Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:04:38 -0800
From: Daniel/LordWolf & Co
(( This is a side line to the main story and not my reply to the massing of armies from DreamKnight. I will be sending that out Wednesday some time to allow for everyone to add their own side plots and what not))
The Ancient Eagle glides upon the air currents as it has for most the day as the Armies of Lyric fought and killed each other, finally he decided that there was nothing to be done here, something had changed and it wasn't for the better. With subtle adjustments to his tail feathers and wings he turns and heads for home, a fear growing with each wing beat. As the great bird soars across through the clouds his mind thinks back, wandering just what went wrong. "Everything was going so well," he thinks to himself. "Why did the elves have to go and attack," he wonders. "Of all the ones there, I would have thought they would have been the last to do so," he muses." With a mental shrug he shakes off that line of thought for the answers were probably dead now down upon that field.
As he continues to fly, heading for far off Camelot and beyond to WolfKeep, home and Wenndolyne, night slowly approaches and as a silent observer he watches the sun set. In the fading light the world below takes on the semblance of a world of shadows with different shades of black and grey. His sharp eyes see a small city not far ahead will a Castle rising up just beyond it. A solitary figure walks down the road from the Castle to the village, just one more shadow among many others. Suddenly the Ancient One feels a shiver down his back, which calls to mind the single solitary glimpse of a rider upon a white horse at the Meeting earlier that day.
Ancient Eagle decided to swoop down closer for a look but the person on the road is gone in the blinking of an eye. His curiosity getting better of him, he decides to stop by the castle. "It is only right that I inform whomever is Lord of this city of the events that have transpired this day in Lyric." With grace learned from countless hours of flight, the giant white eagle spirals down and lands just outside the gates to the castle. As the bird folds its wings in, its form in shrouded in a bright light which hides its transformation back into human form. LordWolf adjusts his robe a bit and walks the short distance to the castles gate noting the absence of any guards. Cautiously he enters the outer Bailey of the castle and approaches the doors to the main structure. The air is still and the only sound is that of the flames from various torches as they crackle faintly.
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 19:22:11 PST
From: Taralon Phoenix
((Well...before you read this I would like to apologize if I have taken steps beyond what is required or even liked by some for I have involved a conversation with Dream Knight...and perhaps a few others as I proceed...doing this on the fly so I can't really tell))
Taralon slowly walks up the hill towards the castle of Camelot itself. In his hand is clutched an old leather bound bible. He pauses upon the path to look out over the gathered army and he shakes his head at the sight.
Slowly he continues up the path, nodding to a few of the pages who scurry down it bearing the missives necessary to run such a great army. As he arrives at the doors to the firehall he pauses again and seems lost in thought. After a short time he opens the doors and lets himself in, looking over those gathered there, he greets those he knows quietly as there seems to be some sort of meeting being held by the higher mages and warlords. He takes a seat upon the stones of the hearth and listens in around him as he opens the Bible and begins to read from it silently. From time to time he nods and makes a notation upon a small bit of paper which he inserts into the book at the referenced page. After a time the meeting breaks up; Taralon stands when this has occurred and begins to make his way over to DK. When he reaches him he bows and then begins to speak.
"Good sir, I have found out that you are in charge of this army or at the least in charge of part of it. I have come to offer my services to you in this time of need, and if there is anything within my skills that I can do for you, you need but ask and it will be done." Taralon bows again takes a slight step back.
"Thank you sir," DK says as he looks up from some paperwork, "but I need to know who you are and what you are capable of before I can use what abilities you have."
"Sir my name is Taralon of the Phoenix, and I am half man half phoenix. My abilities are diverse, I am the Avatar of a god, which gives me little power, I can control fire, keep alive the mortally wounded. In addition I am something of a scholar, and I have access to the Phoenix keep libraries, which are among the most extensive in the world." Taralon fidgets a little as he says this, clearly afraid of coming across as a braggart.
"Well, perhaps I shall find a use for you somewhere in this massive occurrence. If nothing else you could fill out requisition forms for me." DK answers with a slight gleam in his eye as he motions to the forms that practically cover the table.
"Aye, that you could, and it would be a job that would be needed to be done with an army this large. If you need me you can contact me at this address if I am not in the firehall." Taralon writes down the address of a local music store. "Well, I must be off, I have some more research into the current problem that I wish to do." With this he hands the note to DK and nods taking his leave.
DK pockets the note and watches Taralon's retreating back for a while before turning back to the scramble of paperwork upon the table with a curse. Taralon leaves the firehall and moves into the library carrying his worn bible in one hand, and a drink he picked up at the bar in the other.
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 05:01:27 -0600
From:: Diana/Wenn & Co
Echoing through the dark alleyways in the wee hours of the cold morning is a slow march of hooves, four beats from a single horse clomping on cobbled stones. The steady rhythm would be maddening to any who might listen, but all are asleep. The rider's black hood barely moves as he gazes slowly at the windows he passes and speculates on the number of souls that lie within. The horse itself seems black in the pale light of the waning moon, but when a flash of lantern or torch crosses the beast, there is a dance of blood red fire in the darkness there.
The rider stops in a deep shadow and extends a hand from the sleeve of his robe. He has done this countless times since he was loosed and yet the repetition does not dilute his pleasure in it. The gnarled hand reaches out with long fingers of blood-moist muscle, only patches of peeling skin attempt to cover. Blisters disguise the junctures of fingers to knuckles, hand to wrist. The raw flesh that is not flesh of his arm disappears into the dark sleeve.
The hand slowly moves in a circular pattern then thumb and three fingers close together to let the one remaining seem to stir nothing in the air. After a moment there is a wisp appearing. The hood focuses on the hand as it stirs the wisp into a small swirl of red smoke that spins with his motion. The swirl becomes a spiral and starts to curl toward the cobblestone... and still the rider's hand stirs. The spiral grows and creeps along the cobblestone, seeking of its own volition, looking for entrance. It slips beneath a door here, rises up a trellis there, drifts up in a small cloud and slips over a window sill as if sucked by a draft. The red vapor searches and will not stop until it finds what it was created for.
In a cradle made so lovingly by a father's strong hand rocks an angel who has yet to see her second summer. Her fingers curl so delicately around the blanket tucked in to keep her warm and safe.
Sleeping on a rough hewn wooden bench in the alcove of a tenement house, a beggar takes in long slow even breath and mutters drunken nonsense in his dreams of wealth.
Having business in town, a farmer rests his weary head at an inn he cannot afford. His last waking thoughts are of his loving wife and two fine sons back home on their small plot of boggy land.
A young bookseller and his lady wife, married by the priest just yesterday, rest in the warmth of each other's arms in their room above his little book shoppe.
In a small room, back a bit from the alley, there lay a grieving widow trying to rest her weary self but not succeeding, still anxious to join her lifelong love in his eternal sleep.
A lone whisper makes answer to this last wish over the din of so many other dreams and nightmares. In the silence his hissing voice floats to no one "Soon enough... soon enough."
The rider has finished his work here and the sheer joy of it makes him toss back his head in hollow laughter. His hood slips off a head which is as raw and without skin as his hands. He abruptly brings his head forward again, his eyes without lids peer relentlessly into the dark night and watch the remaining red wisps slip from view.
Restoring his hood, the rider spurs his horse to resumé the slow gait, clacking on cobblestone. In the echoes, the rider thinks how easy it is to begin a thing and let the real work be done by others. In this port city, thousands upon thousands will share what he has given them this night. Mothers will brush their children's cheeks with tender care. Handshakes and full embraces of welcome will allow them to give the gift again. A lover's kiss, so warm and passionate... even the breath expelled in a friar's prayer... will see that the rider's gift is freely offered to all.
Still grinning between thin blistered lips, the rider on the blood horse slips away as quietly as he rode in, only the heartbeat of four hooves to accompany him to his next port of call.
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 05:11:01 -0600
From: Diana/Wenn & Co
"Farrell, c'mon! Ma said t'hurry!" Trevor seemed to be rather enjoying the stone hunt but Farrell found little challenge in it. The field between the boys and the house was full of them. He didn't understand the rush either. Those stones had been there all his life, why hurry to gather them now? He looked at a small one he had in his hand and tossed it into the bog as he stared at it. The stone made a thick, deep kerplunk sound. The ripples were slow to travel through the heavy slime that covered the shrinking pool.
Farrell was awakened from his reverie by a sharp pain to the back of his head and the sound of his little brother giggling. "OW!" He rubbed the spot the pebble had pinged and wheeled on Trevor, catching him quickly for his legs were much longer, being nearly four years older. Farrell had seen all of ten summers.
After the chase, the requisite pounding, and the resumed gathering of stones, the two boys appeared in the doorway of the little cottage all roughed up with dry grass sticking out of their clothing and hair. Trevor had a red patch forming under his eye but from the looks of Farrell's chin, he got in a few licks of his own.
Nola looked up at her sons and though they feared a chiding, her face was calm if solemn. She sat on the cot they had moved into the main room. Monroe had been there for three days now, since his return from town, too ill to even speak since yesterday. The boys didn't venture too close, for their father was all blistered and covered with sores. He no longer looked like their Da. Nola's hands were wrapped around their father's diseased hand even as she quietly asked the boys to pile their arm loads of stones upon a chair beside the table. She asked Trevor to go to the trunk and get the good wool blanket, that nice grey one with no holes and the touches of red wool scattered through it.
Trevor never had noticed the red threads she always said were there but he knew which one she meant and hefted it out of the trunk. It was almost too heavy for him to carry. He spread it out on their rough wooden table as she instructed, the most of it draping to the floor on all sides. Just as he finished, Farrell was helping his mother move Monroe from the cot to lay him gently on the blanket.
Even Trevor knew now that Monroe was gone. He had seen him lie so still for three days that it didn't catch his attention at first, but now... he knew. "Farrell," Nola said in a coarse voice "Take yer brother and th' both o' ya go down t'tha bog, ya know th' one. Yer always starin' like yer waitin' fer sumthin t'happen in it." Nola straightened out Monroe's pants legs to meet his shoes properly. She moved around to fold his hands peacefully across his chest. "Well, today's th' day." Her words were hollow and sad but she shed no tears, she had work to do yet.
She instructed them to use long sticks to clear the top of what water was left in the bog, near the edge anyway. They were to bring the wooden pallet from the shed on their return. She also added that there was no hurry. She wanted them away for this last tending.
As soon as the boys left, Nola leaned over to kiss her only love on the brow. Some part of her still saw the nervous fellow that first asked her to walk the landing with him. Yesterday she'd gathered flowers and herbs and gently lay them about Monroe's still body. Walking around to the chair and the pile of stones, she proceeded to place them one by one... between his feet, in the crook of his arms, to either side of his head... until she was certain there were enough. Nola then folded the blanket over and tucked him into his cocoon tightly, using rope at the last to bundle him securely.
It was difficult to move the heavy bundle from the table to the pallet. It took all three of them to pull the wooden flat and its cargo through the stone laden field of dry grass all the way to the bog where Farrell stood so distracted. At the edge, Nola spoke of Monroe Lachlan, her husband, their father, a good man, strong and kind... and then they let him slip gently into the murky water.
Nola did not see the last of the bubbles ripple the surface, for now she had time to weep. As she raised her hand to wipe her cheek, she saw the same marks on the back of her hand that had appeared on Monroe's shoulder... three days ago. On the way back to the house, Nola broke the silence to ask the boys to gather more stones as she explained why.
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 08:14:24 -0800
From: Kat/LFAI
LadyFyrAndIce looked at the large group waiting and then at Key...muttering to herself... "how in blazes am I supposed to keep track of 12,000 people???"
Sighing softly she moves off to see what can be done to organize the chaos that seems to abound lately. Fyr walks up to the nearest group of fighters and speaks with one of them... the man nods and quickly men and women start off on errands as they gather more people and provisions. Fyr watches for a few moments then speaks to one of the men,"I'll be at the firehall... report to me once these preparations have been made or if there is any trouble, oh... and don't forget those emery boards!".
The man nods and she turns to walk up the hill to the castle. Stopping a short distance away she turns back to view the massive amount of people and equipment that seems to the eye as a great lake of humanity...the edges ebbing and flowing as the people move about on their errands. She sighs softly to herself... "tis a pity that it took this to bring them all together".
Knowing that Dream Knight and the others are awaiting a report on the preparations that are being made Fyr pulls her spiraling thoughts in check. She pushes away the memories of the scene at Castle Dramor with a shudder, "I'm not the only one to lose family... and more will be lost if something isn't done."
Squaring her shoulders and stepping with more purpose she heads back towards the castle on the hill.
Date: Tuesday, November 25, 1997 12:22 PM
From: Michael/Crusader
( I dunno if this is ok, I'm a very occasional visitor to Camelot, but I love the year of hell, and the writing and roleplaying skills of all involved. this is my very small part in events. If you wish me not to send again to this listserv merely inform me)
Thomas reached for the pie, balanced on the very tips of his toes. The sweat aroma of the cherry pie dulled his senses. Just as his hand grasped for it on the window sill, it was whisked away and replaced by a rather ugly face. "OI!" yelled the rather ugly face. All things being equal Thomas would have turned him into a frog but he was in a beneficent mood that day. "GUARDS!!!!!!" the incredibly ugly and possibly female face yelled. Thomas looked around and saw a whole platoon of armored thugs bearing down on him with murderous intent in their eyes.
"STOP!" Thomas yelled.
Quite incredibly the guards stopped.
Thomas stared at them.
They stared back.
"I am Thomas Crusader. Tall of power, Short in stature. Wide of vision, narrow of purpose. I am a Mage Lord!"
Thomas made his speech.
The guards sweated a little. then the captain yelled "GITTIM!!!!!"
Thomas yelped and sprinted for his life, short legs pumping furiously as he fumbled in his pack for his teleportation spell which was inscribe on a scrap of paper. He ran past a chubby fruit seller just as a whole bunch of oranges fell from his pack. The portly man saw the oranges. The portly man saw the guilty looking short fellow streaking past madly running. The portly man saw the city guard run past. The portly man learned to run and chased after all involved.
Thomas smiled as he finally withdrew the precious teleport spell from his back and intoned the words... as the familiar swirling enveloped him and he turned, waved at the approaching guardsmen and yelled "So long SUCKERS!!!!" and then did an obscene gesture which included his fingers and much waggling of a certain area of his body. But then...... as the spell kicked in......
DEATH. FAMINE. WAR. PESTILENCE. BLOOD... ASHES... CHILDREN SACRIFICED... THE END OF?
Thomas screamed as the vision tore through him... ripped his soul... and then.
*POP*
Thomas fell to his knees, smoke pouring from his body. His clothes ripped, his mind blown. He felt the murmurs from around him, and then a hand touched him and he felt ... strange. Thomas looked up and saw around him a host. A massive host, filled with people of all shapes sizes and races. Thomas looked at the man helping him. The tall, impressively muscled man wore only a loincloth and had beautiful white wings sprouting from his back. The rippled of their own accord.
"Welcome to our host" Said Lucifer.
Thomas looked him up and down.
"Aren't you cold only wearing a loincloth" asked Thomas the Crusader. Tall of Power. Short in stature. Wide of vision. Narrow of purpose. A mage lord (kind of). And now a member of the host of light.
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 17:01:54 -0500
From: Ernie/Simon/Lerrad/Tuckian/etc
Famine rides hard through the night, leaving death and mayhem in his path. He listens as he rides as the chorus of the souls fills his ears, his heart. He urges his black mare onward, spurring it brutally along to the next spot.
He pulls on the reins, stopping the horse in a wide open field. Golden stocks of wheat seeming to dance in the cool morning breeze. A small white farm house off in the distance, certainly those that will soon perish..and if they do not, they will pray to the heavens that they will.
He stares for a moment at the grain and it's movements, his eyes yellowed and narrow almost to mere slits, then he turns his head and spits on the ground beside him. Famine grins as the ground begins to crack and dry, then ignite to flames, watching the flames catch onto a dry stalk here and a leave there. He frowns at the slow speed of this process, then glances upward and curls his cracked lips, blowing a gentle breeze across the field. The breeze picks up the flame and spreads it like a hungry beast, across the dry land.
He smiles. Such talent...such finesse...such joy it brings to him...such satisfaction to do what one is so very good at.
As he rides off toward other places, other tasks...the once fertile field ignited in flames...he listens once again, the sound of the chorus of souls singing in his ears. He can barely manage to hold to the reins when it is this great, but the breast will carry him where he needs to be...the beast will carry him to his next task.
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