[RP] Immortal Terror

[SpidaManz111]

[Way to go! Let everyone know who the bad guys are Evirea might as well wear a badge saying "EVIL"]

[Suno_Regin]

You kinda do.

[Eremon]

[oh, sorry didn't realize that would be a bad thing. There modified it to prevent further spread.]

[Mariana Xiechai]

You kinda do.

Only kinda? 

[SpidaManz111]

Guys, the "Dark" in Dark Empire comes from the deep emotional troubles and sorrows we face from the dark world. Not from being evil. Totally not.

[LigH]

I would believe that if Sangwa said that. Or maybe Roberet. They were subtle enough to make even such statements credible. But well ... keep entertaining us with more misinformation!

[SpidaManz111]

I have to inform you that if Roberet were to utter such a statement, he would really mean it. But those mistakes lie in the past 

[Eremon]

[has anyone seen Kaerli in the last week? Have details to discuss with her]

[SpidaManz111]

[I guess you could say Kaerli is AFK...away from Kaerli!]

[Rigwyn]

Of all the magical ways and spells available to mankind, of all the powers and machinations that twist and coax the mind into action, no force was more effective at provoking illogical, impulsive acts than grief itself. How many times have we seens perfectly healthy widows and bastards wade into the disease infested burrial wells only to sit among the dead and weep for the fallen?

Like the disgusting fungus and viruses that thrive upon the defenseless, Rigwyn crept through the dank caverns in search of a warm, fleshy hand to replace his own.  It had never occurred to him to search for living among the dead, and to simply leave the remains in the well. Best of all, it was illegal to enter the burial wells, so even if the handless victim left, they couldn't report the assault without incriminating themselves.

Footsteps grew in the distance, prompting him to step out of view. With his recently amputated wrist in hand - still charred and drizzling a foul, sanguine ooze, Rigwyn hid and waited for this prey to step into the light.

The color of his skin was no match, he was a ylian, and sadly not diaboli (Few were left on the dome). Not appearing to be wealthy or student of the ways, he hissed at him, questioning his reasons for entering the well.

The two men spoke, and before long, it was clear that Haanzz knew something of the necromancer that Suno spoke of the day before. He mentioned Seria, the "warden" whom others spoke of, and a certain reptile who had been a stone in Rigwyn's shoe for quite some time.

Intrigued, but not interested enough to participate in his endeavor, Rigwyn declined his invitation and walked off into the bowels of the rancid well, muttering and complaining about the lack of fresh deaders and the terribly disorganized arrangement of the deceased.

[Roled]

Roled was worried. The experiment in which Allena had willingly participated, seemingly so benign, had gone unexpectedly, horridly wrong.  To be unable to pull her out of that trance was unnerving, then to be berated by that masked pickpocket Snitch added to his anxiety. When the elf had gone back to check on his experimental subject, she was gone. Vanished. No trace.

The Dermorian casually asked around for Allena for a day or two and then with more insistence for yet another day. Last night he had visited Kada Els only to run into a whole group discussing Allena's disappearance. A ywnwnn woman declared that Roled's Sister, Evirea, had offered a reward for finding Allena and the ywnwnn was determined to claim that prize. A sneering, offhandedly attractive Dermorian youth claimed to have argued with Allena two days before, an altercation confirmed by the barkeep. A young fenki said she had seen Allena just the day before at the Stonehead.  The conversation stopped when that petty thief the one who practiced scying and the Dark arts, stumbled into the tavern, bruised and beaten, and  declared that Evirea herself had been kidnapped!  Roled's passions rose and a clammy foreboding drenched him as the Dermorian thief described the klyros' kidnapping. So the group formed a rescue party, and grew in size as the searchers sent groffels and yulbars off entreating allies to join the hunt.

Clues were discovered with warnings of deliberate contagion planted in Evirea, meant apparently to infect the general populace. The rescuers took great care to cover their flesh, mask their breathing, and set out to try to find and free the kyros healer and their friend. Evirea was found, drugged and agitated, outside the portal into Ojaveda. She was brought back to the House Cheshire where the femros was released from the enchantments encasing her neck.  Even the thief played his part, calming the agitated Evirea. The rescuers had encircled Vire and cast powerful shields of Brown Way magicks to repel the Azure entrapment as the controlling necklace and chain were riven with great care by the Master smithy mage.  That particular evil gem shattered.

What was not shattered, Roled mused, was the plot itself, the abduction of his Sister Evirea. Why? By whom? Who was this Council referred to in the partially burned notes the would be rescuers had found? Why were they burned? And what of Allena? Were Allena's disappearance and Evirea's abduction related? Where was she?

"Poor young nolthrir," Roled thought as guilt seeped back in to fill his sleeplessness. She seemed so vulnerable and yet surprising. Roled remembered his shock as he watched her reverse the effects of magick spells cast, without using any glyphs. How was that possible?

Roled listened to the predawn sounds in the Cheshire Hall- the wheezing of the infected femros and the soft sleeping sounds of friends who had stayed to care for her.  Others had gone the night before to search for an antidote to whatever the vile green contagion might be that the scrying had revealed. He turned events over and over in his mind. Finally he prayed to Xiosia for insight and balance and for advice. A dark blue wisp surrounded Roled's chest and blended into the hall's own shadows.  The answer to that prayer appeared to the elf in an image, almost visceral. The stately form ghosted in his imagination, regal, strong, self contained, forceful.  "The Old Man," he thought, "The Great Mage. I will ask him. No one knows more, or has more insight than he. Aye."  Roled quickly wrote a parchment note in the near darkness. Another wisp arose from Roled's hands and Rusco materialized on the end of the bed wagging his stumpy tail sleepily. Roled scratched behind his ear for a moment then tucked the note into his collar. "To our friend" the elf said. Rusco sat up eagerly, then sprang off the bed and disappeared into the mist of not -yet -morning. Disappeared. Like Allena.

Where is she now?

Roled determined to find out.

[Sorry about the reportorial style of this but wanted to add another angle and spinoff plots in this terrifically complex role play. Thanks everyone for the fun last night. More to come I bet! Cross posted with Brimstone and Fire- RR]

[Mariana Xiechai]

She didn't have time for this.

Most people would panic if they were bound and dumped in the ruins awaiting some interrogation. But no, she was just flat out frustrated. She had evidence to gather against that tyrant Seria, she had Allena to find, she had Rigwyn to stop and she had a potential demon on the loose. Bloody realms, she had two surgeries she needed to perform and one of them was an emergency. She didn't have time for some nutty Azure Mage to dig his fingers into her head. She didn't have time to be kidnapped.

In the distance, through the crack of the dilapidated tower, she could see the dot of the fifth familiar darting by with some note she couldn't answer. Great. Some violent crackpot had probably gone on a killing spree on the plaza or something. There were people bleeding out all over the place and they were trying to get her to come, but there she sat, bound, with her ever so glorious kidnapper snoring against the far wall.

What she was most infuriated about was the fact that she'd allowed herself to be taken. She'd stopped being paranoid for two seconds and now she was paying for it. “Wouldja mind readin' one o' yer stories to me, lass?” Fell for it hook, line and sinker. She thought she was above flattery, but she wasn't above the love of literature. He's illiterate and doesn't want to admit it, she'd thought to herself. She felt bad for him! Of course she'd read to him! What could it hurt?

Idiot. She was such an idiot. By the time he'd slid that ring onto her finger, it had been too late for her to jerk her hand away. It made her follow him around like a lost lamb. Some sort of Azure Enchantment. Now that nobody was questioning her it wasn't so bad, but whenever the questions were flying it made her head throb and her tongue bleed from biting to keep from spilling her guts.

“My, you are a popular one.” Evirea looked up and glared at the ynnwn woman before her. Over seven feet tall, there was no way she was anything else, even though her face was blotted out by her hood and dark way shadows. “Who are you, exactly?”

The klyros just smirked. Wasn't her fault if they didn't do their research before snatching someone. If there were consequences, good. It was stupid to just think you could start taking people and...

Her captor's hand smacked across her face, a slap so violent she toppled over to the side, flailing awkwardly with her wrists and ankles locked together.

“I don't like your cheek,” the woman said. “But it doesn't matter. He'll be here soon, and trust me honey, you won't be able to fight him. We'll let you go though, I promise. Never fear. We just need to know a few things, hm?”

“I'm not about to share anything with a temperamental bi...”

Another slap tossed her to the other side. Her face stung. Sometimes she wished she knew when to keep her mouth shut. But she tended to have less than perfect judgment sense when she was pissed. She could only hope that Ilase would find her. She'd shared his ability with far too many people, that was true. But something told her he wouldn't turn his back on her now. Despite other's qualms about him, there was compassion in that man. She wasn't so eager to just give him up for nothing. He wasn't nothing. He was sly, quick-witted. He'd just been hurt, and that hurt made him bitter. Wasn't something she could blame him for. She knew that feeling all too well. Did she trust him? Maybe not. But she liked him. And if he'd let her in, she wanted to help him. Like so many, he didn't need another haughty naysayer looking down on him. He needed to be reminded of his worth.

She had too many secrets that weren't hers. Trusted secrets. Not just valuable ones, but sensitive ones from people who told her because they knew she wouldn't share. She couldn't betray that trust, she couldn't. She didn't care if it made her head explode, this ass wasn't getting his hands on those thoughts.

“Finally,” the ynnwn said. A ylian entered the room, looking at her rather brazenly and unmasked. She memorized his features, his height and build. Yes, she had to cement him in her mind. She had to...

He stooped down and placed an amulet around her head. She felt a presence seeping into her mind, insidious yet potent, and. And he. He asked her...

It was gone. It was gone? What had happened, what had he asked? Where was she? Oh gods, oh gods. She couldn't remember.

She couldn't remember...

[Rigwyn]

[ "There were people bleeding out all over the place and they were trying to get her to come, but there she sat, bound, with her ever so glorious kidnapper snoring against the far wall."

This story is kicking ass in a major way.
]

[Eremon]

The man sat staring at his steepled fingers, seething over recent events. They would say he'd moved too fast and require him to slow down his research. But he wasn't getting any younger !! Older, in fact; every day a little older. Some days, like today, he swore he aged several days' worth.

First, the woman who styled herself Warden of the Dark Empire had been betrayed by her own Captain, which was itself a matter of little concern, but in her frantic attempts to defend herself before the gathered crowd she had loudly and publicly declared that she was seeking to betray "the evil necromancer". Misguided as her assumptions were, she obviously referred to himself.

Next, his best agent had been revealed in taking the woman, Evirea. Worse, when he probed her mind he found that while it seemed a jade-mine of information, it was too brittle. Too brittle and damaged for him to extract the information he needed without killing her thanks to some second-rate fool who'd apparently set out to destroy her in the clumsiest use of azure magic conceivable. And what was supposed to have been a quick side-trip for the woman, unnoticed by anyone, turned into a full scale manhunt. No fewer than five messenger-beasts had come looking for her in the time it took him to get to the site where she was held. Five! And if his information was correct there had been a good dozen or more searching for her.

Finally, when the crowd had located her they'd immediately removed and destroyed both his ring and amulet almost as if they knew about them! That fact made him uneasy indeed...how could they possibly have known ?

Of course he had gotten one inestimably valuable clue from her; that alone had been worth compromising his agent. And he could acquire more agents. That one piece of information would be worth a great deal to the Council. A great deal.

He could also commend the council for having sent him such a capable 'adviser'. He hated that woman sometimes. She was companionable enough, true, but she had the annoying habit of being right entirely too often. Still, if he could focus them on what had been gained he could avoid their order to slow down. This research must be completed!

Having decided on a course of action he smoothed out the parchment before him --how he wished they'd stop being such INFANTS about mind-speaking-- took up his quill pen and began to write.

[Eremon]

Scrying. That's how they knew. Rather than bringing the klyros Evirea as promised, Seria had warned her of his interest and she took steps to prepare for abduction. To lead her comrades to him. That explained many things. From her ability to resist his probing to the lack of anticipated spread of the disease. Months of preparation, wasted. Two of his best agents exposed. And the Council had discovered it before he had.

Eremon crumpled the parchment in his fist, rage overtaking him for just an instant before his Azure mastery reasserted itself.

"Well" he said calmly "You're a tricky one klyros, but you must sleep sometime."

He chuckled to himself darkly, as if in enjoyment of some private joke. Then he took up quill and parchment and began to write...

"Fear not, The damage is negligable. Ties have been severed. Old agents are extracted and new are already taking their places.
As the old line of research has proved fruitless, we have terminated it. Your recommendation of slower and more subtle inquiry shall be heeded."

He winced slightly as he wrote the final sentence of his terse missive. It galled him, but they did hold the purse strings.

Once the scroll was safely away with his groffel he turned his thoughts to new avenues and schemes.