Sleep

[Etherian]

The man sat in a small room listening to the slight creaks of the wooden floor as people went down stairs for breakfast. A muffin sat in his hand and he rotated it examining it carefuly, every ridge, every rise. He smirked slightly.

Leaving your life in the hands of a gnome and a muffin. That's heroic.
He thought of battles he had survived in the past if only through great pain and yet now because of a little lack of sleep he had almost begged for help in the middle of the Peltarch commons. He felt something pathetic was in that action. He whispered to himself, "you just may be free of me yet orcs," and not wanting to think anymore about it began to eat the muffin slowly waiting for the effects of the promised sleep to set in. He had finished his muffin and sure enough the promised ingrediant, though he still couldn't pronounce it very well shoved him over the edge. The man still in some very light leathers that looked like a guard's outfit his head laying against the corner of the room and a mere cloak draped over him had found sleep if only for a while.
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The dream....

A chess board surrounded him, only it had been expanded and distorted. He walked to its center to examine his surroundings and found it had four sections and a middle making a cross. He looked to one side, the pieces all taller than him were black and an odd dark mist surrounded them. In one of the other corner's the pieces were bright red and stood towering much higher than the rest. The third corner was occupied by pieces made of great ivory two pieces looking like keeps especially ornate. The final corner had pieces made of wood, probaly oak, that seemed it had survived a house fire and were in horrible shape many of them chipped or broken.

What are the rules to this game I wonder? He thought as he scratched his reddish beard pondering his gaze slowly sweeping from side to side. The center is obviously the focus, but would the goal of this game have such a limited path, requiring all to pass through the center? It was then he heard a piece move skidding accross the board into position. He examined the movement and smiled slightly obviously enjoying trying to figure out the puzzle. "Well I'm either dead or dreaming. In either case seems I have little to lose." Unconsciously he walked towards the side with the wooden pieces resting his hand on one of them as he passed, "Serve me well, and the victory will be unbounding." he paused a moment the words seeming very familiar. And then he saw, the king from the wooden side was missing. "I am beginning to hate dreams…" he muttered shaking his head but walked to the empty square.

The pieces began to move and he would run to his own pieces and push them to their desired location and then would run back to where he has his piece should have stood. The pieces eventually met in the middle, and though he had to always move his side forward he delayed letting the other sides clash, until a window of opportunityt appeared. he took it and though he took losses he managed in the end to move his wooden army into the side of the ivory while the other two sides behind him fought the sound of falling pieces behind him. A grin grew across the man's face as he shoved a piece into a rather precarious position. An ivory piece slide forward and slammed into it sending it sprawling to the side. The grin grew larger as the man waited listening for the skidding to stop in the background and then he moved himself near one of the larger ivory pieces a large helmet carved into its head. "Defeated," he stated simply.

A girl's scream then pierced the air, and he looked around seeing a body on the floor that he had not noticed before. A very well muscled young man in full armor now was in front of him on the chess board, fallen a look of fear and pain in his eyes a green liquid forming around his lips and growing larger by the minute. The man heard skidding again and this time was knocked-hard- towards the center of the board as an ivory piece slammed into him. The man groaned, and cursed under his breath though he did hear himself say, "..Or not." His eyes did not leave the fallen man on the chess board his gaze locked even as one of the large pieces fell on him.

The man's eyes opened quickly sweat across his brow and quickly searched the room until he realized where he was again. He sighed and spent the rest of his stay counting the number of planks that made up the wall.

[Etherian]

The man in a goldish and dirty plate stood covered in blood as he attempted to wipe it from his armor a bandage peaking through the plate covered in blood but seemingly not his own.

A familiar voice rang in his head telling him he should stop trying to mate with the reptiles jokingly. He smirked. Seems his path was once again becomming filled with blood. Seemed not a day had gone by recently where he wasn't wading through the blood of his enemies, his companions, or his own. He rolled his head then held out his hand in an attempt to point the sword it held he watched it shake slightly as he clenched his fingers, though less than before. Well at least its better than the last one he thought to himself running a his free hand down his chest unconscoiusly. He looked down, without emotion, at his fallen prey. They had hunted him. A single slip in strategy had lead him into an ambush, yet he was strong enough to survive. Yet somehow even with this accomplishment he felt he should be elsewhere, not somewhere in h is plans, but somewhere entirely different at that moment. He had felt that way all week. He allowed himself a small sigh in order to recognize the horrible familiarity of it.

He sheathed his sword, pausing a moment feeling its hilt as he did so. He lived. It was almost odd to say, almost contrary to what it sounded like it should be, yet it was true. Whether it was curse or blessing he knew not, but he did see opportunity. His plans though delayed were not permanetly prevented. "Soon my adversary.. We will meet.. If I've not killed ye already," he muttered to the wind as his hand dragged its fingers lightly accross his breast plate. "hard to tell with as many that came up to the wall.."

His gaze then shifted south and he soon traveled in that direction, dragging a very large, roughly made, sword behind him.