[Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer
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		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Bondage, D/s, S&amp;M =&gt; Bondage: Human Small Groups =&gt; Topic started by: Caustic on 08-02-2008, 19:20:33</h2>
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				Title: <strong>[Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>08-02-2008, 19:20:33</strong>
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				Amara watches dawn's glow seep across the land through the crude grate over her cell window.&nbsp; The fisherman's village was a squat-shouldered sprawl on the landscape beyond, parallel rows of the few short piers jutting into the water like the remnant teeth in an old man's smile, black lines into the silver, shimmering water, the broad river waiting, flowing through the night and through the villagers' dreams with the incessant patience of a god.&nbsp; Soon, the heat would return, and the summer village would be a creeping anthill of activity, small figures tottering from menial task to task, feeding on this river, feeding back to it, from the rays of day to the early dusk.&nbsp; <br><br>Last night, in the cell, she heard the chatter from the inn... as the only congregation spot aside from the church-- and the church was not open this late except for scheduled functions-- the inn's dining room played host to an impromptu town hall, with a dozen quarrelsome voices voicing progressively louder and more slurred edicts as to the fate of the 'murderess in the cell', the 'devil's concubine', the 'banshee', the 'wench'.<br><br>Knowing nothing of her, nothing of what she'd suffered, and caring not that she'd only stayed to help them, would have placed herself between them and the blade-teeth of fate-- she'd been willing to risk her life simply to help them, to save the lost child for whose fate they'd been so concerned...&nbsp; <br><br>That was why she had stayed.&nbsp; To help them.&nbsp; But then, the wagon had come... three villagers riding in the straw-matted bed, two scraggly mules drawing the creaking cart through the village path, the two in back propping something between them--<br><em><br>They'd been holding harpoons.&nbsp; Lacking swords, or even decently threatening knives, they'd arrived with Xavian on the cart with his abdomen still pierced by two of the narrow-pointed arrows these villagers used to hut swamp rats, fisher-lizards, and hulk-crab.&nbsp; But here they were, a brigand captured and wounded, puffed up with pride like bantams in spring.<br><br>Xavian's pack had been laden with silver, small tools, glassware-- all easily recognized as plunder from the Werstav farm, where the old widower who lived his life among the villagers had been found slain by his hired hands that morning.&nbsp; The villagers had militarized in their comical fashion, and it seemed that morning that Xavian had finally taken two nips of justice for his wrongs...<br><br>He'd been a decent man when she met him.&nbsp; A planner, a tactician-- a bit of a flirt, in fact-- but he gave coin to the church, he helped an old man rebuild his fence that spring, he'd taken a goblin's arrow in the thigh while repulsing a roving bandit raid not three months prior.&nbsp; <br><br>Xavian had been a good man... but what she saw in the back of the wagon-- the gaunt, slack-faced shell of a man, his piercing blue eyes flashing with contempt at the villagers like some maddened dog-- this was not Xavian, and in a single season he'd gone from compatriot to monster.&nbsp; <br><br>She'd not seen him in three weeks, and had hoped never to lay eye upon him again-- nor the rest of the Crimson Band.&nbsp; She'd ridden with them, aided them in battle-- but when they changed, it was sudden... still, she'd stayed on, waited, and prayed, until the night where she'd found Xavian with his skinning knife, paring the flesh from an old woman's finger one joint at a time, demanding with unwavering patience that she take him-- only him-- to the wealthiest home in town, and to knock-- get the servant to open the door... </em><br><br>The dawn's gray light has grown amber with the rising sun, and cast the shadow of Xavian's corpse where it swings from the sprawling banyan tree in the middle of town, a puddle of filth and blood drying at his feet.&nbsp; The people had not known, yesterday, how to hang him so he died quickly.&nbsp; So they let him die slowly, kicking at the end of the rope like a fly, slowly entombed by an invisible spider, until he only swung limply, his pierced body seeping blood slowly into the dirt.<br><br><em>Amara could not hear his interrogation, except the angry shouts through the church's narrow, tall windows.&nbsp; She waited for the elders, hoped that she could share some insight with them... and then, their sudden silence, and Xavian's slow, rolling laughter, bubbling up like some vile fumes from the bog-- slow at first, then faster, louder, until he hit a fever-pitch of wicked laughter that they silenced-- suddenly-- with some sort of cudgel.<br><br>It was then that they emerged, their harpoons, their makeshift spears, their hunting knives, and encircled her-- terror in their eyes, as if she were some vile, contemptible beast...</em><br><br>'Damn you Xavian..' she thought as she strained back a sob in her throat.<br><br>Whatever lies there had been... they'd succeeded.
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				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>08-02-2008, 22:06:01</strong>
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				It wasn't a subject that had often intruded into her thoughts, but Amara had always thought that, if she ever had the misfortune to be locked up or otherwise trapped, that time would weigh heavily.&nbsp; And it did, in a way, but not because it moved slowly.&nbsp; No, the reality was that every second seemed to fly by her like the swiftest of hawks, and that was a burden indeed.&nbsp; Every moment lost was lost forever, leaving her with one moment less to breathe.<br><br>She tried to calculate exactly how long it had been since she'd left home, but the exercise did nothing to cheer her, and little to distract her.&nbsp; If she'd stayed, where would she be now?&nbsp; Perhaps even happy, she thought bitterly, though there had never been much happiness for her there -- certainly not just before she'd left.&nbsp; It had been loneliness as much as anything that had driven her to wander, but by now perhaps things would have changed on their own.&nbsp; If she'd stayed...<br><br>She spared one more furious, wordless curse for Xavian, then tried again to drive him from her thoughts.&nbsp; He was already suffering somewhere, if there was anything like justice in the world, though she was beginning to doubt that.&nbsp; Perhaps at least the afterlife could boast some fairness.&nbsp; Taking her down with him had done nothing to help him, so if that was what he'd hoped, at least he'd lived long enough to be disappointed there.<br><br>He must certainly have found some new depths of eloquence in his fear of death; he'd convinced them all utterly of her guilt, even depravity, it seemed.&nbsp; And she was hardly frightening.&nbsp; She was neither especially tall nor especially strong; neither so beautiful nor so ugly as to attract attention; and though she'd thought she was at least braver than most, now even that small distinction was being worn away, through waiting and frustration and downright fear.&nbsp; Now she was only another dark-haired girl, wiry and tanned from travelling, facing an abrupt and shameful end far from home.&nbsp; Death was also not something she often thought of, but it was hard to imagine a fate farther from the vague dreams of glorious, honorable death she'd had now and then.&nbsp; It was cold comfort to think that no one would ever know what had become of her...<br><br>Tears made blue eyes shimmer, the blue eyes she'd once been so proud of, unusual as they were in that land.&nbsp; There was no one left to remember her anymore, not back home, perhaps not anywhere....
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				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>08-02-2008, 22:47:27</strong>
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				As the sun begin to give way to full morning, the villagers are out of their homes and starting their daily routines with a furious bustle...&nbsp; She's seen nothing like this before in this small village, not in her time so far.&nbsp; For days, she's been up before dawn hunting, cutting for sign, asking questions, searching desperately for any clue to the missing child they were so concerned over.&nbsp; And though she didn't have family here, she felt akin to these people.&nbsp; This morning, it was like home, when the fair was in town-- the morning chores couldn't be simply ignored, so the bare minimum would be done in order to be at the fair by noon.&nbsp; <br><br>Today, she is the traveling fair, and her death will be the main attraction.<br><br>Still so dark, the glow of tallow candles lights the housework before the sun even lit their rooms enough to see.&nbsp; A few cookfires were lit out on the grass-- some would be vending stew, loaves, or skewered meat at the festivities, and they had to get an early start.&nbsp; <br><br>For a moment, in her despair, Amara considers that they might even tear down her corpse and divide her up for a few coins.&nbsp; Somehow, she finds a weak laugh at the thought.<br><br>Then, voices... approaching, men's and women's, their voices hissing in argument, though they tried not to raise a commotion.&nbsp; She recognized one of the elders-- one of the more bloodthirsty, one who'd detested her and murmured that she looked like a roadly whore even before Xavian had reared his serpent's head.<br><br>Torchlight... she clung to the grate, wishing for her armor, any protection from these people-- any wall between herself and them but the scratchy wool shirt-- big enough for an ogre-- that they'd hurled into the cell at her after they confiscated her possessions.<br><br>The working of metal against metal, the grind of unoiled hinges.&nbsp; Torchlight spills into the main chamber of the bare stone watchtower they'd forged into a makeshift cell... "You'll see, we've followed the law to the letter--"<br><br>"You'd best have," answers a coal-black voice like warm molasses.&nbsp; "If she's been harmed, the reparations will be most severe."&nbsp; A younger man's voice than those of the elders, strangely familiar.<br><br>"You may speak to her from he--" She can see silhouettes, bout the torchlight is so bright and sudden-- <br><br>The metal lattice of the cell door rattles.&nbsp; "Open this lock."&nbsp; No barking, nothing frivolous in the words... simply a command.<br><br>"I--" <br><br>Silence... the old man had expects to be berated, braces himself to be re-ordered to open the lock, so that at least he could give the illusion of protest.&nbsp; However... the younger man had no need.&nbsp; What he'd spoken need not be said again.<br><br>The old man immediately jangles some keys, fumbles a wrench-key into the sliding bolt, looses its catch, and throws the bolt wide.<br><br>Her eyes adjusting to the light, Amara makes out the figures.&nbsp; Three councilmen with torches and lanterns, and a stranger-- a head taller than the elders, clad in traveling leathers of a scout, or a caravan guard, long, gray cloak skimming just above the ground as heavy boots carry him closer.&nbsp; Short hair, a lean silhouette-- then, in the light, a glint of fierce, stern brown eyes, short-cropped black hair, and a fierce, handsome jawline.&nbsp; In spite of its youth, the face bears the weight of age, of sincerity and jaded caution, but once the brown orbs fall upon <br>Amara, they soften, the face eases its mask of determination, and from cull lips like sculpted clay comes a steady sigh.<br><br>"You're alive..."&nbsp; he steps forward, reaching out one hand, its thick-leather gauntlet stretching up almost to the elbow.&nbsp; "Amara, are you hurt?"<br><br>
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				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>10-02-2008, 01:38:56</strong>
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				At least half her mind was still lost in imaginings of the day to come when Amara heard the voices.&nbsp; For a long moment, she couldn't even bring herself to care what they might be arguing about this time.&nbsp; Perhaps they'd thought of a more grisly way to kill her, or at least a quicker way, after having witnessed Xavian's suffering.&nbsp; Not everyone had seemed pleased with how long it had taken him to die, so perhaps she might benefit from that and die quickly.&nbsp; Another tear escaped as she realized that now, somehow, a mere quick death had come to seem like a gift.<br><br>But there was a different voice, strange and yet familiar, and something about it sent a shiver of faint hope down her spine, even though she'd thought herself beyond feeling anything other than the sharp tang of her fear.&nbsp; She forgot to listen to the words being said, only belatedly scrambling to catch up as the door was suddenly thrown open.&nbsp; That was a sight she'd not expected to see until the fair was in full swing, until everyone was gathered to bear witness, hurl their insults, and have their fun.&nbsp; But that voice...<br><br>Even with the light playing tricks on her eyes, Amara knew that silhouette.&nbsp; It wasn't possible, of course; that was only her mind playing tricks just as the flickering torches did.&nbsp; This was a face a few years older than the one she recalled, and those years were ones that brought great change -- the time that turned awkward teenagers into adults.&nbsp; And then the voice sounded, to her ears, less deep, less self-assured; the outline of the face became softer, less battered by life, and she realized, hardly daring to believe, that this was not some cruel mistake.<br><br>"Marius," she said, and though her tone questioned, she no longer doubted.&nbsp; She shook her head, the only answer she could at first give to his question.&nbsp; One slim hand reached out towards his, hesitating at the last moment as though afraid he would yet prove to be an illusion.&nbsp; But that moment passed, and she stepped closer, this time letting her fingertips touch the heavy gauntlet.&nbsp; "I thought..."&nbsp; Then she shook her head again, and a faint smile touched her lips.&nbsp; "How did you find me?"
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				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>10-02-2008, 04:45:26</strong>
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				Details become clearer as her eyes adjust to the light, and she can make out the square jaw, the bristling-short, dark hair on his head, the blazing cold blue of his familiar eyes, the hard set to his jaw where once wonder had lingered.&nbsp; His full lips returned her smile, and he hoisted her to him-- under the armor, she can feel the familiar broad shoulders, more thickly layered from disciplined exertion, as if the clay of his youth had been fired to glaze in war's kiln.&nbsp; He embraces her, holds her like he had before the spear-laden officers of the King's army had pointed him toward the column of young recruits on their slow march toward the coast, where he joined the ranks en route to the war.<br><br>"We have to go," he said softly, prolonging the embrace, holding her close as he whispers next to her ear, "we have to be on the road before the villagers get wind... you have any equipment?"&nbsp; He looks over her, wildly blue eyes seeming to notice her sparse garb for the first time-- he doesn't blush, but his eyes smoothly avert.&nbsp; "Let's get on the road fast."<br><br>He turns to the elders, steps toward them with such purpose that their rank cleaves into two for him.&nbsp; At his hip, his following had... the hand she'd held to when he broke his arm back in their youngest days-- rests on the grip of a broad-bladed sword.&nbsp; Urgency blazes in his gaze as he murmurs to her.&nbsp; "I'll explain on the way... come on."<br><br>*<br><br>The ferry they'd managed to secure was piloted by a dusky-skinned youth, herself no older than Marius had been when he was signed into military service.&nbsp; The grey, smooth skin of the river ripples past as they glided over the surface of the water.&nbsp; He speaks to her in a hushed, steady tone, still stern in the shadow of the village's awareness at their leaving.&nbsp; He explained that they'd kept most of his equipment-- saving it, he supposed, for the next war-- and pressed a wax-sealed writ and drawstring purse into his palm near the crossroads of the western trade route.&nbsp; <br><br>She already knows the next part of the story, can read it from the fine silver lines in his indigo irises-- their village, the place of their childhood, was but a shell now, left empty by the droughts, and there'd been little left but words, a few questions, a few families toughing out this spell of dust in the fear that they'd have worse luck elsewhere.&nbsp; He'd left much of his coin behind, but still left with more than many would have held to... he heard tales of his compatriots going wild with no structure to guide them, no enemy to slay, and no coin left after a bender of whores and spirits.&nbsp; Brigands were beginning to emerge everywhere, but-- luckily-- there was suddenly a surplus of hire-worthy sellswords to keep them at bay.<br><br>"I was close, I knew it, but wasn't certain that it was you from the tales.&nbsp; Your... compatriots, were they?&nbsp; their tales were a patchwork of hearsay and rumor, but the story of the execution--"&nbsp; He shakes his head slowly, allowing a wry smile because of the certainty of her presence, the flesh and blood before him casting aside the horror of her brush with fate.&nbsp; "I traveled all night, just in case... and I'm glad I did."&nbsp; Smiling at her, he seemed to wish to hold her, but his arm stayed slack where they sat on the gunwales of the ferryman's craft, dawn light glistening their skin in tones of red and gold.&nbsp; Something had changed-- after his initial warmth, the enthusiasm of his greeting, he seems to have remembered that years have passed, that constraints exist for those their age who could be married with children, like their playmates had become in the five years past.<br><br>"I knew you would never do... what they accused you of," he steadily intones, certainty there like stone.&nbsp; "But what's become of you, Amara..?&nbsp; I feared that you'd have a child at every apron string by now, and another on the way," he teases, leaning closer to nudge her arm with a glint of mischief--the same kind he'd radiated when he dared her to go skinny-dipping on the Brandscole's land if he beat her in a footrace to the east fields-- she'd won that day, and he'd had to filch one of goodwife Charlesta's plum pies as recompensation... the little rake.&nbsp; <br><br>The ferrier's eyes are inquisitive at them, barely masking her youthful curiosity, and perhaps an overly-healthy dose of interest in the features of the soldier.&nbsp; When Amara catches her gaze, the dusky-skinned girl flushes and turns away, resumes poling at the riverbed with enthusiasm.<br><br>"What happened, Amara..?&nbsp; If you can tell me of it, I'll listen."&nbsp; Marius watches her, studies her, some inquisitive appreciation lingering in his eyes all the while... <em>by the gods, she's a woman alright... amazingly like I'd imagined her being, all those nights past...</em>
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				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>10-02-2008, 18:50:05</strong>
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				Amara still smiles, more from wonder than anything else.&nbsp; She doesn't yet dare to let herself think of happiness, of life, too afraid that whatever he's done to get her away from this place can't hold together.&nbsp; She holds him tightly, like a child clings to the parent that soothes them after a nightmare, still too numb to do anything but agree, to follow him.<br><br>Before she quite knows what's happening, she has her things back -- not much, but enough to have kept her travelling for some time.&nbsp; Now, with her own clothes miraculously back on, the boyish gear that always earns her strange looks, her pack and weapons near to hand, she has time to think of the details.&nbsp; That quick look away, the relief in his face, the way the villagers had deferred to him -- reluctantly, but they'd given in -- and most of all, in the sun's growing light, she can look at him and begin to trust that she truly is being taken away from that place, to whatever safety they can find in the world.<br><br>"Your hair is so short," she says, shaking her head and smiling that wondering smile again.&nbsp; She remembered it longer, just long enough to look wild and tangled, with one lock that always insisted on falling over his eyes.&nbsp; No danger of that now, she thinks, startled to realize that she wants to test that hair, to see how it would feel under her hand.&nbsp; Tempted as she is to override whatever scruple is keeping him at a close but still proper distance, something holds her back for now, and she only leans slightly closer, to return his quiet murmurs.<br><br>"I thought they were compatriots, once," she says, and a faint cloud darkens her face.&nbsp; Her hair is still an almost incongruous halo of light in the sun's rays, the dark tresses shining red.&nbsp; "Once they were good people, and they did good things... I wish I could tell you what happened to change that, but I hardly know myself."&nbsp; She sighs, realizing with a pang what strange and bitter lessons she had learned.<br><br>"I broke with them weeks ago... I'd been travelling on my own, not quite sure where to go... I'd thought of home, but --"&nbsp; She breaks off, unwilling to give some things force by speaking them aloud.&nbsp; Home is perhaps no longer the right word, in any case.&nbsp; "But I was staying to the safer paths, and stopped here... there was a child missing, the whole village in an uproar searching, and I stayed to help.&nbsp; That was when Xavian--"&nbsp; Again she breaks off, now forced to try to control her anger so she can speak.<br><br>"He knew they would kill him, but it seems he didn't want to die alone.&nbsp; I have no idea what he told them -- no one ever bothered to explain precisely what they thought I had done -- but they believed it all, and the rest I suppose you know."&nbsp; Suddenly she smiles, ruefully, but brilliantly, shaking again from the full force of her relief.&nbsp; "You know me -- I always wanted adventure first.&nbsp; I waited as long as I could, but finally I had to get away from that place."&nbsp; She doesn't say she'd been waiting for him, isn't quite sure that's even true while she's speaking, but suddenly she thinks that they both know exactly what she means.<br><br>"How long have you been looking?" she asks, a little too abruptly, seeking safer subjects.&nbsp; The dark girl casts another glance in Marius' direction, brief but unmistakeable in intent, and Amara just resists a frown, instead leaning closer.
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				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>11-02-2008, 23:47:48</strong>
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				Marius grins briefly at her, his even white teeth flashing in the dawn silhouette as he absently scrubs the short hair.&nbsp; "Simplicity," he says with a wry grin, the good-natured youth in him flickering, momentarily, at the surface, as the ferry glides smoothly along the broad, shining span of water.&nbsp; He opens the stopper on a wineskin, offering it to her... it's filled with cool water.&nbsp; "I wish I had more to offer... but until we reach an inn, it's all I have to give."<br><br>He listens carefully to her explanation, nodding solemly, some awareness of the stories he'd collected on the road. "I initially started, just... heading in your direction, from what some people in the village said.&nbsp; That was... three weeks ago, I suppose."&nbsp; <br><br>The ferry nudges past a set of curious ivory-pike, their fifty-pound, lilly-white ghosts nudging along the boat and churning up water as they flounder stupidly in surprise.&nbsp; The boat rocks gently, but no one seems alarmed.&nbsp; "I heard about the drought, tried scrounging up what my father'd left behind, when he died... I think most went to cover his debts, the rest-- who knows."&nbsp; He shrugs it away.&nbsp; "I was almost certain that was what had happened, long before I made it home... I could see the cracks in the dirt, the cottonwoods gone dry, and I could just tell.&nbsp; You'd have made the best men in the village into a proud husband," he says with a wry grin, but an honest one, "but, that place had nothing for you.&nbsp; Not anymore."<br><br>He shakes his head, turns his gaze out over the bristling ridge of pine along the nearing shore, the road like an inlet into the thick, unmanageable scrub brush and palmetto.&nbsp; "I know you never did those things you were accused of.&nbsp; The heat of the day was already becoming palpable, like a spreading mist rising from the river.&nbsp; As he spoke, his eyes panned the horizon.&nbsp; "There was never any doubt.&nbsp; And, perhaps I'm... I don't know.&nbsp; But I felt--'&nbsp; trailing off, he shrugged lightly, the leather joints of his armor emitting a hushed creak.&nbsp; "-- felt like I could help you."<br><br>They draw near the shore; the ferrier flicks her eyes nervously over them as Marius instinctively checks the hilt of the blade on his back, the facets on his gear, the strap of his light travel-pack.&nbsp; "We have some distance ahead," he says steadily, rising to his feet as the warped, creaking boat shrugged its way to the shoals, and the ferryman's rope found one of the weathered pilings with a smooth loop, her dark-skinned arms working smoothly to secure the first ride of the day before the real work of cargo-transit began.<br><br>Amara catches a flickering glimpse as Marius watches the girl---at her before he picked up the few coppers he'd stashed aside.&nbsp; "Safe travels--" he murmurs, pressing them into her hand.&nbsp; Then, smoothly, he's climbed onto the dock and, one broad hand atop a piling, he reaches for Amara's hand, looking down at her with the earnest trust of their youth.&nbsp; "My lady?"&nbsp; He winks... they played 'Lord and Lady' sometimes when they were children-- saplings of children, in fact-- constantly bruised-up or muddied from their 'adventures' in the outlands, but all the while laughingly taking turns climbing the hillsides together, moving branches aside for the other, each time-- 'm'lord,' 'm'lady'... a joke that never grew old.<br><br>A mule-leading traveler, broad-hatted and squat, waits at the edge of the woods, hand-tamping a long-stemmed pipe-- he pays them little mind, except to give them each a once-over.&nbsp; The ferrier watches Amara leave, something like seething jealousy in her eyes-- not over Marius, most likely... but over where she goes-- for the ferrier would see a dozen new faces every day, brush her hands over spices and pelts, tools and perfumes and ceramics... but she'd be on that boat tomorrow, the next day, and the day after, and Amara's fierce eyes would be seeing worlds that the ferry-driver would never see... not for some time, anyway.
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				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>12-02-2008, 01:31:46</strong>
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				Amara sips the water slowly, aware suddenly of how different the world seems right now -- brighter, more detailed, somehow more <em>there</em>.&nbsp; The sunrise is unlike any other she's seen, more colors there then she ever thought existed.&nbsp; She looks down at the curious, awkward fish, almost laughing out of sheer wonder.&nbsp; But she never misses a syllable of what Marius says, not a single hesitation gong unnoticed.&nbsp; He is perhaps the most vivid of all, the most complex, in spite of the very real simplicity about how he looks and the way he speaks.<br><br>She'd seen the town fade more gradually, and that had been bad enough.&nbsp; How much worse would it have been for him to be confronted, in a moment, with the results of a decay that had taken years?&nbsp; "I'm sorry about your father," she says, awkwardly.&nbsp; It is the correct formula, she supposes, and she means it far more than most who said those words, but it's still impossibly far short of enough.<br><br>She hands back the wineskin, still serious.&nbsp; "You did help me," she says, with grave understatement.&nbsp; "You always do."&nbsp; Her eyes are drawn to his hands as he checks his gear, and she recognizes the automatic, efficient movements of someone who never knows when he might find himself dependent on the few things he carries to survive.<br><br>She has nothing against the boat, but there is still a sense of relief in having the ground beneath her feet again -- after feeling such helplessness, there is a great deal to be said for the simple ability to choose her own direction.&nbsp; With a smile that is, at last, just as happy as the smiles Marius remembers from those long-ago times, she takes his hand and hops lightly up next to him on the dock.&nbsp; "M'lord," she says, and for a moment they're both children again, amd the world is new and enticing and terrifying again.<br><br>She looks around at the trees, and realizes just how much things have really changed.&nbsp; There isn't anything left in their village, not for either of them, but there is a world to be discovered again, even if neither of them is quite so starry-eyed as they'd once been.&nbsp; The road stretches away to left and right, each path equally appealing, and equally unknown.&nbsp; "That way?" she suggested, gesturing at random to the left.&nbsp; Her eyes shine at the prospect of adventure, though she can hardly believe that she still has any sort of taste for travel.&nbsp; But Marius is here now, everything is different, and in that moment, nothing can stop either of them.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>12-02-2008, 20:12:40</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Marius stretches his back for a moment, looking down each path as mere formality.&nbsp; "That way,' he concurs, smiling faintly still-- the gesture looks a little haggard on the dark-eyed face, the boy within the wolf of a man.&nbsp; The wide, packed-clay path is empty for the moment, but from its condition it's certain they won't be alone on it for long...<br><br>Indeed, by the time the cicada-calling heat sets in at miday, they've passed a half-dozen travelers, their backs loaded with rope-webbed packs, their packmules bearing precariously-tied bundles.&nbsp; They pass by on boots, in bare feet, indicative of the mingled, but distinctively differing, traditions of the coast, where high-walled villas and fortified cities loom over the ocean, thriving nodes for international trade-- then, a half-days walk farther, one could find dust-floored, thatched-roof villages, shunning the cities at the orders of their demigods or in distate for the urban lifestyle.&nbsp; The next city would take a week to see by foot; Corvis, like a mountain of gray slate over the ocean cliffs, its many temples looking like snow-caps despite the oppressive heat of the Jagged Coast.<br><br>Along the way, Marius nods to passing travelers, stops occasionally to make conversation, asking for news, to offer small trades for fishing gear, dried fruit, a wineskin of mead.&nbsp; Sweat glistening on their skins, they make good time-- Amara is used to the terrain and the traveler's life, and Marius is hardened from ceaseless marches and patrols.&nbsp; He tells her a little of his experience in the king's army-- very little in the way of details or experiences, but he lists places, cities whose name is reminiscent of children's tales, or of mention in biographies that could be just as easily accepted as fact or myth for a girl from the quiet borderlands.<br><br>They've left the scent of the river far behind, but at a rise in the land near a grove of scrub-pine and palmetto, the afternoon breeze suddenly catches their faces, and the two of them are left to stop in their tracks, breathing deep the cool air, exhaling softly in relief.&nbsp; There's even a tinge of the ocean's salt there in the gentle wind, mingled with woodsmoke and lush forest.&nbsp; <br><br>Cooking fires, certainly-- perhaps sign of a village, common on the floodplains where the seasonal river silt made crops thrive, and the occasional rice plantation could still be found.&nbsp; Marius's long-lashed eyes are closed, his hands gripping the straps of his pack-- he'd removed much of the armor, and traveled in an open-necked shirt not to attract attention, and to minimize the effect of the heat.&nbsp; At the peak of his shirt where the bronze-colored chest, beneath glistened with sweat, a leather cord hinted, but disappeared.<br><br>The wind then carries a soft whistling note, something so far as to be questionably a trick of the breeze, or some animal's cry-- but again, the sound like a peacock's cry, or a woman's-- and there, on the horizon, they can see the column of smoke into the sky, too wide to be a cooking fire, perhaps a mile inland.&nbsp; Marius looks on, unblinking.&nbsp; "It's a village," he says softly, angling his face in curiosity.&nbsp; Clearly, this is no site he enjoys, from the grim set in his mouth-- but not one with which he is unfamiliar.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>13-02-2008, 05:28:47</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Amara hardly realizes how far they've come; they fall into an easy rhythm of walking and talking, the conversation light, but necessary.&nbsp; Every word rebuilds the old connection and soon silence is as comfortable as speech, just as it used to be.&nbsp; Her travels seem like nothing compared to his -- she knows that he has a good deal more that he could say about those missing years, but he seems to want to spare her, and she doesn't have the heart to press.&nbsp; A few times, as children, they'd walked all day, mostly around in circles, and pretended they were going on grand adventures, where every tree became a new and wondrous sight, every bend in the road concealing still more amazing things.&nbsp; Now they were back in those days.<br><br>The breeze brings a smile to her face, and she tilts her head back, letting the air dry the tiny hairs at the back of her neck, now damp with the heat.&nbsp; She hears the sound first, frowning, aware somehow that it's out of place, wrong, but having no idea why.&nbsp; Then her gaze follows his, and she sees the dark plume.&nbsp; "What?" she says, uncomprehending for an instant.&nbsp; But there can be few reasons for so much smoke, especially so dark, and her breath catches in her throat.<br><br>One thing hasn't changed, certainly -- Amara is still the impatient one, now already turning her steps towards that village, trying to decide on the quickest way there instinctively.&nbsp; Her eyes catch a faint glimpse of flame as well, as she strains to make out details.&nbsp; It's a frustrating exercise, only tending to make her realize just how far away they are -- much too far away to render any of the usual assistance.&nbsp; Tears spring to her eyes, the little girl who used to rescue rabbits from traps and go through agonies nursing them back to health now a young woman, mourning much larger losses.<br><br>She half looks back over her shoulder, never quite doubting that Marius would follow her, but needing that reassurance for a moment.&nbsp; Armies do this during wars, she knows that much -- firing whole villages to terrify others, or simply because they can, and she wonders how often Marius has seen towns burn.&nbsp; When she looks at him again, it is with sympathy, and a sense of loss that isn't entirely about burned homes.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>13-02-2008, 21:15:14</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Marius turns, reaching one hand toward her shoulder, but before his fingers can touch her, she's gone, and his hand is left hanging in the air-- a score of reasons not to rush off strike him in a cluster of desperate thoughts that burst apart like snow on the resolve that, where Amara goes, he'll follow.<br><br>"Stay quiet," he manages, "don't use the path--" then they're moving, their downhill momentum increasing until they're not so concrened about descending as they are managing their fall.&nbsp; Their legs and feet retain the memory of the woods, set them both picking their way down the hill like deer in flight.&nbsp; <br><br>Soon, the terrain levels out, and they near the edge of the woods within view of a row of farm-huts, tufts of reaped wheat-bundles still smouldering like ceremonial incense on a vast altar of the fields.&nbsp; Specks and blots on the grass, seemingly scattered at randoms, mold together to assume the shape of beings... villagers, pincushioned with quarrels and arrows... twisted bodies like charred-skinned, scaled dwarves, horses in a parody of gallop, run through with spears with hafts like trees.&nbsp; <br><br>'Aberrations--' Marius whispers alongside Amara's ear.&nbsp; 'Bog-dwellers... this one--' he points to a heap next to a burning silo, perhaps two-dozen bodies piled togeter-- the fires are out now, for the most part-- the battle seems to have passed.<br><br>Movement... a few men, traveling together, pause next to a large, brown and black mottled heap-- one takes the haft of a pole and runs it through the heap-- making sure it is dead, clearly-- then the men pick it up by a pair of opposing limbs and drag it toward one of the growing piles.&nbsp; The shape that they drag... it's huge, the size of a lean bear, mottled brown, black, and green in appearance, and humanoid, like some giant man...<br><br>At the edges of the fields, scouts linger, shortbows in their hands, and one is near the edge of the woods where Marius and Amara linger.<br><br>"Hold--"&nbsp; Marius calls, "-- approaching, from the woods-- please, hold fast your arrows--"<br><br>There is a challenging response, a few others nearby, everyone going alert, but the young scout at the edge of the woods-- a boy, merely, not even a trace of beard at his cheeks-- holds his hand high in a fist, then waves it side to side-- signaling 'all clear'.<br><br>"Let's go," Marius says, rising from his crouch, and drawing closer to the villagers' line of defense.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>14-02-2008, 18:49:13</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Amara is heeding his warning even before he finishes speaking it, and thinking of all the other cautions he doesn't speak aloud.&nbsp; They have no breath for anything but running, no attention for anything but the terrain ahead.&nbsp; And as they draw closer, and the stench chokes the air, there is for a time no room in her for anything but horror.<br><br>Bog-dwellers are little more than tales to her, but she nods her agreement, catching in the twisted shapes a sense of the way the stories describe them.&nbsp; Focusing on this, the practical, helps keep her steady; but she still stays close to Marius, still can't quite look directly at the worst of the carnage.&nbsp; For an instant, she feels weak and ashamed of that weakness, aching to be brave, like Marius.<br><br>The villagers relax faintly as they decide the new arrivals are no threat, but it's clear that none of them dare to rest yet.&nbsp; Hands grip weapons, makeshift and otherwise, and shoulders are exhausted but grimly tense.&nbsp; One man steps forward a little, older but still tough and strong.&nbsp; For a moment he looks like Marius, but Amara soon realizes that there is no true resemblance; only a similarity in their bearing.&nbsp; A soldier as well, with an old but well-cared for blade at his hip.<br><br>He nods, beyond any true formalities.&nbsp; "All over now," he says, perhaps referring as much to the village itself as to the battle.&nbsp; He nods next to the treeline, just to the side of where the two of them had appeared.&nbsp; "Swept in from the woods there, no real warning.&nbsp; It's been quiet here too long.&nbsp; No one expected trouble."&nbsp; He spits on the ground, giving a sense of cursing himself along with this general inattentiveness.&nbsp; "Bog-dwellers we half expect.&nbsp; But these had men with them."<br><br>A man nearby makes a sign against evil at this remark, before returning to his grisly work of sorting dead invaders from burned defenders.&nbsp; The ex-soldier catches the movement and looks back, his eyes lingering reluctantly on the bodies before turning back to Marius and Amara.&nbsp; "It's the men I wanted dead.&nbsp; But they had their plan, and these things took the worst of it."&nbsp; He kicks a bog-dweller half-heartedly.&nbsp; "Most of the real villains lived.&nbsp; And they did have a plan.&nbsp; They wanted something here -- someone, I should say.&nbsp; They wounded freely, but were careful who they killed."<br><br>Then something reminded him of the ordinary things again.&nbsp; "Arden, village elder.&nbsp; Last of the elders, I fear," he added, a shadow crossing his face.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>14-02-2008, 20:35:21</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Marius listens, recognizing the man's bearing and status before he introduces himself formally.&nbsp; By Amara's side, he doesn't survey the carnage, doesn't feel the pull of his eyes towad the grisly scene as some of the other men seem to-- many of them are his senior, some with dark-stained wraps around their foreheads, arms, or legs.&nbsp; He nods sternly listening, accepting the truth of the man's words with the stern sympathy of men.&nbsp; But it's not until the mention of the mingled ranks that Marius seems ruffled, his eyes scanning back over the corpse piles again, as if he fears suddenly that he's victim to some strange ruse.<br><br>He listens to Arden's introduction, nods respectfully.&nbsp; "Marius, from Redtree.&nbsp; Amara--"&nbsp; he hesitates, seeming to be uncertain how to continue her introduction, as if he lacks words to describe her kinship to him-- "--she's from Redtree as well."<br><br>The shadow lingering, Arden's eyes pan across the valley to the mountains beyond, as if looking for the path from which they've come.&nbsp; "My position demands," the elder begins, "some measure of caution.&nbsp; What brings you this way..?"<br><br>Marius nods faintly.&nbsp; "We're heading up the coast."&nbsp; He shakes his head subtly, honesty seeming the only course he knows.&nbsp; "We've no destination."&nbsp; The answer must suffice, because Arden nods.&nbsp; "We will help if we can--"<br><br>Arden's response is dismissive.&nbsp; "Formality.&nbsp; Kind, but unnecessary.&nbsp; The men have things under control."<br><br>The older man heaves a deep-chested breath, looks between Amara and Marius for a moment, then continues.&nbsp; "You're welcome to stay here.&nbsp; The tavern is intact," a dry, sad smile creeps across his lips as he turns, "and, I hazard to say, empty."<br><br>"Sir," Marius begins, modus militaria in control a moment, "Elder," he corrects himself, "You said... men?&nbsp; With the beasts?"&nbsp; He looks again toward the piles.&nbsp; "How is that possible..?"&nbsp; Arden's broad shoulders shrug beneath the grime-smeared jerkin he wears, his warm, chestnut eyes riveted to Amara, as if something about her unsettles him, but he is uncertain how.&nbsp; There's no answer, except one of the nearby bowmen-- a girl, thirteen if a day-- who makes that same warding sign against evil over her heart.<br><br>"What--" Marius continues, stepping closer, his hands clenching tight, then relaxing, with uncertainty as he speaks, "--who did they take, Arden?"
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>15-02-2008, 23:59:59</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Amara lacks the same resistance that the two men have -- her eyes are pulled often to the carnage, much as she tries to resist it, and for a moment, she thinks that she's somehow managed to mishear something very important because of this.&nbsp; The bog-dwellers hate men; everyone knows this.&nbsp; She's always imagined they would sooner die than even pretend to follow the orders of a human.&nbsp; Her eyes widen, trying, and failing, to imagine circumstances that might force them to work together, however reluctantly.<br><br>The elder is still studying her -- not challengingly, his face almost studiously neutral in expression -- but there is a hint of confusion that even his many years of practice at seeming calm in the worst of circumstances can't quite hide.&nbsp; But now he turns back to Marius, acknowledging the gravity of his question.&nbsp; "There's a girl missing," he says simply, those few words opening up a well of loss.&nbsp; "Dragged off in the fighting.&nbsp; I sent those men who were least wounded to track them -- easy to follow, hard to catch.&nbsp; They're quick when they need to be."<br><br>Now he turns back to Amara, realization in his eyes.&nbsp; "Her name is Anissa.&nbsp; Your age -- you look like her."<br><br>Amara blushes, feeling some obscure tug of guilt.&nbsp; "I-- I've never heard of them taking people before," she says, trying to cover her own confusion, glancing helplessly at Marius.&nbsp; "None of this is like them at all."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>VandalSavage</strong> on <strong>17-02-2008, 16:31:05</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Strange architecture is involved in building a kingdom.<br><br>I hold the yard stick perpendicular to the shaft jutting out of the bog dweller’s neck.&nbsp; The reed shaft extends 58 centimeters out of a snotty black ring of a wound at a 21 degree angle.&nbsp; Reed is useful because it is common here.&nbsp; The wound has vomited black curds in a sash over the supine bog dweller’s chest; it smells more like cirrhotic turd than blood.&nbsp; The bog dweller’s body lays in shock, looking like a gigantic baby made out of mushrooms.&nbsp; I double check the angle of the shaft.<br><br>I make a note of it, internally.&nbsp; I am building a kingdom with these notes.<br><br>There are five major components to the mechanics of killing someone with a bow.&nbsp; There are ten to the mechanics of killing with your hands.&nbsp; The Abruzzi have over two thousand different sword forms.<br><br>I make careful note that the arrow had been falling at a slight angle when it struck the bog dweller.<br><br>Somewhere near, a woman is baying like a hound, “Why?&nbsp; Why?”<br><br>I think I recognize the voice.&nbsp; Ruddy woman.&nbsp; Yellow flower apron.&nbsp; Pimple over left eye.&nbsp; She had a young daughter with her when I and my men came to her town, and she tried to sell me bread while her daughter ate snot from her own nose.<br><br>Judging by her voice, her daughter is probably taken.&nbsp; It might improve her marketing.<br><br>I bend forward over the body, and my chain mail yanks my neck, pinches my breasts through the sheepskin, bunches at my belly and butts rudely.&nbsp; I hardly notice.&nbsp; I use the yardstick to lift the bog dweller’s neck slightly, confirming what I suspected: No exit wound.<br><br>The angle of impact suggests the arrow would have sheared between the chunky sternomastoid muscle and the trachea, puncturing the internal jugular vein and stabbing out the other side.&nbsp; The lack of exit wound and the swollen lower lip of the wound show the arrow was also falling flatly when it hit.&nbsp; This probably caused the arrowhead to dislodge, impact bone, shatter.&nbsp; Cut open the bog dweller’s lumpen neck and you would find a ball of iron tinsel smashed against its spine where its spinal accessory nerve used to be.<br><br>I make a note of this.&nbsp; It means the nerve is nearly two inches from where a human’s would be.&nbsp; It was a textbook lucky shot.&nbsp; But copy that angle, aim for where that arrow exploded this monstrosity’s murderous consciousness in an instant of iron and shorting electricity, and it is no longer luck.&nbsp; It is just textbook.&nbsp; It is geometry.&nbsp; It is architecture.<br><br>The baying woman is still going on.&nbsp; The next bog dweller I check is pin cushioned with six arrows through its lean gut. Footsteps suggest he ran sixty yards from the first impact before going down.&nbsp; I make notes.<br><br>Lean gut.&nbsp; Many arrows.&nbsp; Sixty yards.&nbsp; Equals elusive abdominal organs.&nbsp; Equals don’t shoot for the belly.<br><br>A bawling man, weeping like seeping piss, joins the sound of the crying woman in honor of his dead son.&nbsp; The next bog dweller has one arrow, 13 centimeters from the rotator cuff.&nbsp; Lots of blood.<br><br>13 centimeters from rotator cuff.&nbsp; One arrow.&nbsp; Lots of blood.&nbsp; Equals shoot for the shoulder.<br><br>The next bog dweller has three arrows in him.&nbsp; The next, two.&nbsp; I pass by where they’re dragging Ymir away by his rosy-red braids, a bog dweller cleaver the size of a frying pan still lodged in his leaking stomach.&nbsp; <br><br>I try not to look at him, and succeed.&nbsp; But not looking reminds me of the other ways he was present on the month long trail here.&nbsp; How he smelled like lilies after he shaved.&nbsp; His horsey laugh.&nbsp; The way he’d always repeat things he wanted to sound meaningful three times.<br><br>I’ll say some words for him and the other fallen later.&nbsp; Everything in its place.&nbsp; I begin measuring the angle of the next dead bog dweller’s wound.&nbsp; It’s a sword wound to the shoulder like a rift valley, the trapezius sheared entirely away from the deltoid.&nbsp; The strike that made this is called, in swordsmanship, Zornhau.&nbsp; The Strike of Wrath.&nbsp; The strike’s angle and aim opened a path of weak resistance straight to the bog dweller’s otherwise well-protected heart.&nbsp; There is more black blood here than could fill an ale cask.&nbsp; Everything smells like feces.<br><br>I make notes.&nbsp; A weak point between the arms and the trunk.&nbsp; A vulnerable heart.<br><br>Zornhau was Ymir’s favorite stroke.<br><br>The baying woman and the crying man and the family who is bawling over their burning house are polluting the town with their grief.&nbsp; Everything is resounding with cries, and it makes the smoke of the air especially bitter to me.&nbsp; I pity these people.&nbsp; I pity them for what they have lost.&nbsp; I pity them most of all because this kind of life is strange to them.<br><br>They build families.&nbsp; Houses for their families.&nbsp; Farms to feed the houses.&nbsp; Towns to support the farms.&nbsp; Their architecture is simple.<br><br>Six major components to a bed.&nbsp; Four walls to a room.&nbsp; Three basic stitches when stitching a sheet.&nbsp; Penis goes into vagina.&nbsp; Out comes one baby.&nbsp; Repeat.<br><br>Repeat.&nbsp; Repeat.&nbsp; As Ymir would say.<br><br>I sigh.&nbsp; I pity them because they do not understand the life that barged in and showed them that they were not living so substantial, so natural, so real an existence after all.&nbsp; I pity them because I do understand.<br><br>There are six major components to a coffin.&nbsp; There are thirty seven ways I know to kill a man with one action of my hand.<br><br>I trade the yard stick in my hand for a sword and begin circling back to the area that caught the bog dweller’s flank assault.<br><br>Anyone can learn to build a chair.&nbsp; Babies happen by accident all the time.&nbsp; Most people can even learn how to craft something truly beautiful – a Gothan cathedral arch like an angel wing; a minaret; a very pretty chair – given enough time.&nbsp; You discover the steps and follow them.<br><br>It takes a different architecture to motivate people to devote their entire lives to following these steps for the purpose of glorifying you.&nbsp; To get a thousand people crafting a hundred minarets on your castle.&nbsp; To worship under that arch and have wet-eyed, gasping, grateful dreams of dying for that glorious angel.&nbsp; To bow before that very pretty chair and call it a throne.&nbsp; <br><br>To build a kingdom, you need to learn to break down, not build up.<br><br>Strange architecture needs different tools. Swords.&nbsp; Respect.&nbsp; Fire.&nbsp; Panic.&nbsp; Gold.&nbsp; Torture.&nbsp; Lust.&nbsp; Legends. And people, to use them and be used by them.<br><br>I look over the madding group near the rim of the forest, not close enough to hear the conversation, but close enough to feel the panic.&nbsp; Close enough to taste it.&nbsp; Bog dweller bodies are everywhere, along with those of the raiders, and so everything, everywhere, smells like their turd blood.&nbsp; <br><br>It’s the high amount of skatole in their blood.&nbsp; But my blood is racing again.&nbsp; Because I can smell panic, I taste it.&nbsp; And panic is the water on the clay of humanity.<br><br>Panic I can use.<br><br>My people have seventeen names for fear.&nbsp; Vortighast.&nbsp; Ghollic.&nbsp; Krüe.&nbsp; We have five Master Strokes of the sword – killing strokes: Crooked stroke.&nbsp; Crossing stroke.&nbsp; Top stroke.&nbsp; Squinting stroke.&nbsp; The Strike of Wrath.&nbsp; We had one king.<br><br>We had one king, but now my father is dead one summer past.&nbsp; Ymir is from my people, and he followed me for a month, gathering four others to my search for the Diadem.&nbsp; Now they, and Ymir, are dead.<br><br>I need new people now.&nbsp; New tools to build the kingdom.<br><br>I stride up to the newcomers as they talk with the elder – I am tall and fair, red haired and gold mailed, and I carry a sword.&nbsp; That, and my posture, is enough to explain what I am about.&nbsp; The travelers seem experienced.&nbsp; One seems familiar.&nbsp; <br><br>I raise my empty hand in peace.&nbsp; I move with the ceremonious ballet of a hierophant holding services.&nbsp; Both new people glow for a moment in my eyes.&nbsp; She is very familiar indeed.<br><br>From what I hear the elder, Arden, saying, a girl was taken – Anissa, the younger version of this woman who just arrived.&nbsp; Wotan’s mirror has broken, it seems.&nbsp; No matter; she is a very pretty shard.&nbsp; And there is panic to be exploited.&nbsp; I can concern myself with portents and philosophy later.<br><br>“I am Thoris.”<br><br>I turn to Arden, all poise, stare, subtlety.&nbsp; I appear for the all the world like some holy icon from the Eastern Empire.&nbsp; This is deliberate.&nbsp; I speak very deliberately, the way monks lay gold leaf.<br><br>“Arden, we need a guide who knows the all the surrounding terrain about here very well, and we need a map.”<br><br>I am looking at this older, very pretty Anissa now.&nbsp; There’s a little panic in her too, freshly buried, enough to taste.&nbsp; My blood is racing.<br><br>“We must make haste to rescue you.” I tell her.<br><br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>18-02-2008, 19:52:37</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Marius visibly bristles at the approach of the armored woman, looming just past Amara's shoulder as his jaw works for words where nothing sensible will come.&nbsp; Every word trying to form on his tongue shrinks, becomes paltry, rote complaints, like some prey flitting from one nook to the next.&nbsp; Questions to her identity, her purpose-- words to analyze, words to bring judgement-- useless for Marius, who knows words and action well enough to know that this is the time for one, not the other.<br><br>Marius looks at Thoris, as does Arden, with a level, calculating intensity.&nbsp; In each of their minds, not just their own questions, but the unquestionable knowledge of experience and instruction, honed to a polished, bevelled point.&nbsp; &nbsp;Arden, being the elder, is expected to speak first.&nbsp; The beardless youth from the forest's edge, his ashwood bow feeling incredibly light in his hand now, does not know this, and tries to shuffle forward, eager to offer his services-- Arden's eyes raise slightly, offering not so much a gesture of disapproval as a fresh perspective for the youth to look upon.&nbsp; The boy goes stiff, steps back, pretends he's merely restless and shuffles his broad feet over some upturned turf.<br><br>Certainly, Amara must expect there to be questions; interrogation, perhaps, at this strange woman's interest.&nbsp; But Marius and Arden's mouths remain closed like grim, stone masks, as the distant, summer-heat buzz of a cicada starts up somewhere in the surrounding brush.&nbsp; Hushed whispers have made their way around the village already... only the muted sobs of a few mourners remain, all others listen, or watch, for the decision's gravity to bring the pieces of their broken security down into the earth, to give them shape in the blood and dust of the burned fields.<br><br>"Liam will guide you," Arden says in a voice almost tender.&nbsp; "Parzi, also."&nbsp; The mands broad, thick-skinned hands grip the haft of the scabbard at his hip, and Marius' chest rises and falls with a steady sigh of resignation.&nbsp; "Move while the trail is fresh, but know they will double back, they will lay ambush.&nbsp; Trail them, but not as the pig hunting roots, trail like the hawk-- cut for sign, keep your distance."<br><br>Marius watches Arden's last, lingering gaze at Amara, before casting one of his own, the morning sun etching her face and dark eyes as if in gold leaf and ebon, before turning back to size up Thoris.&nbsp; "We'll need equipment, decent armor.&nbsp; Can you provide this?"<br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>19-02-2008, 04:08:49</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<em>“We must make haste to rescue you.”</em>&nbsp; The words echo in Amara's mind, for a moment even managing to override the horrors around her.&nbsp; Her first instinct is to step away, to edge closer to Marius -- to demand, in a tremulous voice, the reason for this sudden, strangely confident intrusion.&nbsp; But Arden accepts her, in spite of how nonsensical her words seem, and Marius follows that lead, and Amara finds herself pulled along.&nbsp; A resemblance is mere coincidence, meaning nothing, not even kinship, which would be doubtful enough.&nbsp; She knows she needs no rescuing, and yet somehow, for an instant, she does; and the whole village seems to be waiting for the dread news of her fate.<br><br>The moment breaks, like summer heat after a storm, and she can breathe again.&nbsp; Somehow, without anything quite being discussed or explained, their path is tied up with Thoris'.&nbsp; Marius looks suddenly as uneasy as Amara feels, but he accepts, and so does she.&nbsp; This is not their fate alone; and there is little time for arguing or doubts.&nbsp; And now she wants to leave in any case, almost pained by all the eyes on her.&nbsp; Somehow she's convinced that every gaze is fixed on her, everyone noting and wondering about the similarity, the meaningless similarity, no doubt exaggerated by the strain of their worry.<br><br>Two young men break away from their grisly, thankless tasks, drawn over to the little group -- one is a little darker in hair and skin, the other a little taller, but otherwise they might almost have been twins.&nbsp; Both are bruised and bloodied, less wounded than some, pale beneath the dirt and sweat, but grim and serious, as only boys just becoming men can be.&nbsp; They look over the three of them, making up their minds, their gazes settling on Amara for a long moment before Arden speaks up, quietly explaining and cautioning as the boys listen with an instinctive respect.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>VandalSavage</strong> on <strong>19-02-2008, 19:05:40</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				I hear that, in the myrrh-scented parlors of the Oligarchy of Phaa, there are those philosophers who look down on warriors as loutish and unrefined.&nbsp; This misconception could not be further from the truth.&nbsp; <br><br>Planning is everything in war.&nbsp; And not the simple arithmetic planning that mathematicians and craftsmen and, yes, even philosophers use in their trade - the simple "A + B = C, B + D = C, so A = D" that can erect a right angle or make change for a chicken kebab.&nbsp; The mathematics of war require you to imagine the conclusion before you even know the factors at your disposal in the equation.&nbsp; War is the calculus of blood and fantasy.<br><br>We will need armor.&nbsp; Marius points this out.&nbsp; But we also need time.&nbsp; Time and coin.&nbsp; So I tell everyone, "We will arm and discuss over there," and then I walk off.&nbsp; They can follow me or not.<br><br>You have to reach the destination before you begin the journey.&nbsp; Abruzzi swordsmen know this.&nbsp; Hyrkanian archers know this.<br><br>I go over to the pile of lantern-eyed meat that is all that is left of my men.&nbsp; As the others amble up, I am pulling the glittering brass scale armor off of Ymir's body and setting it aside for Marius.&nbsp; The air is alive with flies, as though the stink was visible.&nbsp; I am heartened that the two new lads - Liam and Parzi - do not flinch at the reek of decomposing friends of theirs.&nbsp; Much.&nbsp; They listen to Arden explain that they will be guiding me and Amara and Marius to seek out Anissa, while staring at me disassembling the armor of my companion's corpses like a starved urchin would a roast chicken still wet.<br><br>Greaves.&nbsp; Cuirass.&nbsp; Pauldron.&nbsp; Marius is set; Ymir was only slightly larger than him.&nbsp; He gets the vast, dragon-hilted siege tower of sharp metal that Ymir called his sword.&nbsp; Ymir called it "Mangler of Sons."&nbsp; Ymir had a way with words.&nbsp; <br><br>Now to find pieces for Amara.&nbsp; <br><br>Arden mentions something about ambushes to the lads, and I speak up.<br><br>"Parzi.&nbsp; Liam."&nbsp; I hold up a chain skirt still sticky with its former owner's blood, and measure it for Amara.&nbsp; The color of the blood against the chains is the exact color of my hair.&nbsp; My father once told me that the color of my hair meant I would grow up to be a sword.&nbsp; He always regretted saying that.&nbsp; Destination determintes path in the architecture of kingdoms.&nbsp; "I do not want to follow the raider's path.&nbsp; That would be slow.&nbsp; There would be traps.&nbsp; We can afford neither.<br><br>"I want you to lead me where they are going, on a route hopefully faster than theirs."<br><br>A moment passes.&nbsp; I spend it wisely, piling up a wealth of armor for Amara:&nbsp; Peaked Hyrkanian cavalry helmet.&nbsp; Oily-hard Frissian leather gauntlets.&nbsp; A lean, diamond hard gorget with paddled boats like a woman's flowing hair engraved on it.&nbsp; The lads spend it staring.&nbsp; Arden chews his cheek from the inside.<br><br>Parzi speaks first.&nbsp; "That would assume we know where they're going."&nbsp; There's something mean in his voice.&nbsp; He's looking for an excuse to draw his bowstring or grip a dagger.&nbsp; He's sick with need for it.&nbsp; "Which we don't--"<br><br>"We do."&nbsp; I explain.&nbsp; Like most advanced wisdom, this is received with the quietude one approaches a puzzle with.&nbsp; <br><br>Amara's pile gets a rapier and a matching dagger, both having hilts that whirl in interlocking circles.&nbsp; Marius' pile gets a mace that is said to grant the owner the ability to win any drinking contest.&nbsp; Both piles get Hyrkanian bows like the one I carry on my back - bows like great, shining gold dinosaur bones.<br><br>Hyrkanian archers dominated their blood-watered desert empire for nearly five hundred years.&nbsp; They did so by shooting further than the enemy - by killing the enemy before the enemy even knew they were in a place of death.&nbsp; They did so by making bows that could shoot not only where the enemy was, but where the enemy would be.&nbsp; They proved that hitting a running target at 200 meters' distance is not impossible.&nbsp; It just means taking aim at where you want them to die.<br><br>"We know the direction they are headed in.&nbsp; That gives us a list of destinations."<br><br>I raise up from the stripped corpses, looking at the crowd.&nbsp; Father once told me I only speak in the tone regents use to announce capital condemnations.&nbsp; He changed his mind later.&nbsp; I have not changed my tone.&nbsp; I never change my tone.<br><br>"There are only a number of sites in that direction that could support a gang of bog dwellers and raiders while still allowing them to operate concealed from the sight of civilization.&nbsp; This narrows the list."<br><br>I do not change my tone, and I believe it sounds like I am blessing - like I am annoucing that the kingdom of Heaven is nigh.&nbsp; Father once chastized me for being too hard on the slaves.&nbsp; I tried to explain it was because I love them so much that I need them to be perfect.&nbsp; <br><br>I look at Amara for a very long time, and at Marius, because they are quite lovely.<br><br>"There are only a number of sites that are rumored, by midwives or elders or woodsmen, to be foul places that sane creatures do not go.&nbsp; This narrows the list further."<br><br>I sheathe the sword.&nbsp; The bow comes off of my back.&nbsp; I am ready to pick a target, and hit it before my enemy knows it is death ground - before they know it is mine.<br><br>"Let us head with all haste towards the place left on that list.&nbsp; If it is 'places', we might choose between them on the way."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>19-02-2008, 22:49:25</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Resting a broad-palmed hand on Amara's shoulder, Marius walks steadily in an arc, skirting the corpses, giving Amara room.&nbsp; He knows she's been with the Crimson Band, and he knows something of their exploits-- theirs, and others like them.&nbsp; Mercenaries, Task-masters, Sell-Swords, Questworthy-- those talented in combat, those of ideology.&nbsp; Miniature armies, small enough to be handled by law enforcement rather than military force and, therefore, tolerated.&nbsp; Their unified goal, their mutual desire, became their binding ideology.&nbsp; Here, a cleric would sow peace, there, a crusader would slaughter villages.&nbsp; Where at one flank a band of blade-wielders would turn the tide of battle for their king, on the other flank they would break and run with their coinpurses clutched tight at the first sight of blood.<br><br>The lure of gold, the promise of glory, the draw of a god's righteous battle-lust--&nbsp; Marius has none of it, nor did Amara.&nbsp; They are drawn as if by the line and lure of an invisible fisherman, drawn into wode-tracks as smoothly as the ball of a child's toy in its wooden trench.<br><br>Unquestioning, Marius begins to loose the facets of the huntsman's armor.&nbsp; It has its advantages, certainly.&nbsp; It is lighter, though not so flexible as one might think.&nbsp; It is cheaply made, boiled hide and tanned, softened joints, and it can turn a boar's tusk or a bear's claw.&nbsp; It could not, however, stop an arrow or stay a blade.&nbsp; Now, Marius was being presented with a finer set of armor than he'd ever held-- fine aside from the gaping, brown-staining rift under the arm where Thorius' companion was run through.&nbsp; The barrel-chested, short-bearded man was ruddy with gore, having been spitted from his under-shoulder through the ribcage, left to gout his heart's blood through his throat.&nbsp; Marius knows enough of mending to know that, with their time constraints, there would be no time to mend the severed links between the disks, though wet rawhide strips would serve just as well to draw it shut. <br><br>Marius eyes the rigid, gape-mouthed man that Thorius had stripped to his armor-padding... a squiggling-lined tattoo of the islander's style disappeared into the shoulder piece, a woman's name-- 'Briusa'-- emblazoned forever there.&nbsp; Perhaps Briusa will never learn Ymir's fate.&nbsp; Or, if she does, perhaps she would remember him fondly, at least, for a time.<br><br>The cuirass first... unthinking, Marius has stripped to the waist. Ring and scale, he knows, requires less padding than chain or plate, but needs it nonetheless, so he is fishing from his pack the wool-lined jacket and breeches he retained from the mountain campaigns.&nbsp; They would be terribly warm, but, turned inside out...<br><br>He realizes that Thorius is watching him, his short hair like the thick, short grass that bristles in tufts, but is thick and soft, the broad back and chest visible at the open neck of his shirt, semi-transparent with sweat.&nbsp; Somehow, he doesn't mind, nor does he feel embarrassment or the stirring that, as a younger man, he'd have certainly known.&nbsp; Somehow, his body's become a tool now-- no more worth one's notice than the rest of the gleaming, blood-duled hardware spread on the grass before him.&nbsp; Something to assess for weaknesses or advantages.<br><br>As the shirt passes over his head, it's clearer than ever just how far he's come from a lean-bellied, wiry farmboy... his back is host to a long, pale scar, rimmed with the white dots of what must have been hasty, inexpert stitches.&nbsp; In red-brown ink, under and in the skin of his right arm, is emblazoned a primitive pictograph as of a wolf as broad as a grown man's splayed fingers over thick ship-ropes of muscle, the faint trail of short, still youthful hair, black as that on his head, but thin, like a trail of smoke from a distant fire up the middle of his chest.<br><br>He dons the remnants of his coat inside-out after ripping the sleeves off by popping the seams at the shoulders with the jagged fang of a hook-tipped skinning knife.&nbsp; Then, with a quiet acceptance, he uses the removed sleeves' thick, fleecy padding to scour off some of the thick, congealing blood from the metal plates of the scale armor before he eases it over his head.<br><br>The weight settles on him, and like a ghost-hand, straightens his back, pulls his head erect.&nbsp; His body knows the weight of the armor, knows how to hold it.&nbsp; And with each selected piece he becomes more of what he once was.<br><br><i>He'd begun as a pikeman-- fodder for the teeth of the war-beast.&nbsp; Every friend he made from that unit-- those he shared wine with, played stones with, told jokes to-- every one of those young men is now dead or crippled.&nbsp; He'd survived one battle's press by being ground so far into the mud that the trampling horses passed him by, just barely missing his head with their steel-shod hooves.<br><br>Then, he'd become a legionaire, his leather and wood traded for actual metal.&nbsp; The survival rate was higher, so long as the commanders were tactful in deployment, but there was a time when he rose from a barbarian's hewn corpse to see nothing but an ocean of bodies around him-- a bristling field of arrows like summer bog-bulbs at the river's shoals, only they writhed with gurgling cries and shrieks of agony rather than the peaceful whisper of the river's ceaseless pull.<br><br>Success and survival at this had earned him special assignments... he volunteered for scout duties, but his size-- years of labor on battlements, entrenching, hefting armor and training ceaselessly to give himself any chance of survival at the front of the ranks-- marked him not for stealth, but for more incisive, personal tasks...<br><br>It was not long before he'd longed to be a pikeman again, after those years--</i><br><br>Pushing them from his mind, he focused instead on cinching the facetings tighter, making the armor his shell, disappearing into that aspect of what he was made, because when he lifted his brown eyes again to survey the ruin of the town, they came to rest upon Amara.&nbsp; <br><br>Somehow, he had always known that this would be his place... beside her.&nbsp; Hopefully, he thinks, <i>between</i> her and... something... what ever was hunting her, whatever stalked from the dark, as if his presence alone would do any more than distract it from its headlong path toward her.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>20-02-2008, 18:39:42</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Amara knows this routine, familiar even in this new place.&nbsp; Over the last months, she's learned how to prepare to leave, quickly and smoothly, planning ahead almost unconsciously.&nbsp; She takes a moment to gather her own few coins, to take stock of the little food left from what the two of them had gleaned earlier, then exchanges a few quick words with Arden.&nbsp; It seems ridiculous, even cruel, to discuss funds or food, but with speed so much of the essence, there will be no time for foraging, less for hunger.&nbsp; And she has no stomach for the search for other equipment, necessary as she knows this to be.<br><br>She turns, bracing herself to face the death again, and instead finds her gaze fixed on Marius' broad back, almost bisected by the thin snake of a scar, pale as the corpses around him.&nbsp; She'd easily rediscovered something of the spirit of the boy she'd known, and had all but forgotten the change in his looks.&nbsp; Now it strikes home.&nbsp; As a little girl, she'd often escaped to the river and the pond, splashing fearlessly into the water wearing little or nothing, and she'd been there to see Marius do the same many times.&nbsp; Now there is a stranger before her, just for an instant.<br><br>Then he moves, half-turning, and the spell breaks.&nbsp; No one else in the world could move quite like that; not even the back of anyone else's head could look quite that way, and he was her Marius again, something no tattoos or muscles or years could change.&nbsp; She watches as he dons the shirt, the padding, the armor, layer upon layer transforming him again into the soldier he had so lately been.&nbsp; The rend in the armor makes her heart ache -- foolish to let such workmanship go to waste, of course, but for an instant she wishes with all her might that she would not have to see him wear the armor of a dead man.<br><br>More metal is piled near her, the strange, focused newcomer gathering steadily, unwaveringly.&nbsp; Amara looks at the stack almost uncomprehendingly.&nbsp; Her armor can hardly be dignified with the name: a padded jerkin; good, stout leather gloves and boots, but nothing else that might be called protective.&nbsp; She picks up the gorget, tests it, marvels at the fact that it has been made to look attractive as well as tough.&nbsp; The dagger is fine, it suits her somehow; the rapier is less familiar, but she realizes at once that it is as fine as its mate, well-balanced and surprisingly easy in her hand.&nbsp; A helmet is something she's never possessed, and she wishes she still didn't need to, flinching at the life's blood that stains one edge.&nbsp; Marius will protect her, but she still can't invite attack.<br><br>She armors herself slowly, glancing often at Marius as though for guidance.&nbsp; She longs for a bow, always her most comfortable weapon after the long years of hunting and impromptu competitions, but all those in her sight seem ruined, and again she shrinks from the thought of looking more closely.&nbsp; Unthinking as she is when dressing game, or someone's wound, or even shedding blood in the heat of battle, she feels suddenly a coward in the face of all this.<br><br>She takes a breath, forcing herself to look.&nbsp; Then her eyes meet Marius', his transformation complete as well.&nbsp; A sword waits near him, a monster of a weapon, perhaps as tall as she is, perhaps more than she could lift, let alone swing.&nbsp; Only the eyes give away the fact that there is a thinking, feeling man inside the metal, and even that is something perhaps only Amara herself, in all the world, would recognize.&nbsp; Even so, she hesitates, not so much uncertain as adjusting, relearning him for the second time in a day.<br><br>"Did you ever imagine you would see me with such a weapon?" she asks, with a hint of a wry smile, as she hefts the rapier and fastens its belt around her hips.&nbsp; "With this, perhaps even bog-dwellers might be afraid of me."<br><br>But this faint humor doesn't reach her eyes, their clear blue studying him again for a moment.&nbsp; "Can we do this?" she asks, a vague, careful question that begs many others.&nbsp; She is already decided, nothing will turn her back now, but some part of her waits for that necessary confirmation from him, almost permission, almost a blessing.&nbsp; She no more has words for the bond between them then he does, but it is the strongest, most vital thing she has.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>VandalSavage</strong> on <strong>20-02-2008, 19:50:14</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				I hand over the big, bright Hyrkanian bow to Marius, and a quiver of thirteen arrows with it.&nbsp; His flesh is inscribed with elaborate oaths of service to the life of paid pain - the warrior life.&nbsp; I would thank Wotan for receiving so experienced a murderer to use, if I was not sure that the Great Father would tear out my tongue and cast me into a seraglio as a lesson in what gratitude will get me.&nbsp; <br><br>All the same, I look at the machinery of those muscles and the fine, dark promise of the tattoos, and I know I am a lucky girl.<br><br>The other bow goes to Amara; her quiver holds seventeen arrows.&nbsp; I spend a moment taking the measure of her, feeling like an epicure studying the sweep of a champagne glass.&nbsp; And the cool craft of her features is as alluring as blown glass.&nbsp; Her smell effervesces in the head.&nbsp; All very alluring.&nbsp; Her distress, all the more so.<br><br>"Can we do this?"&nbsp; Amara asks.&nbsp; <br><br>The lads are already beginning to look up, and there's a dark rim to their staring eyes as they face the questioner.&nbsp; I need their eyes clear.&nbsp; They have to lead us, straight and swift and true.&nbsp; They need to not think on the most poisonous question in the world.<br><br>So I speak fast.<br><br>"Yes."&nbsp; I tell Amara and her protector and the lads and the little girl in black claws so far off already.&nbsp; "We will do this."<br><br>Though, technically, we cannot.&nbsp; Technically, her doubt is justified.&nbsp; Technically, nothing can move at all.<br><br>When I first began shooting - after he gave up taking me to be whipped for my impetuousity and relented to teach me to shoot - my father's fletcher and game warden, Bolor, explained.&nbsp; He sat me down in the high, ice-green grass at the edge of a sun-stripped glade, and whispered to me while a doe foraged some seventy-five yards away.<br><br><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote from: Thoris</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Can you hit the doe with this arrow?" Bolor asked me, holding up an arrow like atop a weather vane.<br><br>I replied I did not know.&nbsp; I was not all that sure I wanted to.<br><br>"You cannot shoot the doe with this arrow."&nbsp; Bolor explained.<br><br>Then I wanted to.&nbsp; Somewhat.&nbsp; Just to show him.&nbsp; I told him I could.<br><br>"No."&nbsp; Bolor insisted.&nbsp; "This arrow is where it is at any point in time, right?"<br><br>I nodded.<br><br>"Even in flight, at any given moment, the arrow is at a single point in space.&nbsp; Just like we are at rest here, and the doe there; unmoving.&nbsp; To occupy a definable point in space, an object must be at rest.&nbsp; If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in movement is always occupying such a space at any moment, even the flying arrow is therefore motionless."<br><br>I frowned.&nbsp; I suspected Bolor was not having me on, and this realization made his words all the more perplexing.&nbsp; He talked on.<br><br>"Nothing moves.&nbsp; Nothing can even start."<br><br>He leaned in.&nbsp; He gripped the arrow in his hand.<br><br>"Except that belief makes it so.&nbsp; Except that intention forces it to start."<br><br>Bolor held the arrow fixed hard in his grip, showing me how impossible it would be to take it.<br><br>"You cannot kill that doe with this arrow."&nbsp; He damned me.&nbsp; But I wanted to kill the doe with that arrow.&nbsp; I needed to.&nbsp; And, after I broke two of Bolor's teeth and took the arrow, I did.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br>"We will do this." I repeat, slapping Liam on the shoulder to get the lads moving.&nbsp; I rake the fond fire of my eyes over Amara's as I pass her, close enough to nearly brush hands.&nbsp; I keep hers in mine until the luster spreads.<br><br>She had asked the most critical, most deadly, most important question in the world.&nbsp; I gave the only answer.<br><br>And so now I lope for the forest, leading the lads who will lead us, and telling them, "Take us with all haste to whatever blighted place the raiders might have come from in the direction they fled.&nbsp; If they are really doubling back and laying ambushes like Arden says, we may even beat them there."<br><br>I brush my hand against the waterskin by my side.&nbsp; It is full, and the one beside it is empty.&nbsp; We are prepared.&nbsp; All we need now is speed, and lots of it.<br><br>"We will forage from the slain," I tell Amara, addressing her concerns for funds and food.&nbsp; My thoughts are on the raiders - on what location, in the direction they went, they might conceal themselves at, that is associated with dark rites.&nbsp; Surely Liam or Parzi will know.&nbsp; We will discuss it on the way.&nbsp; Even information, plans, must be foraged.<br><br>Bolor once told me that the bearded stargazers of Colgos had proved their fastest hero, Arkhales, could not outrun a tortoise if the shelled slouch had a head start.&nbsp; "The pursuer must always reach a point the pursued started at, and by then, the pursued will have moved on," he insisted.<br><br>But I want to out run the raiders to their lair.&nbsp; I want to reach their reedy, reeking terrain, scout them out on it, and shoot them down in shocked rows.&nbsp; The hero will out run the tortoise.&nbsp; We will do this.&nbsp; Amara will rescue herself.<br><br>We move.<br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>20-02-2008, 22:36:34</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Marius accepts the bow from Thorius, momentarily meeting her eyes with a cool, steady gaze, a wordless acceptance of fate, and this stranger as a craftsman of it.&nbsp; For a moment, the fires in both their eyes blaze in parallel, their symmetry so perfect that it is impossible to tell where one fury ends, one begins.<br><br>A perimeter of eyes seeks the three of them out, the curious and astounded hush having become a reverent, lucid placidity.&nbsp; Homage, or quietus... now would be the day that the tow-headed youths would recall to their grandchildren, if they could survive the lightning strokes of fate long enough to grow wizened.&nbsp; Three, only, no more.&nbsp; Strangers, only one had they ever seen before, and then so rarely-- their armor glittering like the flickering of the fire at night as they walked with steady, determined steps, unified by a decision beyond reckoning or reason.<br><br>His gauntleted hand wraps tightly on the wire-wrapped pommel of the massive blade, the blade like a plank of tapered steel, the rigid leaf of some ancient giant's harvest.&nbsp; It would be impossible to unsheath in a hurry, though he sheathed it anyway for the journey, and once he shouldered the scabbard strap to his back, it was like some cross he would carry to his point of execution, the massive cross-guard watching from over his shoulder like a looming raven.&nbsp; <br><br>He falls in second, taking a position off to Thorius' left flank, where he can travel close to Amara.&nbsp; He nocks an arrow, holds it between his bow-gripping fingers with practiced grip, and begins to stride out, eyes already alert, into the yawning scrub-forest of the vale.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>21-02-2008, 17:33:44</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Amara offers a grateful smile at being presented with the bow.&nbsp; This seems to invite a close inspection of her by Thoris, something which makes the girl distinctly uneasy -- not so much the being looked at, but the way of it, the cool intimacy, like being studied by an artist preparing to capture her in paint or marble, a bard judging whether or not she is worthy to be immortalized in song.&nbsp; <br><br>But it is the bow that truly captures Amara's attention, and this she studies like a connisseur, testing its weight and how it pulls, nodding her satisfaction after a moment or two.&nbsp; She keeps it ready, as Marius does his, the posture natural to her.&nbsp; The rapier can be drawn quickly, its smaller sibling also near to hand, but this is the way she hunts best.&nbsp; It's more mountainous here than she's used to, but forests are forests, all of them familiar to her in their own unique ways, and she knows that at least she won't slow them down.&nbsp; Her own rage is not quite the soldier's tempered fury, not quite the mysterious, almost chill fire of their new companion, but it is equally grim, equally determined, whatever faint doubts might slip through her mind.<br><br>"The bog is in that direction," volunteers Liam, the taller of the two, as they take those last moments to prepare their weapons.&nbsp; "Well, it's large -- any journey this way will take you there."&nbsp; He raises a hand, sweeping it along in a brief arc.&nbsp; "A small army could hide there, if they know how to survive its dangers."<br><br>"And there's the city," Parzi cuts in, ignoring the glare from his friend.&nbsp; "An ancient city, drowned now, but the bog-dwellers must know all about it."<br><br>"Rumors of a city, he means.&nbsp; None of us have ever seen it.&nbsp; But it's true there could be something hidden there, in all that space."&nbsp; It's a faintly grudging admission, hinting at a long-standing argument, but even these headstrong young men realize that now is not the time for pointless disagreement.&nbsp; "It's the best place to start," he adds, to general agreement.<br><br>Falling into step with Marius is natural; she has to check on Thorius' pace, but they soon find a pattern, an easy distance and a steady speed.&nbsp; Like her and Marius, if not Thorius, their guides have grown up with this, moving among the trees like deer, or perhaps wolves in this case.&nbsp; They will all be quick, but can it be quick enough?&nbsp; It has to be, she tells herself; it has to be.<br><br>The terrain dips and rises, not much but often, not enough to slow them.&nbsp; Soon, after one last, larger hill, the ground begins its slow, steady sweep down, seeking the level of the bog.&nbsp; Nothing of that can be seen yet, hidden by trees and distance, but Amara tenses faintly just the same.&nbsp; There is something uneasy in the air, something obscurely familiar, though she cannot quite chase down the memory.&nbsp; But it seems to tease at all her senses at once, pulling her forward, drawing her slightly ahead of her usual place at Marius' side as they move on.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>VandalSavage</strong> on <strong>21-02-2008, 23:10:09</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The sun beats down like a great bronze maul as we march, and I am reminded that there are good deaths and bad deaths.<br><br>Keeling over from being charbroiled in one's chain mail would be a bad death.&nbsp; Tumbling down a scabrous, scrubby hill as erosion-leeched soil crumbles below a misplaced boot and breaking one's neck would be a bad death.&nbsp; Ameobic dysintery from the bog water, intestinal parasite up the breeches, mosquito borne blood fever; all bad deaths.<br><br>We run like treasure thieves, sprinting with nearly a hundred pounds of metal on our bodies, and the sharp, unsympathetic sun laughs a thousand promises of bad deaths to us.<br><br>I care only for good deaths as we go.&nbsp; I keep my mind focused on them; on the good ground ahead, and on the bodies we will plant there, and how.&nbsp; I run through my internal notes on the vulnerabilities of bog dweller anatomy.<br><br>Displaced spinal accessory nerve.&nbsp; Massive artery 13 centimeters from the shoulder cuff.&nbsp; Vulnerable heart below the stitching of the deltoid to the trapezius.&nbsp; Don't shoot for the belly.<br><br>I tell my companions this.&nbsp; Between panting.&nbsp; "Don't shoot for the belly."<br><br>I take stock of them.&nbsp; In many ways, they're more adept at this than I am.&nbsp; In battle, I do not tire easily.&nbsp; I have fought too many battles to think I can afford to be tired in them.&nbsp; But forced marches are few and far between in my experience.&nbsp; I focus on the good deaths ahead - I care only for them.&nbsp; Not the sweat sluicing down my neck and breast and belly like boiled honey.&nbsp; Not the steel wool of my breath.&nbsp; Not that laughing sun.<br><br>I care only for good deaths.&nbsp; That, and Amara.&nbsp; I find myself wondering about her, the way I used to wonder why flowers smell as they do.&nbsp; I wonder also whether she realizes she is on a quest to save herself; that she and the girl, Anissa, are only one in the same.&nbsp; I wonder how she will endure feeling so important.&nbsp; I wonder how she shoots.<br><br>As we dip down the crest of the hill, to where the bog spreads like the tears of a rubber tree within the green scab of forest, I begin to focus on good deaths again.&nbsp; I see them everywhere they might be hidden; I try to find them before they find me.&nbsp; My bow comes out, and coasts like a golden eagle before me, its beak an arrowhead unmoving in its aim.&nbsp; <br><br>Unmoving for now.&nbsp; I am ready for when the next now comes.&nbsp; When the time to unleash good death arrives.&nbsp; And it must be near, for just as there are good deaths and bad deaths, there is good ground and bad ground.&nbsp; And this is very good ground.<br><br>There, in the wormlike warp of the banyan trees, there could hunker an archer to shoot me through the eye - a good death.&nbsp; There, in the bubbling, tarry water of an inlet, a scout might be in wait to slit my femoral artery - a good death.&nbsp; Everywhere in the fens that spread like black sores, corrupt with vomitous islands of vegetation, there bristle good deaths: Bear traps through severed hamstrings.&nbsp; Wire traps crossbow bolts in the duadenum.&nbsp; Decapitations.&nbsp; Open wrists.&nbsp; Incineration.&nbsp; <br><br>I keep the bow focused on every possibility.&nbsp; I kill these potential deaths before they can kill me.&nbsp; I abort them with speed and attention.<br><br>My attention only slips a little.&nbsp; I wonder where Marius met the animal traced on his body.&nbsp; I wonder how Amara would react to the bog dwellers worshipping her.&nbsp; I wonder what she would act like kidnapped.<br><br>I wonder if I could kill them both.&nbsp; <br><br>Idle thoughts, but they keep my mind off of the water snakes, the poisonous frogs, the necrotizing fasciitis in the bog - all those bad deaths in this very, very good killing ground.&nbsp; I think about how Ymir smelled in the morning, rather than think about how the air smells like the belly of a corpse burst open.&nbsp; I think about how Marius would smell.&nbsp; I think about ten thousand ways I could kill an ambusher before they kill me.<br><br>So it is that I notice the figure of a good death ahead in the shadow before it notices me - a chunky, slouching figure moving at the shambling gait of an ape.&nbsp; I motion for everyone to stop and sink into concealment.&nbsp; <br><br>As I do, I find Marius is already down there.&nbsp; Amara is just a bit slower than me, and I catch sight of her eyes - they seem distant, washed out; the color of a slate board that has been written on and erased too many times.&nbsp; She moves her slender limbs into place the way one would steer a cart.&nbsp; She moves like she's just now getting used to being inside herself again.<br><br>Our arrows raise.&nbsp; By then, the shape in the shadow has broken from the ragged edge of the tree line and is dashing across the fen in front of us.&nbsp; Four more forms follow - all slinging themselves forward, brutal and brachiated.&nbsp; All bog dwellers.<br><br>Like their companions at the village, they look like infected corn that someone sicked up and then wired into a long-armed humanoid shape.&nbsp; Like gigantic babies made out of black mushrooms.&nbsp; Like death sneezed.&nbsp; <br><br>They wear loose belts and a casual collision of armor pieces plucked from victims and belted haphazardly into place on their deranged forms.&nbsp; The belt buckles jingle and clack as they move, giving them the sound of a calamitous festival parade.&nbsp; Beside that, they make no sound as they lash their snotty limbs forward, tumbling legs and arms, their fat faces all teeth and murky, fishbowl eyes.&nbsp; The bog dwellers never make sounds - until they are ready to attack.&nbsp; Then the hooting starts, and continues until they are dead.<br><br>Stretched and swollen, lanky and lumpy, the gang of five bog dwellers splash and clack their way across our path.&nbsp; I figure they are moving too fast to be a rear guard.&nbsp; I do not see humans among them, or captives.&nbsp; I figure them for the vanguard.&nbsp; Most importantly, I figure them for about fifty yards ahead, dashing towards the tree-shrouded catacomb islands of the central bog.<br><br>I twist the sight on the side of the Hyrkanian bow.&nbsp; The mist sighs like a cancer victim, rinsing my brow of concerns about falling under the bad death of sunstroke, the bad death of dehydration.&nbsp; I sight through the rising mist at the rear bog dweller.<br><br>I wonder about Amara and her mist-haunted eyes.&nbsp; "Don't shoot for the belly."&nbsp; I tell her.<br><br>The killing ground air hisses as I let the first arrow fly.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>23-02-2008, 00:33:23</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				No more than a league into the swamp, he noted.&nbsp; A small distance straight, a week's work cutting for sign without their guidance.&nbsp; This dead city, this remnant, must be a like a beacon for them.&nbsp; It must hold their fates, might make a suitable tomb.<br><br>'Not yet, at least,' Marius thinks, his jaw setting easily and the lashes of one brown eye fluttering half-closed.&nbsp; He'd been trained not to shoot with one eye-- clearly.&nbsp; He doesn't use the sight-- would not know how-- he draws down, easing the arrow back, steadied with its slick white fletching.&nbsp; The bow, the white tips, the gracefully stretching blades and their dull-glittering armor-- none of it fits among the fetid, bristling tar-slick of the swamp, its bubbling, reeking mass of decay, of life gone mad with love of death.<br><br>In profile, the massive bow is like a mouth, the horn-like tips drawn in like corners of kissing lips.&nbsp; Marius has seen bows like this in the hands of mercenaries, hire-scouts from the north.&nbsp; He'd seen a contest between a plains-reaver and one of the Northman mercenaries, where one of these Hyrkanian bows-- some of the rivermen he'd served with nicknamed them boat-bows, pike's eyes, or 'harkers' for ease of speech-- had been used to punch an armor-biter through a young sapling from what must have been a quarter of a mile...&nbsp; &nbsp;He still remembered the mauled, soft steel tip's warped shape, still clinging to the iron core of the arrowtip, a stubby, dull protrusion from the side opposite the bowman.<br><br>He would make no such attempt at spectacle.&nbsp; The youth, he notes, are good shots-- country boys, but too eager.&nbsp; They hit their targets as they would small game-- center-mass.&nbsp; The boglings don't even slow down, and charge into the sludge, their strides slinging muck behind them in fantails.<br><br>The redhead warrior's arrow finds its path with carefully-laid precision like an artist's chisel into a knotted bulge at one splotched, rot-fruit neck.&nbsp; A broadhead-- serrations laid into the blade-edges while they were hot enough to glow, it bites through like a spear, nestles in the bog-dweller's vital artery as if with a sigh of contentment.&nbsp; The beast's blood pressure spikes for a moment at the agony and shock, producing a mist, like an eruption of flies from the wound-- another, another before its nervous system shuts down in confusion and it collapses into a filthy heap of meat, bone, metal.<br><br>Marius' arrow is behind hers, aimed less expertly for the core of the chest, somewhere between the chin and rib-junction.&nbsp; Marius's target, its glittering black eyes like pyrite buttons as it snarls behind a flopping nose, drops its head and enlongates its jaw in a long-mouthed roar.&nbsp; The subtle shift drops its head into the path of the arrow, which seats itself assuredly between the palate and eyes-- the mass and velocity of the arrow cause it to duck back its punctured head like a turtle before is knees give and it splashes into the murk, still staring past the triangle of fletchings at the base of the arrow as its vision filled with erupting fluids.<br><br>Seeing no bows crossbows, or means of ranged retaliation, he doesn't look for the rest to fall.&nbsp; Marius nocks another arrow as quickly as he can, begins to scan for stragglers, other ranks... if there are more, they'll have heard... he looks back to the skirmishers, readying to fire again.&nbsp; Still watching for more.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>25-02-2008, 02:28:55</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<em>Five.</em>&nbsp; Amara counts them without thinking, her bow up and aimed even as she takes stock of them.&nbsp; Like Marius, she ignores the sight, firing on instinct, what feels right, and her arrow flies true just as the others' do.&nbsp; <em>Four.&nbsp; Three.</em>&nbsp; Thorius' target falls, then Marius', the arrows seeming to spring from the misshapen bodies rather than to plunge into them from afar.&nbsp; Then there are only two, as Amara's arrow finds the neck of one of them.&nbsp; It flies almost straight through the flesh, driven by the power of the bow, and with a strangled snarl the creature fell to its knees, then to the side.<br><br>From the corner of one clear blue eye, she sees Marius scanning for others, leaves him to watch their backs.&nbsp; She's safe enough with him on the alert, and she can turn all her attention to the arrows, to the bow.&nbsp; A second arrow is at the ready before she can think twice; she aims in a heartbeat and lets fly at another target.&nbsp; It hits further down this time, into what would have been the collarbone of a human, and blood bubbles free, thick and dark.&nbsp; This one does not fall instantly; it hefts its axe as though intending to throw it, or perhaps to charge the girl, even as an arrow from one of their guides also strikes home, lodging between two ribs on its side.&nbsp; But it will not fall lightly.&nbsp; In its way, it is as determined as any of them.<br><br>She draws another arrow, still unthinking, knowing only that they cannot rest yet.&nbsp; Something about this, the way the tension hits her, makes her feel as though she's only watching herself, uncertain even as her hands move with a cool, steady precision that amazes her.&nbsp; Not once during those moments does she think about what she's shooting at, or even why -- for once she is only motion, almost as much the trained, calm killer as Marius, all hesitation lost.&nbsp; She's almost glad of it -- if she can do this, she can face the trials ahead more easily -- but once it ends, she knows that it will also frighten her.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>VandalSavage</strong> on <strong>25-02-2008, 23:10:31</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				And just like that, it is over.<br><br>The last arrow flies from my bow and strikes true.&nbsp; The last opponent merges into the fuming muck of the moor.&nbsp; The last line in this engagement is written:&nbsp; We won.<br><br>Though of course, it is never really over.&nbsp; Though, certainly, there are other opponents on their way - the rest of the column of raiders, making haste to this location in their formidable ranks.&nbsp; <br><br>Though we have many, many opportunities in the future to miss.&nbsp; And we know it.&nbsp; Still, end the story here, and we won.<br><br>Marius already has his bow aimed at our left flank - a treeline, furry with moss and warped wet and lean - ready for any enemy elements following close behind the vanguard.&nbsp; As far as he is concerned, the battle is not over.&nbsp; The battle never ends for him.&nbsp; I suspect that as much as it pains him, the times between violence have become like the scenes left unwritten between chapters - the parts edited out as irrelevant, or too dull, or even nonsensical in light of the larger narrative's theme.<br><br>I suspect, as far as he is concerned, we are still fighting.<br><br>But the lads are grinning bitterly at each other, and breathing in that crazy quick way that adrenaline spurs the lungs into breathing.&nbsp; Amara is not much calmer; her excitement has made her glassy, polished her past gleaming, past features, into a brilliant translucency.&nbsp; Best to sustain that excitement - bright and brittle, she may crack a bit after she drops from the heights she is gliding at now.<br><br>I take hold of her shoulder and begin to move her into the bog.&nbsp; The lads follow, and Marius silently, smoothly locks into the rear guard position.&nbsp; We slip into place like steel bearings, only the tar of the swamp's environs making us seem at all ungainly.<br><br>As we proceed along, deeper into the bog in the hopes of finding another good locale to ambush the returning raiders, more of this land's story exposes itself.&nbsp; It informs me of another narrative here; one that had an ending more glorious than any kingdom I have ever conceived of.&nbsp; It tells me in gilt lettering - it insists - if the story had just been over as soon as its inscription was written, the world would have forever been heaven:<br><br>This dislodged chunk of story heaves like a rotting canine tooth out of the black milk of the bog.&nbsp; It is hewn of a stone that resembles bronze, but that has an eerie, internal radiance to it - like the flesh of the earth with an eternal fever.&nbsp; And onto its long, jagged shape is carved a kaleidoscopic spray of hieroglyphs and short, fine, insectile slashes.&nbsp; Spirals of half-formed pictograms are tossed in the spindly fingers of this alien cuneiform, surrounding ghastly tableaus rendered in incomparably detailed relief that show lusty chimerae tumbling with half-human figures.&nbsp; It emanates an alien aspect in every detail, as if the most basic of its creator's strokes would not be the first angle attempted by a mortal mind.&nbsp; It aches with an inner energy long ago shattered, corrupted.<br><br>It is glorious.&nbsp; And I stare at its soaring, seemingly endless writing and images as they sweep nearly twenty feet along the mutilated column, and wonder at how much devotion it took to create such a thing.<br><br>It is glorious and horrible.&nbsp; Horrible to think that the bog is where it now dwells.&nbsp; Horrible to consider how that might have twisted it.&nbsp; <br><br>Horrible most to realize how its creators could never have conceived such a tragic outcome for it.<br><br>The lags shuffle and mutter.&nbsp; "We best go back," Parzi says.<br><br>"This is ... We need ..." Liam says.<br><br>"We shouldn't be here." Parzi says.<br><br>And suddenly the story is not of the young peasant guides who slew the monster.&nbsp; Not about the two manly lads saving the little princess.&nbsp; Not about cloth of gold and magic bows and cheering townspeople.&nbsp; <br><br>The lads look along with me at the column and realize they are not in a folk tale - not in that kind of a story at all.&nbsp; They look at script impossibly elaborate, incomparably old, suggestive of all manner of madness and power, and they find themselves reading another story.&nbsp; A horror story.&nbsp; They can hardly breathe.<br><br>Amara fares little better, as I hear her hiss behind me.&nbsp; It sounds like deep abominal cramps.&nbsp; I will have to turn around and see what's afflicting her belly so.&nbsp; I will have to ask if looking at the column's uncanny writing and lasciviously blasphemous scenes inspired it.&nbsp; I will have to ask her what the story is.<br><br>But now I hear a drum beat bubbling up as one from all around the bog.&nbsp; And the air is seeming to thicken, to swell, as though brewing black blood were infusing it like erectile tissue.&nbsp; And the water is still, but the mist is gathering, and I can hear Marius' bow drawing back, but everywhere the mist charges in seems a target.&nbsp; And the beat is felt buzzing in the blood, percolating through the bones, rising, rising. Boom.&nbsp; BOOM.&nbsp; <strong>BOOM.</strong><br><br>And it smells like ozone.<br><br><strong>BOOM.</strong><br><br>And it smells like horse sex.<br><br><strong>BOOM.</strong><br><br>And I hear one of the lads whimper, and Marius is noticing Amara having some manner of spell, and the other boy smells the air and whines, "I think we should go <em>now</em>."<br><br><strong>BOOM.</strong><br><br>And I reflect that every story has a happy ending, so long as you decide when it's over.&nbsp; And then ...
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>26-02-2008, 21:07:06</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Sweeping his gaze over the terrain, there's a deliberate lethargy in Marius' cautious gaze, like one trying to keep cover in the woods at night, or one in an opium den trying to recall how to run from a fire.&nbsp; This is not how the soldiers liked things; they didn't like to be in the thick of something that outmassed or out numbered them, didn't like being surrounded.&nbsp; It doesn't bother Marius; he knows it is the same if you are in the reach of the lion's maw or if it is far away, if the fight was inevitable.&nbsp; Distance is a luxury he's long abandoned.<br><br>A war-drum stroke, a command stroke, a heartbeat and brain-shackle droning, thick pulse.<br><br>When surrounded, Marius has been taught to seek one of two ways out-- head and sword first, or feet-first on a shield.&nbsp; But he's learned others.&nbsp; He can't fly, but he once sank in the mud like a beetle beneath the onslaught of shredding cavalry and tidal-fancy arrows, and that was not the only time he's spent underground...<br><br>The sound resonates in his chest, deep in his breastbone, like a broken note of some ancient thunder lost on the plains.<br><br>The smell, the reek of it dries the swamp air, brings heat like desert wind sapping the tongue dry, chilling and feasting at once.&nbsp; The cicadas, frogs, and horn-bugs stop their droning.&nbsp; Marius skirts the massive, mummified-bone colored obelisk, watches as a bloated swamp-dweller's corpse bubbles and twitches in the spreading, greasy pool that won't mingle with the bog-water, like the waste-oil of a cook-pot.&nbsp; Even now, there are flickers at the black surface where curious glistening black insects and bug-eyed, white fish sip hungrily at the bog-dweller's leeching waste and fluids.<br><br>The sound again.&nbsp; Louder, if conceivable.<br><br>Heat-- oppressive, tangible.&nbsp; Marius grits his teeth, locks eyes with Amara-- if only he could drink off that fear, consume it from her skin before it permeates her further, be her sybiotic parasite, her second skin...&nbsp; the thought of her skin sends him somewhere, threatens to open some dark well deep inside him, where a black shape bubbles, tendrils snaking from the edges like oily smoke-- discipline.&nbsp; He averts his eyes from hers before he can think of what her sweat-slicked skin would taste like-- fixes his eyes to the stranger, Thorius-- the autumn-blood of her hair, the stern set of soft lips--<br><br>The pulse, again.&nbsp; The beasts in his heart and the drum's agree that there's killing to be done.<br><br>Marius's head snaps away so fast that there's an audible popping sound in his neck.&nbsp; His gaze rests on the glyphs again.&nbsp; "You men did well--"&nbsp; he doesn't need to look for the scouts to know.&nbsp; "We'll find our way back, report what you've seen."&nbsp; Unspoken is 'lest it be lost with our deaths'.<br><br>But staring at the impossible structure-- the angular scars and veinous crevices of that bronze-black, lichen-mottled whorls in its surface reading him as he stares stupidly at them-- he doesn't know what he's seen, really.&nbsp; But there's a creeping chill of awareness, climbing his spine like quicksilver, that whispers that what he's seen so far is paltry in the face of what comes.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>27-02-2008, 16:43:20</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				There's something very wrong.&nbsp; Amara knows this before she can even begin to quantify that something.&nbsp; She stands perfectly still, except for the faintest of shivers -- from summer to winter in an instant, the sweat seeming almost to freeze on her skin.&nbsp; Only her thoughts still move, quickly, jerkily, in strange directions, as she searches for this wrongness.<br><br>This battle is over, no fresh opponents appearing.&nbsp; They're safe enough for the moment.&nbsp; She's never drawn or aimed quite so well or so quickly in her life, perhaps, but call that adrenaline.&nbsp; That's no bad thing, in any case.&nbsp; Marius-- Marius is looking at her with an expression she's never seen on his face before.&nbsp; She knows this even out of the corner of her eye, her gaze slowly drifting towards his, pulled somehow.&nbsp; New, but not wrong.&nbsp; That's right somehow, perhaps the only truly right thing in her world at the moment.&nbsp; He looks away, then turns away, sharply, but even that's all right.<br><br>The city is wrong, but she expected that.&nbsp; Of course it would be strange, alien, even terrible, trapped in the bog as it was.&nbsp; Of course it would frighten her, make her uneasy, all too aware of being in a place unlike any she's seen before.<br><br>Then her lips part in a silent gasp.&nbsp; Her blue eyes, darker now, fix on the pillar, tracing the lines of the carvings.&nbsp; Pale beneath the tan of summer travelling, she takes a step back, at the last moment catching her bow as it threatens to slip from suddenly numb fingers.&nbsp; Her other hand reaches for Marius.&nbsp; She doesn't see him, eyes still held by the column, but she knows he won't be far, knows he'll be there when she needs him.&nbsp; And she needs him now.<br><br>She tries to say something reassuring, dismissive, at least calm -- but the words won't come.&nbsp; Now she understands that it was nothing alien, nothing new or bizarre that made the world lurch beneath her feet.&nbsp; It was familiarity.&nbsp; She knows this ruin, knows it in an inexplicable way that both repels and attracts, and she hugs this sharp impossibility to her tightly, afraid to let go, to let anyone else see how it wounds her...
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>VandalSavage</strong> on <strong>27-02-2008, 22:35:33</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				We are standing alone, the three of us, when it arrives, called by the relentless drums.&nbsp; And my first thought is:<br><br><em>It does not make sense.</em><br><br>The mind demands sense.&nbsp; It needs sense to grease the rails - to ease the friction inspired by too many moving parts in the intellect forced along by a highly unpredictable brew of emotions.&nbsp; It needs up not to be down, red not to be green, the dead to stay dead.<br><br><em>Eyes to stay out of mouths; claws on the ends of fingers to have a set number.</em><br><br>It needs science.&nbsp; It needs ettiquette.&nbsp; It needs measurement.&nbsp; It needs reasons.<br><br>It is not infallible, and it comes with a cost.&nbsp; How many times have I accidentally responded to some merchant wishing that I would enjoy their product with, "You too," in expectation of them bidding me a good day?&nbsp; How many times have I rolled to the left side of the bed to accomodate a lover that is not yet there?&nbsp; So much thought is spent on not thinking.<br><br>It needs shape.&nbsp; It needs motions.&nbsp; It needs history.&nbsp; It needs an end.<br><br>Then the mind has to experience the kind of thing that heaves its pachydermal mass out of the mist from the direction of the city.&nbsp; And then the mind sees venom squirting from a brocade of gibbering sphincters higher than the eave of a chieftain's hall.&nbsp; And then the mind smells what the air from places behind the stars smells like when wheezed through a mouth bigger than a barn door.&nbsp; And then the mind hears what flesh that will not stay still in a set measure of mass, volume, density sounds like.<br><br>Then the mind does not know what to do.<br><br>Run.&nbsp; Wait.&nbsp; Beg.&nbsp; Love.&nbsp; Scream.&nbsp; Kneel.&nbsp; Sick up.&nbsp; Laugh.&nbsp; Take deep, deep breaths.&nbsp; Consult a physician.&nbsp; Cry for a priest.&nbsp; Ask for more gods.&nbsp; Yell for mother.&nbsp; Make it go away.<br><br>Or just give up.<br><br>And the mind wants to shut down.<br><br>And for a moment, seeing it - <strong>It</strong> - shove out of the mist, moving like a building that shifts from one collapse to the next, my mind wants to end itself.&nbsp; It wants to start all over.&nbsp; It wants out.<br><br>And for a moment, I just smell that incomparable smell from its innumerable orifices, and watch its indescribable musculature pull its weird flesh forward, and I hear it moan - a moan that sounds like it took five billion years to get here and bathe me in its humid contempt.<br><br>And there is, almost, no second thought.&nbsp; One banyan-trunk of a foreleg - or tendril, or simply "limb" - comes whistling down at me from two stories up, fast as an arrow.&nbsp; When it hits the water, the surface tension of the bog explodes like a glass bowl around a bomb.<br><br>How I escaped getting hit, I could not tell you.&nbsp; It could have been reflex.&nbsp; It could have been Marius or Amara pulling me out of the way.&nbsp; It could have been sheer luck.&nbsp; I could not tell you; I was not there to say.&nbsp; My mind was not present.<br><br>But a moment later I am blinking, and poised to fight, and my mind is no longer nothingness.&nbsp; It is quicksilver.<br><br>I stare at what the drums brought, and though my senses cannot contain what they experience, the emotion the null-sight of it elicits is enough.&nbsp; The first instant - the one fixed like a grain of glass with the sharp, bright demand of my mind - is gone.&nbsp; The second instant, action, arrives.<br><br>I draw my sword.&nbsp; <strong>It</strong> draws tentacles as numerous as hair; claws; eyes; acid.<br><br>It moans, and the drums climb, <strong>BOOM</strong>, <strong>BOOM</strong>, <strong>BOOM</strong>, and the bog rustles with screeching birds as it slouches up over us, but as large as it gets, my cry is larger, louder:<br><br>I may not know what this is.&nbsp; Some things cannot be known.&nbsp; But I know what to do:<br><br><em><strong>"Kill it!"</strong></em>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>28-02-2008, 21:33:41</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Nothing left but to counterattack the madness, the thing that wounds the heart with overwhelming, incongruous wrong.&nbsp; <br><br>So big, so much finality in every stroke, it's impossibly surreal.&nbsp; Each movement predicts its own fate, the shift of a bulging heap of musculature flicks a tentacle into a rippling whip-stroke that can will must rend stone, a half-mile high, but its arc predictable.&nbsp; The risk is not in its strength, its weight... by comparison, the three warriors are vermin-quick, but physics haven't changed.&nbsp; It's not the strength of it, it's that the margin for error is so fucking huge-- if one tentacle crashes down a full ten feet apart from its target, there's still enough tentacle to pulverize the body beneath into a wet smear of blood, tenderized flesh, foamy bone-pulp in a crushed sheaf of metal.<br><br>Marius is rushing it, the giant blade's tip skimming the surface of the murk behind like a trailing water-moccasin, the hilt in both hands, a half-foot's space between them.&nbsp; Another explosion of wood, stone, earth-- bomb-bursts of flailing strikes with unmeasurable limbs-- no, there is the danger, not the strength but the size.&nbsp; Approaching it made it impossible to see all at once, meant a strike could come from anywh--<br><br>Another-- amazing, how his feet found solid-enough ground to launch him, spine bending as he leaped to his side, half-stooped to avoid the cloud of flesh that appears, suddenly, like a low ceiling.&nbsp; The bow over his shoulder springs from his body as it is caught by the swipe of the massive protuberance, in his ears the bowstring's snap like the chirp of an insect.&nbsp; Then there's a shower of stonework fragments and dust, tiny notes of gravel on metal as pieces of masonry pepper his armor.&nbsp; The thing could come from twenty yards away, from beside, behind or anywhere.&nbsp; A witnessed strike was predictable, avoidable.&nbsp; The others kind-- dodging one was a miracle, and every moment afterward an unfathomable luck.<br><br>Paradoxically, however, his only chance is to get closer, so that all that can be seen of the grotesque thing was a close-vantaged map of its bulbous, weeping flesh, slicked with bilous secretions.&nbsp; Then, even with their massive, flashing blade, carving it up will be like slaughtering a sow with a pen-knife... messy, brutal, repetitive blows, hacking through layer of throbbing, gelatinous layer of rot-reeking flesh.&nbsp; Unless something vital can be located, then somehow pierced or severed.<br><br>The stink of it is meat spoiled, infested, halfway between maggot and fly.&nbsp; Its flesh splits in a puckering wound at the base of one tree-thick leg, inside of it becoming outside of it, rushing at the wound like an eager crowd, then gushing out in a vomitous purge.&nbsp; The blade returns for a counter-stroke; Marius' training telling the arm to return the swipe-- he wields it like a halberd-blade, back again in a long swipe to cleave-- as if through a second rank of border-mercenaries after having leveled a first.&nbsp; His hands slide together on this cross-back whip the blade around his body with enough speed to sever through the pliant outer layers, through a thick rope of a tendon and the gutter-spout of an artery beneath-- the blood pressure must be immense, if it has blood, for the spatter is profound-- a gout, a well-spring of black tar.<br><br>Cursing himself to move, move move, he forces momentum, slips in the muck, fights the suction of the mud that tries to swallow him into the things' foothold as the mud and muck beneath the bog's surface sucks down at him, tries to swallow him like a riptide.<br><br>He's under it, it's moved-- fuck it all, it's over top of him.&nbsp; The black and green sludge of the swamp fills his boots, he pushes his feet still, sinks more.&nbsp; He remembers the ranks of pikemen, as many rended by horsemen as suffocated in the sodden earth.&nbsp; He could hide there, wait for it to leave... something in his heart, a hole the shape of Amara, swallows that instinct like it ate his fear.&nbsp; <br><br>Some deep black well in his heart cannot contain the spreading, inky cloud spilling up from within, erupting out of it, filling his bones and muscle with a blazing hunger to burn, rend, kill.&nbsp; Its vile, warped form over him like the arch of some black cathedral, a squirming silhouette of god's madness framed in moonlight-- something like genius or revolting stupidity in Marius causes him to thrust his blade straight up into it, driving two feet of the steel length into it-- mostly up, but also at an angle, over his head and back-- giving him leverage to drive it home, twist it, and in pushing it deeper to push himself forward, away from the swallowing chasm of the hole made by its trunk-like leg.<br><br>Squelching out of the hole, a grunting curse spat between gritted teeth, he drives against it and hauls himself away before wrenching the blade free.&nbsp; <br><br>He must have penetrated its outer layers-- fat, if it has it-- deeply enough to strike a digestive tract, because the bleached, sticky-green remnants of a bog-dweller's half-digested torso spills out amid the undigestible bits of what might have been a massive crustacean and a torrent of green-white bile.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>29-02-2008, 21:18:45</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Amara reacts before she thinks -- she has to, forced to recall her frightening and frightened thoughts from miles away in an instant.&nbsp; Her hand realizes the bow is useless here, and tosses it aside.&nbsp; The rapier seems equally useless, but she draws it anyway, already imagining it breaking off in the monster's hide.&nbsp; It's only a needle, less than that, in comparison to the huge, impossible <em>thing</em> taking up her whole field of vision.<br><br>Then Marius is there, and her eyes fix on him.&nbsp; He is running forward into danger, charging at it, welcoming it.&nbsp; She wonders, with surprising calm, if even that giant of a sword can possibly truly injure this beast.&nbsp; In the next moment, calm turns instantly into a chilling fear, gnawing at her heart.&nbsp; He's slipped, he's trying to catch his balance, he's lost to her sight -- she sees all this as she runs, safer in his wake, the creature needing several long moments, it seems, to remarshal those huge limbs that have already swung at Marius.&nbsp; Those moments are enough time for her to gain a little, precious ground.&nbsp; She weighs less, sinks less, even with her new armor, and though the tug of the swamp still slows her considerably, she's nearer to Marius, and that's all that matters now.<br><br>Nearer, at least, to the last place she saw him.&nbsp; Foul blood and still worse fill the bog now, bits of rancid flesh floating and bobbing wildly on the water, in the wake of the creature's strikes.&nbsp; She doesn't see Marius.&nbsp; Thorius is there, sword drawn, rushing along with them, but not Marius, not yet.&nbsp; A limb flails, the breeze it stirs filling her lungs with choking air, almost too laden with odors to be breathable.&nbsp; It twitches closer to her, lies still for a moment, and her rapier is up and striking at it instantly.&nbsp; One strike glances off, leaving behind a long line of slowly dripping black blood, but this is clearly nothing.&nbsp; She still doesn't see Marius, and now chokes out his name.<br><br>A second strike, and she forces herself to take the time to aim now.&nbsp; Her eyes rest on a half-healed wound -- she has no time to try to imagine what, even in this infernal swamp, could have wounded such a beast -- and her blade thrusts there, deep into the burgeoning scar, and now some thick, foul substance like pus flows down, blending with the rest.&nbsp; She wrenches the blade upward, and at last the beast seems to deign to notice her, the tentacle flinching away from the weapon.&nbsp; Her grip only just holds -- had it used any more of its strength, her blade would now be flying through the air, gone forever -- and she has just enough leisure to be shocked that the metal is still, apparently, whole.<br><br>She sees the bog-dwellers half-digested remains floating closer, ignores them.&nbsp; The creature now roars up, clearly wounded below.&nbsp; And Marius is there, and she breathes again, aware only that he is still whole.&nbsp; She moves closer, amazed as that calm returns for a moment, letting her study their foe, searching for another weak point.&nbsp; It has shown her her own weakness, proved it beyond all self-denial; now she must find its vulnerable places.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>VandalSavage</strong> on <strong>29-02-2008, 22:55:49</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Violence is all there is for moments.<br><br>Moments are less than moments.&nbsp; Thought goes from blown glass to grains of it.&nbsp; Actions shatter into instants of instinct.<br><br>Slash duck dive slash slash target parry jump.&nbsp; Take out the spaces, and that is how fast I am moving, thinking, living.&nbsp; Take out more than the spaces.&nbsp; Take out the words.<br><br>For awhile, I live in an existence of pure meaning, and that meaning is <em>"Kill."</em><br><br>I take an eye out.&nbsp; That leaves only a few dozen.&nbsp; I leap out of the way of a maw with teeth like wheelbarrows and a gorge like a cauldron of boiling oil.&nbsp; I cut a tiny fissure along its immense tongue, and it spits up something that makes the water burn.&nbsp; I carve at its crashing limb as it runs Marius over, and cleave a wound that could cut an oak in half, and it doesn't even slow it.<br><br>Its huge, four-story, melted wax body just heaves its way closer.<br><br>And I am duckslashjumpslashstabparryslash.&nbsp; And it is bellowing in its sky-shaking voice, making my marrow bubbling with the concussion.&nbsp; And I am moving so fast because to stop moving would mean to curl up and cry until it eats me.<br><br>But then it bellows again - in pain.&nbsp; <br><br>It begins to turn.&nbsp; To shamble backwards.&nbsp; I press the advantage, severing more of its oozing limb's flesh.&nbsp; It is as hard as wood to cut, but it yields.&nbsp; And the whole thing is yielding, lumbering backwards, trailing a flood of ichor and white fluids from its clotted bulk.<br><br>Now, for a moment, there is time for a feeling of victory.<br><br>Then, from behind, a human voice that sounds saturated with lichen roars, <strong>"Charge, O brothers!"</strong><br><br>And a dozen booted pairs of feet belonging to the raiders is heard, slashing through the mire and mist of the bog towards our backs.&nbsp; A dozen javelins are cast, whistling at us, and a dozen blades are drawn.&nbsp; The thing - the It - is moaning, but not gone just yet.<br><br>And as I turn to face the onslaught of the corrupt human raiders, moments crack into glass sand again, and instants blur back into violence.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>01-03-2008, 21:21:36</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				'...they are rushing,' Marius thinks, suddenly reaching for Amara, casting off from the massive beast's leg with a hauling shove that propels him into where she stands, taking her down into the black water with him-- the two of them are prone, suddenly and violently, there's a whistle of long shapes in the air soaring through their space, the shrieking wail of the beast like the hunting-horn bellow of a dying mastodon filling the air.<br><br>Slowed time, the prolonged clarity of adrenaline and fear fragmenting its continuity, making this moment a balletic pose among the oil-slick water and sky-strangling trees.&nbsp; Shortspears glide by like diving birds, globes of water-droplets morphing, flattening and spinning in the air, arcing up from the hole they plow through the water's skin.&nbsp; <br><br>The ember-haired girl is behind him, he can feel her looming there, feel her killing it expertly, feel her making it pay, making it suffer, with malice-less rage.&nbsp; It which should not be won't be for long, but he can't let himself kill it properly, must disregard its maddening size and kill something else, something smaller and more deadly, more immediate.&nbsp; <br><br>Even through the chitinous scales of armor between them, Amara can feel the frame of Marius' body, his muscle and skeleton broad and hard as stone, can feel the force of him hauling her up, pivoting her to one side as his boots shovel into the murk and propel them both up and forward from where they landed prone.&nbsp; They are lunging forth, Marius shouldering Amara to cover behind him--&nbsp; the raiders are bearing down like closing jackals, and Marius' blade is eager to meet them.&nbsp; <br><br>He does not know how he knows, but the ember-haired girl is killing the beast-- he could have guessed it from his knowledge of battle, from knowing enough in having met her that, what she speaks for her future will be her fate in any case, hell or high water.<br><br>He does not mind their appearance; they are all one to him, cells of the same organism.&nbsp; Every moment these men live is an opportunity for Amara to be... strange, he couldn't put a word to it, if he had to-- anything that could happen to Amara is a nameless, faceless horror... and all of this decompresses from some deep crevice in his mind in the time of one footstep.&nbsp; Knowledge that was there, coiled in some crag, pooled in some unseen seam in the terrain of his psyche like an oil reservoir, and now it was spilling out in a slow trickle of black in his mind-- lost, suddenly, as he sees their blades bearing down, producing themselves from scaled scabbards, back-sheathes, fencer's loops at their hips, he becomes only an extension of his blade, which can feel its path through the space the enemy occupies like a ribbon threaded through space.&nbsp; One two three four five, paring bodies, snipping away limbs, surgical and beautiful.<br><br>He follows it.&nbsp; The beast shuddering behind them, Marius knows that he will survive man first, then the beast-- but only if enough damage was already done.&nbsp; The blade has remained in his hand the whole time-- he could complete hundreds of tasks this way, a sword in hand, using his fist like a primitive paw while his free-hand managed complex tasks, but there is only one thing a blade like this can do.<br><br>And it does it-- and, time returns, and he parts from Amara and lets the blade do its tender work.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>03-03-2008, 05:41:08</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The creature isn't dead, perhaps not even dying, in spite of the grevious wounds it bears -- Amara knows that much, even as it turns, even as Marius is suddenly next to her, then half on top of her as they land and sink into the muck.&nbsp; Before she can react to that, she's out of the water again, Marius hauling her back to her feet.&nbsp; The rapier is still, almost miraculously, in her hand, and for an instant, she thinks she won't need it anymore.&nbsp; Then she sees the bandits, and realizes that he's pushing her behind him, protecting her as always.&nbsp; That realization catches her somewhere between gratitude and annoyance.<br><br>But she can't deny that Marius is far more effective at stopping the raiders, especially since she's without her bow.&nbsp; His sword flies through them all, hardly slowing as the blade meets flesh, then bone.&nbsp; They die gruesome deaths, worse than she's ever seen so close.&nbsp; But they are not men, not any longer.&nbsp; Some instinct tells her this, with absolute certainty, and their eyes seem to bear this out -- without exception, they are all flat and cold, more like the eyes of reptiles than men, and she shivers to see them.<br><br>They do not quite die like men, either.&nbsp; Once, then twice, one of them, bearing a wound from that mighty sword that would have felled any normal human instantly, continues on with grim determination for several steps, off-balance but continuing to attack.&nbsp; One falls to Thorius's blade, the other to Amara's, as they stumble past Marius.&nbsp; Then they, too, add to the taint that surrounds the fighters, further polluting the already foul waters.<br><br>That calm from earlier fails her now; she fights well enough, and steadily, but she is not quite the efficient, calculating being she was then.&nbsp; There are still several left, too many to relax.&nbsp; Something is trying to wear them down, she thinks, sending wave after wave to attack them, leaving them reeling.&nbsp; But their blades still swing true, and she thinks that simple determination will carry them all far enough this day.&nbsp; Their opponents fight relentlessly, even fanatically, but without the edge, the creativity of sorts that makes a true swordsman so frightening.<br><br>They will win this battle, she knows that much.&nbsp; But she still feels that tug from the city, the ruins that somehow feel whole in her mind, and fears the battles to come.&nbsp; Marius will shield her as long as he still has breath -- she knows this, cradles that knowledge against her, feeling its warmth -- but his death would be hers as well, in every way that matters.&nbsp; She fears those ruins now, in so many ways... She looks at Thorius, envies her for a moment, wishing for the confidence that she seems to have, a fiery determination to go with the flame of her hair.&nbsp; Thorius always seems to look to the future, seeing it as clearly as the present, and yet rushes forward to meet it, boldly.&nbsp; Amara can only dread it, even as the tide of this battle well and truly turns, and the advantage once again slowly becomes theirs.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>VandalSavage</strong> on <strong>03-03-2008, 20:47:38</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Something is wrong.<br><br>I get that feeling very seldom.&nbsp; I believe that is, in part, because so much of leadership depends on believing you are doing things right:&nbsp; Plans go accordingly.&nbsp; Your cause is just.&nbsp; We will be victorious.<br><br>And right now, the bodies are stacking up in chopped piles of leaking meat around Amara and Marius.&nbsp; Right now, I can hear the human raiders doing a stutter-step, like bad dancers trying to find their balance, no longer confident in their charge.&nbsp; Right now, I can see that the <strong>It</strong> is shuddering back the way it came, tucking its tree-trunk musculature in on itself like a beaten puppy, hiding under the blanket of the mist.&nbsp; Right now, I feel their plan coming apart.<br><br>Right now, I feel like we're winning.<br><br>I feel well fed.&nbsp; The belly of my senses is swollen with blood stink and man sobs and fear faces and air electric with accumulated shock.<br><br>I feel balletic.&nbsp; My legs and arms are still tingling from where artful sweeps conducted my blade into the stomachs and throats and thighs of men who would do me murder, spinning from one slaughter to the next and back to the moaning monstrosity in a choreography of interstellar violence.<br><br>I feel luminous.&nbsp; The bog is just so much smoke around the flame of this battle.<br><br>I feel erotic.&nbsp; The adrenaline and endorphin in my blood could fill a King's mead stein; oxygen screams from flush to famine; every moment is pure magnesium under my skin, pre-orgasmic.<br><br>I feel invincible.&nbsp; I feel twelve feet tall.&nbsp; I feel the face of every Emperor under my boot.&nbsp; I feel loved by all good people.&nbsp; I feel evil licking my skin with bloody, penitent, pleading tongues.&nbsp; I feel cosmic.<br><br>I feel we are winning, but all the same, I feel something is wrong.<br><br>I run a quick inventory of the situation, going through the current events like screens at a shadowplay:&nbsp; <br><br>I have been guarding Marius and Amara's flank from the pathetic, trudging charges against it that this dozen raiders tried to execute.&nbsp; In this, we are victorious.&nbsp; Only three raiders remain, and their leader - a rat-faced, scruffy lout with a lewd scene on his breastplate, is already waving his flail back in the signal to retreat.<br><br>I went after the Thing, coring its acidic sphincters and snuffing out its eyes - I cut a piece of its tongue out, I gouged out a tooth - to drive it back or kill it.&nbsp; In driving it back, we are victorious.&nbsp; The beast is melting back into the mist, making all haste to a place free of sunlight's blemish where it might drag its many tongues over its many, many more wounds.<br><br>I am unharmed.&nbsp; Amazingly, I do not have so much as a bruise or a scratch.&nbsp; I feel like marble.&nbsp; I feel like sun on snow.&nbsp; I feel divine.<br><br>Then it strikes me, as I look to my companions:&nbsp; I see Marius, notched up but still as solid as ever.&nbsp; And then I see Amara.<br><br>Anissa.<br><br>I knew something was wrong.<br><br>I look at my sword, caked with layer upon chunky layer of human gore and indescribable, alien fluids.&nbsp; We were victorious, in a way that, I would hazard to say, no other human beings have been.&nbsp; I appreciate the crushed cake on the sword a moment longer, savoring the celebration.<br><br><strong>"They have surely rushed the girl past us by now."</strong><br><br>There's always something wrong.&nbsp; It falls to leaders and other heroes to right it.&nbsp; I clean the sword, to keep it sharp for the next battle.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>05-03-2008, 09:23:06</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Marius pivots his gaze round him, the glade of broken bodies like unharvested rice, sinking in clumps, bobbing in the ripples of marsh-muck at the surface of the fetid water.&nbsp; &nbsp;More fetid now than before, more rich with lifeblood that won't go to waste; did the raiders think, when they arose, that their breakfast would be churned into life-blood and cell growth only to be spilled as a feast for the needlefish and microbes of this swamp?<br><br>He looks at a still heaving form to his left... from more than one of the barraging, tactically oblivious mob, he'd only snipped off a limb with the oversized blade... knowing that the wound would be mortal, knowing how shock feels and how bodies react, he'd been, naturally, surprised to see some of them keep fighting-- not just stand, but actually continue to fight. <br><br>Now, his skin glistening with sweat that has barely had time to rise to the surface, Marius's shoulders heave for breath, and his first instinct is to look to Amara.&nbsp; To see her, to see a lock of her dark hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, and the wild, hollow fear in her eyes-- somehow, it must be connected to this place... all the more reason to move...<br><br>One of the raiders... Marius sees him squirming in the muck; his legs are gnarled and dead trunks he drags through the lichenous, murky water-- his spine severed from one nearly-avoided strike of the dead man's blade Marius carries.&nbsp; The grizzled, haggard face is bloodless now, spitting foam and bile as he wheezes and scrapes along the surface of the bog like some missing evolutionary link.&nbsp; <br><br>Marius watches... someone fed this man as a child.&nbsp; Put hope in him.&nbsp; And this is their reward.<br><br>He hears Thorius speak, and sizes her up for injuries.&nbsp; There's something oddly fetching about the spatter of blood on her cheek... not her blood, he can see... not smeared, as many would have done with the back of their hand.&nbsp; There's truth in her words, and it sets him into motion immediately.&nbsp; Marius draws up on the scraggly-headed man, whose hair and beard must have been blond once.&nbsp; His boots splash closer, unhurried, but wasting no time.&nbsp; The man's breathing becomes more labored, vocal, and cries of pleading gutter with bloody foam at his lips.&nbsp; <br><br>Marius toes him over like one rolling a log aside, splashing the wounded raider onto his back.&nbsp; Cautious for concealed attack, Marius seems otherwise unconcerned for the man.&nbsp; "If you know anything, speak it."&nbsp; He takes the flat of the still-dripping blade and, with a delicacy that belies the weapon's size, he flips the man's arm out in a pose like mock grandiosity, exposing the armpit, the pale, blood-smeared fingers, the flank.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>06-03-2008, 04:39:16</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Amara has fought before -- she is no soldier, no hardened mercenary, but she has fought for her life and the lives of others.&nbsp; But there is nothing familiar here, all the old rules being left behind as they step into this new and frightening territory.&nbsp; No, not new... now there is enough calm for her to feel that tug again, to be vividly aware of the ruins beyond the carnage.&nbsp; When she closes her eyes, she sees the column and its writing, letters of fire, letters of pain, that she knows would explain everything, if she could only get close enough, look hard enough.<br><br>Marius is moving, and for an instant she thinks the battle is about to begin anew.&nbsp; She moves to help instinctively, borrowed sword raised -- not even that is allowed to be familiar now, only him, different as he was from the boy she remembers.&nbsp; But there is no fighting for the moment, only the broken wreck of one man, still clinging to whatever life he's allowed to have.<br><br>He must know he's dying, but something -- training or defiance or simply the natural expression of his face keeps any fear from showing.&nbsp; He only looks up at Marius, evenly, steadily, only the edge of pain in his eyes revealing how close he is to death.&nbsp; For a long moment, he seems to consider Marius' words very seriously, and Amara lets herself think that he will reveal something -- the fate of the girl, the location of her captors, the ancient and bitter secrets of the ruins.&nbsp; She steps closer still, her hand shifting edgily on the rapier's hilt.<br><br>Then the raider's eyes, now growing dim, turn to the movement, and focus on the girl as she stands next to Marius.&nbsp; Slowly, a smile spreads across his face, and something like a laugh pours from his lips.&nbsp; "We have her," he says, his voice filled with gravel.&nbsp; Now his whole body shakes with laughter, or perhaps his own death-throes.&nbsp; "We have her at last."<br><br>He keeps laughing, and Amara takes a step back, trying to hide her fear by pulling herself up to her full height, trying to stay steady.&nbsp; Of course he only means the girl from the village, he means Anissa.&nbsp; But suddenly she feels just as she had back in that cell, dark and chill, trapped, helpless, facing her own end.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: [Legacy of Shadows] Village of Riverhedge, Late Summer</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>VandalSavage</strong> on <strong>07-03-2008, 22:00:30</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Everyone tells stories.&nbsp; I sometimes think we exist in order to tell stories.<br><br>I put my boot up on the fallen log and pull out two of my daggers. Each of them has a story; one I used to carve my name into a tree in my father's woods, a sinister, treasonous, thrilling act.&nbsp; The other I once used to slice apples around a campfire the night I killed my first boar.&nbsp; These knives mean something; they are something more because of those stories.<br><br>"Bring the man here please, Marius."&nbsp; I do not speak quickly, but quickness is in my tone.&nbsp; And Marius, eager to move and all the more eager to remove the laughing raider from disturbing Amara, hauls the raider over.<br><br>The man kicks feebly; he is not so bold as when he roared in Amara' face, but he is still snarling, still with metal for marrow.&nbsp; I take hold of his arm and twist it, setting his palm against the log, so that his neck rests on the wood with his arm fully extended.<br><br>"Hold his other arm against the log.&nbsp; Just like this." I tell Marius.&nbsp; Marius' glare is all knives, and he complies harshly.&nbsp; The man stop snarling.&nbsp; His eyes go wide with what is going to happen.<br><br>Perhaps he has heard this story before.<br><br>Wotan and the World Tree.&nbsp; My father told it to me personally, several nights, by the light of an ornate bronze candlestick on the rare occasions he put me to sleep.&nbsp; I would listen, rapt, to how Wotan, our All-Father, spiked himself to a tree to learn the secrets of the world.&nbsp; To this day, ornate bronze candlesticks always make me think of mysteries; always make me smell my father's beard.<br><br>A lyre is treasured for the haunting melody it played at your wedding.&nbsp; A cradle is worth the memories of the child that grew in it.&nbsp; A sword is just a sword until it becomes Excalibur.&nbsp; We value these things because we cannot do without their stories.&nbsp; Their stories compel; they haunt.&nbsp; <br><br>Possessions are valued by the degree they possess us.<br><br>I drive the dagger in a single motion through the back of the man's hand and into the wood, and by the time the blood is beginning to leak from the white, smooth mouth of the wound, the man is screaming.&nbsp; He is thrashing.&nbsp; He has pissed his breeches.<br><br>I wonder if Wotan pissed his breeches.<br><br>I drive the other dagger through the other hand as Marius holds him down.&nbsp; The atmosphere seems colder now.&nbsp; Like Marius and Amara's blood has become like the mist.&nbsp; And I am very cold.&nbsp; I feel nothing.&nbsp; This story isn't about me feeling anything.&nbsp; This is the raider's story to tell.<br><br>He is screaming horribly, and Marius and Amara look as lost and as inertial as the mist.&nbsp; They cohere to one another.&nbsp; One makes a noise when I pull out the leather awl and the pliers.<br><br>The raider stops screaming.&nbsp; Starts wimpering.&nbsp; Starts crying like an abandoned baby.<br><br>I doubt Wotan pissed his breeches.<br><br>I walk over to the man - pliers open in one hand, their needlelike teeth splayed in theatric, yawning hunger; leather awl in the other.&nbsp; I show him both.&nbsp; I show him, most importantly, my face.&nbsp; My face has no expression.&nbsp; No anger and no fear.&nbsp; No guilt.&nbsp; It is pure snow.&nbsp; Nothing living can grow there.<br><br>He looks at me and goes very white.&nbsp; He's not posturing now, or laughing.&nbsp; I look at him and realize that, yes, this is a baby once cradled.&nbsp; This is a young boy who touched a flower without breaking it.&nbsp; This is a teen who was once driven near to tears with loneliness and want.&nbsp; <br>This is man.<br><br>He has a story.<br><br>And that is why I lean in and begin to hurt him.<br><br>I hurt him very quickly and very effectively.&nbsp; I hurt him to hurt him, not to injure him or to kill him.&nbsp; I hurt him worse than he could have imagined he would ever be hurt.<br><br>I use the awl on his gummy, tender nipples and then twist them around the point with the pliers.&nbsp; And then I take the point out of them and push it through the soft flesh between his eyelid and eye, several points, several times.&nbsp; I take four fingernails out of their sensitive, gristly housings and I put them in his screaming mouth.&nbsp; I open his belt.<br><br>Then I pause.<br><br>There's a theory somewhere, I think among the Aquilonians, that torture doesn't work to get answers.&nbsp; The theory goes that the victim will just tell the torturer whatever they think the torturer wants to hear.&nbsp; These theoreticians have no idea.<br><br>Torture is not about asking questions and inflicting pain when the answer is not given.&nbsp; Torture is about rendering the subject completely helpless - helpless to their own pain, to their fear, to the animal experience of being hurt and not being able to do anything about it.&nbsp; Asking questions would defeat the purpose.&nbsp; It would give the subject hope.&nbsp; <br><br>In torture, true torture, you hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt the subject.&nbsp; And when they can no longer think, no longer form a rational idea of what might be right or wrong, or true or false, or good or bad, or would save them or damn them - when they are just pain - then you say you are ready to listen.&nbsp; When all hope, even the hope of appeasing you, is gone, then you listen.<br><br>After "stop," and "please," and "no," and "why," and "I'll tell you anything," and "mother," and "God," and the worst of the sobbing.&nbsp; Then you listen.<br><br>After I open his pants, bearing him, threatening him, shaming him; after I have opened him with metal and with my coldness, I listen.<br><br>And he tells me a story:<br><br>The Temple of the Amber Wound was not always a blight on the flesh of the world.<br><br>It was once a great civilization, with golden towers and platinum wisdom.&nbsp; It had machines and magicks the likes would which would astound even the transmogrifiers of Quard or the purple-fingered evokers of the Great Salton Sea.&nbsp; There, the marvels of the universe were captives of the inhabitants, wrapped in packages to be given as mere presents, or mused over as if as much a matter of course as the fall of the rain.<br><br>All marvels but time.<br><br>At this point, the raider is unsure about what happened.&nbsp; He knows only that it was experiments into immortality that brought the civilization that built the Temple of the Amber Wound to its end.&nbsp; Something broke in one of their cosmic engines; some spell slipped its tether and went awry.&nbsp; <br><br>And something, from beyond time, came here to claim this place.<br><br>I don't blame the raider for his ignorance.&nbsp; I know he is trying to do his best.&nbsp; This is, after all, his story to tell.&nbsp; It's why he's here, why I hurt him, why this is all happening.&nbsp; He does the best he can in his defining moment.&nbsp; Wotan, after all, did not piss his breeches.<br><br>The 'Something' was subdued - driven to sleep - by the magics the people employed.&nbsp; But it had brought corruption with it, and strange beasts, and so the wreckage of this great civilization was complete.&nbsp; Worst of all, time had soured here.&nbsp; Time curdled.<br><br>"It does weird things to a man's spirit, living here," the raider moans.&nbsp; "It gives black desires to a body."<br><br>And so the civilization was scattered, and the sundered, amber-and-gold city forgotten, lost to antiquity and to those discoverers who knew to pass it by with a curse as The Temple of the Amber Wound.<br><br>Yet the leader of the raiders, come lo these two decades ago, did not pass it by.&nbsp; Sonchis was a priest, already stewing with perverse aims and appetites, and so he stayed.&nbsp; He learned the ways of the Bog Dwellers.&nbsp; He initiated the old magics, and stirred the amber wound to full fester again.<br><br>And he recruited men like the raider.&nbsp; It was easy enough; kidnapping someone and keeping them in this place for more than a single day would be enough to give odd desires to any.&nbsp; In a week, even the most stalwart soul would become deranged.<br><br>No time to waste then, I resolved.<br><br>I began asking pointed questions.&nbsp; Directions were given to a number of locations:&nbsp; The Hive, where the Bog Dwellers abide.&nbsp; The Redoubt, the fortresslike raider camp.&nbsp; The Gouge, where the Something, supreme and slumbering force that came to spoil the world waits for Sonchis to wake it.<br><br>"We have no time to waste," I inform Marius.<br><br>"Let us follow your intuition," I tell Amara.<br><br>One last question I asked, before preparing to remove the daggers.<br><br>"Why are there no female Bog Dwellers and raiders?"&nbsp; I ask the raider.&nbsp; <br><br>"Only those in the Hive know for sure.&nbsp; For that's where all the girls go."&nbsp; He says.&nbsp; He's not sneering now.&nbsp; Not smiling or smart.&nbsp; He's hurt too badly to be other than a hurt piece of humanity; just an abandoned baby.&nbsp; Just a story.<br><br>I take the daggers out, and we move, leaving the raider behind - no time to even kill him; no time to waste - chasing our happy ending down.
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