lives.  He changes again, into his man-form.  And he runs.

"Here is where I will say we made a mistake.  The ground was shaking, the hillside ready to collapse in from the shaking of the reaction in the Broken One's body, and we should have died in that.  We are stonebound.  Death is serious, losing a part of your soul is serious, and we would have had we died.  And yet we should have.  He ran, and we ran.  It is far too much to hope that the master of those stone rooms didn't know a way out, or simply tome when he was no longer under attack.  

"We encountered resistance on the way out but it was token compared to inside and our flight gave us extra incentive to turn the Drach to hash.  They never had a chance, really.  Minutes after we fled there was a great BOOM and the ground collapsed in on itself.  We watched and the sound was as much an assault as the Drach and Molvaren had been.  The dust plume didn't rival what I heard of Bloodstone's, but it was impressive nonetheless.

"I consider that one of my great personal failings that we didn't finish the job and I learned, if nothing else, that the easy choice - save yourself - is a hard choice to make for everyone else when the result is the continued enslavement of Kuhl, and the new war that brews along Hilm's borders.  Molvaren lives, I'm certain of it.  The Broken One is destroyed, but there may yet be complications from that; it was a lot of poison to be so close to a river.  The next time, I will make the sacrifice."
 

Connor Garvill:

"Word of advice... Do not be so sure of the greatest failing.  The past comes around in odd ways, and ways you would not expect. The Broken One is a perfect example.  I remember the Broken One being dragged off after she died.  It was Blood's forces. We assumed Bloodstone was taking her for gods only know what.  She was one of the five greater dragons who stayed and lived somewhat openly in defiance of Bloodstone during his second era.  You know the others, surely.  The Black Plague, the Long Storm, The Deepening Dark and of course, Fisterion."

The Tarnished Death?

"No, that one is one that hid...or left...some of each...while Bloodstone furthered his campaign upon dragons and...really everyone, especially those who banished him.  I suppose we could spend hours talking about all of them, but the point is, we had no idea that when the Broken One was being dragged off, she would ultimately go on to be the engine of such events as these.  

"So yes, Molvaren lives, though what he is up to  now is anyone's guess.  By all reports, he is keeping his borders tight.  But what else? What events were discarded as incidental?  What of this Black Wizard, for example?  The war against Bloodstone was fraught with missteps and...less than ideal outcomes.  It happens.  The point is...chances are real good it will come back."


Sir Therhcha Doesscha:

"From field report #32.175 submitted by Sir Knight Therhcha Doesscha and #31.135 submitted by Commander Jennara.  A report on the events of a certain expedition to the wilds of the frozen north above and below the ice.

"A group of archeological inclined and adventuring people were gathered on a fateful day at the Hempstead Docks waiting for a ship to whisk them away to the cold and uncertain north.  The north being as it is now under the watch of one of the reappeared dragons, the expedition was to be a dangerous one for sure.  The goal, to find artifacts which might help tip the scales of war in the favor of the free people of the world against the horrors of Molvaren.

"I was at the time looking for work to support my family who had recently settled in Spellgard, therefore I went to the north hoping to find true and honest work.  As it turned out I was fooled as were many others sadly.  The story will probably reflect badly on some of the company present here today, but I promise you that it is not slander or dishonest. I tell only what the Commander and myself experienced on the trip

"Anyway, we were still on the docks of Hempstead, waiting for our ship to arrive. The commander was there and the leader of the expedition Mister Steel.  Others who I later discovered as known heroes of the lands were present as well, just to name a few, Mister Razeriem the flirt, Priestess Galathea of Beryl's church, Mrs. Ygraine of the Ursus clan and the now late mister Gel'larian.  Surely many of you know these people better than me, and I will try not to discredit them by this story.

"After having confirmed the nature of the expedition and that true were to be paid upon collection of the rumored artifact we set off towards the cold north on the Hammershark, crewed by Captain Ursula and her crew.  It is important that all reports carry the names of all witnesses, places and times so that they can be used in a court of law.  I am leaving out things such as dates and times of day plus minor incidents, but should you wish to hear the story from other witnesses I will leave you the names here.
 
"The trip to the north were quiet save for a sighting of the great white dragon circling the islands.  Nothing more than a routine flight it seemed and it did little to trouble us along the way.  Arriving safely at the harbor town of Raven's Watch the group got used to the cold.  It was quite a change for some of us, especially me having until then been living much further south and most recently in a desert. However ice and sand provide equally hard conditions for plants and the like.

"We set out to find our goal over ice plains infested by gnolls and worse.  Seemingly they did not like the cold climate as well and used the Al'Noth to great effect.  Killing at least one of our numbers with their fireballs.  However having sought through the plains with great purpose we were able to find an altar which would prove our guiding light for the journey to come.  The guide being a shaman of the tribes.

"Oh...seemingly there was made contact to a local guide and some woman in town.  The mysterious woman will return later.

"The guide was only to light the way, apparently this artifact were known to quite a few on the island in some shape or form.  However not the truth of the matter.  At any rate on the plain were found a ritual site which marked the beginning of our path to the mountains.  Further and further into more and more hostile territory we went, until at last we were deep inside the mountain following a path mostly likely covered in snow and ice now, and probably impossible to find unless you have lived in the ice for years on end.  It was so cold, however we should soon find shelter inside the caves of the mountains.  Traveling below ground as Steel mentioned to dig our way to the artifact

"At the time I had not received the divine training of the Lord Protector's church I were little help to the group in combat.  But the heroes who were there and our leader were able to dispatch anyone who came to oppose us.  Mostly these were in the form of undead guardians and the like.  However we thought that it might be the tomb of a great warrior who held a mighty axe or something of the like to crack open the skull of Molvaren.

"However as we went further down and down into the caves and later an underground complex we began to feel the truth of the matter, making the hair on the back of our necks stand out.  It was very unnerving at first, having recently touched the bindstone myself I felt that something in the area might threaten my presence in the world still, even with their magic.  And when we overcame the final guardians the goal of the mission became clear, a pedestal with a pool of red liquid in it.

"Not as impressive as the Broken Ones corpse but a Bloodpool none the less.
 
"I believe both the Commander and myself thought that we had been tricked into going because destroying a bloodpool might rouse interest from the wrong kinds of people, and now finally the world would be free of another one of Bloodstones creations.  However we were soon to be proven wrong as the mysterious woman and her entourage showed up.  Black Wizards.  

"We had been tricked indeed, but instead of being used for good we were being played out as pawns for the enemies of order.  Mister Steel had made some sort of deal with the Black Wizards paying them with a Blood Pool for their trouble.  I never found out what was gained in return because at that moment we attacked the Wizards.  That is part of the group did, having been fortunate enough to split the Wizards into two groups, one guarding the Pool and another one guarding the entrance we sought one last stand against the guardians of the entrance to seal the location so that the Pool could not be used.  

"At that point the priestess of Beryl proved quite useful as she could shift the ground below us and seal the entrance for good, although I suspect that even that would not be enough to keep the Black from their priced new Pool, however I did not live to see what else unfolded, but I am told that the group made it back to the civilized parts of Krashin and later to the continent of Mistone to report their findings.

"I will leave it for you to decide if giving a Blood Pool to the Black Wizards were a good idea, but it seems that it gained you some help in the final engagement against the Broken One's corpse.  As far as I know no one has moved to neutralize the Blood Pool."


Commander Daniella Stormhaven:


"Mr. Reid, you asked about... my role as Champion, was it?  Regarding the events in Huangjin, you mean, that you said your mother had told you about.  Well, my friend Argali was with me on that journey.  I suppose it isn't truly my story, though, and it's a story that began a long time ago, before Toran's ascension.

"In the time before Toran was raised to godhood, Rofirein was still there as a god overseeing law and order and the wellbeing of the people of Layonara.  As the story is told, Rofirein cared for the people quite a bit.  However, his ancient enemy Pyrtechon saw to use this against him and began to take delight in destroying what it was that Rofirein held so dear.  And so it is said that Rofirein sought to look for someone who he could entrust the wellbeing of the people of Layonara so as to put distance between Himself and the Destroyer, to keep them safe and not let them become tools of vengeance.

"He looked at the people, and watched them until he found a human man who exhibited the qualities that he sought in this protector.  He himself followed no god, only his own principles.  He had no children of his own, yet he taught the children of others, leading them in life and in battle, by his example.  On the day that the man exhaled his final mortal breath, he died with no regrets, having lived a good life.  But instead of feeling the cold of death, he found himself being risen into the heavens and breathing in the life of immortality.

"Rofirein gave Toran the gift of immortality, yet he entrusted him with the charge and care of the people of the world, so that he could do what Rofirein himself could no longer do.  But, as it was revealed to me the day that journey began, Rofirein had given Toran warning that some time in the future, his followers would be tested, and judged to see if they held true to the values held by Toran himself and the reasons he had been chosen to fulfill this godly duty.  Toran would be asked to choose one person to test in the stead of all others of His followers.  If he or she passed those tests as judged by Rofirein, Toran's immortality would remain.  If this Champion failed...

"So, as it turned out, the time of the testing had come, and Toran chose his Champion to be judged.  At the time, I was sworn to secrecy on the matter, because the Destroyer also knew of what was unfolding, and should Toran himself be judged in the case of my failure, it would open up the opportunity to strike that much more against the people.  As it was, the Destroyer's minions still did their best to derail our quest, as they ravaged a town in Sedera with what seemed to be an incurable plague.

"I made mistakes.  Quite a few of them actually, along the way, and if it hadn't been for the support of my friends and companions, I'm not sure I would have been able to succeed."



//Edits were only made in cases of mistyped words, content flow, and italics where explanation was needed; all words above the sole property of their owners.  Special thanks to Script for the log.
 

 

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