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 Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:31 pm
It felt as though he had been gone for an eternity. Mikaril closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of the Glimmersea as he stood on the shore beside his small boat. Opening his eyes and looking to the ceiling, he could just make out the shimmering swirls and speckles of minerals that shone up above the expanse of water like stars, had he known what stars were. He allowed himself an easy smile; how he had missed this place.
By all rights he should have still been confined to Undrek'Thoz, but rumors had been abounding that the celebration might be postponed or even cancelled, and if that happened, he would have been free once more to roam the Underdark, rowing the Glimmersea in his small boat and collecting valuables along the way.
But not a week ago, he had had the most wondrous luck of robbing an apprentice mage on an errand to the temple of the Blackened Fist, and one of the pendants that he had made off with seemed to dull the feeling of pins and needles that accompanied his sister's infernal tracking spell, designed to pain him the further he traveled from the city. Being only an apprentice's piece, he was unsure of just how long its magic would hold, but he could not pass up such an opportunity to leave the city. Besides, it was for the best; his confinement had been making him restless and left him taking constant risks. He needed his freedom before he ended up dead in an alley somewhere, food for the rats.
He leaned against a large rock, feeling the familair security of his armor wrapped around him, its designs glowing in a faint imitation of the ceiling above. He had missed that too, seeing as Undrek'Thoz was not the friendliest place for those who relied too much on metal implements. But now he was back, with his armor, his boat, and the wide sea out before him. For the first time in a while, things felt as they should be.
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Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:52 pm
Her doe-eyed gaze drifted amongst the glittering flecks of light that adorned the ceiling of the Glimmersea, it was the one thing that gave Valin some small peice of happiness. Other than finding the theiving scoundrel that had slewn her mother and stolen her sword.
She let a deep sigh escape her lips for a moment before she noticed a glinting gleam coming from the rocks ahead of her, her breath turning shallow and silent as it caught her attention. Pausing in her slow stroll, she drew a not quite deep, not quite relaxed, yet calming breath, calling the water in the air and that of the Glimmersea itself to condense and pool around her.
She smiled, the reason for her taking such pleasure in her strolls around the underground lake founded in some part to its use in her power. It was always right there if she needed it, allowing her to make her mists as dense and ensnaring as she wanted them to be.
The mist snagged at the other rocks around, calling her attention to them in a questioning manner, wanting to know what purpose she had in mind for it. Her doe-eyes blinked and she let out a small and somewhat sad smile before shooing it off ahead of her. Her mouth slipped open and let out a call, low and sweet, almost like a song, imagining herself as a deadly siren in the mist. She waited for a moment to see if the glow reacted to her call before resuming her walk. Her eyes slipped halfway shut as she peered through the mist, letting out the siren's call again, wondering what prey she had caught to dash against the rocks this time.
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Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 9:04 pm
Mikaril was nearly lost in the ceiling's barely discernable patterns when a thin snatch of sound snagged at his ear. Blinking, he looked about him and noticed that a strange mist had apparently emerged from out of nowhere. Odd, he thought, his eyes narrowing in a vain attempt to pierce the mist.
As the sound reached his ears again, something about it made him reach down for his dagger. He had heard a tale or two of sirens, though he had always had the impression that they preferred those sailing on boats, not those strolling along the shores. He supposed even a siren could get lost, but he was in no mood to meet anything so dangerous this night, not when his well-being was already close to being compromised, held back only by a piece of jewelry.
As the mist thickened, he closed his eyes halfway and lowered his hood so that his ears could pick up sound unobstructed. Under normal circumstances, he would not have lowered his hood for all of the gold in the Eastdark, but he figured that in such a mist, any intruder would be as blind as he was, and a siren wouldn't care anyway, if indeed that was the cause of all this.
Figuring to use the mist as much as he could, he reached behind him until he felt the slick, sild reassurance of the large rock, and eased himself behind it in a crouch, watching the shoreline, dagger out and ready.
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Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 10:04 pm
Valin crept forward again, her footsteps little more than a whisper against the ground. The mist helped to damped the echo of her steps, gathering close to her feet to burst out and away as she stepped down, using the sweep from her dress to probe further along the shoreline. It didn't wander too far as it swooshed forward and ebbed back to her feet like a tide. She let a longer call out, feeling it rise and fall with her waves of mist before it faded into the hush of rock.
She smiled again as the glimmer shifted, sensing the movement of the Drow as well with the lingering strands of mists wrapping around him and the surrounding rocks. The song rang out through her mouth again, louder this time. He was wearing a cape, one which her mists could not penetrate, the possible cool tang of metal hidden from their touch. She frowned and crouched at the rock. The mists did murmur of metal, but it was either not large enough or too large to be a sword, more like a dagger and a sheild or some type of armor.
The mists were wonderful for reconnaisance work, but they could do nothing to help her against weapons. She fingered the empty sheath at her waist and lost her thoughts momentarily to the vision of what she would do to the theif who had stolen her sword. Then she snapped back to focus, her mind flowing quickly again to the task at hand.
Her doe-eyes blinked and scanned the rock she was hunched against, picking out possible foot and hand holds. She shook her head, knowing the rock was too tall for her to climb quietly, especially in a dress.
Leaning her head back she let out the call one more time, then spun around and lept out from her cover on the other side of the rock at the caped Drow's back.
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Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 10:28 pm
Mikaril kept his entire body tense as the sound grew louder, but he still had yet to hear any footsteps. He gritted his teeth and wished he had something to stuff into his ears; the sound wasn't unpleasant, but he could feel his brain fuzzing up to match the mist surrounding him, and he hated to have his senses foiled in such a way.
He heard the sound one more time, sounding as though it was coming directly from the other side of the rock. Far too close for comfort. He began to rise when he suddenly thought he heard movement behind him, and in one fluid motion he dropped down and rolled away from the rock, one hand working swiftly to pull his hood back over his head. He stopped his roll and sprang up as fast as he could to peer at the place where he had just rolled from.
Through the mist, his eyes beheld a drow female, dressed in green with eyes that seemed like huge pools of glistening blood. He blinked, accomplishing little more than blurring his vision as the mist droplets collected on his lashes and dripped annoyingly into his eyes. His hand reached for his dagger hilt, but he didn't draw it, not yet. He still wasn't certain if this female was the cause of the mist and the source of the song, or if she was just a maiden out for a stroll. He kept his body as still as he could, his red eyes fixed on the female, waiting to see what she would do next.
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:52 am
She remained motionless for a few moments as her wide eyes took in the full visual of the other Drow. Her mind was still processing the fleeting glimpse of strange white eartips peeking out from his hair, and she had to resist the urge to blink in surprise. Then she pushed the thought away, knowing it was of little or no use to her in the present situation, her doe-eyes finally blinking slowly.
He was still watching her, hand ready at his dagger. She had to resist her mouth curling in another small smile as she knew once again her Siren ruse had caught a Drow's wary attention. He would not attack her if he was unsure what she was, at least, he would not attack her unless he was a fool. Which was in some part a good thing, for fools were usually easy to get information out of.
Her gaze drifted about him, taking in every detail she could until she surmized that still a sword could lay beneath the cloak. Finally her eyes settled on the ground and she began her song again, slowly the sound trickling from her mouth until it grew larger and spread through the mist like a torrent. She lifted her arms and her gaze at the same time, doing her best to look as forboding as an innocent-eyed Drow could, the mist rising away from the ground to hover at eye level as she did so. Then, slowly again, she parted the mist just so to let her eyes lock into his, in an attempt to keep him from either running or attacking.
Whether he met her gaze or not she did not know. Her attention was focused on her power, the mist gathering above the other drow to settle down into his cloak. Heavier, heavier, she thought, Heavy until you take it off. She wanted to see what lay beneath the cloak, either forcing him to remove it or removing it herself when it became too heavy for him to move.
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:34 pm
Mikaril grew more and more uneasy as he saw the female stand there unmoving, here eyes drinking in every detail in a way that made him feel as though he might as well be undressed. He sensed that she was looking for something specific, but he had no idea what it could possibly be, especially if it seemed likely that someone like him had it. Aside from his armor, anything of value went straight to the satchel, and unless this female was deceptive in her appearance, she would be too young to know about the satchel, for its original owner had to be many hundreds of years old.
He heard the song beginning again, and before he could do anything in retaliation, it rushed into him like a wave breaking onto a rock, and suddenly the female seemed much closer; her eyes filling the entirety of his vision. Panic welled up inside of him, and he fought to move his legs, but his body seemed reluctant to response, as though the song were draining his strength.
He felt the mist gathering around him thickly and knew that somehow the female was the cause. It seemed to settle on his cloak like a weight, and he felt the gently increasing strain as it grew heavier and heavier. He felt his breath shortening as he struggled to remain upright. Finally, it became so heavy that he found himself dropping down to his knees, then to his front as he lay on the shore like a washed-up sail. Sensing that the other was after his cloak for some oddball reason, he managed to bring his hand up to his face and pull his cloak tightly around his face, finally in a gesture of stubborness, biting down on the fabric to keep it there.
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:20 pm
(Wow, she can be very entrancing XD Poor Mikarl)
She smiled as her work was finished, waiting until he was fully laid out on the ground before she lightly walked the last few feet to his form. Crouching so that her mouth was next to where she thought his ears would be under the hood, she whispered in a quiet form of her Siren's voice.
"Hello," she said, waiting for a moment to catch any response he might make before standing up again and turning to look at the cape, "This is very ornate, very big, perfect for hiding things... Secrets, even..."
Her doe eyes watched the few strands of mist that hadn't been absorbed into the cloak as they snatched at the ends of the fabric. She smiled, more satisfied this time, and reached down with a slender hand to run her fingers along the cloak's edge. When she had felt the whole of the edge of the fabric she warily bent to pull it up, letting the mist sink from one layer to another. The cloak became lighter at her touch, the mist holding the majority of it down while lifting the portion in her hands, allowing her to see under it while still able to drop the cloak back onto his body if he started to move.
She frowned, finding no evidence of a sword. Instead she slipped the dagger out, studying it in her hand, then moving back to her prey's head. Kneeling in front of his concealed face, she continued to gaze at the dagger in silence. Another theif, another catch, another failure. The empty sheath pressed against her side, still painfully light as it was left to gather dust in its deep compartment. Her mind sometimes had a tortuous way of imagining it filled to the brim with dirt and dust. She blinked and narrowed her eyes, vowing again for the hundreth time that if that day ever did come it would be long after she was dead.
She blew damp air from her mouth in a deep sigh and let the mist slowly begin to dissipate. Flinging the dagger so it landed on the rocks in front of the other Drow's face she pulled out her empty sheath and placed it pointedly inbetween his hidden features and the dagger, her doe eyes waiting somewhat patiently for the other to speak.
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 10:10 pm
((I figured a siren song would be pretty overwhelming anyhow, unless it's an imitation; I assumed she has the ability to sing the real thing. 3nodding ))
Not bothering to respond to her greeting, Mikaril just lay there, feeling like a roach caught beneath someone's foot. At her obvious intention to mess with his cloak an hood, he tried to snarl a warning, but only managed a weak sort of growl, and his arm moved a few inches in an attempt to stop her. He squeezed his eyes shut in denial as the female peered into his hood, and a seething rage began to build inside of him. What right did she have to scare him half to death and immobilize him so she could have a look at his......himself. Always with females, that stupid unspoken rule; do whatever they wanted and to Hell with what the males thought.
He felt the dagger being removed, which seemed oddly trivial next to someone having a go at his hood. He was still hot with supressed rage when he heard then saw his dagger sink into the ground in front of him. He had just enough time to acknowledge that it was his before the female placed something else close to his face that looked like a moldy old sword hilt. Feeling none of the pressure letting up, he turned his head to fix her with one red eye, flashing angrily. "What....do you want?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 10:34 pm
(Well, she is a Mist Mage, so why not? 8D )
Valin opened her mouth to shoot out one of her usual snazzy replies, but closed it without so much as an utterance instead. Her eyes took on a tired cast and she backed into a standing position, removing her sheath from in front of his face and re-placing it in its position at her waist, letting her gaze linger in its empty depths before looking back at the other Drow to reply. "Only an old heirloom," she said, turning to walk off.
The mist continued to lift slowly, draining itself reluctantly from the comfortable fabric. She lifted a hand as she walked and the water returned much more quickly to the air and the waters of the Glimmersea, leaving the cloak relatively dry. Some small traces of the mists continued to dance and float about her, snagging at her thoughts, telling her to be mindful of the possibly very angry male Drow behind her.
They tugged at her, trying to remind her that information was still to be had or gained from the other Drow, though she had already remembered the fact. She was giving the other a chance to approach her, waiting to see if he would attack or run. If he ran she would call the mist right back to his cloak again. If he attacked, she would deal him a few blows herself before sogging him down again into submission.
Her eyes flashed as she waited for his movements, her hand gripping tightly to the empty sheath as she tried not to distract herself with the images of her mother's death and the wet gleam of the sword as she had last seen it. He better have cleaned the blood off, she thought, if he's rusted or damaged it I'll see to it that I remember to torture him before I kill him.
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Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:22 pm
((Why not indeed? ^^))
As soon as he felt the staggering weight lifting, Mikaril hurriedly staggered to his feet and brushed himself off. He could still feel his face burning; his ears alone felt hot enough to burn holes in his hood. He watched the female leave, and part of his rage was replaced momentarily with confusion. She placates him with some hypnotic song, pins him down like a roach underfoot, looks down his hood, then leaves after showing him some moldy sword hilt! And was that some sort of play at being mysterious? 'An old heirloom' and she waves a hilt around. Gee, I wonder what the mysterious heirloom could be? he thought with as much sarcasm as he could decorate a thought with.
Fighting to remind himself that some females read minds with ease, he watched the figure walk away, and he carefully began to back away. He figured that she was either touched in the head or something more sinister, and he wanted no part in anything this one was doing. Besides, he had to make himself scarce before the female decided to do anything with the unspoke information she had just gleaned regarding his person. If his sister or his mother ever found out.....
He decided it was for the best to make a break for it. He was a reasonable enough distance from his carefully hidden boat to worry about the female finding it and taking it, and even if he did get to it, if she controlled mist, who's to say she couldn't control water and make the waters of the Glimmersea, so much like a friend to him, rear up and crush him and his boat to gory splinters?
He took a few more slow steps, then seeing no reaction, he whirled around and ran for the docks. He knew there was no help to be found among the poplace, but the bustling atmosphere offered a dazzling array of hiding places he could take advantage of.
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Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 1:01 am
(I posted her first Journal Entry if you haven't seen it...)
She sighed at the tugging of her mist trails on her shoulder, the pounding of the other Drow's footsteps echoing of the rocks. She shook her head, speaking softly to her wisps of mist, "They never choose the fun way, do they?" Her hands lifted for a moment and then she dropped them down, slamming all of her force into the mist so that it reabsorbed itself as quickly as it could into the cloak, soaking eagerly back into the comfortable fabric.
Walking slowly to where either his cape lay abandonned or his body lay out on the ground again, she pondered which way she try to approach the process of gathering what information she wanted. Torture really wasn't her style, and she only tried to humiliate people who seemed to resemble her personality. For some reason she had the most fun when gathering information from them.
Big eyes, little words, flight rather than fight, it reminded her of her mother's many tauntings. She supposed it was something psychological like that; her mother had treated her that way and in her search for gaining the power to reclaim her sword she tried to emulate her mother by acting the same way as she had to those who acted like herself. Whatever the reason for it was, the fact was that it was.
Upon nearing the cape, almost certain that since he hadn't abandonned it before he would not do so now, she let her mouth drop open again. The mists flowed silently, their shimmering depths only lessen by the shining light of the Glimmersea's ceiling above. Her song began again, but this time it started considerably lower, drawing from a tune she had heard long ago that had always filled her with a sort of calm, yet sad and nostalgic feeling.
It was called the Moldau, the beginning low notes trembling softly into a crescendo that rang out in all of its high and peircingly tranquil glory. It was originally supposed to be played on some surface world instrument, but she had worked hard to be able to reach across the range of pitches that undulated throughout the song.
And so she continued to approach, falling into the dangerous feel of the song, the one where she was so much more involved in the actual music than the task at hand. And even her tugging and prodding tendrils of mist couldn't drag her out of it.
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Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 11:07 pm
((Saw it, read it, liked it. ^^ heart
Miky's getting pissed..... >_>))
Mikaril never knew what hit him. One second he was making a break for the docks, then suddenly he was flat on his stomach again with the mist tauntingly seeping into his robe and whirling mockingly in front of his face. Okay, he thought as he clenched his teeth, this was getting really old, really fast.
Hearing the song start up again, he moved his arms up to his head, easier to do than moving them up, and began stuffing his cloak into his ears from the outside, not really caring how goofy he looked. His rage was back and simmering inside of him like a gathering of magma just before the eruption.
The situation reminded him far too much of his 'play sessions' with Haellara. All those torturous spells she would try on him, ones that would make him see or feel things that weren't there, or were there and caused just as much pain, and when she tired of a particular spell and he thought it would be over for the day, she would remember another and wait until he was certain it was over before producing it and forcing him to start again.
Bad enough that his sister did it, but to be played with like a cat with a mouse by a total stranger.....it just seemed even more wrong to him. Damn females and their get-away-with-everything status.
Unable to stay silent any longer and not caring if the singer was able to hear him through her song, he shouted out from his prone position on the ground. "Hey! If you want something from me, just make it easier for us both and say so! How can I know what you want if you just keep making me lie here sucking dirt?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 2:10 am
(Yay!^^
And Valin's not even getting started >.>)
Her eyes remained unreactive to the Drow's outburst, but her mouth slowly closed into a tight frown. This was not timid at all; it almost ruined the fun, though almost was practically an overstatement. The reaction signified that somewhere in the Drow there was a brute, or a fool, who could be brought about to play with through her song. Her frown quickly requirked itself into a wry smile.
Valin's final verbal reply rang through her laughter, "And how am I supposed to trust you will answer me to want I want? You men are all the same; you say or do one thing while secretly you are or do another, the only way to get any solid information out of you is to make you either too mad, too scared, too bewitched, or too befuddled to keep up your dishonest ploys." She paused to crouch down by the other Drow's face again, her eyes no longer laughing but deadly serious. "Or should I say all of you theives are the same?" she spat, "Always taking what you wish with no care to the real value of the item which seems to tickle your little fancies, no cares about the life slashed to peices through it."
She had quickly identified him as a theif; or what she thought to be a theif. He carried no Mage's staff or tools and certainly did not have the powerful Magely aura which her mists liked to tag about every so often. The armor might suggest that he was a warrior, but his beginning actions were so less than the proud stance her mother had taken that she dismissed that idea immediately. He was not nearly quick or silent enough to be an asassin, not to mention no asassin in their right mind would call attention to themselves by wearing something that glowed Or, if they did, then she would probably be dead by then. And he didn't have anything that would indicate that he was a preist, either.
The only things she had really found was a dagger, which meant he was either a theif or a cutthroat, and the small pouch her mists had sensed hidden within the folds of his cloak, which pointed more towards theif.
If she was wrong then she would simply let the Drow go, but proving she was wrong might be a rather difficult task, as she was adamant about her conclusion that he was a theif and the fact that he could simply lie and say he wasn't one just so he would leave her alone.
And she wasn't about to beleive anything of that sort at all.
(The 'you men' thing was more a reference to when she finally figured out who her father was and another thing which I have yet to put in her journal, she actually couldn't tell whether the theif who stole her sword was male or female, she just approaches both the same way, though she's more wary against other females...)
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 1:38 pm
(No worries. ^^))
Despite his predicament, Mikaril couldn't stifle a laugh at the smug female's words. "Double-dealing and dishonest? Are you sure you aren't referring to 'you females?'" He mumbled under his breath, "Bullying, cynical, just because the goddess likes you better...." He quieted his mumbles when he saw part of the female's face, and felt only mild surprise at her delcaration of him being a thief, same as all other thieves. He didn't dignify her with a response this time, though his mind had no such reserves.
He was a thief, yes, but he certainly didn't just go around taking what he wished with no thought of value. On the contrary, he preferred things of great value; not on the market, but to the one he was stealing the item from. He supposed that it seemed unfair to the person he had robbed, but from a logical point of view, the law of averages was that the drow raising the stink had or will at some point do the exact same thing to another drow in their lifetime. Thievery and disregard for others was the overall norm in drow society. He was just doing what countless others were doing in one form of another. He mentally shrugged; I guess he WAS alike, but he liked to think that he put a bit more thought into the items he stole than your typical drow thief.
He was now genuinely puzzled as to this strange female's words; it sounded as though she had not done a single injustice in her entire life and felt that whatever had happened previously to her, she had been treated unfairly. Which made him conclude that she was either delusional or in complete denial.
He found himself raising his head slightly as he spoke up. "Hey, just because I happen to be what I am doesn't license you to act as spotless as a new tunic. I'm sure you've done your fair share of life-shattering and taking what matters the most to someone. I come by it honestly; I can't survive otherwise. You obviously aren't a thief, so what's your excuse, and don't tell me it's because you're female, because if you do I'll be REALLY disappointed."
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