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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 4043678" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #426] Comes the Dawn[/PLAIN]Huzair was awakened by an icy hand pressing down across his mouth. Opening his eyes, he saw Anania crouched over him in the darkness, a finger raised to her lips, her eyes wide with alarm. She leaned in close and the mage smelled damp earth and pine needles as her hair fell across his face."Something is wrong," she breathed into his ear. "The watch should have awakened us by now. Alert the others. I will investigate." And then she slipped away, moving deftly around the three sleeping forms without waking them. She began to excavate the door. While she worked, Huzair poked at the banked coals of their fire, bringing a hellish glow to the inside of the shelter.It was nearly dawn, and the weather hadn't improved much. The snow had stopped falling, but the wind still kicked the accumulation into whorls of blinding white. As one-by-one they pulled themselves from the low opening of the snow shelter, they saw Anania crouched nearby."There was a battle," she said without looking up. She brushed aside some of the blowing snow, revealing a rusty patch of ice they all recognized as frozen blood - a lot of frozen blood. "But no bodies.""Oh man, if that thing that got me got him... he is lost," Huzair said matter-of-factly. "He will get into so much trouble on the astral plane. And Nethlar knows he cannot talk his way out of anything. Ixin might be better off... she's pretty at least." Morier shoved the wizard as the albino stepped passed him to look at the ground where Anania was knelt. He couldn't tell anything by looking."Was it the same thing that took Huzair?" he asked in a low voice and Anania's eyes flicked up to regard him."Possibly," she said. "I can tell little from this scene. Too much snow has fallen between the event and now." Morier scowled.That's what he was afraid she'd say."Should we search for them on the Astral Plane?" Shamalin asked although it was many days' hard travel back to the Moonsteps, their only immediate way of gaining access to the Astral. "Should I try a Sending spell again?" Huzair eyed the ruddy snow and snorted."I fear whomever's blood this is," he paused, looking at Morier, Ayremac and Shamalin in turn. "Well, if it was Ixin's or Karak's then I am afraid they are dead." Shamalin blanched at the mage's assessment and Morier got to his feet."We don't know that, Huzair," the albino said and then squinted off in the direction of the keep. "But having had two party members disappear in the middle of the night makes me a little more inclined this morning to "storm the keep" than I was yesterday.""Why?" Ayremac asked and the eldritch warrior turned his crimson eyes on him."I would think that the most obvious explaination for Ixin and Karak's disappearance would be that the culprit is within that keep," Morier said in a patronizing tone."Let's not be rash, Morier," the holy warrior replied with an equal measure of disdain in his own voice. "Aren't you the one always preaching caution? I'll get an aerial perspective." And saying thus he spread his wings and took to the sky. Morier watched him go, his teeth set."Gods," he cursed. "I miss Karak already."Shamalin went about her morning prayers and called on Flor to grant her the miracle of Speaking with the Dead. She suited up and arranged before her the few charred bones that Huzair had pulled from the firepit - a skull and mandible, a few ribs, one scapula, and some long bones that belonged to either the arms or legs of the man. It was not much, really, but apart from the unpleasant option of digging through the remains of the fire to locate more bones, it was as good as they were likely to get. She hoped it would work as she brandished her holy symbol and spoke the necessary words.After a while, it did.The skull rolled from side to side and the jawbone clacked open and closed. A moment later, the rib bones snapped back into the approximation of a cage which swelled and shrank as if invisible lungs expanded and deflated within. The long bones rolled up to become stumpy upper arms. For a moment, the partial skeleton languished there and then it turned its empty eye sockets onto Shamalin and while there were no eyes to read, the cleric sensed a resigned patience as the spirit waited to answer her questions."What events have befallen this keep to result in so much death and fear?" she asked and the skull's jawbone shook violently for a moment before the voice spoke."The dead walked and we came to slay them," the skull said. Its voice was thin and brittle in the cold morning. "But he followed in our wake like a carrion bird.""Who?" Shamalin stammered. Speaking to a murdered corpse was disconcerting. "Who should we be wary of?" Again the skull's jawbone rattled and clattered for a time before an answer came."He wore the garb of a Sanctifier," the skeleton said. "But he slew we few as no brother would." Shamalin swallowed down her anxiety and licked her lips."How best can we defeat this enemy?" she asked and watched as the skull jerked and twitched."For all his unnatural strength he is but a man," the skull told her. "And men, like all things must one day come to an end." With the last syllable, the bones collapsed into a ruinous pile once more."May Flor watch over you on your walk of 100 days," the cleric said in benediction and went to tell the others what little she'd learned.Ayremac and Shamalin were doing a proper burial of the burned bones and Anania and Huzair were enjoying some hot tea while they crouched around their meager fire for warmth when they heard the scream. It sounded like a woman and came from not too far off. They rose and looked in the direction of the sound and saw Morier stalking forward with a writhing figure in tow. It was a boy, they saw, not yet old enough for his first beard to come in. He was properly terrified of the lithe albino with the grip of steel. The eldritch warrior hurled him roughly to the ground."I caught this one sneaking towards our camp," Morier growled, glowering down at the boy. He was blonde and wind-burned and hadn't eaten a decent meal in a while. It had been longer still since he'd bathed."Please! Please!" the youth protested, prostrating himself at Morier's feet. "I came because the others are afraid to! I came to beg your help!"</blockquote>

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