User:Reene/Visions
Event Prediction
A flickering in the corner of your eye causes you to turn towards the platinum gilded arch that wasn't there before. A well-dressed man bursts through, his face a visage of anger. He throws a stack of papers to the ground and raises his fist at the darkened arch before stomping from view. A cold wind swirls from behind you causing the entrance to dissipate into a fine dust that floats through the air before disappearing.
You find yourself lying on a marble slab. Though no chains bind your body, you find yourself completely unable to move. A large metal slab takes up most of the circular room, surrounded by sigils carved into the dark marble floor of what you realize is a tower. Marble obelisks rise at the four cardinal points, each one crackling with energy used for some unholy purpose.
Chanting surrounds you from robed figures at the edge of your sight, though your eyes focus on a glowing orb hovering above you. Green-tinged tendrils of dark crimson snake their way hungrily toward you, and though you try to scream, no sound comes out. The magic rushes through your eyes, blinding you and wracking your mind, your body and your soul. Just as you feel you can stand it no longer, the vision suddenly ceases, as if severed by a sharp knife.
A person's dark silhouette darts across the horizon of your vision at a hurried pace. As if yanking your reality away like a curtain ending a play, the colorful scenery in front of you seems to follow the shadow as it runs, leaving only a black stage in its wake. The humanoid form, its outline now highlighted by a faint golden aura, sprints back into view. Everywhere the feet touch, the space underneath bleeds into existence. Squared shapes of various heights and breadths bounce into life, flashing brightly with each jogging footstep. As the figure reaches the end of its course, it slips into the blackness, disappearing without a trace. You steady yourself and analyze the newly formed picture -- the jagged skyline of Muspar'i. A giant, shining orb reminiscent of the desert sun rises behind the rooftops and blinds you with whiteness before returning your vision to normal.
Reality in front of you begins to crumble, trickling downward and melting out of view in a thousand miniscule particles, leaving nothing but a background of blackness. A tremendous gust shoots the granules back into view again, the mix of sparkling colors blasting the dark away in tornado-like swirls. Two tailed figures, decidedly S'Kra Mur, struggle forward into the image from the corner of your vision, fighting against the sandstorm at an angle. The scene zooms in to capture the pair of faces for a brief second, displaying a glimpse of their resolute determination to complete their journey. Unexpectedly, the torrent increases in intensity to blot out the panorama and restore your vision to normal.
You see a weary Human priestess leaning on a rickety shovel, smiling at something behind you despite her sorry appearance. Her once-regal caftan is smeared with dirt, her hands are scuffed, and locks of greying hair have escaped her elaborate, gold-clasped braid. After a while, she blinks slowly and turns her unbroken smile to you. You suddenly realize you are holding an orb in your hand, its glass emitting a wavering glow.
Your sight goes black, and for a moment, there is nothing to be seen at all, in any direction. Slowly your eyes adjust to the darkness, and you find yourself gazing at the inside of an ancient crypt, its walls lined with skeletal knights gripping tarnished swords to their chests as they lay motionless. A panic grips you and with a primal terror you flee, seeking the light of the surface.
After what seems to be an eternity, you emerge blinking from the passage to a hanging corpse, long dead but still seeming aware somehow. It slowly turns on its rope to stare at you with lifeless eyes, and the vision suddenly goes black.
Your mind's eye takes you to a view of a prosperous city, a grand temple rising at the horizon. The sun shines upon its surface, which glistens in its glory. Suddenly, in the streets below it, a mob moves through it like waves. Clerics and commoners clash with mages and others, until a fierce battle has broken out. Unseen by all is a massive wave of undead, descending upon the city. As the vision begins to fade, you can see a lone woman with a slight smile gracing her thin lips, her severe features turned to watch. Though her eyes are quite dead, her expression betrays one emotion -- arrogant triumph.
At the end of a lightless hallway, an almost skeletal figure robed in black stands before an open arched door. The darkness beyond it is even denser, like a pool of pitch. With a sigh, the figure pulls the door shut, seals it with a bicolor symbol you can't make out, then stalks off.
Your foresight paints the world with the color of a tropical blue sea, alit with glorious sunlight refracting from the surface. A small white jellyfish sways gracefully in the waters, perhaps a mysterious dance to the songs of Eluned. Your vision changes angle, and you see that the cute jellyfish is gliding closely over the deck of a shipwreck. It approaches a humanoid body, bloated by now, and swiftly disappears into its mouth with a watery slurp. As the corpse begins to squirm, the sea scene flakes all around you.
The feeling of drowning takes you, a choking lack of air combined with a slowness of movement, slowly suffocating you. Suddenly, the water seems to rush away like a torrent, leaving you breathless but alive. As you emerge, you get the feeling that something is terribly, horribly wrong, but you cannot remember what it was. A slightest brush against your shoulder, the tiniest sensation of fingers against your neck, and you are jolted out of the vision, as if having grasped just the very edge of something never meant to be seen.
A gnat-like buzzing sounds at your ear and draws your attention. With a sudden snap, your vision flashes and shifts to another location. A great chamber opens up in your mind's eye -- at the front is tiered seating with a podium standing before them. A Gnome stands at the podium while several well-dressed figures listen to him speak. "...quite the accomplishment! With the slightest imbuing of magic to the chains that bind them, the stones break free and hover in a fixed rotation as if they were still bound! With time, I..." As suddenly as it came, the vision fades.
A gnat-like buzzing sounds at your ear and draws your attention. With a sudden snap, your vision flashes and shifts to another location. A Gnome tinkerer sits at a table within a stone-walled room. Excitedly, he calls out, "At last! I've done it! This will make Vanassa herself jealous! I told the fools it could be done!" He squeals with a final peel of laughter while casually tossing what appears to be a bracelet of dark sapphires. As suddenly as it came, the vision fades.
A high-pitched buzz like that of a pesky gnat sounds near your ear and ever so slowly rotates around your head. Try as you might to ignore it, its insistence draws your attention. With a sudden snap, your vision flashes and shifts to another location. You find your mind's eye within a confined space -- four walls very close together, all made of stone showing signs of water damage. A table rests beneath you, and a Gnome stands atop a stool as he works intently over an array of tools, sparkling gems and rods of various lengths and materials. As suddenly as it came, the vision fades.
The sounds of the world grow muted and distant. A sweetly jubilant melody emerges from the back of your mind in their stead. Humming along and reminiscing of the past, you wash the bloody debris off your hands.
A shadowy, misshapen giant towers in front of you and trumpets out, "It's time to pay, gnat. A hundred deaths for every slight!" Your vision snaps back to normality as a coarse mixture of laughter and growling reverberates against your skull.
Your vision remains unchanged, but the sounds around you are abruptly replaced by a dozen maddened wails! Among their din, you make out a single weeping voice softly pleading to Albreda over and over.
All the light dims out of your sight, enfolding you in the Dark Cloak of Woven Night - but the stars do not come. After a while, a gleaming white pinpoint in the distance resolves into several lances of jagged bone that hurtle toward you! As you hear the sound of tearing flesh at the first impact, you are thrown back to the mundane world.
Out of a sudden darkness that descends upon you, plump raspberries of cloying pink bounce into view! After a while, the scene shifts to that of a child's opulent room, and the raspberries to large splotches of fresh blood on the floor, walls and even ceiling.
You lower your head to your arthritic hands, furiously trying to craft something of wonder. No! The material is insufficient. You raise your voice imperiously and demand more. Only, there is no one else in the room...
You find yourself sitting -- or standing; you can't tell for some reason -- in a field of ivory. Tinny, monotonous voices whisper conspiratorially from all around. As though perpetually busy with something else, you nod absentmindedly and reply in a voice not your own, "Ready, yes, ready."
Twirling bones of myriad sizes begin a peculiar dance around you, filling the air with their rollicking clatter and distracting you from the world. When you reach out to touch one, all of them burst in small explosions of silvery dust.
A searing jolt of pain stabs through your chest and your vision flashes with an angry white glare. A knock sounds at the door. Setting aside the feathered duster and cleaning rags, you make your way towards the entry parlor, your footsteps echoing loudly upon the marble floor.
A searing jolt of pain stabs through your chest and your vision flashes with an angry white glare. Mechanisms click as knobs are turned and bolts are shifted to unlock the door. Your gloved hand turns the handle and opens it to see who would be making a call at such a late hour. A sap-heavy log crackles in the fireplace in another room.
A searing jolt of pain stabs through your chest and your vision flashes with an angry white glare. "The Master has retired. What business do you have with him at this hour?" you hear yourself asking.
Metal flashes in the reflected candlelight, but that's all you can process before the object plunges into your chest and agony explodes from the wound.
A searing jolt of pain stabs through your chest and your vision flashes with an angry white glare. Collapsing to the floor, gasping for your final breath, thoughts fly through your mind before the world goes black. "What have I done to deserve this? Will the Master be next? The rags are still on the table, he'll be furious. The floor is cold. I'm so very...cold. The candle is too close to the curtain...pull it back."
A searing jolt of pain stabs through your chest and your vision flashes with an angry white glare. Blinding flashes of lightning burst from the heavens in angry bolts that reach ominously towards the ground. The roar of rain spattering off of closed stalls and other structures drowns out most of the earth-shaking thunder. The wind shrieks through holes in the wooden homes as it tosses rain-soaked debris carelessly from place to place.
A searing jolt of pain stabs through your chest and your vision flashes with an angry white glare. The storm shows no sign of letting up any time soon, and in fact continues to get worse with each passing moment. Pulling your cloak tightly closed and clutching your possessions, you step out from under the awning to make your way home.
No more than three steps out, the world explodes in a white-hot flash.
A searing jolt of pain stabs through your chest and your vision flashes with an angry white glare. You stumble to the ground, gasping as you reach to the aching pain above your neck. Your fingers are covered in blood that quickly washes away in the storm that continues to rage. Turning, a perfectly rounded, polished stone sits in the street. Strands of your hair are matted to it, only adding to your confusion from the vision.
Your inner sight focuses on the image of two Elves. Both Elves are ancient beyond description and wear silk robes dyed crimson, charcoal and azure. Only with great effort can you distinguish between the two of them; noting the subtle differences on how they hold their jaw, the different patterns of age lines that run like canyons across their faces. The figures begin to swirl around you, floating in the air as though by telekinesis. Their circular flight gains more speed, until you are unable to keep track of which is which.
Suddenly, a terrible pain rips through your back, bringing you to your knees! The two Elves slow their cycle and stop again in front of you. One holds in his right hand a jagged, bloody knife, while the other looks down on you in sadness, empty-handed. In the haze of pain and as the vision deconstructs around you, you are unable to tell which Elf it was that held the knife.
As your vision clears you see an Elf lecturing a group of students, gesticulating wildly at a variety of star charts and divination tools. A cracked and bloodied sandstone bowl lies next to an unconscious and bleeding student. A fierce growl comes from the east, followed by the sound of breaking glass and a muffled cry.
Your vision darkens, barely revealing a small room dominated by an ornate deobar writing desk. Thick curtains are drawn across the only window, leaving a lamp perched on one corner of the desk to throw fitful light on the scene. A slender man sits at the desk while an unnaturally bulging form stands at the doorway, both little more than silhouettes in the gloom.
The man in the doorway tosses something onto the desk, where it lands with a metallic thud. He croaks out in a guttural voice, "What now?"
Your point of view shifts to look down upon the object, revealing a leather-bound tome. The blade of a belt knife sticks out from underneath, pinned to the desk by the book's weight. The slender man gently traces a slender finger across a sigil of sharp angles that marks its cover. "Now," the word escapes in a raspy exhalation. He pauses for another moment and when he speaks again, his voice is strong and grim, "Now we await the triumphant."
Violent winds howl in your ears, not quite obscuring a multitude of distant moans and screams. Your vision slowly comes into focus, revealing three figures facing each other, weapons drawn, amidst a swirling crimson dust storm. To your left is a young Human man, wielding a curved silver dagger and covered by a dark overcoat. To your right is an Adan'f, holding a mattock and wearing a crude hauberk. Directly across from you is an elderly Halfling woman, in a blood-stained white robe and tensely gripping an oaken cudgel.
A blast of ruddy sand momentarily obscures your vision, but not the clash of weapons. Within a second the figures have turned on each other with murderous intent. Their three-way melee continues unabated as the storm rises around them, consuming everything with its stinging grit.
From amid the infinite vistas of the Plane of Probability, you dredge up a simple pastoral scene. A cottage sits at the center of a narrow valley, surrounded on all sides by a sprawling vegetable farm. A small brook winds its way along one side of the valley, receding into a sparse forest at the edge of the farm.
Small figures gather opposite of each other on the lips of the valley, each indistinct against the strangely crimson hue of the sun. Soon two opposing armies have gathered and bolts of magic, both sacred and profane, fly between them. The cottage door opens from the inside and out steps a short Human male, elderly but stepping vigorously amongst his vegetables. The old man pays the war waged above him no mind at all. Slinging a hoe across his shoulder, he sets his eyes to care for the harvest.
As your vision clears you see a child's doll dressed in a hooded scarlet robe. The doll lies face down in the mud. You lift the doll carefully, cleaning mud from the back of the robe. You turn over the doll and discover a skeletal face staring back. The face seems to smile at you as the doll fades away in your hand, and your vision returns to normal.
The hum of energy fills the air around you. Curious, you turn in an attempt to pinpoint its source. A phantasmal apparition appears in the air before you: massive towers rising high into the air surrounding a central domed structure. The image draws in upon the dome as if you were moving closer to it, bringing its details into clarity. You pass through walls, ascend stairs and traverse great corridors before at last arriving before a massive cambrinth orb. An unknown soft voice whispers, "Its powers shall soon be tested. Smile upon us in the troubled times ahead, Truffenyi." A breeze scatters the wispy image, leaving nothing in its wake.
Howling winds blow past you, churning up an endless cloud of stinging, red sand. Partially obscured in the sand storm, you see wave upon wave of undead monstrosities throw themselves at a phalanx of brightly armored men. Far removed from the carnage, two Humans look down from a rise. One is barely in his twenties and hidden by a long coat one size too large. The young Human clutches a curved, silver knife at his side so tightly that his knuckles have gone white. The other Human is short and elderly, wearing homespun clothes, carrying a farmer's hoe casually slung across his shoulder.
The younger man says, "It doesn't matter who wins."
The Old Man says, "Immediately? No, I suppose not. But the world will be better off one way more than the other."
"We're going to die! The Great Work is going to end with us."
The Old Man chuckles and says, not unkindly, "Heads, you lose; tails, you lose. Wasn't that the point all along?"
You see a gigantic granite cliff towering in the pre-dawn gloom. The cliff is nearly sheer, interrupted only by deep gouges and blade-like protrusions. Darkness obscures the base of the cliff, while the first rays of morning shine above its crown. A young Human slowly climbs the face of the cliff, using nothing other than a curved silver knife as an impromptu pick.
The young Human pauses for breath within the base of a narrow gouge. He assesses the rest of his climb, only to lock eyes with an elderly Human who now looks down at him from over the ledge. The young Human cups his hands over his mouth and calls out, "Could you help me?"
The Old Man says, "Sure." He rubs his mouth, then points at the knife, "You know what they say about a man that only owns a hammer?"
A string of Gamgweth profanity echoes back in reply. The Old Man shrugs and walks away.
Your vision focuses on a lanky Human male, leaning with both hands upon a balcony rail and staring up at Xibar.
A shadow detaches itself from the gloom behind him, revealing a feminine Elf.
The woman says, "He is an idiot, unworthy to wield Kigot's knife and you are of an even worse order for following him."
The man says, "And hello to you too."
"What was he thinking? The signs were not that obscure!"
"The hound thinks he's figured it all out. Though I wonder."
"What?"
"Did you know that the Bards can see things? Glimpses of different Philosophers over the century. The Moon Mages have visions about a young Necromancer with a knife and a wise old man."
"I..."
"Feeling a little exposed?"
"He is not the triumphant!"
"Someone will be and not either of us. The games are over, dear. Draw your knife or throw it down."
A crimson design etches across the air in front of you. Its origins are foreign, but a powerful desire accompanies it: it means everything you want, every possibility realized.
"You're forgetting something."
You stand in front of an iron table, scalpel in hand. Lying on the table is a half-naked Elf, unbound yet seemingly paralyzed. She stares up at you with wide, tear-brimmed eyes, while her breaths are accompanied with gasping, plaintive whines. Standing opposite of you is an elderly Human man in homespun clothes.
The Old Man says, "Glory. Immortality. Transcendence. Every promise that has been made is true. It's all hidden inside there," he looks down at the captive Elf, "Waiting for you to dig it out."
He returns a flat, expressionless gaze to you, "The moral dilemma isn't that necromancy demands a terrible price, but that you aren't the one that pays it. Are you worth her life?"
You see a man of ashen grey complexion standing on a featureless plane. He is hairless and nude, his skin profoundly bruised and burnt. A black aura surrounds him, all sharp lines and jagged edges, except for his head: as it inches upward, the darkness gives way to a crown of braided sunlight.
Above and surrounding the figure is a semi-circle of creatures, vaguely Human shaped but made out of fire and sunlight. Some bob up and down to the beat of incandescent wings, others are merely suspended in defiance to gravity. Manacles bind their limbs and trail earthen brown tethers that connect to the plane below them, leaving them perhaps a few more feet of slack.
One of the fire creatures attempts to raise a blinding sword, but does not have enough slack to bring it above its head. The grey man smirks, but closes his eyes and lowers his head. He walks the distance between him and the creatures, then sits down amongst the tethers.
A massive shadow speeds across overhead, drawing your attention upward. Great sheets of metal cover a massive, winged beast as it effortlessly glides through the air. It turns its great head in your direction, opens its mouth and releases a tremendous roar that makes the very ground you stand upon quake. In the span of a blink, the creature is gone, leaving you to wonder if it ever existed at all.
You feel a tug at your leg. Gazing down, a small boy looks up to you with pleading eyes. "My parents. I can't find my parents," he cries. Dirt mars his face and signs of lingering hunger are clear. You turn for only a moment to retrieve a few coins to purchase some bread and water for him, but when you return your attention to where he was, he's gone.
The world melts around you, and you find yourself with a platoon of Elven warriors surrounded on all sides by an undead force. Despite their overwhelming numbers, it quickly becomes apparent that the monsters are the disadvantaged side. Silver fire rains down in bolts that fly through the wooded field and the chaos of bodies locked in battle, unerringly blasting into the Elves' foes.
In the middle of it all stands a nondescript robed man. His eyes laughing with zeal, the Elf chants triumphant prayers to the gods of war as each sweep of his flashing sword severs a rotten head. His eyes... The vision suddenly zooms close to his face, revealing mismatched gold and indigo eyes with one pupil warped into a mongoose and the other into a vulture. With a blink, the animalian pupils revert back to normal, and so does your sight.
The broken puppet of an Elven girl dances on a tangle of strings. Looming above the doll is the visage of a hideous beast, pulling at the strings that control the figure and making it dance to and fro. A bright red light looms at the heart of the figurine as if from a tainted gem, seeming to corrupt the very air around it. Wraiths and skeletons join in with the macabre dance, the vision becoming nearly maddening before stopping.
A pair of dead, unblinking eyes stares hungrily at you, boring their way straight into your very being. The scream of something malevolent echoes around you, and a withered grey hand reaches toward you to tear at your soul. Overhead, the sky is slowly blanketed with soot-like clouds, and you look up to see the darkness spreading all around you. As the vision leaves you, a bit of a headache and an odd sense of detachment lingers for a brief moment.
A bell tolls in the distance, drawing your attention. Curiously, you're aware of no such bells in that direction. Carried by the speed of your dream-like state, a tower soon rises up upon the horizon. Armored guards stand in formations, defensively surrounding the structure. A voice calls down from above, "We will hold this ground, or we will die trying! If your fallen comrades rise up beside you, do not hesitate to slay them for the good of us all!" The vision fades, leaving only a lingering echo of the ringing bell.
You find yourself staring down the edge of a precipice, which fades into blackness far before the bottom is visible. A cold wind carrying wisps of red-tinged necromantic taint caresses your back, as if encouraging you to jump. Somewhere distant, your sanity screams at you to run, but you abandon all caution and fling yourself over the edge. Clawed hands reach out of the darkness to eagerly grab you, and you awaken just as they drag you down into the abyss.
A crimson and chartreuse blob hangs suspended in the air, seemingly composed of coagulated blood and pus woven into one vile mass. Suddenly, a wave of shimmering water surges from below. The goo throbs violently and lashes out with stringy pseudopods, but eventually diffuses in the water, rendered inert.
A cold sense of apathy takes hold as you find yourself walking with heavy steps through darkened halls and finally into a dusty chamber. You latch the door and turn to a S'Kra Mur convulsing in a pool of blood, parts of her black scales burnt and bleeding from a large spiral branded onto her body. Orange eyes filled with a mixture of agony and defiance fix on you, and she hisses through chattering fangs, "Thisss insssolencsse will..." A wet slash abruptly silences the woman before her head rolls toward the base of an ornate pedestal.
Out of nowhere, a skeletal claw rakes across your field of vision, nearly taking your nose with it! Reeling away from the strike and turning to face your assailant, you find a middle-age Human with ash-blond hair glowering darkly at you. An army of animated corpses in various states of decay ambles around and behind the figure. Her cold voice sneers, "You cannot fathom the powers blocking your path, mortal." A blinding flash of light explodes from her being, forcing you to avert your gaze. Looking back when the light dims, all traces of the figure and army are gone.
As your vision clears you focus on a small man hiding in a tree. You note his merry blue eyes and thick beard. He smiles as he watches children making a small pile of odd items. You see what looks like a small piece of lead, some bits of hard candy, and even a small jar of thick cream.
As the children depart, the man notices you, his smile turning into a deep frown. A fierce look crosses his face, and his visage changes into that of a gremlin.
As your vision clears you see a small light drifting peacefully across the heavens, gradually growing brighter as it moves. In a sudden moment of terror you realize that it is not getting brighter; it is getting closer.
Global
You see Lyras, lying sprawled against a shiny black plane. The lower portion of her body is completely obscured by darkness, which seems to steadily grow, intent on covering her form.
In front of Lyras stands a strange figure: a naked, ashen thing. Nominally naked, but the body has been too burnt and scarred for any gender to be obvious. It is surrounded by an aura of razor-edged darkness, black enough to stand against the scene's gloom, yet near its head it gives way to a crown of sunlight. Between the two forms, a knife sticks blade-first into the reflective ground. The knife's blade is a hole in the universe, yet it is limed with burning light.
Lyras reaches desperately for the knife with broken, puffy fingers, but it remains a few inches out of reach. The ashen thing shakes its head and walks away.
Lyras's form fades away, and there is nothing left.
- DATE SEEN: 3/14/2010
- SUBJECTS: Lyras
Your sight is robbed from you, plunging you into darkness. There is nothing around you, not even the weight and texture of shadows, yet nonetheless a sense of claustrophobia pries its way into your head.
You move forward without gravity, though you encounter a fluid-like resistance to your movements. Far ahead of you, in the dark, there is a heartbeat. A strange heartbeat, shallow and irregular; more like the drum of a badly played song than anything living.
The inhuman heart grows louder as time passes, until you find a woman floating in the void. She lies in a fetal position, clutching the folds of her purple robes. Her hair flows outward and behind her, as though buoyed up in water. As she comes ever closer, you can clearly see her face: middle-aged, yet with a profound softness as she sleeps.
Then something breaks; a cracking sound and a blow struck against your back. Lyras's eyes snap open.
- DATE SEEN: 3/10/2010
- SUBJECTS: Lyras
Your vision blurs as hazy swirls of miasmatic fog overlay all you see, accompanied by distinct sensations of pain erupting from many areas of your body. As the vision deepens, the pain recedes and your vision is replaced by a bleak laboratory, scalpels and other cutting instruments arrayed neatly beside beakers of burbling liquids that pierce the colorless landscape with their vibrant hues. Though the feeling of pain lingers in the furthest regions of your brain, the look of the place exudes a strange comfort that your conscious mind immediately attempts to reject as false.
The deathly quiet is pierced by footsteps. A stout Human man with thinning white hair steps into view, peering around the laboratory intently. "Ah," he says finally, "There you are. Are you finished in here yet? There's a lot of work to do, and soon. She's not going to wait much longer." He looks expectantly towards a part of the cold, grey room that you cannot see.
Another Human emerges from the miasmatic haze at the edge of your vision. The expression on the newcomer's face is undeniably jovial, and his green eyes have a hint of mischievous sparkle, "I was just putting on the finishing touches, Mr. Book. Sorry to make you wait." The green-eyed man tosses a bit of something, red and gold in color, over his shoulder, discarding it as he follows the white-haired man out.
- DATE SEEN: 1/16/2010
- SUBJECTS: Necromancers, Zamidren, Xerasyth
You feel a jarring rush as your mind separates itself from the sensations of your body. You find yourself in a dust-shrouded chamber, containing obsidian pylons with deeply grooved spirals carved into their sides. A luminous red miasma hangs in the hair, partially obscuring three figures: a middle-aged Gor'Tog, a S'kra Mur of indeterminate age, and an elderly Human.
The Old Man walks around the dungeon, though its Gor'tog keeper seems oblivious to his presence. He pokes a finger into one of the pylon's grooves, tracing it, "You know," he calls to the S'kra Mur, behind his shoulder, "it's funny, if you just turned this symbol upside down..." he trails off, musing.
The Old Man turns around, regarding the other two figures. The Gor'tog continues to not register any presence, though the S'kra Mur's eyes track him. "There's two ways we can do this. First, I don't suppose you'd like to take the opportunity to beseech the Immortals for mercy and accept their luminious glory into your soul?"
The S'kra Mur spits on the ground.
The Old Man shrugs. He steps toward the metal shard and critically examines it. After a long moment, a thin smile escapes his lips, "The most dire truth of them all, stuff you won't find on any book in Zamidren's shelves, is that we live in a world where our actions have consequences. Something to think about."
With that, the vision fades away.
Glare spots appear in your eyes, accompanying the sense that something is in motion in the heavens.
Another flash of light partially blinds you, leaving your sight changed in its wake. A translucent obelisk stands before you, easily over a hundred feet tall. Four huge jewels adorn its square, tapered crown: a ruby, a sapphire, a topaz and a pearl. Light seems to twist and churn rapidly beneath its surface, triggering within the vision a profound sense of malice. Then the screaming starts.
Bolts of surreal, silver fire shoot upward from the obelisk's four gems and arc back down, falling from the heavens like rain. Each bolt explodes upon contact, carving blasted holes in the otherwise smooth, grey plain; smooth, grey and occupied. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of figures are running for their lives, appearing as little more than indistinct silhouettes against the bright bombardment.
The only figure you can focus on amidst the bright explosions and flying debris is a Human man with pale skin, red hair and a slender frame. Seemingly unhindered by the chaos at his feet, he bares his teeth in rage and walks toward the monstrous obelisk. Your vision is engulfed in white when an explosion cuts into the ground between your point of view and the Human, severing the vision.
- DATE SEEN:
- SUBJECT: Tangled Fate release, Pelag ai Aldam
You see a small farm, nestled in a shallow valley between hills to the north and south. Orderly rows of vegetable sprouts occupy the center, accompanied by a small, clear stream to the side. The silhouette of an elderly Human can be seen against the light of dawn, steadily channeling a row in the soil with the hoe. A S'Kra Mur approches the farm, his dull black eyes immediately drawing your attention. The tall man approaches the vegetable rows with a sort of reverence, taking care not to step upon any of the plants, or the soil.
The Old Man looks up from his work and says, "Didn't think I'd see you here."
Xerasyth, squinting against the glare of the sun, replies dryly, "Can't I be interested in a little horticulture?"
"Not much to it, I'm afraid. Seeds go in, water comes down, weeds pop up."
>
Xerasyth asks, "That's all? You expect me to believe you do nothing to help them along?"
The Old Man replies in a conversational tone, "No cows. Don't get much fertilizer around here."
Xerasyth says acidly, "So cheat. Simply will the carrots to grow faster."
The Old Man shrugs and says, "What'd be the point? If they grew faster, I'd just be planting them again sooner."
Xerasyth's voice grows insistent, "Alter the plans, too."
The Old Man shakes his head. "They'd waste the soil too quickly."
"Change the soil."
"This sounds like an awful lot of work for carrots."
Xerasyth's voice loses its theatric insistence, instead taking on a faintly sarcastic quality, "Really, must we belabor this metaphor further?"
The Old Man's tone remains uncompromisingly irreverent, "Suppose we could change the fundamental nature of the carrot. Make it grow faster and healthier, perhaps even preserve it indefinitely, I suppose. But what would a carrot do with eternity?"
He quirks his eyebrows at Xerasyth and continues, "And why do I care, when I still plan to eat them?"
>
Xerasyth smirks and asks wryly, "So everything that's happened is in accordance with your plans, then?"
The Old Man says, "I have simple desires and you do not have the ability to deny them to me."
Both men stare at each other in silence for a few seconds, before Xerasyth says in a blunt tone, "Lyras attacked me."
The Old Man says, "Did she? Didn't realize, though it's not surprising."
"While it's amusing to watch them all squirm, soon we'll be running out of live people."
"It seems like you're building to a point."
Xerasyth asks, "What do you intend to do about her?"
The Old Man turns away from Xerasyth without a spoken word and returns to his work on the plot of earth.
Xerasyth dryly says, "This is infuriating. You're supposed to be a guide."
The Old Man replies without looking up, "When you get older you'll find that a part of healthy living is figuring out what is and is not your problem."
>
Xerasyth shoots back, "Ah, so for all your usual melodrama, suffering is not on the agenda. Compassion? Basic empathy? Do any of these rank above carrots?"
The Old Man asks, "Do they suffer?"
Xerasyth replies dryly, "All life suffers."
The Old Man says, "Indeed." He turns back around to Xerasyth, looking him in the eye. "I wonder how much different the world would be if all the Necromancers running around took all that energy and instead spent it trying to understand why it is the way it is."
"I'd be dead and rather incapable of pondering the subject."
"Also true, but every mortal dies."
Xerasyth says, "Yes, that's what they like to claim."
The Old Man says, "It's scary, yet consider: if the gods will that I die, and I disagree with this, which of us is in a better position to make an informed decision?"
Xerasyth's eyes gaze at the old man with the dull stare of irritated familiarity. "We both know that's nonsense. The divine aren't infallible, they just got here first and so they get to play at being gods. Their malice and caprice are fully equal to ours."
>
The Old Man nods, "Of course. It is a common mistake to assume that the Immortals are infinite or even in full control over their own destiny. Divinity is the fount of creation and shares the same problems with every other kind of spigot."
He continues, "But... consider if there was suffering in the universe before there were gods. It'd provide little wonder that the infinite could give birth to the finitude. Has humanity ascribed to malice and caprice the built-in limit to the suffering they can endure?"
After a pause, he finishes, "It's pitiful, not being able to die."
Xerasyth sighs, "Why on earth should we feel pity for the Immortals, or even care what 'suffering' they may endure? All that matters is that we ourselves can master hunger, eliminate disease, kill death itself. Nature's evolution ends with us."
>
The Old Man says, "It's not very likely, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." He slings his hoe over his shoulder and begins to walk away.
Xerasyth stands with a considering expression on his face, watching the receding form. Before it vanishes, he says, "I see you are determined to sit this one out."
The Old Man says, "If the subtext of all this necromancy business is that you know better than everyone else how to order creation, then all I can do is get in the way. Go back and face obliteration yourself; prove you deserve something greater than what you were given. Build a cathedral from your sins, but don't be surprised if it turns out to be another lonely, pointless abattoir."
As the Old Man vanishes from sight, the expression on Xerasyth's face slowly shifts from irritation to contemplation.
A flurry of disparate images fight in the back of your mind for expression. You catch quick glimpses of a snowy night, a robed Elf, a dank pit... but it's too jumbled up and unrealized to fully grasp. A headache slowly but steadily builds in force as the prophetic message gathers intensity, heralding that it will, in fact, be one of those nights.
A cloud of pungent incense blows into your face, revealing the sanctuary of a small temple. Twin rows of torches trace the entire length of the room's stone walls, while braziers near the center billow with sacred smoke. Images of Rutilor dominate the walls, all larger than life and brooding in the flickering light. Men and women crowd into the sanctuary, some in priestly robes yet most in mis-matched suits of armor. A middle-aged Elf in a formal, floor-length robe stands raised on a dais, next to the altar.
The Elf cries out, "Brothers, hear me! A darkness sweeps over the land, which the laymen do rise up against for the glory of the most holy names. Yet there is another darkness, that slips from mind to mind; lip to ear, which infects all souls with its passage."
You see a figure concealed within the folds of a hooded, coarse brown robe. He leans inward, toward a stone wall, his hand hovering contemplatively just below a small symbol painted in fresh blood. Two diagonal lines meet at the bottom of a circle that, for its morbid paint, was drawn with remarkable precision.
The robed figure nods to itself and makes a gesture toward his back. It sneaks away and, mere seconds later, the shadows of other men can be seen against the wall, following the same way.
Your mind is once again drawn to the crowded temple and the Elven priest's sermon, "We have labored long and sacrificed much to preserve the innocence of the world. There will be yet more holy blood shed before our task is complete. Yet take heart, for by the glory of the Immortals and their illuminating light, an end can be seen! Though the world is darkened, we have the opportunity to finally end Kigot's hundred-year farce."
You feel a moist chill that seems to come from your bones and radiate outward. A Human, bundled against the cold, trudges his way up an incline, snow crunching beneath his boots. An elderly man stands at the top of the incline, amidst undisturbed snow, watching his progress.
With slow, clockwork steps the Human reaches the top, only to be met with darkness. The ground gives way in front of him into a nearly vertical drop. The only thing the snowy night reveals of the landscape beyond the fall is the tops of a few giant conifers.
The younger man throws back his hood, while both men gaze pensively down the cliff. A roisan seems to pass before the Old Man breaks the silence. "You're worried."
Zamidren closes his eyes. He says, "I don't have the luxury of hesitating."
Despite the protestation, both men return to silent contemplation. Zamidren is the first to speak up again, saying, "We find out tonight if the philosophy is worthy of survival." The Old Man, disturbed out of reverie, says, "Hrm? Oh, that. I was just thinking." "What?" "Don't think you'd survive the fall. Can't say you'd make the climb without breaking your neck. Won't even bet if you'd live through the wilderness that lies down there. The cliff, though? It faces east."
The words of the Elven priest echo in your mind, "We have the opportunity, the obligation, and the right! Too long has this cancer been left to fester in its pits and tempt the weak. Too long has the Alchemy of Flesh been allowed to taint the order which the gods did ordain!"
You see... nothing at all, though you smell stale, diseased air and acquire an inexplicable claustrophobic dread in the back of your mind. As time passes, your ears and eyes strain for stimuli with some measure of success: a faint movement of the air, bereft of any other sound, resolves into shallow breathing.
The stink and the threatening darkness hold your senses for a small eternity, before something shifts... above you? Before you can contemplate the spatial possibilities, there is a far too loud screech and a blinding explosion of light!
When your senses recover, you see a Dwarf in filthy rags, shackled hand, foot and neck in heavy chains at the bottom of a stone oubliette. A lanky Human man stands at the top of the oubliette, holding a torch above his head. The ragged Dwarf yells out, "Go away! Save the gibbet for someone whose neck can still snap!"
The Human responds, his voice a study in even politeness, "I'm sorry, sir, I had to rescue you without writing ahead. Have I interrupted something? I can always come back later."
"Wait! That voice... that voice... Markat!"
"Yes, sir."
"You little bastard! I should have made something out of your scrawny, broken corpse when I had the chance!"
"But, sir," Markat affects an injured tone, "If you had done that, I would not be here now and we could not have such a nice conversation."
The Dwarf growls out, "What do you want, Markat?"
Markat says, "I have been asked to present an invitation to you. One of the Philosophers has emerged triumphant and would be humbled if a Dwarf of your luminous reputation would agree to provide your wisdom in the dark days ahead."
"Hah. Who is it, boy?"
"Zamidren Book."
"Go forth, my brothers! Let any tome which holds the Alchemy of Flesh be destroyed! Let any tongue that speaks its blasphemy be torn out! If a building may harbor one of these nihilist philosophers, then shall it be burnt as an offering to the most high! By sword, by axe and by spell this black folly will end!"
You see Zamidren Book striding down a narrow, stone passage with grim purpose. He follows a track of dark red carpeting laid down the center of a polished marble floor, though for all the expense the walls around him manage to look closed in, bare and sterile.
Turning a corner, Zamidren faces a set of wide iron doors attended by Markat. The younger man nods in recognition and swings the doors open with dramatic force. He then faces into the room, bowing low and extending his arms wide. His lowered head does little to disguise the wide, sardonic grin across his face.
Inside, dozens of cloaked men stand in a rough semi-circle, interrupted by a man-sized obelisk that occupies the center of the room. Zamidren strides into a center position and stops. Seconds pass as Zamidren and the crowd stare at each other with restrained hostility.
Zamidren speaks, his voice loud and oratorical, "We are victims of unintended consequence. Lyras and her childish demons have brought the Temple to a head. We are being picked off one by one for the audacity of knowing of the Alchemy of Flesh. It is not so far fetched to assume that this room holds the majority of us that are still left alive. If we continue to do nothing, the philosophy dies with us! But there is another way."
- DATE SEEN:
- SUBJECTS: Necromancers, Zamidren, Markat
Your vision becomes cloudy as swirls of smoke spin in a maelstrom before you. As you follow the hyponotic pattern in it's cyclical journey, you become more and more relaxed and at ease. Slowly, a burlap face with wobbling googley eyes and a sharp-toothed, wide-mouthed grin emerges from the center of the whirling fog. The dolls sculpted lips begin to crack and bleed some vile black substance as its eyes slowly spin in opposite directions.
Suddenly, the doll shrieks with a voice that you don't hear, but actually feel: a sound like ten thousand nails on a thousand chalkboards coursing through your very bones. The doll's mouth snaps open wide and it lunges for your face before disappearing, returning your sight to normal.
- DATE SEEN:
- SUBJECTS:
A tugging sensation draws your attention skyward. Whatever you expected to see, however, isn't there.
Your vision flashes and a stab of agonizing pain races across your chest. A voice whispers, "Seek the answers. Witness what is to come."
A stabbing pain shoots across your chest, leaving you gasping for breath. Your vision flashes with a white glare, though nothing materializes. A sense of finality settles over you as the pain eases.
- DATE SEEN:
- SUBJECTS:
For a brief moment you see the image of a revivified mutt peeking out from behind an ivory urn.
- DATE SEEN:
- SUBJECTS: Undead invasion
The image of three stars in a row plays in the back of your mind. Though the visualization is strangely insistent, the experience feels as ephemeral and unimportant as a daydream compared to the demands of the waking world.
The image of three stars in a row plays in the back of your mind. The star furthest to the right flares, yet somehow loses the vibrancy of its color. Cold, grey light shines down upon the world.
Your eyes catch a glimpse of someone in the distance, watching you. He is a Human man, or maybe a Kaldar, with short, red hair. When you look again, the man has disappeared.
The image of three stars in a row plays in the back of your mind. The right and center stars are now alight.
A Human man appears a few feet in front of you. He is thin and pale, topped with casually kept red hair. An expression of utter malice crosses his face as he looks at you, though the rest of his form lacks any sort of body language. He does not speak, yet a crazed stream of thoughts seems to radiate off him: all angry, all structured in a way that defies how real people think.
The Human steps toward you, walking through obstacles and debris as though they were illusions in the air, before vanishing.
The image of three pale stars plays in the back of your mind. Somehow both intense yet drained of color, the grey stars pierce the world below with deadly cold.
A psychic cloud grows around you, filled with naked hatred and structured in a language that cannot be spoken. Pelag ai Aldam strides forward toward you, pebbles crunching under his feet and an incredible sense of "bulk" or "mass" contained in his slender frame.
As the Servant reaches forward to strike, the hatred in his eyes gives way to a barely perceivable swelling. The cloud of thoughts go silent except for one, remembered female voice, "The lesson of G'nar Peth; think of the places you cannot see." The Servant stares at some indeterminate point behind you and knows fear.
Pelag ai Aldam vanishes entirely from your sight, your vision returning to normal.
The image of three pale stars plays in the back of your mind. The cold, painful light finally dims; whatever excitation they experienced now gone. All that is left is three grey stars, taking their rightful place in firmament.
- DATE SEEN:
- SUBJECTS: New Grazhir shard release, Pelag ai Aldam, Nera
The image of a clear, starry night plays in the back of your mind. Steadily the image gains definition, conjuring from your imagination three unnamed stars in the firmament erupting with light.
The sense of intensity only grows, soon gaining prophetic authority and subsuming your senses. Your vision locks onto the scene while the stars continue to swell, piercingly bright and bitterly cold. The vision holds until the scene has dissolved into all-engulfing, frozen whiteness, leaving you momentarily blinded by glare.
- DATE SEEN:
- SUBJECTS: New Grazhir shard release
Buzzing sound, somewhere between a pipe organ and a seizure, erupts within your head. Your sight fades to red as the sound reaches an agonizing climax, then resolves into a distant scene.
Rain comes down in a heavy downpour upon a forest track. The Undead march down the winding trail in a tight column, heads locked forward in an unintended parody of a military parade. An elderly Human man sits on a large rock and under the canopy of a tree a scant few feet off the road, a garden hoe propped unceremoniously against the tree. He watches the undead pass by with a bemused expression.
Roisaen seem to pass uneventfully, until a middle-aged woman appears within the column. She spots the man and comes to a sudden stop, causing a confused jostling to ripple up the line.
Lyras says, "You."
The Old Man shrugs and replies, "Me."
"What are you?"
"I'm a farmer. I grow things."
"Why are you here?"
"Trying to stay out of the storm, miss."
"Bow."
"If I did that, I wouldn't be able to get back up again." A pause. "Joints, you understand."
The Old Man says, "Always interesting to see travelers. Not many people walk down this road."
Lyras asks, "There are others?"
"Someone had to blaze the trail we're on. Not very often you see a real human being on it, though. Mostly used by animals these days."
"Enough! You will tell me why you are spying on me or I will wring it from your corpse!"
The Old Man lets out an exaggerated breath. "The metaphors not doing it for you? Ya know, between you and me, I'm not really sure why I'm out here. But I have a good guess."
Lyras stares mutely at the Old Man until he continues, "Everybody gets one, even you."
The Old Man says, "You could've made it, you know. That Descent of yours was a little weird, but you managed to hold onto enough. You could've had eternal life if you wanted something so modest. But that was all a little too abstract for miss Lyras. You wanted to hurt people. You wanted them to scream for every slight, and a corpse for every bruise.
"Now, I'm not one to judge. Bloody revenge is a perfectly Human behavior, we even got gods for that sort of thing. Just," he waves his left arm vaguely through the air, sweeping over the entire visible column of undead, "Maybe things have gotten a tiny bit out of hand?
"Okay, sure, third incarnation of a demon hell-bent on cracking the plane open like a walnut. That's bad, but there's still a bit of you left in there. Enough, anyway, that you still have some choice in the matter. This doesn't need to end this way, if you don't want it to."
Lyras says, spitting out the word, "Redemption."
The Old Man grabs hold of his hoe and carefully tosses it toward Lyras, where it lands in the mud at her feet. He says, "No, redemption isn't in the cards. You aren't walking out of this with anything resembling a soul. But a soul isn't everything, and there's other states of being to explore, if you want to."
Lyras gazes down at the hoe, her flat affect betraying none of her thoughts. She bends down to grab it, weighs it in her hand... and then watches impassively as it blackens and turns to ash.
A violent howl echoes through the woods, perhaps the sound a wolf hears when he dreams of howling. Unbidden thoughts of violence, vengeance and the hunt ride across the primal howl, causing even the undead to quail. Lyras turns toward the east, leaving the Old Man at her back.
The Old Man says, "Pity, that was a good hoe. Ah well. No regrets, eh?"
Lyras turns back sharply, but the Old Man had already left.
The proto-wolf howls again, shaking the very earth Lyras stands on and causing your skull to buzz with sound and vibration. The visionary experience fades along with the sound, leaving you with a deep headache.
You have a fleeting thought about the Crossing. Inexplicably, this causes the vessels behind your eyes to pulse painfully. The coppery smell of blood drifts into your nostrils, and the feeling of cold, naked metal caresses your hand.
- DATE SEEN:
- SUBJECTS: Necromantic symbols appearance
Your heart takes on a slow, heavy beat. Each pulse causes blood to thump through your ears, creating a strange, bass march and a rapid headache.
The unnatural blood pressure quickly builds until your vision begins to cloud and fail. In the darkness you see a middle-aged Human woman walking alone in a verdant forest, each step in time with the pounding of your heart. She is surrounded by a terrible aura that seems to rip and tear at the air around her: there is no visible effect on the wildlife, yet the concept of fundamental destruction lodges firmly in your mind.
A sharp whistle pierces the air, followed by Lyras staggering and roaring out like a beast! Two arrows are now lodged her chest: one with an ivory shaft and covered with burning silver light, the other an unworked oaken shaft surrounded by the light of the sun. Lyras screams and claws at the arrows, but does not fall.
Another arrow is loosed from the distance, this time taking Lyras in the back. The third arrow is also oaken, well crafted and slick with poison. There is no more screaming after the arrow sinks in: Lyras collapses upon the grass and goes still.
The third arrow, however, is not finished. Poison drips from the shaft and onto the ground, instantly blackening it. The corruption of the forest grows rapidly, turning the grass into dust and the trees into lifeless, hollow husks. Within moments, Lyras's broken body is the only thing to be seen in a vast, unnatural desert. Your vision fades as wind cries, diminished and profaned.
- DATE SEEN: 8/21/2009
- SUBJECTS: Lyras, Clerics, Empaths, Necromancers
Personal
Your vision blurs, shapes melting into one another around you. The surrounding voices merge into an indecipherable cacophany that sets your ears ringing.
Colors drain from the landscape, shades of grey melding together and shifting against one another until they resemble a finely woven fabric. You try to sort through it with your eyes, but each thread you follow moves from your field of vision before you can reach its terminus.
The pattern undulates before you, just beyond your reach. Shapes form within the taut weave, rolling close to you before fading into the imagined loom. You try to identify each before it disappears: a triangle, a single leaf of clover, a trident, three moons rising and setting in rapid succession, a triskelion. A theme emerges among the spiraling symbols; at no time can you see the entire image before it fades -- one or more components are out of view.
A sense of being incomplete washes over you. You instinctively reach for the symbols to correct them. As your hand moves toward the pattern it shatters as if glass, brilliant spots of light burst searingly behind your eyes. The threads fall apart, disintegrating among a riotous clamor of voices that fuse to sound like hawks screeching in anger.
Note: Internal eye bleeders.
Your vision blurs, your surroundings grow dim as if you were viewing them through a thick haze of smoke. The sounds around you begin to merge, sliding into one another until they build into a raucous and constant ringing in your ears. The horizon slips from view and you cannot focus on a single point.
The haze thickens around you, your senses swim as the scent of woodsmoke washes over you. The air grows warm and it becomes difficult to breathe. You cough and try to turn your head, seeking clearer air, but your body will not respond the way you want it to.
White-hot pain explodes within your head and your field of vision is suddenly cut in half. Wetness trails down your cheek from the remains of your eye. The air around you grows hotter, with ragged breaths you pull the searing air into your tortured lungs. Your brain screams in confusion as you try to sort out the source of your torment and find nothing.
The roiling smoke clears just enough to make out a hazy tableau. The slender silhouette of a woman stands before a large easel draped with a heavy canvas. Instead of a paintbrush, she holds in her hand a long feather quill. On the canvas is an elaborately detailed spiderweb done in deep scarlet. There are three ragged gaps in the otherwise elegant pattern. She studies the picture with intense concentration, oblivious to her tortured audience.
After several long moments of contemplation she goes back to work on completing the picture, but finds her quill dry. She searches fruitlessly for a palette. Finding none, she sighs and turns toward you. You cannot make out her features other than delicately pointed ears. Over her heart is a deep wound that does not heal. She dips the quill in the rivulet of blood running from it and returns to her work, humming softly as she tries to complete the pattern with her own life's blood.
The choking haze closes in, obscuring the details forever and stealing your breath. Your spine feels like its cracking as you arch in renewed agony. Bonerattling coughs wrack your frame and you beg for air, the heavy woodsmoke thickening with the cloying scent of burning flesh. The heat grows unbearable and you can feel your skin scorch, blisters erupting along your flesh as you find yourself suddenly engulfed in flames.
Note: WAS ON FIRE.
A feeling like a band of iron encircles your chest, squeezing steadily. As it closes tighter and tighter you find it impossible to take a deep breath. A sense of panic builds as your air hunger rises. Your eyes tear up and your vision blurs as you teeter on the brink of unconsciousness.
A grey haze fills your field of vision, obscuring the details of your surroundings and tamping down the ambient light so that you lose all sense of direction. A presence moves past you, a dense mist that skims your perception.
Images form in front of you, the details coalescing just long enough for you to pick out one or two before they dissolve. A gleaming trident, a gladiolus with tattered petals, a single white rose dipped in blood, a lotus spinning madly across the surface of a deep green pool, they loom and fade as you hear the sound of an infant crying in the distance.
A tree burns to ash before your eyes, the glowing coals scattering before a gust of wind and winking out along a well-traveled road. The infant's cry turns to the shrieking cry of a hawk. Out of the murkiness a red-eyed raven suddenly looms in front of you. Cawing raucously it flings itself at your face, the wings beat at your face as the talons tear for your eyes, as if preventing you from seeing the rest of the tableau.
An ethereal wind buffets you, pushing the haze back and you find you can finally take a deep breath. A sense of frustration can be felt as the images waver, incomplete and too weak to sustain themselves they dissipate as your surroundings return to view.
Note: External eye bleeders.
Your surroundings begin to move in slow motion, creeping along while your breath catches and your heart races. The sounds in your ears slow and distort to drawn out moans and buzzing. Your field of vision darkens to an amorphous grey haze.
The distant cry of a gull reaches your ears. You try to orient your senses to its direction and a gust of wind hits your face, bringing with it an icy blast of sea spray. The saltwater covers your face and the ground beneath you rolls, as if you were on the deck of a boat.
Boistorous voices sound all about you, shadowy figures hustling about as they hurry to their tasks. Creaking wood and the snapping of cables underscore the flapping of heavy canvas. Harsh laughter punctuates the excited voices, the seafarer's patois only allowing an occasional word or phrase to be picked out among the melange of languages and guttural voices. "The swan will eat the lotus." "Two for the Prince!" "The digger is in danger!" "...note in parts..."
A flash of lightning sears the sky, highlighting the roiling grey sky and illuminating the ethereal tableau. You find yourself aboard a ship navigating a stormy sea. The turgid air is hard to breathe, heavy with the impending storm. The deck cants crazily beneath you as the waves crest and crash along the hull. You turn your attention toward the quarterdeck, where a shadowy figure effortlessly turns the wheel despite the gale, long hair whipping out in a black curtain behind them.
You try to make out the details of the fearless pilot, but the sihlouette is too far away. Before you can try to move closer, an enormous wave washes over the bow, the magnificent force of water sweeps you across the deck and into the icy deep. You struggle in your sodden clothes, trying to stay above the surface. Choking as the waves slap your face, your tortured lungs draw in icy saltwater as you try to find some purchase.
Exhausted you slip beneath the surface, your consciousness drifting as your breath fades. You limply sink toward the utter blackness of the deep, unable to change your fate. Murky water swirls around you, forming images that dissipate as quickly as they form, parading atop one another in a chaotic tumble of grey and dark. The dark presses in on you as you try to remember them all.
A castle tumbling into a pile of rock. The pile pushes upward, becoming a mountain. The mountain dissolves and the swirling grey becomes three galloping horses. The horses explode into mist and become a flutter banner bearing a scythe. The banner shreds and a ship bursts through the remains. The ship shatters against a cliff and a three keys float by. As the last of your life ebbs a heron tosses back a small fish and bobs its head as if laughing as you sink into black silence.
The silence breaks with a rush like the surf pounding the shore. The sound eventually seperates itself back into the everyday sounds that normally surround you. Your mind screams as your lungs draw in a breath of fresh air. You open your eyes to find that the world is precisely as it has been.
Note: Suddenly soaking wet.
A vague ringing in your ears builds, what begins as an annoying buzz crescendos to steady shriek which rocks your senses and drowns out your surroundings. Your eyes tear and a grey haze crawls over your field of vision, an opaque gauze filling your sight like an empty canvas.
The smell of burning wood reaches you as a roiling cloud of dark grey smoke pours out in front of you. You follow it with your eyes to its source and view a roaring fire within a mammoth fireplace. Before the hearth, the warm glow of the fire is a large sumptuous fur rug. Strewn casually over the thick pelt are white rose petals and black feathers. Atop the flaming logs are the rapidly charring remains of three leather-bound books with gilded spines.
A young Elven girl dressed in a simple robe glides into your field of vision. Noticing the books in the fire she cries out in distress. She grabs a poker and tries to salvage the volumes from the blaze. The first crumbles to fine black ash, mere remnants remain. The second falls forward, splayed open you see fine Ilithic script filling the smoldering pages. The third tumbles onto the rug, falling open and being caught by a small breeze. Blank pages flip past, scorch marks marring the pages.
You lean forward, trying to make out any additional details on the blank journal. A distant roaring reaches your ears and you glance up just in time to see the flames in the fireplace leap skyward and then out -- directly toward you in a maelstrom of searing heat and toxic gas. You cry out and try feebly to defend yourself from the firestorm ...
The flames lick greedily at your clothing, your nerves scream in agony as the sickly sweet smell of your own burning flesh chokes your senses. With your last lucid thoughts you see a bridal bouquet, standing out in stark relief against the raging inferno. Tied with a shimmering purple ribbon is a single white rose, a long-stemmed gladiolus and a lotus in full bloom. The flowers ignite and are consumed within seconds, a harsh whisper fills your ears just before your senses leave you ...
The voice brushes your ear, "There is no fate!" Laughing it trails off, leaving you to your own design.
Note: ALSO ON FIRE.
Without warning, blackness suddenly takes you, your sight leaving you in a muddled haze of nothing. Out in the distance, you can make out... something, and you know with a sinking feeling that it's staring straight at you. A giant, clawed hand reaches out for you, clawing at your very soul. Suddenly, everything stops, and you find yourself staring upward, unhurt but with a feeling of trepidation.
Caelumia suddenly slumps to the ground, her eyes shutting tightly. After several long moments, she blinks a few times, looking dazed.
As you look at those about you, their faces look sunken in, as if none of them have eaten for several weeks. As Tyler gazes at you, his face is replaced with that of a macabre skull, his hands skeletal with only bits of tendon and rotting flesh clinging to them. You blink a few times, and they return to normal.
Caelumia suddenly glances at you, then blinks a few times.
Your eyes glaze over and you feel as if you've been plunged underwater, your breath choking you as you struggle for air. Your mind feels drenched in a wretched, oozing taint, pouring along you and soaking into your skin. As you struggle, you grasp something, clinging onto it as an anchor, when you realize that it's a wretched creature of undeath and the source of your torment, and it reaches for your throat. You black out, the vision fading into darkness.
Caelumia's eyes glaze over and she makes a strangled gurgling noise, clutching at her throat and gasping for breath. She grasps at thin air, looking desperate, then passes out.
Your sight fades, bleeding once again into darkness. You feel yourself falling through the blackness, though what is falling above you frightens you more than the landing below. A bright light appears in the distance, and though it illuminates little of your surroundings, you feel a measure of hope from it, straining out to grasp it. The light brightens until it is almost blinding, and all at once the vision fades again, leaving you a bit disoriented.
A flurry of visions drill themselves into your mind, one after another, in an almost desperate speed. First, an army of preserved undead, with yourself at the lead. Next, fighting against a paladin and a cleric, their holiness unbearable to look at, burning your flesh and bone. A grip on your soul, dragging you back to unlife against your will. You drop to your knees and let out a piercing scream as an arrow lodges into your skull with a sickening thunk. The vision abruptly ceases, leaving you with a massive, splitting headache.
Caelumia grimaces and puts her hands to her forehead, her eyes clenching themselves tightly shut. Suddenly she lets out a drawn out scream, falling to the ground and covering her head with both hands. Suddenly she stops, looking a bit pensive. A bit of blood seeps from the inside of her ears, staining wisps her hair.
Note: Internal head bleeders.