A Twisted Sort of Salvation - IC

[Jarian]

Yhona, City of the Council. The smooth grey stone walls stand as a testament to the skill of their makers, crenelated tops reaching over twenty feet into the air. Peaked roofs tower over the walls from within, denoting the location of the miniature palaces of the local Council members. The fading light of sunset glints dully off of armor and spearheads along the walls, speaking of the city's long defense.

Yhona, City of the Damned. Huge rents are torn in the walls, some sections having crumbled completely away from the force of the onslaught endured by the city's bulwark. Ragged strips of once-magnificent pennants drift listlessly in the light wind blowing across the rooftops, the original house colors faded and muddied by year upon year of continual exposure to the elements. Yellow-white skeletons peak out from beneath dented, rusted helmets, weaponry strewn all about the few fallen defenders of the walls who were fortunate enough to die a clean death.

Lurid reds and oranges paint the walls of Yhona vibrant colors, as if to mock the horrors visited upon the city years ago. Yet even the sunset cannot fully pierce the pall that surrounds Yhona, a faint darkening to the world that seems to drain it of color and life, the simple, instinctive sense of things being alive. Indeed, while the pall exists throughout the entire tainted landscape around the city, Yhona is the only place where new growth refuses to take a hold. Not a single blade of grass grows within a hundred paces of the city's walls, the earth within the walls and the surroundings a dull, uniform grey.

It is a strange group that approaches the large graveyard some distance from the protection of Yhona's walls, four disparate creatures all called together, all arriving at precisely the same time, as if the simple messages delivered to you were calculated to drive you to arrive together.

The reedy flute is the first sign that you four are not alone. The thin, whispering melody rises up from somewhere within the mass of headstones, many of which lie broken or tipped over near the graves they marked. The flute seems to play counterpoint to the soft whistling of the wind, a haunting echo drifting through an already haunted place.

Then the man appears before your eyes, one moment simply not there and the next, calmly perched atop a nearby headstone, one leg bent at a jaunty angle as he reclines quite relaxedly against open air. The man is dressed in black silken finery with splashes of color that would seem quite garish anywhere else, but instead simply stand out in mild contrast so near to Yhona.

The chilling music dies away as the man lowers his flute on gaunt fingers, revealing an equally emaciated face. The whites of his eyes are yellowed as if by jaundice, but his gaze is quite cheerful as he tips one corner of his hat to you in acknowledgement. He smiles a thin-lipped smile, then calmly raises his flute to his mouth to play four long, slow notes that echo through the air.

When the last note fades, he smiles once more, wider this time. "Welcome," he rasps in a voice like a file drawn lightly across a length of metal. "Thank you for coming. Would you care to take a seat?" He gestures at the surrounding gravestones, arm sweeping about to take in the entire graveyard. "As you can see, the theater is empty tonight."

He pauses for a beat, looking between each of you. "Though, perhaps introductions are in order first. I, of course, know who you are. You, of course, do not know who I am. I suspect very much that you do not even truly know who you are. Well, no matter. Tell us all what you know of yourselves. I do so love a good story."

With that he raises flute to lips again and begins to play, eyes closed and seemingly perfectly at peace.

[Swami Monsoon]

Yhona? Why did they send me to Yhona? The crazies are thicker than fleas out here...

Anwar creeps through the graveyard, on the lookout for both mysterious messengers and roaming packs of mindless undead. He is naked, except for his pack and a few pieces of magical jewelry. That fooled the crazies, mostly... They seemed to go after anyone that was wearing clothes, using tools, moving with any sort of purpose. They must be jealous of those that could still think, who could do more than wander about and howl at the clouds... It was the ones with half a mind left that were most dangerous. Blood Ghouls and Fleshrippers and the like, the things that acted only by instinct... they knew he wasn't good to eat, so they left him alone. But the crazies would happily tear him apart, just because...

Anwar sees several figures at the far end of the graveyard. He takes cover behind a large mausoleum, watching and listening... They don't look like crazies. It appears that some kind of meeting was going down. That couldn't be a coincidence... He steps out from behind the tomb.

"Hello?"

Then Anwar realizes that he is still naked. Like a crazy. And he is in mixed company. If he still had blood he would have blushed. He ducks back out of sight, fumbling in his pack for clothes...

"Uh, sorry. I'm not one of them. No clothes... because if I don't act like a real person the crazies stay away. Mostly. Just one second..."

Anwar finishes dressing and approaches the strangers...

[Swami Monsoon]

Anwar takes a seat on a tombstone.

"There's not much to say... I'm Anwar. From Silver Bluff. I was an apprentice at Wilfred the White's Academy of Magic. More like an errand boy, actually. I couldn't do magic worth a damn... But anyway, this past winter the Great Man himself took me out into the Dead Zone to look for treasure. Or so he said... He'd really learned some spell that let you die out here and come back as yourself, not as a zombie or a crazy. But he had to test it first... So he tested it out on me. The hard way. So it worked, and he was real happy... until a bunch of Fleshrippers showed up and ate him. Now I'm like this. I'm cold. I don't have to drink blood or eat flesh... I just take the warmth out of things..."

He extends his hand towards a clump of wildflowers and concentrates. The air around them suddenly turns bitterly cold. The plants shrivel under a layer of ice, as if it were midwinter...

So there are folks lined up around the block to get a piece of me. The Silver Bluff Mafia thinks I ate that f%#@r Wilfred. The priests want to purify me... with fire. The crazies just want to to tear me to pieces for the funny noises I'll make while they're doing it. But, hey, I can do magic now..."

Used Winter's Blast reserve ability

[BananaPhone]

A trim figure stood alone amongst a forest of decaying wood. Once a wild woodland in life, the color had been stripped from the branches along with their vitality as now little more existed than a mist-wreathed grove whose damp earth sunk beneath the weight of any creatures still sentient to walk through its cool interior. Leaves had long ago plummeted into a thick detrius across the forest floor while the air hung still upon the silence of mist, damp bark and the absence of natural melodies.

Stepping carefully across the foliage-encrusted earth, Sydnra Dawnstar peered curiously about the maze of carrion tree's that dwarfed her in both size and dreary complexion. Each footstep she took disappeared beneath a sheet of mist that slithered across the ground, while the long-dead nerves in her skin were stimulated by the numbing blanket of air.

Thankful for the freedom to move about, the vampire held a hand out against one of the gnarled tree's and flattened her palm against its surface.

Though not a woman of the wild or even particularly familiar with the natural outside of her books, the grey elf felt a comraderie with the tree in this transformed and ghoulish state. Cruelly, the great oak had been robbed of its vitality and forced to endure future centuries as a withered mockery of its former glory. Strumming her claws against the thick epidermis, Syndra clicked her tongue as she gazed up at the crooked branches and beheld the rotten umbrage in silence.


oOo

Finding the meeting point erudiated upon within the letter she had received had not been a difficult task. A graveyard was a remote bastion of formal organisation within a barren flood of newly risen dead stampeding across the land, and so its location was easily ascertained.

Ceremoniously, Syndra seemed to materialise from within the decayed embrace of several tree's upon clearing edge.

Spotting the naked one first (with his back mercifully turned towards her), Syndra kept her eyes upon the scrap-dressed man that sat upon a gravestone with a wind-instrument whimsically tittering in his lips. Quietly, the elf approached and carefully placed her rump upon a tomb, pulling her cloak a little tighter around her figure as she did so. It seemed she was arriving towards the end of the Nude Ones tale...

"...The priests want to purify me... with fire. The crazies just want to to tear me to pieces for the funny noises I'll make while they're doing it. But, hey, I can do magic now..."

Then eyes fell upon her, the newly risen.

Tracing her eyes back and forth between those present, Syndra settled her sight upon the seated musician and piqued an eyebrow curiously. Though amongst the company of strange strangers, her usual fortifications for privacy against the prying eyes of others no longer seemed necessary...she was amongst friends here, she felt. If not friends, then comrades within which personal details could be shared.

"Syndra. Syndra Dawnstar," the elf started, her voice carrying the lyrical wealth of her species as words gracefully fluttered out of her lips.

"Like so many others across the land, the spectre of death shook the vitality from my limbs and stood in wait patiently for its plagues to claim me. I had resisted its priests and, along with others, defiled its desecrated places of adulation. The grave seemed to open before me and beckon me forth to lay within its embrace and await the return of the hooded wraith, but fate had a different plan.

Though I had sought the eradication of its physical servants, the reaper is not without a sense of irony, for here I know sit, removed from its dominion."

[distant quasar]

Tall, dark, and menacing, Mezentine Histochane strode confidently towards the apparent meeting place. His powerful form radiated immense distaste at the sight of the nude "magician," but at least Anwar had the decency to put on proper attire.

The elf was, obviously, far more refined. Perhaps to refined; Mezentine had never cared for those who spoke as if they were narrating an epic play of their own life.

The other had yet to speak up, so Mezentine decided he should introduce himself next.
"My name is Mezentine Histochane. I was - am - a warrior. While I lived, I battled the darkness, but now I have become one with it."
His attention turns solely to the black garbed flutist who summoned them here.
"I don't suppose you could tell me why?"

[Failed Phantasm]

A rumbling, bellowing roar disturbed the unnatural quiet of the wastelands, startling the ravens from their perches and the corpses upon which they had been feeding. A small pack of feral undead shambled away from a hulking figure, hooded and cloaked, as quickly as they could. The roaming dead were all searching for easy prey, living creatures to accost, but they all remembered - if only for a moment - what fear was when they looked upon a demon. Darion's lips curled in the barest of smirks, but his right hand was plunged into the one of the pockets in his cloak, clawed fingers curled around the symbol of Wee Jas that he had so carefully concealed. He turned his attention back to the husk of a city that Yhona had become and continued towards it, the ground shaking slightly beneath his plodding footfalls.

As he drew nearer to the city, its walls looming ever higher, Darion unsheathed his greatsword. Intimidation itself might not be enough to fend off whatever lurked here. Curiously, however, he encountered nothing as he picked his way along the city walls towards the graveyard that had been described to him in the message. Suddenly, the windy sound of music echoed out over the graveyard, causing him to stop in his tracks. He sniffed the air and gripped the sword tighter. He had yet to meet anyone alive in the wastelands. Darion clambered over a fallen section of the wall that once bounded the old graveyard, and threaded his way carefully through the headstones towards the source of the song.

He knew he was not alone.

Other figures emerged. A naked, blue-skinned boy. A pale elf woman. A man clad in armor. And out of the mist of the grave came a man, the one playing the flute, who looked so ancient that Darion could not tell if he were merely very old or undead himself. He kept himself some distance further back from the other four as they spoke, and he himself said nothing. He crossed his arms over his chest and listened. His mission had been to observe; becoming involved was not part of the plan. Perhaps, however, it would be impolite not to say anything?

"[[I'm not much of a storyteller,]]" he quipped, his gaze directed primarily at the musician bedecked in black. The words spilled out in Abyssal unbidden, prompted by some instinct or intuition. Consciously, Darion had no idea whether or not the man would have understood. "My human name is Darion, and that is all that need be known," he remarked calmly to the others assembled. Turning back to the strange man, he asked, "What is it you want from us?"

[Jarian]

The emaciated man cracks one eye open in a slit as the introductions come to a close, though he plays on for several moments longer before sliding his flute into a pocket of his shirt. Seeming to address the open air as much as anything, he muses aloud: "The pauper, the pirate, the pawn and the priest. What in damnation could they have in common, I wonder?"

His lips stretch into a fearsome rictus, thin flesh pulled tight over yellowed teeth, the look more than slightly mad. "On the surface, nothing. Dig a bit deeper and... no, you're as disparate as you appear. Aside from the obvious shared temperament differences of the dead among us, and certain proclivities of the living... Well, we won't go into that just yet. Respect for new acquaintances and all that." The man shrugs indifferently, expression returning to neutrality, though his sickened eyes gleam with a twinkle of amusement. "Ah, but where are my manners? You must have something to call me, or our exchange is hardly equitable. Perhaps 'Matthias'. Yes, that sounds like a name you would expect a stranger to bear under these circumstances. Matthias it is."

"Why are you here, you wonder?" Matthias asks, musing. "A fortunate twist of fate, and perhaps a little something else. Destiny? Regardless, your specific presence here is due to a need of mine, and what I suspect is a desire of yours." He pauses briefly, rummaging in a pocket for something before withdrawing it in a closed hand. "How is unlife treating you these days? Not too onerous, I trust? And you -" His eyes lock with Darion's for a moment, a piercing study that passes in a heartbeat. "- you are unique enough for my purposes by dint of birth alone, regardless of your other talents. There are many who would kill for what the four of you possess. Many more who have killed for less. And yet..."

Matthias opens his hand, revealing a clear grey gemstone the size of his thumb. The stone seems to call to you, singing wordlessly, enticingly in your mind for all of one second, then the crystal snaps and falls into a dozen pieces in Matthias's palm. He frowns down at it in distaste before continuing as if he had not paused. "And yet, the greatest power cannot be had through killing. Such ways are inherently flawed, unable to create much beyond simple curiosities. Why do noble virtues bypass these limitations? That is a question for greater minds than mine. But they have, and so their power is desired above all else."

He frowns even deeper, then spreads his hands in apology. "I fear I say much without saying anything at all. Let me speak plainly then: Yhona holds the key to your futures. Without it you are little more than a simple curiosity, like any other product of this befouled place. I am forbidden the city, but if you will act in my stead, I will share with you the power the key possesses. Power to return from your unlife, or to gain dominion over the mindless husks that wander these lands. And all you must do is enter the city and retrieve a single simple box." He smiles madly again, eyes gleaming. "Interested?"

[Swami Monsoon]

Anwar frowns...

"Well, first of all... there's nothing I'd want to do with an army of zombies. And, to be honest, I'd rather not go back to the way I was. I was nothing. I was alive but I had no life... I like being this way. I'm stronger, faster, tougher... I think I may even be smarter now. I can see things... do things... and apparently I'm going to be around for a very long time if I can avoid being murdered again. That's the real problem. It's not this..." he rubs at the gray-blue skin of one arm... "...it's everything out there. The zombies that want to kill me because I'm too human. The humans that want to kill me because I'm too zombie... What I want is safe place and something to do. Some kind of purpose. No, I don't want to be alive again, but I do want a life..."

[Failed Phantasm]

Darion bristled when Matthias commented about his birth, but he suppressed a snarl. His heritage was manifestly obvious, but how did this bizarre old man have foreknowledge of that in order to send a message calling him here? How could Matthias speak of Darion being sufficient for his purposes "by dint of birth," when Darion's birth had been a guarded secret? Darion did his best not to react outwardly - he merely shifted his weight after exchanging stares with Matthias - and though his suspicions were roused, he still had no reason to act on them. Yet. There was still the mission at hand, and Darion's purposes concurred with Matthias's as far as Yhona was concerned.

He listened in silence for the remainder of the "proposal", which itself raised questions for which Darion doubted he would soon learn the answers. It seemed obvious that Matthias was withholding much information, and had also made an implication that he had been connected with Yhona: 'One does not become somehow forbidden to enter a cursed city without cause,' he thought. Darion had also heard very little about what dwelled in the city now - most of the verifiable information the temple had dated to before the Day of the Black Sun - but he guessed that the older and more powerful undead held Yhona and had forced the feral ones out into the wastelands. Darion rubbed his rough chin and stared past Matthias, his brow furrowed. 'What exactly is guarding this "single simple box" you want?'

His thoughts were interrupted by the until-recently naked undead boy - what was his name, again? - who was presumably answering some question of Matthias's. Darion gave the boy a cursory inspection while he sat on his tombstone and spoke. 'He's about the same age as I am,' came the surprised realization. His ability to tell how old people were was a bit skewed, but they were unmistakeably close in years. Though Darion's features were so alien that perhaps this boy could not easily draw the same conclusion.

"What I want is safe place and something to do," the zombie boy lamented. "Some kind of purpose. No, I don't want to be alive again, but I do want a life..." His words called to mind the long days of being cloistered in a storeroom, learning the practices of the clergy and the faith of Wee Jas because society would never accept a half-demon doing anything remotely close to "normal". He remembered the long nights as he lay on his mat, unable to sleep, wondering if he would ever be anything more than a ward of the temple. He had become a priest and a knight of the faith because his talents were eminently suited to the task, but these things defined his life as a warrior and, for Darion, there was much more he wanted out of his life than just being a soldier of his faith. What, beyond his demonic blood, made him different from another cleric of Wee Jas, from another Knight-Vindicator of his order, from anyone else in the world?

To his great surprise, Darion empathized with the boy. 'I know what it's like to crave meaning in your existence,' he mused silently, staring off into the distance again, 'to have a purpose not just in doing something, but in being someone.' He looked back at the zombie boy. He would be an interesting one to study, to be sure, and yet...

[BananaPhone]

Syndra listened quietly as the emaciated man prattled in his round-a-bout way of conversation, offering them jobs and a promise of future power.

The elf rose a single, slender black eyebrown as she took in the mans suggestions. It remained piqued, curious, as the naked boy shared his thoughts.

On a foundation level she could connect with what he was said: their words resonating with her own desire to create something that would last and foster a haven for their kind.

What the zombie-boy said was true, however...humanity would not accept them. Images of the cave she'd been forced into rushed through her head, as did brief recollections of the Inquisitor and his fire-wielding mobs with murder in their eyes. She considered the two silently, before turning to Matthius.

"Anyone can be a courier for a simple box - why have you chosen us?" Syndra asked after Darion proposed his question.

[Jarian]

Matthias's smile fades slightly at the lukewarm response, though he catches it in place before it can slide completely from his face. "The key's power is not so simplistic as to be summed up in two ways," he amends hastily. "It was merely an example of the things one might do with it. I am certain a use could be found for one of your... particular inclinations." He nods slightly to Anwar before turning his yellowed eyes to Syndra.

"Why choose you? Because you are still alive and in possession of your sanity, more or less." He shrugs, a slight rise and fall of dark cloth. "And because I have faith in your abilities over that of any other courier. As you have no doubt already assumed, the task will not be as simple as striding into Yhona and picking up a box from some city street.

"Yhona festers, my dear leech, festers with a horde of monstrosities that might wrench even your cold, unbeating heart. Not all of them are wholly without sense either, and many of the rest possess a rudimentary mass intelligence not unlike a hive of insects. Travel through the city will be difficult, and travel directly to your destination ultimately impossible. You will have to walk the streets of the city at least a short distance, any step of which is likely fraught with danger."

Matthias smiles again, apparently truly amused this time. "It should very likely be a singularly unique opportunity to learn the strengths of your competition, at the least."

He shrugs again, taking up his flute once more. "Though of course, I will not tell you any details until you are bound to my service. I am not a fool, and I would have oaths before I give you any real information as to where you would find an object of such power. Either accept my offer, or do not. You are not so unique as to be completely irreplaceable, though it would be mildly upsetting if I was forced to find others with your talents. I would much rather we could all see eye to eye - we share a common goal, after all."

[Swami Monsoon]

"More than two ways? So what way do you plan on using that power? How do we know we're not aiding a madman?"

[Jarian]

"Me? Mad?" Matthias asks, plainly affronted. He barks a sudden laugh, smiling at Anwar. "Quite possible. If I am mad, then it is not the sort of madness to cause one to do entirely unseemly things, like turn on those who aid me. No, I intend simply to shatter the enchantments binding me and claim Yhona as my own. Aside from that, I care not for the rest of this place or its inhabitants. You are free to do with them - and yourselves - as you wish, once the key is ours."

[distant quasar]

Mezentine's eyes narrow at the emaciated man.

"My word is bond. I do not give it lightly.

Why should I trust you enough to bind myself in your service.?"

[BananaPhone]

Syndra piqued a slender, dark eyebrow while listening to the flute-playing skinnyman atop the gravestone.

He did a good job of answering her question without actually answering the question. She was no more sure of him than she was before, only now she knew for certain that he had adept powers of verbal obfuscation.

His second answer, however, disturbed her. Bound to him?

"Bound to you?" Syndra repeated skeptically.

"So let me get this straight: you're a being whom I know nothing about except that you play wind instruments while loitering in graveyards and you're asking us to swear an oath of service to you...in exchange for a vague promise of information on an item of power that you don't possess, that we're just going to give to you in the hope you'll share its energies with us, after we retrieve it from a city we have to infiltrate, that's full of hostile creatures that want to kill us..."

Syndra looked at the man as if he had just told her the answer to 2 + 2 equaled 6.

"Please, this sounds like a real bargain, don't stop there." she said sarcastically.