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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MarauderX" data-source="post: 1843686" data-attributes="member: 9990">Round 1.7, MarauderX vs. BigTomCursedThe waves rippled across the river like muscles under taught skin.  I strained with effort as eventually white caps formed at the top of each crest, knowing the momentum was growing.  I pushed and pulled with magic, quickening the pace and the river was now lapping at my feet, dampening my robes.  On the other side a village of perhaps a hundred rested safely up from the shore, far from the river’s edge during this rainy season.  The cold water flushed over my ankles and the village’s guard on the dock woke as the oscillating water knocked the lone riverboat against the short pier.  He bellowed an alarm into the night air.I knew that Notura was likely a day’s travel behind me and would latch onto the magical signals soon enough, but to stride into the town and take what I was after would allow her to pinpoint my location using the humans, and I surmised she would have no qualms about exerting her resources to appear next to me in less than a minute if she could.  It had happened before and taught me how well she could use the humans to her advantage, and I was lucky that time.  I had to be cautious with my use of magic, much more cautious.  To stop the incantation would be a waste, so I let the guard continue to wake the entire village as there would be nothing they could do to stop me.  The waves washed over the dock now, and the riverboat slammed against it time and again.  A group of villagers had formed at the edge of the water and backed away as it rose to meet their feet.  I decided that I might have enough inertia to swamp most of the town so I gathered the great volume of water and pushed it forward with a last thrust of magic.  At once a massive wave leapt from the river and swallowed the whole of the village, dragging down shanty homes, livestock and villagers in a cascade.  Everything was flushed into the river and soon the surge of the water returned to normal and only scant cries for help echoed across the water.  I wrung out the bottom of my robes, though now I don’t know why; perhaps it was an illogical habit that I picked up from the humans, perhaps it was my need for fastidious cleanliness.  I waded back into the deep and wide river, striding along the rocky bottom until the cold water soaked the fur on my face and water lapped over my head.  I peered around beneath the muddy surface, striding cautiously toward the other side.  All manner of the human settlement had collected on the bottom which made my progress slow but eventually I reached the riverboat now on its side and partly out of the water.  It was still moored to the sturdy dock, and the boat was at a slight angle but I was still able to climb into the hull while remaining under the surface.  I wrenched through a number of crates, ripping their tops off until I found what I needed - <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17158" target="_blank">Zephel-spider spores</a>, the last component needed to begin the ritual.  They were soaked, but it was a bath the spores could handle to keep my secrecy.  Notura was following me and I knew that I would have to deal with her, but not until after I had all of the components to find the way to my new home.  I had come this far, struggled through all of the hardships, and I would succeed and join the others of my race, where I’d find a strong mate to bear a healthy litter and live a long full life.  She was after the same thing, an escape to her own world, and knew she was beaten for the most part but also knew that I would need time to perform the ceremony and probably hoped to ambush me then.  There was enough evidence of my passing at the village, and since it was likely no one saw me she would have a tough time distinguishing the cause from reading their memories, making it that much more difficult to track me.  I decided to leave the magical traces of how I had manipulated the river for her to discover.  I knew it was a risk, but I wanted my last movements to seem frantic, as if I was impatient to race back to the druidic grove to begin the ceremony.  I drew some of my blood and let it lead up to the hilltop, adding to the illusion of desperation.  She would naturally suspect a trap but I hoped that she would have no idea it would be so close to her.  As I waited I brushed my fur, pulling out the mud of the river from my striped back and white bib before cleaning my whiskers and ears.  I had never minded getting wet as it was always the dirt that had been a problem to deal with.  She appeared the next day disguised as a lone traveler and strode about the wrecked village inspecting the signs that had remained.  The humans were confused as to why she didn’t help and gave them looks of disdain, but I understood.  She saw them in much the same way I did, as short-lived peons, a scourge that had blanketed the world with their numbers after they brought the downfall of our great races on this planet.  And we were trapped until we could complete this ritual to escape at the proper lunar interval, and I was on the verge of beating her to the finish line.  Each one of us wanted to make our way to our new promised lands in a cutthroat dash to the end, and as the human’s crowded us in more each century I wasn’t sure I’d live to see the next astral cycle and had to make this one work.  Notura crept along the outside of the town and made her way to where I stood the night before, studying the likely course I had taken.  I could almost feel her mind working.  I had hoped she wouldn’t be so quick and that she would have reached the edge of the river at sundown when I would have the advantage, when her eyesight was shifting from day to night, leaving her mostly blind.  It was what had saved me once before, and I planned to use any edge I could gain.  Our race was known for being diplomats and manipulators while hers was one of strategy and violence, and a Rakshasa like me was no match for her in a fair fight.  It was clear that she was getting frustrated with the surviving villagers, apparently not gaining any knowledge about me from their memories of the previous night.  Notura probably smelled my blood late in the afternoon, but instead of coming directly to the hilltop she drove off the rest of the villagers, shooting several with deadly accuracy before the rest ran off.  She dropped her powerful illusion and I watched as her natural form slithered up the empty hillside towards me.  My pulse quickened and hoped my best charms would keep me hidden from her until sunset.  She stopped at the top of the hill, backtracking away from the decoy trail I had left as the sun met the mountain horizon.  I focused with my slitted eyes on her <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17159" target="_blank">six-armed silhouette </a> and at first thought she was scouting the valley below, with bow in hand ready to shoot any humans unlucky enough to cross her path.  It wasn’t until the sun was nearly below the peaks that I realized she was waiting for the dusk to end and for her night vision to adjust.  I had to seize the opportunity.  I drew down streaks of lightning from the sky in massive netted swaths, with one catching her, but it only stunned her momentarily.  It gave me enough time to close but not the chance to get an outright death blow as I had hoped.  It was wishful thinking, in truth, and I ran at her silently before leaping through the air.  Notura had drawn crooked sabers with each of her six hands and in a flurry they whisked across my upheld arms as my momentum carried me through them.  I latched onto the marilith’s torso and bit as hard as I could where her neck met her shoulder and felt my teeth sink deep into her flesh.  She flailed wildly, steel slashing stripes of red across my fur as I held on and dug deeper.  On her back Notura regained her composure and her arms worked quickly to cast a spell to knock us apart.  I had used enchantments to conceal myself from her and she quickly realized this as I struck again, surprising her from behind as I clambered onto her back, raking her flesh before I clasped both of my claws around her neck.  She broke my hold, more easily than I had imagined, and whirled me to the ground heavily.  Her tail thundered across my chest, pinning me there as she brought down my magical defenses with her four free arms.  I bit and raked her tail as I tore my way to a temporary freedom, scrambling on the ground out of her reach.  But now she could detect me without her blind glowing eyes, and though she was badly wounded Notura easily struck me with the tip of her tail, piercing through my calf with her poisonous barb to ensure that I couldn’t stand.  She could sense my defeat as I backed away and that was when I lurched upon something she had dropped earlier.  I grabbed her bow from the ground and quickly notched one of the arrows as she closed the gap between us, and I loosed the arrow.  She writhed in pain and anger as she gripped my skull with all six of her hands, her tail coiled around me and I feared the arrow had only upset her.  Thankfully with a blazing jolt I heard her exclaim a last appeal to Vecna before collapsing.  I buried her head last, face down and complete with her odd shaped hat and wicked arrow protruding from her left eye.  I knew the god Vecna well enough and her final omen  and coincidental arrow through the eye was disturbing enough not to ignore.  The last thing I ever wanted at that point was Notura rising to continue Vecna’s unholy work.  Notura’s right eye had twitched for nearly an hour, and though I had dismembered her corpse I had thought that somehow she would find her revenge, instilling a curse that I would never break.  I would later find that the marilith’s curse would follow me to this day, but not nearly in the way I expected.  I had another week to prepare but because of the poison the wound to my leg had refused to heal, which made the taxing magic much more difficult and prolonged the rite.  The lunar ceremony was time consuming and drained the last of my energy despite its simplicity.   The magic coursed through my nerves and pried open a gap from the old planet to the new plane, to my new home with the others of my race.  I hobbled through the wide magical gate and looked down upon the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17160" target="_blank">stony valley and wind-whipped mountains </a> beyond, glad to be rid of the human-laden hell behind me.  Already I could feel the sinews of magic arc through my new home world and welcomed the cold fresh air with glee.  The gateway shriveled behind me as I staggered to sit on the mountainside.  I sent out a faint message with magic, seeking out someone, anyone really, and waited for a reply.  An hour passed as I rested and I was greeted with a purring welcome and told I would be transported soon to join my brethren.  I wondered gleefully if there were other new arrives from our old world, female arrivals, and would have been glad to meet any of them.  I had so many questions about this place, and I couldn’t wait to discover everything on my own or with someone, but first I would rest and recover from the ordeal.  It took them a long time to arrive and I must have passed out as I only remembered their voices talking in hushed tones when I awoke.  My eyelids fluttered open and I could see it was night, and I felt refreshed and breathing was easy in the thin mountain air.  I made to sit upright but thin strands of metal string held me fast to a wooden board beneath.  All of my limbs were held, and I made out the faces of those who stood in a semi-circle around me.  There were sad voices, expressing sorrow for me as I took in the meaning from the striped faces of my fellow Rakshasa.  I did not understand.  I struggled and broke one hand free.  The voices stopped murmuring and the heads swiveled to reveal faces of astonishment with the starless sky in the background.  The surroundings were black from the darkness yet I could still sense the edge of the cliff nearby, could feel their breath as it left their lungs, and hear the beating of their hearts pounding with fear in their chests.  They were afraid of me as I wrenched loose from my bonds to stand.  The first of them to act began a spell and I leapt upon him only to disrupt him, and watched as the others followed with the same, some invoking charms, others attempting paralyzing invocations.  All of them failed, and at the time I wondered why since I had applied none of my typical protections.  The female leader charged me, trying to toss me over the edge of the cliff and I felt myself grab something around her neck to pull her with me.  We both fell and separated in the air.  Our eyes met through the darkness as we dropped, and I had long enough to imagine a life with her as my mate, a strong companion with which to raise a litter, the hopeful wish that kept me alive in the old world and ever striving to find a way to our race’s new home.  That would all be gone, and I wouldn’t know why, would never know what it was that threatened them so, and why she still looked at me now with a sorrowful gaze.  I heard us hit the boulders below at the same time and resigned myself to a mediocre death.  But I woke moments afterward.  The pain was but a dull throb and my muscles worked to pry my broken body up from the jagged stones.  She lay next to me, obviously dead, and I pondered why I was not.  Her necklace was in my hand and I pulled it forth to dangle from my palm, and at that moment I knew why.  I saw my hand in a new way, with detail that I had never known.  My curved out-faced palms led to lean fingers that ended in curved claws.  Blood, dirt and neglect had made my hands well worn, but what I saw now was nothing caused by the work I had done.  The flesh was thin and dry, clasping to the bones and forming rough ridges.  There were places where my skin and fur had been torn like matted cloth and folded to the side to reveal grey decay beneath.  Upon examination my fingertips had pushed through their pads, worked to the bone from the labor of the ceremony and I hadn’t noticed.  I looked up the mountain and was aware that the others had left, fleeing to wherever they had come from probably.  I also fled; I understood that for what disease I had there was no remedy and cursed my misfortune, the marilith Notura, my life and now my undeath.  I was uncertain what would happen to me, hoping I would be free to roam but I knew better.  I wondered if I would be killed, or if I could be.  I had some time to think about it and to run.  Would they capture and hold me?  They must have known that though my body was flawed my mind was untouched, and would they simply detain me for the rest of eternity, letting my mind rot as much as my body?  I had over four days to think such things before I was captured.  A dome had been formed around me with more powerful magic than I had ever witnessed and soon a ceremony was under way.  I didn’t know what it was at first, but then I comprehended I had done the same one, in reverse, to get there.  Now it looked as though I would be sent back, and I cursed myself for ever trying to find a home, for wasting all my time, and the marilith Notura for damning me to a fate worse than death.  I was thrown out of my homeland and back into the hell that I had fought so hard to escape.  I had a new reason to return now.  I would strive to revisit them once more, alive or undead, and have my revenge upon them.  I would chase each and every one of them down, and let them feel my seething hatred for them, for all of them that drew breath, before yanking their limbs from their sockets and beating them as they bled dry to an undeath just like mine.  I would have it, but first I would recreate my own world here in their likeness, purging every other race and living thing from it until I had at last made this hell into my own creation.  If I were to die from the attempt, so be it, I was ready to leave this vile existence, but until then I would know no peaceful rest.  I flew down and hovered over the river that they had delivered me back to.  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17161" target="_blank">I threw the necklace into the deep water and watched it disappear into darkness.</a>  With it went all of my dreams for a life, prosperity, learning, success, riches, and hope.  Now I would only carry destruction to the lands of the usurping men.</blockquote>

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