Open Chronicles The Shades of Gods

[Caliane Ruinë]

Her wings made a hushed noise of feathers sweeping across grass as she knelt beside Sir.

"There is a cycle for all things in life," Caliane spoke softly whilst the tiger frolicked and threw fish and Gil kept watch on the creature that had been following them for some time. She didn't think it would approach until they were asleep or settled for the evening in any case; movement seemed to keep it at bay. The avariel placed a hand on his armoured shoulder and gave a soft squeeze though she suspected he didn't quite feel it the same way a being of flesh was. He was so like Lazule she couldn't help but wonder if he was born of the same creator or one of his disciples. Very slowly she leant forward and plucked the flower from the ground.

"But even in death, things serve a purpose. Sometimes it's to be a memory or motivation for someone else to do great things, or to come back in another way and fulfil work. For flowers, it's to bring a smile. Humans like to give them as gifts to one another, and some like to put them in their hair for decoration," she offered him a warm smile and reached up to tuck the flower in the slight curve of his helmet where for a human their ear would have been.

Without another word she rose to her feet and went to light the fire that had been prepared.

Once they were seated and she had gutted and prepared the fishes Torie had caught which were now roasting over the fire, she blinked at Gil's announcement.

"I don't think it means harm," she said with a frown, a hint of doubt in her words. "I think it just wants to watch."

 

[Torie]

Torie was drying by the fire and munching on another fish. It didn't take long for her coat to dry out, and soon she was fluffy again. Though, she would change her position every so often to make sure every bit of her got exposure to the heat of the flames.

When Gil mentioned they were being followed, she sniffed the air.

"Upwind. Can't smell it," she said, then quickly swallowed the rest of her fish. "But I'll be able to feel it through the earth."

With that she spread herself out on the ground, her enormous tummy bulging out on both sides. With her paws she cleared away the leaf litter then planted them firmly into the soil, doing the same with the back. Then she closed her eyes. "Give me a moment..."

 

[Sir]

“Is everything alright, Sir?"

“This flower…” he said softly. “I killed it,” the shame in his voice shuddered through the metal helmet, and it was perhaps the most emotion he had showed yet on their journey.

Caliane’s hand was met with a gentle creaking as he looked at her, and though he was apprehensive, he watched her pluck the flower and remained absolutely stock still as she placed it in a crease of his helmet.

Even in death, things serve a purpose.

Did she know how poignant her words were to him? If he’d had lungs they would have stilled at the fear of being discovered. Yet her words were not harsh. In fact, everyone here, from the towering elf to the boisterous tiger had been friendly. He liked it.

”What if the dead thing did not want its purpose? Could it choose another?” The necromancer who had raised him had wanted him to do terrible things, had hurt him. He did not wish to be bound to that role, whether or not the evil wizard still lived.

Fearing he would raise suspicion if he continued, he rose and returned to the fire, keeping the flower in place.

”I cannot see it’s form,” he said in regards to their follower, ”But it is silent, and waiting. Can your magic find it?” he watched Torie with interest, the fire glinting off his plates as the light waned further and further.

 

[Gil'Tyrnin Solcrest]

As they sat there he could not help but to contemplate Sir 's words, could things indeed change their purpose, his had always been apparent to him. Even though it was thrust upon him at first, as the years went on it was obvious to him that he was and would always be a warrior of the light. Upon his journeys, he had many an encounter with death and even undead. Could a dead thing change its purpose? He thought to himself. His encounters with the undead had always seemed to be the same, mindless corpses controlled by an evil purpose. The dead did not simply walk among the living to spread joy and happiness, they were tools just like him. However that was where the similarities often ended, he was the tool of The All Father, they were the tools of the void, their spark was lost to The All Father, stolen by Dark God's and thrust back into this world to do their bidding. It was his duty to rescue those sparks and send their light back home. This was the merciful and just thing to do.

However, life was not always so simple, neither was death.

He was curious now watching the Druid, his eyes fixed on her observing her methods, the more he saw of the word, the less he knew.

 

[Torie]

Torie sat still as a sphynx, the only things moving her appendages, like her tail, or the flick of her ears. The others could not see but she could see shapes in the darkness – it’s the way the magic of the world always spoke to her. Everything like colourful outlines on a background of black. She saw the camp, saw the four of them sitting, saw the life in three and the odd lack-of-life in the suit of armor. Curious!

It was a distraction, she felt, but an important one, and so she moved up to examine Sir more closely…

There was a dark space inside that suit that threatened to suck her spirit in, and she shied away – her body giving a shudder as the only external sign of her discomfort. How very strange! It was like sitting next to a gaping hole, one that could move and walk and talk. But dangerous?

Only if you were skinny enough to fall in.

She sensed no malevolence from this hole. In fact, she could sense something within it, but it was so deep and faint it was hard to make out what it was. A soul? But there was a warm feeling to it. Like heat rising through a hollow tree, baking in the sun.

Torie decided she would need to investigate this Sir more closely later.

She swept further back, examining the trees, the bracken, the vines and saplings. A network of threads weaved below the soil signifying the presence of mushroom-growing fungi – the edible variety! As well as ant nests of the not-so-friendly variety. All living things were visible to her.

But as she looked out further towards their follower, it was as if the vision of living things became muddy. Like someone had smudged the drawing. The further she looked the more she felt like someone was about to attack her. The hairs on her back rose up. What she found at the centre of the distortion was something… dark.

Not a hole. A solid thing. It had four long legs, and antlers like a moose, though it was also clothed in black clouds that flowed over its form and concealed the details.

Except for two piercing white eyes staring straight back at her.

Torie gasped and flinched violently, eyes opening, flicking between her companions.

“It’s not a hundred feet away,” she said, breathing deeply. “It’s like… it’s like an animal. But something in the animal. Like it was once an animal but something has come to live inside it. Something dark. It saw me looking at it,” she said, eyes wide and wild, flickering with reflected firelight.

The forest beyond the fire was deep in shadow now, but Torie was too afraid to look at it.

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

The Avariel sat attentively whilst Torie sat and performed her magic. She had her own thoughts about what it was out there but further clues would be helpful in determining if her hunch was a childish whimsy. The stories her mother had read her from the archives were ancient things, stories no doubt long forgotten by the people who lived here even though the blood of those ancient heroes still ran thick in these hills. They could very well just be stories but then, the avariel had been nothing but stories until recently. It made a person more inclined to believe what they had heard in bedtime tales once you had become one yourself.

"Or perhaps," Caliane said softly once Torie had delivered her findings, her brows pulling down into a thoughtful frown as she stared into the flames. "What was once inside it has become tainted," a faint glow seemed to pulse along her white wings not that it seemed to bother her in the slightest but a moment later a ring of fire jumped to life around their clearing running right to the waters edge.

"Better to be safe than sorry," she explained with a half smile.

 

[Gil'Tyrnin Solcrest]

Gil did not like the sound of it, whatever it was, it was not easy unsettling a Paladin. He stood his shadow casting into the darkness meeting the shadows of the tree line. He placed his hand in front of him as he did before as they were walking. He prayed to The All Father this he did not do silently. He said so in a hushed respectful tone as one giving reverence in a small Chaple would. All could hear.

"Head my call oh All Father. Please protect us this night, bathe us in your light. Save us from the void and those that would seek us harm."

He nodded as if it were fact now, his faith in Sol'Nityr was absolute. An orb of light appeared in his left hand, with his right hand he pulled the massive sword from his back. He looked to the party.

'I will take first watch." He said matter of factly, to him it was not up for debate.

He made his way to the edge of the camp where the fire light began to fade into the endless black of the forest. This was one of the reasons the highelves abandoned the forests for their cities. The lights of the city in High Citadel were a sight to see, so warm and inviting. Alas, he would never see them again.

He circled the camps parameter extending the view into the forest with his orb looking, watching, waiting...

 

[Sir]

He turned towards the last place he had noted their follower. His vision was not overly affected by the darkness, but neither was it as crisp as it was in life. A dark shape, muddied and frayed in silhouette, was all he could make out.

He did not need memories to know that an animal with a dark soul was dangerous. Before he could draw his sword Caliane's fire burst into life, and he took a step back. It was very bright and temporarily shut out all sight behind it. How odd, that light could amplify darkness so powerfully.

"The forest," he began, but he stopped as he saw that the angel's fire did not touch the surrounding foliage. It must be very magical, then.

Gil made his own light, and the skeleton did wish he could produce some fire or light, or see through the roots of the forest. He wondered what it would be like to hold something like that in his hand. In spite of this, something within his unholy bones shuddered under the glow of Gil's orb, and he felt a part of him attempting to retreat. Sir, as he had come to be known among them, stood fast. Gil was kind, he would not harm a friend.

The undead did not sleep, he wasn't even sure if he could, so he watched Gil circling. He could not feel the beast in the darkness. If it were undead, or born of the same magic as himself, he thought he ought to be able to feel it. Whatever darkness Torie had described must be of a different breed.

 

[Torie]

"That's beautiful!" Torie said, standing and reaching a paw out towards the circle of flames. Just enough to feel the heat emanating from them. She looked thankfully at Caliane and said, "I feel safer already. Still, just knowing that thing is out there... I don't think I'll sleep a whisker tonight."

She turned to Gil.

"So, I'll take the first watch. Maybe afterwards I'll be tired enough to shut my eyes. I don't think I'll be getting that image out of my head again, any time soon."

***

Ten minutes later, Torie was asleep.
She had taken up position with her backside to the campfire, facing in the direction they'd last seen the creature. But now she was lying on her side, ears twitching, tail flicking dangerously close to the fire. Over the crackle of the flames, both magical and mundane, one could just hear the sound of her soft snoring.

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

The Soulfire in her heart recoiled from the other light and seethed. Caliane rubbed the heel of her palm against her chest to ease the fiery pain like a mortal would to ease heart burn. With a grimace she took up a place by the fire she had created and stretched out on the grass. Her years of Hunting had left her able to sleep most places and her years in captivity had taught her how to sleep in the rest. She settled down and pillowed her head with her bent arm. It took a while for sleep to come but it did eventually.

Despite her restful state the fires around the camp continued to burn bright without fuel and didn't move an inch to lick at the nearby trees.

Beyond the flames though the creature crept closer and closer, emboldened by the sounds of restful slumber and began to prowls its own circuit outside the flame within the shadows it created beyond...

 

[Gil'Tyrnin Solcrest]

As the night carried on he continued to pace the the parameter he did so raising his hand into the air every so often to extend the light out just a bit further, his Elf eyes could see far during the day, so he relied more on his hearing, his Elven ears twitched slightly.

He heard the sounds of the the leaves rustling in the wind, the distant snap of a twig, the chirping of a bats in the distance, the wing beats of an owl, the shreik of its prey.

Gil let the light fade. He made his way back to the fire, upon arriving he kneeled down next to Sir, whom he had assumed asleep like the rest of them. He placed his hand gently on his shoulder as not to startle him. He gently nudged his shoulder back and forth as one would rouse a child from sleep.

"Sir" Gil whisperd "You are up for watch"

Gil sat now back against a tree he then closes his eyes his sword sheathed laying against his shoulder. He closed his eyes.

 

[Sir]

The metal helmet turned to the elf as soon as he made contact, and the knight did his best to not appear surprised. Though it was shielded by layers of metal the touch stirred something in him, and he remembered something of comradery. He felt a small warmth that was not from the fires around them as he nodded and stood mechanically to walk the perimeter.

Based on the armor he'd awoken in months ago he assumed he had been a knight, or at least someone with a violent life. But his armor was stronger than most sets he'd seen, with fewer gaps and imperfections. The tabard he wore seemed almost decorative, as the cloth wouldn't serve as much protection. A knight, he decided, made more sense. His subconscious seemed to agree, and creaked open just a hair to reveal faded recollections of marching alongside other similarly dressed people.

And knights protected. He didn't know what he'd been protecting before, but now he could protect these people. His boots left heavy tracks in the soft earth around the flames, and he stepped into his own footprints time and time again as he circled.

He had lost site of the dark animal, whatever it was. He hoped it had fled, turned tail at the site of Caliane and Gil's power, or perhaps at the presence of a large predatory cat.

It had not fled, and he was struck suddenly in the back by something very heavy that sent him face-down in an instant, clattering noisily into the earth. The helmet spun a complete 180 to peer behind his own shoulders at what had attacked him.

He saw darkness, a huge mass of it, with long legs and heavy arms... or wings... or antlers?

"ALARM!" he called out, righting his head and pushing himself to his feet, letting the forgotten instincts of whatever he'd been take over. "TO ARMS!"

 

[Torie]

Torie woke with a start, kicking her legs to right herself, though getting up was still a slow process. She looked down to see she'd rolled up against Caliane, then looked up to see Sir standing face-to-face with the darkness she'd seen through her earthsight.

"It got in!" she said.

The darkness looked like the silhouete of a moose, all black, but shaggy and dripping, as if it had run through water and collected seaweed on the way. Long wet shreds hung limply from its antlers and back, even its neck, and the whole mass of it frothed out a roiling black cloud that seeped along the ground. When it touched their campfire it was quickly snuffed out, leaving only the magic firelight left.

She put one paw on Caliane's shoulder, shaking her as gently as her nerves would allow.

"Wake up," she whispered.

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

A pounding in her head was already waking her before the shout and Torie's gentle shake. Something was fighting back against her flames. Something even older than the Soulfire that resided within her. It rallied to fight back. The flames roared higher, brighter and hotter in an effort to push back the encroaching shadows that crept forward but it was no use. Slowly but surely her fire spluttered and died one section at a time. Her stomach rolled as she pushed herself up from where she was laying on her side looking more than a little grey.

"Stay out of the shadows," she croaked as they began to creep forward. Caliane brought the flames up once more and they screamed as they began to probe the blinding white light. The things they did touch however withered and died. The air reeked with death as grass, flowers and plants were stripped of life by invisible piranhas that seemed to live within the shadows themselves. With effort she got to her feet and strung her bow.

From the treeline the creature finally stepped forward into the circle of light...

 

[Gil'Tyrnin Solcrest]

Gil had had a feeling that something would happen, he had made sure not to fall asleep. He closed his eyes and listened. He trusted his gut, it had saved him many times. The creature was smart, it would probably wait until there was least amount of threat and easy targets of sleeping adventures would be all but too inviting.

His hunch was right. As Sir shouted he leaped up unsheating his massive blade, he moved towards Sir and swung his sword at the beast, his massive blade cut through a tree like a hot knife through butter, the tree fell sideways away from the party with a great thud. The blade made contact with the beast but to Gil's surprise the blade bounced off the beast making seemingly not a scratch on the beast. The beast crept forward taking a swing at Gil, he reached down grabbing Sir by his curiass and leaped backwards attempting to plant Sir back one his feet. It was then he noticed Sir's head turned completely around standing there. A look of concern on his face, but as the reality took hold Gil's face soured as it hit him. If the full rotation of sirs skull did not kill him, he must already be dead, undead in fact. It would have to wait.

As the shadows closed in around them Caliane called out and he watched as his sheath was devoured by the unseen forces within the shadows.

He readied himself for what was next.

Caliane Ruinë Sir Torie

 

[Sir]

Whisked to his feet, the nameless skeleton drew his sword. It was a simple thing, like his armor, but equally fine in its craftsmanship. It shimmered with the fire’s reflection, and he lowered it in both gauntleted hands before him.

The monster, beast, spirit, or whatever it was was hideous. A mass of black hatred with elongate features, a twisting of nature back upon itself in a most horrible way. The shadows that it brought forth moved where they pleased, and he saw with horror as they leached the life from the very earth.

Horror turned to anger, for the ferns and flowers crumbled in its wake. It took life with a touch and for what? It was not a hunter that trapped or predator that fed... no, the skeleton was convinced that the monster killed from malevolence alone.

Caliane’s warning was masked by the crash of the felled tree, and before he could step away a dark tendril met the cold steel of his boot. He found himself rooted to the spot, and a terrible coldness crept up his shinbone. Yet he did not wither away, for there was nothing left to wither. The divine darkness probed and searched for something that could not be found, and when it met the forbidden powers that flowed through Sir’s corpse it seemed almost to converse with them. Like two curious animals, not allies but not enemies, the two faces of evil regarded each other.

The former knight did not care for this feeling at all, and with a great effort of spirit, he swung his other leg forwards into the shadows. It was like walking through thick muck, for although the darkness did not appear to hurt him it did not wish for him to pass. He pressed on, driven by some half-remembered conviction. This monster was Evil, these shadows were Wicked. He continued through the whipping shadows, step by heavy step, towards their master.

 

[Torie]

Torie spotted Sir's plight, his foot stuck in some tendril-shadow. "Leave him alone," she roared, then bounced forth and swatted at the creature with a massive paw.
Then pain filled her mind, so intense it was blinding. She looked down, fully expecting the paw to be lost or shrivelled, but it looked hardly any different. Still her gambit had worked. The creature was stumbling from her blow. She went to step forward to continue her attack, but putting pressure on the paw brought back the pain once again.
Torie gritted her teeth and roared with fury. The sound filled the forest.

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

And the forest roared back.

From its depths shadows began to surge in other shapes and sizes. One looked like a mutilated bear, the other a wolf with a snarl that split its whole face nearly in two. Three other figures joined them and the first monster who had stumbled into the light of Caliane's flame. Shadows poured into them making them larger and more solid until they stopped passing through the undergrowth and begun to crush it beneath their combination of hooves and claws.

From the maws of all six they seemed to speak at once in a voice that sent the avariel to her knees with her hands pressed over her ears. It was like hot pokers kissing against her brain sending brilliant white spots of lights blooming in her vision. So much power and so old...

​

 

[Gil'Tyrnin Solcrest]

Gil shuddered at the sound of the voices that coalesced. As the shadows grew and drew in closer he looked to Caliane woth concern. He raised his hand up high and summoned a great orb of light unlike the lights he had summoned before this one was bright and blinding and he reached out to his right side pulling from a disk of light that had appeared a great axe of pure light. He focused now on making the light brighter and brighter, this would force the shadow he hoped to hide now behind the trees offering them room to retreat if needed, but more so he hoped it would weaken the beasts. He dared not charge them as he feared it might cast shadow on his companions putting them in danger.

"Be gone shadow thing, the lord if light is with us, I shall not let you near my companions."

 

[Sir]

The voices of the fallen gods tore at his mind. It was painful, more painful than the sucking, strangling shadows. He plodded on against the current of darkness. One foot. Then the other. Heavy steps as he peered out through his visor at the beasts. They were night given form, and their silhouettes shivered like smoke in a gentle breeze.

More shadows lashed out and took hold of his arms and waist. He let out an ethereal groan as they melted through the steel and snaked around his ribs. Again they held and searched and prodded. Their hunger was clearly desperate yet they found nothing of sustenance in him.

He groaned again as Gil brought forth his light and illuminated the reflective back of his armor. It hurt more than the shadows did, and again he felt his very being wishing to flee. The light did, however, cause the shadows to retreat, and it became easier to follow them to their source.

He swung his sword at the shadows, and it cut through them like mist only to see them reform. He was close to the creatures now, but they did not seem afraid. He swung again and as he did so a fleeting glimmer of Gil's light was reflected from the blade. This time the shadow screamed and it writhed, red and smoking embers left where the steel had touched it.

 

[Torie]

We told your kind to leave. These forests belong not to your world.

Torie's ears twitched, the pain in her paw forgotten briefly. If it could talk then they might have a chance of surviving this.

"We didn't receive that message and we apologise for the intrusion. Who are you? What claim do you have on this forest?"

She held up her paw to the others, a gesture meant to ask them to wait. Though, it would be hard to wait if they were being attacked.

 

[Caliane Ruinë]

The shadows retreated as the light fell upon them then appeared to begin to sharpen into blades or thorns sharp enough to cut a man to ribbons. They rose on the point of attack when the Druid spoke.

Silence.

Caliane let out a sudden gasp of relief as the thousands of tiny voices that had inhabited the shadows went quiet. The pressure in her skull eased and she felt herself able to stand, albeit on shaky legs. When she looked up it was to see the six shadow monsters all fixing their empty socket gaze on the tiger. Her hand went to her bow.

They spoke as one again, mouths opening in the imitation of sound though it felt as though their voices bounced around the skull itself, spoken mind to mind. With it came that same howling rage of time and power.

 

[Gil'Tyrnin Solcrest]

Gil saw how the light kept the creatures at bay and he watched as the holy light cut the shadows. A disk of light appeared beside him. From it he pulled a sword of light. He held it firmly.

"I am not aware of the heart that ypu speak of, but I cannot allow you to keep doing this. There have been innocents lost, and for what?"

He readied himself for the creatures but did not attack. He watched studying the movements of the shadows around him.

The light in his left hand held strong. He could see Sir shaking as the holy light bathed over him, he felt for him but he could not allow the rest of the group to be consumed.

"Perhaps we can help?"

He stood defiantly no fear in his eyes as ge tried to gage if the creatures could indeed be reasoned with

Torie Sir Caliane Ruinë

 

[Sir]

"Perhaps we can help?"

The skeleton within did not know how or why Gil proposed to help the creatures, but he did not linger on it. Perhaps Gil knew something he didn't, or had higher purpose. All he knew was what he felt against his bones, the leeching, horrible darkness that pried and pulled and searched for life where none could be found. The shadow monsters were drawing the life out of everything, out of the forest and out of his friends if they could. Life, he knew, was precious. Life was better than what he had now. Life needed to be protected.

He grit dry, alabaster teeth and pressed on. Beneath the assault of shadows, beneath the oppressive holy light, he moved onward. One step. Two. Three. Red eyes within darkness staring back.

Don't look at them, just walk. Catch the light with your sword. Ignore its brightness. Plunge it into the shadows.

The one they called Sir stabbed into a writhing mass of darkness in the shape of a massive forest creature.

 

[Torie]

“Sir, stop!” was all Torie managed before the armored figure disappeared. The creature writhed and shrieked in response, shadows dancing across the forest like black fire. Torie darted forth to help – to pull him out or attack by his side, she did not know – but the shadows gripped her very being and sucked at her essence.

It was like being drained of life itself, like she was aging years in seconds. Desperately she clawed at the ground, drawing the vitality of the earth into her, and that helped, a little. Like a faucet flowing into a leaky bucket.

“Please, stop,” she said to the thing, eyes closed as she winced in pain. “What heart? What do you want?”