This story is written purely for entertainment purposes only. Anything read here should be considered out of game knowledge and in no way should be used in an IG capacity. These stories takes place during the month of April 2014. We hope you enjoy an event seen from two different perspectives that has re-shaped these character’s lives in new and exciting ways.
Through the eyes of bearded men...
The void has wrapped me in its dark embrace and I find comfort in it. The last thing I remember is a sharp pain between my shoulder blades and falling limply to the ground. Whoever it was that slipped their blade between the plates of my armor and ever so gently pierced my heart knew their trade well. The memory fades quickly not that it matters anyhow. I know not where I am or where I am headed but I do not fear the outcome. I move through the inky darkness swaddled in eternity. There is no warmth nor cold, no joy or sadness, there is just peace. Peace from battle, a cessation of the nagging thoughts of kin and country, truly the end has come. There is a momentary itch in my mind that I should be doing something but it fades quickly. I am at rest and I know that wherever I am going I will arrive there when I am intended to and not a moment before.
I hear a voice pierce the nothingness that surrounds me. It sounds like the chanting of prayer but none that I recognize. It is familiar but I cannot place it. I do not understand the words but I feel an inexorable pull to its haunting sound. I am suddenly aware that my face is wet and my gentle movement through the void is halted. The voice grows louder still and I feel a dull ache in my back. A new sensation assaults me as I begin to be pulled out of the void with a violent lurch. The voice reaches a crescendo with a dark power that I have never felt and my consciousness comes rushing back into my body.
I open my eyes to darkness and the floor of a rat infested mine, everything hurts but the pain seems very far away. The voice commands me to stand. I want to tell it’s owner to kiss a goblin’s arse but I feel a compulsion from my master that I cannot disobey and my limbs move faster than my mind’s demands. Something is wrong, I feel wrong but say nothing. I do not know how I am standing but I can feel an unnatural quality to my being that I have never experienced. I stand before a tall imposing man. In the darkness I cannot make out much but his whited out pupils pierce the shadows and the very depths of my soul. He is familiar to me though I do not know his name, all I know now that he is my master and I his servant. I look down at myself and can tell that I am covered in blood and dirt. I recall the mine being cold as I entered but now I feel utter indifference to its temperature. A symptom of my new peculiar state no doubt. My gaze passes down my filthy torso, past my grime covered boots, past the axe that is my father’s legacy to a woman. Even in the darkness her beauty is unmistakable. She lies sprawled open like a flower in bloom. The blue markings on her pale skin that were once so radiant have faded but refuse to die out. Her hair is a tangled mess of browns, golds, and reds. Her eyes and mouth are closed and she looks almost peaceful in her serene state. If not for the pool of blood beneath her you would think she was just resting. She lies perfectly still and my mind reels in horror at the sight I am beholding. I have no doubt that my dearest friend in the world is dead and that I am responsible for it. As my eyes adjust to the mine’s darkness I can see the deep gashes disfiguring her once beatific form.
Myris is dead.
I was her protector, her friend, and I failed her. Before I can react to the abhorrent sight my master commands me to pick her up. I reach down and lift her over my shoulder. My heart breaks when I touch her soft pale skin and it is cold. Strangely I cannot feel the sensation in my chest I only know its mark by the deep sadness that cuts through me. I feel a weakness in my knees but I hold the dead Sylph with great care and I do not dare drop her. My master picks up my axe, examines it for a moment, and with an approving nod hands it to me. He points down a passage of the mine and explains that the other citizens of Travance wait around the bend and that i am to bring Myris to them. Even though my mind is a roiling chaotic mass of sadness, anger, and shame his voice pierces my deepest thoughts. I obey. I march forward, after a few steps I am away from my master and alone with my thoughts. The miasma of pain in my mind is almost too much for me to bear but his command keeps me moving ever onward toward my goal. Through the sadness of losing a friend, through the shame of allowing her to come to harm while under my protection, through the rage of my own failures another voice emerges.
“Ye failed her boy. Just like ye failed yer mother and just like you failed me.” It is the voice of Orvarg the Lion, my father. “How can you wield my axe, your grandfathers axe and allow this to come to pass? Myris was your dearest friend. She represented everything I ever taught you about fighting for those who couldn’t. She was a true innocent, someone who had never had to bear witness to the sins of war and you let her die. Her blood is on yer hands Alander Claver and it will never wash clean.”
I hate that he brought up my mother, I hate that I am hearing his voice at this particular moment, and I also hate that he is absolutely right. I clench my jaw so hard that a tooth cracks. The pain is nothing in comparison to what I am feeling in my heart and I march forward. As I round a bend I hear the sounds of battle coming further down the tunnel. I stop for a moment and examine my surroundings. I quickly find a crack in the cave wall that leads to a shallow opening. My master has commanded me to bring her to the other townsfolk but I cannot do that if I do not defeat whatever is in front of me blocking my path. The compulsion of my master’s commands finds this acceptable and I place Myris’ body in the crevice with the utmost tenderness. She sits in the crevice, eyes closed, head tilted to the side and I stand there staring at the beautiful creature before me.
“I’m sorry.”
I whisper and I turn away and march towards the battle before me.
I round the bend and before me a small contingent of rats battles the forces of Travance. My mind is a furnace,burning with rage and leaving behind the ashes of sorrow . Unlike other times where my rage is a violent inferno of anger it is now an ice cold fury of hatred and revenge. My father’s voice speaks to me as I march on,
“Ye know it could have been any one of them rats that killed Myris. Any of these sneaky little furry bastards could have done the deed. So I supposen the real question is what are ye gonna do about it?”
I emit a low growl mixed with a gurgling of blood and stalk forward towards my prey. I keep the cold fury of my mind at bay for the moment and the rats never see me coming. I cleave into the first one from behind and drop him in two blows hacking him very nearly in half. A rat man sees what I have done to his friend and attempts to flee. I make short work of him and bury my axe in his back. I go blind as a rat leaps on to my head and stabs me repeatedly in the shoulder. I grab him by the scruff of the neck and it continues to frantically stab my arm. These blows barely register as I slam the rat man’s face into the hard stone beneath me silencing him. Then I feel something stab me in the back. The steel is cold and I feel it seperate my skin and dig into my kidney. This blow should have killed me but instead I look down at the blade then back up to the rat’s eyes. I see his fear and I imagine what Myris face must have looked like when she was murdered. The icy lake of rage within me snaps and I become a relentless killing machine. I plant my axe in the belly of this beast three times in the span of a heartbeat that I cannot feel. Another rat charges me from behind and I spin, lopping its head clean off. I look around and see one rat cowering in the corner of this small passage and I slowly walk forward so that I am inches away from this thing. It does not want to fight, it has seen what has happened to its kin and it is truly afraid. Part of my mind registers this as I put my boot up against its head and slowly press it into the stone floor until I hear a satisfying crack. I turn and face the citizens of Travance as this is taking place their faces awash with confusion and disgust. I say nothing and return to where I left my true prize.
I come upon the Sylph’s body in the exact position that I have left her. I gingerly pick her up and once again place her on my shoulder. I begin to move back to where I have just been to fulfill my master’s wishes. My mind is a frigid fortress of sorrow built with bricks of fury but I must press on. As I approach the wall of Travancian warriors I growl out “Help her.” The people do not immediately understand what is happening but make way for me and I march on. “Help her.” I repeat and now that I am in their midsts they can tell that something has gone terribly wrong. Finally a group of healers rushes forward and I let Myris slowly down into their arms. The cold fury inside of me has not yet abated but I can feel it waning and I refuse to abandon her, I won’t fail her again. Then seemingly out of nowhere there is a dark skinned man in very fine clothing. I know this man, this Silas Crone, and he examines Myris for a moment and then a gem which he wears on a circlet atop his head begins to glow an orange color. He reaches out and touches Myris on the forehead and she is bathed in the same orange glow for the briefest of moments. My fury rises in my breast and my muscles tighten in case this man intends her harm, I am ready to unleash the pain inside of me into him. Then Myris’ eyes snap open and her chest heaves. I do not know how it has happened, nor do I care but Myris is alive and part of me knows this to be true. I reach out to her as my rage gives away to pure elation, my muscles relax, and I am wracked with a white hot pain. I look to my right and I see a woman touching me, Angeliana, her touch is like Brazen’s forge being pressed against my skin. I turn back to my dearest friend and the last moment of consciousness I have is her eyes locked with mine as I whisper,
“Myris…”
Then the void swallows me once again and I’m gone.
Sylphs in strange places
...It is cold... so cold here in this strange spirit place... I don't understand... I see things, but it is not how I remember it to be. It is foggy and dim and strangely alone, and yet it still feels like home more than the world I was in just moments ago feels. I can see myself, and I am frightened. I don't understand. Why am I so still? Why is there so much blood below me? I am saddened, but then I feel nothing once again and I am gone into the soul blackness that surrounds me...
...Then just as it was so peaceful, so comforting, so still, I am torn from it so suddenly, my mind rung awake like a gong struck at midnight, and as I open my eyes, everything becomes so much clearer, and at the same time, so much less clear. I gasp for breath, and I see him reach out for me, this horrible, bloodied mess of the man I once knew. I reach back, my newly found breath shuddering out his name, but then, his eyes are stricken, and falls to his knees at my feet before slumping to the cold ground of the mine, his arm still outstretched to me, and the other, held by a woman, the woman who just killed him with her magic. Suddenly, there is no happiness, there is no song, there is nothing. I fall to the ground with a shriek, sobbing, shaking his body, but to no avail. This time, death has taken him into it's chill embrace, and there is nothing... nothing I can do...
...in a moment, I feel a white hot burning set into my heart as though someone had removed it and replaced it instead with a ball of molten fire, and I want to destroy. I want to burn. I want to kill. I look up and see the woman, the woman who murdered my only true friend with a single touch, and in an instant I am once again on my feet. I leap upon her with a howl of rage and pain from deep within me, and I manage to lay two sharp blows into her with my old and worn staff, but almost as fast as I move, I feel strong hands on me, holding me back, grabbing me, and voices assuring me that everything would be 'alright'. I do not understand them, I cannot understand them. How can everything simply 'be alright' when the only person you love in the world is gone? When the only thing you cared about is taken from you without a thought from the one who did the taking? I struggle, screaming and fighting, trying to release myself, before I am simply reduced to sobs and I fall, heavy with sorrow, to my knees again...
...she tries to touch me, to comfort me, but I reject her mind with mine and I scream in her face until she backs up, and with two small waves of her hands, gestures to some men to carry my Alander somewhere. I begin to follow, but trip over the hilt of the axe he once carried, so much heavier and bigger than my staff, but I must bring it. He would be so angry if I left it behind to be further sullied by the ratlings in this horrible place. So with some struggle, I finally manage to carefully lift the axe up off the stone. I barely notice that hilt is dripping with the blood of many of the foul rat creatures, and through the haze of my thoughts, it barely registers I my mind that I could clean it first. But there is no time. No time for practical thoughts in this tangled mess of sorrow and anger running rampant through my head, and so I simply carry it as best I can, and hurry after the men...
...we walk for what seems like endless miles, and all the while I cry, my body heaving in shaking waves. My sobs echo eerily off of the cave walls, and once we have reached the forests of Travance, they continue to ring out through the trees as I inform the world of the sadness I feel through my desperate cries. In this mortal form, it is so hard for me to even begin to articulate through my tears what has happened to the concerned people who come up to our small group, so instead, I simply point to his limp and battered body, and as they rush off, hollering for a physician, a healer, a priest, anyone who might be able to help, my eyes well again with these tears, these strange, mortal tears that I still don't really understand...
...finally, I am led into the place they call the Monastery, and someone lies his body upon the floor, I reach out to take his cold, dead hand before being shooed away roughly by a woman I barely recognize, telling me not to touch him because it might 'ruin the process' of bringing him back. I pull my hand back quickly, only somewhat understanding what is happening around me as people gather around a large, glowing crystal set upon an ornate cloth, and as they reach out toward it they disappear from this plane. I sit back, the confusing tears still falling from my eyes, refusing to cease no matter how I try, and another stranger sits next to me, holding my hands in hers, speaking words, words, words at me, words I can only halfway understand, and words I only half care to listen to. My eyes are locked tight on his, watching, waiting for even the smallest flutter of an eyelid to tell me that he's there, that there is still life somewhere inside...
...minutes seem to last hours as I keep vigil next to his still form for what could have been several eternities or only moments, not that it mattered to me. I had spent so many years not knowing the time or the day or how many moments had passed me by, so this just felt familiar to me in an odd way. Then suddenly, there was a flurry of movement, a flash from the crystal, and in a moment, people step out from nowhere looking tired and slightly harrowed, but my eyes only see them for a mere moment before turning back to the body before me which suddenly heaves with a gasping breath, his eyes snapping open before locking with mine...
...again I am crying, tears falling like rain on a stormy night, my body shaking as I simply lean forward, gathering the man into my arms. Somewhere in my mind, I know that my tears are soaking not only my own clothes, but his as well, but at this moment, I could care less, and as we cling to each other making desperate apologies and promises to never, ever let something like this happen again, I for once feel whole again in this awful mortal world I am forced to live in, and all seems right. Finally, I pull back, wiping the tears from my face and offering him a tearful smile which is returned shakily, and as we help each other up and lean into one another, I understand the joy of living for another day. As we walk into the night once more, My steps feel both light and very very heavy as I look up at the stars and smile once again.
Through the eyes of bearded men by Renny Stern
Sylphs in strange places by Maxine Mencl
Renny S.
