Forsworn: Chapter Two in my Chronicles of Eternity

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sotana
Sojourner
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Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:11 am

Forsworn: Chapter Two in my Chronicles of Eternity

Postby sotana » Tue Jan 04, 2005 10:22 pm

Note: I have decided to try to come up with a better way to post my story since it shows all the signs of continuing infinitely :-P In the interest of not wanting to post my two hundred and eighty-ninth writings, I will just group them into chapters and periodically add my snippets until that chapter is complete. So sorry to have made such a mess of the rp-storyboard in my learning process!! Before reading this chapter, check out the first chapter at
http://www.torilmud.dyndns.org/phpBB2/v ... hp?t=15069. What follows here continues the story I began there.

Dear Reader: This next chapter of my story marked the beginning of a time of great growth and education beyond any I had experienced before in spite of my life-long instruction under the druids of Silvanus. It began badly, as do many such turning points. But then, I have heard that once your life reaches its lowest point, your only options are to die or pull yourself back together. As I am clearly here writing this now, you will know which option I chose . . . although for some time, the other option was not as distant as I would have liked.

Sometime during the Month of Eleasias (Highsun)
I wandered in my apathetic state for an unmarked span of days, sometimes in my own human form but more often in the shape of one animal or another as the whim took me. There was no method to my travels and I never bothered to cast any protective spells, living instead on my deeply ingrained knowledge of nature and its workings. One day bled into another until, one warm moonless night, I found myself staring into my small fire in a clearing beside a dusty road, wondering for the first time where I was going. It’s all very well to run from something you do not want to face but you will eventually arrive somewhere and your life will be better if that somewhere is determined in advance by you instead of impersonal chance. Did I yet care enough about my life to take a firm hand in it? While I was thus idly pondering this rather ridiculous question, events moved on their own to force a decision from me. With barely the snap of a twig in warning, a small party of men silently crept into my clearing. Their entry was so quiet and unexpected that I stared stupidly at them a full minute before registering their threat. At the very moment I realized my danger and scrambled to my feet, they began to move, still eerily silent, circling me to judge my strength, assess what weapons I might have at my disposal. I glimpsed the blackened face of one in the flickering firelight, his features twisted in a vile grin of anticipation, the like of which I had never seen before and I could taste fear, sharp and bitter in my mouth. With hardly a thought I began summoning the words I would need to defend myself, my mind tripping ahead of my tongue, planning which of my spells would serve me best . . . rock to mud first so that I might not be silenced, then barkskin to protect my body, creeping doom next so that the insects and arachnids would do their work as I tried to blind the men with sunray. My words died unspoken after the first spell was cast . . . and the rock remained solid. Confusion, disbelief, then comprehension all in the blink of an eye. There was no power to answer my call. I was sick with horror in every part of me as I had never been before. Deserted by my very god, just as my Aunt had said. How had it come to this? When had I lost favor? How had I not noticed? The next few minutes were a blur of pain and movement as the men closed in. I saw deadly intent in their eyes, watched their arms rise to strike me, noticed distantly when I sprawled full-length on the ground to a well-placed sweep of one man’s leg. Throughout it all I made no resistance, barely registering the blows as they continued to come. Let them do their worst . . . I had already lost all. My last conscious emotion before darkness overcame me was relief. Finally. No more questions holding more questions and answers I did not know how to escape. Nothing but blackness and silence. Finally.
Last edited by sotana on Sat Feb 12, 2005 4:38 pm, edited 3 times in total.
sotana
Sojourner
Posts: 229
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:11 am

Postby sotana » Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:02 pm

This post is dedicated to Kercil who knows why.

Dear Reader: My previous entry was written in a pathetically shaky hand as soon as I was able to hold a quill, driven by some unknown force to note all I could remember of the attack. After that first brief, feverish push was exhausted, I lost interest in my records, picking them up only now and again to jot a few thoughts. The entry I share here is one of the longer and more important ones from my convalescence, written in the vain hope that capturing on paper the ghosts who haunted my sleep would help them rest.

Sometime during the month of Vinthar (of the Harvest)
Pain. I had been dealing with emotional pain for so long, I had forgotten how all-consuming physical pain can be. And how many unpleasant forms it can take. Fire when I try to draw a breath. Throbbing aches in the crushed, swollen fingers of my right hand, brutally ground under a careless heel. The sharp sting of the slightest breeze against my bruised and battered lips. I believe I could almost count every nerve from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, having been made so acutely aware of each nerve ending as it screams for attention. Time passes with an agonizing slowness under the hazy influence of pain, the only interruption found in my fitful sleep. Yet that interruption is even worse than the pain for to sleep is to dream and to dream is to see death.

It is the same each time I close my eyes. When I can fight the pain in my body no longer and finally give in to my exhaustion, desperately hoping each time that this sleep will bring the deep, healing rest I crave with no images to prevent my escape, I find myself in a forest surrounded by towering yellow aspens dwarfed in turn by even larger oaks. The floor under my feet is thick with mushrooms and brightly colored wildflowers, the air heavy with the sweet smell of pollen...yet nothing moves. No breeze to stir the leaves, no birds busily flitting from flower to flower. Strangely enough, I feel no fear, no pain in this frozen moment...nothing but a simple happiness and comfort. And then I hear the scream. Like the shattering of a mirror the scene changes and my world is filled with movement, images and sensations that come and go with the speed of a thought...A woman, her face contorted by fear stumbling toward me...a hand holding mine so tightly I can feel the imprint of a ring worn on the finger of that hand...a massive black horse carrying an abomination of a man with glowing crimson eyes and grey veins which writhe underneath the surface of his blackened skin...a terror so intense I can feel my throat close and my stomach clench...the warmth of another body curled tightly around my own icy form...red on the yellow of the aspens...screaming that goes on and on until, suddenly, a silence somehow worse than the screaming...and then I see death. I always wake at that moment, back to the welcome pain that tells me I am no longer dreaming. I am left with drying tears on my face and a sharp ache of loss I don’t understand. So if I am forced to choose between the pain of my broken body, and the nightmares waiting to descend when I sleep, I will bear this physical agony until I sleep in spite of myself. I have seen more death in my dreams than I had thought to see in my lifetime.
sotana
Sojourner
Posts: 229
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:11 am

Postby sotana » Thu Jan 20, 2005 10:02 pm

Dear Reader: You might well be curious to know how I survived the unknown men who invaded my campsite that night. Apparently, I was found more dead than alive by an odd little gnome calling himself Yadir who cared for me as best he could in his own limited fashion (I was in his care for a full two months before I finally gleaned his name and then only by realizing that the name he muttered to himself during his long personal monolgues was his own). For a month or more, I paid the world no heed, absorbed in my nightmares and despair, more alone than I had ever been in my life and hindering my own body’s healing, pushing myself closer to death than even the men had left me though the wounds began to close and the bruises fade. I might have continued self-pitying myself quietly out of this life had it not been for my rescuer. All unknowingly, he was my salvation and the role he plays in my story bears telling.

Sometime later during the month of Vinthar (of the Harvest)
Time moved on as it always does, even when we might wish it would cease its pitiless progression. I eventually wearied of my own dark thoughts and, casting about me for something to distract my mind from its endless preoccupation, began to study my host...idly at first, then with a growing fascination. Life is strange. I have lost my past, my name, my family, my body is bruised and beaten, I am pursued by unknown demons even when I sleep yet I find myself able to put all of this aside for a time as I watch this unusual gnome putter around his campsite, humming some tuneless song, pausing only to chuckle to himself or mutter under his breath. There is little about his physical appearance to inspire confidence...rather the reverse judging by the faint wisps of smoke which seem to cling to his singed, bushy eyebrows and drift around the scraggly white hair surrounding his bald pate. The tips of his beard are even strangely charred with grey, as if they had just caught fire and barely been snuffed out. Every now and again he glances my way and returns my poorly-concealed stare with a warm but preoccupied smile before turning back to thumb through a book or tinker with some unknown device, completely absorbed in whatever he is doing. By his own admission he has only the most rudimentary knowledge of healing, merely binding my wounds as best he can until I am well enough to be moved into more competent hands. Still, I somehow find peace in his non-demanding presence, a welcome space to begin healing the deeper wounds no healing magics can touch.

I was unaware of my own progress until today. My host had been poking through various gadgets and trinkets as he always does, muttering arcane words to himself and tracing strange symbols in the air with his hands when, quite without warning he shouted a few words I didn’t recognize, producing an enormous ball of brilliant blue fire in a great whoosh of sound. The crackling light hovered over his head for a full minute, growing in size until it dwarfed the ancient oaks surrounding our campsite, bathing the whole clearing in an eerie blue radiance. It grew so large that the little mage, leaning backward and craning his neck for a better view of his incredible creation, suddenly lost his balance and fell on his well-padded rump in a cloud of dust. The great sphere of sizzling energy collapsed abruptly and noiselessly, leaving only the merest wisp of blue smoke. The gnome responded to this obvious failure with a nod, a beaming smile, and a murmured ‘Excellent’ as he absentmindedly picked himself up and rubbed his large-knuckled hands together in pleased satisfaction. Before I was even aware of my own intentions, I breathed the ghost of a laugh. The quiet sound was strange to my ears and rusty to be sure but it was a laugh none the less. My rescuer shot me a quick, knowing look from under his great bristly brows before returning to his usual putterings with a small smile. I sat hunched in my corner in slight shock, gingerly rolling the remnants of that laugh on my tongue. The sharp twinges in my chest the involuntary response had produced were little compared to the wave of amazement and relief that rolled through me, leaving me weak. I had begun to think myself no longer capable of finding joy and amusement in this life now that I knew first-hand how harsh and uncaring mortal existence really was. Apparently I had been wrong. It was finally time to move on. Time to take a hand in my own fate again. Time to learn to accept the truths that could not be changed. Time to heal.
sotana
Sojourner
Posts: 229
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:11 am

Postby sotana » Tue Feb 08, 2005 10:25 am

Note: Yadir’s beautifully long-winded, rambling speech was written by none other than the lovable gnome himself as I am not capable of such heights of verbal perambulation.


Dear Reader: After resting for two months with Yadir, I was left with the usual marring scars that occur when wounds close on their own in the absence of magical aid – one long one through my lip and up toward my cheekbone, a couple on my scalp, well-hidden by my hair, and a few others scattered here and there on my body where they would not normally be noticed. The most obvious disfigurement was seen in my right hand and leg. The bones of my broken fingers had healed awkwardly without any guidance and angry pink scars criss-crossed the knuckles and fingers. My upper thigh had been broken by a particularly vicious kick which had healed crooked and left me with a noticeable limp. But, at least I could move in some fashion and my host finally deemed me well enough to be transported to a healer he knew in Mistywoods named Ascuren.

Sometime during the month of Eleint (the Fading)
I have begun to notice that the most important things are often discovered with little fanfare and even less warning, as if to undermine their very significance. Such was the case this afternoon when Yadir prepared to leave me in another’s care with a warm smile and an absent pat on my cheek, then murmured one final monologue interspersed with pauses and tangents, added almost as an afterthought to himself in his usual rambling fashion.

“A curious puzzle ye are, yes, quite a puzzle. It was not in its normal state, that lil thicket. ‘Twas the most private lil place . . . lil grove where I could camp off the path aways . . . lil brook o’ the clearest water across the back edge there . . . ahh, it was a welcome spot for ol’ Yadir. Spells always worked a lil better there . . . lil magic nexus, methinks . . . . But that night it were a mess, a’trampled and dug up . . . blood spilt about the place . . . remains of a fight it seemed . . . . Boot prints, hoofprints . . . other prints . . . beasts . . . mebbe bear? wolverine? gnoll? Different kinds and more than a few, I knew that much . . . hrm . . . been puzzlin’ bout that a while . . . .”

His voice faded as his eyes glazed over, a look I recognized as an indication that he was intently working out some mental exercise even as my own mind began to race ferverishly. Was he talking about the night he found me? And animal prints? Where had they come from? And for what purpose? The pause went on for only a few moments before Yadir came back to himself with a visible start and continued, capturing my attention again. “Ahh yes . . . the grove . . . . In the middle there were a heap o’ torn clothing next to the remains of a fire, smoking ashes mostly . . . naught but a corpse in tattered clothing could I see by the moon’s glow. I figgert there’d be others . . . corpses and such . . . wounded . . . but look about as I did, I found nary a one . . . followed tracks and broken branches a bit into the woods, but they went all over . . . well, ol’ Yadir’s no tracker . . . . I suppose they headed to the four winds . . . . They were all gone I was sure o’ that! So back to my lil thicket to mebbe clean up and get a lil rest went I. Ahh, but the corpse . . . well, a lil magical illumination gave me a better view o’ the place . . . strange was yer corpse . . . ye hadn’t a thing o’ value on ye . . . nary gem, gold nor weapon . . . not even a travelling bag . . . . ahh, but ye were a sight, ye were. Someone had made certain ye were leavin’ this life with a nasty farewell . . . still, most o’ the blood and mess seemed to be all about yer corpse but not closer’n a stride to it . . . bootprints were all about ye but the fight . . . the beastprints . . . the blood . . . well, it were about the edges o’ the clearing . . . it were as if ye lay in the middle and they all fought about ye . . .” Here he stopped and scratched his beard while he mused, “Dunno, ol Yadir’s no ranger but I’m not sure ye were in that fight atall.” Had someone, something fought off the brigands then? I had always assumed my attackers had finally left, thinking me dead but Yadir’s words were opening up other possibilities. Could something else have fought for my survival after I had given up fighting for myself?

“What kinda friends would leave ye there? . . . Dead or no, everybody deserves a proper burial . . . but buryin’ ye were going to be a bit tough . . . good thing ye be half elfin, eh? Dunno if I woulda tried to move a human . . . . But movin’ ye . . . well, I couldna figger out how ye was still warm, fire long gone and all . . . . Finally ol’ Yadir understood . . . ‘Still alive,’ thought I. ‘This one may yet live til mornin,’ but ol’ Yadir’s no more healer than ranger . . . I could watch over ye ‘til ye died at least. . . mebbe the beasties would come back and that’s no way to go . . . but ye dinna die. I dinna know how to make ye healthy. . . a few lil potions I had . . . I gave ye drink and a bit o’ warm food now and then . . . . Ye seemed undecided if ye would live or die so I brought ye ‘long when I left the thicket . . . it looks much better now. . . it just needed a little care . . . . I trimmed the broken branches a bit and tidied up . . . will be lovely ‘gain when I get back there, eh?” Again his voice faded and his eyes became wistful while I frantically sorted through his mental wanderings, trying to understand the implications. This time the pause lasted for a full minute before he collected himself with a small cough and turned his misleadingly vague gaze back to me.

“But ye are a puzzle . . . ye dinna die . . . ate a bit more every day . . . . I scratched me beard for days and days over what ye were doing to end up all alone . . .why ye dinna die that night . . . well, my lil brain finally figured ye weren’t ‘bout to let go o’ yer hold on this world so I resolved that ‘twas only fair to get ye more help than ol’ Yadir! But where to? Who be yer friends and who be yer enemies? From the looks o’ that lil thicket I dinna want to meet either . . . so I brought ye to Ascuren. He’s seen much more than ol’ Yadir and could likely heal yer wounds up good as new. . . . Now ol’ Yadir’s been thinkin’ quite a bit since that night . . . I’m not sure yer as alone as ye appeared . . . ye may yet do some curious things in these realms . . . curious things . . . these realms need a few changes, that’s for sure . . . but not to worry, ol’ Yadir will look in on ye from time to time . . . magic can be handy that way. . . .” Just like that his speech was over. With a bright wink to me and a few muttered words, Yadir called up a rainbow portal in mid-air before disappearing into its depths while I stood dumbly, trying to absorb all that he had mentioned so casually.

Now here I sit....hours later, writing in my journal by the uncertain light of a fire once more as I have so many times in the past but now with the first spark of hope that my existence has been guided for some higher purpose. I am forsworn, forsaken by my god for vows broken in the midst of my futile attempt to ignore what I could not face last winter, yet apparently not alone after all. Someone had intervened in my attack. Animals most likely judging from Yadir’s descriptions of the tracks he found. But who had directed them? And why? Always answers leading to more questions!

My first task will be to regain my god’s favor, to prove to Silvanus that I have not forgotten the tenets I was raised to revere. Will my god even recognize me? I forced myself to face my reflection in the quiet waters of the washing bowl before the evening meal as the sun was beginning its descent behind the oaks. Once waist-length hair is now barely past my shoulders, raggedly hacked off when Yadir determined it was too matted with blood and dirt to redeem...otherwise smooth skin is now contorted by a puckering scar that pulls at my lip and slashes across my cheek...my right hand will no longer clench into a full fist...my pace is not even as one leg is unable to reach the ground with the same speed as the other one. Part of me flinches from the reality that others must view when they look on me, so flawed am I in body by my scars and in spirit by my persistent nightmares. But stronger than my portrait of who I am is the image of who I am becoming as the weak is being burnt away in the harsh fires of experience. The blue of my eyes is now dark enough to be almost black as if shadowed and stained by what they have seen, my blonde hair now nearly white in its fairness, the golden color leeched out, bleached by my sorrow and pain. There will most likely be worse to come but I am being prepared and will face each trial as best I may, strengthened rather than weakened by the ones that have been overcome before.
sotana
Sojourner
Posts: 229
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:11 am

Postby sotana » Thu Feb 10, 2005 11:57 pm

Dear Reader: I stayed with Ascuren for a short score of days. He could do nothing to erase the scars as such marks are evidence of healed flesh (albeit poorly healed, but healed nonetheless) so I spent my time with him regaining strength and forming plans. The druid turned out to be an invaluable source of patience and information, both of which I badly needed. My nightmares stopped hovering quite so closely, appearing only often enough to ensure that I still dreaded the evening hours but allowing me at least a few consecutive nights of uninterrupted rest. Ten days after my arrival, Ascuren took in another patient, a dried husk of a man who looked to be already long dead but had not yet been made aware of it. Despite his haggard appearance and delirious rantings, he was the vital piece I needed in my strategy to regain my god’s favor.

33rd Day of the Month of Eleint (the Fading)
I am so eager to be gone, I can hardly bear to sit here holding this quill and tamely writing this record as if tomorrow will be just one more day in a string of days spent healing and plotting. I should be resting so that I might be prepared for my departure at first light tomorrow instead of furtively scribbling, hoping the scratching of the quill will not awaken Acuren (poor Dhalan is sunk so deeply into his private hell that my quiet movements will surely not rouse him), but maybe capturing the details on paper as clearly as I may will allow my mind to stop its endless reviewing of my plans and finally sleep!

Although it has been three days since Ascuren began helping me prepare to head back into the world, until tonight I had no specific task, only many half-formed notions of the great feats I could achieve to regain favor with my god. But tonight I heard Dhalan’s story. Ascuren pulled me aside shortly after the evening meal to relay the heart-sickening tale in low tones, his face eerily shadowed in the light of the flickering fire, adding impact to his words. Akin to both me and Ascuren, Dhalan is a druid. However, instead of being a nomad like myself, he followed the path of a grove guardian, bonding himself to a small wildwood not far east of Mistywoods in the middle of the Greycloak Hills. The bond between a druid and his grove is a powerful one, allowing him access to defensive powers beyond any I will learn in my lifetime but linking his very soul to the fate of all that he has taken into his safekeeping. One month ago, a group of men and women appeared in his grove, proudly displaying the jawless skull of Cyric, the Prince of Lies. A mere five hours later, the grove was nothing more than a charred and smoking shadow of the once proud stand of oaks which had previously towered there. Corpses of the animals who had found shelter in the grove’s shade littered the now barren landscape along with the eleven lifeless bodies of some of the men who had invaded Dhalan’s sanctuary. Dhalan himself was left alive, too incapacitated by shock and loss of blood to put up any further resistance as the remnants of the party left, setting the torch to any wood they could not haul with them. He was found shortly thereafter by the elves who roam those hills. They had come to investigate upon seeing the smoke and had discovered Dhalan while he was still coherent enough to relate what had occurred though he rapidly degenerated to his current state shortly after their arrival. Although their best healers worked to save Dhalan, the elves eventually recognized their inability to mend his deep wound and thus brought him to Ascuren.

So Dhalan remains with us after a fashion, trapped in a terrible kind of limbo as his body is too battered to live but his spirit lingers, too closely bonded to the shattered grove to let go of this life. My purpose has become clear – I must undo the evil that has been done, restoring the grove to its former majesty as Dhalan himself would do were he capable of the task. Well-versed in the ancient ways of nature, Ascuren was able to tell me the three simple items I will need to gather in order to achieve my goal: any object fashioned from the wood of the grove, a pouch of the most fertile soil, and water blessed by Silvanus himself. I will set out from Mistywoods tomorrow when the early morning chill is still in the air, as whole in body as Ascuren could manage to make me and laden with as many potions and unguents as the kindly druid could hide in my travel bags when he thought I was too preoccupied with my plans to notice. I do not know who orchestrated the attack or where the stolen trees were taken but the little information I have must suffice. Zhentil Keep seems a good starting point. Ascuren has heard of a temple there dedicated to the Prince of Lies. For now I must lay aside my quill and renew my efforts to sleep if I am to be ready for my journey tomorrow.
sotana
Sojourner
Posts: 229
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:11 am

Postby sotana » Mon Apr 25, 2005 4:47 pm

moved to next chapter :-P

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