Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Arlo, first to speak. The storyteller embellished, savored his words as he spoke them. Of the other contestants, his was the mantle of storytelling passed from tavern-whispered secret to bawdy sojourn on the open road. When Arlo spoke it was impossible not to listen, to angle ones ears to the words. Cassion, intimidating giant baptized in dust, nodded along to the tale with a smile barely contained across his broad face. When Arlo had finished and handed the staff to him, the god took it and ran his hands along its length. The Staff of Telling did not move, but it glistened with a simple inner light that stretched the length of weathered wood from butt to tip as the Immortal turned it over in his palms. Arlo had come far from the adventurer slipping from city to city collecting tales and experiences like souvenirs. Now he held something with a bit more punch, something with a weight to it. His own story had merit, not that it hadn't before, but emphasized by the places he had gone and the things he had seen. Gilgarod, the hungry realm of lessons, a telltale warning against ambition, it was another feather in his cap to be plucked and offered at any shadow-soaked tavern table or lonely, rolling deck.

The staff turned on his hands and then vanished, as though it had simply slipped between the air and into a realm beyond. Chuckling, the storyteller god clapped Arlo on the shoulder with enough force to almost send the adventurer stumbling. "Aye, Lad, Well Told." Turning his gaze out to the others the traveler god winked. "You Are All Victors In My Eyes, But Only One May Succeed This Trial. The Patron To Benefit Will Be Informed At The End Of These Things, And Their Champion...Well..." Cassion shrugged, "I Will Leave It To Their Patron To Inform Them Of Their Failure Or Success...As Is Their Pleasure."

Arlo nodded and stepped back, allowing Vivian to clear her throat and begin. Her story was not so powerful, rippling with well chosen words and the flow of narrative mastery Arlo seemed to so easily grasp. Vivian spoke shortly and clearly, laying out the facts and her vulnerabilities with solemn precision. The sword she held danced in the torchlight of Cassion's hall. None of her competitors had seen a sword of its like before. How easily it fit her, how perfect it whispered in the air. When she had finished, Cassion was already nodding. "Favored By Brunvalle, ForgeMaster Of Gilgarod. He Has Seen Smiths Of Countless Kingdoms Hammer Their Ambitions Into Steel And Stone. For Him To Recognize You? Ah, I Hunger For The Taste Of The Tales You Will Write With That Steel."

He beckoned to her and Vivian stepped around the table hesitantly, already lifting the sword to present for inspection. But Cassion did not take the sword, instead grabbing her forearm and pulling her close. He brushed where the key had melted into her arm and although Vivian instinctively drew back, the god was much more powerful than her mortal muscles could strive against. "SteelBlooded." Cassion told her grimly, "Another Blessing From the ForgeMaster, I Think. Ambitious To Believe He Could Forge A Living Art." One long index finger tapped the burn on her wrist. "Yours Is Not A House That Is Made Through Marriage, But Through Promise And Sacrifice." His other hand held a knife that none had seen him draw before. Placing it against the mark he pressed in slightly, enough to nick the skin. The blood that pooled there was red and dark, but glistened with a metallic gleam. "Those Who Share Their Blood Will Share Your House. But You May Only Adopt These Wayward Kin Into A Family Worth The Price Of Battle. For Each True Enemy Of Your House That You Best, No Mere Cur Or Brigand, But True Foe, One More Kin May Be Named To Shiryu. Take Your Prologue And Create For Me An Epilogue Worthy Of It." Pushing her arm back, Cassion released her and Vivian stumbled back. Bringing her sword in close she nodded and stepped away, allowing Nauta his chance to speak.

The Aukari stumbled through his story, broken common clumsily vying against words of his unfamiliar tongue. Still, the spy spoke them as well as he could. Much of the context was lost in translation, but Cassion seemed to follow without difficulty. Several times he even leaned in, nodding along as Nauta struggled to express the dangers he had faced in PrisonKeep and how he had managed to escape. When his hands flew together, miming wings, Cassion laughed once, a bark of laughter that was surprised amusement. Finally, as Nauta presented the coin out to him, the god reached out and plucked it from his palm. Up and over the coin went, dancing between knuckles as the storyteller considered it. For a small while he did not speak, enough time to prompt Tio to clear his throat but it was silenced with a palm out signal from Cassion.

Finally, he spoke.

"Emberling. Your People Were Called Emberlings Once, The Vain Shadow Of Sparks From Faldrun's Own Ruinous Pride. Aukari. You Chose The Name For Yourselves...A Surprising Step For Supposed Sycophants Of Your Forefather." Nauta could feel his grandfather roil within him, stung by the words but too cunning to make it known. A shade of discomfort easily swallowed on Nauta's calculating face. "You Are More Than Faldrun Made You To Be. You Know This, You Champion This, And Perhaps You Will Live to See Its End If You Learn The Value Of Companionship." Cassion held up the coin and flipped it, the trinket vanishing the same way as the staff. "I Accept Your Story And Your Offering. I Have Seen You, Nauta. I Do Not Often Lose What My Eyes Have Seen. Show Me, With This New Knowledge, What You Will Do To Change Our World In This Time Of Prophecy." He takes a breath, draws the blade of the knife in his other hand across his stubble and grins. "A Word Of Prophecy For You, Courtesy Of My Kin. When Flames Burn Cold And Greatest Traitor Becomes Savior, Even The Sun May Be Blinded For A Crucial Moment."

He repeated it again in Nauta's native tongue carefully watching the spy ingest and consider the words. Finally, Tio spoke, clutching the box as though it were a precious metal. His story was like Arlo's, starting at a beginning none could see and that stretched beyond the scope of their challenge, their task. Cassion listened raptly, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Vivian watched suspiciously, her eyes on the way Tio moved, how he held himself. She couldn't rectify why his muscles seemed to coil, why his body was poised and his feet slid across the floor looking for the best purchase. If she had been pressed to explain, she might have suggested Tio was preparing to attack...but who in their right minds would attack a god?

The thought had honestly not crossed her mind before, there in the presence of the ForgeMaster it had never seemed prudent to simply attack the thing. Dreams were wove of symbols and metaphor, and any child could tell you that. What danger could there be in a phantasm such as this? Still, something within her quivered as Tio continued his tale and the sword in her hand grew cold, as though in dull warning.

As Tio named the weapon, drawing it from the black, bone-dusted box he had wrested from the tombs of Gilgarod, the torchlight guttered suddenly. Around them, wild silhouettes and half-shapes were flung across the wall and the table. Tio felt the blade, poisonous treason in his hand, press through the chest of Cassion in his chair and slide so far as to embed within the back of the chair behind it. Pain, sudden and agonizing in the dark before the torches caught on some signal and flared bright again, flooding the chamber with light.

Tio reeled away, loosing his grip on the blade and drawing a hand to his face where a long, wicked mouth of red wound had opened. Cassion had leaned forward in the moment of Tio's thrust and slashed the dagger in his hand across the shapeshifter's visage. Had he leaned any farther, the wound may have been fatal, but instead it had simply neatly crossed from his forehead, through his right eye, and on across his cheek. Agony was instant and Tio hissed as illusory blood sprang between his fingers. The Yludih had no blood to spare, of course, but in cruel jest, Aelig's magic made it feel real even to the victim as it wet his hand with warm, pulsing viscera.

"Crafty Mortal," Cassion growled, the knife clattering from his hand as he tried to pull the blade from his own chest, "Wound Me With A Story? Ah, The Balls On You!" No sooner had Cassion's hand settled around the handle of Epilogue did it burst into brilliant shards of colored light and energy. The hand around the blade now was no longer the thick grip of the storyteller god but a smaller, lither hand, delicate and feminine. Cassion blinked, seeming almost surprised as bright scars cracked across his skin from Epilogue and his damaged arm. He turned, once, looking toward a wide-eyed Arlo and shrugging as best he could while nailed to his seat. "Not The End I Had In Mind," the god admitted hoarsely, "But..." And a wide, toothy grin stretched across his shattering face, "Ah The Pluck You Mortals Have!"

And Cassion burst, his image dancing away into splinters of color and many-voiced whispers all proclaiming at once, garbled in unison, then silence.

Left behind, bright silver blood ran grey-glimmer down the woman's chest. She was middle aged, with black hair mottled with strands of white and grey. Seashells bound up and tied, dangling and chiming gently against her weak struggles. She wore the garb of a sailor, loose and marked with the passage of sea-salt and many suns. She was pretty, a rugged sort of beauty that emanated from her sea-blue eyes and across a face scarred with adventures untold and yet somehow still compelling, attractive. She lifted the hand around the blade slowly to her blood-glistening lips and looked at the silver that came away with it. Tears stung the corner of her eyes and her smile was soft and relieved.

"I am." She said, whispering, "I am me. No more the god, no more the traveler. Me. Me. Me." Lifting her face up toward the endless ceiling of the feasting room she called his name. "Cassion." Then again, louder. "Cassion! I am going on ahead now. This is enough, isn't it? Surely this is enough." Weakness drew her head down to lull and her words tumbled out over her lips thickly, "Do not hate me, Cassion, my love. I cannot take you where I am going." Turning her head up, the effort shaking her body, she fixed Arlo with surprisingly clear and tranquil eyes.

"Will you be him next, I wonder? Treasure your road for now, while it is still your own."

And then she fell limp, clear blue eyes staring out into nowhere, into nothing.

Tio's hisses of pain the only sound among the crackling of the flames.

!

Message from: Plague

Alright all, thanks so much for this! I enjoyed the adventure and hope you all equally had a good time. For one of you, Tio, feel free to PM me about the eye. I figured since Yludih are shapeshifters, you could make it appear as undamaged as you'd like...and we have a plot for that eye anyways. If I need to adjust anything, please let me know. I opted not to write in too many actions for this scene save what you've done and I hope you enjoyed the little twist Tio and I planned out for the ending. It was great writing with you all and I hope I get a chance to do so again!