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Message: <blockquote data-quote="orchid blossom" data-source="post: 2109363" data-attributes="member: 12815">Round 3 Maddman vs. orchid blossomThe Witch Doctorby: orchid blossomOnce he had a name, but it was lost.  Now he was only the witch doctor.  The power had diminished when the names were lost; when the pale woman came and changed them.  But the ancient names, the true names, could not be changed.  The power became as pale as the woman because the people believed her.  They remembered only the names she gave them.The witch doctor knelt down in the drying earth.  The sun beat down hard; no more trees stood to shade his back or moisten the air.  Only bare stumps where children jumped from one to the next.  The world was a silent place with no birdsong or rustling of leaves.  His voice carried as he chanted over the drawing he made in the earth.His finger dug down to mark a circle.  He then drew symbols not seen by any other eyes on earth, the ancient symbols of his people, the only writing they used.  A chill settled and the children ran to their mothers as mist began to rise from the bare stumps.  It swirled into a single dark mass, then split down the center.  Two forms emerged.  One a cloak wrapped woman, the other a man but not a man, showing traits of their simian brothers who had lived in the trees not so long ago.He turned his hands palms up and spread his arms wide to the shadow people.  The chanting continued, rising until it boomed like thunder and the shadow forms shot away to the north.  The witch doctor slumped against a stump to wait.__________________________________It was a long journey to where the shadow form that was male felt the pale woman.  She was moving from one place to another, but not on the ground.  He must find one close to her.  The one who had bid him rise needed the hands of another to complete his ritual.  This other must be known to the pale woman, or there would be no power between them.  The shadow-man stopped his wandering.  This was a loud place, full of harsh noises and machines which had gobbled up people who seemed content to be consumed.<a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=19262" target="_blank">He felt her above, and when he saw the large bird above in the sky he knew she was inside it.  He launched his weightless body into the air and moved effortlessly inside.</a>People sat in cramped rows inside this strange bird that was not a bird.  The pale woman was ahead, so the shadow-man floated through the person he had entered when he entered this chamber and up toward the terminus of the thread that pulled him.  Her skin was pale and smooth, but she had a strange redness on her cheeks, and the lids of her eyes were blue.  Her dark hair was twisted behind her head, which moved in agitation as she talked to the thick-bodied man beside her.  Their hands were entwined with one another, and in his other hand he held a square object with symbols printed on it.  "Model turned bridal designer to open new facility," the man said as he shadow man slipped his form inside the pale woman's companion.  The voices continued in a pleased tone as the shadow-man made himself small inside and waited._______________________________________The cloak wrapped shadow-woman followed the scent of where the pale one had been, rather than where she was.  Her psychic scent was strong in many places, but strongest in this building where women patiently plied needle and thread into billowing clouds of white cloth.  She slipped among them, following that scent through a door and into another room.The clouds of fabric had been turned into clothes.  They must be clothes, for they were draped over headless feminine figures with no scent of life.  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=19265" target="_blank">The shadow-woman slowly moved to one end of the room, drinking in the scent of the pale one, then turned and moved back.</a>  She stopped in front of one of the dresses and pulled the scent in deep.  Her hand passed into the fabric and into her mind came images of the pale one clothed in this.  Something important had happened, something changed her outward name, but the impression of the true name was still strong.  The pale woman seemed to truly believe that names were a mutable thing.  The shadow-woman felt the strength here and gathered her own.  Through her incorporeal form she pulled the power of the woman's true name as water through a straw.  She held it inside her until it the last puzzle piece fell into place and the name rested within her mind.  Then she lifted her face and sent it screaming across the earth to the one had brought her forth.________________________________________The witch doctor smiled as the scream that only he could hear reached him.  The essence of the shadow-woman dissipated back into the earth, where she went back to her rest.  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=19263" target="_blank">  An unwilling apprentice sat looking away as the witch doctor continued to decorate the statue of the god with shells and other adornments, including a shriveled head.  The apprentice did not understand, he could not learn until the names returned.  The witch-doctor took hold of the bulbous end of the god's head tail and waited for the shadow-man's gift.</a>____________________________________________The pale woman rode away in what the man had referred to as a "car."  The house where the pale woman and the man lived was surrounded by stark grassland littered with large boulders.  It was a good place to complete the ritual. The man sat at a table with a steaming cup of dark, fragrant water and clothed only from the waist down.  The shadow man began to stretch his form, uncurling from the small space he had occupied to fill the entire body.  Slowly he let tendrils of mist seep into the mans brain until the body and voice obeyed his commands.They walked outside to a pile of wood where they selected a long, crooked stick.  The man's body and brain protested, but the shadow-man kept moving them out among the stones.  There was a large formation far back on the land around the house.  They circled the formation first clockwise, then counter-clockwise.  With the pointed end of the stick they drew a circle in the earth that encompassed symbols that had never been seen in this part of the world.  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=19266" target="_blank">Power poured up from the earth as the drawing connected with it's mate on the other side of the world, and they threw up their arms and danced until the shadow-man abandoned the man and left him curled on the ground with tears in his eyes.</a>____________________________________________The shadow-man flew across the countryside to the city where the pale woman was standing, strangely dressed in bright red.  She was young and shapely, wearing a bright smile and gaudy colors on her face.  Her voice didn't match that smile.  "I don't understand why it had to be this costume," she said in a low, growling voice.  The shadow-man slipped into the ground below her, still vibrating with the connection to the witch doctor's power.  A man was talking to the woman.  "You still have a contract with this costuming company, and you'll wear what they want to advertise.  The Amazon woman is a big thing this year.""Let's get this over with," she groaned and found her mark, which placed her against the backdrop of a grand building.  The shadow-man followed and pushed his hand up into the pale woman's foot while letting parts of him dissipate through the earth back to the witch doctor.The witch doctor felt that presence come to him and spoke the pale woman’s true name.The witch doctor watched as the shriveled head in the god's arms filled out and again bore the semblance of youth.  On the other end of that connection the shadow-man saw the pale woman's skin wrinkle and droop, her slim body thicken, and her shoulders grow round.  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=19264" target="_blank">The colors on her face grew even more garish, but she continued to pose for a moment before she realized her beauty was fading.</a>  Then the screaming began.___________________________________The power connection to the shadow-man disappeared and the witch doctor stumbled outside.  The circle he had drawn in the earth was still there, but sharper.  The symbols glowed brightly, sinking into the earth one after the other, then rising again in their proper places.  The earth did not change yet, it would take years for the power to grow the trees and bring back their animal brothers.  Names began to rise out of the earth, of the rivers and streams, the trees and the birds, of the people and of the man who was no longer only the witch doctor.</blockquote>

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