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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ragboy" data-source="post: 1709181" data-attributes="member: 4151">I'll throw mine in. I have a tentative list of characters and a couple of opening scenes, but not much in the story department yet.  Characters:  Amadi of Mogh - a changeling actress on the run from the Cabinet of Faces Blau - a warforged cleric seeking his own soul. (no tin man jokes).  Nirav - feral halfling rangery kinda guy. Not much of a backstory for him yet, other than he's a side-kick to... Gegel - A shifter rogue/rangery type. Not much of a backstory for him yet, other than he's a side kick to ...see above.  Druin Valerei - Hard core fighter veteran of the wars and scarred inside and out by it.  A couple of fiction excerpt possibilities. I can't decide whether I should send the opening 10 pages or some cut from the middle. Both of these are un-edited, so no comments on spelling/grammar:  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-“Yea, though I love thee with all that I am, I will pull forth a gout of your blood should that monster seek my throat,” King Verdis said through gritted teeth.  His dagger lay on Princess Damodora’s white throat and around him, his palace sat in ruins. And before him the ghoulish visage of Saval leered; his pinpoint teeth glimmered in the house lights.        “Your blood inside and out, father. Blood for your blood, from your blood. We are all the same,” the princess moaned.        “A family together in a twisted skein,” Saval gibbered, inching closer to the pair. “One heart pumps the stuff, and one of us will gorge tonight, father.”        “I will let blood, should you step closer,” Verdis said, his voice rising an octave. “I will let.”       “Let,” Saval said, aimlessly. “Do let. Tonight we all bathe.”       “I can make your waning days ones of glory, son,” Verdis said, pleading. “All our lands together…”        The king paused and flushed. The princess trembled in his arms and Saval froze as if under spell. A faint whispering emitted from the curtains at the king’s back.        Verdis cleared his throat and continued, “The treasure of the empire at your feet. Let us go together to the witch of the north. When your mother loves me as I love her, the circle will be complete. We shall…”       “I complete the circle tonight,” Saval growled, crouching as an animal. “This land you speak of: Dust. The treasure: Dispersed on the wind like floating seeds. You are lost. Drowning in your own filth and despair. And without the love you so claim.”       Saval leaped suddenly at the pair with a throaty growl. The king jerked a red sash from the princess’ bodice falling back with an old man’s cry.        “I am rent!” the princess wailed, slipping to the floor. “And to that blessing after do I go…”       A quick buzz echoed in the theater and suddenly a feathered bolt appeared above the actress’ left breast.        “Now, father we dance…” Saval began, and suddenly froze.       The actress playing Damodora shrieked, and the cramped theater erupted into chaos. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Crying Fields...  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- “Amadi!” Nirav called quietly from his perch in the dead tree. “Twenty horses. Moving slow, but in our direction. I make them…four leagues.”       Amadi nodded and turned back to her companions, her dark skin glistening in the cold green light of Aryth, waxing.       “Blau, go find Druin,” she said.       The warforged rose smoothly and stalked off without a word.       “Well,” Gegel said as he arched his back. “What’s our plan?”      Amadi stared off into the flat, featureless grass marsh for a moment.       “Nirav and you will lead them further south,” she said, eyes snapping to meet Gegel’s. “Blau and I will get the package to Ghalt.”      “Twenty riders,” Gegel said, spitting in the mud. “Doesn’t seem enough for the trouble.” He flexed his claws, the stiff hairs on his neck rising.       “What about Dru?” Nirav asked from a lower branch. The halfling dropped the remainder of the distance, landing lightly.       “He may be here for a while,” Amadi said. -=-=-=-=      The warrior slouched on a twisted log in the cold mud, a sea of grass whispering before him in the cool breeze. No other sound rose above the sibilance. Aryth’s light played among the speargrass stalks, flashing here and there on the white bundles of seedpods. Druin Valerei removed his helmet, sat it beside him, and then pulled off the mail gauntlets. Reaching under his breastplate, he withdrew a silk-wrapped bundle and sat it in his lap, eyes never leaving the field. “This was our playground, Miyori,” he said, his voice a quavering basso against the hiss of grass. “I’ll always see your young face. Not lined and scarred like mine.” As he talked, he pulled the knots in the bundle loose, letting the silken wrappings whip away in the wind to reveal a silver flute. The instrument glinted in the greenish moonlight as Druin put it to his lips and blew a handful of mournful notes quickly lost on the wind. He stared at the late autumn moon and played the marching song of the Three Sword Company.Blau’s crunching gait stopped him. “Amadi wishes your presence,” Blau said, his voice a grating whisper. “Why do you keep that name,” Druin said, standing self-consciously as the warforged approached.“The word is my function,” the living construct said. “I am no other but the conduit of Dol Dorn. Whom do you memorialize on this field of death, Mark Captain? Shall I say a word for his soul?”“Keep your words,” Druin said. He looked at the flute, so small in his thick, clumsy hands. He considered leaving it here with the memory of his comrades. Flinging it into that susurrous sea.  He slid the instrument under his breastplate and hefted his helmet and gauntlets. “The dead don’t need them,” he said, walking past the giant steel-banded creature. “And neither do I.”</blockquote>

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