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Realms of Enlightenment: The Grey Companions (final update posted 02.14.10)
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<blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 5034342" data-attributes="member: 2323"><p><strong>[PLAIN][Realms #500] Dead Gods[/PLAIN]</strong></p><p></p><p>Ledare straightened at the mention of the names. "I have heard about Melenger the Black. He was the custodian of a magical artifact called the Rod of Ruin. Long ago, before your time even Morier, I traveled with... with a company of great friends. We happened upon something like that - a rod of great power, although we didn't know its nature and there were mixed feeling about what should be done with it."</p><p></p><p>Morier shook his head and snorted to himself, thinking in turn of the Rod of Withering and the Samsara Sword and of how both had divided his own group.</p><p></p><p>Taking the chain from Maleko's hands, Ledare continued, "Kirnoth carried it for a time. I always thought he threw it into the sea." She paused a moment, fingering the chain thoughtfully. It was solidly-made, each link scribed with a fillifgreed design and disks of silver polished to mirrored smoothness were worked into its length at regular intervals. It seemed momentarily odd that she didn't remember getting the chain, but she was adrift in a sea of oddity and a forgotten necklace represented but a single cup-full of confusion.</p><p></p><p>"Those were distant lifetimes," she said at last. "I don't know how I came to possess this chain. But it is of no small significance that it should now bear the symbol of Mercy." She placed the chain once more around her neck and stood abruptly. "Flor's ways are mysterious and powerful indeed, but I will be quite ineffective at doing her good work without some kind of armor!" Maleko held up a finger and began sifting through his gear.</p><p></p><p>"I have some scrolls of <em>Mage Armor</em> that I could use to benefit you in combat. It's not plate mail, but it will help turn aside a blade," he told her and she nodded. "There are some Nethlar-granted miracles that I could also impart on you after my prayers. <em>Shield of Faith</em> comes immediately to mind..."</p><p></p><p>"Anything will help," she admitted. "My thanks, Maleko." She looked at Morier and saw that he had his back to them, his attention pointedly not focused on his companions but rather on the insubstantial world of glittering vapor that surrounded them. She stared hard at the back of the albino's head, wondering what was going on inside. She was so fixated that she very nearly missed hearing Maleko's last comment.</p><p></p><p>"I really wish you could remember where you got the chain," the mage-priest told her. "It may tell us where this Black Bishop is."</p><p></p><p>But, alas, she had no answers for him.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Morier settled in to take his turn on watch while the others rested.</p><p></p><p>He was struck by the comfort he once again felt in a moment of solitude. It was a familiar feeling, but one that he hadn't felt for quite some time. There was a time when he seemed the "solitary warrior", moving from place to place, leaving before bonds could be tied to others. But his recent travels, particularly those with Ledare and Huzair, had opened him to the idea of companionship. He looked thoughtfully at these sleeping comrades but didn't feel the same ties he had before.</p><p></p><p>The familiar face, and the new one for that matter, were at once comforting and distressing to Morier. He remembered the coins he once had forged and given to Ledare to mark her membership as a member of the "Order Bringers" and laughed aloud a sarcastic chuckle. If this was "order" it left something to be questioned of what "disorder" felt like. Where had the line between reality and ether begun to blur?</p><p></p><p>He wanted badly to talk to both of his new companions, but he needed more time to sort out his own questions. Simply seeing them seemed strange enough. Talking to them seemed like madness. Developing bonds with them was crossing the line into complete lunacy.</p><p></p><p>He turned from them and looked ahead, focusing his energies on keeping watch. When Ledare spoke, he started violently and very nearly drew his sword. She was- obviously - no longer sleeping, and she crept quietly from her spot near Maleko to not disturb the elf's rest. Morier sighed and turned away from her again.</p><p></p><p>"Choosing solitude doesn't make you more likely to succeed, Morier. It just makes you more alone," the janissary said and settled on her haunches near, but not actually beside the eldritch warrior. She gazed off at the distant islands of rock, half-glimpsed in the mist. "You've come this far thanks to the blood and the grit of those who chose to make the journey with you... Don't discredit them because you are afraid to lose anyone else. One man alone is not going to defeat Aphyx, no matter how strong. It has been a team effort, regardless of what reality you are from." She paused, and silence blossomed between them. Morier kept his attention focused beyond their tiny oasis of substance in the vast emptiness.</p><p></p><p>"If this is all nothing more than an illusion - a trick of your mind - then make the most of it," Ledare encouraged. "Learn something from it. Don't retreat inside yourself until it makes sense; it may never make sense! Use the opportunity it presents to you!" Her voice rose and she glanced back at Maleko, but she hadn't disturbed the elf's reverie. When she looked back Morier was facing her with a grave expression on his face.</p><p></p><p>"You misunderstand, Ledare," the albino explained. "It's not that I don't want to. Actually I want to quite a lot... I just... I feel like he's losing my damned mind." Ledare looked at him and there was nothing of jest n his face. He meant everything he said.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, you mean that!" she said, grinning and running a hand through her auburn locks. "Sorry, can't help you with that." Morier blinked and then a grin played across his own face and he chuckled under his breath. He reached out a hand and gave Ledare's fingers a squeeze.</p><p></p><p>"Give me time, Ledare," he said. "I just need time to wrap my brain around all that's happened... or may have happened.. or-" She patted him on the shoulder and nodded.</p><p></p><p>"Get some rest," she said. "It's my turn to take watch." He agreed and moved to take her recently vacated spot near Maleko.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, and, Morier?" she asked quietly. "What exactly are we supposed to be doing in the Gods Isles?" He regarded her earnestly and then shrugged.</p><p></p><p>"I have no idea," he said. "Unite Dridana's Heart and Body. I'm sort of hoping it'll be obvious once we get there." Ledare smiled at him and shook her head.</p><p></p><p>"Maybe we should have asked that yucky death guardian a question or two before we ran away," she suggested and Morier shrugged again.</p><p></p><p>"Maybe," he admitted. "We're operating a bit off the map here."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>For her part, Ledare spent the slow hours of the watch reviewing any details from her experiences that she thought might help them in the next leg of the journey. The bits and pieces of the journal entries and cryptic poems that she had collected over time swirled in her mind like the far-off twinkling lights and the strange, moving conduits of the Astral plane. When the threads of memory inevitably led her to the scene on the wharf of Awad, she felt a mingled sense of sadness and disbelief. Was it by design that two lives had been extinguished and her own soul hurled into the present situation? Or was it randomness. Might there be still other realities harboring names and faces from her past, all alive and well somewhere? It seemed preposterous to even consider. And yet, here she was in the company of one whom she had thought dead. One who had, instead, taken up the cause and fought on in some parallel world without her. Her heart swelled with pride at that. </p><p></p><p>The soft sounds of Maleko stirring from his trance broke into her reflection. Maleko - a well dressed and well spoken stranger who seemed to already have connectinos to her life - a different life, full of facets and ramifications she knew nothing about. Ledare sighed deeply and begrudgingly admitted the feeling that, like Morier, this tangle was truly beyond her ability to grasp. And, contrary to her own advice, it seemed that shutting out the confusion brought - if not peace - then the closest semblance to it she would find in this place.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They set off in the morning - or what passed for such on the Astral - after Maleko had prayed to Nethlar for both guidance and those miracles he thought might be necessary. The latter included the spell <em>Shield of Faith </em>which he hoped to cast on Ledare should the need arise. None of them were naive enough to believe that it wouldn't.</p><p></p><p>At first, it seemed as though they were racing simply toward an immense island of stone suspended in the silver void. But as they drew nearer and the island grew larger , they realized the truth. One by one their eyes followed the lines and contours of the rock and each in turn made out feminine arms curled tight against the body with hands that covered stone breasts of enormous size. Between the two hands - in the center of the figure's chest - was a hole that seemed filled with solid darkness, an absolute void. An expression of shocked pain and grief was frozen on the face of the gigantic humanoid whose cold stone eyes stared unseeing at the misty expanse of the astral sea. The whole contorted "island" was at least four miles long and made entirely of dry, gray stone.</p><p></p><p>"My god..." Maleko breathed as he beheld, and grasped what he was seeing.</p><p></p><p>"Not your god, Maleko," Morier corrected, his own voice a whisper. "But a god nonetheless."</p><p></p><p>"Or what's left of one," Ledare added.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They pressed on, wary of opposition, but finding none, until they reached a point some thousand feet or so above the great stone corpse. There, with their vision dominated by the massive corpus dei, they seemed to breach some invisible barrier and felt the tug of gravity reassert itself on them. It pulled them inexorably downward in a slow <em>Featherfall</em> toward the figure's feet as if that were the only proper place for mortals on the body of a god. An uneven, landscape of broken and blasted rock stretched out ahead of them as they touched down.</p><p></p><p>"We're here," Morier said unsteadily as if he couldn't quite believe it. Maleko cast <em>Detect Magic</em> and found that, unlike the rest of the Astral Plane, on this God Isle the normal laws governing magic were in effect. His spell was not <em>Quickened</em> or otherwise metamagically enhanced. It still worked properly, however, and the vista around him began to light up as he concentrated on the spell.</p><p></p><p>"Amazing," he said as he looked around. The whole place was awash with magic of every type, but at much lower levels than he feared it might. Some of the gear that his companions wore glowed with more power than the God Isle itself. In fact...</p><p></p><p>He noticed that Ledare's necklace was glowing particularly brightly, and it was quickly glowing brighter still. He analyzed the dweomer with a thought, his knowledge of spellcraft making the process nearly effortless: <em>Conjuration</em> magic of the <em>Teleportation</em> subschool. Odd, he thought. Either the necklace was about to gate somewhere or...</p><p></p><p>With a shouted warning he reached out and jerked the necklace off Ledare's head at the very moment that the device flared with light and the area within the circle of the chain became a portal to somewhere else. Had he been a moment slower, the effect would have neatly decapitated the janissary. As it was, the necklace clattered down to the rock nearby and for a brief second, they saw a window looking in on a stone chamber.</p><p></p><p>Then that image was eclipsed as a seething mass of rats bubbled up and out of the tiny gate, their brown-black bodies scrabbling madly over one another with singular purpose.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jon Potter, post: 5034342, member: 2323"] [b][PLAIN][Realms #500] Dead Gods[/PLAIN][/b] Ledare straightened at the mention of the names. "I have heard about Melenger the Black. He was the custodian of a magical artifact called the Rod of Ruin. Long ago, before your time even Morier, I traveled with... with a company of great friends. We happened upon something like that - a rod of great power, although we didn't know its nature and there were mixed feeling about what should be done with it." Morier shook his head and snorted to himself, thinking in turn of the Rod of Withering and the Samsara Sword and of how both had divided his own group. Taking the chain from Maleko's hands, Ledare continued, "Kirnoth carried it for a time. I always thought he threw it into the sea." She paused a moment, fingering the chain thoughtfully. It was solidly-made, each link scribed with a fillifgreed design and disks of silver polished to mirrored smoothness were worked into its length at regular intervals. It seemed momentarily odd that she didn't remember getting the chain, but she was adrift in a sea of oddity and a forgotten necklace represented but a single cup-full of confusion. "Those were distant lifetimes," she said at last. "I don't know how I came to possess this chain. But it is of no small significance that it should now bear the symbol of Mercy." She placed the chain once more around her neck and stood abruptly. "Flor's ways are mysterious and powerful indeed, but I will be quite ineffective at doing her good work without some kind of armor!" Maleko held up a finger and began sifting through his gear. "I have some scrolls of [I]Mage Armor[/I] that I could use to benefit you in combat. It's not plate mail, but it will help turn aside a blade," he told her and she nodded. "There are some Nethlar-granted miracles that I could also impart on you after my prayers. [I]Shield of Faith[/I] comes immediately to mind..." "Anything will help," she admitted. "My thanks, Maleko." She looked at Morier and saw that he had his back to them, his attention pointedly not focused on his companions but rather on the insubstantial world of glittering vapor that surrounded them. She stared hard at the back of the albino's head, wondering what was going on inside. She was so fixated that she very nearly missed hearing Maleko's last comment. "I really wish you could remember where you got the chain," the mage-priest told her. "It may tell us where this Black Bishop is." But, alas, she had no answers for him. Morier settled in to take his turn on watch while the others rested. He was struck by the comfort he once again felt in a moment of solitude. It was a familiar feeling, but one that he hadn't felt for quite some time. There was a time when he seemed the "solitary warrior", moving from place to place, leaving before bonds could be tied to others. But his recent travels, particularly those with Ledare and Huzair, had opened him to the idea of companionship. He looked thoughtfully at these sleeping comrades but didn't feel the same ties he had before. The familiar face, and the new one for that matter, were at once comforting and distressing to Morier. He remembered the coins he once had forged and given to Ledare to mark her membership as a member of the "Order Bringers" and laughed aloud a sarcastic chuckle. If this was "order" it left something to be questioned of what "disorder" felt like. Where had the line between reality and ether begun to blur? He wanted badly to talk to both of his new companions, but he needed more time to sort out his own questions. Simply seeing them seemed strange enough. Talking to them seemed like madness. Developing bonds with them was crossing the line into complete lunacy. He turned from them and looked ahead, focusing his energies on keeping watch. When Ledare spoke, he started violently and very nearly drew his sword. She was- obviously - no longer sleeping, and she crept quietly from her spot near Maleko to not disturb the elf's rest. Morier sighed and turned away from her again. "Choosing solitude doesn't make you more likely to succeed, Morier. It just makes you more alone," the janissary said and settled on her haunches near, but not actually beside the eldritch warrior. She gazed off at the distant islands of rock, half-glimpsed in the mist. "You've come this far thanks to the blood and the grit of those who chose to make the journey with you... Don't discredit them because you are afraid to lose anyone else. One man alone is not going to defeat Aphyx, no matter how strong. It has been a team effort, regardless of what reality you are from." She paused, and silence blossomed between them. Morier kept his attention focused beyond their tiny oasis of substance in the vast emptiness. "If this is all nothing more than an illusion - a trick of your mind - then make the most of it," Ledare encouraged. "Learn something from it. Don't retreat inside yourself until it makes sense; it may never make sense! Use the opportunity it presents to you!" Her voice rose and she glanced back at Maleko, but she hadn't disturbed the elf's reverie. When she looked back Morier was facing her with a grave expression on his face. "You misunderstand, Ledare," the albino explained. "It's not that I don't want to. Actually I want to quite a lot... I just... I feel like he's losing my damned mind." Ledare looked at him and there was nothing of jest n his face. He meant everything he said. "Oh, you mean that!" she said, grinning and running a hand through her auburn locks. "Sorry, can't help you with that." Morier blinked and then a grin played across his own face and he chuckled under his breath. He reached out a hand and gave Ledare's fingers a squeeze. "Give me time, Ledare," he said. "I just need time to wrap my brain around all that's happened... or may have happened.. or-" She patted him on the shoulder and nodded. "Get some rest," she said. "It's my turn to take watch." He agreed and moved to take her recently vacated spot near Maleko. "Oh, and, Morier?" she asked quietly. "What exactly are we supposed to be doing in the Gods Isles?" He regarded her earnestly and then shrugged. "I have no idea," he said. "Unite Dridana's Heart and Body. I'm sort of hoping it'll be obvious once we get there." Ledare smiled at him and shook her head. "Maybe we should have asked that yucky death guardian a question or two before we ran away," she suggested and Morier shrugged again. "Maybe," he admitted. "We're operating a bit off the map here." For her part, Ledare spent the slow hours of the watch reviewing any details from her experiences that she thought might help them in the next leg of the journey. The bits and pieces of the journal entries and cryptic poems that she had collected over time swirled in her mind like the far-off twinkling lights and the strange, moving conduits of the Astral plane. When the threads of memory inevitably led her to the scene on the wharf of Awad, she felt a mingled sense of sadness and disbelief. Was it by design that two lives had been extinguished and her own soul hurled into the present situation? Or was it randomness. Might there be still other realities harboring names and faces from her past, all alive and well somewhere? It seemed preposterous to even consider. And yet, here she was in the company of one whom she had thought dead. One who had, instead, taken up the cause and fought on in some parallel world without her. Her heart swelled with pride at that. The soft sounds of Maleko stirring from his trance broke into her reflection. Maleko - a well dressed and well spoken stranger who seemed to already have connectinos to her life - a different life, full of facets and ramifications she knew nothing about. Ledare sighed deeply and begrudgingly admitted the feeling that, like Morier, this tangle was truly beyond her ability to grasp. And, contrary to her own advice, it seemed that shutting out the confusion brought - if not peace - then the closest semblance to it she would find in this place. They set off in the morning - or what passed for such on the Astral - after Maleko had prayed to Nethlar for both guidance and those miracles he thought might be necessary. The latter included the spell [I]Shield of Faith [/I]which he hoped to cast on Ledare should the need arise. None of them were naive enough to believe that it wouldn't. At first, it seemed as though they were racing simply toward an immense island of stone suspended in the silver void. But as they drew nearer and the island grew larger , they realized the truth. One by one their eyes followed the lines and contours of the rock and each in turn made out feminine arms curled tight against the body with hands that covered stone breasts of enormous size. Between the two hands - in the center of the figure's chest - was a hole that seemed filled with solid darkness, an absolute void. An expression of shocked pain and grief was frozen on the face of the gigantic humanoid whose cold stone eyes stared unseeing at the misty expanse of the astral sea. The whole contorted "island" was at least four miles long and made entirely of dry, gray stone. "My god..." Maleko breathed as he beheld, and grasped what he was seeing. "Not your god, Maleko," Morier corrected, his own voice a whisper. "But a god nonetheless." "Or what's left of one," Ledare added. They pressed on, wary of opposition, but finding none, until they reached a point some thousand feet or so above the great stone corpse. There, with their vision dominated by the massive corpus dei, they seemed to breach some invisible barrier and felt the tug of gravity reassert itself on them. It pulled them inexorably downward in a slow [I]Featherfall[/I] toward the figure's feet as if that were the only proper place for mortals on the body of a god. An uneven, landscape of broken and blasted rock stretched out ahead of them as they touched down. "We're here," Morier said unsteadily as if he couldn't quite believe it. Maleko cast [I]Detect Magic[/I] and found that, unlike the rest of the Astral Plane, on this God Isle the normal laws governing magic were in effect. His spell was not [I]Quickened[/I] or otherwise metamagically enhanced. It still worked properly, however, and the vista around him began to light up as he concentrated on the spell. "Amazing," he said as he looked around. The whole place was awash with magic of every type, but at much lower levels than he feared it might. Some of the gear that his companions wore glowed with more power than the God Isle itself. In fact... He noticed that Ledare's necklace was glowing particularly brightly, and it was quickly glowing brighter still. He analyzed the dweomer with a thought, his knowledge of spellcraft making the process nearly effortless: [I]Conjuration[/I] magic of the [I]Teleportation[/I] subschool. Odd, he thought. Either the necklace was about to gate somewhere or... With a shouted warning he reached out and jerked the necklace off Ledare's head at the very moment that the device flared with light and the area within the circle of the chain became a portal to somewhere else. Had he been a moment slower, the effect would have neatly decapitated the janissary. As it was, the necklace clattered down to the rock nearby and for a brief second, they saw a window looking in on a stone chamber. Then that image was eclipsed as a seething mass of rats bubbled up and out of the tiny gate, their brown-black bodies scrabbling madly over one another with singular purpose. [/QUOTE]
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