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Voidslaves
Posted: 13 Sep 2007 04:05 PM |
A reference to something
That both of us knew
Nothing that favors the few
In the darkness electric we see
That silence has spoken tonight
===========================
((OOC disclaimer on this thread.))
"Can you do me a favor?"
"...What's that fellow?"
"I need some help fighting something."
Tristian's request was simple: ask the arch-magus to harness his powers to defeat a being that didn't exist in the Ranger's Lodge. Beyond the cliffs that thundered, beyond the occupation of the creepers, and voidhounds. Tristian continued with his explanation, which brought out an inquiry from Salt's tongue.
"What brings you to kill that creature, and confront the mirror at all?" It was a good question, and left Tristian a moment to word his response accordingly. A lot rode on this, the being constructed out of nothing and pure void. The hunter had confronted it, but knew very well that it was out of his league, and would require something else to defeat it.
Tristian Vike gave a small shrug, "The same reason anyone in their right mind would kill a Syncursed, I believe." It was all Salt needed, and the two began talking about their upcoming venture to the Lodge of the Dead.
===========================
"Is that a stream of acid?"
Tristian nodded. Salt took his punishment in stride, nimbly grazing the river, feeling the burning sensation across his legs, sinking into his boots, the charring of chemical burns that would be mended with powder and restored to it's pristine condition.
===========================
Inside the lodge, they meandered through the various areas, while being careful not to disturb the bodies of the dead. Salt analyzed the feel of the place around him, and spoke it openly to the hunter.
"You feel it? A presence.... Or an absence, as the case may be..." Tristian backed himself to a wall, tilting his head in the direction of the door, trying to attentively ascertain what lie in the room to his backside.
The Creeper Construct was gone. In it's wake were regular, vanilla creepers, though the number would be more than a match for those that were less than fully prepared. Tristian called to Vastaldoriun, letting the blade in his hand shimmer with a purified sheen. He looked back to the magus, and asked if he was ready. Salt was still meandering about the envrionment, though the Vike was sure he was more than attentive.
"...it's as though every impression has been sucked from this... this place." He cast a few wards on Tristian, as the hunter-artisan moved into the room, seeing the mirror, viewing the opposition, and then dancing with the Void.
After moments of chaos, pure anarchy between the wizard, the priest, and the non-existent, something was clearing in the writhing mass. Tristian still stood, and they were seemingly going to emerge victorious.
Then Tristian heard the sounds of a blade, echoing out from the hall. The sounds of it scraping against stone meant only one thing: something was attacking Salt with a weapon. Then silence. Salt had fallen to something. That something emerged in front of the hunter, a blade swinging and connecting against his unarmored flesh. Those blades quickly dragged the hunter down, leaving him to the wrath of the creepers.
==============================
Tristian awoke next to Salt near the acid bath that the two had previously crossed. Both of them looked upon what stood before them with horrified eyes.
The Void. A mass of emptiness, with a blade seemingly sticking out of an appendage, more than enough to slay both of them now, if they made any notion to flee or defy the non-being.
"You have tressspassed..." The voice sounded like the end of an echo, a deep, resonant tone that was barely able to be translated, a low guttural howling that made the blood in the humans become as cold as Helkrissian Ice.
Salt was the first to speak, and Tristian let him. "Wh-wh-who are you?"
"I serve the one. The nothingnessss...it isss that...which ressidesss...within the lodge...
You shall both do a bidding for it."
Both men looked at this creature, a look that nearly didn't understand the last sentence.
"Or you shall return here and never...leave. You will be given a task within ten daysss..."
Salt and Tristian knew full well what the creature was implying. Neither man wanted to become ranked within Syn's pure misanthropic militia. The creature began to fade, it booming with a lulled, base tone that neither man could ignore.
"THE GEM..."
After a moment of pensive inquiry, and heated self-blame, both men made their way away from the Thundering Cliffs, uncertain on what amount of nightmares they have roused from eternal slumber, along with an even greater uncertainty about their near future.
((song lyrics by Dark Tranquillity)) |
Tristian and Elghinn.
NWN logon =UltimatiumOmega
Lost item: Fire Bomb
Tristian Vike damages Erin: 19 (19 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Tristian Vike: 7 (7 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Kard Snyder: 10 (10 Fire) |
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Re: Voidslaves
Posted: 19 Sep 2007 09:52 PM |
The mother of nothing
The mother of sin
The father of decadence within us
A brother of suffering inside...
=======================
Salt had mentioned he would journey to Maldovia, with the aid of a few who would defend him. After great debate between Salt, Amon, and himself, about the risks involved with such a large group breaching the coast of the tainted isle. Tristian Vike stalked off, leaving the magus and the druid, to prepare for his own trip. One that would be in advance, hoping his presence would prove to be a worthy distraction.
=======================
He waited, kept himself moving around the small haven that was in control of the Sunbringers. A restless mind and body kept active. There was a moment or two he felt something in the air, drawing either blade or bow, scanning the horizon for what could have been a representative of the Void. The horror was so close, and he was unsure whether to dive back into that fold, to see if Salt had fallen.
Moments before he stepped out from behind the barricades, they arrived. Salt, the bard Pietro, Kai, Doctor Ticon, Ophelia, Timik, and Mering. Serai kept herself hidden until Tristian verified that no unwanted stragglers were abroad. He was mildly surprised, and of happy she was there. A friend of a different type, is still a friend. The group walked inside, Salt intent on talking to Lex.
=======================
Others? The Void has employed more than the two of us to find a gem? And they have just as little information as we do?
=======================
Tristian and Salt got essentially nothing from Lex, other than the fact that they were not alone in their impure task. Tristian almost made a move back into the city, and rile up the un-beast, or at least cause as much disdain for the Syn-cursed until an answer was received. Though Salt did little to stop him, his presence and his concerned look halted the priest, and redirected him to Brandibuck.
It felt they would have to wait it out. The most agonizing part of this endeavor, was the wait.
((song lyrics by Mushroomhead)) |
Tristian and Elghinn.
NWN logon =UltimatiumOmega
Lost item: Fire Bomb
Tristian Vike damages Erin: 19 (19 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Tristian Vike: 7 (7 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Kard Snyder: 10 (10 Fire) |
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Re: Voidslaves
Posted: 21 Sep 2007 02:18 PM |
It had became a lot worse. A usual (at least, for the hunter) expedition to obtain mithril had ended in tragedy, uncertainty, and doubt. Salt was interested in seeing where the location of the mithril was, for he had never explored the dark woods of Fenghuul. Tristian offered to show the magus, though he would hope Salt could keep up with the rapidly moving Vike throughout the expedition.
After some coffee, and knowledge on what they would expect, they left, Tristian taking the role of point-man, making sure to take down what stood in between him and the lone vein in the recesses of the cave.
When they had arrived in the cave, things did not seem easy as they were assumed. A new type of slaadi, with a white skin pigmentation, greeted them in the middle of the corridor, and offered the hunter a new type of competition. One that Tristian, after taking about fifty swings at the thing, knew he could not down. Salt immediately compromised a death for the creature, dismantling the beast with raw magic, plunged into the body at a extremely rapid rate. It died, but Tristian looked at the dead thing for a moment more, bewildered by the creature's presence.
"That's not normal."
"Good lord... What do you mean not normal?"
Tristian gave an impassive shrug, stone body looking at the equally protected male. "I have never seen a white one before."
They had continued, but soon realized that another, darker slaad had taken up residence near the ore they wanted to procure, one that was a master of both divine and arcane arts, tossing fireballs, and smiting the two with divine energies of it's own.
A god of slaadi? The hunter mused on this well after the ordeal had come and gone. Thinking about it during the battle was foolish enough.
===================================
Their exit had become their priority. A mirror was placed on the ground, Tristian and Salt stepping through it to reach a haven. A haven that one of the lesser slaadi had also stepped through, nearly killing both of them in an extradimensional space. Had they died... they would have been erased from history.
Leaving the stalagmite infested tunnels, the backtracked route now had multiple creepers, ones that made short work of the magus, but after Tristian had already made it back to the coast of Malakai Fenghuul's coastal territory.
Tristian waited, and then.. knew. He muttered a prayer, and ran back in, a sped-up version taking claim of Salt's body, restoring it to live through a quick (and painful) spell, and then immediately left, Salt limping behind.
As it turns out, one of the creepers had also followed, yet made no move to dismantle either of them, though it had the perfect opportunity. Instead, it merely crawled (slithered?, hovered?) over to Salt's leg, and latched onto it.
Tristian raised his blade. The elder male's eyes flickered open and closed, as if receiving a gift(curse), muttering mainly to himself.
"Mah-mines... Dra-dra-Durgaz..."
As Salt spoke, the thing dwindled in size, the Void shrinking... to a small, bite-sized piece. It then slid up the robes of the magus, and wormed it's way into Salt's vocal passage, down into the recesses, and...
nestled there. As if making a new home.
Once he saw this action, he never failed to lower his blade, keeping it between Salt and himself at all times. He wondered the implication of this action, wondering if Salt had now followed Rosen's path, unwillingly the only difference between the two.
"Salt... you're corrupted."
The creature now living off of the host prevented the host from leaping to his death, as if reading his every thought. Black nothing crept out, securing a stable hold for the wizard... protecting him.
==========================
They had reached the trading post, thankfully devoid of persons that could be harmed by the constant trails of black tentacles the magus released at random intervals. Tristian watched, ready to strike Salt down if Salt made any movement to enter anything that consisted of civilization.
Through strained breaths, and withered agony, Salt made his words precise, and clear. "It moves freely about my body, like a disease... a fleeting disease... Tristian, I have been shown what it is that we are intended to do."
"Very well. Where are we supposed to go?"
"The Durzagon are also looking for it. In their mines... the Nothariin Mountains... Urdunniir, where those dark dwarves dwell... They search for it, but they cannot find it..."
"Why can they not find it?"
Salt shook his head, one hand on his temples while the other clutched his chest, hoping to quell the heart within, where it seems the creeper was busy, embedding roots into the organ. " I do not know... They have no g- They have no g- They have no... guide."
A declaration echoed from the hunter, one that he would adhere to like no other.
"You are tainted, Salt. Know that until this settles through, I will not treat you the same as I have before. Should you become a threat to me, or anyone under my care, I will not hesitate to end your life. I still want to know what this gem is. And what it does, and what advantage it will give Syn."
They agreed Salt should enter hermitage, to hide himself away from others, his presence only known between the two. Tristian would come for Salt when he was ready. Salt's last words to him that day were ones Tristian prayed would be true.
"And you... think nothing of me. Think only of our task, and of its consequences. We will not be released, but we will not be enslaved, either. That I promise!"
As Salt made off for his destination, Tristian watched him go with a great sadness, and pondered on what would be next in his nightmare made real. |
Tristian and Elghinn.
NWN logon =UltimatiumOmega
Lost item: Fire Bomb
Tristian Vike damages Erin: 19 (19 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Tristian Vike: 7 (7 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Kard Snyder: 10 (10 Fire) |
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The suffering of impatience.
Posted: 24 Sep 2007 12:05 AM |
This is the hand that will blind your eyes and split your spine.
This is the blade that'll visit your flesh and release the wine.
Play!
You play with toys that have triggers and you hear the lead moves near!
Play!
You play with razors and it hurts, it hurts as you face your fears!
=================================
"Natika."
The shadow male ignored the request, and swung again, catching the hunter across the chest with a painful slice. One that was easily remedied, but not before Tristian swung the electric hammer, driving it into the skull of the thing that guarded the shores of the Tainted Isle.
No answer over the past few days. A gem that was to be given to the Void, but for what purpose? What would this gem do? What were it's powers?
The goal was simple: An audience. Even if he got no information from the woman, he could ask the whereabouts of Rosen, possibly enlisting her to the same cause. It was a crucial moment for the hunter: obtain information of some kind, and risk death. Nothing was new, an endeavor that Tristian expected would yield competition of the highest caliber.
He underestimated immediately, being greeted by three blood-suckers. Tristian retreated, warded, and returned. The divine blade came down, slicing one of the things enough to sever it from the humanoid host. Another made a motion with his hand, pushing the hunter off of his feet, twisting his ankle as he fell.
He tried to echo the name again, hopefully to get his message across, while the two remaining drive the pain into his body, revealing crimson, a succulent vampiric wine oozing out of the hunter's body. Tristian fell, and the two syn-cursed gave themselves time to remove Tristian's helm and gloves, allowing them to drink freely from the Vastaldoriun faithful.
==========================
He woke to the sound of rain, an aqua blue eye slightly opening. A set of boots standing on wooden planks were what he saw, his vision at level with the feet of...
He slowly looked up. One of his assailants was standing over him, as Tristian heard the voice. It was a low, guttural sound, much like the one from the Thundering Cliffs. A thin, raspy sound was placed over it, and the two made a haunting echo in his skull.
"You shall be mine. Not hers. Not its." From behind the feet, something moved. A writhing, black mass, which Tristian could not identify as anything sentient, no discernible frame, and was moving towards him. It reached the hunter, and sifted into his body through a wound.
Tristian immediately scrambled to a sitting position, while the vampire merely watched with placid amusement, getting dinner and a show. The hunter felt nothing begin worming it's way around his body.
Slide up his chest, weaving in and out of ribs, moving across the lungs, sliding down the arms and back, twisting itself around his spine, gliding across kidneys and organs that Tristian felt. It was a part of the ____. It had nested inside his body.
Tristian screamed. It was loud, and anything within a half of a mile would have heard it. However, the only one that was living, was the source of the outcry.
Panic. Tristian unsheathed a blade, holding the blade part down, instead of up, the cross-guard underneath the little finger in his left hand. He shot a look to the syn-cursed, who was dragged through a hole the size of a coin, and vanishing from sight.
He stared at the blade, felt the nothing meandering through the torso of Tristian. "H-here goes..." He slowly unlatched parts of his armor to expose the area on his left stomach, and waited for the nothing to return.
As it sifted to that area, Tristian Vike screamed again, plunging the short sword into his own skin, howling as the self-inflicted pain gave new definition to agony. His mouth closed, teeth clamping down on air as the blade was wrenched around, trying to fish for the ___ that loomed in his stomach. He pulled, and saw piece of it followed the blade out, a small black tentacle bursting from his torso. His face swelled up; tears began forming from the mental and physical anguish that had taken control of him, a frenzied male desperate to remove a completely foreign object from his system. Grasping the thing was the equivalent of sticking a hand into an open flame, and letting it linger: the pain ripped, traveling up the arm, the nerves quaking as each second longer intensified the sensation.
Despite all of the pain, Tristian kept going. Tears flowed freely from his eyes, dripping to the bridge, joining the rain that fell from the sky. Wringing the thing out, the thing began to dissipate, the nothing vaporizing into a cloud of dark smoke, that seemed to form an eye before the hunter. Tristian was sure the thing winked at him, before vanishing completely. He collapsed to the ground, unable to take his own punishment any longer, letting the rain drip along his body.
A moment later, he stood. Glancing at the stabbing, he saw the blood drip... drip... drip... down to the ground, and Tristian felt alive. However... this state seemed to not come from within, but beyond. Away from him, in the infinite expanse that was the darkness. As if half of his life was thrown into that darkness, never to return. It was...
"Numb."
"I sorta feel... numb." The hunter ended up poking the wound, and then it dawned on him exactly what he had done.
Driven a short sword into his own stomach, and then wrenching something out with it, causing more internal damage than he thought. Or was allowed to think.
He limped back to the consecrated cavern, where Amon found him, and assisted Tristian to the tending of his wounds. The searing pain was unbearable. but they would be subdued through care and proper treatment. They would vanish.
The small punctures he felt along his neck and wrist, though... may not. His personal grim reminder of the island, and what it contains.
((song lyrics by Deathstars)) |
Tristian and Elghinn.
NWN logon =UltimatiumOmega
Lost item: Fire Bomb
Tristian Vike damages Erin: 19 (19 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Tristian Vike: 7 (7 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Kard Snyder: 10 (10 Fire) |
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Clouded.
Posted: 04 Oct 2007 11:20 AM |
The old man was right. Salt's words hung onto Tristian, though he at first tried to deny it. The elegance of the ____ was that only a fragment could replicate itself. And a fragment of it had been left behind, embedded within the body of the human who sought an end to remove his curse, and the taint of his friend.
Might as well add his own taint. Ever since his failed trip to see Natika, which Salt also reminded Tristian about the consequences of such an action, had brought him to this point. The task that was before him, the stone that he sought in the dwarvish mines, constantly beckoned to him, called him back, closer and closer to that place.
When he sat in the watermill at the estuary, Amon had attempted to examine him, but not entirely discern what had taken control of Tristian. The hunter sought to go after the dark dwarves, and then suddenly realize where he was, questioning how he got here to begin with, which prompted the small medical study. The creeper writhed with each possibility to take something as a form of nourishment, and yearned for something to be stuck down. To study how it's host was slaying each thing, and it was this mass of nothing that motivated him to attempt to move along the great river.
Salt had followed him, also studying Tristian's actions, warning him that each swipe of the blade was an action controlled by the ____. Then, out of a suspicious fear, Salt immediately raised his staff in a defensive posture, as if Tristian were about to strike him.
The words were exchanged, and both men departed the locale, Tristian agreeing to go north, as far as possible from Icy Vale, from the stone. Salt went back to his hiding place, though it left a mark on the hunter, deciding that Salt would have an advantage, should the ___ decide to send them both after this stone.
This thing inside of me, it has the ability to speak in my place, and to raise my hands in it's place. It can control my thoughts, make me act on it's behalf. It led me here, to the river, closer and closer to our goal.
Salt presents himself as an ally, for now. Will he succumb to the same thing that I had previously? Will his actions turn into greed for our mutual goal?
Will we... kill each other, in attempt to take the stone for ourselves?
The confusion ran rampant in his mind, and at times he doubted if each thought was truly his own. This thing was developing quickly, learning the intricacies of the Vike, developing it's own plan on recovering what it felt belonged to the ____.
When he arrived in the city, he began to have two thoughts: residence, and containment. There was one place where he thought both could be supplied. However, he would have to ask in person. The only problem, was waiting.
The Void was impatient, and dissatisfied with being so far from the goal. It would make sure to punish the hunter for his act of defiance. |
Tristian and Elghinn.
NWN logon =UltimatiumOmega
Lost item: Fire Bomb
Tristian Vike damages Erin: 19 (19 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Tristian Vike: 7 (7 Fire)
Tristian Vike damages Kard Snyder: 10 (10 Fire) |
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Shale and the Shadows
Posted: 12 Mar 2008 08:36 PM |
That's the trouble with the forest. To most people, it is a place of lurking shadows. Shale had been working hard to raise a stake for new equipment. After cleaning out the territory close to Port Royale - most of it badly picked over - he moved south towards the Mirghul Forest, where there was a tribe of goblins. He had no idea how close he was to the Cliffs of Syn.
"The stonesssss!"
The shadows crept up around him as he prepared to assault the goblin's tower. He worked alone this night, though he knew he shouldn't. The things seized his arms and stole his strength but he tore away from them, drawing out the silver blade fashioned for him in exchange for accompanying a woman to the silver source, a mine in the strange other world beneath Port Royale, his home.
The silver-bladed rapier was the only melee weapon Shale carried other than his knives. It met no resistance from the creeping shadows but grey plasma sprayed from them, materializing behind Shale's cuts and spattering the leaf litter.
The last of the shadows held back when the others had faded into nothing. When it had said its piece, It and Shale met again and the shadow, just a messenger after all, faded into nothing also.
* * * * *
"'We want them...!'" Shale said attempting to mimic the phantasms that crept out of the forest. Shale loves to tell a story, and this one was fresh as they come. "I knew it were tryin' ter speak, sah I pull back, an' a waits."
"'Ssstonesss...'" Shale croaks, trying to recreate the terror of shadow voices, "'They's ourssss...'"
"Ah says, 'H'ain't got nah stones!' But these here shaders, theys h'ain't lissenin!"
"'They's oursss...', they says, 'Alllll of themssss... Shaderssss come for themssss...'"
"Ah says, 'Whort stones?!', and they jus' says..."
"'...Oursss!'"
Shale pauses and raises his mug. Nearby is a woman who is with child, and she turns away making a sign to ward off evil. Every room at the inn of Icy Vale is filled, but it is too early for a crowd in the tavern. There is just Shale and a few others drinking their breakfasts, and a woman awakened by the hungry thing growing in her womb. She gnaws a crust of dry bread trying to settle her stomach.
Shale wipes a line of foam off his thick moustache. "An' then," he says, "after ah cut down th' last of them shaders, ah could staill hair it from aout' tha woods."
"'Ssstoness.....Oursss.....' Ah heared it, plain as y'all haared it jus' while ah'm sayin' it."
"Whut's it mean? Ah'll prolly nuver know."
But there were those, perhaps those within earshot on this early morning, who knew exactly what the shadows were after, and what Shale's story might mean... |
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about dying."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means lying in the ground with dirt on your face and holding your breath forever."
-Burt Reynolds, "The End" |
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Re: Shale and the Shadows
Posted: 28 Mar 2008 06:29 PM |
Word, as it always does when adventurers have it, spread quickly. A small group has plans to enter the halls of the dark dwarves. The rumors spoke sometimes of the metal adamantium, some spoke of a giant diamond, other people said it was just revenge on the Durzagon for aiding the Atalan, only a few heard whispers about a Stone.
((This is supposed to happen sometime tomorrow morning - EST. Most likely meeting place will be the Icy Vale Inn. Anyone is welcome to come along, just be aware the Durzagon are high level enemies. Death is likely.)) |
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