Topic: Among Death

Azarath

Date: 2007-03-12 17:16 EST
High within the tower of Cylad, she slept.

She dreamed.

She stood on the edge of a precipice, upon a single stone amid torrential waters rushing to meet the air like a greived lover who wishes for death. Storm clouds, dark and menacing, covered the sky, moving across with an unnatural celerity. A pale and slender man was suspended before her, his body and hair whipped by the same wind that buffeted her. It threatened to wrench her footing, to plunge her headlong onto the sharp and jagged rocks below, but she was not afraid.

The man's haggard face, strained and drawn with pain, lifted to her. Green eyes bored into her own, eyes she knew better than her very self. She reached for him, only to find that she could not move. She was rooted to her place with no more freedom than a statue, forced to watch as the pale man twisted in the air. His eyes fastened to hers as if she were a rock in a swiftly flowing stream, as if she would keep him from being pulled under. He cried her name, but she could not answer.

Inky blackness began to seep into the man's eyes, pooling over the green, the white, until nothing but darkness filled his gaze. He floated stilly among the wind that yet troubled her, a cold smile wrenching his features, perverting them. He no longer spoke, but settled upon the water before her, standing on its undulating surface as if it were firm enough to support him. His fingers reached up to touch her cheek, and his touch bit into her flesh...

Her eyes came open to darkness, the sharp, coppery taste of blood on her tongue. Her cheek rested upon cold, smooth stone. As she stood, counting teeth to make sure none had come loose, she realized she was no longer in the meditation chamber. She was in a tomb. Did she yet dream' She went to the enterance and pressed the heavy stone doors open, letting herself out into the cold air of winter. She stood in a graveyard she did not recognize. Her head tilted upward, to use the stars to get her bearings. Two moons sailed blissfully overhead...

Where in Ytrewtsu's abyss was she?

Azarath

Date: 2007-03-13 23:37 EST
She spent a restless night in the cemetery, lost in contemplation.

At sunrise, she left the dead.

She entered the sprawling city she soon learned was called Rhy'Din. The citizenry were unruffled by her demanding questions; rather, they directed her to an establishment they called "The Red Dragon Inn." Supposedly, it was a gathering place for many off-worlders, like herself. They also spoke of something called a "nexus," but she would ask about that later, should it prove necessary. She had no intention of staying on this realm of two disconcerting moons. Directions were heeded as she navigated herself through the sea of buildings. On her way, she saw a library and mentally noted that as her next destination.

The inn, however, held less interest than a graveyard. Few populated it, and, at the topic of drow discussed with some disdain, she had decided to hold her peace.

For a while, she simply watched those gathered before deciding once again to rely on herself.

In the library, she spoke to the keeper about his categorazion system, and the man seemed at once flustered and charmed by her directness and knowledge. Explanations were brief, only few necessary, before she made her way to the books. She felt more at home among the volumes of forgotten lore, of science and learning. It was like the Great Library of which she was the caretaker, yet so very different. She saw the past in the ancient tomes that threatened to fall apart at a moment's notice. The present was bound skillfully, books with near-new covers and bright calligraphy. She saw the exotic, strange constructs that held information she would likely never see, magical scrolls that the wary of the mundane dared not touch. . . but something was missing, something that would ever remind her she was gone from Cylad's tower.

She did not miss it. She merely noted the difference as she found books and pulled them from the shelves.

Azarath

Date: 2007-03-14 21:37 EST
Maps, histories, and other volumes of a more occult and arcane nature littered the table before her. There, she had spent a sleepless night, much to the dismay of the librarian. He had left her a candle as he closed up for the evening, loathe to interrupt her intent research. He had rarely seen the like. She had paused for neither food nor drink, poring through the tomes with a focused determination that bordered on voracity. In the morning, when he returned, the only difference he saw were a few more books, some closed and pushed to the side as if useless, and a candle much shorter than when he had left it.

Her focus, at the moment, was the nexus, though the library did not hold the wealth of information she had hoped. According to what she had read, the entire realm was called Rhy'Din, with a city of the same name as its major center of commerce and culture. Books held information on other worlds; she had read briefly of the planar realms, of the world of Faer?n, Krynn, Middle-Earth and Aman, of Westland and the Midlands and D'hara, of Earth spanning millennia, but Tharel was neglected from their collection.

Apparently, it was this "nexus" that was responcible for bringing and subsequently trapping so many off-worlders on Rhy'Din. She made the logical conclusion that the nexus likely had some bearing on her presence in this alien world. However, she did not dismiss the hand of Cylad entirely from her predicament...

She had questioned the librarian concerning some establishment devoted to magic and its study, but he could provide her with no information. At her further inqueries about temporary employ and housing, he requested a writing sample. Her crisp, clear penmanship and intricate familiarity with some of the lesser-used languages (quickling and orcish, to name a few) granted her an immediate position as a scribe.

She arranged for lodgings in an unused store room. Its austere emptiness suited her.