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Adventures, Thoughts, & Notes of Bereil Yadashem
Posted: 23 Aug 2006 06:59 PM |
Bereil’s Rules of Wizardry.
Rule Number One: If you want to be a proper wizard pay special attention to the following rules.
Rule Number Two: Attention has the same market value as time.
Rule Number Three: Learn to Read & Write.
Rule Number Four: Make sure to have the ability to grow facial hair. *Special Note: Those of the feminine persuasion are not required to have the ability to grow facial hair. Amendment: The special note does not include dwarves.
Rule Number Five: Wear robes, of any kind, décor is not necessary but it helps if you want to be identified as a wizard.
Rule Number Six: Invest in a staff. *Special note: Size matters - it must be above five feet in length with the proper circumference to allow your thumb to touch your middle fingertip.
Rule Number Seven: A wizard must know something about everything, and if he doesn’t he has to pretend that he knows something about that particular subject or article that he doesn’t actually know anything about.
Rule Number Eight: The exemplary quality of verbosity is a extremely valuable resource in articulating deliberate oral exchange with additional proletariat.
Rule Number Nine: Your sexual preference(s) must be ambiguous.
Rule Number Ten: Learn to Flee before learning to Fight.
Rule Number Eleven: There is no shame in using other living, unloving, and animate beings as an additional element of protection. Amendment—there is no shame in use of the undead either.
Rule Number Twelve: Respect the existence of the Gods.
Rule Number Thirteen: Share your magic freely with fellow practitioners of the wizardly art.
Rule Number Fourteen: The rules are under constant improvement and revision, please advise.
Rule Number Fifteen: The ability to raise a single eyebrow is a mandatory requirement to wizardry.
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CHOO CHOO!
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Bereil Yadashem.
Markus Mortriety, Herald of Novus Aristi. |
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Re: Adventures, Thoughts, & Notes of Bereil Yadashem
Posted: 23 Aug 2006 11:26 PM |
| ((Welcome back! Looking forward to chasing Bereil around with magic immune vorpal rabbits)) |
Purpose in life: finding better ways of allowing players to kill themselves. Repeatedly.
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"...Cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good."
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<@James42> Lawful good isn't in your vocabulary, it's on your menu.
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Re: Adventures, Thoughts, &amp;amp;amp; Notes of Bereil Yadashem
Posted: 24 Aug 2006 12:11 AM |
Picture a stormy evening…
the clouds have gathered in the night skies casting a blanket of obscuring darkness. In the heavens they bounce and tumble against one another sending cascading sheets of rain and the occasional thunder to the ground. The citizens, denizens, and passer-through travelers have all sought shelter. Perhaps not all of them, the city itself being spoken of is Port Royale, originally a village born from the labors of the unwanted and despised people from another society – one long since forgotten in time. They haven’t changed; it is still inhabited by the dredges that make the bottom paste of society, only some of them have risen to the top of the sludge now, most of them live in the upper section of the city, a place superficially clean of all that mars the lower section where the boats dock.
A room, lit by dozens of waxen flame candles; the many little fires dance and flicker although no natural wind passes through the room, they twist, and turn to a soft chant. The chant in question is not in any language, and the throaty voice leaves much in question to whether it could sing at all. None the less the syllables and ululations craft an ominous and haunting tune that create just the right atmospheric effect for the ritual.
The mage – a wizard precisely – sits on his knees, although they can’t be seen from underneath the abundant volume of robe adorning the man. He is a man because no woman would be inclined to grown such a long, thick beard, and he is far too lean, and tall to be a dwarf. His robe and person are well embellished with glittery objects, jewelry, and charms befit for an overly superstitious hermit queen suffering from acute paranoia. The left sleeve of the robe is rolled up on this occasion unveiling the pale skin untouched by the sun. A slim fingered right hand slides the point of a quill over the left wrist, black ink left in swirling and oblique lines over a square section of the appendage and form a thin scrawled series of runic symbols on the skin. The hand lets the quill plop back into a nearby inkwell, and reaches to turn the page from a book sprawled next to the writing implements. With the recognizable sound of skin sliding against skin, the page is turned gently, and the wizard’s chant changes, to a slow, thoughtful murmur.
His blue-grey eyes are not too lined, or wizened, but sharp and with a look of intelligence and a streak of cleverness. He stares at the skin paged book laid open in front of him; its alien symbols scrawled and scratched onto the pages with what had the color and texture of dried blood, slowly they yield their truths to the obstinate gaze. Thin lips below a long, pointed nose, shift and move give animation to the murmurs, and the long, light brown beard flows majestically down the front of the robe.
As the low voiced cant reaches a crescendo the runic symbols drawn on the arm begin to suffuse with a permeable violet glow. Again the right hand moves, slim fingers reach into a fold in the robes, and they withdraw firmly wrapped around the hilt of a bejeweled dagger. He slides the dagger free from his robe, its blade gleams sharp, it also has its own glow, a faint red opalescence. Whispers begin to slither into his ears, the distinct voice of a suffering street urchin, and the whispers beseech a need for blood. The voice rolls off the wizard’s mind like paltry raindrops dripped on a parasol. Never the less the hand guides the dagger to the runes, and point first exercises along each line with the control of a surgeon or an expert scribe. Cuts that normally would draw blood leak nothing; slowly, but steadily, the red fluorescence gains a deeper shade. As the final cut is complete the hand tugs the dagger back, the flesh surrounding the cuts is noticeably more pale, and grey. The violet glow settles back down, and fades.
Bereil Yadashem lets out a short breath of relief after quickly determining that the ritual was a success. He slides the dagger back into its small scabbard hidden within the volumes of his robe; it locks in place with an audible click. Turning at the hips he twists around, reaching out with his right arm for a lengthy bandage that he had preemptively left within arm’s reach. Gathering the bandage in his lap he begins the medical ministrations.
The mage shuts the book carefully after he finishes securing the bandage around his wrist.
“I am close, so close,” he whispers to himself.
Gathering the book in his hands, Bereil examined it, and not for the first time. It was made from flesh, and all the necromantic writings in it were written in blood, the flesh and blood of whom he couldn’t be certain, but it was definitely mostly human. Months it took to track down the book’s owner, Gilvazix, and several days to acquire it from the necromancer. Pesky things-necromancers, he thought, they never just die when ye want them to. Their final duel was nothing short of fortune smiling in Bereil’s favor.
A portrait scene approaches, far away on a distant side of Vives, in a desolate area only known as The Wastelands. Little grows here, and very few creatures live in the gloomy land, the ones that do are mostly sentient at best: orcs, kobolds, and their kin. The land itself is filled with hills, small valleys, and a range of small mountains. In the skies above little light filters through the grey cloud cover; what light does pass through is ashen and lends the place the right to its given name.
On one crumbling mountainside two figures scramble upwards, one after the other. Below them a mass of forms barrel against a single gargantuan body with the appearance of several boulders attached together. The mob comprised of skeletons, and zombies clash futile against the monstrous elemental which ignores their efforts and focuses purely on the destruction of the undead.
“Leave me be or I will flay the flesh from your bones!” The shrill cry of Gilvazix overshadowed the clashes of earth pounding against flesh, haunting moans of the undead, and the howling wind that took this minute to drive through the winding landscape in gale. With skeletal arms the necromancer clambered up the steep incline, each gain in space displaced dust, pebbles, and other small pieces of debris. His robes are tattered and torn, revealing his sickly form underneath; undernourished, bleached bones pressing against the thin flesh seeking to escape. Looped and tied to a chain secured around his waist; a flesh crafted tome, its existence a tumor to nature.
“Just give me that damned book,” Bereil rasped his demand, his voice hoarse from shouting commands down to his summoned elemental. His own arms and legs beginning to tire from the chase, but his desire drove him on. The attire he began with begot with filth, and now the robe’s original colors were wholly indefinable. A staff comprised of a long shaft of darkened steel, its top adorned with a C shaped crescent, and within the center of the shape a small sphere of multifaceted energy floated sedately. His prized possession, the staff, was looped through a multitude of small clips, and hooks in his robe to the point that at a distance there was the appearance that the staff hovered secretly behind the mage.
Below; the elemental swung its fists in sweeping arcs, its massive fists picking up skeletons and zombies into the air and dashing them into fragments of their former selves. In the mean time the small horde of undead swarmed the hulking stone form, slapping rotted, meaty hands against its flanks, or swinging rusted and old weaponry to chip slowly away at the behemoth.
Bereil paused in mid-climb, and slid a wand, the wand was made from a cut of bone, with coils of copper wire looping around it until the tip, at which point the remainder of the wire is formed into a small ball. Taking hasty aim at the milling mass of undead and triggered the wand; a fireball launched at the mob, detonating at the edge of it, sending pieces of burning flesh cascading in all directions. He tucks the wand back into a slim pocket in the many folds of his robe.
“You will pay for that, destroy my minions will you!” wailed the necromancer in protest, having reached the top of the rise and turned around to witness the other mage’s actions. To the sky he raised his own skeletal arms and began to chant. Gilvazix pointed a bony finger at his unlikely nemesis; a blade thin, blood red beam leapt from the necromancer’s fingertip and struck its target in the right shoulder. Bereil cursed in pain, as the muscles in his arm and shoulder cramped horribly, the sensation passed as soon as it arrived leaving behind only the tingling sensation of prodding needles on the flesh.
“Hch, ach, ye’ll pay for that,” he swore to himself as he made the final ascent to the top of the crumbling height. Bereil climbed over the edge onto the small flat on top of the rise, opposite to him Gilvazix slid back along the pebbly floor, the necromancer’s large dark eyes were open wide, and filled with a variety of base emotions.
“I nay need t’slay ye, Gilvazix, we can end this peacefully if ye would simply pass that tome over t’my possession. After all we are friends, are we not?” Bereil spoke soothingly, trying to ease the edgy necromancer opposite to him with a short smile.
“You tried to kill me you bastard!” the swift reply.
“A common misapprehension, see t’was merely a test, just a test of yer abilities,” the mage’s smile widened, “I would never, Never harm a true friend of mine. Please, allow me t’see the book.”
Gilvazix turned his head side to side with no abandon looking very much like a madman, his long, thin, straw colored hair spilling in all directions. “He lies… no, you lie. Bereil! You are lying to me!”
A haughty laugh escaped Bereil’s lips, “I do not lie!” he snaps redolent with incredulity, his hands and fingers slowly working minute gestures secretly within long sleeves. It does not escape the paranoid eye of the necromancer, his skeletal hands dig into his robe and pull out a short, dagger, its golden hilt finely worked with a large ruby entrenched in the butt. The blade itself is wavy in the spitting image of a miniature kris. Without a cry of attack Gilvazix launched himself at the other man.
Sidestepping smoothly out of the way, Bereil snatches his staff off his back and spun it around, catching the half-dead necromancer with a quick strike; a sickening crunch sounds as the metal connects with skull bone as thin as its body’s owner’s moral fiber. Gilvazix crumbled to the ground in a heap of pain and bale. Without pause, Bereil strode over to the toppled form to gloat, but at the last moment he decides against it; instead he kneels and tears the tome of necromancy from the chain that supported it. Placing the book aside, and hooking his hands under the necromancer he rolls the other man towards the cliff’s edge, momentum picks up on the slight slope, and the body topples over.
“Farewell, old friend,” Bereil murmurs to himself, and picking up the flesh-bound book begins to deduce the safest way to leave the wasteland without being spotted. The wind howls again; his robe whirls around his legs in a rippling dance, pate of thick, long light-brown hair and beard flail desperately to the north; to where the wind blows. Above him the dark cloud flooded skies rumble with the promise of a coming storm. |
CHOO CHOO!
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Bereil Yadashem.
Markus Mortriety, Herald of Novus Aristi. |
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Letter for Salt Sower
Posted: 24 Sep 2006 09:08 PM |
Bereil's skill in writing and penmanship are not in question, but when reading letters written by people we know often times we picture their voices in our heads speaking the words to us. Complimentary when reading literature we often create the voice of certain characters who are well described. As such, any Common that is in the letter will be in Bereil's voice, and not his actual penmanship.
T' my Esteemed Colleague, and Magus Salt Sower,
Before I write to ye a reply t' the letter ye had sent to me; I must explain the reason behind its failure t'arrive promptly int' yer hands, as I am sure it has not.
I received yer letter, and despite any eagerness t'delve int' what ye had written I set it aside. The reason behind that being at the time I was preparing t' experiment with the use of Teleportation. Now, as we know such spells are difficult t'develope, and only the recent discovery of Dimension Door, as the scholars of Ka'azim have deemed t'name the spell, the use of Teleportation was greatly covetted by the greater mages of Vives. With the release, or rather, rediscovery of this, and I use the term simple quite loosely, it has become another common spell. Back to the matter at hand, I was experimenting different uses for it, as well different conditions in which it worked. My mind must have been dwelling someplace else, for I made a terrible miscalculation and ended up in the middle of a river. Its swift currents swept me down its length, and I struggled t'remain afloat to little success. For my fortune, the head on my staff hooked ont' a fallen tree branch at the water's edge in my tumbling through the raging waters. I clung for my life, t'gather my breath, until I found myself with sufficient strength t'pull myself free of the cold river's clutches with the help of my staff.
Once free of the water my first priority was t'recover some semblance of direction. My breath was taken away once more as I found myself in a location that I had never been, nor heard of. To a far corner I had been swept, and by Fate's graces have discovered this undiscovered place in the land. Locked away for only the Gods know how many ages. I began my exploration in the woods, with the movement my body warmed, and the sun dried my robes again. At this time I dared not start a fire, not knowing what sort of angered nature spirits it would wake. Could ye but see this place for yerself, for tis amazing. The flora has its own pearlescence, darting every which way are an inveritable flocks of small fey creatures, spreading their glittery escence along their paths of flight. There have been other discoveries: a small community for one, itself made of Fey Folk themselves, another is a equine animal that is most magnificent. Tis large, like the size of a well bred stallion, its hide and fur a pure white unmatched by the most refined marble, yet it has the stature, and the grace of a noble's pony. The most curious thing about this equine creature is its head, for it has a single, pearl horn, aye. I deem that it shall be named Uni-Corn (Uni; preface for singular. Corn; nomen for the shape of the horn on its head resembles that of a spiralled corn cob). My familiar, a pixie herself, has gone off t'rutt with the other fey creatures that inhabit the woods leaving me with much time t'wander without a piping, squeeky, wretched, annoying voice in my ear.
Thus my mind was in constant awe, and t'was some time before it began to settle, although it yet remains ever present with the peace of this wonderous niche in the world. Then I remembered yer letter, and read it for every word, after I read it twice more t'attempt t' gleam any sort of clandestine message ye may have left. I have thought over what I would write, and discovered that there is very little advice I have t'give ye that ye may not have already been mindful of.
Talion Deraith: I know him little, less than ye as t'all purposes. Yet from my meetings of him he is courteous, and seems t'be a helpful and skilled young man. The knowledge that his father was a mage was a surprise t'me, yet at the same time knowing that the lad himself dabbled in the arts led me t'believe he did not just view it as a simple extra bargaining chip in his game of derring-do and adventure. In my current opinion he is an able young man, with, had he not other interests, the potential t'be a well formed Mage with a rather popular opinion.
Sequencing: an always sought gift bestowed upon those well ranked in the Arts. Unfortunately, on occasion is also, purely by cause of accident I should acclaim, upon those who have the ability t'mimmick, and become mockeries of true mages. Those thoughts aside there was an instance where I did provide a friend, and colleague, Daimon Rabianara, who owned such a device, with the magic that he so sought t'be sequenced within it. How he aquired the Sequencer, and why? Aquiring it would have been no difficult feat, as he is a rather skilled enchanter, at least when it comes t'the art of blacksmithy, and is well liked by many--including mages. I know him t'be a man of honor and integrity, and so, I allowed it, with no doubts in my judgement nor did I ever come t'regret the decision.
As ye have written ye've already come to a decision. I am sure that t'will be respectable and well thought in its finality. Until we next meet I wish ye well, may Fortune smile in yer direction, but not so much that I am left without her good graces.
Signed, and Written by,
Bereil Yadashem. |
CHOO CHOO!
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Bereil Yadashem.
Markus Mortriety, Herald of Novus Aristi. |
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Message to Sir Jessup
Posted: 13 Sep 2008 03:09 PM |
There is always hope. Bereil concluded, and that thought was endorsed especially by the fact that he still had his right hand to write with. He wrote the message in secret, to someone who he knew would keep a secret and at the same time be most likely to have the resources openly available.
To My Dearest Sir Jessup,
I find myself in a slight bit of a bind. I require certain resources that I am quite assured are well within yer capabilities to acquire. Granted the efforts on your behalf will be well repaid in which ever favor best suits a shaved knuckle in a hole, even possibly a cat's paw. What I require first and foremost is a fresh, new arm of humanoid properties ( A minimum of Three digits and not weighing less than 8 stones or more than 15 stones ).
For a certain project I must complete due to certain factors that ye may be well aware of occurring currently in the Mirghul Woods and nearby areas. This particular project will require two tall (a minimum of 6 feet) women of strong build (minimum of 180 stones), and preferably human, though of orcish decent will suffice. A case of the finest wine from either the currently deceased human population of Gladden (as I have come to enjoy the flavors commingle on my palate), but I will leave the choice vintage to yer seasoned experience in the hall of the civilized peoples.
If none of these requests are possible there is no need for reply.
With many thanks and regards,
Bereil Yadashem |
CHOO CHOO!
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Bereil Yadashem.
Markus Mortriety, Herald of Novus Aristi. |
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Re: Message to Sir Jessup
Posted: 18 Sep 2008 02:11 PM |
~~A note left for Bereil~~
My friend and valued customer,
Mister Jessup has recieved your request and is now undertaking the possible options for you. Please be aware that your order is quite unique and may take some time. We shall keep you posted on the progress of the required body part.
The requried women for your second request should not be a problem. If we cannot obtain them for you we shall gladly refer you to where you may find them. Free of charge of course. P&J Enterprises always offers the best in help and should we fail to meet our high expectations we cannot in good conscience charge you for said information.
As for your third request regarding the wine. Mister Jessup invites you to come inspect his private wine collection located deep underground in a well guarded vault. Please be aware that P&J Enterprises does not take any responsibility in your loss of life, limb, mental state etc. in said journey to the wine vault.
Our finest regards to you sir and safe travels.
Terrance
*the imprint of a small black hand is visible below the above writing* |
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