Part 5>>>The Shadow of Love (an LoF adventure)

[Larry_OHF]

Larry Silverfall

"I...I guess that will be okay. I mean...its no worse than anything else we could do."

Larry looked back at the stranger.

"So, do you need to tagalong with us until you decide where you are going or what?"

[Larry_OHF]

Anarrima 57/67

Anarrima had been working over the body of Vincent now for several minutes, and was beginning to feel light-headed. She began to sway just a little, which looked like part of the ritual. Holy water was cast upon the body, and wounds were healed.

Now she was ready to call for this one, who was lost.

"Vincent! Vincent, return to your body, which has been made whole. Reclaim your life and breathe again!"

She stopped, then collapsed to the floor beside Vincent's body.

OOC>>>Vincent has been ressurrected to full health. He can now communicate with Marcos, and Yevaun upon opening his eyes.

Anarrima has suffered 5hp health and is weakened from the struggle with the difficulty of ressurrecting two corpses. Not an easy task, for sure.

[RoSs_bg2_rox]

Silt 29/80

Silt crept down the corridor, swords raised. His pace increasing as he was hard on the chase. His primary concern wasn't for Kynnen, but for Larry. Where on earth could Larry be, were the Gods hiding him?

As Silt ran down a pitifully dark corridor, with a once beautiful chandelier now acting as a walking death trap for any that should be unlucky, or foolish enough, to come into it's path, he picked out a voice; two voices, coming from the level below. Guards. They may possibly know the whereabouts of Larry Silverfall, the elf thought. If he met them on the way to Kynnen, he would question them.

[dplax]

OOC: Part 4 of Andrion's history.

Four months had passed since his flight from the academy, and the only times he had seen signs of civilisation were when he snuck into small villages to steal food. In the wild he could find water, but he had never been a good hunter. Yet each time when he went into a village he saw signs of the search for him. One time he had only narrowly escaped capture. This couldn't go on like this. He needed to leave these lands. But first he needed supplies for the long journey he was planning. And he did not have the money to pay for them.

The smithy in the small village of Gree had all types of armor and weaponry, yet what interested Andrion even more were rumors that the smith had created some magically enchanted items and stocked them in the smithy. Two guards were stationed outside the smithy at all times, which seemed to confirm these rumors. And right next to the smith was a store of food. Andrion could get all that he needed, and more importantly he could get it before the guards got there.

He left his hiding place in the forested hills before dawn, and reached Gree just shortly after sunrise. His clothes were already worn, and he had a beard, and he had decided to pass himself off as an adventurer returning from a long journey.

He made his way towards the smithy without hesitating. The guards outside the smithy stopped him, but after Andrion told them his story they let him in. The blacksmith called Jonathan Keery was well known around these parts. He eyed Andrion suspicously.

"I'd be interested in seeing your special wares."

"Judging by your looks I do not think that you could afford them." - the blacksmith replied looking up from the sword he was hammering on.

Andrion threw a small bag of coins at him. He had stolen them from a travelling merchant just three days ago. The blacksmith opened the small pouch and looked at the shiny gold pieces.

"This should be enough for you to get a look at them at least." - he said in a slightly annoyed voice, but he put down the sword from his hands. "Follow me!"

He led Andrion out the back way and into a small shed at the back of the smithy. Inside the shed he took out a small key from his pocket and lifted several animal skins from the ground revealing a hidden trap door. He opened the trap door and then lifted it. As soon as he had lifted it Andrion drew his dagger and without a single comment he cut the throat of the blacksmith, whos dead body fell down the trapdoor.

Andrion went down the trapdoor and using a spell of light inspected what was down there. Although it was only a small room shelves on all four sides contained rows upon rows of scrolls and books used to enchant magical items, along with several magical items. Andrion grabbed several scrolls and an empty spellbook, and an enchanted dagger and put them into the pockets of his clothes. He climbed the ladder and closed the trapdoor, then froze as he heard a voice from behind him.

"I do not like thieves, and I like would be murderers even less. I knew it would be a good idea to use magic to create a double of myself, while you were in the area Andrion Wilgor."

Andrion had still not totally ascended the ladder and was with his back towards the exit, so he knew it would be futile to try to flee.

"Put down whatever you might have taken and lift up your hands and I shall only hand you over to those who are looking for you."

"Viscerum ad saxum!" Andrion shouted suddenly and pointed a finger behind himself. From the ensuing silence he knew that he had succesfully petrified the blacksmith. Quickly climbing the remaining steps he saw the stone statue, which had been holding a crossbow with a bolt already put into it.

Andrion heard several footsteps approaching from the smithy and without even looking at who they were he cast a Fireball aimed outside the small shed. He then stepped out and saw the two guards burnt to cinders. But he had betrayed his presence and he knew that the town guard would already be rushing here.

He had no time to get himself food so he just turned and ran. It was only when he had already made a mile or two outside the town that he turned back. It seemed that the town guard would have an even greater problem than him, as where he had cast the fireball a fire had started and already several other buildings were burning.

Andrion returned to his hide-out and during the night transcribed all the scrolls he had stolen into the spellbook.


OOC: I'm trying to show him slowly becoming more and more evil, that's why it's taking several parts to get his bio done.

[dplax]

OOC: Part 5 of Andrion's history.

Two years later:

Andrion had joined up six months ago with a group of adventurers looking for treasure in the northern mountaineous ranges. They were a pretty mixed bunch and some of them being also hunted men and criminals themselves, they did not care about Andrion's shady history.

Their leader was a warrior, called Kergan, who had once been considered a hero, but was eventually forgotten. He had disappeared when his fame had left him and became the leader of this group of bandits and adventurers. The membership of the group constantly changed with people coming and going, but there was an inner core, who always stayed together. For the past year Andrion had been on nearly every adventure with the group and slowly they were starting to consider him a full-time member.

The last "adventure" they had done was actually a hit on a merchant's caravan several day's journey away. The risks had been high, but so had the profit. They had lost several members in the battle, and it had taken them several hours to escape the pursuit, but the goods they captured were well worth it. Even with a conservative estimate it would bring them more money than the previous two years together.

They weren't celebrating this heist, as they had celebrated the previous ones though, as rumors of a great search launched after them had reached them and all of them were lying low in one or another of their hide-outs. It was two weeks after the heist that one of the members of the group, who had been hiding in one of their hide-outs in a town several miles away from the main hideout among the foothills of the mountains came at nightfall on his horse gravely wounded.

He recounted that already three of the four non-main hideouts had been raided and likely those coming after them were acting on information gathered from prisoners. Kergan acting on this information decided that it would be best if the remaining members dispersed, each taking their share of the gathered treasure. Only a few of them, including Kergan's younger brother and about two dozen others decided to stay at the hide-out.

The rest gathered their horses and took whatever part of the loot they desired and left, each going their own way. For several weeks Kergan, Andrion and three others from the so called inner core stayed together, never staying in one place for a long time. It was three weeks after they had left the hide-out that they learned that Kergan's brother had been captured in the raid on the hide-out.

Kergan, the warrior who had proved to be ruthless at saving anyone else from the group when they got captured begged Andrion and the three others to help him free his brother. Eventually they agreed and mostly relying on Andrion's magical abilities and the thieving abilities of Tunninni they freed Kergan's brother from his prison and left the lands of the north travelling ever south.

Eventually they started nearing the lands where one of them was a convicted criminal and so they left him and his friend and only Tunninni, Kergan, his brother and Andrion continued on. Reaching a rather large seaside town they decided to split up as Kergan and his brother wished to go on an adventure overseas, but Andrion and Tunninni did not like the seas. They decided to meet up in a tavern three years later and then Andrion and Tunninni left on adventures together.

[Legolas]

The echoes of a soundless melody tugged and teased the fringes of his being, both haunting and compelling as they drew him onwards through the void. Gone was the discipline or the focus; he was drifting beyond what any meditation would accomplish, so far from his self. There was no longer a care or concern, and yet for all that he lacked control, he felt in charge of his direction. Unnamed, as he was now, it lay before him and he knew the road to take with the certainty with which he might recall the hiding places in a childhood home. Confident without carrying this confidence with him, he turned at a change in the absent notes. As wide was the circle he turned as his view was narrow, sight he did not need for there were no obstacles or creatures to stop him, no sideroads to wander down into damnation. He heeded the music just as he felt he commanded it, directing it. Though to another his words might not describe the strangest sensations of one entering afterlife, they were the only words sounding right. And as he danced, flying, he found he did reach that most special of places.

His body lay well and mended, and the shock was not from pain. He lay silent, confused by the complexities of this form and afraid to touch.
Tentatively, he had his heart contract. The strangest feeling, something else moving and meandering through what all was his. Again he had it contract, tickling his veins. Curious.
He turned elsewhere. There was a manual to be found, he knew. Following one of the channels branching out, he reached a lone place, prodded a muscle. A finger twitched and, captivated, he repeated it, once, twice. Fly on. It looks different.
There was a rumbling in his stomach, an extatic thrill as his nose smelled something he was too lazy to identify. Then he arrived. Made a spark. Remembered body.
Breathe, it said, and he knew to make his chest heave. Beat, it said, and he carried the air along. Contract, it said, anticipating new fuel to burn. His mind cleared and in the light he could make out a second page. It detailed muscles and tendons, pathways of moistures and oils. He felt millions of craftsmen inside him waking one by one, taking their tools and performing their duties.
He opened his eyes.

And then Life hit him.

[Elif Godson]

Vincent Pathfinder

I will kill him was his last thought before the searing pain of the mages heat shield hit him. A painful sensation of flesh being charred, his flesh, such pain, then nothing. Unconcious he fell and then drifted into the murky darkness. He no longer took breath or smelled the many scent’s of life….. now he smelt…. Jasmine, or so he thought. “ Vincent “ ,A faint glimmer appeared in the darkness and he could swear he heard his mothers voice. But then it was gone and the light faded. “ Vincent “ he heard it again and yet another pulse of light, only this time the light stayed. No, it hadn’t been his mother’s voice, but it was a woman’s voice. “ Return to your body, which has been made whole. ” Maybe I don’t want to, I like it here, no one chasing after me, I’m comfortable. Why should I be bothered returning? Which hell will I be in. “ Reclaim your life and breathe again! “That voice, who is she that she would help me, someone she knows not. Maybe there is a reason to go back Following the voice, he felt the cold dampness leave him. There was an almost popping sound as he floated closer to the voice rising from the darkness. He felt conscious again as his body spasmed as the life returned to it. With a growling groan he felt his body become solid again, his body….. Feeling the stiffness in his limb’s and the cold floor underneath him he was shocked and amazed. All the sounds that he left behind came rushing in, the smells of burnt flesh and blood, cries of worried people from the distance, he could even hear the wind and smell the grass. Life renewed… he kept his eye’s closed afraid to open them and see the devastation around him, he didn’t hurt, so he must have been healed, or maybe to knumb to know otherwise. A moment of fear gripped him, wondering if the enemy was just playing a cruel trick on him, bringing him to life only to torture him back to death, with that thought, he extended his senses, feeling the room around him, what was near him, he felt a warm body next to him, breathing was shallow from the sound of it, he heard people moving about, but didn’t get the sense of danger and so opened his eye’s just a bit to let more of the light in, it burned his eye’s as it does after you have been sleeping for a long time and suddenly open them to daylight. Shutting them again as they watered he blinked the tears out and let the light in, everything was blurry and he noticed several people about, and a woman slumped next to him. “ I live ” with a surprised tone.

[Morgeruat]

Yevaud

I live A simple statement of surprise, Yevaud looked away from the weakened cleric and saw the most recently healed former corpse blinking against the light, as though he had travelled from a far away place, and in a way, he had come from the farthest place possible. Yevaud looked at him whimsically, it was not often elves saw death, and even less often that a return of life was witnessed. Nature's cycle meant that those who passed did not return, excepting great need, or tragic accident of a hero. But for elves, there was a higher price. Lacking a soul in the sense that humans thought of them death was much less a reversible condition for elves, than men, most elves when they reached the time of passing, simply willed themselves to the halls of their patrons, leaving neither shell, nor loss upon their kin. It was only in times of war, when Elves were taken before their time that mourning was done, for their trip to Correlon was much longer than that of a normal passing. Yet here were two, brought low, now returned to life. It was a marvellous thing, life. So fleeting for these folk, yet they cling to every moment even so far as to refuse to give up their lives when common sense would dictate that they do just that.

"Welcome to the living world." He offered a hand to Vincent, watching as Marcos breathed, not yet ready to admit life.

[ 03-21-2005, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

[Elif Godson]

Vincent Pathfiner

" Welcome to the living world. " words to his ear's that took a few moments to register. Then noticing that he was all but naked, he blushed momentarily as the newcomer offered him a hand of welcome. " uhhmmm....Well.. met brother "he said stammering as he found his voice. reaching he reached for the hand, then pulled back and rested it on the lady beside him. Perchance.. we should help her up, I can assume .... I would just be a bag of bones if not for her voice calling me "
clearing his throat a bit he he decided to try and rise to a squatting position, still weak from the fatality he slumped back to the ground. " Well maybe in a minute or so hehe. Any idea where my belongings may be, or did that accursed mage and his blackened fiend take them ?"

stupid tag's for the edit

[ 03-21-2005, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: Elif Godson ]

[Cyril Darkcloud]

The Passerby

Thought at times like this is much more important than words and so he has remained silent as the knight and the youth have spoken, not ignoring their questions but rather allowing their own conversation to move naturally away from them so that he might think. Yes, think. And listen. This land is new and strange and clearly he cannot risk returning home yet by passing through the realms of shadow, not without having much more information than he now possesses. And setting off on his own, what would that accomplish?

“If ‘tagging along’ means following some vague notion of the North, which strikes me as little better than a case of the confused leading the blind, then I am not interested. Not in the least,” he says in response to Larry’s question.

“But .....” he pauses thoughtfully, “even such superficial bonds of friendship as those produced by need are things to be appreciated when one is, as I am, a world away from home ...... I will journey with you.”

Turning to the knight, he asks, “Tell me, is there perhaps a place that will be safe for a day or two’s resting or are these pursuers of yours so close that flight must be immediate and unplanned?” He pauses briefly noting the thoughtfulness with which his question is received. “With a bit of rest, a chance to prepare and such information as you can give me, I might be able to discern something of the location of this blade that you would seek.”

[ 03-21-2005, 10:37 PM: Message edited by: Cyril Darkcloud ]