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 Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:30 am
The severed head was placed on the table in the middle of the murking Water Deepian room the small gathering of pirates and soldiers were using as a temporary centre of activity before moving the base of opperations to a less traped population centre.
"Isn't that one of the Orcs from the tribes that Mother uses to scout out routs for the Army to march down when about to sack some unsuspecting Kingdom?" Zaknefien asked Kimmuriel.
"Yes. We found him several thousand leagues to the east."
"Where are they going?" Dinin added.
"Here."
"How do you know?"
"You know the answer to that."
"What are we going to do?"
"Delay them."
"Why?"
"If I am going to have a war, and I want everyone to come, I need to let the humans get here first, and the Drow last."
"Why?"
"Because the humans will run away from Mother's army. WHere is the fun in that?"
"Are you sure she is coming here?"
"Not entirely, but if someone creates a good enough reason for her to march over here, she certainly will be."
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:39 am
Stoneshaper phased into the meeting room, his head bowed low as to not offend the drow. He could easily smite the lot of them, save for the four brothers, but that would also bring about the destruction of a good section of this city, which for sentamental reasons, Stoneshaper could not bring himself to destroy. This was his home after all.
"The wizard we captured from the area near the Cornfields cracked. We are now extracting the information you desire." The druid reported, using the common tongue which some of the drow in the room still had yet to learn.
"Excellent. Let me know when the information I need is succure, then release him back to his master. No need to kill the poor creature, when he is most certainly more useful alive and well." The drow chuckled minically.
"Brother, did you know say he captured your pet Oracle and forced her to reveal the future to him?" Dinin asked.
"Would that not make him aware of which servent you would capture and when, and fill him with the wrong information?" Ad'non added.
"Both are true, but the problem you are left with is the fact that Lichie's opperations exist outside of Meili-my Pet's visual range. His entire opperation is clouded by his undead presence and interference."
"Then why did he kidnap her?"
"I am about to find out."
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 10:10 am
"Missing you say?"
"Yes, your Excelency."
"Perhaps you simply did not overlook one of the casualties form the Wizards Life Fire?"
"That is a possibility, Excelency."
"Good, good. Either way, it's no matter. Everything will run to plan. Oh yes."
"When can we expect to start?"
"Soon. That drow had better get a move on. I'm getting bored waiting for him." He chuckled and rubbed hi hands together.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 10:43 am
"My boy found us a mine, prepair to move out." Shield annouced to his makeshift clan. "On top O' That, he's even removed the water and found us a few small clans to join with us. We'll number a thousand and hold on our own, and we can cast this smell human-infested island aside and dominate the lands from our own base of opperations. On top of that, my Boy arranged for a Merchant to buy this piece of rubble off of us. We'll be walking out O here with more than just the skin on our backs."
Cheers errupted out from crowds.
"Now, the gracious King Jiscal has offered us an alliance. Unfortunately, he demands that we organize ourselves so he is dealing with some form of heirarchic monarchy. Doesn't think that liberalism would do us well."
"I vote you king." One dwarf shouted.
"No, no, now is not the-"
"All apposed." Inturupted the elder priest. No one raised their hand or moved in any way. "King Shield." The dwarves shouted with glee, in the good old dwarvish way.
"I wasn't finished explaining the fine print."
"You saved our people Shield. We die for you."
"And you're probably gonna." The crowd quieted. "My Boy told us about the planings of a mighty wizard wishing destruction upon our lands. He gave us the mine in exchange for military service and the building of a fortress capable of surviving the Ragnorock." The crowd muffled.
"So, we's got ourselves a home at a greater price than I care to agree to, but I see no alternatives unless yees wanna wait it out?"
"We are brave. We are strong. We are the best builders in the Dark. I think we can have this fortress made within a week, and be living in our own tunnels for the better part of several meleniums without too much worry. Save, the few of us who are managed to be killed by whatever this might wizard throws at us." The high priest spoke loudly, voicing the general appeal of the cave.
"OK, Agreed to the terms, but I ain't being no king." The dwarf gruffed. "Kings are for sissys." The dwarves cheered, just the response they would expect from the best candidate.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 4:31 pm
Oynx snorted lightly.
"I do pay attention when someone throws me around with magic and someone else run over and leans against him like a pillar in a storm."
A fluffing of wings.
"They kidnapped you, brought you back into the slavery you were trying to be free of, and you don't even so much as give them a cross look. just because the cage has an open door does not make it any less a cage."
Okay, that still stung and he was a bit flustered and frustrated. young love and sparks of jealousy.
Hatred. That was an emotion Malik knew exceeding well. This was the image of him, somewhat young, crawling ont eh ground in an ever growing pool of blood. claw marks crisscrossed and covered his entire body. flashes of Cymarron, flashes of the wounds made.
Another image, of him not too much older, standing in teh back of a church building. the red candle lighting and illumiation was apparent on the massive tapestry of Innoruuk, and Malik's scarred form glaring at it.
the next image was older, probably closer to piper's present age, and in a fight in the arena. his oppenent was much bigger than him, and Malik was tossed like a doll, mostly to the yells and laughter of the crowd. until he grabbed his opponent by the face, and then there were screams. again the hatred in his eyes, the driving need to destory the object of his hate.
the hand was pulled away to show something that didn't even resemble a face anymore. And Malik in chains, sitting in a cell, waiting. yelling at priests that came to talk to him, physically assualting those that got too close. until another dark figure approached in armor, blurred, but there.
Then flashes of her and he yelling at eachother. her defiance, her stubborness and refusal to back down. Then again at the Tournament, with that one high elf and her demand to walk into a trap. Nothing from Neriak, as he did not hate what he had to get her to do. it was needed for her survival. though a glimpse of her slapping the assassin, and him killing said assassin..adn then of malik handing over a large amount of money and a set of weapons to another, who in return tore up a paper, probably a contract.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 4:37 pm
She gorwled. "I did nothing of the sort. He helped me seperate everyone so they would stop fighting. Or maybe I sohuld have just let Tames tear your brother to pieces, and Orko and the others could just through a few fireballs at you and be done."
She crossed her arms. "Tarathiel offered me the chance to fulfil my wish, and owe him for that. There is a big difference between being a slave who can do what she wants, than being nothing more than a sex toy."
She turned her back on him, setting her jaw and huffing.
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Fractured Moonlight Captain
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 5:04 pm
Even though the feeling was the same, it differed between them on how they really thought about it. Most of her focused on herself, Malik's on the world around him.
But as the way of communions worked, bad went to worse, and saved what most considered last. The thing that both elves hated to show to anyone and seemed even more tried to hide from each other. A feeling of coldness breaking into the mix, and it was a coldness that even got through the natural resistance of kind. In a word, fear.
A jump back again, to Piper much the teenager again a cloak around her shoulders in the dead of night, staring up at a palace that was carved into the very trees. Blatantly in her eyes that show of fear of the place. The one place she didn't want to be at. A slight shift and she was working her way through the mountains, tripping and falling occasionally on the paths, then Kieran was there and he was holding her, she was crying, and seemed to be pleading with him frantically over something. She didn't want this life. Kieran merely held her till she calmed them her placed his hands on her circlet and removed it, setting it aside. He was going to let her go...telling her to forget everyone else and find what made her happy.
That adventurer's spark in her as she was barely older, maybe by a scant ten years. Night again, running across a rather barren land but not running from a threatened manner, just to do so. Then suddenly she'd go careening to the ground and hitting it hard, the cracked and broken ground giving way under her, and she falling underground, or more commonly deep enough to be called the Underdark. For a few moments she had laid there before she gathered her wits about her to get up and grope about the tunnels she was in. Clearly she was frightened of the place. Then even more so as something grabbed her by her cloak and dragged her off into the darkness. The scene brightened every so lightly and she was in the company of three ogres, who all seemed to be toying with her like a cat toyed with a mouse. One grabbed her and held her up by one of her ears as they discussed what fun they there were going to do with her. In their distraction, her hand reached out, grabbing a jagged carving knife that was on the table, striking up with it she sliced through her ear and dropped to the floor, adrenaline fueling a flee response that probably saved her life. Of course once out of those tunnels and finding her way back to the surface again she merely passed out.
Older still and hiding behind a tree, seemed she was an unfamiliar plane, a group of elves passing by. Absolutely terrified of them she seemed as she crouched at the tree's base, hands held over her ears as she was hyperventilating with her eyes squeezed shuts. Several flashes of the same behavior, always elves near by, nothing changing in her acting on it.
Aurahkah's manor, the elves there, her trying to hide what she was, them knowing without having to even ask her. Her and Cymarron talking about something she didn't want to, her being momentarily down in his den. Then looking for something in the woods that panned to Malik stepping from the shadows that hid him. Elf. Tyler in the woods, running just out of her reach toward Malik's.
Then she was standing in Malik's room, but the drow was in reverie, oblivious to her presence. She was...looking for something or other, searching drawers and what not. She would pull out her own leash and take to examining it, fingers running over designs and over her collar as well before it would be put back and she would give a look to Malik before she would leave his room.
Though it seemed an entire twenty years was missing from the display of the personality trait. Twenty years spent with Malik in the Underdark, in which she hadn't know that fear at all, held faith in Malik but it came back again to show her on Serino, Vahs, Ashlyn, and Warren in accompaniment leaving Deepwater.
Then Malik again, lying in bed and looking horrible from poison...then Terran made his debut in, him making threats to her and what not. Then Kaden followed, but the vision of him was sharp as it could be. There upon unfolded the happenings of that day, the words Kaden spoke to her and how he managed to work his way through her defenses and made her doubt. Tortures and workings of a an elf gone mad. Then her lying in bed, Kieran and Malik there, Broog coming into the room holding the device used to take off collars.
Then it seemed to go in little flashes again, shows of people touching her even in non threatening manners, her flinching, and that all seemed to fade away in its own time as well.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 6:38 pm
"A slave is still a slave. be it a sex toy or another kind. I promised to get you away from all that. to let you be your own person. and you don't seem to want to. Why didn't you help me when you got warhammer to break it up, or moon? where you afraid of the reaction you might have gotten? Do you think that Tarathiel, once you serve no purpose will keep you?"
He growled at her back a bit, his wings flaring.
"they offered you a wish, and in exchange you owe them your life. They kidnap you, and your grateful for it. I don't understand. "
Then looking at the book, and running his hand over his head.
"I care about you. a lot. and I know it's hard on you, and you have trouble with that sort of thing becuase of your past. but I want to help you. I want you to be free, and to be able to do what you want to without looking over your shoulder in case someone else doesn't think you should."
Fear. Malik had little of that in him really. but those fears he had where violently large ones. her fist imagery here, was teh one he'd talked to Fianna about. there he was, older, and in teh armor she knew in the middle of running peasants, thier images changing to difference peoples, while he cut them down with Malvolence. He burned homes, and stomped, on dead bodies laughing and yelling, giving commands to others. he would behead bodies and hang them upside down from trees, jamming the blood drinking blade in the open neck.
The helm came off, and Malik's maddened face, his eyes bright red and streams of red energy from them. completely under the dominance of the sentient blade.
Then it shifted, to a old city. a ghost town filled with ghouls and skeletal beings and tier'dal that were obviously dead, still bearing thier damaged armors and thier eyes void of life. Malik had an injury as well, down in his gut, and he was manhandled by the denziens here and thrown before a massive throne.
Then it shifted, to her in bed, after Kaden...and how..broken she looked. shattered. A fate worse than death, afriad that she might never recover, and what might become of her if she didn't. Images of Fianna trying to take piper away, or Kaden after he hit him.
Other images, of Piper fallign in combat by his side, the lich, or a mental idea of what it might look like..an image of betrayal by tarathiel, and finally thier home in ruins, all around him dead. Even Nightmare was gone.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:00 pm
"Would you rather I was your slave? I've asked you to come visit me twice. Twice! And the first time I see you at the keep, you're comming with ill intentions, and it sure wasn't to see me. I ma not concerned with Tarathiel. AS far as he's concered, I am in the Oracle's service. When Tarathiel leaves Labyritnh, I won't be going with him."
"I never said I was grateful for them kidnapping me. But then again, they can't relaly kidnap someone who has no home or family to be kidnapped from, now is it?"
"If you want me to be free than you are going to have to let me make my own decsions, because obviously, you 'don't think I should' be doing any of the things that I am doing."
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:05 pm
For some reason she knew she wouldn't see too much of the particular thing in him, and likes hers, most were of past things and others were of the 'what if' scenarios idle minds came up with. Things neither of them ever talked about and never wanted to face, to let lie in their pasts and in their minds, not to be bothered with.
Secrets of sorts really, but no so between them anymore. Most of what was left in the dark was now all raw and bared in the light of shared knowledge. But through the apparent giving up of those secrets, they were being granted the other benefits. Knowing each others wants, desires, needs, along with the others. Truly a learning experience not expressible by words.
How long had they been like this? Minutes, hours, time was nothing to them in the void of sharing minds. But not just minds, a mixing of spirits was also taking place, their bonding trying to work backward and tie up ends that were left loose from lack of previous communion.
As ends tied, things started to go black again. They would feel that tugging again on themselves, that wrapping of a cord. Being tied and anchored to something other than just themselves which would really be each other. The connection between them would seem to come to a certain point of being closed, yet at the same time stayed open a degree. A certain frequency rang for a moment, the establishing of a telepathic connection since it was natural to one of them.
Where the lack of feeling had been lost and replaced by merely the tingle of energy it now faded, letting the feelings of the realm of the physical seep back into their systems. Of course the act of communion was draining on both the mind and the body, as it faded away, the drain was being felt, like they had been running for miles on end without rest for three days. Two elves faded back into sight, hands still held together.
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Fractured Moonlight Captain
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:22 pm
"I didn't say not to make them, I said I don't understand them. I don't understand why you let yourself be tarathiel's slave, wether you consideryourself that or not. whyyou continue to live with him after his kidnapping and obvious non-care of people around him."
A light snort.
"I haven't visited because...I don't know. I don't want to butt in and honestly..I don't think I could handle being around the minotuar. he injured my pride, and my honor. he forced me to break a promise, to protect you and to get you free."
Malik took a breath, and opened his eyes groaning a bit and stretching his arms some, looking at his hands, opening and closing them, getting used to this interesting new sensation. he felt...drained, but invigorated. like something was strained to reach, and once gotten you didn't care about the risk or the trouble to get it.
A look over at her with a small grin.
"How are you feeling, 'chev?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:34 pm
Piper let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding, wrapping her arms around herself, eyes still closed. That had felt nothing like she knew it to feel, but perhaps that was because Kieran was the only other one she had done it with and he was her father, her blood. Trembling slightly like she was cold, but she wasn't and it was in her opinion a good tremble. Fatigue from the gesture, not to mention her innate telepathy having formed a new direct link was messing with her a little. It indeed was a pleasing sensation to be able to feel him without having to physically touch him, to feel not only a pseudo physical presence but to feel current needs and the like that went through his subconscious. Oh yeah, this was worth it. Letting her eyes flutter open she looked at him with a smile. "Like I've suffered Malik fatigue." Joke? Well that meant she was just fine now wasn't it...no really that was the feeling. "And you A'mael?" Dare she say she was more concerned for him...after all, this wasn't a drow thing.
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Fractured Moonlight Captain
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Picking Up Stars Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:53 pm
Violet eyes narrowed and nails began tapping a staccatto beat against the table. Those same eyes watched Malik get up and leave following after Piper. Well, so much for doing him a favor. Jerk. He actually had asked her if she could and when she'd responded, he'd gotten up and left. The nerve of that overbearing, egotistical moron! He didn't have to follow Piper every time she went somewhere, the surface elf really could take care of herself. Now she was left wondering why he would ask for her services and then leave when she was ready to offer them. It was so annoying. How dare he? How dare he ask for her help and then get up and walk away? It was...rude and insufferable and...Malik. That's the main thing she'd always known. He was rude and insufferable and annoying. And those were Malik's nice characteristics. She ran a hand through her hair in an agitated fashion and muttered a few choice words under her breath. "Arrogant jackass, well, see if I help you." That would teach him. Ignoring her. The nerve!
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:12 pm
"I..well...I don't know. it's a strange sensation to me. Not unpleasent, but not something I can really define, either. But it's something I will enjoy having, I'm sure, and will be infinitely valuale and wonderful and useful to us both."
A slight grin, and he got up to his feet a bit shakily, and offered her his hand.
"Well..since I think I probably upset miss Lloth by comign after you..shall we go mend her little ego and get her to agree to help. or maybe ship her off to Kimmuriel for training, after all he has a relative that is a cleric."
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Fractured Moonlight Captain
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:21 pm
"Well that's good." Because it really was something to be appreciated. After all, they had done their bonding and communing backwards. It would take a while for things to settle and the full feeling to ease in. Most likely when they weren't doing something or other and it was quiet and just them. Piper merely looked at his hand, before she merely went about lying on her side on the illusion painted floor. Gods where did he have that kind of energy? "You go...I'll stay here." Cold floor? No she didn't really seem to care where she plopped at that moment. Piper felt like she'd been sucked dry of any energy she had. Damn him and his endurance. "Zahara isn't like other drow..." Though that was as far as her protests would go, didn't have the energy to fight him.
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