OOC (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=91277.0) Characters (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=91546.0)<br/><br/><div align="center">The Town</div><br/>It is late May in the year 2006 AD it is a Friday and the big excitement in the town of Haddersville is the high school prom being held at the high school tonight. The whole town of just over 6000 people seems to be helping to celebrate the young people’s big night. Even the only large company in the town, the Servantine Steel Manufacturing Company has sent all 1500 hundred employees home early, at least half of which are from the town. Many other small businesses have either closed or are staying open extra hours for the festivities. The air is filled with an almost electric excitement that can be sensed by the drivers just passing through on the state highway that doubles as the main street in the town’s center.<br/><br/>Much of the town’s population has turned out to see their young adults dressed in the tuxedos and fancy gowns. Hundreds of are out side the school building waiting for the dance to officially to start. The air is filled with laughter and joyous voices, as well as an almost constant brightness from the flashing of so many cameras being used. Finally a distinguished looking middle aged gentleman wearing a few years out of style tux, opens the doors to the large gymnasium converted into a dance floor and seating area, with a temporary stage set to one side. On the stage are a podium with microphone, and a live band of six young musicians. Next to the stage is a live DJ station for when the band needs a break. There are already several professional photographers waiting to take pictures of the young partygoers.<br/><br/>After the sun has set in the west and the night has fully come to the town, the excitement in the school is high. The time to announce this year’s Prom king and queen has finally arrived. After the announcement and the introductions, the lights are lowered and a slow romantic song starts coming from the speakers filling the large room with its wonderful notes. The king leads the queen to the center of the dance floor to begin the traditional slow dance. They only dance for a few moments alone before most of the couples have joined them on the dance floor. Just as the song nears its end, there is a blinding light from every direction outside the building and the lights go completely out and the music stops as all power is lost in the school.<br/><br/>Panic begins to set in, but the battery operated emergency lighting comes on. Flashes of light can still be seen coming in all the windows. As people rush out of the school and look into the sky, they see what looks like lightning cascading down the edge of an invisible doom covering the entire town and good portion of the surrounding countryside. When the lightshow stops all is dark in town with exception of automobile headlights, there is no electricity any where in town.<br/><br/><br/><div align="center">The Soldier</div><br/>Kyle Flanagin slowly rides his big Harley motorcycle past the high school seeing the multitude of people milling around outside just shortly before sunset and before the doors are opened. He smiles to himself as his emerald green eyes glaze over and he tries to think back to his prom night here, but the smile fades as the memory does not come, he cannot even remember his dates name. He thinks she was just some cheerleader he asked simply to keep from going alone, they actually spent very little time together and she went home with somebody else. He revs the engine, pops the clutch and races away from the school with a squealing of rubber on pavement. It was just a few weeks after that disappointing event that his life really changed. He knew that he was never going to get into any college, for his grades had never been high enough to get him a scholarship, and he had not been on the football or basketball team, so was not going to get an athletic one either. His parents would never be able pay for it, so he enlisted in the army. He went straight to basic training, and from there into ranger training. Then soon found himself in a war in the desert. When his term of enlistment was up he reenlisted not knowing what else to do with his life. He wonders why of all times to be sent home for three weeks of leave, they would choose now, putting him at home at the time of the prom to bring back his less than happy memories.<br/><br/>Kyle rides his motorcycle around aimlessly until well after sunset, he has circled the out skirts of Haddersville several times. He decides that he wants to get a drink and maybe a little something else too, so he heads out of town to a bar that is frequented by fellow bikers and the women that are attracted to men who ride big motorcycles. As he is heading away from town he is suddenly blinded by an incredibly bright flash of light directly in front of him. It is like a solid wall of white brilliance. He hits the brakes hard and turns the bike sideways, and slides into the ditch. The motorcycle hits the dirt and grass and slows even more, and he is thrown off into the tall grass and standing water in the ditch alongside the highway. His combat training and reflexes take over and despite being unable to see, he is able land with only minor scratches and bruises.<br/><br/>Kyle pulls himself out of the water and just lays in the grass hoping his eyesight will return soon. It only takes a few moments for his vision to begin to return, he can not be sure if the lightning cascading down so close to is really there or just his eyes still playing tricks, fore there is no thunder with it. He still has multicolored spots dancing in his vision when the lightning stops. He allows his vision to clear a little more before attempting to stand. When he finally does stand he looks down the road back towards the town and sees nothing but darkness, the town is completely blacked out. He looks the other way, the way he had been heading, and sees trees? The road does not curve here, why are there standing trees in the road? He walks to the end, yes the end, of the road. It just ends. There is about a two foot drop where the road ends. The edge is as smooth as glass, not like it was cut, but more ultra cleanly removed.<br/><br/>As Kyle stands at the edge of the pavement, motion catches his alert eyes. A figure about the size of a child, but wearing what looks like leaves, clambers on bare feet up onto to the road just a few feet from him. It glances at him briefly with over large eyes that sparkle with an internal light of their own. Its face is very angular, with an almost pointed nose, hair is an uncombed but not tangled mass of what looks like corn silk long enough to be touching the ground as she crotches on the asphalt with long narrow three fingered hand laying on it near her feet. There is a noise in the darkness, her head snaps to look and exposes one very long very pointed ear. She suddenly darts across the road and through the ditch and seems to vanish into the darkness heading towards town.<br/><br/>Kyle’s attention is drawn back to the area beyond where his world has ended, as more noise can be heard. Some thing large or even several some things large is rapidly coming this way. Three horrible looking brutes crash out of the forest and hit their legs full onto the unexpected wall in their path. They look like something out of one those mutant biker movies, or a low budget fantasy flick. They stand well over six feet tall and are at least three and half feet wide at the shoulders. They look like they are wearing very crudely tanned and roughly stitched together animal hides for clothing. Their skin is thick and lumpy and looks like it might have a sick greenish tint to it. Their heads are virtually bald with the exception of a few very thick ugly looking individual hairs sticking out of random spots. Their ears are big green and also pointed. The teeth in their open maws are jagged and broken and rotted. One of these mutants is carrying a very large if poorly fashioned battleaxe, another is carrying an equally poor quality and equally large sword. The third was carrying a rather well made long sword, which seems too small for the brute’s large hands, which may have something to do with why it was dropped when its wielder fell onto his face on the pavement.<br/><br/>Not having any other weapons with him and knowing this was not going to go well, Kyle dives for and grabs the dropped sword. His hand wraps around the hilt as he tumbles at the end of the dive and rolls back onto his feet facing the ugly creatures. The one with the axe reacts first, climbing to its feet, its black eyes lock on Kyle. A loud roar erupts from its open mouth as it charges with axe raised up over its grotesque head. It is a clumsy attack, which Kyle easily avoids and launches an attack of his own. Stepping to the side of the downward swinging axe, he thrusts the point of his sword into belly and chest of his attacker. The blade easily and cleanly cuts through the thick skin and hides like a hot knife through butter and juts out the beast’s back.<br/><br/>Seeing that the sword wielding brute is just as eager to attack, Kyle pulls on the sword with all of his strength, hoping to pull it free of the dieing body it is embedded in. To his great surprise, the blade slides free as easily as it went in. It is covered in a very dark almost black thick substance, which brings to his mind more the word icor, then blood. The ease at which the blade comes free, throws him off balance briefly, but also causes the in coming sword swing to miss as well. Quickly regaining his balance, he spins around and slashes the sword in an upward stroke. The flashing blade catches the monster just above the hip and continues up to the opposite shoulder cutting deeply through skin, muscle, organs, and bone equally well without any hesitation or real resistance. Both mortally injured beasts stagger and fall to the ground as the life leaves their bodies.<br/><br/>Momentarily forgetting about the third and now disarmed mutant creature, Kyle is caught off guard by the sledgehammer like fist that slams into the side of his head. He is thrown back into the ditch and off his feet by the force of the blow and the sword sails free of his suddenly loose grip. He rolls backwards in the grass and water placing his feet back on the ground and snaps back to a standing position. He takes a quick defensive stance and waits for the next attack to come. He only has to wait for a few beats of his rapidly beating heart, as his attacker growls deep in its throat and dives at him with hands out stretched like claws. He steps forward into his attacker, but pivots at the last instant allowing the brute to fall head long into the ditch. Before it can regain its footing, he is on its back, with his right arm reaching around in front under the chin grabbing the left side of its head. His left arm reaches across the back of its head grabbing the right side. With a quick burst of strength, he pulls both hands towards each other twisting the hideous head. The head twists viciously and a loud crunching noise is heard as several vertebrae in the muscular neck are shattered and the creature dies almost instantly.<br/><br/>Kyle stands up above the corpse of his third and final attacker and looks around. He sees that his motorcycle is not all the way in the ditch, but is laying on its side just in the grass beyond the gravel shoulder of the highway, with some effort he should be able to get it standing again and be able to ride it back to town. He also spots the sword that in all likelihood has saved his life. He walks over to the sword and picks it up and examines it for the first time. It is much lighter than he would expect a piece of high grade steel of this size should be. He carries it back to the ditch and final corpse between the water and the hides he is able to remove all of the blackish thick gunk. During the cleaning process, he discovers a matching scabbard strapped to the waist of the monster. He removes the scabbard and fastens it to his own waist. After returning the blade to its sheath, he turns his attention to his bike.<br/><br/>With a considerable amount of effort, Kyle finally manages to get the big motorcycle back up right and on the pavement. He drops the kickstand, and after four attempts gets the engine to rumble back to life. The headlight comes on shining a bright beam of light into the darkness. Standing in front of the bike, he draws the sword out of its sheath and holds it in the beam of light. It is an exquisitely well crafted doubled edged sword about two inches wide near the hilt and slowly tapers to a point at the end of the three foot blade. Looking closely he can see an intricate pattern of leaves and vines etched into the sharper than any razor steel, intermixed with the vines and leaves are strange symbols like runes in some work of fantasy. He drops the blade back into its sheath, mounts his bike and rides back toward town.<br/><br/><div align="center">The Sprite</div><br/>The big human male is unaware that he is being watched, a pair of large self illuminating eyes have been watching since the orcs had arrived. The woodland sprite watches as the human in the strange wet garb faces the orcs and with little difficulty dispatches her pursuers. She watches in amazement as he forces some very strange thing into an upright position on the strange flat black rock that runs like a solid river off into the horizon. She is startled when he does something and the thing roars like an angry beast and a bright beam of light shots from its single eye piercing the night like a lance. After the initial roar, it calms down to just a constant rumble somewhat like the purr of a very large cat. When he steps into the light she is dumbfounded. She has never seen a human with red hair before, but can tell by the shortness of the cut of the wavy hair that he must be a soldier in some army. She has also never seen clothing like his, he is wearing some sort of open leather jacket with some simple cloth shirt that clings in its wetness to his well-defined masculine chest. He stands at least as tall as the orcs and moves with grace of a large cat. His legs are covered by a canvas looking material in black that run down and cover the top of his strange black leather boots. She looks on in shock as he straddles the strange beast with the light up eye, and they roar out of sight.<br/><br/><div align="center">The Elf</div><br/>The elf stands back up to his full height of 5’9” after examining the tracks on the ground. He looks up to the sky through the trees in the forest with eyes of pure amethyst seeing how low the sun is he exclaims, “Damn, it will be dark soon. Why are these brutes traveling so quickly? They cannot possibly know that I follow.” He shakes his head and his jet black silky wavy shoulder length hair seems to ripple with a life of its own. His left hands tightens its grip on the longbow he is carrying. He sighs and starts to run at an amazing pace considering that he is in a forest and not on any sort of path, he seems to move instinctively knowing where it is safe to place his feet with each step. His dark almost black green cloak billows out behind him, exposing the hilt, and scabbard of very high quality crafted long sword carried on his back. His loose fitting dark blue shirt, billows and ripples in the wind down to the purple sash wrapped around it at his waist, every once in a while a glint of metal can be seen under the shirt. The quiver full of arrows bounce with every step against his left hip. The forest green leggings tucked into the dark brown soft leather boots just below the knees seems to blend in perfectly with the background colors and looks almost like he has no legs. He continues to run like this until well after the sun has completely set, and only slows by a small margin, as his elven eyes can still see quite clearly in the dark forest.<br/><br/>Feeling a strange tension in the forces of magic, the elf just manages to turn his head and cover his eyes as an incredibly bright light fills the horizon not far ahead of him. Some unimaginably powerful magics have just been unleashed a few miles in the direction he is traveling. The brightness lessons and is replaced by multiple flashes like that of lightning, he turns back to look and sees what looks like lightning cascading down the outer surface of a large dome not to far ahead of him. He continues to jog after the orcs he is tracking after the lightning disappears.<br/><br/>Smelling the scent of fresh blood, the elf slows to a walk. He stops as the trees suddenly clear away and something very different is before him. He sees a small wall right at about knee level beyond which is a entirely different world. It is mostly cultivated fields with a strange solid black substance running like a river into distance with yellow lines in the middle and white lines on either side. Just beyond the glass smooth rise of ground are the bodies of two of the orcs he was after, he cannot see the third. He steps up onto the strange black stone and walks over to the carcasses, taking one look he swears, “Damn! These are just his companions. How am I suppose to track him on this damn stone?”<br/><br/>A quiet voice like the bubbling of a brook says, “it only goes one way form here, sir. But the orc is in the small ravine over there.” The small woodland sprite points to where the last orc lays dead face down in the water with a broken neck. The elf strides to the edge of the grass where the girl is pointing and sees the dead orc.<br/><br/>He turns to the sprite and asks, “But where is the sword?”<br/><br/>She points in the direction she had watched the human leave saying, “after he used it to kill the first 2 he took it with him.”<br/><br/>“Who took it with him, where?”<br/><br/>“The human on the strange beast with eye of light, they traveled faster than the wind that way, faster than any horse or unicorn could ever run. You will never catch the human with fire on his head unless he stops.”<br/><br/>“It was just one human, that did this? How did he get the sword?”<br/><br/>“They chased me. I ran from them. After the lightning I came here even as you have. Here which was not before the light. I jump up. They did not see and stumbled into the wall. The one dropped it when he fell. The human seemed to be without any weapon. He retrieved the sword. He killed the 2 with theirs still with it. The one hit the human in the head. He dropped the sword as he fell into the ravine. He sprang back to his feet like a great cat. The one charged and missed. It fell down. He pounced like the cat again, killed the one without a weapon. He took the sword and carrier on his beast that way on this stone.” she points again. They both look and can see off in the distance several small white and red lights flashing and moving.<br/><br/>The elf looks back at the sprite and says, “I thank you, sprite. My name is Tiagar Strytaimos. I would love to stay and speak with you more but I must retrieve my lost brother's sword before it can do anymore harm. It will only work properly for the right person and can do untold harm in the wrong hands.”<br/><br/>“My good Tiagar, how do you know it is not already in the correct hands? It seemed to work well enough for the human just now. Mayhap his are the hands it was truly meant for.”<br/><br/>“The only way I can know for certain is to find this human with head aflame and the sword.” with that Tiagar turns towards the distant lights and strides that direction. The sprite watches for a moment before disappearing back into her forest home.