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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2375771" data-attributes="member: 1210">8/10/371 O.L.G.So cold.  It is so cold...Fear pulses through Delilah.Ice!  It is the ice!  I am still in the ice!  My rescue was a hallucination, nothing more- all that time I thought I was free I was merely dreaming.  Oh, Bleak, and what a good dream it was!  To move freely, to see the time after Dexter’s death- ah, Dexter, I pray my existence outlasts yours!  I pray that, someday, someone frees me from this terrible prison!All around her the frozen block mocks her silently.  I wish I could escape back to my dream, she thinks despairingly.  Anything to escape this crushing boredom, this terrible helplessness.  Maybe if I can fall asleep again... I can dream again.  Oh, thank Bleak that at least I figured out how to dream again.As she thinks this, she realizes, No, that was only part of the dream.  That happened after my rescue.  That-  She stops.  But then how could I have been dreaming in the first place?  Confusion shakes her.  Something is terribly wrong.  She can only dream in a living body, and she has never possessed anyone- not yet, since she has never been rescued.  And yet-Suddenly it comes to her: I am dreaming now.Delilah wakes up sweating.  She smiles, enjoying the sensation of fear and any dream, even the nightmare.  Shakily, she gets to her feet.  She glides to the vanity and stares at the hair of the body she is wearing.  A lock of blonde hair, tangled with sweat, dangles before her face.  Her eyes are haunted.  Her skin is a deep nut brown, tinted with the slightest hint of green.  That indicates that the woman who Delilah wears is of Peshan lineage, with some trace of the pre-human Peshta blood in her.  Most Peshans find it very attractive.  Delilah steps out of her sleeping gown.  Nude, she directs an unseen servant to draw her a bath.  She stares at the mirror as she waits for it to fill the tub- she will heat it, easily enough, herself.  The spicy smell of Pesh comes in through the window.  During the day, the sound of Forinthian occupation comes in as well, but that does not concern Delilah.  She is waiting for some extremely exotic herbs, found only in the Spicewoods at the southern tip of the island.  They are necessary for a binding she is planning on attempting soon.  Dzaram is nothing if not ambitious, she thinks wryly.  Even when he thinks small, he thinks big.Her mind turns briefly to the microverse- that realm so small that it is naked to the humanoid eye.  A realm so tiny that even a flea is too big to perceive it.  The very concept of it is proof enough of Dzaram’s genius, but the brilliant deductions he made about the microverses of the other planes... Well.  There’s plenty of use there, that is for sure.The tub is still only half full.  Annoyed, Delilah casts another unseen servant to hurry the process along.  Her mind turns to the day that she and Nydroth had hit upon her body-wearing scheme.  A small smile crosses her lips.  Catching a herd of expendable, magic jar-able women was easy.  Dzaram’s astral lair was the perfect place to keep them- caged, with no need for food or drink.  They could be left until needed, just as Delilah had been left in the ice until Dzaram’s need called her forth.Interestingly enough, she realizes, she has been involved with Dexter and every generation of his progeny.  She battled against him; she saved her son from assassination by a chaos elemental.  She helped kidnap his granddaughter, and took some part in all four other generations’ lives.  And now- Prayzose.Delilah cannot believe Dzaram’s ambitions, his gall, his inscrutability.  She believes, but is not certain, that he could persuade or demand that Prayzose obey him in many things.  But she is also absolutely certain that Prayzose could annihilate Dzaram and his entire cabal with relative ease.  He is to Dexter (as Delilah fought him) as the sun is to a torch.She muses back onto her meeting with Thurlist, the son of Dexter.  Even then Dzaram had known exactly how things would eventually play out.  ***12/4/217 O.L.G., at sea“Jantoo” was her name on this voyage.  Delilah smiled to herself.  She was wearing a man’s body.  He was supposedly an “adventurer.”  He was traveling to Bordis from Tirchond.  Jantoo had found several of his fellow passengers interesting.  One was a tabaxi named Maybell Nontrophia.  She was something of a jester. Another was a gnome who did not say much about his own background.  His name was Dwindle.*  Another was a fighter calling himself Nydian the Valiant, though he seemed to talk bigger than the wear on his armor and the quality of his weapons would support.And then there was Jerakai.Jerakai Ilmixie was a beautiful half-elf, unaware at the time of his demonic heritage.  But he had that vicious brilliance that so characterized him and a natural flair for magic long before sorcerers were known.**  He had a dazzling smile and slightly sharp canines, and Delilah’s instincts buzzed heavily in his presence.  He was someone to watch.  Maybe even someone worth recruiting into her own sphere.  By the end of the day, she would be convinced to introduce him to Dzaram. As the ship sailed along, a strange dark shape under the water came into view.  Roughly spherical, it looked around 50’ in diameter.  “What the hell is that?” Jerakai wondered aloud, pointing it out to the other passengers.  They scrutinized it for a few moments but could not ascertain its nature.  That is when, suddenly, a beauteous mermaid surfaced.“Oh please, good surface people, in the name of Dexter, you must help me!”That name doesn’t compel good will from me, Delilah snorted inwardly.  But the fighter spoke up.“What do you need help with?” he called.  “Who are you?” Jerakai asked the mermaid.“My- my name is Princess Miriamelle Lorraine,” she replies.  “I know so little about what is going on- I am a priestess of the Sea Queen, and she wishes to save a powerful agent of Dexter on a mission of utmost import!”“Well, I am Jerakai Ilmixie, and I don’t breathe water,” the half-elf replies with a dashing smile.  “I can take care of that,” the mermaid said.  “I am a priestess of the Sea Queen.  I can grant water breathing to you all.”“All right,” Jantoo said, lending weight to Nydian’s position.  Maybell moved to the edge of the ship’s deck and looked down miserably.  “I hate water,” she groaned.“Very well, then,” Jerakai shrugged. Next Time: The Geode of Chaos!***  *Though Delilah never knew it, Dwindle was one of the Nyx, Malford’s elite spies.  He was actually played by Malford’s player, too! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  He knew who she was, but she didn’t know who he was.  (Malford the Magnificent features heavily in my Early Years and To War Against Felenga story hours.)**Jerakai was a custom class in 2e that was a lot like a sorcerer is now.  ***Technically, this is the first act of the Great War of Ethics.</blockquote>

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