Recent content by Risen Soleil Verdane

But I did not summon you to shower you with my praise. Here Soleil but smiled. She would have loved it if he had—praise to her was an intoxicant, and she could never have enough. Yet this comment spearheaded the main thrust of Kor's summoning, and he came to it shortly after, the hand which...

"Kiiii~aaaan," Soleil said, slowly stretching the "i" and the "a" of his name as though tasting the vowels themselves. And a delight rushed across her features, and the false flesh of her cheeks rippled and waved like banners in the wind. The flesh formed anew, its whimsy ended when Heller began...

Soleil knew she was on a leash. But the game amused her. Fun! Cat and mouse! The Vigilite thought themselves the cat. But them? Big mouse. Her? Patient cat. And Soleil did think herself to be patient. Prided herself on it, in truth. Her crowning achievement, the murder of Caeso Diemut, was...

For Soleil, that which began and endured in so grand a fashion, this ritual breaching the primordial veil between life and death, concluded in a manner most mundane. With a simple breath. Therein lay the continuity, the bridge between when last she lived on Arethil and now, and this bridge...

Perhaps it was a blessing to be insensate to magic as Heller's necromancy approached its apex. But for Marris he need not feel any gust of arcane wind, any swirl of the ethereal, to know that this was a point in time balanced on a knife's edge. He just knew it. He just knew that what he did here...

Soleil's signature handwriting, that plain, blocky, almost too careful, almost too perfect style. Though the letter carried by the raven was not signed by her, this made it clear. And the letter read: Kor, No demise. Just nap. Nap and wake up. Feel better now! Village? If you burned, good...

...helping Soleil? Marris looked to the Dreadlord after he spoke, those words like a kind of magic summoning his attention. At Heller's beckoning Marris followed, and he took the knife so offered. The elderly man held it in his hand, gazing at it for a while, and he came at last to say...

Marris nodded vigorously. "Yes. Let's go, and let's go without a moment's delay!" * * * * * VEL ANIR THE GARRISON COMPLEX Again the Complex had been given over to Heller and his work, the Guardsmen granted leave for the duration. The time was approaching, Rennick thought, to see if this...

In Marris but one emotion was evoked, plainly evident even beneath his wild tussle of hair and beard: concerned love. For all Marris's unpleasantness, his surliness, his abrasiveness to nearly everything and everyone around him, still there remained that one ember in an otherwise cold heart...

"Vigilite Rennick. And this is a matter of—" But Marris was all smiles now. Away went his annoyance, his frigid expression, and he embraced a happier tone and stance. "Little Soleil! Little Soleil!" And he pressed a hand to his mouth and stroked his beard. Behind pursed lips came a throaty...

This Initiate you want to bring back seems to make a habit in making demands... or at least, wants to be convinced to return. Though Rennick would never admit it, such a notion as this went far beyond his ken—even frightened him, to some extent. Vel Anir had long ago killed its gods, and...

And now the two men, mounted and riding through the streets of Vel Anir, discussed the matter at hand. "He exists only as ink to me," said Rennick, somewhat poetically saying that he'd only read about him. But, if what the Dreadlord implied was accurate, they might be meeting him. Soon...

In the cool night air would evidence come that not all Heller's efforts ended in vain. The tug and pull of his magic Heller likely already knew, those intangible strings, linking the mortal world with the immortal beyond, each subtly plucked at his command, like a lyrist playing a favorite tune...

That small smile from Rennick once more—a persistent feature of his character no doubt. "One of the many benefits of our newfound friendship." * * * * * VEL ANIR THE GARRISON COMPLEX Captain Murrick seemed a touch nervous when Rennick introduced himself and Heller, and he seemed a touch...

The Empire. Elbion. Alliria. Kress-forsaken Malakath, even. Sabien and the expatriate Diemuts could be anywhere, and, if they intended treason and sedition from afar, then Rennick wanted to know, and he wanted to know yesterday. Two days, however, would be the best bargain he was likely to get...