The Story So Far....

[cardinalsin]

Having run out of leads to the underground manse, Azir Fox and Raiden did the obvious thing: they went underground. This was something like looking for a very small needle in the world's biggest haystack. Nevertheless, Fox's nose detected hints of underground mineral seams that might lead in the right direction - but with no indication of where the entrance might be the three were no further on.

Their best hope was to make a deal with a friendly elemental and go from there. But they would need something to barter with. So it was that Raiden went in search of some disposable jade. Contemplating likely sources, a number of places occurred to him which would present little challenge. Discounting these, a more interesting target presented itself; the Realm's embassy. Such a place would undoubtedly have a vault with enough wealth to cover the necessary expenses.

Raiden made a scouting trip under perhaps the poorest cover story ever invented: celebrity-spotting. For the head of the embassy was none other than Ragara Abassus, a powerful scion of the Ragara dynasty. Having gathered the necessary information, he crept into the embassy cloaked by the charms of the night caste.

The place was a veritable hive of activity, and with the added concern that no small number of the workers might prove to be dragon-blooded. Including, of course, Abassus. Raiden resolved to wait until the place was shut up for the night before proceeding further.

It was several hours later, in the wee small hours, that Raiden finally lost patience. Though most of the staff had gone home for the night, his keen senses could still hear the interminable scratching of quill on papyrus from a nearby office, not to mention the sound of what must surely be Abassus from the floor above. It would not be possible to enter the vault and leave without risking one of them seeing him. Did these people never sleep? It began to occur to him that perhaps they did not. This would perhaps have been a good time to leave, and return refreshed in the morning.

Raiden investigated some of the empty offices, and found what he suspected must be the alarm system for the vault. Disabling it with ease, he made his way to the vault entrance. Deep in the heart of one of the upper floors, the vault would not be easy to escape from if the alarm were to be raised. Raiden opened the door with a flourish of essence, and opened the door. So far, so good. He stepped across the threshold.

As alarm bells screamed out above and below the vault door, adrenaline tore through Raiden's body and his senses came alive. Heavy footsteps were already approaching from several directions. The vault was a literal treasure-trove, with fancy armour, weapons and piles of jade. Sadly none of it very portable. Raiden snatched a couple of swords and sprinted out of the vault, coming to a dead halt as he heard the footfalls of an approaching clerk around the corner. An instant before the clerk rounded the corner, Raiden vanished, standing stock-still and invisible.

The clerk paced into the vault and Raiden sprang into action again - he was almost out of the building when he sensed the approach of others from the floor above. Abassus. He froze again, invisible. Fortunately, while stationary he could remain completely undetectable for an indefinite period, as long as nobody actually bumped into him.

Then one of the small crowd of dragonbloods now gathered outside the vault did something odd. He planted his feet together, closed his eyes, and felt. Raiden stood silently, his senses razor sharp as he listened for the slightest indication he had been detected. He could scarcely believe it when, as a drop of sweat from his brow struck the ground, he dragonblood gasped in reaction, and he heard the group start to move in his direction. Somehow they had detected him.

Raiden didn't wait for them to round the corner - he raced towards freedom. As he neared his exit, a figure seemed to literally fly towards him from the direction of the vault, preparing to hurl a storm of shuriken his way. It would only take one wound to slow Raiden enough that he could not escape. As the dragonblood wound up for the throw, Raiden wove a flare of dazzling essence that entranced his would-be assailant just long enough for him to get out of sight and round the next corner.

He did not wait to see if the rest were catching him up. As he neared the stairwell leading down to freedom, he realised that he needed to get out a little faster if he was to survive the night, and threw himself at a nearby window, swords outstretched to smash the glass. He sprang out into the night and landed in a crouch, as the mortal guards who waited outside shouted in alarm at his arrival.

Raiden tore out of the embassy compound, running straight up and over the surrounding wall, as four dragonbloods came after him. Abassus physically smashed through the wall of the embassy, bursting into the night like a juggernaut, as two somewhat subtler companions followed Raiden's route at unbelievable speeds, and a fourth figure emerged from the roof of the building to follow Raiden across the rooftops.

Raiden dashed towards his only hope of salvation - the nearby river. If he could reach the river, he might be able to hide in its dark waters for long enough to escape. Weaving skeins of distracting essence about him as he fled, he threw himself towards the river with every muscle-fiber tingling. Not looking back, he leaped into the dark waters, twisting in the air and finally plunging into the water, where he abruptly became still, unbreathing, and invisible.

Despite Raiden's efforts to slow them, the four were mere seconds behind him and crashed into the waters around him. But Raiden's stillness was enough to fool Death himself. After half an hour of searching, the pursuers gave up and left, leaving Raiden to soggily slosh his way home, damp but elated. He had secured the jade the party needed, but more importantly, he had thumbed his nose at death and emerged victorious.

[Blackrat]

[My next DB char is so coming from House McDudeson.]

[bravesirrobin]

[The name of the DB who ran the embassy was Ragara Abassus]

[cardinalsin]

We had travelled by boat down the river to the mysterious island where Zaph's fey mother made her home. As we approached the island's location, a great mist swelled around us. Though we made our landing successfully, we were lost. We had been warned this might occur - visitors find themselves turned around or wander for hours without success. Perhaps it was luck, or destiny, that prevented us from meeting the same fate. [Grey Wolf] led the way and under his direction, after walking blindly for what seemed like hours, we finally stumbled upon a vast green valley, lush with burgeoning jungle. From our vantage point, we could see an enormous tree, larger than the tallest tower in Nexus, like something out of myth. We knew that this must be the heart of the faery queen's realm.

We made our way through the jungle, towards the titanic tree. The mood of the group was strange, and though we didn't realise it at the time, this was not coincidence, but caused by some of the strange flowers which grow in this realm. (I later retrieved some of the flowers for Azir, in the hope he could make something of them.) As I found myself unable to control a playful surge of exuberant energy within myself, Kairos seemed to fall the other way, becoming dour and irritable. As we progressed, we sensed we were being watched, though we could not identify by whom.

Finally we arrived at the tree, which seemed even more colossal than it had even from a distance. Woven into its trunk was a spiral walkway that wended its way up into the higher boughs. It was at this point - naturally enough - that I determined that a race was in order. I sprinted up the walkway calling for the others to follow.

I arrived at the top well ahead of the others. (They later claimed they were not taking part in the race, but there was a whiff of sour grapes about that story.) High in the branches of the great tree the fey had built a village, and at the heart, at the end of a broad boulevard, I could see a great palace. So of course, I continued my run towards the palace. As I ran, I saw ranks of faery folk observing me from nearby, cheering me on as I proceeded.

I arrived at the palace, where I met the faery queen, Blantagiel, for the first time. No words I could use could ever describe her unearthly beauty. Greeting the queen, I joined the court in raucously celebrating our arrival in the realm. However, our celebrations were interrupted.

Angry voices rang out from the boulevard outside. As I rushed to determine the source, I recognised the savage snarls as the voice of Ferric. As I arrived, I saw Ferric unconscious on the floor, with Grey Wolf and Kairos stood over him. I could barely get a word out of them at the time, but over the next few days I pieced together what had happened. It seems something had touched a nerve in Ferric, but instead of the usual dour reaction something snapped inside him and he flew into an incontrolled rage. It took physically beating him into unconsciousness to stop him from gutting the fey as they watched.

I was not there to witness it, but this incident rattled me badly. Ferric's behaviour is reminiscent of the dark heart of the Solars that I have dreamed of, which brought down their old empire. The thought of that darkness remaining within us all, chills my soul.

Despite all this, disaster was averted. We returned to the queen, and she told us of the reality that underpinned Kairos's dream. It seems that the queen was something of a renegade from her people, refusing to abide by their ideology. For that, they wished to destroy her, and take her realm as a foothold in the world. But for reasons unexplained, they had agreed that if, once in a generation, a chosen Night Caste could retrive one egg from a Behemoth that makes its lair in the Eastern wyld lands, they would leave her realm undisturbed. That was my oath to swear - that I would retreive the egg or die trying. But where would the challenge have been in doing something that my predecessors have already done over and over?

So it is that I have sworn to bring back ten eggs from the creature. I'm just disappointed I couldn't haggle her any higher.

Before we left, Blantagiel showed each of us a pool that she keeps far out on the thinnest branches of the great tree. In it, one can view many things, portents of the future, perhaps. Grey Wolf glimpsed his sword through the pool, and that was to be our next quest. I looked for the ship from my dream, and received an inkling of its location - but I kept that quiet. After all I had seen, I was still not prepared to divulge everything to the others.

After recuperating at Blantagiel's palace, we returned to Nexus. Our next step would be to go in search of Grey Wolf's sword.

[cardinalsin]

The journey to find Grey Wolf's sword was long, exhausting and demoralising. The Wyld was like Blantagiel's realm, but wilder and stranger, as though the laws of nature were beginning to fall apart at the seams. Zaph at times seemed to know where he was going, but at other times it seemed as though we were walking in circles, or worse, convoluted loops that went nowhere.

The wildlife of the Wyld is equally strange. We encountered a pack of ape-like creatures, hulking things with long, ropey limbs. At least, that is how they looked from a distance. Up close, their nature became clearer; bereft of skin, their internal organs hanging loosely outside their bodies, and with poisonous snakes for tails. Having beaten back the first lot without too much difficulty we found ourselves confronted by a second group, led by a gargantuan version of their kind. Although we did not escape from the fight unscathed it was Zaph who took the worst of it, and would perhaps have died if Grey Wolf had not summoned a Bottle Bug, a demon of sorts, who healed us of our wounds and brought Zaph back from the brink. We had to bargain hard to even get that - the creature wanted us to escort it back to creation, an unacceptable price. As it is we agreed to let it go unharmed, a deal we may yet come to regret.

To say that Zaph's near-death experience rattled us would be an understatement. Apart from our growing personal connection to him, without his skills we would stand no chance of finding Grey Wolf's sword, or more importantly returning to creation. From that point on we became rather more cautious in seeking to protect Zaph from harm.

After the experience with the ape-things, we encountered another example of the mind-altering properties of the Wyld. A sunlit glade, a place of soft grass and cool waters where we could rest, seemed like a great boon given how weary we were. But as it turned out, these comforts were of a more sinister nature, supernatural mind-clouding things which could easily have kept us there forever if Grey Wolf had not managed to shake off the effects and shake us out of our malaise.

Our journey ended in a vast underground maze, which we stumbled into and found ourselves unable to escape from. Kairos and I became separated from Grey Wolf through chance, and soon became lost in the confines of the place. As we wandered the labyrinth, it became apparent that it was no ordinary maze, but that it was changing its configuration as we moved through it, so that even retracing our steps or leaving markers for ourselves became impossible. We tried endless tricks to outwit this fiendish trap, but I am still uncertain how we ever escaped from it. In the end, Kairos and I had almost given up entirely. We wandered for hours on end, possibly even days.

One unexpected benefit of being lost together for hours was that we were able to get to know each other better, and talk out some of the doubts that have been plaguing us, and me in particular, over these last months. I admit that I am still somewhat suspicious of Kairos's methods at times, and I remain concerned that he has less taxing moral limits than the rest of us. But I am convinced that his aims are worthy, and that he is at heart a good man. A good man in need of guidance, perhaps.

In the end we seemed to come upon the centre of the maze almost by chance. As we rounded a corner we heard the ring of steel on steel and we hastened forward. We had arrived just in time, for we found Grey Wolf locked in a duel with a faery knight, a duel he was losing. In the end only the three of us fighting back to back were able to defeat the fey guardian. And in defeating the guardian, we claimed the sword.

[cardinalsin]

Having recovered Grey Wolf's sword, we embarked upon the second leg of our journey, to fulfil my oath to Blantagiel. At this point we were weary, and seriously considered returning to Nexus to recuperate before continuing. In the end we concluded that we should proceed, though none of us relished the prospect.

We made it some distance before encountering trouble. We had come upon a prodigious wall, scaleable only by climbing the vines which hung down the height of it. Fearing the consequences should one of us fall, we tied ourselves to the vines and made our way upward with caution. We were more exposed than we knew, as after an hour's climbing, at a dizzying height, we were set upon by a trio of immense spiders.

We defended ourselves, hacking away at the beasts while avoiding balls of acidic webbing with which they sought to pin us down. Once again it was Zaph who fell victim to this and might have died unless I had freed him. In doing so, I exposed myself to danger and in turn had to be rescued by Kairos. All the while the spiders continued to attack, and were reinforced by a swarm of smaller spiders which crawled under Kairos' armour.

We survived the attack alright, but proceeded only warily, and as it became apparent that there was still much climbing to do we elected to rest while still tied to the vines. I cannot remember a less restful night, which is saying something given recent events.

In the morning we continued, and after another hour of climbing found ourselves at the top of the enormous edifice, and faced with a cohort of fey nobles. They challenged us - not, apparently, to prevent us from proceeding with our quest, which was guaranteed against interference by ancient compact - but to demand that Grey Wolf yield his sword. To allow him to pass bearing it would be a grave insult to them, or so they said. From what I can glean of the history of the blade, used by Grey Wolf's predecessors to wage war on the fey and kill them in great numbers, I can understand their position.

Grey Wolf's protestations that he would not draw his blade fell on deaf ears, and despite the best diplomatic efforts of Kairos - through the medium of storytelling, which allegedly appeals to the fey, they refused to give ground. In the end, Grey Wolf was forced to agree to bind his sword in <I actually can't remember what happened. I vaguely recall the sword being sent to Elsewhere using some kind of special fey gossamer stuff, but can't remember how we were supposed to get it back...>

Having resolved the stand-off, albeit not exactly to our satisfaction, we made our way to the other side of what proved to be a wall as impressive in its breadth as it was in its height. On the other side, a huge valley filled with lush jungle spread out before us, a great river at its heart. The sheer wall lacked any helpful vines to carry us down to the valley floor; but to our astonishment the valley itself was spanned by enormous vines, too large and uneven to be traversed at speed, but strong enough for each to carry two of us. Judging by the downward slope of these vines, we surmised that the opposite wall of the valley must be lower and perhaps a more easy location to descend from, and so we continued our precarious journey high above the valley floor.

We should perhaps have realised that, in the words of the great eclipse caste, "what can go wrong, will probably turn out to be the least of your worries". Halfway across the valley, a flock of what can only be described as metal bird-things swooped upon us. We did our best to fight back, despite the inevitable problem that they could put themselves beyond our reach at will. I do not know who would have eventually emerged victorious - but the combat did not last, as Kairos attempted to mount one of the creatures - and found himself spiralling towards a watery death.