Twisted Infinity

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Another being might have started, but Shifter's head simply pivoted in the manor of raptors to fix both eyes on the bird that had landed on the branch.

As much as a hawk can be calm in its screech, Shifter speaks calmly.

"I will not be shackled again by you. Leave now."

Shifter's wings ruffle, preparing to take flight as a moments notice, and the form of the hawk seems to shift ever so slightly so as to be able to shift if needed.

OOC: Thanks for the warning Ashy .

 

[Ferrix]

Glangim's rolls the heavy stone ring subconsciously around his finger. He knows all too well the decision he will make, like the coming of a storm it looms on the horizon.

"Ata, let us not keep my dear friend waitin' at the edge of his proper resting place."

 

[Ashy]

Ata nods slowly, as is his way. He lets the solemness of his visage speak for his feelings on the task before them.

 

[Someone]

As they begin to eat, she will tell Tares of individual fruits and meats, how they were prepared, where they can be found and how they were grown. They are an exotic blend of tastes, the meat is spiced differently than Tares has ever tasted. It is an experience of taste that can hardly be matched by the most accomplished human chefs. It seems an odd custom to share and eat off the table with no individual plates or utensils, but somehow Elusriel seems to make it seem very elegant.

Having no need of food thanks to his ring, Tares takes only a bit of each course, savouring them slowly, enjoying the exotic taste and thinking that he´s going to have problms to describe it should he have to, and making inquires when Elusriel mentions magic involved in the fruit´s growth.

When they are done, Elusriel escorts Tares to the next room. It has a small bowl which Elusriel washes her hands in, two chairs which look over a large window. Looknig out the window, the view shows them to beneath the canopy of trees, but still has a commanding view of the clearing around the great tree.

Elusriel sits down and indicates Tares should as well.

“How goes your research?”

“Slow, as it´s always” says Tares. “The logs jump from one topic to another, attack the topic I´m interested on and then discuss something else. I´m not worried, though: it´s soon to judge their value, since being travel logs is no wonder that he doesn´t discuss each matter deeply, and further insight could be found later. Anyway, it´s a new start: I must confess I was totally blocked.”

“I would know of my daughter? Is she happy? I know that losing Katra was a blow to her, has she recovered? Is she happy again?”

Tares raises an eyebrow. “I don´t pride myself on being skilled on reading other´s motives. Not without magic, anyway, and I only tend to do it when needed. And I only know her by sight and for her music: moving, if melancholic. That´s the only clue I can offer, if you don´t count the fact that she was crying when I arrived at her room this morning.”

 

[Wrahn]

Elly~

“Elly…” Elias whispered in Elly’s ear, rousing her from a deep sleep. Elly opened one of her eyes and could see no sunlight peaking in through the window. It had been a late night at the tavern selling her song for a meal and a room, far too late to be rising this early. She could not help thinking to herself, “for a dragon, he doesn’t know much about sleeping.” It was Elias’s idea to be normal travelers as they made their way back home for Elly’s Grand Uncle’s 200th birthday party.

Despite her attempts to burrow deeper into the warm bed, he persisted. “Elly, I have to go.” That brought her fully awake. She rolled over to look at him, brushing her unruly hair out of her face.

“Kal has called a Dragonmeet, I have to go.”

Kal referred to Kalvadalious, a gold dragon from the south that was known as the scourge of the slave trade. He was old and powerful and something of a friend and mentor to Elias. He was unusual for dragons, much as Elias was, as he took interest in the world of the “small” races.

A Dragonmeet was a council of dragons, usually held in remote locations. In theory all dragons were welcome, it was suppose to be neutral territory, but in practice only the metallic dragons came. The chromatic dragons were usually too distrusting, though if the cause was great enough, such as the Time of the Comet Stars, the Dragonmeet could attract virtually every living dragon.

Still Dragonmeets were rare, the last one Elly was aware of was before she was born. If Kalvadalious was calling one, his reasons must be grave.

Shifter~

“Shackled?” She seems amused, “What of our children? Do you not wish to be shackled by them as well?”

“You can hide from me all you wish, you hide exceptionally well, but you can’t hide from who you really are my love. Sooner or later you will stop hiding from yourself and return to me.” An image seems to come with her speech, that of an exceptionally beautiful woman, with deep red hair. Savaesa, her name is Savaesa. With that name comes a memory of the taste of hot blood and flesh in his mouth, disturbingly it is not unpleasant.

 

[Lichtenhart]

Elly looks straight in his eyes for a moment, then she smiles and caresses his short silvery beard.
"I know you have to. And I know I cannot go with you. But remember that you have to come back to me, will you?"
She caresses his hair as well, and she scratches him behind his ears as he likes in all his forms.
"I love you, Eliasterlandelon. Please take one of these..." she reaches for her haversack and she retrieves a bright orange feather, a quaal's bird token "... and use it. Any time you think I could help you, or only to tell me that you miss me. If you go to save the world, don't make me miss the fun. Oh and take one of these as well!"
She leans forward to kiss him, slowly and tenderly.
"I may have a surprise for you when you're back" she says mischievously. "Well, now that I'm awake at least I'm going to see you leave. It's been some time since I saw you shining in the moonlight." She says with a grin that hides her worry.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Shifter seems to smile ever so slightly, as much as is possible with a beak.

"I think you'll find that my true self has become as nebulous as my form, Savaesa. I am not who you remember. Consider that, and be forewarned."

With that, the hawk tilts over backwards and falls off the branch, flitting away silently through the night, towards the Dwarven city.

 

[Wrahn]

Dimitri~

As Dimitri act as a conduit for Pelor’s healing, there is a slight feeling of
distortion. Long experience tells him this is the work of powerful magic,
perhaps something big teleporting in. He pauses, looking deeper into the
darkness. If something is coming from these old ghoul warrens, it probably isn’
t good. He looks backs to the boy and finds him gone.

This seems less disturbing than it should, the scene begins to take a surreal
quality to it, almost like he was dreaming. Before he can begin to contemplate the ramifications of this, a bundle of cloth is pushed down the steps.

As he steps out into the sun he sees a warrior, dressed in chain and fur,
wielding a massive axe that distorts space around it slightly. He seems to be
completely unaware of Dimitri’s presence.

He turns his attention back toward (the village), looking intently at
something. Dimitri follows his gaze and sees the village, or the desiccated
corpse of what used to be (the village). Even that wasn’t right, as he
recognized some of the layout, but it was larger than it should have been.
Still, that wasn’t the most disturbing thing. Closings in fast on the warrior’
s position were three demons.

There were three of them, mid-powered demons, Vrocks. Dimitri watch with
morbid fascination as they descend on the hapless warrior. He finds that,
despite his desire to help the man, he is unable to act, like a dream, he is
only an observer here.

The man is obviously battle hardened and stands his ground, fighting three
opponents, especially ones with mobility advantage on you is never easy, but
the man holds his own. When one of them breaks off from the fight and starts sniffing around by you, the man takes advantage of the situation to finish one off.

Dimitri is almost certain he can smell him, if not see him, and when he lunges
forward, he can not help but defensively moving to the side, but it wasn’t
Dimitri he was after, it was the bundle that had been shoved down the stairs. The demon grabs it and screeches in victory, ripping the cloth away exposing a baby which begins to scream in terror.

Before the vrock can rip the child to shreds, an axe, the warrior’s axe takes
it in the head. While Dimitri had been distracted, he had finished off the
other demon and threw his axe at the last one. The warrior was bruised and
battered, cut in numerous places, but victorious. But his expression does not
display any relief or celebration, just grim determination, or perhaps
resignation.

His expression seems unusual considering he defeated the demons, but then an answering scream resounds, this time hundreds of times louder. The man does not pause, but grabs his axe and the child and begins running. Looking back toward the village, the horizon seems darkened. At first it seems like a very dark bank of clouds, but as it gets closer, it is perhaps like a swarm of
locust. As it closes, Dimitri’s dark suspicion is correct. It is a swarm of
demons, of every imaginable variety. There are too many to fight, too many to hide from. There are enough demons there to scourge the world.

 

[Wrahn]

Shifter~

As Shifter takes wing, he can heard Savaesa laughing behind him. He starts to gain altitude to return back to Dun Faerin, when he feels a slight disorientation.

Looking around to try and determine the cause, he realizes there is not sound, except that of his wings beating. With that realization, he sees himself illuminated by the sun rising. The sun rising far too early. He banks left to get on stable ground, to try and figure out what is happening. By the time he reaches a tree on the bank it is noon. The sun is accelerating in it’s path.

Soon it is night again and the stars and moon begin to streak across the sky,
the sun rises and sets in less than a minute. It only accelerates from there.
An unknown number of days fly by, years, decades, perhaps centuries fly by, and then suddenly it stops.

Shifter is still by the mountain lake, but the banks have changed. The lake is
now smaller, the forest around it seems much the same. Shifter looks up at the sky, it is night again, a spectacularly clear night.

He becomes aware there is something wrong. As he watches the sky, some of the stars begin disappearing, blocked by something. More stars disappear.

He begins to see something moving through the sky, dark forms. As he watches more forms appear as more of the sky disappears. When one of the dark form circle down to where he can see it, he realizes what it is.

It is a demon. There are Gates being opened to the lower realms, enough gates to block out the sky and demons are pouring through.

 

[Wrahn]

Tares Hehrog~

Elusriel looks disappointed, “I must apologize, Master Hehrog, I was under the
assumption you and my daughter were friends. I suppose she always had an open heart and would help anyone to the best of her ability.”

She looks off into the forest for a long moment. “I am interrupting your
research with my silly banter, if you are done with your meal, I will take you
back to the study.”

She is quiet as she leads Tares back to the room he had left. When she turns to face you, there is a tear coming down her cheek, but he voice carries none of her unknown sorrow, “When you grow tired, call for Cerren and Saehdrin will carry your message to him. He will show you to a place where you can sleep. I wish you luck in your search.” She turns and leaves.

Tares can not help but be drawn into the writings of the ancient elf. He did
have a keen insight to all things magical, perhaps even rivaling Tares’s own.
In his later travelogues he visits another ruin. In a passage he alludes to
some understanding, cryptically:

“I wonder what path they (the creators of the ruins) followed, or even if they followed a path. Today, it would obviously take a path walker to
achieve what they had done, but then… When the world was young and magic was primal, it may have been possible to manipulate such forces free of the paths.”

What paths he is talking about is not clear in the text, but his musing seem to hold the key to what Tares is looking for.

He pauses momentarily to collect his thought, it is late, but he is
tantalizingly close to at least making this not a dead end.

Tares feels something, a distortion. At first he is unsure of its origin, but
quickly analyzes the feeling, he realizes that more that like some kind of
Temporal Nodality distortion, Timestop or something similar. Timestop, when
fired, leaves a brief slight distortion, like this, but this is lasting much
longer.

On edge Tares rises from his chair, ready for anything. Disturbingly, the
morning sun hits him in the face. It is far too early for the sun to be up.
He realizes he is in a forward transition, he is travelling through time much
quicker than he should.

He has read cases of fey being able to accomplish such a thing, perhaps this is some trap by the elves. What ever the nature of the magic it is extremely
potent, and also beyond him.

He watches out the window as the day accelerates into night and day again, soon the sun is just a blur across the sky. It is impossible to tell how much time passes, but he would guess it was considerable. Abruptly, it stops.

Standing in the room is a beautiful elven woman, she paces worriedly, but does not seem aware of Tares presence. She turns and looks as Cerren walks into the room. Cerren does not look much different than the last time he saw him, but he carries himself differently, more confidently. He is bleeding from several minor wounds and his robes look like they have seen battle.

The woman runs to him and he holds her. “We lost. The First Oak has fallen,
it is only a matter of time now.”

“We must flee, Cerren, there is still time!” The woman insists through a tear
streaked face.

“Flee where? There is no place else. All the races that could flee came to
us. The world, except for Evoreal is a cinder and we are about to follow. The Far West is unreachable, it’s gates closed, the planes are a battleground and all the other worlds I know of are gone to the fiends as well. I came back to be with you in our final hours.”

Orasha cries softly, and the scene seems to leap forward. Tares is standing on the burning ruin that was once the great tree Saehdrin, he can see the forest ablaze around him and it is quickly consumed and gone. Even more time streaks back and even the ashes are gone, where there is forest and life, there is now only dust and ash.