Oathbound : Homecoming (the gathering) everybody in!

[Kahuna Burger]

By Foot To The West:
When baja returns with a plump pair of rabbits for dinner, you discover that he has some insight into the directions you have been traveling and the orientation of the 'maps' based on how you came together. Backtracking part of Faustus's journey, you take the fork he chose against to find 'the halfs' and head northeast. As you draw close to the lone dot, you notice that the other conjunction seems to be doing the same.

On Horseback To The East
Once you have also found a mule to carry the surly and slow walking rock, the group sets out from the city, trying to head roughly northwest to the lone dot. The roads do not cooperate as well as could be hoped, and you find yourself making multiple backtracks and direction changes to bring your convergence closer. You are gratified to see that each day does make progress and also notice the other convergence seems to be moving "up" to that dot as well.

The Lone Dot
It has been two weeks of heroic stories, swapped family recipies, smiles and long akward pauses. You used to think that the akward pauses were a direct result of your near death experience, but an intruding thought considers why you wore gloves for the entire reunion, and you recal similar pauses in your youth when you would ask about the marks on your hand. You never believed the 'birthmark' line your uncle gave you, and asking your parents if you were born with the mark seemed to induce coughing fits.

Considering the marks now, you strip off the gloves and get a shock. Instead of an unfinished spiderweb of scattered dots and connecting lines, there is a inverted V on your left palm. Two large dots, seemingly made up of the former smaller ones, have formed up and are closer to the 'center' dot that you've ever seen one. You have an akward sense of a destiny that snuck up on you and wonder what this convergence could herald. For the next two days, the clumps grow ever closer, and you find yourself unwilling to move very far or fast in case you miss whatever is happening. It is on the second day that a small raven alights on a bush near where you are camping and sits quietly with a scroll in its claw until you aproach. Some of the woodsmen who trained you had a magical means of compelling tiny messengers thus, and you think little of it except to wonder how someone knew where to find you.

When you open the scroll, it contains a simple, unsigned message "The citadel of Asrer arises" and a rough map from what you assume it your location to a spot marked Asrer some 20 miles north. You have heard of the famous Citadel, which is said to emerge from one of the demonic planes once a century or so, usualy at a spot of great negitive energy concentration. You wonder if many of your family or one of its associated orders have been alerted and who was able to get advance warning of such a thing. You ponder over the night how to deal with the information, and the next morning are breaking up your camp feeling that this must compel you to leave when you see a trio on foot aproaching from the west. As you watch them draw closer, feeling a sense of anticipation totally out of proportion to a simple encounter with other travelers, you begin to hear hoofbeats from the east as well...

 

[hafrogman]

Tristan can feel the hair prickling on the back of his neck this morning. He keeps removing his gauntlet, checking and rechecking the positions of the markings. They've never looked anything like this before. They must be getting close, they can't afford to miss whatever is coming. He walks along chatting idly with Faustus and trying to draw Baja into the conversation. However, his tension is still evident on his face as he keeps scanning around for anything. Finally they come across a man camped ahead of them . . .

 

[Voadam]

Coming upon the two men, the half-orc, and the woman, the three horsemen pull up a respectful distance before them.

The glowing rider calls out "Hail! I am Kyron Shadowstalker, and these are Orillion of the Forbach and Brother Julian. We come in peace seeking to understand a mystery."

 

[kirinke]

Marisa

Marisa leaned nonchalantly against her warhorse, Sugar, keeping a cautious hand on one of her scimitars. Natural paranoia and experience had taught her to never blindly trust anyone. Using the horse as a blind, she carefully tucked the scroll into her pocket and grimaced as she saw the two dots almost converging on the lone dot.

"Good day Sirrah Shadowstalker. I am Marisa Veridath. What mystery do you seek to understand and how may I help you?" she asked politely, though she couldn't help but stare at the glowing man in fascination. Creatures that glowed like that were quite out of her experience.

I'm rather outnumbered here... She thought nervously, looking at the two groups, remembering another time in which she was outnumbered. She had been lured to a graveyard and faced a number of very large and scary greater undead headed by a necromancer of great power.

Something hit her head and she had passed out. The next thing she remembered was sunlight hitting her open eyes and the rather unpleasent smell of a messily dead necromancer with lots of dust that used to be his creatures. And she suffered a really bad headache that lasted for two days.

 

[hafrogman]

Tristan also draws up short of the congregation and watches the short exhange between the glowing man and the woman. He does a quick headcount, and verifies that the fourth mount is not occupied by a person. He nods in satisfaction to himself. He pulls off his gauntlet to expose the marks that will inevitably enter the conversation.

"My name is Tristan Eransiel, and I too have come seeking answers. I think that you may find that the seven us have all come to this place for a reason. My hand bears a marking that I believe represents a gathering of souls around me. If the rest of you also bear this mark, then I believe that my search will be over."

 

[kirinke]

Marisa:

Li'a'sair Pelor. Give me the wisdom to understand what you wish. Should I trust these people who feel like family? Or is it a clever trick by those who wish me ill? She thought, lasping into the Celestial tongue as she rubbed her gloved hand self-consciously. It actually felt warm now and Marisa daren't look at it right away.

 

[deadestdai]

Again Baja's hand itched.

Always'd wiv the itchin'! It never stop!

He scratched at it absentmindedly and listened to the new peoples introduce themselves.

He looked at the two riders closely, hand at first tensing about his massive club, then relaxing after he noticed that these fellows offered no sense of danger. He nodded and smiled his smashing-est toothy grin at the others and noticed that the itching that had plagued him had ceased.

Me am Baja! You's made the itchin' stop! He lifted his hand to show the mark to the others.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Tristan also draws up short of the congregation and watches the short exhange between the glowing man and the woman. He does a quick headcount, and verifies that the fourth mount is not occupied by a person. He nods in satisfaction to himself. He pulls off his gauntlet to expose the marks that will inevitably enter the conversation.

glancing down as he removes the gaunlet and speaks, Tristan expects to see the dots all clumped together in the center of his palm as they had begun to over the last days. Instead, he sees something entirely new - a small seven pointed star is in the center of his palm, with each point made up of one of the colors the dots had been in. And also on his palm, in the direction he had come to think of as north after the weeks of navigating, is a black dot almost like a hole in his hand, which he finds somewhat disquieting to see.

(yes, anyone who takes a look sees the same thing now that you have all come together.)

Marrisa: Strange as all this is, the marks on you hand have never been widely advertised, and you don't know that anyone could have snuck around you to make this convergence and know when your marks were doing the same. If it is a trick it is one that has been arranged since your infancy.

 

[Ferrix]

Faustus grins as the conjunction occurs, his mind racing at the possibilities and stories that could spring of it. Jumping to his own introduction when he feels most convenient, "Faustus Ignazio, at your..." his curious grin peaking, "extraordinary services. It seems that our stories were bound to conjoin, and that as this speaks," holding up his marked hand, "there is a story, that crests the celestial peaks of my curiousity, that awaits us."

 

[Voadam]

"Good day Sirrah Shadowstalker. I am Marisa Veridath. What mystery do you seek to understand and how may I help you?" she asked politely, though she couldn't help but stare at the glowing man in fascination. Creatures that glowed like that were quite out of her experience.

"Greetings and well met Marisa Veridath, Faustus Ignazio. We are three Markbearers. Each of us bears seven identical dark marks on our right hands. They have been with us throughout our lives and we have recently discovered they correspond to our actual locations. Do you bear the same?"

Kyron dismounts and removes his gauntlet. He dims the radiance his body exudes so that the marks become visible.

"And now this is new. I like not the look of this black spot."