Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2672129" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 476  A soft breeze redolent with the smells of lavender and autumn rustled through the trees, swirling through the open spaces of the ancient grove.  The gentle wind tugged at the threadbare, ragged cloak worn by the solitary individual seated upon the throne of cragged gray wood shaped from the remains of a long-dead stump.  In the late afternoon light, here in the depths of the old wood, the figure’s face was lost within the shadows of its cowl, for all that the garment was little more than wisps of fabric as ephemeral as moonlight, seemingly kept together by a memory of what it had once been. The seated figure did not smell the fragrant hints upon the breeze.  It did not remember the rich odors of the forest in autumn, or what it felt like to have the afternoon sun filter down through the canopy to strike the face in a forest clearing.  It did not remember the joys of running through the wood, or chasing butterflies, or enjoying the soft patter of rain upon the leaves.It did not even remember its name. All that it remembered was its mandate, to preserve the forest, to maintain the purity of the Wealdath.  Even that name was lost to it, and it remembered only the Wood, always the eternity of the ancient sentinels, the holiness of this place above all others on the surface of the world. And now, the Wood was in danger. The figure rose, silent.  It turned and walked solemnly toward the nearby ruin.  The stone arch rose above it in greeting, although the interior was now little more than cracked foundation beneath its feet, with walls that barely rose to its chest in most places.  Age—time—had done to this place what it could not do to the walker, for it too was eternal, ever bound to this holy site and to the Wood. A pulse of power greeted it as it entered the sacred core.  It had not left the ruin, but the Wood was no longer visible.  Here, it was both within the Wood and outside of it, the reality here torn by the vast power of the mythal. The baelnorn regarded the ancient artifact.  It knew the currents of power radiating from the crystal better than it knew its own self, recognized them like old friends.  To its eyes the black smear of taint upon the crystal, consuming the entire upper half of its surface, seemed a natural part of it, unchanged since forever.  That taint spread outward from it in a web that embraced the ancient lich, welcomed it as the undead thing came forward into the uneven glow of the artifact. As soon as it could sense fully the flows of energy it knew that it had failed in its mandate.  The threat to the Wood had grown, its efforts rebuffed.  The impurity would swell and undo all that it had fought to preserve…No.  The baelnorn grew calm once more.  It reached out toward the mythal; not actually to touch it, but some habits died hard.  The gesture drew tendrils of power from within the web, tendrils that coalesced until they had become visible as a black distortion that hung in the air a few feet in front of the undead guardian.  The mythal pulsed beyond that growing disruption, drawing more power into itself along the threads that linked it to the worlds beyond this place.Minutes passed, hours, but what was time to a creature that existed forever?  Finally the blackness faded, or seemed to; as the matrix dissolved the faint light from the mythal revealed three larger regions of un-light hovering in the corners of the chamber.  “Go forth, purify,” the baelnorn commanded, its voice sounding like the faint hiss of a candle’s flame consuming the last bit of wick.  The dread wraiths, however, heard the command clearly, and bound to obey, merely vanished, passing through the barrier that surrounded the mythal and separated from the world beyond. The baelnorn remained for a time longer, drawing more power from the ancient but flawed artifact.  It would need more power, would need to draw upon all it could to complete its mandate, to save the Wood from the threat posed by the life forms that infested it.  Even if it meant its own destruction, it would complete that task, would be the scourge that would finish the final cleansing of the Wealdath.</blockquote>

Verification