Zonty

You will not bait me into doing romance roleplay

The body unwrites. Armaments are null. Chip by chip, armours give way. Memories segue. The thrum of hells already encroaches. A gust flits by. Not wind. A tangle of onyx lifeforce. A red bolt creases through the black firmament and a rumble of unworldly thunder follows. Four figures perch on a great obsidian disk suspended vertiginously high by unnamed machinations. There is an ancient skeleton adrape in drab, rusted armour of bygone era. A white scrap on the iron wrings across the breastplate, and other marks of endured battles litter it. Pale blue aether soothes beneath his dappled frame of bone. He stares outward at the others. There are no eyes, no pupils. It is hard to tell whomst he watches and he does not name it. A hood-wreathed thing wallows on the verge of the disk. The garment is argentiphrygiate along its hem. There is another scarlet streak that skewers the skies and its unholy light reflects against those silver strings. Agglomeration of minds dwells beneath this garment. A shadow drizzled with flame. A susurrus of manifold voices quietly whispers to itself, quelled and reverent amid this hushing realm, while a single filament speaks up. It talks in wretched Al'tahrn-Durngo. Nor to those around, nor the souls that obtrude it. It monologues to the world; to the plane. A place that quietly remains & remembers. Under the fester of lifeforce that oozes through world-cracks, a memory of fallen Old-Lord still persists. A once-mentor to that forlorn mouthpiece. Two stand at fulcrum of the platform. There is one hardly indigenous to this place. A dwarf small even by the dwarven standards, donning opulent fabric of gilded red and black. That garb is well-maintained. No thread is frayed. No grease mats its scarce folds. A dark breeze passes and crushes against a lucifigous membrane that encapsulates her. It sheds its lifeforce and becomes a wind. It ruffles her jet hair flown to the clavicle. “Strange for such an acolyte to smoulder.” A sonorous voice shudders beside her. There is another shadow. It hides in no cloth for no cloth can hold it. It is darker than the darkest night and deeper than the deepest ocean. Her breath hitches and she whips. How? A question sprays along her consciousness. He leers down on her lineaments; gaze piercing, needly. “Yet your bloodthirst is clear. Real. I pray you are righteous in your choice of foes, dwarf.” This triggers a succussion. Deep and silent. Absolute. Then a sigh deflates. She steels herself and answers. “I am condemned.” A beat of silence. “I will die and be sundered. There will never be salvation.” Strangeness gnaws on her mind. Thoughts bumble together. Concepts. Dreams. Memories. She speaks and doesn’t know if she is earnest. She can no longer tell if it is fear of destruction so anigh that ushers her, or a candid devotion that has rooted inside. “It is not my soul I’m fighting for. It is the future.” Her words fall dry and painful. She looks away at a barrowlord; still engrossed inside his pious rite. “What if you had an escape?” A whisper warbles through the air. The shadow speaks and leans. His hand extends. A splayed palm where a black fire smoulders. Then the psychic voice ripples again. “Dear mortal. I spare you this fate. Only if you will take it.” The dwarfess swerves and she beholds the offering. Her hand first springs but then freezes. Inches away. Was this a true motion? She wonders. Am I truly so eager to get away? Her lashes bat. Her ragged breath soothes, if only but a sliver. What is lie, and what is real? More and more questions kindle, but there are no answers. She doesn’t know. “What is it?” She asks the only question that she dares. She tries to ease her voice but trembling threads still lace it. “I wouldn’t see the fruit of my sacrifice turn nought.” The wight turns. It is too lost in tired ritual to comprehend the susurrus behind. A once-flaming spectre is doused. Its passionate grief is set aside with thrown obsidian. “Insurance.” Answers the King Beneath. “Should you fall, be it to fire or blade or poison, remember me and I will have you. You need not burn.” “Burn?” The barrowlord asks. His iron sabatons clank against the dais. He approaches. But Mordring’s penumbra doesn’t answer. He doesn’t look at him and neither does the dwarf. There is a euphory that churns her face though still she cannot tell its honesty. Her hand flings out, and the flame disperses into her forearm. A subtle seed. =+= “Who are you?” A boy asks. A human child of hazel hair and bright green eyes. His face is freckled. It is draggled with mud and muck. He wears a sordid smock. A rive runs from his collarbone to the left hip. A ray of sun flickers through the plowing clouds and the boy’s muscle glistens with his sweat. He is looking down and there is a smile. Genuine. Peaceful. Enduring the harshness of farmlife but unstained by horrors of cruelty. He is still in his adolescence yet has grown already bigger than her. Hjelgi, Siarl, Eila, Arja, Endyrn Answers flutter through her brain. Each one true as much as it is false. She looks away. Her silver eyes trail across the stretching meadows of barley and wheat, where peasants labour. They scythe the grain, each stroke a whisper of iron. She sees a trodden road. Sundry stones pave it; none alike, none leveled. A wagon wobbles along it, town by an exhausted, horned beast. Could this be me? She wonders. Have I ever had a chance of life like that? The question crumbles. Her vision dims and a memory draws its translucent limbs over the world. She walks through twilight of a marble pavement. Great elven towers stretch to the sky. The sun only starts unpeeling the gloom. She has come here alone. A far journey that her father wouldn’t take her on. First days, then weeks.. Weasling between friend and acquaintance, it took her a sharp wit and a grain of perseverance to reach this town that she had thought magical. No foot beats against the chiseled road. The people here are still asleep, bar a scarce number of rooms where the residents have already lit their candles, and now prepared for a busy day. She sucks in this fresh air with a beaming smile. She takes two steps. Then there are hands. They come noiselessly and as quick as lightning. Pale spindles that catch her throat. Her mouth gapes and she tries to scream, but the sound is caught & crushed in stranglehold. Her limbs flail. They hit something cold but adamant. She writhes but uselessly. The world bleaches. And then it fades. She remembers only a taste of iron on her tongue. “Are you okay miss?..” The boy’s voice mumbles through the fog. She blinks and she is back to reality. Feathered wings flap somewhere in the sky when corvids glide by. She looks at him and feigns a smile. A trick so well-known to her countenance that it is undiscernible. A quiet titter falls that is not her own. “Of course, of course! I am Sinuren.” She plucks another name from her reserves. The boy gawks at her in modicum of concern a moment. Then concedes and talks: “Nice meeting you, lady!” The little one exclaims. His lips unseal but then- “Asur!!” A woman’s voice shears through the field. “Where are you?!” The boy’s eyes peel & his face pales. “Er..h.. Sorry… Have to go!” He whips around and scurries off. And the dwarfess watches him. Her mind remains tethered to this world but she remembers. She remembers when she blinked awake but darkness did not settle. She remembers when the captor hurled her against some edifice of dank stone and her bones cracked. She remembers when silhouettes of silhouettes of shapes congealed at last. There was a skitter of some timorous rat along the fissured floors, squeaking and crying. She remembers the grave-cold touch of a palm that cupped her chin and jerked her throat agape. The bile that it poured into her mouth and forced to swallow. She remembers the agony when her body became something else, in the blackness of another pit. She remembers the indomitable hunger that festered over weeks of isolation. She remembers the crackle of torches when they lit for the first time and the screech of gates when they rolled open. Three figure entered and she remembers when one of them was forced to cut her palm. She remembers the melody of flowing blood and its mesmerising scent. She remembers when that vile ichor had hit her tongue but was a taste of sweetest nectar; a thing most yearned. She remembers the torment of absence when the group was gone and weeks stretched by. She remembers when her cruel keeper returned and made her magicbound. No. The answer comes easily. I never had the luxury of choice. =+= The wood creaks. She blinks away the sleeping daze and realizes what she sees. She is sat on a rickety chair in a crumbling tavern. Bristles of snow beat against the frail glass that cries beneath the batter of outside zephyrs. A pale flame smoulders over the soot-wreathed wood that somehow never dwindles, though there is no one that tends to the hearth. Candles waver. Slowly her gaze lifts. It trails across a deep crack that spirals through a table’s plinth. Across her a wraith lounges. Its shadow skulks beneath the hood, tranquil but eerie. A pair of red horns, crusted with layers of chitin, jut out from his featureless countenance and curl. A headwear. A trophy. There is no eye that could betray his gaze though she knows that he stares at her. She has seen this already, countless times. A haunting nightmare that never slacks its cinch. She knows that he awaits her patiently. Awaits her futile move. Between them, on the barren & scratched wood, a bulging tome dallies. Chains and barbed wires twine it. A foreign and forlorn lore hides in its manuscript. Hands shoot out. With gloven palms splayed they try to nab the ancient relic but.. “Tzekallion-yathaghale!” The wight’s voice booms out like thunder and it passes through the ruins where the duo perched. But it crushes against a lone echo and the cavort of blizzards; for the two are not here anymore. She bates her breath because she knows what’s coming. The world around them collapses in a clipped breath between rapid heartbeats. In an instant, she feels death’s advance. True horror. The overwhelming crush of a million hands pulling and scratching. Then she is there again. Endless wastes of screaming dust. Mountains of geists of all variety, riddling innumerable hexes onto her; the sole life in this dark place. Torturous horror beyond description flays her to her core. Her knees buckle and she falls, though there is no ground that can support her. Only a menagerie of spectres that jolt apart and beckon. Jeer. Cry. They want her here. They want her to be swallowed. To taste the shard of torment that engrieves them at all times. She sinks through this ectoplasmic agglomeration like through a quicksand, screaming and thrashing, though in vain. She knows this pain. She knows this fate. Fate that could one day claim her, and any other person that perhaps she’s ever known. An eternal prison that is not judgement but only cruel empty. There would be no court. No justice. Only this eviscerating hunger that she gleans so often in the phantoms that she plucks & binds to trifle and apparel. This was the first time when her faith transcended belief. When promise & word have become no longer a hope but a tasted truth. The chitter of Moz-strimoza, the strength that the crimson rot endows her has always been a real thing. But when thoughts stretch farther than the fight, when there are exhales of betrayal, of condemnation and torment, of the false veneers that the Gods don and shepherd descendants like a pacified stock, the ground becomes slick with fraud. The wail of obtruding ghosts, their whimpering whispers, their agonizing bristles and their weeps are a grave proof but only when she toppled through this forsaken realm that she truly realized. Thud.. Her bones splinter against something concrete, perhaps the ground buried so deep beneath a sea of geists. The slam snatches her breath and for a moment there is darkness. Then she jostles awake. A blistering wind murmurs beyond a small cave where she found refuge. Beside her, a dying fire sputters its last breaths. It cannot ward the creeping cold any longer. A shiver streaks across her spine. It was then. She thinks. Then that my resolve steeled and I realized what the fight was about. Then that I thought up a purpose. A cause deserving sacrifice. =+= A blade whistles through the dark. A sweep of a sword and a sacral flame disgorges: the battlefield split by the glorified rampart. Undead scatter from this risen wall. Some have fallen beneath that sanctifying strike. The rotting flesh and other clinging viscera seethes and perpetually disintegrates from the gnaw of fire. But who remain are not afraid. What is death to them, but a well known acquaintance? Goaded or upheaved by the Red Lich astride a warped manticore, they scuttle for their adversary; a seraph borne ‘pon white-feathered wings. Its silver silk flutters in a self evoked wind and the frolic of holy fire reflects against the golden threads that gild it. She beholds the legion but she doesn’t join them. This battle is not hers to fight. She cusps a bowl of crazed stone. A bundle of incense secured by an iron chain smoulders there, exuding their placid fumes. There is a shadow that surrounds her but it belongs nor to the world, nor to the others. It is her own will & power; and in this crib she waits with patience of a predator. She looks past Aeriel’s rampant vizier and sups at the sight of a goliathic bell behind it. She shudders. She knows what it holds. The horde’s ranks weed out but many still prevail. They roar, perhaps with fervour, perhaps with fear, and their skeletal limbs brandish their unsheathed weaponry. The seraph staggers. Its cowl is torn, its wings are battered. Aureate slashes trace across its figure and shed its pureblood that burns the creatures of the dark. It is exhausted and it looks about. It sees another wave of enemies encroaching. A cry wrenches from it. It is pain and it is grief. It knows its loss and the weight of consequence. Its wings unfurl and there is a beam of light. It comes crashing from an ancient stone roof of the forlorn tomb and the angel soars up and vanishes, and with him the light is gone. Then the bell tolls. Mthyul Tlan emerges. A blackened skeleton formed of many skeletons, its menagerie of souls within all churning and fighting to occupy the same spectral space. Skulls upon skulls. Its rippling form flows outward and spills into the antechamber. Two undead lunge at it with swings of their battleaxe & warhammer. The weapons deadstop. A flick of its black, tessellating wrist. An invisible force swats them away like flies, their limbs torn, bones broken. She bolts off. Time is now that she must enter the fray and lend her prowess to Gashadokuro. The apparition is powerful. Powerful beyond sense. The thing looks at her and in the next instance it is behind. Its claw crushes around her pate and lifts her like a ragdoll. She squirms in vain but her grip upon the bowl does not wane. And the apparition infringed upon her domain; upon her shadow. Warhammer flies and nothing stops it now. The armament smites against the undulating form. Mthyul Tlan recoils. For the first time in eternity something digs through its panoply. A bat of an eye and it is gone again. Across the battlefield, away from that foiling dwed. Weapons soar and they are deflected again like dust blown by tempest. The apparition wallows in its triumphant dominance tossing foes aside like children of scarce winters. But then she is near again and it is in her shadow. Weapons bite through its unraveled form. It collapses on the ground and heaves out a long and haggard cry. The desperate wail of aeons of unknown meaning; centuries of work, centuries of dedication, all in Mysticism’s name. Yet here it lay, at the feet of mongrel assailants. Black tethers attack it. Of lifeforce & shadow. Mthyul Tlan rages against the dying of the light. The spectral titan fights against the bindings but he fails to flicker out, phase into another reality, or meld away. Locked in place, a rotten warrior chops head after head of the apparition’s numerous fractal skulls. Yet after enough beheadings there is nothing left. Only despair. Only loss. For millenia the Waking Synod advanced mysticism, advanced a path of men to live like elves, yet in its wake there is only a millenia of murder and conspiracy. Greed and secrets. He weeps and a psychic wave ripples. A vision how this all began. A great chamber where hundreds cower underneath their hoods. They drink and eat. And then break into a slew. They hew and stab, bleed out and die. Only four remain, and they slash their bellies open and collapse. An age of silence passes before a thrum of soulbeat springs to life. A single consciousness manifests. A single yearning for eternity. Mthyul Tlan, the First Synod and forefather of all mystics. She pulls the apparition apart and it falls limp in an ethereal state. So close to death, yet still here. Still real. Hanging by a thread. The psychic wash fades away and in the stunned darkness a figure ascends. Thin, skeletal. A draconic frame. The room is consumed in the blackness and only their person remain, the sky overwhelmed by a horned lizard-skeleton amid black constellations, black nebulae, and black stars. The King of Wraiths. Mordring. She doesn’t know it yet; his grandeur and how they will entangle. There is only weariness and blood that drips from a great gash across her chest. =+= An iron gauntlet pummels a slate jerkin. The count doubles over and coughs blood. His wrists tremble from pain though his mind remains cold. There are other residents that stare in awe and horror, but they daren’t intervene. She watches how her ambush brings fruit. Her glance strays and she studies the dinning hall of a castle that once welcomed her. They helped me. She doesn’t feel a twinge of conscience. They helped me and now I betray. She finds some crevice in the wall to stare in, though she doesn’t know why she wouldn’t look at him. She doesn’t feel anything. They are far away now. Past the human borders and in the dwarven lands. Beneath rock and stone, somewhere deep and hidden. A grand chamber. An asylum she carved out with her own sweat. The darklings that she brought in tow squabble and squander between each other, but she only looks at the count. A bound, defeated man, yet even here, even now, still proud. She blinks. She is on a balcony, in a manor perched atop a mountainside. Corvids sing their acrid songs. She sits on a cushioned chair at a tableclothed table. She tugs at it and its creases straighten. She speaks to the count though she doesn’t remember what. He replies and she doesn’t remember his words. She was only a speck then; an unlucky beast that had to claw through the poor fortune’s bracken. She lied and deceived. Anything to survive and become stronger. Become something. She remembers a gentle breeze that plucks two raven strands and casts them over her countenance. She remembers brushing them off. But still she can’t recall the dialogue. A conversation stitched from lies. Am I cruel? She stares at the count again. Her once-mentor, who unraveled sanguine secrets. Or do I simply accept the world? The question quickly fizzles; she sees a ripple in the vitreous mirror at the far end of the round chamber. Here, great braziers dangle from the ceilings on stout chains and cerulean flames burn on alchemical concoctions. A stale, underground air. A forge smoulders in another corner. Across from it, a library of her coveted secrets. The mirror blurts again and a shape draws from it. First a shadow, a darkness that unspools and chokes out the light. Then an ivory bone. Pampo Perea. The first king of Oren. Emissary of Mordring. “Take him.” She bids. “He will suffice.” A beat of silence. “Unyoke him from his zar’rokul. Let Mordring pluck his soul and bring him to salvation.” She doesn’t know why she says it. Mercy. Why offer it? Why now? The count struggles one last time but then the skeleton’s blade plunges through his chest. It heaves the count and brings him to the mirror. Darkness garners. A ripple passes over its surface and the count’s corpse is gone. When others have left she taps into the mirror. She doesn’t understand its workings but in the first moment she’s here, and in the next in the Abyss, on that dreary plateau, with a looming edifice that is the skeletal dragon Mordring staring her down. At her alone. Her frame is a tangle of ectoplasm or some other alike essence. A spectral thing that walks freely in this realm. That needs no bubble to fend off filaments of rife lifeforce. They talk at length. Of future and past. Of mistakes and triumphs. When she stuns away from another world and is in front of the mirror again, she lingers astare at her own reflection a while. A mirror. She thinks, bemused. My very own window into the Abyss. Wrought for me alone. For me only. Her digits clasp and in their own grip find a hilt. She looks down and poises her new blade. A gift. Her eyes glide along its thin, fragile edge. Eyes flounder over the scripture etched into the funnel. It is blightsteel. A weapon I perhaps will never draw. And yet he gave it freely. =+= Her lashes flutter. “It.. It can’t be…” She stammers out and there is a shock only half-feigned that paints her countenance. Eyes peeled, mouth agape. She is in a stone-hewn temple. Thick pillars uphold the roof, embroidered with curves of gems and other lush stones. Past them, looming at the walls, a myriad of shrines. Each with their own sigils and their own reverently placed tributes, and with broad stone tablets where a scant description of each deity reads. But in a circle that the pillars infringe, inside a recess there is another recess. It is like a basin at the chamber’s fulcrum. But where the rest of the floor is plastered with cerulean carpet, a pattern is threaded in red there. A great, sole eye. “Yes,” A sharp voice slices through her stupor. “Iblees. The thirteenth of Brathmordakin. A centerpiece. In front of everyone and yet hidden. A temple dedicated in truth to him.” A voice warbles with piety. She beholds that speaker and her strange composition. A once prophet whose mantle she is destined to claim. Once a head of clergy for perhaps decades. A hidden agent; a clandestine rock among rocks. Indeed, dust and grey mottle her skin like a festering rot, yet it doesn’t eat the flesh but petrifies it. She is a statue for a moment. Then her neck cranes and the stone cracks. Flakes of dust topple to the floor. “I am King’s daughter,” She told to Mordring then. “I will be your mouthpiece; your agent and shepherd among dwarves. I will make Xion proliferate.” She delved hither and spun lies upon lies to coax the High King of her uniqueness; to pave a path for her position as a High Priestess; the Prophet. She sought allies in all hides. But she didn’t expect to find it in Iblees; a culmination of what she strove against. Ruin: an effigy of Light. “You may be not merely wraith; but lord of wraiths.” A voice of King Beneath ripples. “You need only carve away your hesitance.” But she didn’t. Was it fate? She wonders, stalking the empty halls of the city’s depth. To the side, deep down in a steep ravine of this giant cavern, a molten river bubbles and flows viscously. Am I shadow in the fire, or am I ember amid dark? The answer doesn’t come to her at first, but the meditative gait, a quiet pad against the cobbled road that winds, sloping down and down and down, eventually brings thoughts to her. She glances to the right and stops. A spurt of lava bursts from the fiery river and its beads splatter across the shore’s stone. It hisses and turns black, while the residue slowly ebbs back into the channel. The answer comes so easy and so plain that it brings a smile over her lips that she fails to stifle. I like this. She thinks. I wallow in subterfuge, in a dance not of blade but of tongue. I have lived by this path and it brought me thus far. I simply like it. And I wouldn’t give it away for scraps of power. Not yet. =+= She blinks and sees herself in that old cave. She looks at herself; not at a reflection but as a reflection. She sees the forge that no longer burns. She sees the chests & barrels pilfered and broken. She sees braziers crushed on the ground, chains uselessly dangling above their corpses. She sees the library with arboreal shelves burnt and splintered, with books ripped to shreds and set aflame again so that only ash and scrap of ash remains. She looks at herself, bruised and wounded. One sleeve flaps emptily to her own frolic and flounder. There is no arm within. The other hand squirms and batters against glass. Streaks of sweat mar her forehead and going down mingle with rivulets of tears that sob from her pale eyes. But each strike is weaker than the last. Not only because her vigour wanes. But because despair throttles her. “Mordring!! Pampo?!!” She screams and whimpers. “Where are you?!” But there is only silence. Emptiness. “Anything!! I wll be anything! Your lowest servant, a ghoul or a ghost! Just don’t leave me here!!” But no one answers. Her already blood-sodden fist falls limp, deprived of strength to continue useless thrash against the mirror. She slumps down and her knees fall to the gold pattern she once chiseled into this very floor, and none who has ever come here noticed. Her eyes trace that giant contour; a great thing perhaps too difficult to make out in dim light & its size. Death. She reads a so familiar sigil of Material Alphabet. We meet it, in the end, alone. Memories concede and she is back to reality again. She is in a purlieu. Crones of a weald loom over her behind and cast deep shadows that elongate with each drawn breath. The sun is soon to sink. A strange beast is poised a distance overhead. A great serpent’s tail segues into a humanoid torso though only in shape. It is starkly red skin with turfs of onyx hair, jagging horns and a tryad of viridescent eyes. An uncanny moustache unbefitting a devil sticks out of his virulent face. A sneer prances on his face whence those green orbs leer out at the dwedess. Beside him a splay of carnage. The red blot is daubed with further surplus of viscera; a shape of pentacle. It reeks. Rot has long festered, though no carrion scavengers dared encroach. Not before a vile ritual, viler than the breath of death, is finished. In the midst of that wet & squelching sheen a dug chalice warbles with smog and estranged aura. Then it hisses. Tendrils shoot upward and mould slowly in a shape. It stretches into a cuneate image and then rives with lines. Scales of that foul fume shingle a viper’s head where two chasms gawk at the dwedess instead of eyes. A new shrill hiss beckons. “Come, child…” It whispers. “Claim your power.. O’ I have such great things in store for you.” So very most definitely a lie. She thinks then. It is what I’d said to my own lackeys. And yet the words skewer her deep. They fall like a verdant seed whence then a shrub and then a bough unfurls and jabs its limbs into her mind & soul. It poisons her. A time passes. A long while. Years where she labours and hoops over greater transgressions and yet greater gifts. There comes a day. A lie. Perhaps. Those gifts will not be given. They never are. They must be taken. =+= Stoic decrees. Her belligerent mind, wracked so plenarily by all kinds of feasible ailments, turns to other memories. To the Synod; through its many lives. To people she strode beside with. She? It was never she. Always a role. Always a mask. Has there ever been a truth? And there is the only answer. She is on the ground already, held, constricted. Already so close to falling apart. She weaseled through so many follies, by a frolick of fortune and a proliferating spew of deceit. But in the end they all come undone. They all become useless words stretched over a feeble canvas. In the end, only one thing holds through every other. Might is right.

Firelight flickers overhead. The heart-drum bangs thunderously in the ears. Muscles twinge with strain. A great ache spasms in an unbelonging orifice that skewers through the chest; bane of a stake. The back is sloughed; fissured; dug into. Blood slackly drools from those visceral wounds. The right arm is gnarled and not by design. Bone is broken, twisted- its ivory shards jag out from under the flesh. What pain.. What thrill!.. Sanguine smears a trail behind but a languid gait takes further. Deeper. Slouching walls crested with elaborate designs; draped over a flayed sheen or etched into its bulk. Tapestries. Chiseled statues. The shuddering glance passes over some deep gnash that zigzags across a wall. It takes many steps, turns, climbs and descents. But eventually the snug halls segue into vaster passages and then splay abruptly into voluminous expanse. A hanging castle looms above in eternal dusk. Below, a sacrilege stretches; squelching chunks of meat & flesh, bones entrailed and embloodied. Pyres of forever-smouldering cadavers fight off against the choking gloom. Sanguine splatters. The gait whittles at a vertiginous verge. When the bell had tolled, I knew what was coming. I was prepared. Yet still carnage had come. A triumph seized by a fraying thread. Haunches tense. Then the ground aways. Out into a freefall and then down-down-down. Air whistles around and then wheezes. Its skeins wring out with red laces and then unfurl in vanes. Beyond, in those fissures, manifold scapes are exhumed. One such sheen warbles out right underneath and it careers closer; or maybe the other way around. Calm of a cavern is left behind. Wailing skies and thundering rivers dislodge through downs and ups. Hills are embroiled in flames. There are no trees but the innumerable charred stumps. Gouts of lava burst from gurgling geysers. Molten carapaces flit along the surface, scorched limbs pouncing to and fro and bearing their haunched masters. They are big. But none are bigger than the greatest bears that once roamed Eos and Aos. One of those loathsome shapes prowls a crook of magma, snout held low to the ground. Air sighs, singing. The ground encloses swiftly in the freefall. Then a quail. A scream. Claws rip through a fallen quarry. Its blood-slick flesh unravels to the grips of horrid fangs. Other beasts outlook at their ruptured brother. Growl. But daren’t encroach. When hunger quells space-wounds embed around again, bloating until they are big enough. Weak are many. A new world unfurls. A kingdom of desolate frozeland. Mountains of cresting snow stretch in every direction. Gales prowl in the skies, seething and howling in amuck squirms and dances. Blood bristles and paints the stark white red. Afar there is a single unruly shape. Some meagre abomination unfortunate enough to stumble across this territory. The crystalline ground beneath it churns. Collapses. Out spews a surreal dark shape. The wanderer vanishes in its great shadow-swathes. Then gleams freckle in it. Eyes that search for other prey. The air crackles. Another fold of reality spits around and the familiar cavern is back. There is always a bigger game; a greater predator.

I want more templar buffs

I stand by the point that said st need better brainpower for reading. Anyway. *explodes you with mindbeam

True. It won't kill me. I don't really mind the amendment especially since I've been unawaringly using the full-count all the time kekw. However- It takes [2] emotes to cast crunch. One of congealing the maleus, and one for actually crunching into the target. If any ST looked over this redline's wording and went "yeah erhm its vague enough to be overwritten by a random 1 sentence somewhere in the beginning" then I with love recommend getting some more brainpower and its not even about aknowledging this as cheese. Its just about an ability to read. (Granted, maybe this redline was amended such after a mishaped ruling, so maybe my castigation is nulled) Also. I will return. One day.

Ngl bro if you were using crunch in [1] emote you were powergaming. The spell in of itself is written pretty clear. You charge maleus into limb / teeth, you attack in the next emote. Connection DOES NOT make your entire body always enhanced by maleus. Not sure what to say about the rest of innate abilities. I can see the logic being that in them you have to first call forth ruin (which is what i view grimoireless connection as) and then expulse it in some form. Also, every other ability except [devour] is non-combative. I don't see a reason to force their emote count big. Also, I had no idea this bit even existed in the lore. Thank you for pointing it out. I can be more whimsical with my emotes now

Enfolded in shifting hues a certain elf overhears the rumours of the state's unfurlment. Vitrious things clink. Baubles bubble. He readies a new garment.

Azulon, a nameless, scrawls his share down. ((_Zonty))

Ӄ¤ȶɦ¤ӄαᵲψᵲչɦ [Kothokaryrzh] Conceived not as a brute militia whose focus bends on quantity over quality, but an order that sermonizes a tryad of Maehr gifts endowed by history both forlorn and merry. Grace, for in its absence we are scarcely beyond mory; barbaric brutes. Passion, for it is only the surplus of flame from within through which the tasks so arduous might be withstood. Ambition, for only by this virtue true vertigo of valiancy & expertise can be attained. From a seed sown, two distinct limbs branchiate from the roots of Gloomguard. It is Duty, the passive fealty & responsibility of each of the Gloomguardians, alive and awake in every road one might trek. It is Missions, the active manifestation of strife that is expectant of Gloomguards; it is their contribution to quests & pursuits bestown in fringes of the Order, be it with intent of external accomplishment or inner triumph. The Gloomguard is determination & devotion. It is the inner fortitude required to put oneself at risk of wounds and undoings, it is the perseverance to endure the training & hardships of quests. It is a successor by right and principle to Lunar Crusaders or “Keepers of Moonlight” that had been protectors and agents of Helun-Velulaeyael on the banks of Almaris. The first relevant adoption is the distinction of ethos; The Sins Chaotic The Sins Chaotic are a three-runged ladder of those beyond Mother Moon’s light. They are Geyonel (the Distant), Moryel (the Deranged) and Kalteyel (the Damned) respectively. Each category is of increased severity and should be dealt with as such by Gloomguard. Most fallen individuals fit in multiple rungs on the ladder, in which case the higher sin always supersedes the lesser; a murderer who practices void magic will always be treated as a murderer first, despite Mother-Moon’s indifference to sorcery. Geyonel Beings beyond Mother-Moon’s light, which she and Ythaenel - in accordance with the Sixth Creed - have little positive nor negative regard for. It is expected of Gloomguard to treat these beings as no different than their fellow descendants. This includes (but is not limited to) orderly alchemists and voidal magi, ythael, templars, shorewalkers, followers of other gods and schools of thought not meant to harm mankind, natural non-Maehr descendants, peaceful souls, clockmen, golems, voidal constructs and other bewitched objects. Moryel Beings which contradict the cause of Light, or Mother-Moon directly, whose existence threatens the divine Order, Purity and Guardianship by causing direct or indirect harm to mortalkind. It is expected of ythaenzh to attempt to reason with (and if necessary, punish) these beings and return them to Order and that have proven themselves past saving are to be destroyed. This includes (but is not limited to) disorderly alchemists and voidal magi, azulite malyker, oathbreaker ythaenzh, criminals (subject to the laws of the land), beastmen, blood mages, corpses raised in undeath (through magic, alchemy, the gods or otherwise), shamans which serve the House of Troubles, mutants and beings cursed or diseased with wickedness such as devils and curable vampires. Kalteyel Beings who are as consequences of their actions or very existence anathema, which cannot co-exist with the divine Order, Purity and Guardianship Mother-Moon’s warriors uphold. It is expected of Gloomguard to rid the world of these beings by all means not contradictory to A’Velythel Ythe. This includes (but is not limited to) morykuessyr, aberrations and horrors of alchemy and the void, incurable vampires, werewolves, frost witches, zombies, necromancers, shades, causeless murderers, warmongers, anarchists, demons, demonologists, crazed souls, disorderly undead and servants of the dark gods Xenu, Nemys, Yxul, Azdromoth and Ykara. Duty The Dogmas are a prize bequeathed by the predecessor, Lunar Crusaders. History is a thing to be treasured; the accruement of the past is to be sustained and further moulded; not discarded. For this reason scarcely are there any new implementations in the creed. I. Yyrul Guuzt Kreobrax It is a conviction to control one’s emotion and stifle the bloodlust, smothering the melody of anger, fear and hatred. There is no beauty in murder, nor honour in aggression. A gloomguard may defend their home, their superiors and the meek, though to engage in wars of conquest is to relish in senseless violence. It is forbidden for a keeper of the creed to strike out in pride or anger without justifiable cause but to sate their own Derangement. II. Urezdzh bo Ythaen The Gloomguard is forbidden from raising arms against fellow Oathkeepers. That is to say it is forbidden to raise arms against all soldiers of the Light, such as shamans and priests of Maehr, as well as even those beyond the Moon-Mother’s reach, such as authorised enforces of just law in their own lands and other champions of the Light like templars & clerics. The sole exception to this is when one has strayed from one’s path to the extent of embracing Derangement. III. Ythaen Syex Moryel The Gloomguard are to use their gifts for the furtherance of their duty. Their service is not dictated by coin, glory, nor other pursuits of the self. These are the ways of the passionate ythael, not the stoic ythaen. IV. Dravyn Xyel Moryel The Gloomguard is forbidden from fraternising with the Deranged and the Damned. To witness these characters without intervention - violent or diplomatic - is cowardice. To aid these characters’ heinous goals is treachery. To lay with the Damned is Derangement in of itself, to be answered with extermination. V. Kaxek Lanuel All ythaenzh are to remember their place as protectors of the Maehr and enactors of Mother-Moon’s will; this truth is theirs though not applicable to all races nor even all malyker. All were given tongues to speak and minds to think for themselves, and it is forbidden for Gloomguards to raise arms against or seek to harm others on differences of religion or philosophy like the Deranged of yore. To violently suppress ideas is sin in of itself, the sole exception being to silence those advocating harm upon mortalkind or the dark gods which have been proven to seek harm upon mortalkind such as Xenu. VI. Yrath Kerov All ythaenzh recognise Law and its sister, Civilisation, as the children of Order and the natural progression of the Moon-Mother’s will. Anarchy is heresy. Society is mortalkind’s greatest achievement, and must be sustained at all costs lest Chaos take the world. Unjust treason as well as tyrannical or apathetic leadership are equal sins against Helun-Velulaeyael herself, and - like Purity and Guardianship - the contentment of the masses as well as the grace of sovereignty are to be respected and, where possible, preserved. VII. Tom Uhv'velul Ky’axat All ythaenzh are expected to enact the Moon-Mother's will as her soldiers, judges and - where necessary - executors. The Kaltey are to be eradicated. The Mory are to be tried. The Geyon are to be guided. The Maehr are to be saved. Mortalkind is to be protected. This creed can only be overlooked when ythaenzh aeth yelyth risk bringing greater harm to innocents by acting on it. If the odds are stacked against onself and there is no opportunity for tact or the upperhand, self-preservation becomes secondary to justice. Missions Katasule, Kernunule, Training Hunting In squandering lies the seed of Not all threats come from demise. In squalor we remain leoyna; descendants. Some only if we refuse to amend it. emerge in the wealds and But even the greatest warriors corries, the precarious & learnt were once mere predators that roam the apprentices, and it is in training continent. And even still, both wit and muscle, this mission not all are threats in of manifests. It favours diligence themselves. Sometimes, and patients, for few of the there is merely a need of a ripe fruits unfurl fast. harvest: bounty of meat to be brought in, to feed the hungry. In this is the essence of this mission Berbazule, Morlynule, Scouting Fighting Not all missions conclude in wroth Such is the fate that in the end of a battle. Sometimes only to battles are inevitable. Fights garner intel is a greatest boon. that are borne nor of self- A prize that can stifle a perhaps improvement in a friendly needless bloodshed, or simply spar, nor a serene pursuit of grant a necessary edge over food-garnering. Against vermin adversaries. This strife prefers that threaten the Maehr, be they secrecy to lure out the desired foulspawn or other detested ilk, knowledge, and self-preservation, these missions are oft the most for there are few news dangerous & treacherous, but that a deadman can deliver. necessary nonetheless. [!] Evidently there are two more entries that have been inscribed here, but for reasons unbeknownst the depictions were scorched away, and the words beneath crossed over and over, leaving little beyond but a smudge of ash & ink. Structure As a rule of thumb, The Gloomguard is ruled not by an iron fist but by a shared wisdom and respect. Seldom are there true orders issued, but rather suggestions brought to peers in quest. Despite, a certain hierarchy still exists. Chiefly, those of higher rank bear greater respect and thus their words are heeded more carefully. The only two exceptions are the highest ranks, who, in the sake of preserving structure and Order itself, retain an authority to punish disobedience, though are not outright bound to; one’s own enthusiasm may be prized, if applied at the right moment. Voad-kavytel, The High Roles Vulerana The Guide of Maehr. Their safety is most prized, and their utterings most revered & followed. Their opinion is an echo of Moon-Mother herself, and by their aid will the Maehr triumph. To disobey them is to turn astray of the culture; a feat valued only when twined with utmost caution and in accordance to the rest of the Six Gifts. Udax Thyone The leader of people; heart of Maehr. Their work is of utmost importance to preserve the dynamics of matters more trivial, though in sum no less important. Their word is in likeness to power of Vulerana, though it is usual that their opinion goes hand-to-hand, for the Progress and unity are shepherded still foremost by culture. Dasenulu The head of Gloomguard, tasked with its upkeep and proliferation. It is a burdensome duty, to keep the rest in check, and ensure the integrity of the Order. For this reason he or she is afforded authority just below the other two ranks, capable of enacting adjustments in the very structure of the Order and delivering directives that must be pursued; though it is the last forefront, to which one shall resort only when truly needed. Naryxy The elite force of Gloomguard; those who have proven their skill & devotion to the cause. To oppose their bidding, though not forbidden, is oft consequent to awry repercussions, for if they intend pursuing something in a certain way, there likely stands a reason behind it. To do otherwise is to invite trouble. չʊɮ ȶɛʅ ɠðψ. ʋ¤ռ αᛪɦ ʂɮʊȶɠ. ɠɛʅ¤ ψչʊɮ ʋȶαᛪ. ӄðռʂ ɦʋɮ ȶʊαψ. αᵲɮ ɠʊʅ չʂɦɛ. ȶɠðʋ ψɮռ¤ ʂαɦɛ. ɦɛʅʋ չɠʊᵲ αψ¤ɮ. ʂɮʊȶɠ ʋɛðɦ չ¤ռαψ. ȶʊɮʋ ɦɛψ¤. չᵲαʂ ɠðӄʅ. ɠɛʋɦ չռȶʊ ʂαψɮ. ӄʋɠ¤ ʂɮαðɦ. αψɦʋ ɮɛȶ¤. ʋɠðռ չʂɮʊ. ɦαᛪʋ ȶɮɛψ. ¤ʂɠʊ ɦðռɮ. Blahun-kavytel, The Common Roles Okeryma The agents who have proven themselves in mettle of expertise or passion time and time again. The most respected & wise of the rungs that balance on the fringe of normalcy. For their attrition, upon the ceremony of their assumption, they are awarded with a personal piece of ammunition, tailored to achievements & strengths of the individual. There are seldom two prizes alike. Aakomkha The Gloomguard that evinced either fidelity or exceptional ability during the daring time. Through their perseverance or perhaps a grand talent, they showed themselves to be outstanding from the flock. As a sign of their diligence, they are rewarded with Keraeulu, the night’s boon, during the rite of their accession. It is a piece of jewelry or other adornment, though varying in colour & shape, always possessing a crescent, encrusted or by some other manner outlined with moon-hued pulchritude Ythehk The Maehr who gathered enough dedication in themselves to join the Gloomguard. They endured the Rite of Oath and became true members, ready to partake in missions and upkeep their duties. As a sign of their conviction they are given a bokolo feather, to be worn anywhere on their person. Though fresh in skin, they are the seed that will eventually jag into the firmaments, should they only hold enough passion & ambition.

Past the verdant & wilted crones, past undulating hills, through meadows and wealds a corvid rides upon a wind. This day brought a strange breath -- a gale that ushers the bird to scapes he never wandered before. He passes a steep cliff and his glazed eye catches an odd glint. He adjusts his feathers and flexes his muscle; a minimum effort but effort enough to swerve. He discovers a fracture in stoic stone, landing on a ledge at its precipice. From outside, scarcely anything the little bird manages to descry. Curiousity wins him over and he lobs himself through the chasm & into the unknown. He brings with his entry a wind, his wings disturbing a stale air. Dust rolls along the floor of the chamber. His onyx glance roves along the intricacy splaying beneath him, while the only sound reverberating throughout the cavern is the flap of his wings. He discerns in the twilight unbreaking beneath a canopy of stone a flourished design wrought not by a nature's hand. Rock, different from what comprises the cave, moulded to strange shapes, and with strange patterns chiseled in their countenance. The wind churns. No. It is not just a zephyr anymore that unsettles the air. There is a breath aloft; a reeking taint. There is graveyard beneath the corvid, though he does not know it. The stone screeches. By instinct, the critter bolts. Thrashing with his wings he reaches the escape. But before his lithe form weasels through it a viridiscent light overwhelms the cavern. The bird is not quick enough to loose a simple caw. For a moment, there is only darkness. Then the green aether wakes again, and something scrapes. But it is not stone against stone now, but a leisure gait. A plap of ivory -- of bone -- upon the cracked rock. A pale figure -- now distinctly visible in the colours writhing around his wretched form. He wakes, from his ancient tomb. POP..! A new emerald flash and he is gone; departed from a prison that once sealed him. An evil let loose.

The following is a small vision to which the remainder of the post is a consequence [!] Along the sites of men and elf, dwarf and orc alike, papers start appearing nailed to the boards. A curt message though the drawing is bequeathed a courtesy of skill [See the following spoiler to avoid reading scrawly letters] I seek across lands of men: with-in and with-out, the masters of arcane artisanry that the wise dub the Old Dark and the younger name the Void. That which the too ignorant or too ambitious fear, and which only emboldened by courage but stayed by steeled heart dare to wield despite. Seek me, in a camp of malyker north-east of Aldruun, or pen a letter to my name: I am Azulon and I strive to master those intricate secrets; to wield the power of elements in my grasp.