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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nail" data-source="post: 1124507" data-attributes="member: 224">Rowan's Animal Companion ceremony, part 1Rowan, Druid of Eaglesford, decided to get an animal companion.  ("A fuzzy wolf, please!").  Camped in a cave in the cliffs under Alderslook, the party waits, while Rowan performs the ceremony.  This is what happened.*********************************You are cold and wet. Sharp bits of pottery and angular rocks poke at you as you stir uncomfortably in your spot.It's dark, with only a bit of daylight filtering around the brush piled by the cave entrance. There are the preparations for a fire in front of you....but Rowan has forbidden it.  It might frighten away the animal she is hoping to summon today. Riva grumbles about being frightening all by himself if this goes on too long... as the steady drip - drip - drip of the cave drums off his helm and rolls into his beard.As you sit on the "least wet" rocks you can find at the back of the cave, Rowan has arranged herself in the middle of the cave, face towards the daylight.  She has laid out various bits of food, a broken piece of pottery with some water in it, and a bundle or two of fragrant herbs.  "What had she called that stuff again?", Garret thinks to himself, "....had some sort of "bug" name or another.....ah well, as long as it doesn't put Bavic off, and gets the job done....."Rowan interrupts the thoughts of the others as she turns to speak, her small, usually shy voice sounding firm in this place, "Now remember, I am summoning an animal here. That means that an animal will come to me. Please don't kill it when it enters the cave! And whatever happens, don't interfere, things may look weird or dangerous, but it's all normal and I will have it under control, I promise!" Rowan looks around the cave and adds "Honest, this will help us....."Riva tests his weapon's edge, just in case.Rowan turns away, sits, and begins her prayers and meditations. Her chanting is quiet, but audible above the dripping of the cave. ...You can hear it, but her words are indistinguishable.....they sound old...they carry a pattern...they come and go, weaving themselves in and out of the sounds of the cave around you.  You wait, and hope for what will come.****************************For Rowan, only:Your ceremony starts smoothly enough, given the damp and uncomfortable conditions.  As you chant, you think to yourself  "If only this were all out under the clean open air, in the forest...."  Your memory of your first animal companion, the raven, floats back into your mind.  That ceremony was so easy, so fresh and new....You have been chanting for several hours.  Your companion's presence has faded from your mind.  It is only you, open to the forces of the earth and sky around you.........There is a presence nearby.  You can feel it.  Its heart beats.  It does not yet beat in time with yours...but you feel confident it will soon.....There is something else.  There is a voice.  ...An old voice, a voice that speaks words without meaning.  It sounds like earth, like rock.  It's breath sounds like the wind passing over hills of stone.  The words of this voice are a rhythm, a beat of a ceremonial drum, a cadence that you cannot hold or understand....only feel as it passes around you.....The animal heart that you heard before is beating, drawing closer to you, and it swallows the rhythm of the voice. It mirrors the beat and intent of it.  You do not understand the voice....it is too big for you....but the little heart, the animal heart, takes it all in effortlessly.  That is its nature.The animal heart has drawn closer still.  It flows toward you as you call for it.  It will be with you if you ask for it.  It can teach you....it carries ancient secrets....if you do not turn from it.  It has seen so many turn away..... It is here.  You open your eyes.******************************For the remainder of the group:Drip.Drip.Drip.....She has been chanting for hours.  The druid has been sitting, swaying slightly, in the center of the cave, her back to the rest of you.  Once in a while her hand darts out to pull in a sprig of herbs or a few drops of water, which she scatters around the floor.  The herbs mix with the broken sarcophagi that litter the ground, catching here and there on the sharp points of it.Of course, she said it would take this long.  But.....sitting still is a chore.  Tieran lit a small candle, and reads his book with it, sheltering the pages from the drips from above.  Riva sits back, idly honing the blade of his greataxe... ...strange how the strokes of his sharpening stone keep time with the druid's chanting.  Thaile looks idly at the ceiling, searching for patterns in the twists and cracks of the rock.  Garret watches, and waits with patience.It must be early evening, judging by the reddish light peaking through the round cave opening.  "No animal yet?", you hear Riva mutter.  Thaile looks over, and gestures for patience, then resumes her study of the dim cavern ceiling.  "Thank goodness for Tieran's candle", Thaile thinks to herself.  "Without it I wouldn't be able to make out that......"There is a stirring in the cave.  Something moves.  Out of the corner of her eye, Thaile sees something move in the ceiling above her.  She looks again, studying....part has moved, somehow.  A sinuous crack is there, that wasn't there before.Garret brings himself to attention.  A piece of pottery, perhaps once a corner of a sarcophagi....there is a long thin symbol on it, worn by the years....did the symbol move, just now?Tieran looks up from his reading, and gently shuts his book.  He sees something move, maybe shimmer, near the cave entrance.  The lighting is terrible...but there is something there.  Tieran's hand closes around the stock of his crossbow.Rowan's chanting has grown louder now.  She sways back and forth, casting small bits of things to her right and left.  You can all feel something drawing closer. It is long, it is dark, and it moves with the earth of the cave. Pieces of debris in the cave move with it...the bits do not move when you fix your eyes on them, but slip out of sight at the edge of your vision. They move back...and forth.....and here....and there..... They are still as shadow, and yet they move.Riva crouches, tense, his hand wrapped tightly around his greataxe.  Garret has a hand about the collar of Bavic, the other hand holding his sword. Silence.Rowan has stopped chanting.  Her arms are outstretched, and though her back is to you, you feel sure her eyes are open.In front of her rises a shape.  A long, sinuous shape, black as shadow.  Its thin form towers over the sitting form of the druid, its eyes glittering in the light of Tieran's candle.It lets out a low hisssssssssssss............Rowan reaches out her hand toward it.............and with a sudden motion, the serpent strikes her, sinkingit's fangs deep into her arm.</blockquote>

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