THE TAVERN

<font color=skyblue>The Dead Wind</font>

<font color=silver>To Neb: Such a willing servant this one! Yes, go. Go and sow fear in your passing. Yes, so new this world with its exotic emotions – we shall teach it new forms of terror, you and I. O yes! And we shall savor them all .....

But, what is this? ..... Ah! Another awakens. Another hunger lives in this place ..... Truly there is no end to its surprises! We must speak this other and I .....</font>

<font color=skyblue>Brushing against the unconscious bodies of the few left alive in the tavern, the shifting currents of the Wind move upward to the second floor of the building and leave through destroyed wall.</font>


<font color=white>Bartleby</font>

<font color=teal>Some time after the Wind leaves, he regains consciousness still trembling. Vague whisperings still speak in the corners of his mind and there is a strange burning in his lungs. He slowly rises to his feet only to fall weeping to his knees as his eyes take in the death and madness left in the Wind’s passing. “‘Tis everywhere I look! ‘Tis everyone! What ..... what kind of a blasphemous, horrible .....?” Words fail. Thought fails. There is only a hoarse and broken sobbing.</font>

[ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: Cyril Darkcloud ]</p>

Neb leans sits on the once green but now blackened grass of the small hill overlooking the town, enjoying the screams of adults and children alike that come up to him from below.

He'd entered the place earlier and had spread the Dead Wind's essence in addition to a bit of random murder, now the inhabitants were busily killing each other, going mad and getting killed by the pair of Abishai he'd gated in from Baator.

He had no control over the two creatures, so he'd decided to leave and let them enjoy themselves while the Wind fed off of the pain and fear.

Something caught his eye, the glint of light on metal, he turned his gaze left and saw a group of people, he sharpened his vision with his Psionics, adventurers it seemed, intent on vanquishing the demons and freeing the town, apparently thinking them the cause of the fear and madness.

Neb smiled evilly as he picked up the Valkyrie and headed for the town, once they entered he'd break down their mental defenses and leave them at the mercy of the Wind, more victims to feed it's hunger for Fear, more victims to feed his bloodlust.

THE TAVERN

<font color=skyblue>Bartleby

Hearing movement he looks up in time to see two of the patrons struggling to their feet. They are barely able to stand and meet his look with vacant stares. They stumble through the door wander into the rain. The tavern is silent except for his own movements and the labored breathing of the others – there are, it seems, only two others left alive here besides himself and Maria. She is lying very still and for a moment he feared her dead. Her breathing is shallow and her skin cold but she is alive. Slowly and with great care he lifts her into his arms and carries her through the kitchen to his own small room in the back. “Ach! She’s the strongest person I know, but I can’t be lettin’ her be seein’ all of this .... not with her havin’ those little ones to be raisin’. T’ain’t right this happenin’ to her, it just ain’t right.” He gently places her on his own bed, and returns to the bar.</font>

<font color="skyblue">She smiles, and steps out, grabbing his other hand, more out of comfort, then balance and slips her arms around his waist......"I will tell you what I can of my curse, and how I came to be at the tavern........." Her eyes glow, this new purple color now tinged with the amber and silver glow of ages before, and she looks off into the distance, her mind taking her back as she starts to speak, her voice sounding as though it is coming from a great distance, and reliving every moment in time as she tells it...........~</font>

OOC: later this evening, i will post her story, it will probably be in two or three segments, *L* :D i'm still writing and editing it, and btw ya'll, if you pay attention to my posts, you will learn R/L information about runes, herbs, and some ancient Scottish/Irish Gaelic. That is part of my ancestry, and my character is alot like me in some ways. [img]graemlins/wink10.gif[/img] Although I have yet to cast fire or anything *LMAO* [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] .....j/k but seriously, I do have alot of R/L knowledge about runes and herbs, so if your interested......keep reading

Cyril - I will be sending you via a pm the WHOLE story, but it will be after I post, probably Sunday. I will hint at the similarities between the Fay're and the Wind, but in the pm I will tell you more.... :D btw Cyril, you are only 6 posts from becoming the big veined dude *LMFAO*

(because she is having a blonde day, see below *LOL*)

[ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: TAOWolf ]

[ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: TAOWolf ]</p>

<font color="skyblue">As they ride the wind, she begins her tale....

"It begins on the day it was found that I am more than just a shapeshifting Druid. The wolf is not only my familiar, but also a part of me, going back in my family for centuries. When this was recognized, it was also found that I could wield weapons of metal, and use my powers together. This is very rare among Druids. I was not recognized as human any longer, but something else, something.."

She hesitates here, for good reason, because she cannot tell him the name they bestowed upon her. If only they had known what this naming
would cause and the curse it would invoke. "Do you remember a few days ago when you first handed me the locket? When I raised it above my palm, and I was struck with the vision of a silver wolf dying? That wolf was like a mother to me. She had been near me for 150 years, not a normal wolf. The smoke and fire I saw in that vision sent to me I now know was my home. It has been destroyed. One of the visions I had during the trance I now know was my home. Now destroyed.
Something has set the Dragons loose again. The curse. The bloody curse...."

She shakes her head, and sighs. "But I take you off track. I....I..." She takes strength from his hands and continues..."I told you my true name..GreyWolf (liath madadh-allaidh), but that is not what they named me that day. I was out with my wolf-pack, Siruis, doing some Ranger work on the outskirts of a village near the Capital of Ariandor. There in the forest I came upon a group of "people", around a fire. I stood silently, waving the wolves down, watching
carefully. They were trying to raise the Goddess Fay're. What I did not realize at that time, was they had a child, a girl-child, who could channel. Channel the evil side of the "ONE". I thought they were to sacrifice the child. So I waited until they slept, and snuck in, wrapping the child in a blanket, and hurrying back to the Citadel quarters of the Druid Foundation.

The wolves tried to warn me, I know that now, but I refused to believe a child would be so evil. I took her into the garden, (one of many) and called to my brothers and sisters to come................. thats when everything went wrong, and my life changed forever........"....Here she stops for a moment, the tears brimming her eyes, intensifying the purple/silver glow there.

She reaches up with a gloved hand, but stops...instead letting the tears flow, letting the hurt out, and ridding herself of the last vestige of fear and madness. Letting the tears carry it away into the wind, leaving behind the strong resolve of her spirit and hope, and.. him.......She continues slowly..............</font>

<font color="skyblue">As they ride the wind, she continues her tale....

"My first clue something was wrong was the child. She sat up from where I had laid her, and reached back without looking. She gave me a smile so evil, the wolves who were sending me messages at the time, howled in pain, fleeing my mind quickly. Reaching back she touched the "nan tursachan" behind her.

The sign carved into it glowed, and one of the "a' treigsinn" started to appear slowly directly behind her, and merged with her, the only sign it had happened was her eyes..........oh her eyes, blood-red as the rest of her face disappeared, becoming smooth. She stood, now 7 feet tall, truly one of the "a' treigsinn". I knew I had no weapons upon myself to fight such an evil being, and fled to the next garden, where the "nan tursachan" for
the mighty wizard "Glandish" stood.

Among my people this stone was NEVER to be touched, it was a symbol of what can happen if you try to control the power instead of letting it flow thru you, and allowing it to help you. Of what would happen, if you got greedy, and tried to draw too much, for the wrong reasons.

So I did the one thing that would set me on my path and what would get myself cursed, not realizing that at the time, only concerned with the fact I had invited "a' treigsinn" into a haven, a safe place, and if it ever left the garden, such destruction to all the innocents would be my fault...."

She pauses again, looking at him from the corner of her eye, trying to judge his reaction to this.......She sighs, and continues once
again........</font>

**a' treigsinn - (one of the forsaken)
**nan tursachan - (one of the sacred standing stones)

<font color="skyblue">and the Conclusion of her tale..........


"I reached up, and touched the sign for the wizard, the one cursed to become this stone, the one who had gotten too greedy, thinking himself mightier than the gods.........." "As I touched the sign, the rock began to vibrate, the ground shaking, knocking me to my knees as if in obeyance to the stone. I looked up and the rock slowly fell apart, revealing the wizard, frozen, holding an ancient sword. One of the soul-reavers, the "aignean a' chlaidheimh" of
legend, the "SpiritSword".

Without thinking of myself, only the others inside the walls of the Foundation, I reached up and took hold of the sword. Immediately
the ground quit shaking, and for one brief second, the wizards eyes flared, and a message burned into my brain, knocking me to my knees, the sword clutched in both hands, my hands on fire. The Wizard stated the following to me...................

"This omen I give you, this sword is now yours to use, and cure.. The marks now put on your hands are weapons, 22 more marks will you gain thru time. Your eyes will now betray you to freinds and enemy alike. They will glow and change color." This is when I felt something snap around my neck. "This bracer you shall wear forever. Forever immortal to walk the earth, to gather souls for this sword. But beware, beware the Fey're who would free these souls, and bring about the last battle, the end of the Age...... you are now cursed to this task. Omens you will find along the way....and this
prophecy........

"Where two were born of wind,
so shall two be born of fire.
Where two are scarred and sorrowed,
so shall two unite in fire....fire....
fire and wind, storm and lightning,
so the prophecies say, and tell.
So shall it be, so shall it come forward.
Two shall be united, two shall love,
where heartbreak and curses roam...
so shall two break free...."

Until you fulfill this prophecy, you are doomed. Doomed to walk the earth."

And so..............I will not tell you what has happened since then, other than I slew the "a' tregsinn", who instantly turned back to the child. My brethern appeared only at the moment after the forsaken fled the child, leaving me standing there, SpiritSword in hand, runes burned into her hands, a platinum amulet bracer around her neck, the Wizard's stone broken, and an innocent looking child, lying murdered on the ground...............I was cursed to walk the land, fighting for Chaotic Neutral, but with a cruel twist...."

She now looks him straight in the eyes, hers showing no fear, no sorrow anymore, only fate, hope, and a strange kind of vengence. She waits for him to speak....</font>

[ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: TAOWolf ]</p>

<font color=white> <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>She now looks him straight in the eyes, hers showing no fear, no sorrow anymore, only fate, hope, and a strange kind of vengence. She waits for him to speak.... <hr></blockquote></font>

ooc: Yeah, sure, I'll just follow that up with something spontaneous, eloquent and appropriate ..... *LMFAO*

This is the first of two posts: [feeling no pressure, feeling no pressure, feeling no pressure]

<font color=teal>It is simply a single tear that leaves his eye, but it is the first he has shed since those bitter days of mourning the loss of his wife. He had held her loosely while she spoke that she might be completely free to move with her words. Now, however, he draws her close into an embrace whose acceptance is unyielding. They have paused in their forward movement and stand together suspended in the sky. Silently, he her touches a hand to her cheek collecting her tears and brushing them against the solitary stream beneath his left eye. “Sof’ya ..... Liath Madadh-allaidh [he has memorized these syllables] .....,” he begins to speak but stops short glancing at the storm clouds that surround them. “No,” he whispers, “not here.”

Again the winds that support them begin to gust into movement carrying them upward and through the clouds to a place above the storm where the sunlight is strong and breathing is difficult. “Liath Madadh-allaidh,” he names her as best he can in the tongue of her home, allowing the wind to softly echo her name as he looks at her. “I have breathed within the words of your story. I have breathed into myself the tale of your life. My life will move along the winds of your tale.” Again, his eyes find hers, his voice wraps itself around her as he speaks:

• “My life breathing into your life.
  Your life breathing into mine.
  The storms of your heart,
  the storms of my heart
  move now together
  in the wind of our breathing
  and the wind that we breathe.”

He kisses her then, in this place where the sun is strong and breathing is difficult.</font>

[ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: Cyril Darkcloud ]</p>

Neb entered the town which was now coated by a blanket of fog, the screams and wails had died down as most of the townspeople were now dead or cowering somewhere, whimpering in fear.

The adventurers had managed to vanquish the two Abishai, they were now lost in the fog however, imagining shapes in it, hearing sounds....

The three that had survived the battle stood back to back, watching in all directions when suddenly a dark shape approached them, the immediately turned to face it, it then dissapeared(Neb had teleported behind them) he stabbed one of them in the back and the adventurer died, then he teleported away, now only a warrior and a mage remained, both horribly unnerved and nervous about the smallest noise or movement glimpsed out of the corner of their eye.

Neb decided to put off their death and hid on a nearby rooftop while they started going insane with fear.

Shadowhound stumbles through the woods and sees a village. As he walks in he sees a bunch of dead bodies and hears screaming "how the hell do i manage to find these damn places?" He looks down and sees a gold coin, as he picks it up a knife flies over his head. A ruff looking man wearing scratched and bloody clothing screams and runs forward.