Eye of Profane Truth - rebooted!

[Rkhet]

You have been walking in a daze for as long as you remember, and it is the only thing you remember.

You are on an battlefield, recently abandoned. The air is filled with the smell of blood and decay. Everywhere you look you see bodies, some humanoid, some not, torn and mangled beyond repair. Huge packs of ravens swarmed over the dead and dying, gorging on eyeballs and entrails and cawing threateningly when you draw near.

Five others walk beside you. Instinctively, you know they are as lost as you. Yet you cannot resist but to ask:

"Who... are we?"

Your voice is barely audible, drowned out by the caws of ravens and the low moans of the fallen. The others make no reply. Perhaps they are pondering the same.

So you walk, lost in your own thoughts. Sometimes you would unthinkingly step on something still alive, and it would give a weak, pitiful cry, and you would shudder, and be glad you are not one of them.

The sun rises and sets seemingly at random, and you lose all sense of time. Yet your feet carry you untiringly and finally the corpses thin out and you stand at the edge of all this death.

Beyond is fertile farmland. The wheat stalks wave gently in the wind. It will be a good harvest this year, you think to yourself.

You see a middle-aged man in a bloodstained healer's garb, busy at work. Beside him on makeshift stretchers lie a row of injured. He is tending to their wounds, and his skills are competent, even masterly, but you can tell that without magic at least half of them will die.

The man seems unsurpised to see you all. He stops momentarily to gesture you to come closer, then resumes his work.

 

[Lord_Raven88]

Walking slightly ahead of the others Durkon stops 10 feet away from the healer gazing around at the wounded Durkon searches his heart for some feeling some emotion to give him a clue as to who and what he is, finding nothing but an abiding sense of emptiness and loss.

Durkon's eyes finally come to rest upon the blood stained healer, cocking his head to the side Durkon marvels at the skill shown by the healer. Speaking in a surprisingly deep baritone "Who are you... do you have the answers we seek?"

 

[Azaar]

Sliding back the hood of his cloak, Nethien slowly steps closer to the healer. "I fear that any answers this one would have for us would only lead to more questions, but such philosophical musings are best left for later," he replies to Durkon, his own voice a meshing of baritone and tenor.

Quietly, he looks down upon the injured, frowning slightly. Life and death are two opposing ends of the continuum -- he possesses no skill to aid this healer, and certainly does not possess the power to heal them magically.

After a moment, however, he looks up once again towards the healer. "For my part, however, I would wonder why you seem so unsurprised to see us. I find it unlikely that it is considered normal behavior for five sentients to walk among such a vast field of death, such as we are."

 

[Shayuri]

The small girl Shard shivers and looks back at the charnel she had just crossed. "So much pain," she murmurs in dread. "So much death. This field will bear the scars forever. The ghosts..."

She cringes, but when she speaks, her voice is different...more confident and resonant. "A mighty battle was fought here, to stain the earth red. But even this is but a drop in the ocean to come..."

Immediately she squeals, "No! Stop that! I don't want any part of that!" and claps her delicate hands to her ears.

Then she yanks her hands from her ears and narrows her eyes to hiss, "Focus, fool! Control! If you cannot function, then you will get -nowhere!- Pull yourself together and see about this...man-thing."

Sniffling, Shard nods and looks at the others with her. "I'm going to talk to him." Having said that, she breaks into a jog, meaning to go to his side, then says, "Good morning, sir. Who are you?"

 

[Wrahn]

As Lorgrane walks through the battlefield, thousands of facts compete with each other to focus his attention on

...that style of sword was original fashioned by the smiths of Sangranuer...
...the exposed muscle connect to the ligament allowing movement of the forearm...
...ravens are scavangers and will eat nearly anything...

he wonders briefly if he should stop and dissect one of the monstrous creatures, their anatomy seemed strangley assembled and he was curious as how it was assembled, but his companions did not pay it any attention, so he moved on.

Finally coming to the healer, the end of their walk seems at hand, though perhaps the beginning of thier journey.

The healer did not seem suprised to see them, which was odd, consider what some of them looked like. Lorgrane thought that the Perfect itself would be suprised to see the tentacled, antennaed, yak man. It was obvious that this man was not what he appeared.

A metaphor, a man trying to stem back the tide of death, in capable of doing it himself. Does he have the answers we seek? Maybe. I imagine he will tell us what brought us here, but not reveal the deeper game. The question is, is he another puppet or the puppeteer. Lorgrane thinks as he observes the healer, content to let the others speak.

 

[Nephtys]

Moreth smiles grimly, knowing somehow that this desolation was right, and that though it was well within his power to relieve the suffering of thousands, he would do nothing. This place was not just his own beginning, it was the world's end.

Amiably pulling his lips back over his teeth he smiles knowlingly at any of the others looking his way, but answers not their words in kind. He remains silent before the eyes of the healer. Questions had already been asked, revealing ignorances best left untold, and it was obvious that the healer was no ordinary man to dwell alone in such an extraordinary place.

 

[Pyrex]

Lessa, Druid

Wading through the see of blood & bodies towards the man standing at its edge, Lessa's vision doubles. Superimposed over the gory vista before her she sees another sea, with another man standing at its edge.

One man stands at the edge of a sea of mangled bodies; tending to those at its surface with a healing kit.

The other at the edge of a vast ocean, casting his line & hauling out fish.

Unsure if she's stumbling across a field of corpses or if her feet just keep getting tangled in seaweed as she swims toward the shore, Lessa makes her way towards the man.

Nearing the healer, Lessa is suprised to see the others stumbling out of the surf next to her. One almost looks familiar, as if she had known him before. But there was no before, so how could she know him.

Having reached the shore Lessa walks towards the man across the grassy shore, littered with rotting fish and dismembered body parts and asks "How's the fishing today?"

 

[Rkhet]

"How's the fishing today?"

The healer pauses momentarily, as if to say something, but then resumes his work, ignoring your question.

"Who are you?"

"Me, I'm just a messenger. His Lordship has things that needs taken care of, and he knows that you'll all be lost and confused, so I'm supposed to give... counsel. Free will is important, or so He says, so if you think I'm talking a whole lot of bollocks, then that's fine too."

His fingers dance over the body in front of him, stopping bloodflow, removing bits of bloody metal, and applying salves and powders. Finished, he gives a satisfied grunt, and move to the next one.

"Do you have the answers we seek?"

"Depends on the questions you ask, of course. Don't expect me to know everything."

"And don't expect me to tell you everything I know. A man's got to have his secrets."

 

[Nephtys]

Moreth makes an effort to be polite, though he suspects the healer is playing with them. Despite his impulse to kill the entity he decides other matters must take precedence for the moment, this was no place to spend eternity.
"Then tell us what you want us to know, for surely you know which questions we should ask."

 

[Wrahn]

Puppet Lorgrane concludes to himself, frowning when the healer talks about keeping secrets.

He observes the healer closely, sure that he is not what he appears. He remains silent, studying the others reactions as much as studying the healer.

OOC-
Are we assumed to have our persistent spells up? If so, what active spells does the healer have on him (known by the virtue of persistent greater arcane sight)