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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 682297" data-attributes="member: 114">You said it, brother! It is a real case of adding insult to injury (or should that be injury to injury?)More storyhour now!InterludeThe days pass. The party heal and recover. In a well-attended Asuran ceremony on holyday the power of Asura is called upon and wisdom returns to Dala’s brow and the horror of losing his form to the chaos beast fades away.Trajan is filled with a different kind of horror though. His close relationship with Asura has been lost. The aura of grace that has surrounded him for years has faded, and his prayers seem empty. He knows that he is responsible for the loss of life amongst the Trapp family, he had a responsibility to destroy an evil magical item and he stepped aside and tried to pass that responsibility on to others – and it led to their deaths. Time weighs heavily on him, and he resolves to go and visit his old master, back above his home village of Dragons End.Trajan and Anne-Marie leave early, so that they can make the detour together. Arilyn and Dala will meet them later at Bellhold, in the Bell & Clapper inn. They receive a warm welcome at the inn in Dragons End, and nobody now refers to Trajan as the lanky boy who was always off with the old hermit. Trajan doesn’t feel like banter though, and they soon set off up the hillsides to his masters old place. He’ll know what to do, how things can be set right.Eventually they reach the old shack on the hillside. There was the sound of chopping wood from the other side, but as they circle the yard they don’t see anyone – until they both become aware of an elderly man standing just behind them and with a knife at each of their necks.“clumsy fools, and slow as ever. I despair of your Trajan, really I do”.Released, they turn to face the wrinkled old man. Trajan hangs his head and explains the story, his failure as he sees it, in the matter of the chimes and the loss of the family. The hermit agrees. It was stupid, bad and dishonourable. In the old days the only appropriate response was to commit ritual suicide. Trajan attempts to say that things are different nowadays, and that other responses might work, but his master turns away from him coldly.“Have you learnt nothing from my teaching? Is my old order truly doomed to die with me?”He stalks back into his house and shuts the door. For long minutes Trajan stares at the door, wrestling with his thoughts, then he shrugs off Anne-Maries comforting hand, and kneels before the door.“Master” he calls out.The door opens, and the hermit looks down on him.“Master, will you be my second?” Trajan asks. The hermit nods, draws a knife and stands behind him. Trajan draws his scimitar, holds it up praying, then reverses it to place the point just below his sternum.“Stop! Stop!” cries Anne-Marie, “You must stop, you can’t do this, you mustn’t!”The hermit glances across at her. “Why should he stop short of atonement?”“Because”, whispers Anne-Marie, “because… I love him”.Trajan gasps, distracted. Anne-Marie kneels down before him, moving the sword out of the way. “After I sought happiness with someone else in Bridlerest to no avail, I realised that the happiness I truly seek lies before me here – you are the one I love, Trajan. Live for me…”The hermit gazes on them. “hmmm. Unorthodox, but I’ve seen stranger workings of Asura. Trajan, your atonement is not yet complete, but I feel that the light of Asura will once more shine on your brow. Anyhow, you’ve got to go now. I’m supposed to be a hermit, and it doesn’t do to have too many people around me. Go now. Go!”Trajan gets up, bows to his master and he and Anne-Marie set off arm in arm down the hillside to their horses and on to Bellhold. He doesn’t have his relationship with Asura back yet – but it seems that another relationship is blossoming that he hadn’t suspected.To be continued tomorrow, travelling up into the mountains and eventually meeting more undead than you can shake a stick at!Cheers</blockquote>

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