Sagiro's Story Hour: The FINAL Adventures of Abernathy's Company (FINISHED 7/3/14)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Teflonknight
Explorer
What is the gender make up of the players? It seems to me to be pretty even. Saigro
I just wanted to say that this is an excellent campaign and I am really enjoying reading it. The twists that you have thrown in have been really great.
I just wanted to say that this is an excellent campaign and I am really enjoying reading it. The twists that you have thrown in have been really great.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
We're split exactly 50/50. Dranko, Gray Wolf and Aravis (and Tor, many years ago) are played by men; Ernie, Morningstar and Kibi (and once upon a time, Kay and Mrs. Horn) are played by women. Flicker is a NPC.
Teflonknight, glad you're having as much fun reading it as we did playing it. And just wait. Mr. "Look a plot twist that makes your mind break" Sagiro is far from done.
Teflonknight, glad you're having as much fun reading it as we did playing it. And just wait. Mr. "Look a plot twist that makes your mind break" Sagiro is far from done.
Chronikoce
First Post
shamelessly bumping this since we know Sagiro will be back eventually.
Also, reading through some of the earlier stuff and I am really impressed by the number of NPC characters that are part of the party. When I DM it usually gets hard to remember to have the NPC's in the party do anything (especially during combat).
Also, reading through some of the earlier stuff and I am really impressed by the number of NPC characters that are part of the party. When I DM it usually gets hard to remember to have the NPC's in the party do anything (especially during combat).
thatdarncat
Overlord of Chat
So he had plenty of time hiding out in his tent to write, right?
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 361
Essences
The Company has a busy schedule. In the next two days they intend to investigate Sentinel, host a meeting of the Spire, and hold a funeral service for the sisters of Ell who fell in the battle of Octesian. They've decided not to delay their pursuit of Seven Dark Words any longer than that.
Eddings starts preparing the living room for the following night’s big meeting, while the party wolfs down the morning’s heroes’ feast.
“We’d love to help clean up,” says Aravis, “but we have a busy couple of days ahead of us.”
“Nothing to worry about,” the butler replies. “Cleaning up the Greenhouse is my job, after all, and this will not be the first time we’ve entertained dignitaries. Fortunately the rhino and lion did not… deposit any lasting remains upon the floor.”
None in the party have been to Sentinel, a city of some five thousand people perched on the western coastal cliffs of Nahalm. But Sentinel is only a couple of hours wind walk from Kallor, so they teleport to the Ellish city and fly in from there. Morningstar cannot imagine what could have caused a cessation of all contact with the sisters there, sendings included, but she’s soon to find out.
/*/
About five miles out, just when they expect to see Sentinel on the horizon, the Company feels the first uneasy pangs. Two minutes later and the feeling is unmistakable – it’s the hot, sickening feeling that emanates from Adversary blood. And they’re already feeling it, from three miles away? Not good! They land and solidify long enough for Ernie to cast magic circle of protection from evil, and then they speed the rest of the way to the city.
There is a short line of carts and wagons waiting outside the eastern city gate, but none are moving. The party lands, and finds a body lying on the ground outside the wagon closest to the wall. A well-dressed middle-aged merchant lies in the dirt, a pool of sticky congealed blood beneath his corpse. He has died from a number of puncture wounds, as if someone has stabbed him to death with a small knife. It can’t have been more than a day since his murder.
The other four wagons are abandoned, but Grey Wolf discovers a second body in the back of this one, a younger man dressed similarly to the first victim outside. A letter opener protrudes from his eye socket.
Dranko scratches his head. “They all went crazy and killed one another?”
“Seems likely,” says Grey Wolf.
Hearts filled with apprehension, the Company walks through the open city gates. No watchmen challenge them, though a rancid smell wafts out from inside the walls. And inside – pure horror. Bodies litter the streets, most of them either beaten or stabbed to death. Some trail smeared tracks of blood, as they staggered about before dropping. A few corpses come in pairs, their hands tight around one another’s throats.
Smoke rises here and there around Sentinel, and the faint crackling of fires comes from several directions. There is no sign of life.
“This is pretty horrible,” says Dranko.
Grey Wolf shakes his head. “The city annihilated itself. This is worse than Octesian.”
Morningstar casts brain spider, the easiest way to detect anyone who may still live in this city-turned-abattoir. She immediately discovers two living minds within a hundred feet or so, and she focuses on the surface thoughts of the closest of these.
“I want to find someone else to kill. I need to kill someone. Too many are dead already; I need to find someone else to kill. Ah… my leg… broken… no, it doesn’t matter. What matters is finding someone else to kill. I need to kill….”
Morningstar reports that it’s a young woman thinking these thoughts. She severs the connection in disgust and focuses on the second mind, but it’s much the same. This one is an older man, and there’s some confusion mixed in with his homicidal litany, as well as regret… that he’s too old, too feeble to kill anyone.
It’s a grim thing, but the Company takes the time to comb the city, letting Morningstar scan it for survivors. Altogether there are sixty-eight people still living within the walls of Sentinel, sixty-eight people who have all either done murder but were injured in the process, or who were too feeble, old or clumsy to have slain their fellows. Sixty-eight, out of a town of over five thousand citizens.
Morningstar drops into Ava Dormo long enough to see that the local dreamscape is empty. All seven Ellish sisters here are among the dead.
“Whatever happened here, it spread through the whole city,” Dranko observes. “We really don’t want it to spread any further.”
There is one other gap in the city’s wall, a low, wide gate to the north from which a road leads to the nearby copper mines. Recalling the initial two murders – committed by copper miners – the party heads that way to investigate the source of the city’s horrific fate.
Morningstar frowns as they leave the shadow of the wall. “The Emperor was digging for something, wasn’t he?”
The others all nod.
The mining site is a large road that slopes downward into a man-made ravine. Down on the ravine floor, six mineshafts have been bored into the walls at even intervals. As they approach this ravine, the feeling of Adversary blood grows more potent, more hot, pressing against their circle of protection. They start to walk down the pitched road, but stop before they’re even halfway there. The ravine floor is still in shadow this early in the morning, but they can see well enough that it's inches deep in black goo.
“Guess what they struck?” says Grey Wolf with a bitter laugh.
They return to the gaseous aspect of their wind walk and waft down the long ramp to the ravine floor, some seventy-odd feet below ground level. Being careful not to touch the black liquid, and crowding around Ernie to stay inside the protective magic circle, they make a closer investigation of the mine. The ravine is a hundred yards long and thirty yards wide, and every inch of it is covered with Adversary blood to a depth of four inches. At least its level isn’t rising at the moment, and there is no sign of a continued inpouring of the stuff. The most likely explanation is that the “Essence” bubbled up through one of the mineshafts, from somewhere far beneath the surface.
The Company retreats from the ravine, and Morningstar issues warning sendings to Ozilinsh and Yale about what they’ve found. She suggests that Sentinel be quarantined. The replies are similar, boiling down to “That’s horrible. Be careful. Discover what you can.”
They also send to Farazil: Don’t come back to Sentinel. Everyone’s dead. What did you learn while you were here?
His answer: No one had died. Had decided murderers had discovered mind-affecting artifact in deep copper mine. No sign of black goo. No plan to return.
“If those people are infected with something,” says Morningstar, “we might not be able to let them out of the city. Is it the place, or the people?”
“And even if we can cure them,” says Dranko soberly, “they’ll know they killed their own friends and family.”
All agree that there’s no good outcome to this.
“Why is this happening now?” Dranko asks out loud. “And why is the Adversary’s blood making people kill each other? When Ernie and Aravis were infected, this didn’t happen to them. Thank God.”
Grey Wolf graces Dranko with a grim smile. “The God fell down, crashed into the center of the world, and now His blood is bubbling out.”
“And if He’s waking up,” adds Morningstar, “His blood might have new, or different effects than it did before.”
Dranko rubs his chin. “I’m uncomfortable leaving behind a town with seventy-five mass murderers in it.”
After a short, unhappy discussion, the remainder of the Company agrees. They know from experience that purging a single person from even the tiniest exposure to Essence requires miracle and wish cast concurrently. Weighed against the risk of the infection spreading beyond Sentinel, and considering the horrible internal thoughts of the infected, the extreme solution is unavoidable. With as much speed and mercy as they can muster, the Company finds and executes every one of the sixty-eight survivors of Sentinel’s disaster.
Before taking their leave of the city, the heroes visit the town prison. As they hoped, the two original murderers – the ones they had sent Farazil to investigate – are dead in their cells, having been stabbed through the bars, probably by the warden. Morningstar casts speak with dead on one of these. His body gurgles and coughs up blood as it animates.
“What were you doing right before you decided to kill your wife?”
Eating dinner.
“Was there anything unusual about that day?”
Something in the mine, maybe?
“Did you find something unusual in the mine?”
More like a smell?
“How would you describe the smell.”
“Wrong.”
“Did you see any unusual fluids leaking up into the mine?”
No.
“Did you feel strange after you left the mine?”
Yeah, little bit.
Did you want to kill more people than just your wife?
Not until later.
“Did the smell spread over time, or did it stay in the mine?”
Didn’t smell it so much once I came back to my house. Smelled it more a little later, once I was here in prison.
“Did you receive any commands to kill people, or did it just seem like a good idea?”
Wife burned the bread. So I thought I’d kill her.
“Can you sense who else wants to kill people?”
No. Well, the warden, obviously. Heh. Heh, heh.
After casting some intra-party detect evils (to make sure they’re not carriers of the infection), the party wind walks back to Tal Hae with heavy hearts. They try to take their minds off the day’s cruel trials by helping Eddings prepare the Greenhouse for the next day’s Spire meeting, but it’s hard not to dwell upon the effective death of one of Charagan’s coastal cities.
“I have an idea.”
Morningstar gathers everyone around her. “If we’re going to have to fight the Adversary in some form or another, I’d like to know how. And one way we can do that is to watch how he was fought the last time.”
Everyone waits to hear where this is going.
“When we were in Het Branoi, we passed through a part of Ava Dormo where battles were recreated in dreams by those who had fought in them . If we can watch the dream-version of the battle where the Adversary fought the Travelers, we might learn something.”
Dranko stares at his wife. “Have I mentioned recently that you’re totally brilliant?”
/*/
That evening, Morningstar dreams the party to that distant place in Ava Dormo where dream battles are fought. All around them there is a slow-moving fog, and through that mist they can hear the sounds of battles coming from many different directions.
“Hello?” calls Morningstar. “Dream Essence, are you here?”
Soon a bobbing sphere of light appears through the mist, and it coalesces into a humanoid shape in from of Morningstar.
“Welcome back,” it says.
“Thank you. It’s good to see you again.”
“You’ve changed,” says the Dream Essence. “How can I be of help to you.”
“We’re going to be fighting an important battle,” Morningstar explains. “One that resonates with a battle that happened a long time in our past. I wondered if it was possible to find an echo of that battle here, so we could learn from it.”
Dream Essence nods its glowing head. “Can you describe it? Perhaps we can find it for you.”
Morningstar draws the Watcher’s Kiss. “Some very unique weapons were used.”
“Ah,” says the golden bit of sentient dream. “That battle. Yes, it has a strong resonance here. You may have… difficulty observing it. It was fought between divine beings, and isn’t meant for mortals to witness. But I’ll take you there.”
“We’re afraid we’re going to have to fight to the Adversary, who was part of that battle,” Morningstar explains.
“One of the divine beings?” asks Dream Essence, surprise evidence in its inhuman voice. “But you are not divine.”
“Yeah,” says Dranko. “We’re pretty much screwed.”
The Dream Essence glides through the fog, and the party follows, nervously. “The dream you will see is fashioned somewhat out of the dreams of the divine, and somewhat out of the dreams of those mortals who were present while the battle was fought.”
They cover dozens of miles in just couple of minutes, dreaming themselves along. Their guide stops in front of a patch of empty, hazy dream space, seemingly no different than the rest of this strange place.
To Morningstar, the Dream Essence says, “You will have to think hard about what you want to see.”
“You’ve been super helpful,” says Dranko. “Is there anything we can do for you, little ball of light?”
“’Little ball of light?’” The Dream Essence sounds amused. “No, but it’s nice of you to offer.”
The Essence of Dream parts the fog like a curtain, but what it reveals is not immediately clear. Battles between Gods are not like those of mortals; for the most part the Company does not see volleys of spells, or slashing blades, or divine blood spilled upon the ground. If not for Morningstar’s status as Ell’s Shadow, they would probably sense nothing at all.
They glimpse the battle between the Adversary and the Gods of Darvin as a series of impressions. The Adversary is not from this world; He has come from somewhere Outside, an invader, and his might is so great, it casts a pall over even the likes of Brechen, Ell and Werthis. He has devastated the world of Darvin; millions of mortals have already been killed, piled up around the metaphorical feet of the Gods as they strive against one another.
There is a sense of place – a stronghold the Adversary has made for Himself, and the battle rages in front of it. Below the towering presences of the Gods, lesser divine beings and powerful mortals fight to save (or kill) the remaining peoples of Darvin. Morningstar has a moment of clarity, or perhaps her mind chooses to translate the event into understandable terms, and she sees the demigod Aurelia dart into the fray and land a hit on the Adversary’s body with Ell’s Will. The Adversary roars, turns to smite her, but is engaged by Werthis before He can dispatch her.
The battle slowly turns in the Adversary’s favor. One truth that pervades the battlefield is that for all the Gods’ might, they cannot kill[/il the Adversary. They lack either the knowledge how, or the strength to make it so, but either way this battle cannot be won. And the Adversary knows this. He has killed several of the Darvin Gods already – He can certainly kill them.
At last the Gods decide to flee, taking with them as many of their mortal flock as they can manage. They had hoped to lure the Adversary into a prison they had prepared, but there is no hope of that now. Werthis curses the name of Uthol Inga, who alone of the Darvin Gods has chosen to join the Adversary, as He shepherds the mortals toward a distant point of safety and escape. Ell cloaks the fleeing masses in protective shadows, while Delioch heals the wounds of untold thousands.
As the Adversary makes to follow his prey, a golden spike protrudes from His heart. Uthol Inga has stabbed the Adversary with a specially-crafted blade, long forged in secret for just this purpose. She has placed her attack carefully -- The Adversary’s heart is not where a human’s would be, but lower and to the left. The towering God falls to His knees, screaming in pain and betrayal, as the golden sword shatters in the Watcher’s hand. And while even this is not enough to slay Her enemy, Uthol Inga now has the chance to shift the Adversary into the prison prepared for Him, a cage of thoughts and power and adamant and madness that protrudes into the Far Realms. Having done so, Uthol Inga flees after the rest, catching up to them as they prepare to leap across the multiverse to safety.
Behind them the Adversary recovers from His wound, but too late. The prison is fast closing, and already He is finding it difficult to move. But with a final effort of will, He thrusts his left hand through the last small opening of the prison, and as it closes and seals, His hand is sliced cleanly off. And it plummets, streaking through the cosmos, in pursuit of His enemies.
…to be continued…
Essences
The Company has a busy schedule. In the next two days they intend to investigate Sentinel, host a meeting of the Spire, and hold a funeral service for the sisters of Ell who fell in the battle of Octesian. They've decided not to delay their pursuit of Seven Dark Words any longer than that.
Eddings starts preparing the living room for the following night’s big meeting, while the party wolfs down the morning’s heroes’ feast.
“We’d love to help clean up,” says Aravis, “but we have a busy couple of days ahead of us.”
“Nothing to worry about,” the butler replies. “Cleaning up the Greenhouse is my job, after all, and this will not be the first time we’ve entertained dignitaries. Fortunately the rhino and lion did not… deposit any lasting remains upon the floor.”
None in the party have been to Sentinel, a city of some five thousand people perched on the western coastal cliffs of Nahalm. But Sentinel is only a couple of hours wind walk from Kallor, so they teleport to the Ellish city and fly in from there. Morningstar cannot imagine what could have caused a cessation of all contact with the sisters there, sendings included, but she’s soon to find out.
/*/
About five miles out, just when they expect to see Sentinel on the horizon, the Company feels the first uneasy pangs. Two minutes later and the feeling is unmistakable – it’s the hot, sickening feeling that emanates from Adversary blood. And they’re already feeling it, from three miles away? Not good! They land and solidify long enough for Ernie to cast magic circle of protection from evil, and then they speed the rest of the way to the city.
There is a short line of carts and wagons waiting outside the eastern city gate, but none are moving. The party lands, and finds a body lying on the ground outside the wagon closest to the wall. A well-dressed middle-aged merchant lies in the dirt, a pool of sticky congealed blood beneath his corpse. He has died from a number of puncture wounds, as if someone has stabbed him to death with a small knife. It can’t have been more than a day since his murder.
The other four wagons are abandoned, but Grey Wolf discovers a second body in the back of this one, a younger man dressed similarly to the first victim outside. A letter opener protrudes from his eye socket.
Dranko scratches his head. “They all went crazy and killed one another?”
“Seems likely,” says Grey Wolf.
Hearts filled with apprehension, the Company walks through the open city gates. No watchmen challenge them, though a rancid smell wafts out from inside the walls. And inside – pure horror. Bodies litter the streets, most of them either beaten or stabbed to death. Some trail smeared tracks of blood, as they staggered about before dropping. A few corpses come in pairs, their hands tight around one another’s throats.
Smoke rises here and there around Sentinel, and the faint crackling of fires comes from several directions. There is no sign of life.
“This is pretty horrible,” says Dranko.
Grey Wolf shakes his head. “The city annihilated itself. This is worse than Octesian.”
Morningstar casts brain spider, the easiest way to detect anyone who may still live in this city-turned-abattoir. She immediately discovers two living minds within a hundred feet or so, and she focuses on the surface thoughts of the closest of these.
“I want to find someone else to kill. I need to kill someone. Too many are dead already; I need to find someone else to kill. Ah… my leg… broken… no, it doesn’t matter. What matters is finding someone else to kill. I need to kill….”
Morningstar reports that it’s a young woman thinking these thoughts. She severs the connection in disgust and focuses on the second mind, but it’s much the same. This one is an older man, and there’s some confusion mixed in with his homicidal litany, as well as regret… that he’s too old, too feeble to kill anyone.
It’s a grim thing, but the Company takes the time to comb the city, letting Morningstar scan it for survivors. Altogether there are sixty-eight people still living within the walls of Sentinel, sixty-eight people who have all either done murder but were injured in the process, or who were too feeble, old or clumsy to have slain their fellows. Sixty-eight, out of a town of over five thousand citizens.
Morningstar drops into Ava Dormo long enough to see that the local dreamscape is empty. All seven Ellish sisters here are among the dead.
“Whatever happened here, it spread through the whole city,” Dranko observes. “We really don’t want it to spread any further.”
There is one other gap in the city’s wall, a low, wide gate to the north from which a road leads to the nearby copper mines. Recalling the initial two murders – committed by copper miners – the party heads that way to investigate the source of the city’s horrific fate.
Morningstar frowns as they leave the shadow of the wall. “The Emperor was digging for something, wasn’t he?”
The others all nod.
The mining site is a large road that slopes downward into a man-made ravine. Down on the ravine floor, six mineshafts have been bored into the walls at even intervals. As they approach this ravine, the feeling of Adversary blood grows more potent, more hot, pressing against their circle of protection. They start to walk down the pitched road, but stop before they’re even halfway there. The ravine floor is still in shadow this early in the morning, but they can see well enough that it's inches deep in black goo.
“Guess what they struck?” says Grey Wolf with a bitter laugh.
They return to the gaseous aspect of their wind walk and waft down the long ramp to the ravine floor, some seventy-odd feet below ground level. Being careful not to touch the black liquid, and crowding around Ernie to stay inside the protective magic circle, they make a closer investigation of the mine. The ravine is a hundred yards long and thirty yards wide, and every inch of it is covered with Adversary blood to a depth of four inches. At least its level isn’t rising at the moment, and there is no sign of a continued inpouring of the stuff. The most likely explanation is that the “Essence” bubbled up through one of the mineshafts, from somewhere far beneath the surface.
The Company retreats from the ravine, and Morningstar issues warning sendings to Ozilinsh and Yale about what they’ve found. She suggests that Sentinel be quarantined. The replies are similar, boiling down to “That’s horrible. Be careful. Discover what you can.”
They also send to Farazil: Don’t come back to Sentinel. Everyone’s dead. What did you learn while you were here?
His answer: No one had died. Had decided murderers had discovered mind-affecting artifact in deep copper mine. No sign of black goo. No plan to return.
“If those people are infected with something,” says Morningstar, “we might not be able to let them out of the city. Is it the place, or the people?”
“And even if we can cure them,” says Dranko soberly, “they’ll know they killed their own friends and family.”
All agree that there’s no good outcome to this.
“Why is this happening now?” Dranko asks out loud. “And why is the Adversary’s blood making people kill each other? When Ernie and Aravis were infected, this didn’t happen to them. Thank God.”
Grey Wolf graces Dranko with a grim smile. “The God fell down, crashed into the center of the world, and now His blood is bubbling out.”
“And if He’s waking up,” adds Morningstar, “His blood might have new, or different effects than it did before.”
Dranko rubs his chin. “I’m uncomfortable leaving behind a town with seventy-five mass murderers in it.”
After a short, unhappy discussion, the remainder of the Company agrees. They know from experience that purging a single person from even the tiniest exposure to Essence requires miracle and wish cast concurrently. Weighed against the risk of the infection spreading beyond Sentinel, and considering the horrible internal thoughts of the infected, the extreme solution is unavoidable. With as much speed and mercy as they can muster, the Company finds and executes every one of the sixty-eight survivors of Sentinel’s disaster.
Before taking their leave of the city, the heroes visit the town prison. As they hoped, the two original murderers – the ones they had sent Farazil to investigate – are dead in their cells, having been stabbed through the bars, probably by the warden. Morningstar casts speak with dead on one of these. His body gurgles and coughs up blood as it animates.
“What were you doing right before you decided to kill your wife?”
Eating dinner.
“Was there anything unusual about that day?”
Something in the mine, maybe?
“Did you find something unusual in the mine?”
More like a smell?
“How would you describe the smell.”
“Wrong.”
“Did you see any unusual fluids leaking up into the mine?”
No.
“Did you feel strange after you left the mine?”
Yeah, little bit.
Did you want to kill more people than just your wife?
Not until later.
“Did the smell spread over time, or did it stay in the mine?”
Didn’t smell it so much once I came back to my house. Smelled it more a little later, once I was here in prison.
“Did you receive any commands to kill people, or did it just seem like a good idea?”
Wife burned the bread. So I thought I’d kill her.
“Can you sense who else wants to kill people?”
No. Well, the warden, obviously. Heh. Heh, heh.
After casting some intra-party detect evils (to make sure they’re not carriers of the infection), the party wind walks back to Tal Hae with heavy hearts. They try to take their minds off the day’s cruel trials by helping Eddings prepare the Greenhouse for the next day’s Spire meeting, but it’s hard not to dwell upon the effective death of one of Charagan’s coastal cities.
“I have an idea.”
Morningstar gathers everyone around her. “If we’re going to have to fight the Adversary in some form or another, I’d like to know how. And one way we can do that is to watch how he was fought the last time.”
Everyone waits to hear where this is going.
“When we were in Het Branoi, we passed through a part of Ava Dormo where battles were recreated in dreams by those who had fought in them . If we can watch the dream-version of the battle where the Adversary fought the Travelers, we might learn something.”
Dranko stares at his wife. “Have I mentioned recently that you’re totally brilliant?”
/*/
That evening, Morningstar dreams the party to that distant place in Ava Dormo where dream battles are fought. All around them there is a slow-moving fog, and through that mist they can hear the sounds of battles coming from many different directions.
“Hello?” calls Morningstar. “Dream Essence, are you here?”
Soon a bobbing sphere of light appears through the mist, and it coalesces into a humanoid shape in from of Morningstar.
“Welcome back,” it says.
“Thank you. It’s good to see you again.”
“You’ve changed,” says the Dream Essence. “How can I be of help to you.”
“We’re going to be fighting an important battle,” Morningstar explains. “One that resonates with a battle that happened a long time in our past. I wondered if it was possible to find an echo of that battle here, so we could learn from it.”
Dream Essence nods its glowing head. “Can you describe it? Perhaps we can find it for you.”
Morningstar draws the Watcher’s Kiss. “Some very unique weapons were used.”
“Ah,” says the golden bit of sentient dream. “That battle. Yes, it has a strong resonance here. You may have… difficulty observing it. It was fought between divine beings, and isn’t meant for mortals to witness. But I’ll take you there.”
“We’re afraid we’re going to have to fight to the Adversary, who was part of that battle,” Morningstar explains.
“One of the divine beings?” asks Dream Essence, surprise evidence in its inhuman voice. “But you are not divine.”
“Yeah,” says Dranko. “We’re pretty much screwed.”
The Dream Essence glides through the fog, and the party follows, nervously. “The dream you will see is fashioned somewhat out of the dreams of the divine, and somewhat out of the dreams of those mortals who were present while the battle was fought.”
They cover dozens of miles in just couple of minutes, dreaming themselves along. Their guide stops in front of a patch of empty, hazy dream space, seemingly no different than the rest of this strange place.
To Morningstar, the Dream Essence says, “You will have to think hard about what you want to see.”
“You’ve been super helpful,” says Dranko. “Is there anything we can do for you, little ball of light?”
“’Little ball of light?’” The Dream Essence sounds amused. “No, but it’s nice of you to offer.”
The Essence of Dream parts the fog like a curtain, but what it reveals is not immediately clear. Battles between Gods are not like those of mortals; for the most part the Company does not see volleys of spells, or slashing blades, or divine blood spilled upon the ground. If not for Morningstar’s status as Ell’s Shadow, they would probably sense nothing at all.
They glimpse the battle between the Adversary and the Gods of Darvin as a series of impressions. The Adversary is not from this world; He has come from somewhere Outside, an invader, and his might is so great, it casts a pall over even the likes of Brechen, Ell and Werthis. He has devastated the world of Darvin; millions of mortals have already been killed, piled up around the metaphorical feet of the Gods as they strive against one another.
There is a sense of place – a stronghold the Adversary has made for Himself, and the battle rages in front of it. Below the towering presences of the Gods, lesser divine beings and powerful mortals fight to save (or kill) the remaining peoples of Darvin. Morningstar has a moment of clarity, or perhaps her mind chooses to translate the event into understandable terms, and she sees the demigod Aurelia dart into the fray and land a hit on the Adversary’s body with Ell’s Will. The Adversary roars, turns to smite her, but is engaged by Werthis before He can dispatch her.
The battle slowly turns in the Adversary’s favor. One truth that pervades the battlefield is that for all the Gods’ might, they cannot kill[/il the Adversary. They lack either the knowledge how, or the strength to make it so, but either way this battle cannot be won. And the Adversary knows this. He has killed several of the Darvin Gods already – He can certainly kill them.
At last the Gods decide to flee, taking with them as many of their mortal flock as they can manage. They had hoped to lure the Adversary into a prison they had prepared, but there is no hope of that now. Werthis curses the name of Uthol Inga, who alone of the Darvin Gods has chosen to join the Adversary, as He shepherds the mortals toward a distant point of safety and escape. Ell cloaks the fleeing masses in protective shadows, while Delioch heals the wounds of untold thousands.
As the Adversary makes to follow his prey, a golden spike protrudes from His heart. Uthol Inga has stabbed the Adversary with a specially-crafted blade, long forged in secret for just this purpose. She has placed her attack carefully -- The Adversary’s heart is not where a human’s would be, but lower and to the left. The towering God falls to His knees, screaming in pain and betrayal, as the golden sword shatters in the Watcher’s hand. And while even this is not enough to slay Her enemy, Uthol Inga now has the chance to shift the Adversary into the prison prepared for Him, a cage of thoughts and power and adamant and madness that protrudes into the Far Realms. Having done so, Uthol Inga flees after the rest, catching up to them as they prepare to leap across the multiverse to safety.
Behind them the Adversary recovers from His wound, but too late. The prison is fast closing, and already He is finding it difficult to move. But with a final effort of will, He thrusts his left hand through the last small opening of the prison, and as it closes and seals, His hand is sliced cleanly off. And it plummets, streaking through the cosmos, in pursuit of His enemies.
…to be continued…
Last edited:
SolitonMan
Explorer
Another great update!
I'm going to have to go back and read this entire story hour once the final entry has been posted. Thanks Sagiro!
I'm going to have to go back and read this entire story hour once the final entry has been posted. Thanks Sagiro!
Similar Threads
