Friday, October 22, 2010
Table of Contents
Chapter Nine: City of Lights
01: Home to the Past, Present & Future
02: The Harbingers Reunited
03: The Iris of the Far Realm
04: In Search of Answers
05: A Trip Down Memory Lane
06: Carray On
07: Wisdom
08: Scheduled for 29-10-2010
Session 07: Wisdom
It happened so fast, no one immediately realized what we were all looking at. At one moment, Pellegri was singing a soft tune to herself. And then she was at the fountain, her life blood spilling from her wrist that she herself had sliced open. Of all the people to run to her aid, it was Soulerio who was by her side in a heartbeat, his torn robes in hand ready to bandage our mad friend. And indeed she was mad, as she swung her sword and sliced open her would-be savior. Elena quickly moved in to intercede between the two warring factions, only to receive the same treatment. She was however able to wrench the blade away. That giving me the time to heal our bardic friend’s wounds. As if that was an off switch, Pellegri was again herself. Soulerio commanded his lover to recount why she had done what she did, else suffer the neck-snapping actions of Minion. After healing her friends, she explained that she had no idea. It was established that the magical book may have affected her in some dire way, yet none of us truly believed that. After some discussion, Pellegri and Elena theorized that perhaps it was some magic cast by Soulerio himself in order to stop her from finding Obox-Ob, god of memories. It seems there was something very dark that had transpired between the Master of Undead, and former Champion of Undeath. Yet it was a memory that only the former seemed to know of. Since there was no evidence, we could only give everyone the benefit of the doubt. There were more doors to open, and I volunteered to read the next spell.
As the acid splash trickled through my fingers, a terrible shape appeared in the hallway I had thrown it. A miasma of inky darkness, whose exterior was pierced by leathery wings, and long serpentine tail. We knew right away that we faced a black dragon.
As was customary, Elena and I stood our ground, and thus were we the first to be on the receiving end of the cone of acid that came forth. Soulerio sent his tendril of rot into the cloud, but could not clearly see the target and missed. Elena moved in and swung blindly, failing to connect. As she retracted her chain, the dragon whipped out its tail and swapped her. I tried my call to arms attack, but failed to pierce its mind and thus could not pull it out of its protective acid cloud. Pellegri also failed to hit with her psychic bolt, but did heal Elena as she was already in need. The dragon then lashed out with its head and bit our chain wielder, sending caustic acid into the wounds. Again Soulerio missed with a rot, but Elena was able to get in a glancing blow. Seeing where she struck, I smashed my warhammer home on the same spot. Pellegri still could not see the dragon and her thunderous shout fell on def ears. The dragon then breathed more acid out, targeting only myself as so far I had inflicted the most pain. It then reached out and bit my shoulder for good measure. Soulerio had timed his next rot at that perfect moment and sent it right through the wyrms exposed head. With its jaws clamped upon me, I could feel its scream of pain reverberate through my body.
Minion came from behind to aid my defenses and Elena again missed with her threshing weapon. I summoned my most powerful attack and sent a majestic halo into the beasts hide. Pellegri, seeing her long range attacks were having no effect, charged in and slashed with her scimitar, drawing blood. She also sung a song to heal my wounds, a song I was becoming more and more familiar with. I believed I could perhaps mimic that same octave on further practice, but that was for another time.
With my halo in place, the dragon knew that pain would follow if it attacked anyone but me. And so, despite Minion’s limited help, it snapped its neck out and bit me. Again, Soulerio had timed his attack for just such an eventuality as his rot spell penetrated the beast’s neck. At the same time Pellegri slashed down with her blade, slicing through throat muscles, and making a perfect target for Elena to aim for as she too finally hit with her chain. By then I was too wounded to stay in the fight and so extracted myself from harm, healing myself as I left.
The dragon followed in my foot steps, casting another darkness upon itself in the process, and making it just as difficult to hit with sword and spell. Still wounded, I directed the attacks of Elena, to no effect. Now Elena became the target of the dragon’s wrath as she was repeatedly tail slapped and bitten. Pellegri was there to mend her wounds and moved into a flanking position with myself. Not wanting to stay in the position, the dragon bit down in my direction, but its teeth bounced off my pink plating. I retaliated with an upsweeping hammer hit to its nose. It in turn sent acid at me and Elena, but it seemed dizzy at that moment and missed us both. Elena finally was able to get her chain around its hind leg and yank it out of its concealing cloud. This gave Soulerio the chance to send another one of his massive rots through the dragon’s heart. Yet still it stood, even after another strike from myself and Pellegri. Again it summoned its cloud, making life difficult for us all. It then breathed its acid upon myself and Soulerio. Soulerio in turn used his life-leach spell to siphon energy from our foe into me, healing some of my burns. That last attack left it barely standing, and a last hammer strike from me finished the test for us.
As per the usual, the basin filled with a yellow liquid. Yet with Pellegri’s blood still filling the bottom, no one wished to drink; save for Pellegri oddly enough. Perhaps her lifeline contained a vampire within it.
After a few more healing spells were cast around, I read the next spell in the book, sending a blast of thunder to start our next test. Out of the door came four elementals, basically miniature storms among themselves. Soulerio used a spell I had yet to see, and spooked all four into staying where they were. These things did not need to move in order to hurt as three of them sent bolts of lightening at Elena, while the other one sent a bolt right through my head. Elena moved into to strike, walking into an unseen aura of electricity surrounding them, while Minion aided in her attack. It seemed his guidance paid off as her descending chain sent a cry of pain from one of them. Pellegri sang a song to hurt the same one. I meanwhile backed away and pulled one with me. There was nothing it could do as my gods wrath pulled it into my warhammer’s head, killing it instantly.
Suddenly from the dead ones body, a charge of energy began building up, and we al knew that things in this world tended to blow up when they died. We all moved back, with Elena firing a holy ray at one of the elementals from afar. Soulerio drained some of the same ones life away, using Minion as a conduit. Barely standing, it and its two friends fired their lightening at Soulerio. Still sensing the charge in the air, but knowing it was going to hit us anyway, I ran back into the fray and killed the injured one. As if on cue, it exploded, sending rivulets of pain into myself and Minion.
Elena pointed to one of the remaining ones and commanded it to move closer. Its will gave way to her magic, and suddenly it was beside her. Soulerio used his rot to boil away some of its life force but it stood. And as a lasting memory of itself, it used a thunderous strike upon Elena, dropping her. Yet as usual, Pellegri was there to bring her back from darkness, and just in time as another rot from Soulerio sent the thing to oblivion and thus on the verge of an explosion. She was able to get out of the blast radius, but Pellegri was not as fortunate. Meanwhile, I had been battling one of the survivors and was able to get in a lucky hit, sending it spiraling into the air to explode. The last one meanwhile send a bolt of energy at Soulerio. His friends Pellegri and Elena combined their efforts to bring it down. The explosion rocked over their ducking heads, but hit me square in the back. It was not enough to bring me down however. And with this battle over, that left only the cold door remaining.
Before the previous battle we had cleaned out the basin of blood, and thus this time when a familiar liquid appeared, we were not repulsed to drink its sweet nectar. In a moment, our tired arms were no longer leaden with weary and our limited magic was again a part of our repertoire.
As I read the magic book and sent a shivering touch upon the last remaining door, I did not flinch at all at the small backlash of energy. From the door walked two chillborn zombies, and at seeing these undead creatures, Elena smiled in pleasure, for these were what she was bread to destroy. From what I understood, her destructive abilities over undead was almost like her personal way of getting back at Soulerio for a past wrong I still did not understand he had done. To me, it seemed as though she was racist against the powerful necromancer, as many people often are when confronted with something they obviously don't understand. But I digress.
As the slow moving undead moved towards us, I pulled one closer with the power of holy might and shattered its jaw with my warhammer. Its futile punch missed me by an ogres club. The other one lunged towards Elena, but it to was simply pushed aside by the green-haired beauty. She in turn slashed her chain across its back, bringing a cry of pain from its cold, dead, lips. Her twin sister Pellegri moved in to flank the same one and slashed down hard with her scimitar. A rot from Soulerio seemed to have no effect. I switched my target, bringing down my Harbinger hammer on the weaker one, killing it. As I mentioned previously, nearly all enemies in this world seemed to explode when they died, and this zombie was no different. All three of us ladies were hit with stinging icy shards as it exploded. The one remaining lunged at me again but I parried its pitiful attack with my shield. Still blinded by pain, both Elena and Pellegri could not bring their weapons to bear upon the creature, but my warhammer connected upon its bony ribs. Soulerio sent his hand of doom at the creature, but again it seemed as though the thing was immune to the attacks of our necromancer. Changing tactics, the chillborn lunged at the unsuspecting Pellegri, dragging its claws across her throat. Backpedaling, she gurgled two quick healing songs to ease her suffering. Again I connected with my warhammer, sending it to one knee. Another smile from Elena was all it had as a warning as she wrapped her chain around its throat and decapitated it. Again the explosion ripped through all of us, save Soulerio who was wisely standing far back.
The basin again filled with gold and a circlet of authority which Pellegri took into her possession as she was our leader. As she donned the trinket, the room around us disappeared, and suddenly we were in a similar room with only four doors. Each door had a label on it: Chronology, Truename, Ascension, and Pact. In the middle of the room was an unconscious gnome, who was undoubtedly Mr. Obox. In the air, an ancient sounding voice echoed, saying we should go down the path we wanted to in order to gain its knowledge.
Soulerio announced that his wish was to become a lich and said he wished to go through the Ascension door. Before doing so, our attention turned to the one we had faced near death to see. A quick healing spell from Pellegri brought the god back to consciousness. He was quite confused at first, speaking of being attacked by Boccob and Wee-Jas of all people. Soulerio was quite irate at the pitiful man not acknowledging his presence, given the test we had all just endured. Pellegri calmed the Professor down, at which point Obox noticed that his book was missing, a book that Soulerio had immediately pilfered upon seeing it beside the god when we had entered the room. Obox figured that Boccob or Wee-Jas had stolen it and began running from room to room looking for it.
After some discussion we figured that allowing the god to find the book might be the best plan and so persuaded Soulerio to throw the book into the Truename room, so that it could be found. As there were four rooms, each of us took a room to research. In doing so, there was a fundamental understanding that we were each granted, but which neither of us could quite make out as of yet. Some of the more pertinent information was shared after several hours of research in the rooms with the floating books. The first was what Pellegri discovered in the Truename room. It seemed if one could discover someone’s Truename, the name that tied them to existence, one could manipulate that person, or even eliminate them completely, even from the memories of those who knew them. At this, Soulerio couldn't keep back a snicker of delight. From what I knew of his alleged actions towards Pellegri in our time, it did not take a genius to see that perhaps our dark friend had indeed already used such magic against his former friend. More evidence to this effect was given when Pellegri announced she wanted to study the Truename books, and Soulerio all but begged her not to.
Another useful information was what Soulerio was able to gather in the Ascension room. It seemed the godly relics that each deity possessed were in fact not their key to the pantheon. In fact, at the time of ascension, the gods would gather at the base of a tower where AO would appear. It was he and he alone that decreed what the gods would represent and whether they would even keep their divine powers. Given this information, it was logical to assume the children of the gods we knew of would provoke some sort of attack by the parents. Given this, AO would likely be quite angry and would reverse the rolls he had intended for them.
As for myself, the Chronology room gave me insight into Malfurion's recollections. It seemed that each timedragon lived in multiple realities. Thus, the Malfurion we had recent dealings with, might not be the one who had actually sent us to Ptolus.
On that matter, we discussed with Obox, who had found his book, what we might do for the timedragon. We went over his condition and pleaded with the god of knowledge to help us. Indeed, we had chosen the perfect ally to entrust our faith in. After some research, he was able to perform a strange rite that cured Malfurion of the Kyuss plague that infested his being. However, there was nothing that could be done to bring Malfurion back to actual life. The timedragon was cursed to remain a ghost for now, but it was a good start. This entire trial of magic had given to us wisdom we never would have found elsewhere. Now at least we had a general idea as to what was going to happen.
And it seemed that Pellegri now had wisdom into what had already happened. For of all the knowledge we had gained, it was the Truename pages that were of greater import than anything else. In my humble opinion, it was a nail in the silver coffin of her companion Soulerio, a man she was trying day in and day out to come to terms with. Soulerio had used the Truename magic to destroy her heart for no reason other than to be evil. The question now was, with this new insight, would Pellegri be able to do the same to her dark friend?
As the acid splash trickled through my fingers, a terrible shape appeared in the hallway I had thrown it. A miasma of inky darkness, whose exterior was pierced by leathery wings, and long serpentine tail. We knew right away that we faced a black dragon.
As was customary, Elena and I stood our ground, and thus were we the first to be on the receiving end of the cone of acid that came forth. Soulerio sent his tendril of rot into the cloud, but could not clearly see the target and missed. Elena moved in and swung blindly, failing to connect. As she retracted her chain, the dragon whipped out its tail and swapped her. I tried my call to arms attack, but failed to pierce its mind and thus could not pull it out of its protective acid cloud. Pellegri also failed to hit with her psychic bolt, but did heal Elena as she was already in need. The dragon then lashed out with its head and bit our chain wielder, sending caustic acid into the wounds. Again Soulerio missed with a rot, but Elena was able to get in a glancing blow. Seeing where she struck, I smashed my warhammer home on the same spot. Pellegri still could not see the dragon and her thunderous shout fell on def ears. The dragon then breathed more acid out, targeting only myself as so far I had inflicted the most pain. It then reached out and bit my shoulder for good measure. Soulerio had timed his next rot at that perfect moment and sent it right through the wyrms exposed head. With its jaws clamped upon me, I could feel its scream of pain reverberate through my body.
Minion came from behind to aid my defenses and Elena again missed with her threshing weapon. I summoned my most powerful attack and sent a majestic halo into the beasts hide. Pellegri, seeing her long range attacks were having no effect, charged in and slashed with her scimitar, drawing blood. She also sung a song to heal my wounds, a song I was becoming more and more familiar with. I believed I could perhaps mimic that same octave on further practice, but that was for another time.
With my halo in place, the dragon knew that pain would follow if it attacked anyone but me. And so, despite Minion’s limited help, it snapped its neck out and bit me. Again, Soulerio had timed his attack for just such an eventuality as his rot spell penetrated the beast’s neck. At the same time Pellegri slashed down with her blade, slicing through throat muscles, and making a perfect target for Elena to aim for as she too finally hit with her chain. By then I was too wounded to stay in the fight and so extracted myself from harm, healing myself as I left.
The dragon followed in my foot steps, casting another darkness upon itself in the process, and making it just as difficult to hit with sword and spell. Still wounded, I directed the attacks of Elena, to no effect. Now Elena became the target of the dragon’s wrath as she was repeatedly tail slapped and bitten. Pellegri was there to mend her wounds and moved into a flanking position with myself. Not wanting to stay in the position, the dragon bit down in my direction, but its teeth bounced off my pink plating. I retaliated with an upsweeping hammer hit to its nose. It in turn sent acid at me and Elena, but it seemed dizzy at that moment and missed us both. Elena finally was able to get her chain around its hind leg and yank it out of its concealing cloud. This gave Soulerio the chance to send another one of his massive rots through the dragon’s heart. Yet still it stood, even after another strike from myself and Pellegri. Again it summoned its cloud, making life difficult for us all. It then breathed its acid upon myself and Soulerio. Soulerio in turn used his life-leach spell to siphon energy from our foe into me, healing some of my burns. That last attack left it barely standing, and a last hammer strike from me finished the test for us.
As per the usual, the basin filled with a yellow liquid. Yet with Pellegri’s blood still filling the bottom, no one wished to drink; save for Pellegri oddly enough. Perhaps her lifeline contained a vampire within it.
After a few more healing spells were cast around, I read the next spell in the book, sending a blast of thunder to start our next test. Out of the door came four elementals, basically miniature storms among themselves. Soulerio used a spell I had yet to see, and spooked all four into staying where they were. These things did not need to move in order to hurt as three of them sent bolts of lightening at Elena, while the other one sent a bolt right through my head. Elena moved into to strike, walking into an unseen aura of electricity surrounding them, while Minion aided in her attack. It seemed his guidance paid off as her descending chain sent a cry of pain from one of them. Pellegri sang a song to hurt the same one. I meanwhile backed away and pulled one with me. There was nothing it could do as my gods wrath pulled it into my warhammer’s head, killing it instantly.
Suddenly from the dead ones body, a charge of energy began building up, and we al knew that things in this world tended to blow up when they died. We all moved back, with Elena firing a holy ray at one of the elementals from afar. Soulerio drained some of the same ones life away, using Minion as a conduit. Barely standing, it and its two friends fired their lightening at Soulerio. Still sensing the charge in the air, but knowing it was going to hit us anyway, I ran back into the fray and killed the injured one. As if on cue, it exploded, sending rivulets of pain into myself and Minion.
Elena pointed to one of the remaining ones and commanded it to move closer. Its will gave way to her magic, and suddenly it was beside her. Soulerio used his rot to boil away some of its life force but it stood. And as a lasting memory of itself, it used a thunderous strike upon Elena, dropping her. Yet as usual, Pellegri was there to bring her back from darkness, and just in time as another rot from Soulerio sent the thing to oblivion and thus on the verge of an explosion. She was able to get out of the blast radius, but Pellegri was not as fortunate. Meanwhile, I had been battling one of the survivors and was able to get in a lucky hit, sending it spiraling into the air to explode. The last one meanwhile send a bolt of energy at Soulerio. His friends Pellegri and Elena combined their efforts to bring it down. The explosion rocked over their ducking heads, but hit me square in the back. It was not enough to bring me down however. And with this battle over, that left only the cold door remaining.
Before the previous battle we had cleaned out the basin of blood, and thus this time when a familiar liquid appeared, we were not repulsed to drink its sweet nectar. In a moment, our tired arms were no longer leaden with weary and our limited magic was again a part of our repertoire.
As I read the magic book and sent a shivering touch upon the last remaining door, I did not flinch at all at the small backlash of energy. From the door walked two chillborn zombies, and at seeing these undead creatures, Elena smiled in pleasure, for these were what she was bread to destroy. From what I understood, her destructive abilities over undead was almost like her personal way of getting back at Soulerio for a past wrong I still did not understand he had done. To me, it seemed as though she was racist against the powerful necromancer, as many people often are when confronted with something they obviously don't understand. But I digress.
As the slow moving undead moved towards us, I pulled one closer with the power of holy might and shattered its jaw with my warhammer. Its futile punch missed me by an ogres club. The other one lunged towards Elena, but it to was simply pushed aside by the green-haired beauty. She in turn slashed her chain across its back, bringing a cry of pain from its cold, dead, lips. Her twin sister Pellegri moved in to flank the same one and slashed down hard with her scimitar. A rot from Soulerio seemed to have no effect. I switched my target, bringing down my Harbinger hammer on the weaker one, killing it. As I mentioned previously, nearly all enemies in this world seemed to explode when they died, and this zombie was no different. All three of us ladies were hit with stinging icy shards as it exploded. The one remaining lunged at me again but I parried its pitiful attack with my shield. Still blinded by pain, both Elena and Pellegri could not bring their weapons to bear upon the creature, but my warhammer connected upon its bony ribs. Soulerio sent his hand of doom at the creature, but again it seemed as though the thing was immune to the attacks of our necromancer. Changing tactics, the chillborn lunged at the unsuspecting Pellegri, dragging its claws across her throat. Backpedaling, she gurgled two quick healing songs to ease her suffering. Again I connected with my warhammer, sending it to one knee. Another smile from Elena was all it had as a warning as she wrapped her chain around its throat and decapitated it. Again the explosion ripped through all of us, save Soulerio who was wisely standing far back.
The basin again filled with gold and a circlet of authority which Pellegri took into her possession as she was our leader. As she donned the trinket, the room around us disappeared, and suddenly we were in a similar room with only four doors. Each door had a label on it: Chronology, Truename, Ascension, and Pact. In the middle of the room was an unconscious gnome, who was undoubtedly Mr. Obox. In the air, an ancient sounding voice echoed, saying we should go down the path we wanted to in order to gain its knowledge.
Soulerio announced that his wish was to become a lich and said he wished to go through the Ascension door. Before doing so, our attention turned to the one we had faced near death to see. A quick healing spell from Pellegri brought the god back to consciousness. He was quite confused at first, speaking of being attacked by Boccob and Wee-Jas of all people. Soulerio was quite irate at the pitiful man not acknowledging his presence, given the test we had all just endured. Pellegri calmed the Professor down, at which point Obox noticed that his book was missing, a book that Soulerio had immediately pilfered upon seeing it beside the god when we had entered the room. Obox figured that Boccob or Wee-Jas had stolen it and began running from room to room looking for it.
After some discussion we figured that allowing the god to find the book might be the best plan and so persuaded Soulerio to throw the book into the Truename room, so that it could be found. As there were four rooms, each of us took a room to research. In doing so, there was a fundamental understanding that we were each granted, but which neither of us could quite make out as of yet. Some of the more pertinent information was shared after several hours of research in the rooms with the floating books. The first was what Pellegri discovered in the Truename room. It seemed if one could discover someone’s Truename, the name that tied them to existence, one could manipulate that person, or even eliminate them completely, even from the memories of those who knew them. At this, Soulerio couldn't keep back a snicker of delight. From what I knew of his alleged actions towards Pellegri in our time, it did not take a genius to see that perhaps our dark friend had indeed already used such magic against his former friend. More evidence to this effect was given when Pellegri announced she wanted to study the Truename books, and Soulerio all but begged her not to.
Another useful information was what Soulerio was able to gather in the Ascension room. It seemed the godly relics that each deity possessed were in fact not their key to the pantheon. In fact, at the time of ascension, the gods would gather at the base of a tower where AO would appear. It was he and he alone that decreed what the gods would represent and whether they would even keep their divine powers. Given this information, it was logical to assume the children of the gods we knew of would provoke some sort of attack by the parents. Given this, AO would likely be quite angry and would reverse the rolls he had intended for them.
As for myself, the Chronology room gave me insight into Malfurion's recollections. It seemed that each timedragon lived in multiple realities. Thus, the Malfurion we had recent dealings with, might not be the one who had actually sent us to Ptolus.
On that matter, we discussed with Obox, who had found his book, what we might do for the timedragon. We went over his condition and pleaded with the god of knowledge to help us. Indeed, we had chosen the perfect ally to entrust our faith in. After some research, he was able to perform a strange rite that cured Malfurion of the Kyuss plague that infested his being. However, there was nothing that could be done to bring Malfurion back to actual life. The timedragon was cursed to remain a ghost for now, but it was a good start. This entire trial of magic had given to us wisdom we never would have found elsewhere. Now at least we had a general idea as to what was going to happen.
And it seemed that Pellegri now had wisdom into what had already happened. For of all the knowledge we had gained, it was the Truename pages that were of greater import than anything else. In my humble opinion, it was a nail in the silver coffin of her companion Soulerio, a man she was trying day in and day out to come to terms with. Soulerio had used the Truename magic to destroy her heart for no reason other than to be evil. The question now was, with this new insight, would Pellegri be able to do the same to her dark friend?
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