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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tom Cashel" data-source="post: 392892" data-attributes="member: 321">The DOOR from EVERYWHERECharacters: Dalabrac Bramblefoot (halfling Rog7/Shd1), Artemus Thornwind (human Drd8), Kaemris Tencoin (human Clr6/Aus2), Lenet cor Tarak (fire genasi Ftr4/Sor3), Van Dyksun (human Rgr3/Rog3/Clr3), Lucius Foxhound (Wiz8-Illusionist).Tarsakh 13, 1373 DR (The Year of Rogue Dragons)Quidam: RememberingWe remember not wanting to run off into the dark.  We wanted to stay with the caravan.  But we headed off in search of the stolen children anyway.  We remember this with a sense of deja vu, but nothing more.Maybe we knew that good Luck couldn't roll our way forever.Van Dyksun: Orcs and PentagonsI've heard it from the rich and powerful in Faerun--that death has no sting, because of our ability to raise dead, that is, as long as you have the gold or the power.  I disagree.  I've felt death, and death hurts.  Death is that shock to find that your opponent's blade is under your guard rather than stopped by it, and that the coldness you suddenly feel on your left side is the new hole in your chain shirt, your tunic, and the skin that once kept your guts in place.  After the shock is the mule-kick of pain, that arrives all at once, that incapacitates you, and while your brain stumbles to keep fighting, your body is falling.I've felt the fear, and the hopelessness, of trying to escape the fetid grasp that suddenly caught up with you in the dark, that brings your arm up to its gaping maw and smiles as it tastes your tendons and licks up the blood that comes gushing out.  All you can do is scream, as your fingers become hors d'oeuvres, as your leg becomes the drumstick, and your skull its drinking bowl.  Of course, by that last one, you've already made the transition to ghost, and the pain has translated into anger at yourself and the rest of the world.And I've seen death in the rush of flame that arrives out of nowhere, the fire that surprises you, when all you thought you were facing was the sharpened steel and the huge club, and instead what you've met is your personal funeral pyre.Death comes in confusion.  Once the kids had been captured from the caravan, everything was confusion, who was going, who was staying, how people were traveling, who was riding, who could see in the dark, what spells do we cast.  I felt no fear, just an anxiety that arose from the fact that I had failed once again.  Failed to protect the innocent, failed to remember the first order of battle to watch your back. And they had to be orcs, the same orcs that had raided my village and killed my mother.  So with the confusion was the lust for their blood, the impatience with my companions, and the desire simply to run into the dark night to enact my vengeance on those creatures.Tracking them to the ruined fortress that they had made their base was easy, and even though their trained wolves had caught our scent and ruined both our ruse and our element of surprise, we quickly dispatched them all.  I rushed forward, down into their lair, feeding my taste for blood and vengeance, laughing as I swatted away those silly large axes they carry thinking that the bigger the weapon they carry, the more damage they can do--instead, my simple bastard sword and long sword slips inside that space between their upraised arms and their unprotected necks, surprising them before they can protect themselves.  Their cowardly archers, hidden behind the spoils from previous caravan raids, couldn't hit the broad side of a dragon, and my companions have joined me before long.  I offer one of the cowards the option of saving its measly hide if it will tell us where the children are, for they are nowhere to be seen. Instead, in the room's corner, there is a large metal pentagon on its side, obviously a magical portal through which the creatures have been coordinating their actions.It is good that we didn't kill the orc, for although Selune grants me the temporary ability to read the arcane writing on the two sides of the pentagon (the right side read "part the veil of the universe for me" while the left side read "close the veil of the universe for me") I am unable--in my hurry, in my lust for blood--to think clearly enough to realize that I need to touch the metal while saying the words for the magic to work.Ghiv Templeborn: The Axe and the FuryThe fact that Ghiv was angry came as no surprise to anyone–Ghiv Templeborn had been angry every moment of her life.  The attending midwife at Ghiv’s birth would later have occasion to speak of Ghiv’s particularly jagged cries upon breathing for the first time, as though she were ready to fight someone over having to do this life thing.  She was angry orphaned in Bane’s temple, vexed as a street urchin in the mean streets of Zhentil Keep, livid when she was inducted into the Zhentarim’s mage-training program, absolutely furious when she’d been assigned to the Stonelands along with backstabbing minstrel Kole Kellbrot and a murderous lice-ridden tribesman who called himself Huesst.  All those years of rage had etched deep lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and one jagged cleft into the center of her stormy brow. Kole Kellbrot, the bastard son of a syphilitic alcoholic jester, first spotted the caravan in the plains north of Arabel.  Kole fled their sentries in the night, but the three Zhentarim tracked the caravan (at a safe distance) all the way through the Storm Horns to Tilverton. They shadowed the caravan out into the Stonelands.  They saw a chance–one night most of the sentries took off into the night, hunting a gang of orc kidnappers.  Ghiv thought the time was right to contact her superiors: Lord Everan Gargdol, and Faraugar*, the notorious Seneschal of Norn.The three conferred on a sand-scoured ridge in the Stonelands, lit by a round moon whose light seemed to discomfort Faraugar for reasons Gargdol and Ghiv could only guess. Ghiv hated them both. “So they are unprotected,” Gargdol said, stroking his mustachio.  “Now would be a fine time to smash what defenses remain and take their goods.  Faraugar?” Lord Gargdol made a career out of conscripting ogres into Zhentarim service, and using the conscripts to kill anyone foolish enough to wander the frontiers of Cormyr.  It was said that he enjoyed the company of ogres more than people, and his complete lack of manners and breeding (especially for someone who placed the honorific “lord” in front of his name) backed up the worst of the rumors.  The only thing about him that pleased Ghiv was the fact that he had to consult Faraugar before making a decision–a thing that no doubt rankled Gargdol’s pride. “Yes,” Faraugar agreed.  His cunning black eyes darted, his salt-and-pepper beard bristled.  The only survivor of an ill-fated expedition into a lost dwarven city, Faraugar now wore the ceremonial tabard of Bane.  It was known that Faraugar’s bad side was not a good place for anyone to be.  “Ghiv, gather those rabble with whom you travel and take control of the caravan.  I am interested in these ruins toward which the caravan guards traveled–Gargdol and I will investigate.” “As you command, Faraugar,” whispered Ghiv with a respectful bow.  I hope you meet Bane himself in those ruins, she thought, And all his devils.*Faraugar, aka "Leatherboots," first appeared back in Episode VI, To Face the Scarlet Flame (part 2) and returned in Episode IX, Crown of Fire (part 2).</blockquote>

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