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

[dplax]

Plaxica 31/85

The net cut into his flesh and he lost a few feathers but finally he managed to get the second wing and one of his feet free from the net. He shook himself and the net fell from him and he was finally free. He looked around and surveyed the situation. He shifted to human form and gathering the net prepared to throw it.

[ 02-01-2005, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

[dplax]

Andrion Wilgor 28/40

It had been a long time since arrow or sword had pierced his flesh. But he had not forgotten pain. Never was he going to forget the pain he had suffered at his own father's hands. His father was since dead at his own hands and now he intended to kill the one who had attacked him. And then the foolish drow nearly ruined it all. He deserved the slash he had gotten in the back from the skeleton. Annoyed Andrion rolled a few meters to the side so that his position became unknown again to the archer and then sent a command to the skeleton.

"Go after the one, who fires arrows. Do not attack the drow and the one who does not move! If anyone tries to attack you then kill them!"

[Larry_OHF]

Skeletal Chieftan

It lowered its blade, now bloody from use. It turned its rotted head in survey...
looking to see if any opponent was firing an arrow.
It would not attack the drow.
It would not attack anyone that was not moving.
It would kill whoever came at it in offence.

[TAOWolf]

JUST SOUTH OF THE VALLEY TOWER IN MIRWALL, IN THE WIZARD’S KEEP (TAVERN BY THE CREEK)
"I was made from the ninefold elements, from fruit trees, from paradisiacal fruit, from primroses and hill flowers, from the blossoms of trees and bushes, from the roots of the earth was I made, from the broom and the nettle, from the water of the ninth wave. Math enchanted me before I was made immortal, Gwydion created me with his magic wand. From Emrys and Euryon, from Mabon and Modron, From five fifties of magicians like Math was I made - Made by the master in his highest ecstasy - By the wisest Druids was I made before the world began, and I know the star-knowledge from the beginning of Time.........." ((Taliesin, Chief Bard of the Britons circa 600 CE as found in the Cad Goddeu and translated by Caitlin Matthews))

PREVIOUSLY
A soft rumbling starts along the ley lines in the far North, and slowlys starts working its way thru the land. Along the ley lines in the North, anyone living near one suddenly begins to get headaches, and nightmares roam their dreams.... And old blind man, living just south of the Valley Tower in Mirwall, suddenly looks up with white eyes from his supper, and grimaces... "The Forsaken........"He quickly motions his mute bond slave to bring paper and ink. He quickly writes 10 missives and instructs the slave to bind them to the hawks he keeps outside... As the hawks fly like arrows to their destinations, he whispers, "It has begun, the Goddess help us all...."

LATER
The old man sits outside his cabin on a rock near the porch, the rock covered entirely in runes and magical symbols, some as old as the First Age....
"I fear there will be none left to fight the forsaken, it has been so long", he whispers to himself. He hears wings in the sky in a fast flurry of flight, and turns his blind eyes to the noise. "Back so soon, are we? I fear that does not bode well," he mutters as the hawk gently lands on his knee, and chirps at him, waiting for him to take the message it has brought back. As the old man reads the missive, eight more hawks return and as he reads each missive in turn, his anger grows......."Dead, gone, cannot be reached" He angrily slams his fists to the rock, a melodious sound arising and the hawks scatter, only to light back by his feet, concern on their faces as they watch him. As one they enter his mind, "~but you forget, one has not come back, and that one flies swift to the one that is really the only chance we have~".....He turns his blind eyes to the ground and smiles at his beloved hawks, reaching into his tattered robe pulling out food and tossing it on the ground... "Yes, my little ones, you are right....She is the only chance we may have...."

PRESENT
His sightless eyes stare over the valley, and his bushy eyebrows wave in the gently breeze that has recently came up. The tattered cloak surrounding his bony shell of a body flaps noisily, and he swats at it distractedly. ”Shh! I am trying to listen, you confounded old thing!”

His wizened old face puckers up like a thousand-year-old prune, and his toothless mouth opens in a grin….

”Ah… the time has come… I felt that lock you old crusty Shadow Mage. Good and Evil will come from that, I can promise you…”

[edited for code fixing]

[ 02-01-2005, 03:20 PM: Message edited by: TAOWolf ]

[TAOWolf]

KAYLISA
She lifts her tear-filled eyes to Kiria’na, and is strangely soothed by the musical song of her laughter. She nods slightly at her statement of understanding and bends down to pick up her staff and pack, when Kirian’a turns suddenly back. She almost falls to her knees at the sound of the words the WindBringer named her so long ago, and the tears flow freely again down her face as she is finally told the meaning of that name.

”My thanks to you, mo’craiihan for telling me that”, she whispers as the beautiful girl dances away upon the wind, leaving her voice trailing behind with a last message…

~Sof’ya, Burning Hope, do not forget that sacrifice often is easy. Living, that is hard. Choose wisely.~ She starts at these words, remembering hearing them or saying them to someone before.

She leans against her staff for a few moments, and starts to head towards where she told Arcades to wait, when a shiver runs down her spine, and her hackles go instantly up and on guard. A low growl issues from her throat as she hears a call she hoped never to hear again. ”So, he has decided to play again, has he?” She narrows her eyes, and setting her pack back down, rummages thru it till she finds a smooth, long, narrow piece of oak that has been whittled into a flute. Lifting this to her lips, she calls her wolves…. Calls them to meet her at the nearest holy grove, just outside near the megaliths…….. As she packs the flute back away, she feverently hopes that they will swiftly arrive and not be cornered by the dires.

It occurs to her she should somehow warn Arcades, but without his dragon powers, she has no fast way of telling him. She sends a small prayer to the wind, hoping he will hear the dire’s calls and run…

Taking the arrow and carefully sliding it into an inside pocket of her cloak, she picks up her pack and staff and starts toward the megaliths, to ready herself for a fight……..

[TAOWolf]

KAYLISA (FLASHBACKS) PART ONE
And a life lived in freedom is a life that is lived with one’s face to the storm. And the greatest of lives is a life that will face the storms of the heart. “Cyril Darkcloud”

As she sets off to the megaliths, her mind wanders back because of the arrow, to a different time and a different thread, that has somehow been merged. Memories return to her that she had long forgotten, or had been erased during the last war with the Shadow Mage.
The first memory that comes to the front involves the arrow….

(from Tavern III)
At her question he holds the wood out that she might see it more closely, “It is called whisperwood,” he says softly. “It learns the touch and taste of power and presence and bears this knowing within it as a secret which it will only whisper to the wind through which it flies. It whispers the touch of power to the wind and the wind bears it to the presence that produced the touch.” His eyes narrow in concentration as he runs the knife along the surface of the wood, shaving its outter coating and shaping it into the smooth form of an arrow. Reaching into one of the pouches he withdraws three owl feathers with identical dimensions. “Those of these lands believe it is the eagle, or one of the great magical beasts that is most perfect in flight,” he says. “But they are wrong – none move so perfectly within the winds as the owl, so silent in its flight, so deadly in the surprise of its strike. For a whisper to be heard, the flight must be silent.” Slowly and with great care he notches the end of the arrow to receive the fletchings and, whispering a prayer to the Maker of the Tented Heavens, he begins to prepare the arrow for flight. He pauses then silently weighing the nature of the bolt – weapon or not. He looks long and intensely at KayLisa, his face taking on a grim cast. He returns the second pouch to his pack and from his belt pulls a small leather case that contains five arrowheads. Removing one of these, his face darkens with the same expression of remembered death it had shown earlier. Again, he notches the arrow and, pausing once more to pray, he inserts the golden arrowhead and secures it in place with silver wire. His hands shake as they hold the finished arrow and his eyes fill briefly with tears that he does not shed. Once more he prays, this time to the Stormy Daughter of the Wind, she whose anger cannot be held in check. “This arrowhead,” he says in a voice grown very cold, “will return the bitterness of the touch it receives to that one who has given it.”

A tear once again rolls down her face, that something so important could so easily be forgotten. She whispers to herself the prophecy she told the Windbringer…
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.........
"But, you......you my kind, noble wind gatherer.....you have brought out what the fates said would never be brought out again....the compassionate side.........the side of me that I thought was given up..........upon seeing your daughter's picture, how could I not, give my life to bring you back to her??". ”mo na luaidhean gaoth cruinnich, (my beloved wind gatherer, in her ancient dialect of gaelic), ....."the 'spioradail de madadh' (spirit of wolf) now belongs to you....."

Other memories flash randomly through her mind, and her pace quickens…

She now stands in the middle of a huge bowl-like crater.......the ground blasted with wizard's fire so hard, that the dirt has turned to glass. The dark sky is reflected back at her from the ground, and she looks around. The ground affected by the wizard's fire measures at least 12 kilometers across. She notices something a few meters from her, and gingerly steps across the glassed ground, arriving at what can only be the remains of a once huge gold dragon. The carcass looks to be a few weeks old. She glances around, recognizing some of the landmarks,now. Tears roll down her face as she knows finally where she is. "Home........." She falls to her knees, crying out.....................

She stumbles remembering this, but continues on….

[ 02-01-2005, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: TAOWolf ]

[TAOWolf]

KAYLISA (FLASHBACKS) PART TWO
And a life lived in freedom is a life that is lived with one’s face to the storm. And the greatest of lives is a life that will face the storms of the heart. “Cyril Darkcloud”

She raises her hands above her head. She closes her eyes, and the runes upon her body, start to glow with the colors of their power................................."I invoke the powers of protection for this man, I have given of myself, and will protect him with the spiorad de am madadh-allaidh....." They come to a clearing in the woods near a quiet stream. The wind blows gently scattering leaves hither and fro, and she leads him to an old rock, and sits upon it staring at the stream. "As for the mark on your forehead, it is the rune FEHU, the protection rune. It has been placed there by the madadh-allaidh spiorad and the God Manannan Mac Lir."

She starts at remembering this, and smiles suddenly… This could be useful later on…

She lays her hand over his, and smiles softly. "na geamhraidean madadh-allaidh", she whispers, "Chosen by madadh-allaidh spiorad and Manannan Mac Lir, spiorad treaoraich". "Wind and flame as one, flame becomes one with wind, wind carries flame along............the both stronger for the oneness then if apart and separate.........."

"...My life breathing into your life,
Your life burning into mine,
The flames of your heart,
the storms of mine,
move now together
in the wind of our breathing
and the wind that we breathe
.....You said this to me........"

"We will need the help of your precious a'comhachag at the battle my dear Cyril, yes indeed, owls and wolfs will fight side by side with men and women of human and magical nature. We must to win this battle....." "Just south of the Mirwall Valley Tower, my friend who sent the note lives. He of all will know what must be done. He is old beyond any reasoning. He has been here since before the Druids had to hide in their groves ....."

"Manawydan ap Llyr, my dear storm God, we will need your help soon......." "Sof'ya ush'a ha'shama'im, this is your name for me, dear Seh'rul. Lets hope I can live up to it.."

She heads back into the forest line, disappearing into the welcoming arms of the trees and shrubs, silently making her way to the megaliths………. END OF FLASHBACKS

[ 02-01-2005, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: TAOWolf ]

[ArcadesSabboth]

Arcades was aware of the return howl on the wind, and the sound filled him with a long forgotten fear since his last encounter with these living dead creatures. Taking the reigns of both horses, he speeds them along to where the summoning melody of Kaylisa flows.

While traveling, his memories remember the pain of the Banewolf's bite he suffered, how their powerful undead nature rivaled the dragon's natural affinity for life. If any two creatures were opposite sides of the same coin, it was his kind and theirs. Now he was regretting letting the last Banewolf escape with it's unlife.

The wolves were getting closer now, and he was still a fair distance from Kaylisa. He was glad he had the foresight to purchase a sword of Iron as one of the provisions he collected. While iron was known to be good against magic, he didnt know if it was enough to hurt the monsters hounding him.

While his attention is focused elsewhere, a single banewolf lept from the shadows of the trees, knocking his horse down and throwing him from it. The second horse, ment for Kaylisa, runs fast as the sudden actions spook it. The wolf attacks and feeds from the horse, making sure he has no quick means of escape, but Arcades has his sword at the ready, preparing to fight.

"Found me at last. I should have killed you when I had the chance."

[ 02-03-2005, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: ArcadesSabboth ]

[Legolas]

Words, raised over the clamour of battle

"There was a time the duchess Justina was considered quite comely. In those days, the roads here were far from safe to travel. There is a keep on the horizon any way you look, and every keep has its lord, with his armies. Each week a new alliance was forged, and two were broken through betrayal and deceit. There was no end to the fighting and the raiders not just here, but everywhere. Eventually, one young lad over by the sea became so succesful fewer and fewer men dared to stand against them, and ran over to the winning side. The lands were pacified when the last duke who could not save his own skin in time suffered a final defeat and was replaced.

"But that was not the end of the fighting. Seven years ago, our... my husband Parrish rode north with his neighbours. It was decided to conquer new lands while the grand alliance lasted and was strong, and relations with the people there have never been easy.

"For the first eight months, runners came visiting with news and letters telling I was missed and all else was well. After that, no more word came and I took residence in this tower. When he returned, I desired to be the first to see his banner.

"Yet he never did. My servants have tried in vain to conjure a smile, and had to struggle to make me eat. For although no one has returned to inform me, I knew in my heart the expedition had failed. I did eat, eventually. Now we can scarce step through the door. There are no clergi here, and there is no body. Yes, we are interested in methods, however untried, of bringing a lost beloved back to us. And to invent your own methods, we would hear of the one who drives you so."

[Legolas]

Inquisitor Marcos of Snowdale - 11/98

It was the most excruciating anguish he had felt in some time indeed. He was certain he would have cried out, or fallen to his knees had he been able to. Unable to react, he had seen a foul skeleton appear, ready to do more damage.

The inquisitor did not fear. Instead, he wondered if engaging the warlock had been a good idea.

Aye, he knew. It had been. The mage had proven to be more powerful than he had expected, but that was hardly a concern. Wizards were more powerless than a young peasant girl if they did not get the oppertunity to use the magic they so heavily relied on. It had been his own failing that had given his foe a greater than desired chance to react, and he did not manage to compensate sufficiently.

But to the best of his knowledge, everyone was still breathing. His mission was to delay, even though their best chance at that lay in killing the enemy. The ferocity of the wizard's attack proved to him Andrion was not entirely confident, and dreaded the inquisitor to lash out at him so.

It is quite surprising how much thinking a man can do when he is unable to move, or even twitch in response to the bite of pain. Marcos went over and improved on his plans.