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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NoOneofConsequence" data-source="post: 681014" data-attributes="member: 5400">NoOne vs Halfelfsorc Rnd 1Pseudo-Ceramic DM Round 1The pilgrim was woken by the smell of brick dust and a sharp, savage pain in the temple. With instincts born of years of monastic combat training, he threw himself upright from the flagstones where he had been sleeping. Taking up a battle stance he looked for the source of the sudden assault. Kneeling on the stones before him, at the point on the ground where the pilgrim’s head had just been, was the guide. In the guide’s hands were two broken halves of a section of the shrine wall, bits of shattered brick falling through his deceptively wizened fingers. On the ground were more fragments, scattered by a substantial impact; motes of mortar and brick dust clouded the air like a gentle dawn mist.“You hit me!” declared the pilgrim, incredulous.“Yes,” replied the guide, the old man’s leathery face split wide with a delighted grin. “I told you that you would be tested! You passed!”“This is your test?”“Yes,” the guide continued. “I am the guide of the Iron Robe Technique. It is my purpose to see if you have fully mastered the form. What better way than to catch you when you are asleep, completely off your guard?”The pilgrim had been tested in many different ways during his pilgrimage, each successive guide demanding that he demonstrate his mastery of one or more aspects of the arts of his order. This was the first time he had been physically assaulted.“You could have killed me,” protested the pilgrim.“Oh, pish!” answered the guide. “You probably wouldn’t have died. At worst you would have been in a coma.” If this was meant to calm the pilgrim’s disbelief, it failed. “Is that the whole test?”“Yes, I should think that will do. You’re not even bruised. You’ve clearly mastered the technique. We should go now.” The guide turned on his heel and walked quickly out of the road side shrine into the filtering morning light of the forest. Still bewildered by the manner of his wake up, the pilgrim was forced to quickly adjust his robe, throw the small sack with its two day old barley dumplings over his shoulder and rush out after the guide. Out on the forest road, the old man was already many yards from the shrine, charging down the winding path and forcing the pilgrim to run to catch up.The pilgrim was astonished by the pace set by the wizened little man. He began to wonder if this part of his pilgrimage had yet another element to be completed and that the guide was hurrying to reach an important point somewhere ahead in the forest. The pilgrim felt curiosity begin to gnaw at the edges of his peace like a hungry rat. Nonetheless he choked off the desire to ask further questions, reminding himself of one of the adages of his order, which said “Listen and hear; look and see; think and understand; then speak.”The morning song of the forest birds fell from the tree branches, blanketing the two walking men. Their footsteps crunched on the falling leaves on the path and still neither spoke. Morning waned and noon was high when at last the pilgrim was finally vanquished by his curiosity. “Tell me,” he began. “Where do we go?”No sooner had he opened his mouth than he realised that the little man was no longer walking the path with him. The pilgrim looked in all directions, unable to see where the little old man might have gone. The undergrowth was still and no shadows moved through the filtering light between the trees. From behind a tree there came a sudden piercing shriek, like the cry of a bird of prey in flight. This cry was louder than any mortal bird’s cry however, and the pilgrim turned to see, emerging from behind the tree, a long legged bird, easily eight feet in height. It stood erect, a long, slender neck like a flamingo. The bird was without feathers. Upon its back, seated between the creature’s stunted wings, was a slender woman. She was dressed in an ancient fashion and there were gold chains woven through her hair. As the bird picked its way carefully through the undergrowth toward the pilgrim, its rider addressed him.“I am the Guide of Mysteries,” she said in a voice that was soft and sweet. It was a title that made little sense to the pilgrim. Trusting his fate to the gods however, he accepted the outlandish appearance and strange title of this guide. After all, the previous guide had seemed normal enough and he had dropped a chunk of masonry on the pilgrim’s head.The pilgrim fell in step beside the riding bird, fascinated by the strange creature. Like most guides on the pilgrimage, the woman riding the beast’s back did not make conversation as the two walked through the afternoon. The chirruping of insects was heralding the coming of dusk as the guide and the pilgrim emerged from the forest onto the edge of a deep chasm. Dismounting from the bird, the guide led the pilgrim to the edge of the chasm. At the bottom a young river rushed headlong in a dark flood. As the two watched bats emerged from caves in the chasm walls and began to hunt insects in the evening coolness.“Have you heard the expression, ‘blind as a bat’?” asked the guide. The pilgrim nodded. “It is a strange expression, for it points to an untruth,” the guide explained. “For though a bat may be blind, still its awareness is often the equal of any mortal’s.”With her finger the guide pointed to a particular fox bat as it dove towards the river at the bottom of the canyon. With magnificent precision, glided across the surface of the water, its wingtips drawing thin sprays from the surface. “The bat cannot see the water as well as you or I, yet it perceives it with a precision that most mortals could not rival and, though it draws so close to the water, yet it does not crash or fall. Yet for all of its perceptions…”Suddenly a tentacle, blacker than the water, erupted from the river’s surface and with the swiftness of a whip crack, seized the bat and pulled it under the water. With a sigh, the guide continued her teaching.“The bat could not perceive what lay beneath the surface of the water. This is the lesson of Mysteries, the lesson of the blindness of the bat.” Turning to face the pilgrim, the guide posed her testing question. “Have you learnt this lesson?”“I don’t…” the pilgrim hesitated in his response. “I don’t understand.”“A pity,” the guide hung her head momentarily, her voice carrying a deep sadness. When she lifted her head again, her face had transformed. Her skin was a colour of red so burnt that in places it was almost black. Her eyes were pits so deep that to look into them was to lose your sanity in a sea of unholiness. Fangs slashed her mouth into an unspeakable, blood lust grin. Her body was now filled with brutal musculature. She snatched at the pilgrim with taloned fingers, seizing him by the throat even as he recoiled in terror.“You are no guide,” he gasped as her gripped choked the life from his body. “You are a demon!”“Little pilgrim,” the demon’s voice was like the scrape of weapons across armour. “Some lessons can only be learnt at the hands of your enemy.”There was a loud snap as the pilgrim’s neck broke and the demon cast his body out across space to fall into the river below. Even before the body struck the water, the insidious tentacle lashed upward and captured it, dragging the corpse to whatever unseen maw lay beneath the surface.With another sigh, the demon resumed its female form, covering itself in humanity like a cloak. Until a pilgrim would come with the art to pierce its illusions, the demon was bound to be guide and ambusher to aspirant monks. It longed for nothing more than to meet a pilgrim who would survive its ambush, slay it and thus end its indentured servitude. A thousand years had yet to provide relief. With the ponderous movements that the weight of ages bring, the demon remounted and returned to its unending patrol of the pilgrim forest.</blockquote>

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