The Furnace
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_It was years before Raryldor committed the story to paper. The sights, sounds and smells would occasionally come to him, flooding in with the sights, sounds and smells of a hundred other exploits. The particulars of this "sequence of events" would, however, leave him unwilling to lay them out in a form for the examination of posterity.
He still recalled Kara in those days, in fond memories and in gentle reveries. She had been laid to rest long years before, victim to the eventualities of a human’s short life span. It was perhaps the indignities the two had suffered in the complex that had dried his inkwell. He’d often sit long at his desk, having convinced himself that “within this tale lay allegories of nobility and sacrifice”, but rationalizations and a hundred other concerns were the common impediments that kept quill from vellum. He’d chide himself for this curious behavior; he had rarely shied from telling the tale to close friends huddled about a lonely campfire, or young acolytes he felt needed a poignant lesson in elven values.
It took decades, time that blurred the worst of the tribulations and instilled a nostalgic longing for days long passed. He wouldn’t bring the quill to vellum, so to speak, for more than a hundred and fifty years._
(work in progress)
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_…as the shadowstuff passed over Kara, it was apparant that events were to be become curious. Kara seemed unaffected, mentally, and any of my attempts to turn her were for naught. She seemed to be the same Kara I had known....though certainly in a form that I have traditionally attributed to my foes. It was not much of a shock to me when it was on the road that we met more beings of shadowstuff, shaped as humans....firing enchanted ice arrows at us from a high ridge. They struck and ran, and meted out a fair share of injuries to our troupe, but were felled in due time.
We came upon wreckage in the Nars, flaming caravans and burning corpses. I could identify none of them, and could think only of burying them. I dragged a pair to a nearby copse of wood, where years before I had sanctified a burial ground. I hadn't the time to bury either. Soon shouts were heard, and returning to the wreckage, Lwyn'sel'ouse was gone.
We continued on through the Nars. Kara seemed intimately aware of some portal....perhaps because of this new condition? I hadn't the time to put much thought into it at the moment, as upon discovering the portal itself, a small hill outside of the city of Peltarch, the malady would soon pass. We walked into the light, so to speak, as I had often done in the past, and found myself in a curious worked stone corridor. Eyeing Kara as I had for the the past several hours, I noted her skin return to its normal fair hue._
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_Candlelight in the room flickered briefly with struggle against the light breeze sweeping in through the cracks of the door, it had grown cold now, although the woman perched atop the many layers of warm furs and sheets present on the comfortable looking bed, did not appear to mind much. She had been staring at the clear vellum for a considerable amount of time, lost to time in a sea of memories.
As suddenly as the wind had picked up, her hand moved and she began to commit her memories to paper._
@a9ebe08de6:
_I do not know if I wish to recall this particular tale to record it..but someone must.
The day had begun with a calm walk towards Jiyyd, after setting out from the sleeping village of Norwick. So much had changed during recent months with the appearance and subsequent disappearance of the crystals in Norwick. While I cannot for the life of me recall the exact reasons for all the wariness, it is clear that those who knew of them still blame those of us who became trapped in the collective's grip. That however is a story for another time.
The walk to Jiyyd had been a surprisingly peaceful one, with nary a hobgoblin in sight to disrupt the thoughts of travellers. While the road was pleasant enough, it was soon disrupted by a large band of armed adventurers leaving the gates of Jiyyd. Rary, whom I had been walking behind at the time was stopped, along with myself with a proposition to help an elven woman save a priestess of Solonor. I have never been one to assume that anything will be 'easy'…and this would prove to be no exception. We did agree though and quickly made haste to join up with the large departing group
The Elven woman herself was an oddity. While I do not remember seeing her draw breath, nor can I say the same for Raryldor when he was in a mood. She wore no trappings of station, nor any armour or even a weapon, it seemed. There was just this thin woman, wishing to help save her kin from the grips of a terrible foe. The group that had assembed was split we all set out for Norwick with gathering supplies and preparing an expedition into the forest to find some elven scholar. We never made it quite that far...
Near the temple, Raryldor, the woman and myself started talking and eventually she withdrew a small key writhing in shadow. Rary had been the first to examine the key itself to no avail, then the key was passed to me. While it was odd that Raryldor could not read his kin's own script, I picked up curiously enough and made out the words 'Narr'e'tuth lu terra'th' inscribed along the key. The words meant nothing at first, until the keys shadow matter spread to me! This quest was about to take a turn for the worst..._
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_It began by chance, as such things do. It was but in passing that I heard of Lwyn’sel’ouse’s predicament. It is appropriate to note that a windfallen leaf, landing in a pool, will cause an ever-expanding ripple in the water. And so it was from the moment I stepped through Jiyyd’s gates, Kara close behind me.
Lwyn’sel’ouse seemed more than relieved at our offer of aid, and accepted us gladly. Looking over those assembled, nearly a dozen strong, I could nary fathom how soon our numbers would dwindle._
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_The wind picked up gradually through Jiyyd like it had done since the town had been founded while drops of rain slowly broke through the storm clouds ahead and pattered down to clash with the thirsty earth. It was to be another stormy night, in mood as well as weather…only emphasised as the sky crackled with the welcome sounds of thunder. While the town itself was mostly asleep, Militia and legion alike made their patrols throughout the town, the sound of heavy boots sloshing through the muddy gravel filled the air. Winter was evident with the thick smell of moist earth in the air and a cold biting wind rushing throughout the town. Most had preferred the comfort of their beds, or at least the warmth of a tavern.
Despite the bleak storm present over jiyyd, several lights still shone in the dark like beacons refusing to fade, One such light hovered near the peak of the inappropriately named Regal whore inn ; One room in particular near to the third floor of the worn looking inn, there shon a bright light from the closed window of one of the rooms. The room itself was well furnished for a farming town with well worked wood covering the floor and unmarred oaken furniture. Off in the center of the room and opposite a large four poster bed was a roaring fireplace to provide heat for the occupants. Under the windowcill, there was a freshly used tub, still with relatively warm water. The room could at least be called cosy for those who walked through the door.
A woman sat upright on the bed, quiet in contemplation, a towel wrapped around her slightly reddened skin; this proving to be the only piece of clothing she wished to wear at the moment. Droplets of water splashed down from her soaked dark red locks of hair and impacted against her bare thighs with little or no response, she had been too busy fixated upon the small leather journal infront of her, while a haunted look crossed into her dark green eyes. Memories best left forgotten would not be denied
With a heavy sigh, she snapped from her blank expression and reached out to gather up the quill resting nearby, ready to commit yet another nightmare to paper for eternity_
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_Evereska is a gentle place. I feel the warmth of the sun’s rays upon my shoulder’s as I write this. Midsummer is upon us, and I often leave my window open to let the breeze in. It smells sweetly, carrying the fragrances of the vineyard, and I can nearly taste the grapes on my tongue. I am tempted to head to my lake and watch the clouds, but it has been decades since my return, and I have prevaricated far too long.
It feels that it would be a sin for me to sit here in my study and reflect on that sequence of events that has somehow become foremost in my mind. I fear that the memories of the dark shapes and the grave-stench would sully the day, and I am loath to allow the sun to become chill on my shoulders this morning. The clouds are moving quickly across the sky, and it will be midday soon; I already long to join my kin in the baths. These are my days of quiet contemplation, however, time that is perhaps better spent recording the particulars of my years abroad that the newer generation may learn from them. Vell’cam* spent his days in the city of Peltarch during those years, studying tomes, treatises and all manner of scholarly dissertations; I find myself growing increasingly fond of the smell of musty paper, and my eyes are still as accustomed to the dark as they were those fifteen decades ago. The delicate stonework here, striking though it may be in its beauty, cannot help but to remind me of the grimy and roughly fitted stone walls in the corridors of old Nar crypts. Our experiences are part and parcel to our being, and to ignore them for so long, as I have, is the true sin._
