The Necromancer's Pact: Private Conversations

[Dr._Bob]

Nothing happens.

Lumpy looks down at the ring, a curse on his lips ...

""... or she dies!" someone shouts.

Lumpy's view is obscured by a pair of huge white wings. Shouts and the unmistakable sounds of battle swirl around him.


OOC: OK to post back in the main IC thread. Lumpy stands behind Tiriel, as yet unnoticed ...

[Dr._Bob]

Elthan

For half a hearbeat, Elthan feels the expansion of the air before the fireball and, too late, realizes what Callos' warning meant. The pain is intense, but mercifully brief, as his body is incinerated.

Elthan stands, puzzled, over his body - or what is left of it after the meteor storm.

The pulsations from the orb create ripples in his vision, and he is only vaguely aware of what is going on around him as his companions continue to battle the vrock and the dragon wyrmlings.

As his gaze sweeps across the spiral, he sees two figures within the spiral, one looks vaguely familiar ...


Callos

Already weakened, Callos is unable to withstand the combined assault from the chromatic wyrmlings. That's not nice ... is his last thought as he dies.

The battle swirls on around him, as the dragons move on to battle his living companions.

Callos finds death entirely anticlimactic and disappointing. Boring even. He watches the berserker and Lumpy begin to trade blows, noting an elderly man standing just behind the Rashemi warrior. The old man is bald and cachectic. His clawlike hands twitch as his fingers direct the berserker's every move, like a puppeteer controlling a marionette.

The old man turns his head to look at Callos. Between his open eyelids is nothing but pure blackness.

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

The full extent of having died does not enter Elthan's mind at first. It is always one thing for a being to contemplate dying, it is another experience to contemplate being in that state. As it so goes, true test of life are put on hold as the ripples grab his attention; Reality did not shake just a moment ago, and so it worried him all the more. Cautiously, he moved closer towards the spiral, attempting to identify the two standing within, particularly the one familiar to him.

[Dr._Bob]

As Elthan moves closer to the spiral, he sees that the "teeth" above and below are almost touching, but he has no trouble passing between, or perhaps through, the stone pillars.

The pulsations continue, rocking his "body" as he moves, his feet barely brushing the ground.

Both figures have neither pupils nor irises - only total blackness where their eyes should have been.

One figure is little more than a skeleton; yet Elthan recognizes him, like a memory he had almost forgotten - "Callos," he whispers to himself.

The other figure is unknown to him.

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Elthan reaches forward and takes a hold of Callos's spectral hand, hoping to catch his etheral attention. "Callos... Are you dead? Are we dead? Can we be sure of this? Even so, is there something we can do?" His mind is flooded with questions with how to deal with what has happened, and further still with what to do with himself. Last he recalled, things were not so good for reality.

"If we are in this state, perhaps we can find and destroy Sethra's spirit? This might be where he resides! Come, we must do something, quickly." The other apparition beside him quickly goes to the back of his mind...

[Callos_DeTerran]

Callos

This is death? I thought it'd be so much more...fiery.

That was the first thought he had received upon discovering his...post-humous status. The wyrmlings had caught him by surprise, surely, but that didn't mean that he had a deep feeling of pride at what he had accomplished. However briefly he had managed to actually slay a demigod!

It didn't last long though. He was dead. He couldn't help destroy Sethra..could he? The old man seemed...familiar in some ways but completely alien in others. Those empty un-nerving eyes and the way he seemed to puppet the actions of the beserker. Could it be...?

"You..." Comes the deep growl, welling up from within as his mind picked and analyzed at what he saw. Just what was Sethra doing and how? Could he interrupt it? Could he even still cast magic in this place? Maybe it didn't matter though. While he tried to determine just...what he could do in a state like this, and what the old man was doing, the necromancer spirit waded towards the eyeless old man and reared back his arm to aim a sharp left hook at his jaw.

Spoiler

Show

Religion: (1d20+17)[33]
Spellcraft: (1d20+12)[13]
Unarmed Strike: (1d20+3)[18]
Damage:(1d6)[1]

[Dr._Bob]

Callos' fist passes right through the man's head. With each pulsation of the orb, the figures ripple and waver, like reflections in a pond.

Elthan is there, his eyes black as endless night. His lips move, but Callos has to strain to decipher his words.

The old man smiles to himself as he continues to manipulate the berserker.

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Elthans black, featureless eyes narrow down on Callos as he opens his mouth and shouts angrily, "Callos you fool! What are you doing throwing punches? You're a damned wizard!" As if to perfectly demonstrate his point, Elthan raises right hand and draws to it the dark magical energies that had become familiar to him. With a simple outward breath, he releases it as four concurrent bolts of raw energy at the old man beside Callos.

Spoiler

Show

Casting Chain Missile
Force Damage
(4d4+4)[13]

[Dr._Bob]

The old man laughs as he is engulfed by Elthan's chain lightning.

"What do you hope to do, Elthan? Kill me?

"Let it go, my young brother. The orb is shattering and your suffering will soon be at an end.

"Watch with me as the old world dies and a new one is born to take its place!"

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Elthan crosses his arms indignantly and refuses to look directly at Sethra, instead watching the pillars and the glowing orb. "Killing you would certainly be a start. What I'm wondering at this moment though is what on Toril compels you to believe you'll be there to see any new world? Maybe I can't kill you, but this plan clearly will. Once this plane goes, I doubt you'll have anywhere to stand smugly."

[Dr._Bob]

Elthan hears the words again, not in Sheyra's voice this time, but in the gravelly voice of the old man: The very threads of existence must be torn asunder, then burned, then the ashes scattered, until all is nothing and no one exists to remember existence ...

The old man turns his black within black eyes onto the half-elf.

"What was it exactly that you were fighting to save? A world of good? An existence where your friends despise you?" The old man nods towards Callos, "A society where someone different is feared and mistrusted simply because of his appearance?"

"There is no place in this world for the likes of you and me, brother. The old ways and the old gods have been forgotten or ignored ...

"But, no day or summer lasts forever. Night and winter inevitably must follow ...

"Let the darkness fall. Let the slate be erased. Let the Seal be broken ..."

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

"How exactly would your world be any better?", the sorcerer scoffs. "If it is a world of good your looking for, go to a damned plane of positive energy and have your head explode into flowers. This is the material plane, it's full of all things, good and bad. Perhaps things have happened that I wouldn't want, but that's just life. Perhaps my friends despise me now, but they won't forever. Regardless of whatever they think, I like this world. Why don't you?"

[Dr._Bob]

The old man smiles sadly at Elthan.

"You have no imagination, Moonshadow.

"This world is fundamentally unbalanced, an obscenity, where those who choose a different path to enlightenment are shunned, banned or driven underground into the shadows. Must we accept it as is?

"As even children know, where there is light, there must be darkness. Who would want a day without a night?

"Are only children of Corellon, Gond, Baravar, Chauntea, and Moradin allowed to walk the world freely? Must the rest of us hide like rats?

"Where is your place in this world? Where is mine?

"You see so little, blinded by your anger and shame. You swim in sewage and call it a sacred pool. You choke on filth and pronounce it more than good enough!

"All I seek is balance ... a fresh start. Why should any of you stand in my way?"

[Callos_DeTerran]

Callos

"Because your cost, your methods, taint the very goal your trying to accomplish." Callos growls out, eyes flashing in this shadowy twilight world that they now inhabited. Everything about this old man, everything, was gnawing at all that he was as an abomination and a twisted shadow to be destroyed.

"Change the world? What gives you the right to decide? What makes your judgment any better then that of the gods who oppose you, the people who oppose you? Do you even know what it is to be alive anymore Sethra?" He spits, trembling with impotent rage. "You are naught but an ancient shadow who with delusions of enlightment, and because of that you'd kill countless people!"

[Dr._Bob]

"Everyone dies, brother. Surely we of all people know this.

"In any case, I am merely a humble servant, charged with bringing together the old and forgotten gods for a common purpose - not merely to change the world - but to replace it entirely with an altogether more balanced reality.

"Who are we to stand in the way of the will of the gods?"

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Elthan stood in silence as he watched his friends from another plane. He would die once more to say something in response to Sethra, to point out that multiple gods where working for and against this argument, that Sethra wasn't a god, or anything of that type, But does it really matter?

There's nothing at all I can say that will make him change his mind and abandon his plans to destroy the world at this stage, is there? I certainly thought so before, though that ended in failure. Perhaps I just went about it in a stupid manner then?

The assumption that his nature cannot change is most likely true, I think I have some proof of that through other examples... Though, while I cannot change him, are his plans still immutable? Could there be a chance to redirect him in some other direction? What if his observations are correct, and not merely marred with disgust of other who showed him the same? What if the world is not balanced, and in the end does deny others... happiness? For some reason that argument does not feel correct.

No, his argument is not correct. The world is balanced, almost perfectly balanced. It is a fact that is easily supported; the measurements of the energies of the universe can prove so. So then where does his view of inbalance stem from?

One eye watching his companions, Elthan opens his mouth once more in diagnosis. "The problem is not an imbalance of the world Sethra. You are a necromancer, a wizard, a mage; You should know it is nothing less than fact that cosmically, there is nothing wrong with the balance of Toril. No energy, positive or negative, bound or unbound, is in excess of the other.

"Your view of an inbalanced world does not define the world as that beneath our feet. Rather, you are defining it by it's inhabitants and their actions as you have experienced with some sects of them. You have made a judgement too soon; You're sample was confined, and not representative of all. Think now of the army of drow and demons that accompanied you here; Do they not outnumber all in their way? What do they think of your ways? Would they shun you like the city above they attack? Does that evidence not display the balance you wish to see? You're perception is narrow."

Elthan stops and looks upon the magic sphere, watching as the pillar consumes it; His companions have succeeded in locking it away. He breaks a small smile. "I'm under the impression your plan has failed here Sethra. Would it not be too late to collaborate? You've expressed your concerns, and I have felt moved enough to think a bit more of you than before. We could work together, try to find a balance of the people in this world. Even having chased you, even hating you, I make the offer. I would work with you for a balanced world where the likes of us three and others would not be persecuted for our profession or choices. I do not agree with the destruction of this plane, but with some discussion between us, I feel we could come up with a much simpler solution."

[Dr._Bob]

The old man watches as the spiral is re-sealed, shaking his head in disappointment. He turns his face upward toward the shattering crystal sphere.

"There was balance once, Elthan - a time of shadows when neither light nor darkness prevailed, and all was timeless oblivion.

"But during the war of light and darkness, it was the darkness that was driven back, contained and smothered, leaving a world that favors only the light. Can you truly call that balanced?

"But what was once created can never really be destroyed. It was my hope that all that was stripped from this reality could be restored once again, bringing this creation back into true balance ... as it was originally intended to be."

The old man shrugs with resignation. "But instead, it would appear that the dichotomy will hold. And the world will go on as is. No doubt your gods will be greatly pleased."

The old man turns his face toward the sphere as the crystal shatters, spotting Khazrael with the kris. "Now what is that fool ..."

The central chamber is filled with a blinding white light.

[Koji]

Kazz
Asleep near the forge.

I stand in a dirty plaza nestled in an empty metropolis. Towers of stone with hastily-built tents and shanties around their bases hem me in on every side, but here and there are narrow streets and claustrophobic alleyways. I am alone, the streets are empty and I do not know them.

I start to wander, hoping to find my bearings. Occasionally, gaping doorways or yawning windows beckon to me, but within I see only darkness. Even the sky is hidden away from me behind a thick bank of slate and umber clouds. There is little color here.

I tire. I steady myself against a crumbling archway and sigh.

[Koji]

Kazz
Asleep in the entry hall.

I find myself climbing a stairway that runs along the outside of a ruined building. This is not the first time I have tried to see things from a higher vantage point, and I strongly suspect it won't be the last.

Atop the building now, the city stretches away in an endless vista of shattered landscape on all sides. A flickering shape on the ochre horizon almost goes unnoticed, but then I do a double-take--a black bird, who knows how far away, wheels against the empty sky. It's the first living thing I have seen here, and breathlessly, I cry out to it.