Topic: P A I N

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-03-28 01:03 EST
drip

A strike.

Another one.

Another one.

drip

Another one.

A cut of a blade.

Another one.

Another one.

drip

Another one.

It was a litany he repeated in his head.

Pain flailing in his chest. Won't cry out.

Fire striping his back. Won't cry out.

drip

Like a razor's slash. Won't cry out.

The world was pain.

The world was fire.

He could not see it. He could only feel it. One eye was gone. The other swollen closed.

drip

Agony and inferno.

drip

Torment and flame.

Won't cry out.

He smiled. Certainly it touched nothing but his lips, but he pointed his head in the best direction he knew of Adrianna De`Seis, The Spider, who serves the Mistress of Torment.

And he smiled.

drip

She hissed.

The scourges began again. Won't cry out.

New. Won't--

Fresh. I... will... not...

Invigorated. Never--

From everywhere at once. Never! Never! NEVER!!

drip

And again, like every other time, he failed. He cried out. He was only human. He was only a man.

Hot air, hot as fire, was gulped hungrily through his gaping, slack-open jaw. The perception of breathing.

He throbbed. He was a pulsing flame.

But the beating had stopped.

But the cutting had stopped.

But the searing had stopped.

But the flaying had stopped.

drip

The end of something that part of him had been convinced would never end.

He tasted blood. It wasn't the first time.

It wouldn't be the last.

She had left again. She'd be back.

This was the game they played. Every morning. Every day. Every night.

The same game. The game of forcing screams from him. Of every inhuman act she could perform to cause the most agony.

The game was over. That meant it was night. He'd have a few hours now.

drip

drip

drip

drip

drip

And the blood pooled at his feet.

Why was he not yet dead?

He knew.

Death would be mercy.

To the Nihil, mercy is weakness.

drip

And the blood pooled at his feet.

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-04-04 21:50 EST
Merciless.

Cruel.

Twisted.

He knew this words. Once he knew their meaning. Once he had thought himself these things and more; once he had been the Scourge of Worlds. He laid enemies low before him. He swept them from the field in the face of his unholy armies, flying the banner of the Nihil. There was another banner, too; his own. One he had not seen in some time. The shattered dragon. Not that it mattered now.

Pain.

Agony.

He knew these words, too. He once knew their meaning, as well. That, like the words before, had changed in his mind. His mind.

His mind. So carefully, so woefully, so barely gripping to sanity now. No, no-- not sanity. Softness. He was growing harder. Some had considered him stone, once. Others saw more, saw softer; few and far between, they, and far now so far as he knew. He was in Hell. That's as far away as one can get. Soft. He was soft. He was satin then compared to now. He had to be. It was a struggle, a vicious battle to not cry out, to deny his tormentress her pleasure. Softness. Soft. Softer. One had once called him a sword; a sword that old he would have abandoned long since. A sword was hard. This was harder.

In many ways, he could have been considered... like leather. Only that leather had been charboiled, and then transmuted to stone. A stone could chip, though, a stone could wear. He had caught himself wearing away, wind-swept under the woman's cruel hand. He had to become more. Become harder. Harder still. Still, yes. Steel. He had to be steel. He had to be a tiny little ball of steel, untouched save only the harshest of forgefires.

Adrianna De`Seis must have known the secrets of metalworking. Her fire was harsh indeed.

He was only just beginning to learn. The beating never stopped. The lashing, the cutting, the searing agony of heat and flame and lick of fire, they never stopped. But hunger was a pain, too, in its own way. This the woman knew well, as well, well. Well. Well? Water came from wells. His throat was parched, dry as the Great Desert to the south. He'd sell his sou-- NO! He did that once. To the Nihil, long ago, he won't do that again. Not now that he knows freedom.

He would, however, give away Taiva for a bucket of cool water. A glass. A gulp. A single sip, and he'd give up Sid to Howe, no matter the rest of the bargain.

She starved him. Hunger pains. Pangs. Pains? It hurt. His belly hurt, it ached, it gnawed at his spine. She fed him, yes, but only enough to keep him alive. Death is a mercy she would not grant. Yet. Possibly ever.

Hunger left to fester long enough made the pain go away. One got used to it as the body began to shut down. She spared him that. Fed him just enough to where his stomach continued to ache and growl and demand more, but it never came. Not until the pain had gone, and then only enough to bring the pain back for hours and hours more.

He had started to have good meat on his bones, too, after Obsidian had saved him from death's welcome mat. After that, he could not eat enough. He ate like a man starving, and become positively healthy in appearance. That was gone now. It had either been burned away, cut away, beaten away, or starved away. He could feel, even now, the hollow sink of his skin upon his cheekbones. The press out of his ribs through his chest. He could see it, too, when he could barely open his eye. De`Seis had been unkind, and had stripped him even of his dignity, chaining him bare upon a rock surrounded by fire and flame and molten rock.

Renna. She was there. She held him. She almost wept over him, she clutched him, she laid her hands upon him. Brought him down from the rock. For an instant, he thought that she, of all people, had come to rescue him. But she left him there, lying there upon the rock, after harming him all her own. He felt better afterward, yes, the blood had ceased to flow and there was energy again in his veins, but not in his limbs. But she left him.

Betrayer.

He was back upon the rock soon after, though, back with the heavy manacles rubbing the flesh of his wrists away, blood draining out of his arms until they were numb and stayed numb, tingling all the time. Sleep came only when his body could be awake no longer, and then woke again to the blistering torment of Adrianna De`Seis.

She was a cruel captor. She... she used him, even, for her own sick pleasure. A man was still a man, and she knew that ecstasy was a pain all its own when taken too far. He cursed himself, shamed, for being weak, but he had no control. She was malicious, cunning, sly; her fingernails raked broken skin, tearing open scabs that had started to form, loosing bruises, biting and tearing at his flesh until his body reacted to the grind of hers, and he released himself inside of her.

The sting of shame. It was harder, even, than the brutal pain she inflicted upon him. After nearly a week, he had started to have visions. Seeing things from his past. They were fleeting and interrupted often by the Mistress of Torment's minion, but they were there, still.

How much longer until she grew bored?

How much longer until she was told he had been made to suffer enough?

How much longer until she slit his throat, or broke his neck, or stuck a knife under his ribs?

How much longer until she sent him on his way to Oblivion?

Obsidian had told him she would not let the Nihil have him, if he died. He trusted her. He had faith in that. Perhaps that is why they brutalized his physical body so much, made him scream, made him suffer, made him writhe and pulse and burn and melt in the searing, most pure form of torture he had ever endured?

Because they could not have him. Were his old gods that petty? Were they so low, to do this out of spite?

Or perhaps they did not drive De`Seis at all. Perhaps she was only staying amused.

So how much longer?

The stone at his feet. The dirt had long been washed away by the torrent of his own blood. Enough to be weak and helpless, but not enough to die. De`Seis even healed him, after a fashion, but only to continue his agony. Only to bring him back from the long-overdue death, the much-anticipated death.

The stone at his feet. It was red, now, stained with his blood, littered with pieces of skin and sinew and flesh.

Blood and ashes.

Gods and demons.

Shadows and light.

How--

--Much--

--Longer?

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-04-04 22:56 EST
Why it came to Lydia, of all people, would no doubt be a matter of some debate and speculation, if the matter rose at all.

If she mentioned it.

If she took it for more than a bored, dazed, idle-minded daydream, perhaps.

A sudden sensation, like heat and flame and fire crawling over her skin. A thing familiar to her by now with her sudden affinity for the element. The scent of earth, molten and not, broken and craggy and hollow.

Hot.

Heat.

So hot it felt the angel-hairs on the back of half-elven neck rise and pretend to singe. Her skin should have blackened, but it didn't. There should have been pain, but there wasn't.

Just heat.

Fire.

Hot.

Licking flames, dancing flames.

Blackness.

Darkness, despite the fire.

Impenetrable heat.

Save a gust of cool spring breeze. A cavern lit with a single tunnel. Like a cave. The chirp of birds in the distance, when not drowned by the lash of whip, or the blood-curdling cry of a male's voice.

A vision.

All red and black, blood and shadow, fire and darkness.

A figure.

A man.

Old, but not, but by Rhy'Din standards-- old. Ancient, even, some would say.

Thin.

Starved.

Pale.

Blood on the stone. Blood at his feet. Blood on his limbs.

Blood. So much blood.

Yet he lived.

Open wounds. Closed wounds. Healing wounds. Healing wounds that had been reopened.

Closer now, the scent of the flames, the closeness to the affinity she held. His hair was black. Matted with blood, and sweat. A puffy face, beaten and bruised and cut.

A hollow stare from an empty socket where an eye once had been. A vertical scar across the empty socket, too old to have caused such a fresh injury. A lateral scar beneath a swollen eye, half-hidden, but gleaming in the too-dim-to-see-by light.

Green.

An inhuman green.

A brilliant green.

A bright green.

Suffering. Anguish. Pain.

Torment. Agony.

Shattered bones and broken limbs, but not a broken spirit.

Why it had come to her, in particular, why she had been the one to be taken now, so suddenly, so swiftly-- who knew? But a single feeling. A single thought.

Despite the heat, despite the pain, despite the fire, despite the blood.

Help.

Me.

Lydia Loran

Date: 2007-04-04 23:12 EST
There wasn't a smile on her face as she walked, but there was no frown either. Thoughts were faraway. Despite the warnings she gave friends, despite her own experiences at night in this city, the green haired elf sometimes walked about at night not
paying attention to her environment or surroundings. She'd get many 'tsks' if those she know
knew, perhaps even a stern look or three.

Arms wrapped about herself, pale blues were cast to the cobbles beneath her feet as she walked down the main path,leaving the inn, and approaching WestEnd. The Market was safe though, quiet, peaceful. Even during this time. It was daytime you had to worry about, and then? Only for pickpockets and harmless thieves.

She walked, near silent, and even moreso as she stopped.

Abruptly.

A hand lifted, fingertips trailing her neck and moving to the back of it to where those hairs stood, where that heat built up, slowly moving all over her body. Brows furrowed as she looked down. No, it didn't burn. The girl could walk through fire and not be burned, could lay in a lake of fire and emerge unsinged, but she did feel fire, and it did have a great deal of heat to it. Perhaps even more than 'normal' fire did.

Breath caught in her throat she looked up, finally giving attention to her environment. There was nothing, no one that could be doing this to her. Was it her magic again? But no.. months ago it had stopped doing that. She breathed in, slowly, frown coming to her as she did. She could smell it.

Fire.

Perhaps even blood as well. It wouldn't be the first time she had such a vision either. Similar ones once haunted her. Of blood and fire.

It couldn't be that though!

She turned suddenly, expecting to find something to explain this phenomenon, only to stare into that face.

That pained face.

Pale blues widened in horror, even though the details were blurred.
She didn't pick up every wound, every scent, every cry, but that face? She couldn't turn from it. She couldn't turn from that green either.

With a quivering hand she reached forward, stepped forward as if she could reach him, save him, release him from his torment. The fire couldn't burn, she had no fear towards it. The scent of blood was sickening, but that wasn't registering to her. All she knew was.. she had to help this man. This poor man... She heard his plea, felt his plea, and it
made her cry out.

Another step forward then, her other quivering hand reached out for him.

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-04-04 23:13 EST
She could feel it. She could almost touch it. She could almost touch him. She was there.

Kind of.

A brilliant burst of starlight she was, this half-elf, in the otherwise dim, dark cavern. The birds sang, faintly, but the fire roared around her. A pit. He was manacled, chained, naked, in pain.

He needed her.

He needed help.

She was reaching. She could save him. She heat seemed real enough. His flesh would seem real, too. Perhaps she could

Adrianna DeSeis

Date: 2007-04-04 23:15 EST
A terrible, hissing face then erupted from the side of her vision. A single movement, fluid and full, carrying with it the swipe of a wicked-curved blade. The scimitar passed her vision, and it was as if the vision itself was cut open, revealing the void of blackness beneath. Man and flame and cave and woman and weapon peeled away, vanishing off to the top of her eyes, and she was left in utter and total blackness for a second, perhaps two, before something was there.

It came at her suddenly, abruptly, out of the void, slithering out of the black, but it was black itself where it wasn't green. Where it wasn't pink. Where it wasn't red. Bubbling, frothing, like a giant grotesque worm-thing crafted from flesh, protruding with bared eyes upon stalks and tentacles that flailed at the air. It opened as if in a swirl, massive, humongous, titanic, and in the grand, gaping maw of the beast there were rows and rows of teeth and incisors, circling, spiraling, in and deep to the hole at the back of a gullet, where in spined tentacles rested, flailed, as if to grab and flay and pulverize.

And then all was gone.

Vision, heat, fire, flame, beast, teeth-- gone. As quickly as it had started, mere seconds perhaps in total, certainly no more than a minute, the vision had faded from sight completely.

First a call.

Then a cut.

Finally, a none-too-veiled threat.

Lydia Loran

Date: 2007-04-05 00:39 EST
She could save him!

She would!

"It's okay.. it's okay..."

Shaky words, soft words, though were they to calm him? Herself? No one could be for certain, not even her, as they escaped without thought. The world a blur, hands moved towards those manacles binding him. She didn't know how to undo them, but she would try.

Anything.

Anything to save this man. A shriek sang out though, as something caught.. no.. demanded her attention. Pale blues snapped to the side in time to see that scimitar being swung. She instinctively pulled back, darted back, falling to the ground. Fire felt hot, but didn't burn. Never burned. Her eyes shined brilliantly rather quickly, as she was rather close to panic. Her own body heating up added to the nearby heat. Even to her, it was uncomfortable. Those glowing eyes widened as much as they could, horrified at seeing nothing.

Nothing.

There was little, if anything, more terrifying than nothing. Except perhaps that... that thing that tore out from it after her. She whimpered as if a child, quite frightened. Hands up, yet she couldn't call her magic, couldn't think to make it work, couldn't utter the incantations. Another whimper then, as it approached. She wanted to look away, run, fight, anything. Yet she did the one thing she didn't want to do. She sat there. Staring at it, tears now falling down her cheeks silently.

And it was gone. Just like that. She didn't utter a sound, didn't move, not for at least ten minutes. Then she finally took a
moment to look about, assure herself she was safe, but even then? She couldn't. That came from nowhere, what was to assure her it wouldn't again? She curled up then, legs tucking in so chin could be placed upon her knees, face could be hidden in her arms...

And she cried.

Adrianna DeSeis

Date: 2007-04-14 00:34 EST
"I don't know how you did it," De`Seis sneered as she wiped a smattering of blood from the base of her cheek. It wasn't hers, of course, but it was human. "but you won't be doing any more unexpected little tricks like that."

Ayreg seemed little more than a broken shell of a man now, dangling limply from the manacle and chains that she had reattached him to after the run-in with Lucretia, the once-Dreadlord of the Nihil. She seemed to have no interest at all in rejoining the Nihilian Order, but perhaps that was for the best. Even at the time of those events, Jodiah Ayreg was still a loyal follower of Malfeas, and it had been his judgment that she had been unworthy. Still, when last she had visited the Hall of the Nihil (not physically, of course, but there were ways) that ash-mouthed slug of a man that the Nihil used as their voice had expressed an intriguing interest in her. The interest, of course, came not from The Voice but from the Nihil themselves. Which one, she didn't know. But at least one of those primordial worms -- as good a word as any, even she had no idea what they actually were beyond that -- had an interest in her.

Let them play their games and their politicking, she thought, I've got my own work to do.

Games and politicking, she knew, was not exactly what the Nihil were about. What she truly knew of her dark masters in Malfeas wasn't much, but it was enough to let her know what would happen if and when she stopped wrong. The Nihil called themselves the eternal will of the shadow, and while they did not always agree, they did have a single driving goal and purpose. Whether they truly lived or not she could say, but they certainly sought to ensure that nothing else did.

Some people seem to believe that there is no such thing as true evil. That an evil human or beast, no matter how heinous the crimes they commit, always did what they felt was the good and right thing to do. Their point of view was skewed from the norm of everyone else, but they thought they were doing good. Whether it was to unite the world in peace and harmony by ruthlessly conquering all of it, or eliminating competition by act of murder and vivisection to ensure that they could corner the market on any given product (which they, of course, could market and distribute and use the best of any of them), it was always the 'right' thing to do.

Not so with the Nihil of Malfeas.

Their single goal, their one true interest in the ways of the universe, was to simply destroy everything. They were anti-life itself. They did not wish to rule, they did not wish to destroy; they wished to annihilate. Every plant, every animal, every sentient being across the cosmos, they wanted to drag kicking and screaming and spitting and cursing down into the voidless depths of Oblivion. And when there was no more life left to extinguish anywhere?

Perhaps they would even want to destroy themselves.

Perhaps.

She did not question their intent. And she did not question their power.

Unlike the Scourge of Worlds, she smirked in thought.

Ayreg seemed little more than a broken shell of a man now after several weeks in the hands of Adrianna De`Seis, agent of the Mistress of Torment herself. To believe he actually was little more than a broken shell of a man would have been foolhardy, though, and while De`Seis enjoyed the rush of a little thrill-seeking from time to time (such as when she delivered his eye to that Skye woman, treading a thin line of danger), she was not a fool.

"Look at you!" she said, gripping his head by a fist of hair and pulling it up from where it hung down past his shoulders, "You have strength, Jodiah. You have pride, Jodiah. You have courage, Jodiah, but is it that stubborn pride that does not allow you to break to me?"

Releasing his hair only long enough to strike him across his swollen, discolored, bloody face with the back of her hand, she jerked his head up again. She enjoyed dragging out the torment of her victims, making them suffer for as long as possible, but even this was growing tiresome. She had been instructed, however, not to kill him out of hand. As if the Nihil could not simply grasp his spirit and drag him back to Malfeas for their own brand of punishment. Her patience was wearing thin, though. She could illicit cries and groans and screams from him, yes, but only after half-exhausting herself pounding his body into a bloody hulk. If she had spoken just then, with the anger and frustration rising in her, she would have likely sounded shrill, as if she were shrieking. She might have.

Taking in a deep breath, she leaned close and pressed her forehead against his. Jodiah's skin was hot, and wet; with sweat and blood. De`Seis schooled her voice to calm, speaking only in a low, hushed whisper. "Submit to me," she crooned, as if sounding more like a lover than a tormenter. "and it will end. Beg for my mercy, and you will have it. That's all you have to do. Just throw away that stubborn pride, Jodiah; throw it away, and it will be over."

His face twitched. She leaned her own head back to look down into him, and anger bubbled up inside of her again as his lips curled with effort into a smile. A smile. That stubborn, bull-headed, foolish... MAN!!

She could have struck him again. She should have struck him again. Or whipped him, or cut him, or bled him near to the point of death again before filling his wounds with Bloodstop. She might even have healed him, after a fashion, if she had gone too far. Adrianna De`Seis was getting sloppy in her irritation with the man.

Wordlessly, De`Seis drew her dagger. If it could be called such. It was actually a short shortsword, with a single-edged blade nearly a foot in length, and honed to razor-sharpness. She had used this weapon numerous times to make exacting cuts into his skin, knowing right where to make it hurt without him bleeding to death even without using Bloodstop, but she had a different plan now. What hair wasn't firmly in her tightly-clinched fist hung around his face, twisted and matted with blood and sweat from weeks of torment without being washed. It would pull. That pull would hurt.

That satisfied her.

Using the clump still in her fist, she lowered the blade into his hair, and sawed back and forth. Within a second, his head dropped as the blade sliced through the hair a bit more cleanly than she would have liked, and De`Seis dropped the cut hair down to the stones at his feet. Another handful was taken up then, and again it was cut free.

"If you will not release your pride, Ayreg" she caught herself sneering again, "then perhaps I can take it from you."

"Piece," she ripped her hand up again, once more shearing away a fist of hair from his scalp, "by piece."

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-05-11 22:14 EST
I swear, he thought, if I just make it back home, I'll never ride a horse again.

Jodiah Ayreg reached back behind him, knuckling his spine with his hand with an easily-turning wrist. The air was crisp and clear, the skies were almost entirely clouded over with only the barest hints of noonday sun peering down through them in spots and holes and cracks. There was a good, stiff breeze that threatened to tear the clouds asunder and drench the world in a torrential flood of rainfall, but it never happened. It did, however, make it a little chilly.

Platemail armor was, quite obviously, made of metal. Iron ore was smelted down to make the raw iron, which itself was put into a bloomery that was very heavily managed to induce something called carbon. He didn't understand the process himself; he worked the steel, he didn't create it. The end-result was that you had a cheap and easily-produced substance called steel, which itself was stronger than iron, and held an edge far better.

It was also bloody cold in the face of winter's rage.

Dread

Pulling his cloak around him a bit tighter, Jodiah shifted uncomfortably on his saddle. His rump was sore and he'd likely not want to sit for weeks now once we was finally off. He wasn't certain, but with the burning feel between his legs, he'd even go so far as to say that the rawhide had chaffed him quite a bit, too.

Pain

Lifting his chin, he looked for miles down the road. He could see Rhy'Din City from here, yes. But oddly enough, it was exactly as far away as it was when he started. He'd been in the saddle for half a day, now, he should be closer than this.

Frowning, he rolled his shoulders back underneath heavy black cloak that he bought when he first rose, deep in the southlands. Out in the Great Desert, in the remnants of Doomhammer Keep.

Doomhammer. It was a glorious fortress, even though he wasn't entirely sure who constructed it. The Nihil granted it to him, taught him its location. Upon a mountain of bones, built around a throne of blood, from here the Scourge of Worlds sought the single-minded, total destruction of all of the free world. Leave subjugation to those with a mortal mind. He was an agent of The Plaguebringer, of the Filth Goddess, of the Nihil. Oblivion was barely good enough for these wretches.

Death

He looked down at it. His mare, Harpy. He wasn't entirely sure that it was the first horse he had ridden since starting this trip. At the easy pace he was making, though, Harpy would have been able to ride for days without being forced to rest. Truly a magnificent animal, that mare.

Shadow

The wind was getting stronger now, but Rhy'Din City was no closer than when he had started. If it started raining now, he'd be forced to find some kind of shelter. Aside from the obvious stupidity of wearing full plate-and-mail armor in a lightning storm, it also wouldn't let his armor fare well at all.

Wait.

He blinked.

I'm not here.

He had been riding all day, hadn't he?

Yes.

No.

No.

No, he hadn't. A face. Her face. His tormentor. He remembered that. It was the last thing he saw. Something wasn't right. She would not have released him, would she? Would she heal him? Would she alter his memory to where he couldn't remember anything?

I'm not here.

The world... melted. There was no other way to really consider it. Sky ran down, mottling clouds with treelines and then grass, then the horse's crown in front of him melted, too, as did the armor, until he was left alone in blackness again.

There was pain.

There was heat.

It held within it a stark and certain sudden abruptness. What had been the chill of winter was now the fiery pits of the Abyss. His wrists were sore. No. His wrists were raw. Iron. Heavy, solid, thick iron rubbing constantly at his wrists, suspended over his head. His fingers were numb. How long had they been held up like that?

He tried to move. Another pain, above and beyond the simple ache all across his body, spiraled out from his right flank. He opened his eyes. Only one seemed to be working, and it was barely working at that. His skin was broken, blistered, cut apart, half-healed, then broken again. His torso was a dull red from dried blood, caked-on and cracking and even peeling in places.

Why am I alive?

"She doesn't want me to die yet."

His own voice was something of a surprise to him. He hadn't used it to speak words in what feels like an age. His throat was sore and raw from screaming under her not-so-tender touch, this mindless torture without reason, but his voice was still his own. His hair was gone; she sheared him down like a sheep being made ready for market, but he could always grow it back out.

Wait. What?

I'm alive.

He knew that. He accepted that. He clung to that. He was here in the palm of her hand, and all she had to do was simply close her fist and his life would be extinguished.

I'm alive.

But she hadn't. She was keeping him alive, now, out of her own sense of sadistic pleasure and glee. He was to be made an example of. The mortal world might not know where he is, might not know what's happening to him, but he knew that all of the Nihil's minions in Malfeas knew. No doubt they knew. Sometimes, they seemed to know everything.

I'm alive.

But even though they might know, they still underestimate the human will to live; the slow, weary, depressing-yet-determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on. He wasn't entirely sure how long he had been here now, but it had to have been at least a week. Maybe two. He had allies in this world, but whether they were looking for him or not? Jodiah had no way of knowing.

I'm alive.

For as long as he can remember, Jodiah Ayreg has handled steel, forging it and bending it to his whim to craft weapons of war, and sure defenses against those keen blades and blunt maces. With the proper tools, he could take a block of iron-stock and turn it into almost anything he ever set his mind to. He had no anvil now, no hammer, no thick leather aprons, no hardies, and no forge. He'd settle for a gnome or three, but didn't even have a single cask of rum to keep them occupied.

I'm alive.

Muscles flexed. Hard muscles. Jodiah Ayreg was not a lean man; metal-working and war-fighting only had one way to design a man's body, and that was as if chiseled into stone. While not a hulking brute, he was very, very strong. But was he strong enough? Muscles flexed, and he willed his arms to bend. He was met only with the unforgivable, unrelenting strength of iron chains mounted and set into the stone surface of the obelisk he was imprisoned upon.

I'm alive.

He pulled harder. His wrists were slick with the fresh rivulet of blood from the raw wounds, where he had hung limply like a boned fish. He pulled harder. A lifetime as a metal worker, and he was going to allow manacles and a simple chain to hold him now?

I am Jodiah Ayreg.

I am the herald of woe to the White Dragon's Vengeance.

I am he who has spat in the face of the Nihil.

I am the Scourge of Worlds.

Jodiah grit his teeth and howled in effort and frustration, pulling against the iron chains that held him. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. All he had to do was bend one-- just bend it! --and he could free himself. For too long has he remained here in this cave. For too long has been waiting for death, willing to accept it. For too long has he sat here like a startled sheep.

I'm alive.

Blood and bloody, flaming ashes, he was going to stay that way, too!

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-05-23 01:50 EST
He grunted.

It was really the only kind of sound he could muster up out of his body. His fingers, caked with dried blood and sore and exposed, with the cuticles of his fingernails peeling back, and the fingernails themselves in dire need of seeing a file, were wrapped around the thick length of chains that extended from either manacle to lace up through a small iron hoop embedded into the stone obelisk. Try as he might, he couldn't pull the chains down from the angle he was at, and the iron hoop was holding firm. He needed leverage. He needed strength.

He needed time, too. She would be back soon, and he knew it.

Forcing his feet beneath him, it was all Jodiah Ayreg could do not to buckle instantly under the weight of his body. His legs had been torn to bits by her tools; her blades, her whips.

He pulled with all of his might. Nothing. Not one iota. Not a single inch -- not a half-inch! -- of space given over by the thick chain. All he had to do was bend one, just one, and just a little bit, and he could escape.

Turning painfully, Jodiah pulled back on the chains and lifted a foot against the stone face of the obelisk. He tried to use the tired, aching, sore muscles in his leg to add more power. It didn't work.

He had to break free. He would not die this way! Him, a captured prisoner; little more than a slave kept to satiate a sadist's pleasure.

No. Not him.

His foot lifted up off the ground, and the bulk of his weight was supported by his screaming muscles. They burned, they quivered; they felt like they were ready to melt, but he refused to let go. He refused to drop to the ground uselessly. A step made, a painful step, up the side of the obelisk. Then another. Then another. Until her was near the iron loop.

Jodiah was shaking now from the monumental physical effort it too just to keep himself up. Planting his feet onto either side of the loop, he wrapped the chains around his wrist and pulled. His arms were quaking, his legs were alight in fire from the force of the exertion.

And the chain wouldn't budge. It held fast. Every time he imagined himself moving a bit, as if the chain links had started to bend, perhaps, but he was never freed.

He pulled.

Images began to flash through his head. Images of Suliss'urn first, foremost; her half-smile, her not-smile, the way she looked over her shoulder at him, all flateyed when she thought he said something foolish. The way she ignored his faults so as to not bring him dishonor. It was an odd way of looking at things, but it was her culture. Who was he to argue it? Would he have freed himself for her? Was she even noticing him gone, now? She was his shadow, and he her sword; but even a shadow can be outrun, and a sword can be forgotten. He was not trying to free himself for her. If it ever came a day where Jodiah Ayreg put value on his life by whether or not a woman was there at his side, then that was the day he'd be putting a noose around his neck and leaping from the rooftop of the Red Dragon.

He pulled.

An anvil. The clanking sound of hammers striking steel, of the hiss of salted water to cool the molds after melted-down stock had been poured into them. Of the whoosh of the billows, and the crackling of the flame. He enjoyed metal-working. He created weapons; things designed for one man to kill another, sharp things to create death and destruction. But was he defined that way? Was he Jodiah the Blacksmith? There was a time when he thought he was, but was that time now?

He pulled.

He tried to clear his brain. He tried to focus his thoughts on the iron chain. He had to bend them. He just had to! He could hear the warble of birds through the caverns. He knew it wasn't deep. Jodiah could break the chains and escape, and hide until he could reach help. All he had to do was avoid Adrianna De`Seis. All he had to do was break the chain!

He pulled.

With all of his might, he pulled.

With every fiber of his being, he pulled.

With every ounce of willpower he could muster, he pulled.

Suddenly, without warning, Jodiah Ayreg felt his back extend upward as he leaned upright, and the chains suddenly held slack in them. This realization came to him only a split second before the realization that he was now falling sank into him. It was a short drop, but it was still a drop naked onto hard, hot, jagged rock beneath.

To hell with it. With what he's endured these weeks, a few more extra scratches wasn't going to do much to him.

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-05-26 20:51 EST
Despair.

That was the first thing that cross his mind.

He landed hard on his back, grunted in the sudden pain of the short drop and the sudden stop. The ground beneath him was made up of nothing more than rocky crags, and so they bit upwards against his already aching and battered body. Jodiah Ayreg wanted to roll onto his side-- something, anything, to get away from the rocks beneath him --but it just wasn't possible.

He heard the sound of the chains, felt the weight of the manacles upon his wrists still. Had he succeeded? Had the chain actually broken, torn apart by the strength of will alone?

Jodiah pulled his arms apart as far as he could. Less than three feet between the two of them, and the chain pulled taut and unyielding. No. No, he hadn't broken the chain. Despair set in upon despair. Apparently, he had lost his grip, or perhaps his balance. Apparently, his legs just couldn't support the weight of his body any longer, and he had collapsed to the ground.

His head dropped back onto the rocky ground, and he felt like weeping again. And then it struck him.

Less than three feet.

...There were considerably more than three feet between the iron ring that the chain was laced through, and the ground, and yet his hands were on the ground at his sides. Grunting with the force of effort for even so trivial a task as this, Jodiah tried to force his one barely-good eye open to see.

Laced there upon the chain binding manacles to either of his wrist, was the iron ring and the anchor-plate it was mounted upon.

Jodiah hadn't torn the chain apart. He had ripped the mounting straight out of the stone obelisk.

Not that he was going to be complaining any time soon. He was as naked as the day he was born, covered in a thin layer of dried blood, dirt, ash, and criss-crossed with whip-strokes, knife cuts filled with Bloodstop, and, like a proud lion shamed, his hair had been cut.

Acceptable losses, in his mind.

For once, now, there was hope. For once, now, there was a chance at escape. He pushed himself up, gritting his teeth in a furor of willpower. The bottom of his feet were not pretty, and were not soft, but the ground was harder still. He ignored the pain, the sharp, biting sense of the rocks, and the burning of the earth around him, and staggered toward the door.

He was weak. He was so, so weak. Kept for weeks, beaten thrice daily, tormented, tortured, starving; the iron chain and loop that had held him prisoner for so long dragged along the ground behind him, bouncing away on rocks and every little pebble.

But he was free, now.

The closer he got to the tunnel leading out of the cavern, the more fresh the air smelt. Deeper inside, where he had been kept, it had been nothing but stale, and hot. It felt almost frigidly cold by comparison now, but still delightfully fresh. He could even hear birds singing from here. He was free!

And then despair sunk his heart once more. A shadow moved; Jodiah could see it on the far wall of the tunnel, beaming in from the light outside. He didn't have to see the shadow's owner to know the shadow's owner. It was, after all, midday. It would be Adrianna De`Seis again, come to deliver another brutal round of thrashings upon him.

Jodiah Ayreg was helpless. Nude, without weapon, without even a decent pair of boots in which he could kick. She, with her armor and her weapons... it did not look good, at all.

De`Seis was no mere simpering girl-child, either. She was a fighter, born and bred, and as weak as he was at the moment she could probably handle him as easily as she could a mewling little kitten. Easier than that. And if she summoned the power of the Nihil? If she drew upon the Saa? He would be cut down as wheat before the scythe, and then he would again be mounted upon the obelisk in the cavern. Or, perhaps, something even more secure, then.

Slumping against the side of the tunnel wall, Jodiah Ayreg heaved a sigh of defeat, and laid his head upon the less-than-smooth surface of a rock.

What else could he do?

Adrianna DeSeis

Date: 2007-05-27 21:23 EST
The first thing that struck her as out of place was the dirt.

She had come down this path many times now. It was never an exact time, of course, but she generally tried to pay her ward a little... visit ...three times a day. Once just after dawn, once around midday, and once again just before dusk. Then she left him to hang there upon that rock, broken anew.

But this time the dirt was... different.

She paused in her stride, and examined it. Crouching upon her haunches, she dropped a single hand to the ground at her feet, and slid her fingers smoothly through the well-worn path. Fingerless gloves allowed her to feel every pebble, every speck of dust, and it did not take the Death Knight long to realize what was different.

Something had been dragged upon this dirt. The edge of a footprint could be seen, even though most of it had been eradicated by whatever was being dragged.

Panic welled up inside of her. Had Jodiah Ayreg been found? Had his friends and allies come to his aid? She had been toying with them, true enough, but she left no clues that would lead them anywhere but in circles. Hadn't she? In an instant, her mind whipped across those she had reached out and touched. The wraith of a woman, Alysia Skye, whom the Nihil seem to both despise and respect. Lucretia, the once-Dreadlord, who had her beloved flaunted under her very nose. Even the?

The seer. Yes, yes it must have been her. Leaving her part of Ayreg's pipe was foolish. She could see that now. The Nihil had told her she had special powers: an ability to speak to things that none else can. What secrets could she have gleaned from a silver-worked pipe bowl, though? What whispers could tabac-stained oak truly tell?

If the little brat had told Alysia, and Alysia had brought her Legion...

No. No, there would have been far too many footprints. De`Seis felt confident in the assumption that no trap lay in wait for her. A dozen of those Legionnaires might have been able to fell her, but they would lose half as many more than that in the process. Still, it only took one to fetch him out.

Rising back up to her feet, she vaulted forward at a running spring. Booted feet echoed her long steps upon the rocky walls of the corridor as she descended into the caverns in which she held Ayreg. She had to know. If she left now, she'd never know for certain if he was still here or not. She had to know.

And then she had to think of someway to plead for mercy from her dark masters.

The great hall of stone was entered, and she slid across the bare stone several feet from the momentum of her run. Fire leaped up, danced, fell away, and then leaped up again in the deep crevice surrounding the stone island; the molten rocks of red and black and orange served as a well-enough moat, so to speak, and the constant heat would batter at his body. It was a good location to keep a prisoner in bondage for weeks.

Unfortunately, that prisoner was no longer there. The stone obelisk, carved into with the sigils of the Mistress of Torment, and of the rest of the Nihil of Malfeas, stood empty.

No. Not panic. Terror.

How was she going to explain this? How could she possibly beg for mercy from the merciless, when she hadn't even the faintest of ideas where to go to look for hi?

She had turned away to flee the cavern, and something struck her a blow on her left temple. She felt her knees turn to mud, and she slumped down to a kneel, groggily. Even now she could feel a nasty purple lump rising on her temple, and the whole world seemed... fuzzy.

Remarkable, she thought. Pain was such an exquisite thing to partake in, as well as it was to dole out.

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-05-28 00:44 EST
What else could he do?

It's a good thing Jodiah Ayreg didn't have a single bone in his body in which he would ever surrender.

Turning out of the corridor after the momentary lapse back into despair, he hefted the chain up, and took up the slack on the weighty iron anchor that once held him captive. He hurried back into the cavern, and pressed his body flat against the rocky surface of the wall. It hurt, but one more pain atop so many others was nothing to him now.

Footsteps. He heard them approaching, faster now; she must have caught the tracks he had made half-way up the corridor. Sucking in a deep breath through his nose, he dared not even breathe again until she had come in.

And there she was. In her haste, Adrianna De`Seis burst three steps into the cavern and stopped, skidding across the rough dirt floor. Her eyes were wide, near as he could tell, as she looked upon the obelisk, and her prisoner that was not there.

Jodiah smiled. Only this time it was a smile that did not warrant him further beatings or lashings.

Taking a step forward himself, he toed as silent as he was able with bare feet upon the filthy floor of the cave. Closer, then, another step. Another.

His first reaction was to release some kind of grunt of exertion. The chain was heavy by itself, and the anchoring loop made it doubly so, but to give away his position, to relinquish the surprise attack, would have opened up the doorway to his destruction.

The chain rattled once, but she didn't seem to notice. Extending out taut, with the heavy anchor on the far end of the chain, he brought his upper body around in a mighty swing, and forced his aching muscles to pull the chain up.

It was a move of desperation, in all honesty. A chain and an anchor make for a poor club, but if he aimed just right, if he timed it just right, it could work.

She turned. Directly into the path of the heavy loop. Pity that the long spike which held it firmly into the rock was not facing her, lest her head have been lanced and he would have been rid of her troubles. As it is, the side of the heavy iron loop collided squarely into her temple, and she collapsed to the ground like a house of cards in the face of a stiff wind.

If he had relinquished now, if he had turned and ran, he would have been a dead man. Got to keep at her, he thought, if she has time to recover, I'm finished.

He stepped forward in the wake of the chain falling to the earth, and lifted his foot sharply against her angular jaw. Her head snapped to the side again, rocking once on her shoulders, but she did not fall.

It didn't matter. She was stunned and down. It would be enough for him.

Throwing his arms up and over, he slung the chain over her head and then pulled back sharply, his raw hands gripping at the chains to pull them tight around her throat. With a knee pressed into her back, and the chain wrapped onto her neck, he pulled back even while pressing down. Her hands lifted, trying to pry away the chain, but even with as many hand-holds as she could have (and there plenty, comparing her dainty, womanly hands to the thick chains with which he choked her) it was a poor angle, and she had no position from which to draw leverage.

Jodiah pulled.

Jodiah pushed.

And in the end, he lurched harshly to the side, taking a great degree of satisfaction in the sharp cracking noise he heard. Her hands dropped to her sides, and he released the chains.

Adrianna De`Seis fell limply to the dirt floor of the cavern, raising a tiny cloud of dust and dirt around her prone body.

Spitting blood onto the floor of the cavern, Jodiah Ayreg turned and limped away. He was battered, he was aching, he was weary, and he was broken ? but he was alive.

Blessedly, gloriously, fantastically ? alive.

Adrianna DeSeis

Date: 2007-05-29 23:18 EST
It took a great deal of focus to summon the Saa and draw upon the power of the Nihil. While it would have made her all but unbeatable by Ayreg, a mere and lowly human now after the touch of the dark masters of Malfeas was burned out of him by Garen Corlagon with the power of Balefire, she had to be able to focus her will to do that.

And with her head feeling stuffed full of cotton, made only worse by the kick of Ayreg's calloused foot against her face, she couldn't draw that focus.

Adrianna De`Seis, called the Spider; she who wove the webs that snared kings and guilds in their grasp, had blindly stumbled headlong into the simple ambush set by the broken Jodiah Ayreg. Insult to injury, such as it was.

As she felt the chain wrap around her throat and tighten with every ounce of strength the man had left in his body, she could find no way to grasp it. Her world was still shaken, rocked by the sudden and surprisingly vicious attack. All he had to do was hold his position, and she would be dead in a matter of moments. Choked to death.

Insult to injury, indeed.

But when she felt him jerk her to the side, most likely to keep her off-balance, she felt -- and heard -- something else as well. The muscles in her neck, the bones themselves, perhaps, popped. It was just like cracking knuckles, really. While a lesser person might not have considered this much of a thing, De`Seis had been manipulating people for the whole of her considerable life.

True, while it had a remote chance of succeeding, she felt there was no other choice. She went limp as if the sound of her popping bones had actually been snapping bones.

And he, in his desperation, was convinced.

De`Seis slumped to the dirt and rock floor, holding her breath, while he stood slowly and watched her. Her lungs ached for air, with the need for air, but she kept them closed. When he had finally turned and walked out, she exhaled first and then drew in a sucking gasp of stale, hot air, coughing from the inhalation of dust so near the floor.

Slowly, she pulled herself up and shook her head to clear it. There was still a constant, irritating ringing in her left ear where he struck her with the chain's loop anchor, but she could push that away for now. Groaning once, she stumbled forward and blinked in the light of the tunnel. Yet even now the pain was lessening, and the ringing growing dim, and quieter.

Drawing her lips back in an almost-feral grin, De`Seis dropped her hand to her hip. Good. He hadn't even bothered to take her scimitar.

She drew it out of its leather sheath, listening to the beloved and familiar sound of sliding steel, and loped forward unsteadily. With every moment she regained her strength from his little surprise attack, and now she had the element of surprise. Ayreg, after all, thought she was dead.

The closer she made it to the tunnel exit, the louder something became. A kind of warble of some manner of great bird. She had asked a learned fellow in town about that harsh cry, and was informed it was some degree of very rare creature. She'd have to be sure to come back with a bow and arrows to deal with the pest after she killed Jodiah.

And now, thought she, as she exited the cave, The hunt is on.

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-06-01 23:57 EST
It's amazing, really, what the feel of freedom can do for a man's strength. Once he left the mouth of the cave, the cold air outside was a welcome comfort. Oh, sure, he had spent many of the spring weeks entombed inside the cavern, and it was summer now. Hot to everyone else, but compared to the oppressive atmosphere of the cave from which he came? This might as well have been a good autumnal day so far as Jodiah Ayreg was concerned.

From the cleared patch outside the cave, he could see he was looking south over the tree tops of the surrounding forest. Wherever he was, he was on... well, at the very least, it was hilly. Possibly mountainous, but he'd have to see more of his surroundings to come to that conclusion.

What interested him more, what he focused on immediately, was the sounds he could hear. Even from here, Rhy'Din City made a dull throb of noise just under the volume where one could easily hear it. Stone towers, steel buildings, and the imposing Red Dragon Keep he could make out against the skyline. He couldn't have been more than ten miles due north of Rhy'Din City. The whole time, so close!

So close by horse, anyway. With his newfound freedom also came the newfound glory of walking on a forest floor bare footed. Jodiah felt briers and other sharp things poke into his skin as he jogged forward, invigorated by the prospect of warm food, some of Panther's near-poisonous orc-swill ale. For the love of the light, clothes. Tree limbs, hanging low with the weight of growth and leaves, lashed at him as he moved through the thick and forested terrain.

Ahead of him, a clearing had been cut out of the forest, and standing within was a house. Civilization. Other people. It was a glorious sight. A man stood out front in short-sleeves and a leather jerkin, shaping wood on a turn-wheel with what appeared to be a stone lathe. He had heard of these people. Rustics, who shunned most of society and city life.

"Hoy, sir!" the man called as Ayreg entered his clearing, dragging the heavy iron chains in his wake. "Are you alright?"

The novelty of the question stunned him. "Do I bloody well look alright to you, you lummox?" Perhaps just for effect, the bloodied and tormented Ayreg lifted his arms to shake the chains at him.

The man dropped the lathe to his side, and stopped working the pedals on the turn-wheel. He stared at Jodiah as he trotted by, rising up to his feet. From the door of the house, a woman left and walked down the steps to approach her husband, an infant wrapped in swaddling within her arms.

"Quickly, goodman, do you have anything that can cut chains? A good axe? A bloody, flaming lockpick, for all that's worth?"

"That I do, mate," said the man, waving his woman off, "but not for the likes of you. Whatever slaver you be running from would'na take it too kindly for me ta' help ya' out, and would'na be appreciatin' me much for me troubles."

"Then I've no time or use for you, man. Begone from my way, the both of you!" And he lurched forward, continuing his trot toward Rhy'Din City. Freedom might have given him strength to will himself to move, but honesty before the light, it felt as if his legs were going to fall off just anytime now.

"As ye wish, Master Nude!" he heard the woman cry after him, and the two of them were actually laughing.

Right up until the fifthtt of a loosed arrow screamed into the clearing from the treeline behind them.

Adrianna DeSeis

Date: 2007-06-02 22:54 EST
Adrianna De`Seis had no sooner released the first arrow when she had already drawn another and was nocking it to the bowstring. In the field of her vision, the arrow had taken the man Ayreg had been speaking to in the throat, and even as his hands shot up to his neck, a six-foot spout of blood erupted like a geyser under pressure, spraying outward in a grotesque display of carnage. The second arrow was fitted and aimed. She felt the fletchings brush her cheek as she loosed it, and it struck home in the throat of the woman, who crumpled to the ground, dead in the same instant. The babe in her arms began to wail in pain and displeasure as it fell to the dirt in front of the steps, but the father, who was still thrashing out the last of his life before dying, could do nothing for it.

Another arrow was lifted and aimed, but Ayreg had already half-run, half-stumbled back behind a copse of trees on the other side of the clearing. Adrianna sneered and stalked forward, lowering the bow but keeping the arrow at the ready.

The baby's cries were incessant, and bothersome. She stalked forward, ignoring its screamed-out pleas in pursuit of Jodiah. A flash of bare skin through the thick foliage, and she lifted the bow to fire.

fifthtt

The arrow vanished in the blink of an eye, engulfed by green. Had it been the heart of winter, this would have been an easier task. The warmth of summer, however, has given new life to the trees and thickets, compounding the problem she had in getting a clear shot. It mattered not ? he was wounded and vulnerable. If he wanted to be tracked down like some kind of deer, then she was the all-too-willing hunter. Her foot hit something a little less solid than the ground she had been expecting, and with the sickening crunch and an even more disgusting squish, the baby's screaming came to an abrupt end.

Adrianna De`Seis did not even break stride.

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-06-03 23:00 EST
The arrow came out of the bushes like a brown bolt of lightning. He never had a chance to even so much as turn to avoid it. One minute, the heavy layer of foliage was ripping and tearing from the arrow-head piercing through it, and the next pain blossomed in his mind fresh again. He was only absently aware of the fact that his left arm had been run through by the arrow, and even more absently aware of the arrow head dripping blood on the underside of his arm. Buried almost half-way up the shaft of the arrow, he calmly thanked his good fortunes.

Jodiah Ayreg was a soldier. He knew the ways of war. In war, people were injured. There were worse ways to be struck by an arrow, such as through the chest or stomach, with it being buried only head-deep. At least now he'd be able to break off the fletchings and just pull the rest of the shaft through the wound. It'd hurt, but so many other things do.

He blinked, and realized that he hadn't moved a muscle since the arrow shot through his arm. It'd be something to worry about later. Turning on his heel, he tried to run again, putting as much distance between him and De`Seis as he could. The weight of the chains felt heavier now, and he knew it was because of the shredded muscles in his arm being somewhat less-than-useful. It was a fine shot, to be sure. Adrianna De`Seis might look soft, but if you peeled away her armor it was quickly determined that the woman had a hide made of metal, and a mind made for battle, with all of the appropriate skills to match.

Branches whipped at his body again as he ran through the dense forest, but he no longer had the spires of Rhy'Din City to guide his way. He could be moving back toward the cave for all he knew. The one thing he did know, however, was that one of the most vicious agents of the Nihil was hot on his heels.

The trees gave way in his stride, and Jodiah stopped his flight. Desperation hung like a heavy cowl across his heart, and that sinking feeling of despair came over him again. He recognized where he was at.

It was a drop of perhaps twenty spans, with a sheer cliff face leading down to crashing waves. East or west, he wasn't exactly sure? east, it'd have to be; there was construction of Rhy'Din City's urban sprawl this far north along the western coast.

No good. Turning off to the right, he knew it would be south. It was made even more apparent that it was, in fact, south when he saw the pierce of a dock extending from a home that he was almost sure was Shin'Ka, on the extreme north-eastern side of Rhy'Din City.

fifthtt

He leaped back as another brown bolt of death shot in front of him. Two more paces and he'd have been skewered through the ribs. Panic welled up just as quickly as he forced it down, and he spun around to run in the other direction.

fifthtt

Another shot. This one seemed too far ahead of him. Adrianna De`Seis didn't want to just kill him. She wanted him to know he was a hunted beast. Perhaps, he mused somewhere in the back of his mind, she wanted him to be able to see her face as she launched a final arrow into his heart.

Opening his aching fingers, Jodiah dropped the heavy iron chain and the looped anchor to the ground. His hand wrapped around the shaft of the arrow protruding through his arm, and broke it off with a sharp twist of his wrist. It pulled at the sinew in his arm, but it just didn't hurt enough for him to acknowledge it. Somewhere in his head, he thought that fact... kind of sad.

As he pulled the arrow from his body through the wound, Adrianna De`Seis stepped out from behind a tree, arrow drawn and against her cheek, with a cold smile pulling her lips up.

Jodiah Ayreg smiled back.

Adrianna DeSeis

Date: 2007-06-05 22:30 EST
Two arrows had cornered Jodiah Ayreg onto the side of the cliff like a bear without a cave to slink into. She had expected him to rush at her, to give one final attempt at raging against what had to be. She had expected him not to give up.

When she presented herself from the treeline, she had already had the arrow drawn and readied. All she had to do was release, and it would sail directly into his heart. She could have killed him without doing it, yes, but it would have been far, far more satisfying to see the look on his face when the arrow pierced through his ribs.

She had played it out in her mind already, as if it had already happened. She would give him a cold smile. A smile to let him know that she was in total control over his fate. That the Nihil, the eternal will of the shadow whom he turned away from, whom he blasphemed against, had honored her with the title of his executioner. There was nothing else he could do. Nowhere else for him to run. She would let him try it, too. Let him take two, perhaps three, steps toward her before she would loose the arrow straight into his heart, and then sit on him to watch what was left of his life drain out of his face. To watch his skin grow pale, and cold.

And then she would sacrifice his body in a pyre large enough to be seen in Rhy'Din City from miles away.

The first thing that let her know that it wasn't going to go exactly as she had planned was when the bastard dropped his burden, and pulled the first arrow out of his arm.

And then he smiled back at her.

There were no words.

The rustle of grass.

A twig breaks.

Breathing.

The leaves moved.

A flight of birds took to the trees amid a cacophony of cries.

An arrow took flight.

She couldn't believe it. Adrianna De`Seis rushed forward, drawing another arrow out of her quiver even before the first one finished it's vain flight through the air to slash into the ocean below. Pebbles fell forward under the momentum of her stride, skidding to a stop on the dry grass. They fell, crackling softly against the stone face of the sheer cliff on their descent to the waves crashing upon the rocks beneath.

The bastard had smiled at her. And then he jumped.

Lord Ayreg

Date: 2007-06-06 00:00 EST
It was like he was flying.

Jodiah Ayreg leapt out over the side of the cliff, twisting his body as he did so. He felt the zip of the arrow fletchings scream by his bare chest, but at least it didn't find a place to rest in his vulnerable skin.

Time seemed to slow down. It was almost like a dream. Like the thin membrane of a dream atop memory.

Flying became floating.

Momentum ceased. He hung there, suspended in the infinite expanse of air, baptized in the oceans of the sky.

Floating became falling.

The twist continued, and he felt gravity's effects upon his body change as his body contorted around. Legs facing down. Air, that had mere seconds ago welcomed him into an embrace, and held him aloft to be stroked by the rays of the sun, screamed by him now. Along cuts and sores, over aches and any of a sundry number of pains inflicted upon him. The air felt like ice in those wounds, old and fresh.

He fell.

Images flickered into his mind. Images of fire, images of destruction, images of him taking back what was his. There were images of his birth and fall and rebirth, images of great sadness, images of pain, and images of joy. Images of him laughing over a pint of ale, and images of him weeping silently into his palms. Images of women, of lovers, of friends, of enemies. Images of battle, and of conquest. Images of defeat. Images of victory. So many images.

He fell.

A drow with eyes of burning gold.

He fell.

A wraithly priestess, with a crown.

He fell.

An elf upon an iron horse.

He fell.

A human in armor, with a knife.

He fell.

A hammer, an anvil, and a block of steel.

He fell.

A sword, crafted from a blade of ice.

He fell.

A horse, black as sin, with eyes the color of blood.

He fell.

A bolt of green hair, and warm arms to accept him.

And then he stopped.

Jodiah Ayreg exploded into the water, and it felt like he hit solid ground. Shoulder-first, his legs instantly snapped down to lay him flat from one half of his body's sudden loss of momentum. The salt in the water poured into his open wounds. He felt like he was in his forge again, with someone working the billows.

Melted. Dripping in metal and flame.

A thousand tiny needles prickling through every part of his body at the same time. He wanted to scream, but there was no air in his lungs. His chest burned, even as his arms and legs thrashed. Or tried to. He couldn't tell if they were or not. Pierced by shards like spit from stars, he burned.

The water was dark.

Bubbles.

He couldn't see.

He couldn't speak.

He couldn't cry out.

He couldn't move his body.

The water moved him. He knew, rather than really feeling, his body being pounded by the waves this close to the rocky shoals at the base of the cliff. He wouldn't give up. He wouldn't surrender. He pushed. He pulled.

He fought against a wet enemy. His latest in a long string of foes. The mighty ocean. He could move again, though. Jodiah Ayreg's head broke the surface, and he took in a mighty gulp of air just when the current sucked him back underneath the water, and then toppled him forward in a roll.

He fought. And he lost.

He couldn't match the strength of the water, not in his present condition. Jodiah kicked his legs with every last ounce of strength he had, but the molten burn of the salt water kept his legs locked.

He... felt something.

Another wave. It scooped his body up, and threw him forward, smashing the back of his head on one of the rocks at the base of the cliff.

And then all was black.