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<blockquote data-quote="Arcturion" data-source="post: 3736193" data-attributes="member: 54632"><p><strong>1.0 Darksail Argosy</strong></p><p></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">Drawing upon the power of the greensight, Eltera’s thoughts drifted back momentarily to the white cloth headband that once belonged to her father, Saulekanis. The former weaponmaster of House Trellust was once among the greatest warriors in all of Nyctalinth, that is, until her mother the Matron Trellust unmasked what she considered Saul’s heresy against Illotha and gouged out his eyes herself with a white hot knife as punishment. The simple garment was all Eltera had left of her father, that and her memory of him when he willingly gave his life without hesitation to save hers in the lightless depths of the Underealm.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">Before he had departed, Tanius spoke briefly of the greenseers, those with the gift of true vision and foresight obtained through waking dreams and spirits of the natural world. It was said that they could see truths hidden from the eyes of normal men and reveal all for what it truly is rather than how it was to be perceived. Eltera hoped that whatever small ability they could afford would help her see with clarity now.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">Opening her eyes, the dark aelf saw the world as a hazy shade of swirling gray upon green as if all the colors and lines of reality were blurred together by some great, unseen wind. Her gaze drifted over the crowd, and she could almost see their palpable fear hanging in the air above the gathered mass. The soldiers of the Contari host revealed nothing and were as others saw them; mere mortal men armed with steel and expected to protect the realm which they served. The drakes they rode were descended from dragons, this was so, but compared to the true dragons of old they were relatively simple-minded and animalistic creatures, their dragonblood heavily diluted through the ages.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">The proud Hrundir, including Ivar, were mortal as well, and no doubt were born, lived, and died as other men did. The greensight revealed nothing special of note when Eltera trained her eyes upon their battle hardened faces. The Lady Sharis was the same, as were the northmen’s horses.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">She stopped as her gaze came upon the two Hersir Lords and their Jarl, Bulwygar. At Tuskegrin’s side stood a giant wild boar, its hulking shape unmistakable as it was covered with coarse, bristly hair the color of coal. Its ugly, reddish-pink face was swarthy and marked by warts both great and small, framing the wickedly curved tusks that jutted out from its lower jaw. The porcine animal’s form was hazy and indistinct, and nearly as transparent as a ghostly spirit would be. Turning to Ursodrik, Eltera saw that the chieftain was also accompanied by a dire-sized animal of his own, this one being a giant brown grizzly bear. The creature would have easily towered over every man present at the quays, including Ursodrik himself, were it to stand upon its hind legs. Its talons and fangs seemed capable of shearing flesh and bone if it wished, while its ursine face bore the same intricate tattoos of deep blue-inked knots of the Hersir it meant to represent. Like the boar that stood at Tuskegrin’s side, the bear’s form appeared almost ethereal and translucent, as if it was a mirage and wasn’t really there to begin with.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">The Jarl Bulwygar Wolfgarsson was not alone in this for he too had the ghostly apparition of a dire animal by his side. This one was a giant wolf with grey and white mottled fur and eyes of the deepest amber-yellow. The lupine creature stood as large as any horse Eltera had ever seen, and its presence along with the other insubstantial animal spirits appeared to go unnoticed by everyone else, including the Hrundic lords themselves. Even now, various parts of several northmen’s bodies were inside and easily passed through the great incorporeal beasts where they stood, each creature watching the procession silently with vigilant eyes.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">When Eltera turned her gaze toward the direction of the Nornir sisters, her eyes went wide. Where each woman currently stood was merely her silhouette, its shape black and inky as midnight and seeming to hungrily draw in what little surrounding light and warmth there was to be had. The depths of every Norn’s form were endless, and the dark aelf had the eerie sense of staring into some wide, bottomless void from which there was no escape. The only things about them that appeared solid and substantial were their shields, and even they had strange undulating shapes flittering about their metallic surfaces. The polished golden shield of the supposedly blonde-haired sister was adorned with the numerous forms of pulsating hearts reflected upon the metal, each terrible organ beating as if still alive. Even now, Eltera could see the gold veins pumping and throbbing in a sick, quivering mass. She half expected to hear them drumming a macabre cadence over the words of the gathered host. The brushed silver shield belonging to the silver-haired woman was equally disturbing for its surface bore the labyrinthine, organic mass of what appeared to be coral-like brains embossed into the metal, their tremulous shapes thrumming as if still capable of processing thought with some unseen, malevolent intelligence.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">The dark ebony shield borne by the raven-haired Norn was the most horrifying of all. In its deep midnight-black surface were the misshapen forms of what appeared to be countless ghostly visages trapped within the dull metal, each straining against one another and screaming in silence as if trying to break free. The unnatural terror and agony were plain upon their wraithlike faces as their gnashing mouths gaped open, shrieking wordlessly and begging for release from their eternal torment.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">As quickly as the unsettling images over the shields appeared in Eltera’s vision, they faded away, leaving naught but men and horses and drakes reflected upon their metallic surfaces.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">Blinking, the dark aelf suddenly realized she had been holding her breath and it seemed to take all of her willpower to remind her lungs to continue their duty once again, as if her body refused to obey her unconscious thoughts. The sharp intake of air alerted Eltera to the fact that she was once again breathing, the sound drawing Rentiki’s attention for he gave her a troubled sidelong glance.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">It was too crowded and the people around her stood too tightly packed for her to kneel down without brushing or pressing against someone else. It was just as well, Eltera thought. No doubt such an action would have drawn unwanted attention no matter how deft her movements were, considering the surrounding press of onlookers. With practiced ease, the dark aelf’s bandaged hand drifted down toward Amurisil’s silver wire-wrapped ivory hilt, the cool touch of it somehow reassuring in light of the disturbing things she had just witnessed. Slowly she loosened the sword in its scabbard and drew the blade several inches to clear it from the sheath. The silvery sheen of the ultra-hard eog from which the weapon was forged seemed to take on a life of its own. Carefully, Eltera moved her bloodied fingers down over the soothing metal and wordlessly beckoned Amurisil to work its healing magic over her wounds.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">The dark aelf’s eyes never left the void-like silhouettes of the three Nornir, watching for any sign of movement or recognition of her divination on their part. Abruptly, Eltera gasped as her slick fingers curled around Amurisil’s blade tightly, the pain of her wounds shooting renewed fire through her hands and up into her arms to clutch at her heart in a vice-like grip. The sword at her side seemed to tremble and scream silently along with her as she lost her breath. Twisting where she stood, Eltera’s eyes grew wide and her mouth hung open in a soundless scream as sheer agony took hold of her entire being.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">Vaguely she heard Rentiki’s shout of dismay as the world seemed to spin all around her. The dark aelf’s eyes swam and swirled like a maelstrom, the edges of her vision darkened by ever deepening shadows. It was then that Eltera took note of the three Nornir for something had stirred within their midnight forms. A single, large bulbous eye opened in the center of where the raven-haired woman’s face should have been, its baleful glare twisting this way and that over the crowd before it turned within the unseen socket to look squarely in her direction. That hideous black-pupiled, green-rimmed orb has unmistakably found me, Eltera realized too late, just as similar eyes appeared in the featureless visages of the other two Norn sisters, one rimmed with gold and the other silver. Before long, countless eyes both large and small had erupted all over the women’s shapeless silhouettes, each and every one staring straight at and through the dark aelf, it seemed, ripping away the layers of her armor, clothing, skin, flesh and bone, laying bare her heart, her mind, her soul.</span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon"></span></p><p><span style="color: LemonChiffon">Oaths filled the air around her, their echoes ringing hollow in her ears as the world gave way beneath her feet. Eltera felt like she had been falling for an eternity and with nothing waiting below at all save for a bottomless void. Those eyes, those terrible watchful eyes that saw everything. That saw her. The last thing she glimpsed before the darkness claimed her was Rentiki’s ebon-skinned face, worry and alarm etched across his normally jovial features, shouting for her to hang on when all she ever wanted to do at that moment in time was let go and be swallowed up by nothingness.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Arcturion, post: 3736193, member: 54632"] [b]1.0 Darksail Argosy[/b] [COLOR=LemonChiffon]Drawing upon the power of the greensight, Eltera’s thoughts drifted back momentarily to the white cloth headband that once belonged to her father, Saulekanis. The former weaponmaster of House Trellust was once among the greatest warriors in all of Nyctalinth, that is, until her mother the Matron Trellust unmasked what she considered Saul’s heresy against Illotha and gouged out his eyes herself with a white hot knife as punishment. The simple garment was all Eltera had left of her father, that and her memory of him when he willingly gave his life without hesitation to save hers in the lightless depths of the Underealm. Before he had departed, Tanius spoke briefly of the greenseers, those with the gift of true vision and foresight obtained through waking dreams and spirits of the natural world. It was said that they could see truths hidden from the eyes of normal men and reveal all for what it truly is rather than how it was to be perceived. Eltera hoped that whatever small ability they could afford would help her see with clarity now. Opening her eyes, the dark aelf saw the world as a hazy shade of swirling gray upon green as if all the colors and lines of reality were blurred together by some great, unseen wind. Her gaze drifted over the crowd, and she could almost see their palpable fear hanging in the air above the gathered mass. The soldiers of the Contari host revealed nothing and were as others saw them; mere mortal men armed with steel and expected to protect the realm which they served. The drakes they rode were descended from dragons, this was so, but compared to the true dragons of old they were relatively simple-minded and animalistic creatures, their dragonblood heavily diluted through the ages. The proud Hrundir, including Ivar, were mortal as well, and no doubt were born, lived, and died as other men did. The greensight revealed nothing special of note when Eltera trained her eyes upon their battle hardened faces. The Lady Sharis was the same, as were the northmen’s horses. She stopped as her gaze came upon the two Hersir Lords and their Jarl, Bulwygar. At Tuskegrin’s side stood a giant wild boar, its hulking shape unmistakable as it was covered with coarse, bristly hair the color of coal. Its ugly, reddish-pink face was swarthy and marked by warts both great and small, framing the wickedly curved tusks that jutted out from its lower jaw. The porcine animal’s form was hazy and indistinct, and nearly as transparent as a ghostly spirit would be. Turning to Ursodrik, Eltera saw that the chieftain was also accompanied by a dire-sized animal of his own, this one being a giant brown grizzly bear. The creature would have easily towered over every man present at the quays, including Ursodrik himself, were it to stand upon its hind legs. Its talons and fangs seemed capable of shearing flesh and bone if it wished, while its ursine face bore the same intricate tattoos of deep blue-inked knots of the Hersir it meant to represent. Like the boar that stood at Tuskegrin’s side, the bear’s form appeared almost ethereal and translucent, as if it was a mirage and wasn’t really there to begin with. The Jarl Bulwygar Wolfgarsson was not alone in this for he too had the ghostly apparition of a dire animal by his side. This one was a giant wolf with grey and white mottled fur and eyes of the deepest amber-yellow. The lupine creature stood as large as any horse Eltera had ever seen, and its presence along with the other insubstantial animal spirits appeared to go unnoticed by everyone else, including the Hrundic lords themselves. Even now, various parts of several northmen’s bodies were inside and easily passed through the great incorporeal beasts where they stood, each creature watching the procession silently with vigilant eyes. When Eltera turned her gaze toward the direction of the Nornir sisters, her eyes went wide. Where each woman currently stood was merely her silhouette, its shape black and inky as midnight and seeming to hungrily draw in what little surrounding light and warmth there was to be had. The depths of every Norn’s form were endless, and the dark aelf had the eerie sense of staring into some wide, bottomless void from which there was no escape. The only things about them that appeared solid and substantial were their shields, and even they had strange undulating shapes flittering about their metallic surfaces. The polished golden shield of the supposedly blonde-haired sister was adorned with the numerous forms of pulsating hearts reflected upon the metal, each terrible organ beating as if still alive. Even now, Eltera could see the gold veins pumping and throbbing in a sick, quivering mass. She half expected to hear them drumming a macabre cadence over the words of the gathered host. The brushed silver shield belonging to the silver-haired woman was equally disturbing for its surface bore the labyrinthine, organic mass of what appeared to be coral-like brains embossed into the metal, their tremulous shapes thrumming as if still capable of processing thought with some unseen, malevolent intelligence. The dark ebony shield borne by the raven-haired Norn was the most horrifying of all. In its deep midnight-black surface were the misshapen forms of what appeared to be countless ghostly visages trapped within the dull metal, each straining against one another and screaming in silence as if trying to break free. The unnatural terror and agony were plain upon their wraithlike faces as their gnashing mouths gaped open, shrieking wordlessly and begging for release from their eternal torment. As quickly as the unsettling images over the shields appeared in Eltera’s vision, they faded away, leaving naught but men and horses and drakes reflected upon their metallic surfaces. Blinking, the dark aelf suddenly realized she had been holding her breath and it seemed to take all of her willpower to remind her lungs to continue their duty once again, as if her body refused to obey her unconscious thoughts. The sharp intake of air alerted Eltera to the fact that she was once again breathing, the sound drawing Rentiki’s attention for he gave her a troubled sidelong glance. It was too crowded and the people around her stood too tightly packed for her to kneel down without brushing or pressing against someone else. It was just as well, Eltera thought. No doubt such an action would have drawn unwanted attention no matter how deft her movements were, considering the surrounding press of onlookers. With practiced ease, the dark aelf’s bandaged hand drifted down toward Amurisil’s silver wire-wrapped ivory hilt, the cool touch of it somehow reassuring in light of the disturbing things she had just witnessed. Slowly she loosened the sword in its scabbard and drew the blade several inches to clear it from the sheath. The silvery sheen of the ultra-hard eog from which the weapon was forged seemed to take on a life of its own. Carefully, Eltera moved her bloodied fingers down over the soothing metal and wordlessly beckoned Amurisil to work its healing magic over her wounds. The dark aelf’s eyes never left the void-like silhouettes of the three Nornir, watching for any sign of movement or recognition of her divination on their part. Abruptly, Eltera gasped as her slick fingers curled around Amurisil’s blade tightly, the pain of her wounds shooting renewed fire through her hands and up into her arms to clutch at her heart in a vice-like grip. The sword at her side seemed to tremble and scream silently along with her as she lost her breath. Twisting where she stood, Eltera’s eyes grew wide and her mouth hung open in a soundless scream as sheer agony took hold of her entire being. Vaguely she heard Rentiki’s shout of dismay as the world seemed to spin all around her. The dark aelf’s eyes swam and swirled like a maelstrom, the edges of her vision darkened by ever deepening shadows. It was then that Eltera took note of the three Nornir for something had stirred within their midnight forms. A single, large bulbous eye opened in the center of where the raven-haired woman’s face should have been, its baleful glare twisting this way and that over the crowd before it turned within the unseen socket to look squarely in her direction. That hideous black-pupiled, green-rimmed orb has unmistakably found me, Eltera realized too late, just as similar eyes appeared in the featureless visages of the other two Norn sisters, one rimmed with gold and the other silver. Before long, countless eyes both large and small had erupted all over the women’s shapeless silhouettes, each and every one staring straight at and through the dark aelf, it seemed, ripping away the layers of her armor, clothing, skin, flesh and bone, laying bare her heart, her mind, her soul. Oaths filled the air around her, their echoes ringing hollow in her ears as the world gave way beneath her feet. Eltera felt like she had been falling for an eternity and with nothing waiting below at all save for a bottomless void. Those eyes, those terrible watchful eyes that saw everything. That saw her. The last thing she glimpsed before the darkness claimed her was Rentiki’s ebon-skinned face, worry and alarm etched across his normally jovial features, shouting for her to hang on when all she ever wanted to do at that moment in time was let go and be swallowed up by nothingness.[/COLOR] [/QUOTE]
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