[Cyril Darkcloud]

ooc: We're only a few posts away from finishing so I'm going to move this along so we can wrap the story up. If we haven't gotten to the conclusion by Monday evening, I'll go ahead and write the ending at that point.


It is time to leave this place. Soon the dead and dust filled air trapped between these stone walls will poison his lungs and he will no longer be able to resist the overwhelming numbness such a confining space threatens to produce within him. If there is freedom to be found, however, it is to be found only within the unlikely and overlooked things, things like the small and weak seeds within the pouches he had previously given to the women. Between the three of them there is likely not enough power to pierce even the weakened walls of these lower levels. But where might fails the persistent and quiet reaching out for space within which to grow of a slender root may well find a way into the stones. Scattering the seeds along the wall, he steps back and grasps his axes. His hands are not even close to being fully healed, but there is life enough within his limbs for the doing of what must be done.

Turning to the woman called TAO he speaks softly, “The breaching of this wall is in your hands. I will see to it that we have sufficient air to breathe within the waters of the moat.” It is possible as well that some dark things still move within those foul waters, but he is too weak as yet to defend the others as he maintains the envelope of air around them. “You will need to be ready,” he says to the young ranger, “as it is your sword arm that will be our shield.”