Worlde Arcane: The Lorimar Road 12: Merchant's Walk

Worlde Arcane: Aniada: Dark Forest: The Lorimar Road 12: Merchant's Walk

Each section of the Lorimar Road spans a approximately a full days' ride, or roughly two days' march afoot.

Although between Seven Oaks and Terajin, and again between Terajin and Daelows, there is an equal amount of merchant traffic, still this stretch of the Road is called "Merchant's Walk," because here the wagoneers have established an informal roadside bazaar, meeting from spring to autumn, where passers-by can peruse wares and find great bargains: textiles, foodstuffs, drinkstuffs, weapons, spices, and sundry treasures are all to be had, if one is lucky.
•Northward travel leads to The Terajin Mile and two days' ride on to Terajin, or six days' ride to Daelows City
•Southeastward travel leads to Knight’s Walk, farther on down the highway 'tis five days' ride to Seven Oaks

Highwayman's Glade January 19, 2004 - 12:51 am

Just out of sight of the road September 9, 2009 - 12:30 am

Artekk the merchant 24/7/365 October 17, 2008 - 5:26 pm

Archive through January 28, 2004 January 28, 2004 - 3:52 pm

Archive through November 4, 2004 November 4, 2004 - 11:16 pm

Archive through May 30, 2007 May 30, 2007 - 2:39 pm

Archive through April 18, 2008 April 18, 2008 - 11:13 pm

Archive through June 24, 2009 June 24, 2009 - 5:02 am

Archive through July 9, 2009 July 9, 2009 - 1:44 pm

Archive through July 16, 2010 July 16, 2010 - 6:17 pm

By The Curse of Seven Oaks (Irihi)

Saturday, July 17, 2010 - 8:37 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

As the wind returned to her lungs and the hurt sharpened while shock subsided, Irihi experienced a moment possibly more lucid than any she had since reviving from her millennia-long curse on H'jek Daru.

"You have no appreciation for your own creation, Rei. TonDen is no traitor, nor is his form imperfect. Even I can see this." She spoke calmly as she clutched a bruised elbow in a scraped hand. Here with her blood upon the Lorimar, drawing breath as if it were necessary, and her sense of the realness of her worlde sharpened by pain, Irihi stood at peace as if in the eye of a vast storm of madness and rage. "Give me this TonDen if you despise him so much, conjure yerself a more perfect slave and be quit of us." She requested a second time. As there was no tone of command or threat of violence in Irihi's tone, it was as close to a plea as she might make; her internal pendulum having reached the crest of its arc into sanity.

By Unearthly Hoar Necromancer (Rei)

Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 11:13 am GMT | Edit | Link |

"Well." Rei said. "Well, well." She reached up with one long thin hand and ran TonDen's fingers across his oval chin. It was the right hand - the left, beyond Irihi's pendant, still glowed ethereal blue. "This I did not expect. My dear, you sound almost . . . reasonable." She leaned down close to Irihi, bringing TonDen's non-face to peer right into the witch's own, as if inspecting her in great detail. "Perhaps you struck your head?"

And then she straightened, towering back up to TonDen's proper size. She turned, and began to pace idly in the road, in a series of odd, delicate steps, not quite used to having extra knees.

"I would unmake TonDen for his impudence." She said, waving a hand - again the right - as if she were lecturing. "But there is Magick fused deep in the Blue Ash now; so I am barred from meting due punishment. And you - well, you are selfish and petulant and mad, but no real threat to me. It would be fitting to leave the the traitor in your thrall, and let him slowly go mad with you. Perhaps one day, in your joint insanity, you might destroy one another: justice, at work." She paused, one pontificating finger poised in mid air for a moment.

"But . . . "

And here the TonDen-body turned, facing Irihi once more from far above. Rei's black swirled within the translucent shell of the beast, frustrated by its predicament, and her great need. She knew that she could not find a SoulStone without him, and without one . . .

"I am trapped in this . . . thing." Rei waved the thin left arm at the body she now wore; the hand moved contrary to her motion, twitching with its own frustrations. "While the SoulStone is shattered, I cannot leave this body; I would dissipate before I found another suitable anchor. So, as much as I would be rid of you, and my traitorous minion, I am stuck with the both of you."

She did not continue the reasoning. Dependency would remain whether she made it explicit or not.

By Bennithly the Ancient (Bennithly)

Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 8:08 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

Bennithly smiled. The arguments between the two of them made both appear weak, now was Bennithly's time to strike at the heart of both.

Grinning, as he was rising, he used the soul in his hand to form some sort of undead, trying to something truly powerful, and he was not surprised as a true beast came to form.

It was as tall as Bennithly at the shoulder, his mouth full of teeth, and what looked like a vicious streak in his eyes. The creature looked almost wolf-like in appearance, but had forelegs that looked almost to long for its body, and its hind-legs looked almost Uman-like.

Bennithly mumbled to himself, "Now it's my turn."

By The Curse of Seven Oaks (Irihi)

Monday, July 19, 2010 - 5:27 am GMT | Edit | Link |

Irihi was more than a little shocked when Rei all-but-acquiesced to her request. For a moment, the disheveled sorceress simply stood in the road, mouth agape. "...really?" Rei was willing to give her TonDen? Irihi had every intention of acquiring the construct, regardless of whether she met resistance from the Hoar Elf or not, but there was a very good chance--nay almost a certainty--that TonDen's soul would be destroyed in the conflict should Rei set herself in opposition to Irihi's wishes. But now a pathway opened by which she might acquire the new plaything she so fiercely desired.

Still, it was a near thing, for Irihi GREATLY desired to rend the disgusting drow's essence from her mortal coil and fling it as far afield as she could. She had thought to drain Rei's life to randomly bombard Terajin, and that had seemed like a good plan. For her to shift focus from such chaotic madness to co-operation required a modicum of self-discipline which took a great effort of will for Irihi to uncover. Still, the carrot of TonDen was a tempting enough prize that the sorceress reluctantly decided to stay her hand.

It was not that Irihi was not possessing of guile. It was not that she did not realize such actions would betray to Rei her strongest advantage and allow the Hoar Elf to act to nullify such. It was simply that Irihi was too decadent a creature to suffer a minor inconvenience in order to maintain strategic superiority. So, rather than hide the fact that the pendant lashed to Rei/TonDen's wrist opened the Hoar Elf's soul to easy consumption now that she was not secreted away within the prison of Blue Ash, Irihi snapped her fingers once, twice, and then thrice; soothing her hurts, restoring her composure, and--most importantly--fixing her hair with each respective snap. This took only the most infinitesimal portion of Rei's essence, but it would surely alert the necromancer to her vulnerability.

"Very well then, I shall restore the soulstone that sustains your life, which I destroyed." Irihi could not resist needling Rei over that point. "In return, you shall give TonDen, body and soul, to me. Shall we make this pact binding?" Irihi trusted Rei no further than she imagined the Hoar Elf trusted her. Because she wanted TonDen more than she wanted Rei destroyed, she was willing to endure a magickal pact with the Drow which would keep them both from treachery--more or less.

And then Bennithly summoned some sort of ape-wolf creature. "And they call me mad?" Irihi mused, wondering what the feeble old Uman's intentions were. She was not so enchanted with the hairy misshapen creature Bennithly had brought forth, and she suffered the old Uman's existence mainly due to the fact that she forgot he was even around. An agent of his had poisoned her, after all, and that certainly merited death in Irihi's reckoning. "Are you so eager to die, old man, that you think to attack me twice? Leash yer pet and lead us to Terajin if you know the way." Irihi demanded.

By Unearthly Hoar Necromancer (Rei)

Monday, July 19, 2010 - 12:41 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

The smaller of Rei's two left hands, and with it, the wrist that bore Irihi's pendant, were the last domain and refuge of TonDen - the place he had fled, or been forced, when Rei stormed his body from within. It was from this blue-glowing stronghold that the vampirized Magicks of Irihi's preening were drawn; from the hand, and from TonDen within it. Rei, though linked to TonDen, lost nothing in that exchange.

It was one of her first precautions in making herself a TonDen; he was soul-bonded, and thus he was a weakness - a back door through which an enemy might strike at her essence. So she had looped and twined the Magicks of that link until they wound back upon themselves, an ever-growing chain of recursion, the flow through which she controlled completely.

Thus and so: the relationship between TonDen and Rei had in every way been one-sided, and TonDen had been subject to Rei's whim alone. As Magick was drawn out of him, bit by bit, he could see that a relationship with Irihi, while dynamically, drastically different, would be just as one-sided. Yet, free will was not lost in the bargain; Irihi's idea of a slave was vastly different from Rei's. For Rei, he had been a cudgel - for Irihi, he might have to be a pet.

Even trapped in his own hand, TonDen was pondering.

Rei, for her part, was also considering. Primarily, why she should not sever that blue hand, and leave it and the soul-draining pendant twitching in the dust. Though TonDen bore the brunt of Irihi's vampirism, Rei did not remain oblivious to it. It weighed heavily on the situation - which was turning, beyond Rei's wildest prediction, into deliberations.

So too, Irihi's needling. Pride was a dangerous thing to provoke in Rei.

"Ha!" She boomed, greatly enjoying her expanded voice. "A weak pact; to replace what you have broken is merely the just course. You think I should reward you for doing Good?" Rei wished she had lips to smile with; two could play at the game of needles. "No, witch. This is the pact we shall agree upon: when I have the SoulStone, I shall let TonDen choose between us, freely. If he goes, I am quit of you both; if he stays, you will accept his choice and begone."

The counter-offer, however, was interrupted, Irihi's attention caught by the antics of Bennithly. Rei had wanted to gloat as Irihi found herself subject to the whims of her potential toy; Bennithly and his unliving were-beast stole her potential thunder. Rei swiveled in place, to glower down at the old man and his hairy distraction.

"And WHAT," She stormed. "do you plan to do with THAT?"

By Bennithly the Ancient (Bennithly)

Monday, July 19, 2010 - 8:00 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

"Please, yew don't honestly expect me to be carried by yew, and I am as sure as the dark one's return not going to travel by foot," Bennithly stated snarlingly, and climbed upon the back of the beast he had summoned.

"Shall we continue?" as he motioned toward Terajin.

By The Curse of Seven Oaks (Irihi)

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - 4:41 am GMT | Edit | Link |

Irihi allowed her bemusement to show as the Rei-monster spoke of balance, justice, and goodness as if these were concepts which might have any bearing on Irihi’s behavior. Her lips quirked in a peculiar smile. “Fair enough.” She said airily, responding to the other witch’s proposal. Irihi had never meant to compel TonDen through any means but her own wiles, but she did not feel the need to elucidate Rei on this matter. As the Hoar Elf had suggested dismissing TonDen back to ash, Irihi felt fairly confident that her compulsion would be the stronger. She fully intended to shamelessly flatter and cajole TonDen at every turn.

Beginning now. “Freedom for TonDen, then.” Irihi stated, though whether this was a deliberate misunderstanding, a purposeful misinterpretation, or a proposed modification of Rei’s counter-offer, one could not say. “He will choose his own fate.” Not being a creature of subtle magery, she attempted to pull a little more Essence of TonDen from her pendant to manifest the curse which would bind the two witches to their word. Without asking, she reached out to touch one of Rei’s triad of legs. Should she meet no resistance, a small hex would be burned painlessly into the black flesh of the construct and mirrored in Irihi’s own palm.

Even if TonDen should wish to strike out on his own, such a resolution was to Irihi’s liking. She would happily follow the beautiful monstrosity while he burned a path of destruction through these lands. For one of his kind, there was no other way. No Uman, nor Elf, nor even Orc would suffer such a creature to live. Irihi knew the same would be true of herself, were it not for the charming exterior ensconcing her chaotic essence. TonDen’s new soul was as yet neither good nor evil, and Irihi could not think of a better pastime than corrupting it.

Bennithly brought up a good point, despite leaving Irihi looking slightly ridiculous. Was Irihi to be carried by Rei as she had been by TonDen? Or would they proceed at the ridiculously slow pace of the Elf’s unhurried gait? Irihi smiled to herself, for this was Rei’s paradox and not her own. She could quite well suffer a year-long stroll to Terajin; she was not trapped in a foreign body and Bennithly’s toxin’s progress was slow. Irihi decided to count on Rei’s impatience winning over her pride, and wait for the Hoar Elf to submit to being ridden like a pony.

To be sure, Rei could attempt to snatch Irihi up with one of her massive crushing arms, but the necromancer would avoid any type of conveyance she did not deem dignified. Considering the newness of Rei to her body, it was unlikely she would be able to pick Irihi up unless the Elf willed it.

By Unearthly Hoar Necromancer (Rei)

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - 12:31 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

Rei had intended to trap Irihi with words. She had chosen them carefully, thinking that the witch was too foolish to notice - for she did not say that she would release the soul-bond that ran between her and TonDen, leashing the beast, only that he could choose. There was a vast difference between undoing the bond and breaking it - to unravel it would free TonDen, to break it would destroy him. If he had chosen Irihi, Rei had planned to break the bond, and let her have whatever remained; she would not have been bound to do anything else.

But, as Rei faced Bennithly, trying to fathom the old man's behavior, Irihi changed the agreement once again, and set her hand upon TonDen's leg. Rei felt the burn, and rage flashed through her blackness. The witch had thwarted Rei's guile - perhaps intentionally, perhaps blindly - and the pact was made: a SoulStone for TonDen's freedom.

She glared down at Irihi, fuming. But, she thought, pacts can be broken. She lifted up the marked leg, teetering for a moment on the other as she inspected the middle segment, and Irihi's hex. It was a fine old thing, a form new to Rei but a style she had once read in some history or other, from time out of mind. An old hex would follow old laws.

"And if you should fail in your end of the bargain." Rei set TonDen's hoof back in the road. "The pact is void, and whatever consequences of it's breach are on your head." She turned, and began to walk down the roadway, towards Terajin. "So, it would behoove you to find a SoulStone before I find one myself, would it not?"

As she began to get more accustomed to her legs, her stride became more steady. It remained leisurely, but even at a slow pace, TonDen's long legs moved Rei along faster than most normal bipeds could manage.

By The Curse of Seven Oaks (Irihi)

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - 2:30 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

As she watched TonDen's retreating figure, Irihi mused seemingly to herself, though she did weave just the simplest parlor trick into her voice to allow the other two necromancers to hear every word despite the distance separating them. "Oh, I had not realized SoulStones were as common as pebbles in the road that you might chance upon one before you reach the warrens of Terajin." She smiled without any real good humor. "Or perhaps you'll send your other faithful servant to find one for you." This musing elicited a snicker from the sorceress, for she doubted very much Bennithly's ability to find his way out of a burlap sack, let alone bend his obviously failing faculties to hunting down and then turning over to Rei such a rare and precious artifact.

As for herself, Irihi bent her leisurely steps toward Terajin. Though she scoffed, she was not wholly confident that Rei had not spoken the truth at least in part and she began to consider how she might speed her own passage, should her bluff be called.

By Unearthly Hoar Necromancer (Rei)

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 - 10:58 am GMT | Edit | Link |

"Not common, no." Rei paused a moment, caught on Irihi's mention of the Uman city - and on something she had put out of her head, hoping it would unravel itself, in time. While the witch regained some lost ground, TonDen's blade-wings twitched nervously. "Yet, I know of places. Even in those warrens."

In those warrens, where TonDen's tremendous frame would be disallowed - where it, in all probability, might provoke vicious attack. Had she both of the smaller hands, she might be able to weave some of TonDen's internal Magicks - but she had forced him into the left, and her one-handed spells only went so far. The larger hands, with their thick, crushing fingers, could no more weave a leyline than spin spider-silk. To find her source, she would have to raze Terajin - alone, without her greatest power.

Or, rely on Bennithly - who might help her, but who, in spite of his shows of loyalty, she could not bring herself to trust. She had snapped one of his fingers on a whim, and had treated him no better than TonDen - and she made a point of abusing TonDen. When she had been where he was - belittled, mocked, and ignored - she had lashed out in the most vicious way she knew. She assumed the same of Bennithly; to put her weakness directly in his hands was unthinkable.

Which brought her, once again, to the mad witch, and her pact. The pact that would bind her to action - that she would not be so bold as to break.

"Tch." Rei growled. "You try my patience." She knelt in the roadway, bending down to extend a tremendous arm to Irihi. "Make haste, Terajin grows no nearer."

By The Curse of Seven Oaks (Irihi)

Thursday, July 22, 2010 - 12:51 am GMT | Edit | Link |

"Oh, why thank you." Irihi said with feigned surprise, and then hopped lightly onto a secure perch. "Yes, I tend to do that." She agreed neutrally.

Needling Rei was fun, but what would be much more fun would be having the Hoar Elf dead, destroyed, very far away, or otherwise gone and free rein to woo TonDen's soul into darkness with the persuasive powers of chaos.

The sooner they found the necromancer another rock to crawl into, the sooner Irihi could be quit of her. So she resisted the urge to cry "giddyup" or some other insult and kept her own counsel, while the trio resumed their progress toward Terajin.

By Unearthly Hoar Necromancer (Rei)

Friday, July 23, 2010 - 2:51 am GMT | Edit | Link |

Rei said nothing - if Irihi was resisting the urge to tease the Hoar, she was resisting the urge to throttle the witch in the palm of one tremendous hand. Letting her settle on TonDen's broad shoulder, Rei started off again, trying not to leap in massive bounds down the road in her hurry.

"Can that were-beast of yours keep pace?" She looked down at the now-mounted Bennithly. His undead were tireless, perhaps, but TonDen's legs were thrice as long, and Rei did not plan on going slow. She did not want to have to carry the Necromancer and his hairy creation; bearing Irihi was irritation enough. "I do not intend to stop every other mile to wait on your creature."

There were only so many indignities Rei could stand, and these cretins seemed determined to discover exactly the number she would endure before snapping. She had already endured far more than she considered acceptable - she hated the necessity of her situation, which continued to encroach on her dignity in new and surprising ways.

By The Curse of Seven Oaks (Irihi)

Friday, July 23, 2010 - 2:23 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

(OOC:

Gone for a day or three, please carry Irihi along.)

By The Curse of Seven Oaks (Irihi)

Monday, July 26, 2010 - 5:13 am GMT | Edit | Link |

"Oh, who cares? He's a Uman for goodness sake! He'll probably die before we make Terajin, no matter what." Irihi muttered to herself. She tried to recollect the length of a Uman lifespan, failed and guessed it was somewhere in the order of three hundred years. This one appeared to be nearing his three-hundred-and-fiftieth, so he was long overdue to expire anyway.

Though the necromancer's years would stretch much longer than those of a Uman's, her patience was of a much shorter strand, but she was avowed not to antagonize Rei or Bennithly until they were somewhere where their feuding might do some real damage, and not just set flowers and trees afire.

By The Curse of Seven Oaks (Irihi)

Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - 7:35 am GMT | Edit | Link |

Irihi twiddled her thumbs for a bit. Finished with that diversion, she kicked her feet, bumping her heels on the TonDen’s armored chest.

Letting her mind wander, she thought back to her former victims on Isle Obscura. Well, they were not so much victims as companions. Few of them had become sick or injured enough to slay directly, and she had always been somewhere else when one of them expired, mores the pity. She wondered how long ago such events had transpired. The worlde had not changed greatly since then, so she could not have been a statue overlong. Probably all dead. She imagined, saddened by the thought…
…that they had not perished by her hand.

Of meeting Calamity on the Lorimar she had no recollection. The slaughter of the crew of the Faire Linda was more like a half-forgotten dream. The death and misery she spread in Seven Oaks seemed sadly unreal. Were it not for the drawstring tied about her finger, she might even have forgotten the mischief she caused in the cemetery of the redeemer.

About the MonBan though, she harbored no confusion. The serpent had been a daemon-construct, there was no doubt. She had seen many of its kind before. Little bits of the monstrosity which had torn Dor OÕLim asunder were leaking into the worlde. The frightening thing had been awakened, probably by Irihi’s abuse of her forbidden craft. It seemed like the more she used her magick, the closer the MonBan could come to breaking through the carefully ordered fabric which held the worldes apart.

Irihi should probably not abuse her powers as much as she did. She ought to sever her connection to powerful entities like her Drawstring, Orein, and TonDen. A return to her mostly-powerless state might slow the rending of the cosmos’s leylines. For her to continue on her wanton and destructive path with no reason but her own whimsy was insanely dangerous. “Oh well.” Irihi hummed to herself as her thoughts turned elsewhere.

By Unearthly Hoar Necromancer (Rei)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 - 5:46 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

Rei was growing more accustomed to TonDen's strange pair of legs, and as her strides grew more sure her thrice-jointed lope became a vast, leaping sprint, faster than a horse's gallop; TonDen's knees worked in long spring-and-lever fashion, stretching further than any man or beast Rei had ever known.

While Irihi idled away her time on Rei's shoulder, and TonDen turned philosophies of sentience and will and bondage through his slow-working mind, Rei marveled at this terrific machine her Magicks - and, though she was loathe to admit, Irihi's - had wrought. Her vengeance and her rage were slaked in this cooling sense of wonder - a sense she had rarely felt, though she had seen things far beyond the imaginings of mortal ken.

It was a shame, she thought, that she and Irihi were doomed to destroy one another. It did not escape Rei that in Irihi she had a certain kindred; true, the witch was a petulant brat, a mad child with more power than brains, but she had the daemon-touch, and her eyes had seen the far side of the darkness, as Rei's had; Rei knew of few others with whom she shared similar experience.

Not that that was entirely tragic, nor coincidence, nor even accident. It was in their nature to eliminate one another after all: Rei and Irihi had conducted titanic battle within hours of having met; others had fallen to Rei's poisons and her blades, or been crushed by the tremendous fists of earlier TonDens. But, in spite of her nature, and in spite of her cruelty and her hatred and her misanthropy, there were times - like now, as she learned TonDen's newest body from the inside - that she knew that great powers in concert could do far more than any single witch could alone.

That did not change her. She was too stubborn to change, too prideful to admit that her own failings were as much to blame for her predicament as Irihi; it was too easy to cast the other witch as half-wit, to regard her with scorn, to despise and belittle and sneer. It was childish, she knew - but childishness begets childishness, and smallness of mind was as contagious as any plague, and it was all really Irihi's fault anyway, wasn't it?

The more she pursued this, the less she liked pursuing it - and, she knew, the more she needed to pursue. Introspection was painful - more so than any of the tortures that Botharel had inflicted upon her. But all of her great strengths had been won through pain - her ferocity, her finesse, her bonds with the Realms Unending, all had scored her and scarred her, all had taken much but given back more in return.

Childish thinking, small-mindedness, insult-hurling, sneering foolishness - all these things she had seen in Irihi, and in despising them in her rival she had taken them all on in turn. She had truncated vast stretches of her own mind, lowered herself to ignorant petulance - and, now that she considered it, had seen Irihi rise to unexpected heights of reason and of cleverness. The two were perhaps more kindred than Rei wanted to admit - as kindred as a ghost and its shadow.

A deal had been struck with Irihi once. Perhaps, in time, Rei could strike another. Or, failing that, perhaps the witch could be tamed - or manipulated, directed as Rei saw fit, like one might change the flow of a river. She was chaos embodied, more or less, but Rei's wiles had chained greater daemons. It was plausible. Irihi told TonDen that she had been a weapon once; Rei thought it likely she could be harnessed again.

But, for what target?

As the road passed quickly beneath them, Rei considered her myriad possibilities.

By The Burning Beast (Tonden)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 - 5:48 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

While Irihi kicked her legs, a thin, long-fingered hand, softly glowing blue, placed itself on her knee, resting there gently.

TonDen did not want her to fall again.

By Bennithly the Ancient (Bennithly)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 - 6:25 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

Bennithly smiled as he slowly turned thoughts over in his mind. "So much for that idea," He thought slowly.

"Yew must wait, his mind responded back "Get them by themselves first, and then yew shall attack. Kill them both they are weakened as is, and against each other."

Bennithly smiled again, even laughed aloud for a moment.

"Yew have no idea how patient I am." Bennithly stated. He chased after the TonDen, riding at full speed even to keep up.

By The Curse of Seven Oaks (Irihi)

Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 7:26 am GMT | Edit | Link |

“Aww… Why thank you, Mr. TonDen.” Irihi said childishly as she patted the hand that restrained her. Though she meant irony by her sing-song tone, she was momentarily taken aback by the gesture of true concern. Should she really add to the troubles of this innocent monstrosity by pursuing a course which would make it more hated and feared than its appearance alone would?

No, she’d teach it to bake cookies of spun sugar and dewdrops, and live with it in a little hut by a babbling brook where the local fauna burst into spontaneous song while they performed domestic tasks. Of course she’d teach TonDen how to hate and destroy all by himself! She had been blessed with plenty of malice by the time she gained the power to do something with her blackened soul. By the time the reins of power were thrust into her hands, her hatred of her homeland and her own kind had equaled even that of the monsters she fought. It had taken a little while to rebuild that life-sustaining ire when—to her—the worlde changed so drastically, but now she had accumulated enough to share.

And if there was anything a feared and hunted magickal giant construct would need, it was a healthy dose of his own evil with which to face down that which would be flung at it by the ape-men and half-breeds.

As for the weakling Rei, well, she had somehow built TonDen. Perhaps if Irihi had no choice but to hang around this scholarly perversion of Elf-kind, then maybe she could make the Hoar Elf do another neat trick before smashing her. Irihi did not have any grand designs or plans in mind; she had never been a strategic thinker, but only a tactical enforcer. That which was ordered, she disrupted until it broke. That which was healthy, she corrupted until it died. She was one of Elfkind’s first forays into the realm of the dark arts, and so hers was destructive magick and training of a primal nature, besides the few shallow accoutrements and simple spells which allowed her to make herself comfortable.

Perhaps if Rei were incredibly cautious, if she could layer her pride deeply enough that Irihi could not detect the irony beneath her obsequiousness, maybe then she might be able to act in concert with the chaotic necromancer; to trick Irihi into thinking that the waste she layed was by her own design, and not Rei’s. But probably not. Where Rei softened at their similarities, Irihi hardened and hated. She did not want to admit she was anything like the disgusting Drow, and Bennithly’s wasting toxin, in returning the coloring of her birth, reminded her that the malice she held dear more likened her to her hated adversary as not. Unlike Rei, Irihi careened down the easiest paths, learning little and heaping misstep upon misstep until disaster's inevitable strike rebalanced all which had been thrown off-kilter. The last re-alignment, brought on by the hubris of the ancients, had seen the seas swallow Dor OÕLim. The harsh lesson had thus been ingrained into the psyche of all of the Elven kind.

All, save one.

(TO:	Wherever, whenever)

By Unearthly Hoar Necromancer (Rei)

Saturday, July 31, 2010 - 3:18 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

The road - and the day - wore on; TonDen's body, to Rei's puzzlement, seemed absolutely tireless. She, as Irihi had some time before, began to wonder from whence his abundance of energy came. She might have discovered something of potentially magnificent importance.

But, she could not analyze it from within; TonDen's body was not Rei's, and movement was not natural. She had to make TonDen move - to think about what she was doing, and how she was doing it. Perhaps, if they stopped for the night, she might have time to rest, and to inspect the source of TonDen's Magick - be it external or internal. But, to stop would be to delay her recorporeation; while TonDen was tireless, she saw no reason dire enough that she would not press on.

And so the Merchant's Walk wound away beneath them, and they made their way to the Terajin Mile.

By Gulric Stonefist (Gulric)

Thursday, September 29, 2011 - 6:36 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

(OOC:From Knights Walk)

Gulric was exhausted, he had rested little in trek from Seven Oaks, he had rested very little. The sun was setting and his eye's eyelids drooped. Drinking the last of the water in his skin he searched the area to rest for the night.

By Gulric Stonefist (Gulric)

Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - 4:22 pm GMT | Edit | Link |

(ooc: To Highwayman's Glade)

Add a Message