*Squeak* responds the rodent, the focuses upon the kneeling man with a sparkle of intelligence in it's eyes.
"Your fortitude will bring us long life, my friend," the man dressed in common fashion says to the rodent, then scooping it up into his hands and placing it into a soft pouch tied to his waist.
Standing upright, the tall figure adjusts the few potions and other pouches that also sit from his waistband. He shakes his shoulders one time, two times...to make sure the pack is fastened well.
"I've heard tale of strange things in the graveyard yonder...," the man whispers aloud, but directed to the pouch.
A muffled *squeak* is heard in reply.
Last edited by stevebarracuda on Fri Jun 07, 2013 6:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.
As J.G. Ballard has said, "It's a mistake to hold back and refuse to accept one's own nature."
The day darkens, and the pair find rest upon a loading dock, just outside the Gate walls.
The man sits in silence, reflecting on his experience at the graveyard. Never has he seen the likes of such things as walking bones, lumbering and rotting flesh from the recent dead now alive, and the cries of so many lost souls trapped in a green light of undeath.
He shudders.
"Death was all around us, Artimee. I swear I even touched the face of it myself...," he trails off, thinking of the flash of memory in which a blow to the head from a sickle-wielding, armored skeleton, sent him face first into the mud, into unconsciousness....
Had it not been for the Elf from Amn and the dark-dressed, horned brawler that spoke no Common, his adventurers' life would have been dashed almost before it started.
"Friends, Artimee...that is the key..."
The rodent sits up on it's hind legs, and simply stares. The smallest of rumbles can be heard from it's tiny, and empty, belly....
As J.G. Ballard has said, "It's a mistake to hold back and refuse to accept one's own nature."
Maurus approaches the barkeep at the Helm and Cloak. To his right stands a man that wears a pin upon his breast with the form of a strikingly beautiful unicorn head. Maurus relaxes in his presence, for he knows the symbol.
Generosity in words—and from purse—flow from the man, just as the wine and ale flows from behind the bar in the skilled pouring hands of the barkeep.
The Knight that puts his hand upon Maurus' shoulder is named Adam. A brave name.
Maurus feels like the light of the crescent moon shines brightly upon him...
As J.G. Ballard has said, "It's a mistake to hold back and refuse to accept one's own nature."
I was frightened. The chill of the air and the chill of their faces became more than my body could withstand.
I had done what I said to myself should never be done: "Do not go into the graveyard alone, fool...."
But I had become the fool, taking my life into my own hands...Fool, it is the Gods that make our Fate! They turn the road before us, lead us either to them or far from them. Even the innate path of spinning the Weave is controlled by the Gods...so I have been told.
Yet here, in the moment before my demise, I willed myself along another road, another path...another means to escape my death. From where I can tap the power to flow acid from my hands and infuse my limbs with incredible speed, I yearned to be beyond the touch of Death...
And then I was. Hidden from the perceivable world, maybe only for an instant, but enough to have this line of written Fate be smudged out and written again upon fresh parchment.
Will it always be the time just before the Dark Sunset, in which my powers grow?
As J.G. Ballard has said, "It's a mistake to hold back and refuse to accept one's own nature."
"What am I doing here...?" rang loudly inside the head of Maurus Dismas.
It was one thing to have offered a forlorn lady to help return her stolen jewelry—for the boy would gladly take my coin in trade for the object...the kid not unlike myself at his age—but to have said yes to the mage to acquire such a thing as the egg of a wyvern...
"What am I doing here?", he now spoke aloud.
*Squeak*, was heard muffled from the soft pouch at his waist. "You will NOT be eating any egg this day, Artimee...." he responded to the bulging and somewhat vibrating pouch. The image of a normal rat filled to impossibly fat proportions from consuming an entire wyvern egg filled his mind's eye...
He had to chuckle.
It is in itself funny, how fear can generate conditions for laughter. Fear brought on by the unknown, be it temporary, is, however, no laughing matter. Paralyzing fear, is like a small death.
Still, the valley below held a prize, and he would have it...but how?
It was then that two dwarves, brightly encased in line after bubble after pulsating aura of Weave protections, did descend the far wall and make headway into the valley of wyverns.
"I could not have asked for a better distraction!", Maurus said aloud.
Knowing now that it takes an eyelash sacrificed to disappear into the aether, he plucks one from his left lid, and with his right hand, snaps his fingers until a flame bursts forth and consumes the lash.
A muffled squeak is all that is perceived in the place he stood, near the edge of the gorge.
As J.G. Ballard has said, "It's a mistake to hold back and refuse to accept one's own nature."
Maurus sits down upon the lifeless earth, under the imposing grayness of sky, as hopelessness slowly replaces the spirit of life that once propelled him into an unknown future...
...he concentrates, to see if the tether between him and his one true familiar—a connection formed through the power of the Weave—reaches from this place of misery, to the prime plane of existence...
And so it was...the body of Maurus Dismas lay rotting slowly in the mines of the Cloakwood Forest. His bones would adorn the halls along with so many others that had attempted to recover ore for the Torgier dwarf...but failed.
His new power in harnessing the Weave to shield his body in invisibility had failed...for the wicked Batari saw through the illusion of not-being-there [ F.U. spotter script!!!]
Running from a well-slinged bullet to the chest, Maurus stumbled over a deadly trap, paralyzing him in wounds so crave, that he slowly bled out onto the stone floor...his familiar, Artimee, finally feeling the flesh grow cold from inside the rodent's velvet-lined pouch, crawled out, and looked upon his master.
There are few tales told of the sadness felt by the smaller mammals.
The rodent, hearing other squeaks and skittles of feet within the hallways, scurried off to safety...not knowing that it was too, invisible for a time longer...
It wasn't long before Maurus' once invisible body, now corpse, appeared to sight again...but there were no others to find it. Over time, in the darkness of the halls of the mines, none would pay attention to what amounted to just another corpse, once pulsating with life, but now soulless....
...for the soul of Maurus was lost to the realm of the Fugue. There, his soul, incomplete without a material form to return to, kept watch upon the flames that never died out, attempting to concentrate, with all his might, to bend the Weave and pierce the veil between that realm and the material one, to reach his familiar Artimee, to console the rodent one last time...
Nothing but a resurrection would mend the split between body and soul...until there was no longer any pieces left to find....
As J.G. Ballard has said, "It's a mistake to hold back and refuse to accept one's own nature."
((*Salutes a great and inspiring body of work*. Bravo Steve, I think you have humbled us all with this. I even think by showing his technical death, it shows the intrigue of lying there bleeding to death, rooting for your character to stabilize and the sadness of not making it. You have me beat friend, I bow to your RP abilities))
Laisren Ua Tiernan:
The heart must die, so thy loving progeny may live.
Maurus could always come back to the realm of the living, via a resurrection (or true resurrection). Maurus did make a few friends...they might start to worry about him.
As J.G. Ballard has said, "It's a mistake to hold back and refuse to accept one's own nature."
Is it possible to divine the exact date of someone dying, for True Resurrection, or just to see if truly dead?
Could be a quest for Maurus's friends to find a skillful diviner capable of such, then a priest willing to help.
For life to be worth living, afterlife must retain individuality, personal identity and memories without fail - https://www.sageadvice.eu/do-elves-reta ... afterlife/
A character belongs only to their player, and only them. And only the player may decide what happens.
