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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 3762831" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #406d] Origins IV[/PLAIN]The albino waved the smoke away and shook his head. "Do you not listen to me at all?" he asked."There's only so much a guy can take before he has to step back for his own sanity's sake," Huzair smirked and Morier chuckled derisively."If only you'd thought to do that before it was too late," the eldritch warrior quipped and Shamalin could see that another verbal sparring match was brewing between the two of them. Fortunately, Ixin intervened."Is it my turn?" she asked, cutting off the confrontation before it could fully develop by taking the Goblet of Life from Morier and draining the last swallow of Saerloonian Topaz. She took a long look around at all of her comrades and smiled."There is no way to express the relief and pleasure of being able to understand all of you," she told them, cradling the chalice in her hands and grinning. "How ironic! I can finally communicate with you but there is no word for this feeling!"She filled the Goblet with water, closed her eyes and said, "Firewater". The top of the Goblet began to glow amber at once, bathing Ixin's features in gold. She smiled even more expansively, and took a long draught. "I have not drunk firewater in... a lifetime, I suppose. This was what I drank in Highgate with my only friend when I could escape the family that held me captive." The yellow glow from the Goblet seemed to suffuse the sorcerer's face, painting her fangs in gold and spilling brightly from her eyes."Mmmm... firewater," Huzair said. "I would like to try that." Ixin opened her eyes and handed the cup to Morier who passed it back to the wizard."It's quite good, but it's fiendishly expensive in Castillia. I think that it's normally distilled only in Byzantium, but scarcity and cost were rarely an issue for me back then," she mused. "Funny that for all the time I could only communicate with you, Huzair, we never talked about the similarities in our histories.""How's that?" the wizard asked, taking an experimental taste of the incandescent beverage. It tasted hot and buttery. He passed it on to Anania."I too was a captive of a thief," she explained. "I might just as well have been a statue for all the importance I had as an actual person. My role was as a deal sealer.""How do you mean?" Anania asked, passing the cup back to Morier."My own house and the house that ran the thieves' guild in Highgate struck a bargain," she said, pleased that these details remained in her memory even if so many others seemed to evaporate like smoke when she considered them for too long. "We got influence on the continent and they got a voice on the Council of Wyrms. They sent one of theirs to live on the Dragon Isles and I got sent to live in Highgate... as a trophy. So when I could and when I had enough courage, I escaped that life and came quite by accident to this world." She accepted the Goblet from Morier."I traveled with Karak and Morier until my demise..." Her voice trailed off and she took another long swallow of the firewater then sighed. "Somehow after that experience, swallowing firewater is not nearly as satisfying." She looked at the cup and passed it to Shamalin."Onward," Ixin said, clapping her hand onto her thigh. "What's done is done. Let us not look back." Shamalin choked out a small laugh and sent the chalice on its way around the circle."You all know my history..." the cleric said after a moment. "There is no escaping it. But I can tell you something of who I was before... before that." She felt her throat hitch for a moment and she thought that tears might come, but they did not. She glanced at Ayremac, but the holy warrior was intent on draining the Goblet of Life. She had never known him to take so enthusiastically to the cups, and she mused briefly that there was still much about her old friend that she no longer knew."My mother was renown throughout Pellham for her voice," the cleric said, turning her eyes to survey the others. "A song I never knew. She served in Duke Kesin's court until she was with child and banished from the city. The sisters of mercy at Floxen took her in and she died soon after birthing me." Ixin placed a comforting hand on Shamalin's back and the Mercybringer smiled wanly in thanks. "I don't know my father," she admitted, her fingers toying absently with the tip of her ear. "But Sister Benletta once let it slip that the Duke sent gold regularly but in secret to the temple. No matter. I was well cared for there.""Ironically, I could not deny my own musical abilities and learned to entwine those with the healing practices I was taught." Her eyes became wistful. "Life was simple and wondrous and innocent then." She kept her gaze riveted in the fire, but Ixin - sensing what she had before - glanced at Ayremac. He, too, was staring into the fire, but his eyes seemed glassy, unfocused. Whatever emotion he was feeling was dulled considerably with drink.The sorcerer accepted the chalice but passed it on to Shamalin without drinking from it. She took it and drew again from the Goblet. "Eventually it was decided that I had been sheltered long enough," she continued. "I was sent out into the world to practice my healing art, and found my place within a band of adventurers not unlike this one." She raised the goblet to her lips but did not drink as the familiar shadow of the past fell across her eyes."Sister Elza was near death last spring when we returned to Floxen at the beginning of Reaping. I sang as she passed." Shamalin chuckled humorlessly, adding "But they couldn't be still and went on without me to investigate a disturbance in Miller's Pond. That's the last time I saw them as they had been. When they did not return a few days after the funeral I went in search of... but..." Her voice trailed off, the words caught in a throat that felt strangled with memory. "They were brave. And strong," She said finally and drank deeply. When she spoke again, her voiced was colored with emotion. "And though it threatens the very nature of my teaching, I can't help but hate for that."The Goblet wobbled precariously as she handed it quickly off to Ayremac. The holy warrior accepted it eagerly, but his own hands were not appreciably steadier than the Mercybringer's as he did so."Allright... give me another swig of this drink, and I'll tell my tale," he said, his voice thick with the numerous swigs he had already consumed. He smacked his lips wetly and looked pointedly at the albino who had begun this exchange of backgrounds. "Morier... you want to REALLY know who you are fighting aside... alonghide... side..." He laughed at his own inability to speak and struggled to remain coherent."Well, this may be a bit discomforting, but I am a regional prefect in charge of resource distribution for the town of... holy smoke... I can't even remember.. Oh, yeah... Frothingham!" Ayremac raised his cup to the town, swaying a bit uneasily as he spoke. "Arland Penibel, Clerk of Fair Distribution, Advisor to Duke Brelton of Frothingham! That's me!" He drank a toast to himself, nearly draining the cup."That's right, I was a papyrus pushing, hose wearing poli-mi-tician," he laughed at what seemed now like an absurd vocation. "Of course, when some inter-governmental gang comes into town and you choose to serve your people instead of the black hearted, profit mongering bureaucrats working alongside you, then you run the risk of them assassinating your wife and stealing your young child..." His voice hitched in his throat and tears begin to well in his wine-addled eyes before he mastered himself and pressed on with renewed gusto."BUT... I have found peace and serenity in Umba!!! She has lead me to newfound hope, and I know that my family is in a better place and that those responsible will be judged in their due time." He raised the cup to the heavens and downed the remainder before tossing it to Karak. "So I fight on for you now, Morier, with this party of fine, somewhat upstanding patrons of a higher calling, and await my inevitable reunion with my loved ones!"</blockquote>

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