Something Wicked This Way Comes (Neroon&RampantDesires)
<h1 id="title">Elliquiy Role Playing Forums</h1>
		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Bondage, D/s, S&amp;M =&gt; Bondage: Human Solos =&gt; Topic started by: RampantDesires on 29-12-2010, 16:03:22</h2>
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				Title: <strong>Something Wicked This Way Comes (Neroon&amp;RampantDesires)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>RampantDesires</strong> on <strong>29-12-2010, 16:03:22</strong>
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				<strong><em>Some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge. Until, when chance came, it ensnared a new bearer.….</em></strong><br><em><br>Nadvyrae Zau'ghym had never seen the movies nor read the works of Tolkien which inspired them though she probably would have enjoyed them.&nbsp; She most assuredly would have enjoyed the delicious irony that the writers that that brief dialogue could have very easily been talking about her.&nbsp; Of course you would have to change ring to necklace and years to millennia but still.</em><br><br>_____<br>&nbsp;<br>It took some time for sounds to pierce the black vacuum she had been existing in for so long.&nbsp; At first she resented the intrusion.&nbsp; Another rat no doubt and she had seen quite enough of those thank you very much.&nbsp; Sadly they were the most interesting visitors she had received in well over&nbsp; a thousand years, since she had been locked in this god forsaken sarcophagi.&nbsp; No one would dare to have touched Calakmul’s most prized possession, even after his death the vibrant sapphire necklace which served as her prison rested there about his neck.&nbsp; Rothe loving idiots.<br><br>The sound came again.&nbsp; The distinctive thunder of stone shattering under the influence of some great force, an action which no rat could hope to accomplish and Nadvyrae roused herself from this most recent musing focusing her attention outward for the first time in decades.&nbsp; But no.&nbsp; Even in her incorporeal state she possessed the keen vision the drow had been known for and she had no trouble picking out the depressingly familiar details of the small space the once mighty Myan king was laid to rest in.&nbsp; Same molded cloth, same stupid skeleton, same frustratingly large lid which was impervious to her small manipulations the once colorful etchings detailing the ruler’s great exploits (exploits which SHE had helped to shape mind you) taunting her with their faded glory.<br><br>Bah, even a rat would have pleased her at that point, but there was nothing, always nothing, and for a brief moment despair swamped her.&nbsp; Then it happened.&nbsp; There was a sharp cracking sound and the distant murmur of voices seconds before the lid above her shifted.&nbsp; The light and sound was disorientating at first and she reeled in unexpected shock.&nbsp; Had she an actual body she would have cowered then, instead she retreated back focusing instead on the familiar lines of her prison, most of the time she hated the sapphire’s delicately worked and flawless cut, but today it provided a much needed insulation.&nbsp; <br><br>Very slowly she allowed sensory information to filter in.&nbsp; She could hear the excited cadence of several men talking&nbsp; near by though she did not understand the words.&nbsp; Dust.&nbsp; The air was thick and hazy with it confirming her suspicions that a good deal of time had passed since she’d been placed in the sarcophagus.&nbsp; Enough time that an entire civilization had fallen for were any of his servants or family left alive they would never have allowed Calakmul’s burial chamber to have been reduced to such a sorry state.&nbsp; &nbsp;How long precisely she had no way of being sure, nor did she really care.&nbsp; &nbsp;So close.&nbsp; She could feel them moving near by and anticipation began to build in her.&nbsp; Any moment now.&nbsp; After countless years of languishing here in the dark it was about to happen.&nbsp; She would be claimed again.&nbsp; She would be free…<br><br>Even knowing it was coming did not help prepare her for the rush of pleasure which filled her as long masculine fingers finally closed around the large necklace and she latched on immediately sharing her joy, the sense of rightness, and a sense of all consuming need with her new owner.&nbsp; It was not a strong compulsion.&nbsp; She was out of practice and such things took time to work properly, but he would find it difficult to dismiss his newest find.&nbsp; Other treasures would pale in comparison to this gaudy piece of jewelry and he would eventually find himself coming back to her… they always did.&nbsp; The first delicate line of her web had been woven.&nbsp; Now she had just to sit back and see what manner of prey she had snared and what kind of world she had awoken to this time....
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				Title: <strong>Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes (Neroon&amp;RampantDesires)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Neroon</strong> on <strong>31-12-2010, 20:39:46</strong>
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				It was unspeakably hot and Charles Creighton's mouth was dry with the dust from his excavations, despite the humidity of the jungle that surrounded him.&nbsp; He had followed the trail of clues left in the pictograms in various Mayan sites and in the old writings of the conquistadors all across Mesoamerica to Xiplocsac near the Mexican Guatemalan border.&nbsp; He had scarcely credited it as he caught the first hint that had led him, eventually, to believe that there was a not just an undiscovered tomb but <em>the</em> undiscovered tomb, the tomb of the first of the <em>k'uhul kan ajawob</em> or "divine lords of the snake kingdom".&nbsp; If he was right- and standing here in the Mexican jungle watching the&nbsp; six Mexicans he had hired cutting away the vegetation from part of the oddly symmetrical hill that overshadowed tiny Xiplocsac Creighton knew that he was right- he had just discovered the tomb of the great Mayan king who had given his name to the hidden city that had only been rediscovered in 1931 by Cyrus L. Lundell from the air.<br><br>This, Creighton was certain, was the tomb of Calakmul, who had founded that great city with its two famous pyramids.&nbsp; After years of study, he knew that Lundell's theory of the name meaning "City of the Two Pyramids" was wrong and that the name derived from the mysterious founder of the snake-head empire.&nbsp; It was hardly surprising, Creighton thought, that nobody had found this site, for it was surprisingly well hidden and only the odd symmetry of the hill overlooking Xiplocsac gave any clue to what was there.&nbsp; Well, that and the extensive research Creighton had done were what had led him to this place with his team of six Mexican labourers.<br><br>He removed the panama from his head and fanned himself from it, as he watched the Mexicans remove the last of the earth that had hidden the tomb's door from the world.&nbsp; His steel grey eyes narrowed and he ran his hand through his short brown hair before returning his hat to it's proper position on his head. Was the door marked with pictograms?&nbsp; Ordering the Mexicans aside he stepped up to the door and started to brush away the dirt that was obscuring it.&nbsp; With the last of the dirt obscured, he stepped back and snapped a quick photograph of it.&nbsp; This would indeed cement his position in the British Museum; no longer would they doubt his ability as an archaeologist.&nbsp; The snake-head glyph in the centre of the double doors showed that this was indeed an important site to the Snake Kingdom, as scholars have called it.<br><br>It was then that Creighton heard the Mexicans' superstitious murmurings and doubted, for the first time, the wisdom of hiring archeology students from the <em>Universidad de Campeche</em> to act as labourers.&nbsp; They knew enough of the Mayan's pictographic language to translate the warnings- or mistranslate them, at any rate.&nbsp; They were muttering. "Beware the Curse of the Snake King, Calakmul.&nbsp; Let him rest undisturbed lest death swing down from above."&nbsp; It was not too bad a translation, Creighton had to admit, though his greater experience and knowledge made him sure it said, "Beware the <em>Cursed </em>Snake King, Calakmul. Let him rest undisturbed<em> in Death's Swing above.</em>"&nbsp; This was clearly a reference to the proto-Mayan belief that Death held souls resting in a celestial hammock or swing.<br><br>It took the diffident Creighton some half-an-hour of patient negotiating and explaining before four of the Mexicans slipped hooks between the doors and started pulling, two on each side.&nbsp; Slowly, a line of darkness appeared between the doors and the air that had been trapped within the tomb escaped with a theatrical hiss.&nbsp; The gap grew and grew and then ceased to grow,&nbsp; The remaining two Mexicans wedged themselves in the gap and pushed as their comrades heaved and suddenly thee doors swung open, leaving the two Mexicans who had pushed standing exultant, framed by the dark opening.<br><br>Equally suddenly, death did swing down from above as a row of obsidian spikes swung from the ceiling to pierce the Mexicans' bodies in several places.&nbsp; They sight of their comrades' deaths by impalement sent the remaining Mexicans into a panic and they fled the site.&nbsp; Creighton was not so easily spooked and he ducked under the spikes and into the antechamber to the tomb.<br><br>Here was another pause for photographs, with the pictograms telling the tale of the founding of the Snake Kingdom, of how Calakmul came as if from nowhere bearing a sapphire necklace of royalty and took power with a skill and ruthlessness&nbsp; that was astounding and within a few years the Snake Kingdom was formed.&nbsp; The pictograms also told another story, however, of how resentment at Caligula's excesses grew and of how a secret resistance to his rule, including even his own son, grew.&nbsp; So when the tyrant died, his son and heir refused to take the necklace of royalty from his father's neck, declaring it cursed.&nbsp; He renamed the city <em>Ox Te' Tuun</em> and arranged for his father to be buried with his cursed necklace deep within the jungle of the Petén Basin.<br><br>Creighton smiled, here was his vindication, here was the evidence that he had been right all along, despite the scorn of his critics saying that at 30 he was too young to have been able to make such a discovery.&nbsp; Eagerly, he started work on the door to the tomb proper.&nbsp; It was surprisingly easy to open the door and soon, after a careful check for traps, Creighton was inside.&nbsp; This camber was bare, except for a surprisingly plain stone sarcophagus.&nbsp; Creighton jemmied open the lid and gasped in awe at what he saw within.<br><br>It was not the skeletal remains of the great tyrant that held is attention; it was the dazzling sapphire necklace around the dessicated bones of the tyrant's neck.&nbsp; Even in the dim light of the fluorescent tubes Creighton was using to light the tomb, the stone at the centre of the necklace seemed to burn with a fire that was almost living.&nbsp; Unthinking, Creighton felt his hand reaching for the necklace and then a sound stopped him.&nbsp; It was a small click but Creighton instinctively knew that like the first pebbles that resage a landslide, this click signalled the springing into action of a much larger trap than the one that had done for the Mexicans.&nbsp; The tomb chamber started rumbling and without thinking Creighton snatched up the necklace, shattering the skeleton's delicate cervical vertebrae.<br><br>Amid the sounds of sand and dirt falling from the ceiling, amid the heavy bass sound of the rumbling of the trap's operation, amid the sounds of the ceiling in the tomb chamber giving was and crashing to the floor and over even the thunderous beating of his own heart as he ran, Creighton heard a soft and undeniably feminine voice say, "<em>Mine.</em>"&nbsp; A swinging beam would have knocked him from his feet but for the almost preternatural sense of danger that made him throw himself aside and he scrambled from through the antechamber into the fading light of the sun, running until he collapsed at the campsite.&nbsp; Lying there, his chest heaving as he hyperventilated, Creighton dismissed the voice as a hallucination brought about by the stress of seemingly imminent death.&nbsp; He looked up at where the mound of Caligula's tomb had been and all he saw was a cloud of dust rising to the darkening sky.<br><br>It seemed that those who had interred the tyrant had wanted to make certain that nothing had escaped the tomb.&nbsp; It was only by luck that had bordered on the supernatural that Creighton had.&nbsp; Not even bothering to undress, he crawled into his tent and lay on his camp bed and drifted into an unusually deep sleep.
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				Title: <strong>Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes (Neroon&amp;RampantDesires)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>RampantDesires</strong> on <strong>13-01-2011, 06:09:13</strong>
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				It was a good thing in this instance that Nadvyrae did not possess a body, as such it was impossible for her to have a heart attack, but she still felt as though she were having one as Creighton&nbsp; ran through the crumbling temple.&nbsp; NO! He is mine! She had not come this far only to be buried again amid tons of rubble!&nbsp; It was sloppy and required far too much of her carefully horded energy due to the fact that they had only a tenuous connection at best but she managed to imbue him, temporarily at least, with the almost supernatural grace and speed that she had enjoyed while alive.&nbsp; <br><br>She did not precisely gloat when he arrived back at his camp unharmed, but she was immensely pleased with the events of the day if a bit exhausted from the excitement and unexpected use of her reserves.&nbsp; The whole experience seemed to have exhausted Creighton as well for he collapsed quickly.&nbsp; Despite her depleted state her curiosity got the better of her. It was almost pathetic.&nbsp; The man had absolutely no psychic defenses whatsoever.&nbsp; Granted he was asleep and could make no conscious effort to defend himself, but she had expected more from him on this her first foray into his mind, a skirmish at least if not a full fledged battle, and instead she found herself plopped square in the middle of his dream without a hint of resistance. <br><br>He seemed to be at some sort of ceremony, or mayhap a celebration of some kind as he stood infront of hundreds of well dressed individuals, their applause ringing through the large room.&nbsp; She had always been linguistically talented, but it would take her a few days to work out the rhythms and meanings of this new language and as such she was not precisely sure what the nature of his address was.&nbsp; Then it occured to her that the oafs mind was utterly open to her and so she merely plucked the meanings and syntaxes from his brain the flood of information for a moment disorientating causing her to waver a bit, forced to lean against the near by table for support. <br><br>Ahh, an awards banquet then.&nbsp; For his outstanding contributions to some anthropological society.&nbsp; How very droll, even in his dreams the man was apparently boring.&nbsp; But not without his redeeming qualities for there was ambition there, she just had to expand upon it.&nbsp; There was also an intelligence there she had not expected, his mind was rather fascinating and full for a human at least.&nbsp; An excellent lump of clay all in all.<br><br>Only then did she realize that she was standing in the middle of the banquet room, her sudden and unusual appearance starting to disturb the crowd a bit.&nbsp; Heads turned in her direction and a soft murmur of whispered speculation began to raise up.&nbsp; Well this just wouldn't do.&nbsp; She was not yet ready to draw the full attention of her new 'master", and so with a quick glance around the room she modified her attire, the gossamer threads of what had been her ceremonial robes morphing into more traditional evening wear.&nbsp; The classic black dress almost blended into her ebony skin tone and the fabric clung to her small but generously curved frame;&nbsp; it was a small change really since the delicate points of her ears yet showed through the white spill of her waist length hair.&nbsp; She still stood out, an exotic creature among the throng, but it was enough to quiet his unconscious and heads once more turned to the front of the room&nbsp; listening with rapt attention to the rest of his speech.&nbsp; Rae settle into a seat near the back and listened as well.<br><br>It continued this way for several days, weeks even, maybe months, it was hard for her to say as time had ceased to have much meaning for her.&nbsp; Nadvyrae&nbsp; was a patient creature and there was so very much to see and learn.&nbsp; This world she had woken into was both fascinating and a bit disappointing all at the same time.&nbsp; Humans were somewhat predictable with their pathetic power plays and materialistic drives, and that she could work with, but these did not believe in magic or indeed in anything that they could not see or explain with their science.&nbsp; Oh, well save for their "God" a benevolent spirit who was all forgiveness and love.&nbsp; Gah it was almost enough to make her ill, though admittedly she did admire some of his earlier work.&nbsp; But it seemed that magic, gods, and anything remotely supernatural was relegated to the fringe of society.&nbsp; Crackpots and weirdos... of these people had no idea just how very wrong they were and she relished the thought of proving them wrong. <br><br>She lurked about in his mind shamelessly, a nightly visitor to his dreams, though never in the forefront, always part of the crowd or in the background, and she waited, waited until he began to look for her, to search her out, but even then she hid from him determined that they would meet on her terms.&nbsp; She would know him, perhaps better than he knew himself since she'd shamelessly been rifling through his mind, even those pieces that he did not like to acknowledge or perhaps even know were there, and she would be rested and well prepared for their encounter.<br><br>__________<br><br>The cavern was .... immense did not really begin to describe it, but as far as such things could be captured by words it would do.&nbsp; Clinging to the various stalactites and stalagmite that dotted the space were exotic molds and fungi each of which gave off a bright luminescence which served to light the area.&nbsp; A city had somehow grown up here underground, but it was unlike anything he had ever seen before, dwellings were carved into the very living rock, their graceful lines rimmed in violet lines, each one more elaborate than the last.&nbsp; Sections which were clearly trade areas were set up, and even a poor quarter could be seen upon the fringes, but an eerie silence settled about the whole area, though perfectly preserved the area was clearly abandoned and had been so for some time.&nbsp; Nadvyrae would not allow others to intrude upon what she still considered her home.&nbsp; <br><br>And yet she had pulled him here, into this elaborate dream scape.&nbsp; It seemed appropriate, that she should share an elemental part of herself at this first meeting.&nbsp; Things shifted and he found himself standing in the middle of the great city near a massive obolisk , half of which was lighted with an intense purple glow, small markings along the side denoting measurements of time.&nbsp; From above she descended on a shimmering disc of what appeared to be metal beaten to a razor thinness.&nbsp; A platinum circlet held her hair back from her face, a jeweled spider in the center with its eight legs spread out arching over delicate white brows. Her robes tonight were purple and made of a silk the likes of which he'd never seen for the spiders responsible for spinning it were long extinct, though the fabric seemed thin and flimsy in nature they provided far more protection than the modern day kevlar the warriors of his day relied upon.<br><br>"Hello Charles Creighton, I bid you welcome to the great city of Mezzoberazan .&nbsp; My name is Nadvyrae Zau'ghym and I am most pleased to finally make you acquaintance..." Her manner was formal, but she was at least making an attempt to be friendly offering him a small smile as she stepped down on the disc which immediately vanished; she even went so far as to offer him a small bow, oddly tilted almond shaped eyes rolling upward to meet his gaze, their deep crimson hue perhaps a bit unsettling though there was not much she could do about that. 
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				Title: <strong>Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes (Neroon&amp;RampantDesires)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Neroon</strong> on <strong>15-01-2011, 20:01:41</strong>
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				It was a long flight from Mexico to London, almost twelve hours or so and a lot of that at night.&nbsp; Creighton had boarded the plane at 6 o' clock the previous evening and it was scheduled to arrive at Heathrow sometime in the mid-morning.&nbsp; As he ate what British Airways described on their promotional material as a sumptuous evening meal, he considered the depressing modern reality of false advertising before letting his mind wander.<br><br>As it had tended over the weeks since his narrow escape from Calakmul's tomb, Crieghton's mind wandered to the jewelled necklace he wore, almost by habit now.&nbsp; At first, wearing the sapphire beneath his clothes had been a sensible precaution.&nbsp; The journey to Mexico city was a long one through some lawless country and were the sapphire obvious, it would most only act as a provocation to violence.&nbsp; Better to have it hidden, safe and close at hand, than have it seem he were carrying something precious.&nbsp; So he made it seem as if his dig had been a failure, that despite some interesting pictures that shed new light onto the start of the Snake Kingdom, nothing had been retrieved,&nbsp; He let none know of the fabulous gem that rested against the skin of his chest under his shirt and did not even mention it over the phone, once he reached an area civilised enough for him to pick up a signal for his cellphone.<br><br>Despite is precautions, Creighton could not help but feel as if he were being watched.&nbsp; He woke each morning with a vague feeling of unease, as if someone else had been there in his tent, hotel room or wherever else he had been sleeping on his journey, too.&nbsp; He felt oddly violated, as if his privacy were no longer his own but, despite a lot of thought on it, he could not put his finger on the reason for it.&nbsp; So he kept the jewel even more closely guarded than before and, given his suspicions that someone was there, watching him at night as he slept, he even began sleeping with the thing round his neck, lest it be stolen.<br><br>His dreams had been decidedly odd too, he thought.&nbsp; Normally, he did not recall his dreams and yet since the tomb, he had not woken from a night's sleep without being puzzled by a dream.&nbsp; There was something similar about each dream but, for the life of him he could not put his finger on what it was.<br><br>He declined coffee from the stewardess and, instead considered his actions when he arrived in London over a glass of red wine.&nbsp; He should report at one to the British Museum and present the necklace to them.&nbsp; It would be the pride of their Meso-American collection.&nbsp; Yet he felt reluctant to do so.&nbsp; He had felt accustomed to its weight around his neck and the odd warmth of the gem radiating into his chest.&nbsp; Perhaps, once he was home, he should think about things for a few days before coming to a decision.&nbsp; And with that thought, he eased his seat back prepared for sleep: jet lag would be dreadful so any sleep as he could get now would be priceless.<br><br>The dream was bizarre even taken by the standards of those of recent nights.&nbsp; Creighton found himself in some sort of subterranean cavern of impossibly large proportions.&nbsp; It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a cave, for no cave in Creighton's experience ever looked so large.&nbsp; Indeed, even Wookie Hole, to which Creighton had been a frequent visitor in his youth, was like this.&nbsp; Not even Creighton's imaginings of Tolkein's <em>Moria</em> held the scale of what lay before him.&nbsp; This was neither the deep-delved citadel of the dwarves with its cunning lanterns of intricate manufacture nor the squalid nest of goblins into which it had declined by the time of the events in Tolkien's trilogy.&nbsp; This was much more eldtritch.<br><br>For a moment, Creighton was almost startled awake by his thoughts on what he was seeing but the dream held him and he saw wonders that he had never before imagined.&nbsp; The curious indigo bioluminescence that lit this underground world was indeed inhumanly beautiful in its darkly exotic way.&nbsp; Yet, suddenly, the wonders of this world held no interest for him for something- someone- infinitely more exotically beautiful and immeasurably more darkly inhuman stood before him.<br><br>On seeing her, he felt a flash of familiarity and after a few moments he recognised at last what had eluded him before.&nbsp; This woman's alien beauty was the common thread in all of his recent dreams.&nbsp; And now, at last, here she was, in full view and not hovering in the borders of his sight.&nbsp; Queenly, she was, possessed of a regal bearing that made Creighton feel somewhat insecure.&nbsp; Yet, she addressed him by name and even offered him a deferential bow.&nbsp; So at least, Creighton thought, this was not going to be an unpleasant dream as he met her incarnadine gaze.<br><br>"And it is a pleasure to meet you to, Lady Nadyvrae," Creighton replied.&nbsp; He hoped that adding an honorific might counterbalance any slight caused by the omission of her unpronounceable last name and by the bluntness of his next questions.&nbsp; While this was his dream and he could be as blunt as he liked he was still an essentially a polite man. Even so, he had to ask the three things uppermost in his mind.<br><br>"What is this place, this Mezzoberazan?&nbsp; Why am I here and, more importantly, why have I been dreaming of you?"
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				Title: <strong>Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes (Neroon&amp;RampantDesires)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>RampantDesires</strong> on <strong>24-01-2011, 11:09:33</strong>
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				His flash of recognition made her smile slightly.&nbsp; Smart, smart boy.&nbsp; It was good that he had his priorities straight as well.&nbsp; She could feel the archeologist in him clamoring for more information, and yet he watched HER intently and spoke to her with a degree of respect which Calakmul had not achieved until after she had proven to him that she could in fact show him a pain unlike any other he had felt before.&nbsp; Humans were generally caught up in physical torture, inflicting wounds and the like, when it was so much easier and cleaner to simply stimulate those parts of the brain.&nbsp; Agony in its most pure and simple form, quite beautiful really, and educational when need be, but with this one she would not need to resort to such things, well not yet at least. <br><br>"Three questions already? That did not take long, and I'm sure you've a million more crowding upon your tongue.&nbsp; Very well then, I am in a generous mood tonight.&nbsp; 'This place' is my home." She ticked the reply off on one finger, for a moment it seemed she would leave him with only that vague reply, and indeed she should for he really needed to learn to ask better questions, but there was no harm in a bit of elaboration.&nbsp; "You will not find it on any map or in any text ... indeed I am not sure it still exists, even in abject ruin, though I would like to find out at some point, though that is a discussion for another night I am afraid.&nbsp; Suffice to say that belonged to a society born and fallen a very very long time ago."&nbsp; For a moment that thought almost seemed to make her melancholic but it passed quickly, a flash over her delicate features before her smile was&nbsp; back in place. <br><br>"You are here because I thought it past time we met face to face so to speak," A second long slender finger rose as she addressed his next question, "and because I thought to give you a gift.&nbsp; Once humans came to these tunnels only as slaves, the lowest of the low, but you? You my dear Charles can explore as you will for I will let no harm come to you in this place or any other for that matter..." Indeed she was very keen on this one surviving.<br><br>His final question gave her pause for a moment as she pondered the proper phrasing 'because I'm a psychic leech and I needed to get a feel for your mind and this new civilization' wasn't a very good answer and would likely put their relationship off on the wrong foot. "Have you ever wondered why it is you dream? I have always envied you humans that.&nbsp; My kind do not, our reverie is efficient and dreamless.&nbsp; But you ... your minds wander, they exercise themselves even as your bodies take their rest. It is fascinating really.&nbsp; YOUR mind it fascinating Charles, and yes I have been a shameless voyeur in it these last days, but I had to make sure that you were ready for me, that you could handle having this conversation, indeed that you were worth having this conversation with..." Some of her arrogance leaked out at the end despite her careful preparation and coaching, but all in all she was doing a rather good job of keeping herself in check. <br>
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				Title: <strong>Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes (Neroon&amp;RampantDesires)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Neroon</strong> on <strong>26-01-2011, 18:11:59</strong>
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				Dream or not, Creighton realised that he needed more information and so he watched Nadyvrae carefully, taking the opportunity of being able to see her clearly to learn what he could.&nbsp; There was a definitely alien cast to her beautiful features which would have tipped him off to the fact she was not human had not her ebon skin, crimson eyes and her reference to 'humans' made the fact of her inhumanity abundantly clear.&nbsp; The question remained, though, as to what she was and that was not a simple question.<br><br>Creighton decided that he could defer the matter of whether she were real or merely a creation&nbsp; of some unknown neurosis until he were awake.&nbsp; In a practical sense, while within the confines of the dream, a figment of his imagination was as real as reality itself.&nbsp; As to what manner of being she was: a demon seeking to possess his soul, some apparition sent to warn, advise or torment him or something else entirely, Creighton could not tell.&nbsp; So it made sense to be polite but guarded with her.<br><br>"I do indeed have more questions," Creighton answered. "However, I've always felt that it is better to listen to any answers before giving too many questions utterance."&nbsp; As she described her home, Creighton took each bit of information she offered gratefully and added it to his growing knowledge of his situation.&nbsp; Were this a fabrication of his own mind, then this city this Mezzoberazan or whatever it was called was just the sort of thing that he would invent.&nbsp; Then again, there were so many details that were completely out of his experience that he was unsure where he could have got the source material for such an imagining.<br><br>So the matter of whether this was real or imagined was still unresolved.&nbsp; Her statement that she had decided they should meet and that she was a psychic leech lent a possible causation to the phenomena that he was experiencing but, still, it was nothing that he could mot have made up.&nbsp; Perhaps reading that old book by Dion Fortune on the journey to Mexico had not been a good idea.&nbsp; There were still questions left unanswered or rather ones that had arisen from what she had said.<br><br>"A psychic leech, eh?" Creighton said, looking her up and down. Obviously this was a metaphor for she looked nothing like the bloodsucking annelid but the implication was clear enough.&nbsp; She was a parasite, gaining sustenance from his mental energy.&nbsp; Or she was a delusion of a parasite.&nbsp; Either case was bad, Creighton decided.&nbsp; However, counter-intuitive as it might seem, the idea that her statement was the actual case was less of a worry to him than that it wasn't.&nbsp; For if he had picked up this leech like being, then it might well be the case that she would leave him for better feeding at some point in the future.&nbsp; Furthermore, she was obviously intelligent and therefore was seeking some form of communication.&nbsp; This meant that she could be reasoned with and was therefore not going to be overly harmful to his health, at least not in the short term.<br><br>"So if you're here battening yourself on my mental energy, why bother expose yourself to me?"&nbsp; Creighton asked, hoping that her answer would enable him to draw more conclusions.&nbsp; "And why me of all people?"&nbsp; Creighton had a sneaking idea why he was subject to this visitation but he was not going to give it voice, even in a dream.&nbsp; "I presume that, by some action of mine, probably in the near future, I could rid myself of you.&nbsp; Thus, you're here now putting forth a case of why I should not evict you, just as soon as I discover how.&nbsp; Certainly, knowing of a previously unknown civilisation is tempting but I'm not certain that it equals the possible cost of your tenancy in my psyche."
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