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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daniel Knight" data-source="post: 830230" data-attributes="member: 1113">...Story Hour ContinuedGulthias slowly and painfully opened his eyes.It wasn’t yet light at the West Tower, but all ready the scarlet fingers of dawn were spreading in the east.  Gulthias blinked painfully and looked about the war torn landscape.Although it had stopped raining several hours ago, the ground and grey stones of the ruined tower were slick with moisture.  Tangled bodies littered the ground, and all ready crow caws could be heard as they awoke with the coming light.  The large heart of a dragon rested in the centre of the tower, the massive arteries viciously torn.  A child lay beside the muscle, coated in the dragon’s blood and lifeless.  Her hair spread out around her as a crown, floating in the inch deep pool of blood and water.  Even the gods could forgive an observer for thinking of such a scene of mutilation and despair as beautiful.  It was clear that this child was more than human - even in death she had presence.The druids had left her body for the planet to reclaim.  They believed that burial, and certainly cremation, was the ultimate selfish act.  After all the planet had given to you, why rob it of the nutrients your body no longer needed?The dragon was nowhere to be seen.The numbness started to subside in Gulthias’ body, as the pain regained dominance in the wizard’s brain.  Nerve endings sparked haphazardly as they sent a message via the spinal collum that all feeling had been lost below the waist.  He coughed up a stream of blood as the pain in his chest engulfed his mind.  Once again his vision started to blur.  Biting into his cheek, he started to randomly focus his eyes on things around him to remain conscious.The tip of the metal pocking through his torso.The scars in the flagstones from Ashardalon’s talons.The crow leisurely flapping its wings as it came in to land.The cloaked figure moving beyond the bird.Gulthias quickly felt a surge of adrenalin pump through his veins as he noticed the hooded man.  It was difficult to see what he was doing, but it was obvious he was moving from body to body on the battlefield.  Probably a looter.“Heh… hel… peh…”  Gulthias coughed.The figure quickly looked up at the wizard and stared, obviously surprised at someone living.  He slowly rose and moved towards him, lifting his hands up to remove the hood from his head.  Gulthias’ heart skipped a beat.  A polished human skull stared.Moving in closer, Death moved his skeletal hand over the man’s cheek caressing his skin.  Gulthias was frozen, the blood slowly draining away from his face.  Death leaned forward and tenderly kissed the wizard forehead, leaned back, and shook his head in refusal.“Not yet.”  The words sounded as from the wind itself, and as soon as uttered – seemed more imagined then real.  Death looked to his left pointedly, and Gulthias moved his head to look.  A figure strolled through the carnage and out of the darkness towards them.It was a young man, not much older than twenty, short blond hair in dreadlocks and a wicked grin on his face.  He wore an array of green garments cut in a style not of Krailem, or any other country on the continent of Crimea.  The wizard mentally tried to sort the individual as friend or foe.  He waltzed up to Gulthias, sat down on a torn stone, and glared in the direction of the sun to soon rise above the edge of the horizon.  He didn’t seem to notice Death.“Bundwa!” he casually quipped.  So, he was from Drophlooga, Gulthias thought.  There was no immediate allegiance with either side then.  Bundwa was the common greeting of those from the jungle planet, even now visible in the night sky as a green crescent beyond the moon.  The inhabitents of the planet mostly kept to themselves.Gulthias stared at him.  Great, he thought sarcastically, I’m about to die and all I have for company is a talking skeleton and a man from space.“It’s your lucky day Gulthias – I’m about to make you immortal.”“Hhh… who…are…”“Please don’t try to talk, it’ll only upset your breathing.  My name is Krifston, and it appears we have a mutual friend on the other side.  And I’m about to make her exceedingly happy.”  The boy grinned.  Death continued to stare at Gulthias.Something ruptured inside him, and he could feel blood slowly start to fill his left lung.  He didn't have much time.  “Who…”“I said a friend.  Now leave it at that – it appears your pet dragon has caused rather a stir in the underworld.”  The boy grinned again.  Gulthias found it annoying, as he watched Krifston glance to the east.  “Now, if you don’t mind I have what you might call: a deadline to meet.”Leaning forward, the boy grinned a final time, a pair of white fangs hungrily pocking out beneath the lip line.As the wizard felt the teeth dig into the flesh of his neck, he was sure he heard whispering on the wind a word that could have only been formed by Death.“Now.”To Be Continued...</blockquote>

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