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Steel Dragon's "Tales of Orea"
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<blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 6265368" data-attributes="member: 92511"><p>Alaria rested her head against the soft snowy white back of the giant owl. The cooling breezes as they soared through the ether was comforting. She felt more at peace than she had for months. A blissful relaxation consumed her as the avian moved through what some part of her understod as the spirit world. </p><p></p><p>*<em>Hoo-oot</em>.* the giant owl cooed.</p><p></p><p>“I don’t have to right now.” she answered her mount casually.</p><p></p><p>An ethereal “Hoot” echoed all around her.</p><p></p><p>“I don’t know...Wherever we were, I suppose.” Alaria replied, rolling lazily onto her back. </p><p></p><p>Where was that? She had only a glimmer of a memory. She had been in a place of darkness and pain, sorrow and loss. Here, it was calm, cool, her mind soared even as the owl pitched and dropped, flapped and rose in the “air.” But rose away from what or where, she had no conception. There was no “ground” that she could see, yet a feeling of “down” and “up” and moving around was apparent.</p><p></p><p>“Where were we, anyway?” Alaria asked the owl before catching herself. “We”? She kept thinking in the plural...Why?</p><p></p><p>*<em>Hoot.</em>* the owl’s response again echoed about her.</p><p></p><p>“Shoal?” Alaria answered in surprise. Why Shoal? Shoal was...a coastal town...there was a temple there...a temple to...the sea? She didn’t need to go to the sea...she had to get...</p><p></p><p>“The dragon!” Alaria cried aloud.</p><p></p><p>*<em>Hoot Hooooo.</em>* the owl’s voice said simply. It’s tone and meaning clear to Alaria’s mind.</p><p></p><p> There was a flash somewhere in the distance before her. A green light, merely a glimmer, far off and then it was gone. She knew the green light...there was something about it...some...one...</p><p></p><p>The calming grey peace that surrounded her immediately darkened menacingly. Soon, the pale grey ether was plunged into a complete blackness. </p><p></p><p>The owl pitched and dove, letting out a cry of alarm as it did so. Alaria gripped large handfuls of feathers to avoid sliding from the spirit-creature’s back. The sudden jolt spared something in her mind.</p><p></p><p>“I’m in the spell-sleep!” Alaria gasped.</p><p></p><p>“Hoot!” the owl replied, again with a tone of fear.</p><p></p><p>Two large red slits of eyes appeared before them. They loomed huge in the “air” before them. </p><p></p><p>The owl made to turn about as Alaria saw the tiny beacon of green light appear again, twinkle for a moment and disappear. It appeared, as best she determine, somewhere “behind” the eyes.</p><p></p><p>“No! No! Keep going! We have to go back!<em> I</em> have to go back!” Alaria commanded.</p><p></p><p>Without a sound, the owl resumed its course toward the large glowing red eyes.</p><p></p><p>A maw of black teeth opened beneath them, discerned only by the glowing red within the “mouth.” An ear-shattering roar of defiance and malice filled her perceptions. A burning heat and force of wind jolted the owl from its flight and the creature, with Alaria still clinging to it, was “knocked” by some unseen force. They were falling toward the mouth.</p><p></p><p>As they fell, she saw apparitions fly passed here. Erevan. Festus. There was Haelan sobbing over the smashed body of Buttercream. The satyr Jovias skipping along, oblivious to her, strumming on his lyre. The elf-priest Cyrillean being consumed in flames. There was Montor! </p><p></p><p>“Montor! Help me!" Alaria called out even as she and her owl fell beyond him. He looked down at her. A pained expression filled his face before he turned and faded away in a flourish of his midnight blue cloak. A flock of elvin knight hawk-riders raced passed her, flying “upward”.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly she was assaulted by the scents of sulfur and burning wood, pillars of smoke surrounded them. Beneath her, they now fell toward Ablidon...the Flaming City consumed in a blanket of flames and billowing smoke...Then falling toward a field of corpses, armies of elves and men spread out as far as she could perceive into the darkness...then it was Bridgetower...in ruins...standing in the midst of the rubble of the courtyard behind the great tower stood a lone figure...Braddok!</p><p></p><p>Alaria tugged with all of her might on the owl’s back to right the spirit-mount. It came out of its plummet and soared away from the red-glowing maw. She circled back around to where, she perceived, Braddok had been.</p><p></p><p>The warrior’s form appeared again, faintly, translucent. He stood, eyes closed. His hands clasped before him in a posture resembling some kind of prayer or...like one would position a corpse in reverence.</p><p></p><p>“Braddok!” the magess called out. There was no indication the ghost-image heard her but two sets of glowing white eyes, one set to either side of the swordsman, appeared. They were small twinkling spots of light.</p><p></p><p>“I must go back!” she cried out again, whether to the owl or Braddok or these white lights, even she could not say.</p><p></p><p>She noticed, quite jolting, that the darkness through which they now flew was now reaching at her and the owl. Dragging on them. The perceived speed of their flight noticeably slowed, like trying to sludge through a mire.</p><p></p><p>*<em>HOOT!</em>* the owl cried out. Whether to her or to their circumstance, Alaria wasn’t sure.</p><p></p><p>A cacophony of *<em>Hoooooooooo</em>* erupted all around them. It wasn’t her owl’s sound. Definitely multiple different voices. </p><p></p><p>From the shining eyes to either of Braddok’s form, tendrils of silvery light ripped forward, forming as they came, into great clawed draconic hands. Alaria felt complete fear for a moment before noticing that the silvery claws were ripping away at the darkness around her.</p><p></p><p>The glowing red maw now opened in the blackness “behind” Braddok and the silvery eyes. A thunderous roar shook the whole of the unearthly realm as the maw neared the back of the trio before her, threatening to dive down over them, consuming them all.</p><p></p><p>“NO!” Alaria cried out and felt the rush of arcane power, which she knew so well yet had completely forgotten she’d possessed. Without archaic phrases or finger-tangling gesture, even before she could throw her hand out toward Braddok, a silvery globe surrounded the warrior and his attending “spirit-eye-things.”</p><p></p><p>The maw seemed halted where it was. Not touching the globe, but unable to continue its apparent assault.</p><p></p><p>Then, the white glowing eyes took on a decidedly blue tint and grew in size, as forms surrounded the pinpoints of light. Draconic forms. Growing massive as Alaria watched and the owl, continued to fly toward them, though without ever, it seemed, getting any more close.</p><p></p><p>Their outlines, like silvery thread laid on a canvas of black, grew long necks and powerful claws, massive wings stretched out from their backs until they formed a wall of silvery wing between Braddok and Alaria and the giant red-glowing face that threatened them.</p><p></p><p>A duo of high-pitched piercing roars filled the area, though without the shaking force of the black draconic face. They filled Alaria with an obscure calm and security that gave way to a pulsing strength and...direction...purpose...clarity.</p><p></p><p>The two silvery dragons swirled together, weaving back and forth with each other, nose to tail, forming a silvery horizontal figure “8.“ Alaria immediately recognized it as the ancient magical sigil of infinity.</p><p></p><p>As this draconic infinity swirled before her, Alaria distinctly felt herself moving again “forward.” Braddok was getting closer. For a few beats of the owl’s wings, they were making a measurable, though slight, headway.</p><p></p><p>Then, in a moment, it was as though they were being “pulled”, sucked, toward the warrior and dragons, uncontrollably. In a split second, the owl and Alaria became a blur, distorted, stretched, accompanied with the sensation of moving at a breakneck speed and her perceptions was filled with silver light that flashed through eyes even as she shut them in fear. Thunder again filled in her ears.</p><p></p><p>Blackness. Ringing. A droning buzz that took on a definite tone and pitch...multiple notes...then a different harmony. The scent of...sea salt? What was that fishy odor? Was that humming? </p><p></p><p>“Hooooooohhhhhhmmmmm. Toooooooohhhhhmmmm. Bless-ed be Her dehhhh-epths." the unseen voices intoned.</p><p></p><p>Alaria’s eyes cracked open. A golden light blinded her before a moment before blurred forms began to take shape.</p><p></p><p>“She’s waking up!” she heard Haelan squeal, as if from a distance.</p><p></p><p>Alaria opened her eyes fully and lifted her head and shoulders from the pillow of the cot. “Where...” she tried to say.</p><p></p><p>Braddok stood at the foot of the bed. Relief and joy filled his face as his eyebrows rose in question.</p><p></p><p>To either side of him stood the bleach blond, heavily tanned and toned forms of the Shoal twins, Dihm and Suhm. They were bare to the waist save for a stole of sea-green, each with trim and serpentine shapes embroidery in silver thread. Their faces, like the stoic masks she remembered, betrayed no apparent emotion.</p><p></p><p>Alaria though she noted the slightest glimmer of silver light fade from Suhm’s eye...or was that Dihm? </p><p> </p><p>“Oh Alaria!” Haelan’s voice came again as the Hilltender slammed into the bedridden magess with a daelvar-sized bear hug. “Praise Faerantha you’ve come back. Oh..ehm..and Tyris, too, of course.” the halfling added.</p><p></p><p>It was then that Alaria noticed the rest of the room was filled, nearly to capacity, with attending priests and priestesses in assorted wraps and robes of blue and green. Several held incense burners giving off a faintly bluish smoke. Many others held candles of white and pale green. A stern looking bent middle-aged man was beside her bed.</p><p></p><p>He simply nodded and said, rather dispassionately, “I suppose I must welcome you back to Shoal, Magess Alaria.”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="steeldragons, post: 6265368, member: 92511"] Alaria rested her head against the soft snowy white back of the giant owl. The cooling breezes as they soared through the ether was comforting. She felt more at peace than she had for months. A blissful relaxation consumed her as the avian moved through what some part of her understod as the spirit world. *[I]Hoo-oot[/I].* the giant owl cooed. “I don’t have to right now.” she answered her mount casually. An ethereal “Hoot” echoed all around her. “I don’t know...Wherever we were, I suppose.” Alaria replied, rolling lazily onto her back. Where was that? She had only a glimmer of a memory. She had been in a place of darkness and pain, sorrow and loss. Here, it was calm, cool, her mind soared even as the owl pitched and dropped, flapped and rose in the “air.” But rose away from what or where, she had no conception. There was no “ground” that she could see, yet a feeling of “down” and “up” and moving around was apparent. “Where were we, anyway?” Alaria asked the owl before catching herself. “We”? She kept thinking in the plural...Why? *[I]Hoot.[/I]* the owl’s response again echoed about her. “Shoal?” Alaria answered in surprise. Why Shoal? Shoal was...a coastal town...there was a temple there...a temple to...the sea? She didn’t need to go to the sea...she had to get... “The dragon!” Alaria cried aloud. *[I]Hoot Hooooo.[/I]* the owl’s voice said simply. It’s tone and meaning clear to Alaria’s mind. There was a flash somewhere in the distance before her. A green light, merely a glimmer, far off and then it was gone. She knew the green light...there was something about it...some...one... The calming grey peace that surrounded her immediately darkened menacingly. Soon, the pale grey ether was plunged into a complete blackness. The owl pitched and dove, letting out a cry of alarm as it did so. Alaria gripped large handfuls of feathers to avoid sliding from the spirit-creature’s back. The sudden jolt spared something in her mind. “I’m in the spell-sleep!” Alaria gasped. “Hoot!” the owl replied, again with a tone of fear. Two large red slits of eyes appeared before them. They loomed huge in the “air” before them. The owl made to turn about as Alaria saw the tiny beacon of green light appear again, twinkle for a moment and disappear. It appeared, as best she determine, somewhere “behind” the eyes. “No! No! Keep going! We have to go back![I] I[/I] have to go back!” Alaria commanded. Without a sound, the owl resumed its course toward the large glowing red eyes. A maw of black teeth opened beneath them, discerned only by the glowing red within the “mouth.” An ear-shattering roar of defiance and malice filled her perceptions. A burning heat and force of wind jolted the owl from its flight and the creature, with Alaria still clinging to it, was “knocked” by some unseen force. They were falling toward the mouth. As they fell, she saw apparitions fly passed here. Erevan. Festus. There was Haelan sobbing over the smashed body of Buttercream. The satyr Jovias skipping along, oblivious to her, strumming on his lyre. The elf-priest Cyrillean being consumed in flames. There was Montor! “Montor! Help me!" Alaria called out even as she and her owl fell beyond him. He looked down at her. A pained expression filled his face before he turned and faded away in a flourish of his midnight blue cloak. A flock of elvin knight hawk-riders raced passed her, flying “upward”. Suddenly she was assaulted by the scents of sulfur and burning wood, pillars of smoke surrounded them. Beneath her, they now fell toward Ablidon...the Flaming City consumed in a blanket of flames and billowing smoke...Then falling toward a field of corpses, armies of elves and men spread out as far as she could perceive into the darkness...then it was Bridgetower...in ruins...standing in the midst of the rubble of the courtyard behind the great tower stood a lone figure...Braddok! Alaria tugged with all of her might on the owl’s back to right the spirit-mount. It came out of its plummet and soared away from the red-glowing maw. She circled back around to where, she perceived, Braddok had been. The warrior’s form appeared again, faintly, translucent. He stood, eyes closed. His hands clasped before him in a posture resembling some kind of prayer or...like one would position a corpse in reverence. “Braddok!” the magess called out. There was no indication the ghost-image heard her but two sets of glowing white eyes, one set to either side of the swordsman, appeared. They were small twinkling spots of light. “I must go back!” she cried out again, whether to the owl or Braddok or these white lights, even she could not say. She noticed, quite jolting, that the darkness through which they now flew was now reaching at her and the owl. Dragging on them. The perceived speed of their flight noticeably slowed, like trying to sludge through a mire. *[I]HOOT![/I]* the owl cried out. Whether to her or to their circumstance, Alaria wasn’t sure. A cacophony of *[I]Hoooooooooo[/I]* erupted all around them. It wasn’t her owl’s sound. Definitely multiple different voices. From the shining eyes to either of Braddok’s form, tendrils of silvery light ripped forward, forming as they came, into great clawed draconic hands. Alaria felt complete fear for a moment before noticing that the silvery claws were ripping away at the darkness around her. The glowing red maw now opened in the blackness “behind” Braddok and the silvery eyes. A thunderous roar shook the whole of the unearthly realm as the maw neared the back of the trio before her, threatening to dive down over them, consuming them all. “NO!” Alaria cried out and felt the rush of arcane power, which she knew so well yet had completely forgotten she’d possessed. Without archaic phrases or finger-tangling gesture, even before she could throw her hand out toward Braddok, a silvery globe surrounded the warrior and his attending “spirit-eye-things.” The maw seemed halted where it was. Not touching the globe, but unable to continue its apparent assault. Then, the white glowing eyes took on a decidedly blue tint and grew in size, as forms surrounded the pinpoints of light. Draconic forms. Growing massive as Alaria watched and the owl, continued to fly toward them, though without ever, it seemed, getting any more close. Their outlines, like silvery thread laid on a canvas of black, grew long necks and powerful claws, massive wings stretched out from their backs until they formed a wall of silvery wing between Braddok and Alaria and the giant red-glowing face that threatened them. A duo of high-pitched piercing roars filled the area, though without the shaking force of the black draconic face. They filled Alaria with an obscure calm and security that gave way to a pulsing strength and...direction...purpose...clarity. The two silvery dragons swirled together, weaving back and forth with each other, nose to tail, forming a silvery horizontal figure “8.“ Alaria immediately recognized it as the ancient magical sigil of infinity. As this draconic infinity swirled before her, Alaria distinctly felt herself moving again “forward.” Braddok was getting closer. For a few beats of the owl’s wings, they were making a measurable, though slight, headway. Then, in a moment, it was as though they were being “pulled”, sucked, toward the warrior and dragons, uncontrollably. In a split second, the owl and Alaria became a blur, distorted, stretched, accompanied with the sensation of moving at a breakneck speed and her perceptions was filled with silver light that flashed through eyes even as she shut them in fear. Thunder again filled in her ears. Blackness. Ringing. A droning buzz that took on a definite tone and pitch...multiple notes...then a different harmony. The scent of...sea salt? What was that fishy odor? Was that humming? “Hooooooohhhhhhmmmmm. Toooooooohhhhhmmmm. Bless-ed be Her dehhhh-epths." the unseen voices intoned. Alaria’s eyes cracked open. A golden light blinded her before a moment before blurred forms began to take shape. “She’s waking up!” she heard Haelan squeal, as if from a distance. Alaria opened her eyes fully and lifted her head and shoulders from the pillow of the cot. “Where...” she tried to say. Braddok stood at the foot of the bed. Relief and joy filled his face as his eyebrows rose in question. To either side of him stood the bleach blond, heavily tanned and toned forms of the Shoal twins, Dihm and Suhm. They were bare to the waist save for a stole of sea-green, each with trim and serpentine shapes embroidery in silver thread. Their faces, like the stoic masks she remembered, betrayed no apparent emotion. Alaria though she noted the slightest glimmer of silver light fade from Suhm’s eye...or was that Dihm? “Oh Alaria!” Haelan’s voice came again as the Hilltender slammed into the bedridden magess with a daelvar-sized bear hug. “Praise Faerantha you’ve come back. Oh..ehm..and Tyris, too, of course.” the halfling added. It was then that Alaria noticed the rest of the room was filled, nearly to capacity, with attending priests and priestesses in assorted wraps and robes of blue and green. Several held incense burners giving off a faintly bluish smoke. Many others held candles of white and pale green. A stern looking bent middle-aged man was beside her bed. He simply nodded and said, rather dispassionately, “I suppose I must welcome you back to Shoal, Magess Alaria.” [/QUOTE]
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