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 Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:54 am
"What is it? Have you already turned tail at what the Priests have requested of you?"
His tone was more annoyed than sarcastic, as he stared up from the table, and towards the door. His tail idly swung side to side, before turning his gaze away.
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Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 5:13 am
Dearc blinked.
"Turned tail? They...haven't called me yet, erm...should I have stayed put?"
He walked all the way into the room and shut the door, book in his hands. The door clicked behind him and he wandered to one of the seats closer to Engel, sitting peacefully on the bench and putting his find on the table.
"Sides, if I'm gone they'll look for you and find me. Something strange goin on?" The large orange eyes gave Engel a sideways glance.
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Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:10 am
"Well, a lot's been happening lately. So I suppose you could say a lot of strange things have been going on."
Engel growled softly, before scraping a talong against the top of the table. Upon closer inspection the tabletop would show that it had a rough map of the whole of Barthavos etched into it's surface.
Talk about having charts and graphs.
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Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:27 pm
He snorted.
"What, you mean besides an entire ROOM full of skilled lizard warriors being killed by a few humans, or the part were I'm dumped on my tail in the knick of time to end up in the aftermath?"
Dearc's eyes narrowed as the talon crossed the map, inspecting the trail and the locations depicted carefully.
"Who was exploring some ruins? I saw a few a while back...interesting stuff...lotsa goblins in the place..."
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Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 9:43 am
"I've been getting scouting reports back......"
Engel stood up, his eyes narrowing as he scratched out more markings in another area. "Someone.... has been excavating ruins that possibly cannot exist there, yet they do.... and looking for something that no one should know about, but they do...."
His tail came to a complete standstill, as his voice dropped.
"And apparently...they've been doing it for the past 50 years...."
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Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 4:44 pm
Dearc's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, staring at the markings in the table. Fifty years...trouble's been cropping up between the two places for that amount of time now. A claw tapped the binding of a book.
"Have you sent anyone yourself to investigate what the ruins that aren't supposed to be there actually contain? Old places buried in time spell bad news for people that are digging too deep."
He took a leap of judgement on that, coming to a hasty conclusion about what may have been found in that area.
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Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 6:51 pm
"That'sss the problem, Dearc." Engel's nostrils flared as he clicked his teeth.
"The records show that a group was sent out, but they never returned. However, we've been getting reports back ever since..... And anyone we've sent back there has never made it back here again. The place has become a stuff of "horror". We've left it alone considering we had more important things to worry about."
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Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 7:18 pm
"If I were betting....I'd say that whatever was in the ruins got tired of sitting around. Something must have been sealed there, Engel. The same somethings I met in Strata...the same somethings that killed..." Dearc looked away. "What I met could have decimated an army of our kind, let alone an elder and his retinue."
Maybe not Samuel...but anyone of Ezekiel's caliber would have done it no problem...and they could open portals as well. It would have been a simple manner of dressing mask things up as humans, they all look the same to lizards anyway, and then the real threat moving uninhibited.
"The humans I was with...were all too busy fighting off something else when I left them, Engel. They would NEVER have been able to spar the amount needed to distract that many lizards away from the council like that. It's only tiny in human comparisons, a larger outpost on the edge of their civilization..." The orange eyes blinked. "Tell me what we were supposed to be guarding, Engel...tell me who Samuel and Ezekiel really are."
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Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 9:40 am
Engel snorted, waving Sunstrike off a bit, before turning to the side in thought.
"I don't know half of what your speaking of... but.... Samuel. He was Captain of the guard, and led the very first party to one of the ruins. He never returned, let alone anyone else he brought with him."
He bowed his hand, claws raking against the mask on his face. "There have been rumours... many, many rumours of hatchlings vanishing....and other members dissapearing from patrol. So we dug a little deeper...."
The general seemed to pause, before turning back to face Dearc.
"Do you know...what a Arranc is?"
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Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 3:28 pm
Dearc growled softly as Engel told him who Samuel had been before becoming...
"That traitorous b*****d...shoulda killed him when I..." His mouth snapped shut at the question.
"No, but I should do, shouldn't I...." It wasn't a question. There were a lot of gaps still in his memory, a lot of things never learned either...
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Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2005 1:22 pm
"Among the reports, it seemed that there were more than just dissapearences going on. Demons... those foul monsters that you usually only hear about. Mass appearences have been sighted at the ruins, as if they were being controlled. It was then that the new breed of demon was spotted...."
Engel stared down at the table, eyes intense. "But... this demon looked like a regular human-being. And not only that, apparently he was a 'beautiful young man'. At first we didn't know what to make of this... because if he looked like just another soft-meat, then how could he be a new type of demon?"
Engel looked up at Dearc. "He was controlling the other demons. This new breed, possesed some mysterious, unknown, yet incredibly strong power. That's what the report says anyway. We didn't have much reason to follow up on mere rumours."
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Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2005 1:34 pm
Sunstrike suddenly went cold, there was nothing about Dearc that knew about some strange softmeat, but Sun knew all about the dangers this could pose. He shook his head. He needed confirmation.
"This isn't good, Engel. These rumours of yours came and bit you on the arse. And now we have to battle two fronts in order for things to work out. And if you think getting the people to accept humans and make peace will be hard...the rise of demons, the insurgance of them onto our plane...that's a near impossible bit of buisness altogether."
Claws drummed anxiously on the table. "We need to settle the problem of the two peoples first, there MUST be some way we can come to an agreement over that. Although how stable the human side of things will be after our assault will be...tenuous at best, panicked at worse. There can't be many of them left after all that buisness, and the return of the Firebringer will mean that not many of us will make it back either..." Then it sank in what he'd just let out. Oh s**t...
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 4:50 pm
"What are you talking about?! the Firebringer perished 50 years ago!" He couldn't possibly know about that....!
Engel turned his entire body away now, visibly shaken. Memories he'd thought were long forgotten or locked away came to surface.
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Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 5:16 am
Sunstrike stared at Engel in the silence. He'd been expecting fury, rage...righteous anger even. But fear? Straight out denial? Sun was getting a headache from all the things he didn't know but was expected to guess about.
"I think it's about time you told me what happened back then, Engel. Even if your Firebringer from fifty years ago is dead, they have someone they've labeled as such in Strata, they will unite under him, the legend will drag any human within a hundred mile radius towards him, and that spells trouble for us." He heaved a sigh and stood up, walking around and forcing Engel to look at him.
"We have a slight advantage that he's a reasonable person...and we could talk this all out...but should we keep killing each other, I'm not sure what his reaction would be. There's been heavy backlash all around because of everything. He...he might not recognize me as I am now, I can't garuntee everything, especially if I don't know what's happend. You were forced into peace...you've kept that peace, were satisfyed with it. What's changed brother...who gave you that mask?"
The orange eyes swirled and went orange with determination. It was surreal how Sunstrike could focus on someone so completely sometimes, so often was he adrift in his own mind.
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Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:05 pm
"Fifty..." Engel's eyes widened as he stared down at the desk. His heart continued to throb. ....Fifty years ago! Claws etched deep grooves into the wood, even as the lizard stood fully upright.
"Vahn.....Fah...." The words were uttered quietly, a soft hiss escaping from his breath, even as everything seemed to quiet down within the room. It was as if a blanket of silence had suddenly fallen over Hollow. "The Firebringer.... the man who tried to heal these lands, only to be burned by the desert herself in the end."
He traced a single claw along the table's surface, as if he were trying his best to focus on the memories in question. "He was also the only man to face Antharas and live to tell about it. The only man who probaly gave a damn long enough to look at both sides. And the last human I ever trusted. I'm sure your familiar with the story of how Odin quested for the greatest wisdom of all, only to sarifice one of his eyes? What that man sacrificed in order to gain peace for us all, as brief as it lasted,...was much worse."
Talons raked breifly across the mask on his. "This...this is the price for my failure to protect that man. I'm sure you've heard by now, how he 'lost' control of his flames, in which the resulting explosion caused numerous casualties on both sides, thus bringing about an end to the war. What you don't know... is that he never lost control."
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