Part 4>>>The Shadow of Love (an LoF adventure)

[Larry_OHF]

Nanashi

She found him. Larry's scent was easily detected in this place, and he was down those stairs and behind that door. She jumped down the steps, slammed through the door, and looked about. It was a corridor with three doors on the left side of the wall and one door at the end of the corridor.

She walked to the first door and sniffed. Not this one.

She walked to the second door and sniffed. His scent was stronger, but it was not behind this door. It was from the third door on the left. She smelled another man in there as well...probably a guard. No problem at all. This was going to be too easy.

She walked to the door, and turned the knob.

[ 01-09-2005, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

[dplax]

Doom Guard 23/78

The Doom Guard staggered back from the force of the onslaught. He was just about to attack the paralysed guard, when...

Andrion Wilgor 60/60

...when Andrion commanded it to stand still. He then walked up to the man and took off his amulet so that the man could see what was being done to him. Andrion took out his knife and got to work on the man. He repeateadly stabbed him in the stomach and then pulled the knife sharply up to the lungs. The man was already dying, but the paralysis still held his muscles and until he was dead he was going to be standing. Andrion was enjoying the sheer look of terror in his victim's eyes. He wanted to savour the moment longer, but he knew he needed to capture Larry for the Shadow Mage. He stepped back and commanded the Doom Guard to behead the guard, which the undead did. Andrion then turned and headed towards where Larry was kept.

[ 01-09-2005, 06:13 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

[Larry_OHF]

Nanashi

The were-tiger could hardly contain her appetite. She was now so close to the one her Master wanted destroyed.

The door swung open.

Inside, the guard look around and gasped in shock, then fumbled for his sword. Never had he seen such a strange creature that appeared to be a human-shaped tiger.



In the cell, Larry looked up and jumped back when he saw what came through the door. There was no doubt that she had been sent from the Mage to kill him in this room where magic could not penetrate. He looked at the pathetic guard that was already stinking of fear. I will not go down without a fight he thought to himself. He needed to live.

For Mistral.

[Larry_OHF]

Nanashi

She smiled at the guard standing there, trembling in fear that was evident in his wobbly sword that he held with sweaty hands, clenching the hilt so tightly that his knuckles were white. He managed however to find enough voice to squeak out...

"Wh...what do you w..want? V..v..vile crea...ture! Sstop and come...nn.n.n.o no more near!"

She laughed at him. Poor little foolish man that he was.

She melted in front of him, shifting into her pure tiger form. The man did not take this well. She leaped at him, going right for the throat, which she promptly ripped out just as she came landing on top of him as his body was knocked to the ground. She looked up with her bloody maw and licked her lip.

She walked nearer, and prowled around the closed cell for a moment, enjoying the theatrics of it all.

Larry

He could not get any farther away from her, for his little iron jail was smaller now than it had ever felt before. He was visibly shaking...knowing that he had never been in such a dire need of help before now. Where was the Nightblade? Where was his years of studying as a Ranger? Where was his experience of battle at a time like this?

It had all been stripped from him. He was a poor wretch with nothing but some crazy dreams that sometimes made him spout shadow magic...but that stuff was just residual memory spells. Nothing of real power. And that could not help him here...in this room where magic was not allowed.

He watched the tiger taunt him.

[ 01-09-2005, 09:54 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

[Cyril Darkcloud]

Myron Epimetheus

Excellent notes followed by a question of meaning – truly this is the most promising visitor he has had in quite some time. Not yet a scholar in his own right perhaps, but one who just might produce some quality work given the right encouragement. And true scholarship is a thing that is so very hard to find these days and one must be always consulting the classics for so very little of any matter is being written despite how intriguing these times have proven to be. The little man murmurs his frustration and shakes his head considering the appalling lack of scholars among so many self-styled wanderers of worlds and planes. “Adventurers!” The word is clearly a pejorative. “So little they contribute of any use in all their questing and struggling and slaughtering of things and plundering of treasures. As if the very essence of gaming was something so trivial as the effective wielding of a weapon or the casting of the appropriate combination of buff spells – things that can easily be settled by something as mindless as the tossing of dice and the consulting of charts!” The little man’s voice rises above its usual soft murmuring and while no dramatic flashes of power accompany this event there is a stirring among the scattered and scribble covered napkins – those small square napkins which are so wonderful for the writing down of things – a stirring as if the information within them were suddenly awakened by his voice.

“What indeed is the meaning of all of this?” His voice drops into its more accustomed key as he turns to his visitor and the anger is replaced by a not of companionable fondness. The stirring within the napkins ceases and the tree house is filled with a stillness that lends a striking clarity to the little man’s words. “Meanings are things well worth seeking, boy. But they must be sought and at times that seeking requires the movement of more than the mind, although the mind must move, mind you. And you seek a meaning that must be found and pursued and mastered elsewhere.” Within the sunken sockets that once housed eyes, a bright silver light gleams with a peculiar and piercing brightness. “Two of you there are, boy, faced with a similar problem for the two of you are each but half of a duality, and that there should be not a single duality but a pair of such things within one game is a thing of no small consequence. A single such duality would be a remarkable matter, but a pair of dualities – such a thing is wondrous indeed. And to think that a pair of pairs such as this has been forged by the bringing to an end of yet another pair!” Seeing the mixture of confusion and focused thought upon his visitor’s face, the little man nods his agreement, “Yes, yes indeed. The permutations are truly staggering. To say nothing of the implications of such a thing as this .......”

“I shall send you to him. Yes, yes, that is what must be done for nothing else will do in a situation such as this.” There is a firm decisiveness in his voice as he continues, “Elsewhere within this game is one named Larry Silverfall, torn free from the Modding Mage by arrows made by that one whose origin is in an alien game. Elsewhere as well, in a place that was once the home of that clan named for a rather stuffy supporting character in a popular CRPG is that aspect of yourself whose bitterness has never left this game. Two of you there are, uncertain and weak. Two others there are, powerful and sure. Yes, it is clear. I shall send you to this Larry Silverfall – an impetuous boy, you know, who could benefit from a thoughtful companion.”

Dessicated arms begin to move with a surprising and graceful ease and the temperature within the room drops by several degrees. Still the gleam within the little man’s sunken sockets remains fixed upon his visitor. “All is ready,” he says and chuckles merrily. “They thought to enclose him in place where magic cannot be used. Foolish, foolish adventurers – all tactics and no genuine insight about the lot of them! Anti-magic indeed! As if all magic were dependent upon weaving and anti-weaving and as if the Forgotten Realms were the only setting worth speaking of!” Dried lips curl in what seems to be a smile. “Simplicity itself to bypass such a thing as this.” The key of his voice changes suddenly once more, “Remember this well, boy, for failing to learn this lesson brought Modding power to its bitter defeat. There are game worlds other than the Forgotten Realms – far more ancient and over whom the Realms and its deities have no claim. Among those games is one whose rejection of such things as the weave is absolute and uncompromising. Such a game has asserted itself within these threads from that moment when the light and spammy humor of the original posts began to give way a more grim and epic tone.”

Reaching into the pockets of his robe the little man withdraws a small key made of bone. Giving it to his visitor he says, “Be not hindered by that which is locked.” Once again his hands begin to move. The temperature drops yet further and the all is bathed in a greenish light.

Interjection Within Larry’s cell the temperature also drops. A greenish light of fluctuating shape appears in the center of the cell. The intensity of the light increases and it allows none to pass through it.

“It is time for you to leave, boy. Seek well for meaning, for meaning is well-worth the seeking.” The interior of the treehouse begins to lose its tangible aspect and the faint outlines of another place begin to appear, a room with more than one occupant. Even as tangibility fades within the treehouse a skeletal hand closes its fingers around the visitor’s arm and a book, a well bound leather covered journal of many blank pages, a bottle of ink and several pens, are thrust into his hands. Tucked into the spine of the book is a sturdy ruler made of silver. “Do not forget, boy, that things are never so busy nor so dangerous that one cannot pause a moment or two for the taking of notes.”

For a moment all is intangible, and then there is a sudden increase in the intensity of the green light. The little man’s visitor steps out of the blinding green light into a room containing a frightened man and a snarling creature, both of whom are blinking there eyes in the wake of the flaring of the light.

Larry, I trust this does the job.

[TAOWolf]

She pulls the feather out of her cloak, and looks down at it, thinking.

Looking up after several quiet moments, she smiles at Arcades, and gestures towards the tavern and local horse stable.

"I need to contact someone alone, if you don't mind. Would you get the necessary provisions and get our horses from the stable? I will meet you at that oak over there before sundown.."

Laying a gloved hand on his shoulder, she turns and walks swiftly to the edge of the woods. Once inside the shadow of the trees, she shifts to wolf form, and lopes towards a spot she knows is close. She arrives in a clearing surrounded with rowan and oak trees. In the center, a lone sanhir stands. She stays in wolf form, and gently lays the feather on top of the stone that she was carrying in her mouth and waits....

[Morgeruat]

Morguerat

At seeing the large tiger as well as his charge the former knight did the only thing he could think of quickly, he smacked the cat on the nose with the book, it would do no real damage, but would startle it, he hoped. "Bad kitty, that's a bad Mr. Kitty" [img]graemlins/whackya.gif[/img] He then shouted "MOVE at Larry, and used the key on the door to the cell and pulled the door open

[ 01-11-2005, 09:36 AM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

[Larry_OHF]

Nanashi had been startled alrady by the flash of green light that hurt her eyes and boggled her senses...but when a man stepped out of that blasphemous light and popped her on the nose with a book, she was more than a bit shocked.

Snarling in her frustration and rising anger, she pulled herself up to her hybrid form and screamed a furious roar at the newcomer, which sounded something in between a tiger's snarl and a woman's shriek.

The man moved quickly. He obviously was here for the purpose of saving Larry...but who was he? He smelled foreign to this thread in the RPG forum, yet oddly familiar too. Already, he had the door to the prison cell open and was coaxing Larry out.

Larry knew enough that when the gods blessed one, that person should never ask why. He did not take the time to question this turn of luck, but instantly was running to the now open door, then took up position behind this crazy man who seemed to be only armed with a book. He must be a sort of mage or wizard...giving his ability to even get into this room with magic...and not carrying nigh a thing but a mere book...probably full of powerful spells. Whatever this man was, he was here to get him away from this man-eating ...er...were-tiger thing. He remained silent and behind the man.

Nanashi could see all of this happening in front of her as though she were glued to the floor and could not move. So fast was the movements in this change of course that she had to shake her head to get a clear bearing on things. When the realization caught up with her, it was time to pounce.

And pounce she did. She did not care so much about this wizard man. She would run him over on her way to Larry's throat.

She leaped forward, claws leading the way.

[Larry_OHF]

OOC>>>What some of you have been waiting for...

Barack had just taken a job at the old Keep, in order to earn enough money to buy back some cows that the city had confiscated from him when he had not paid his taxes. He had only been working here a week, but was already bored with it. He wanted to be back on his farm, but was stuck in this dead-end job instead. The worst part about it, he kept telling himself...is that nothing ever happens around here.

This day would change all that.

He was already late for work, and his shift had started a half-hour ago. He knew that Jon would complain to the sergent about his tardiness and that would cost him a day's pay. He hated Jon. Jon the bully. Jon the sergent's bitch.

As he was practically running down the hallway and into the left wing where his post was to be taken, he rounded the corner and there was Jon...laying there in a pool of blood, his throat ripped out.

Barack just stood there a second, trying to figure it out. He did not even look around to see who had done this or if they were still around. He ran. He ran as fast as he could go toward the left wing. He was screaming the whole way. When he got to the doorway, the guard that stood in front of the door that led into the left wing stopped him. He would not let him pass through without explanation.

"Where you off to so fast, Barack?"

"He's dead! Dead! He...he is dead...laying ....there...dead...blood...everywhere! Don't you get it! He...I dunno what....how! Marcos! Got to tell him!"

OOC>>>Those with keen hearing in the left wing, even upstairs, can just about hear this man yelling. You know who you are.

[ 01-11-2005, 03:15 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

[dplax]

Plaxica 70/70

He had only been capable of shifting his shape to that of an owl for a few months, yet his hearing and sight had already surpassed that of normal humans. As soon as his senses picked up the commotion downstairs his inner senses told him something had gone horribly wrong. He grabbed his sword, but then stopped suddenly hearing the word dead. He tried listening for more details of the conversation, but he could not make out any more words. He then rushed to the door, opened it and started running towards the direction from where he had heard the voices. If only he arrived in time...