A Land Far Away

Shame, he had never felt shame before, it was something the body had accepted many times in his absence but the soul had never felt it once. The soul had been proud, it had lived a thousand times longer than the mortal body it now occupied.

Mortal bodies were simply that, ignorant, short lived and incredibly selfish. He had given again and again and now he was spoken down to, treated as if he was a traitor, when he was one of the few who had been loyal to the end.

For it was the end, he had done nothing but wait for so long now, so long he couldn't remember the last time he achieved anything, so long all the others had died, left or become traitors to another god. The mundane walk of the road and the constant hiding were achieving nothing.

He could bear it when there was something to fight for but now he was forced to be everything he had never been, forced towards a path that was not what he was supposed to be and ignore what was his duty. He had been better before, when he served her and not those who had been corrupted by their own power on the prime.

Kail wasn't sure what made him wander into the sword mountains, he wasn't sure why he moved silently past the ettins and hill giants.

They were big but they weren't big enough. There was something he was heading for but his mind hid it from him.

Familiar rocks, familiar mountains he passed, the lava roared and poured out of the hillside and down into the glowing red lake. He walked through the heat, the poisonous fumes made his dark fiendish black armour oily and even more alien looking that it had ever been.

Kail’s hand ran along the wall, fingertips bouncing across the rock surface until he felt it. He looked left and saw the impression he had just touched. Strange dwarven runes but unlike those that he saw within the lost temples of dwarves and their kin back in the Delimbyr

He pushed and the stone moved, it turned and so did he, passing into the dark embrace of the mountain.

The Azur guard startled. "Hold! What do you seek here?"

Kail thought on it for a second, he tapped the chin of his helmet.

"Are you seeking to trade or perhaps help us with our problem?"

Kail stepped forward. "Your problem?"

"Yes the Xorn's, they have infested the mines...."

She continued to rattle on about the Xorns but Kail's mind was not on her words anymore.

He walked on through the doors, into the Azur stronghold, he walked down familiar halls, dark, lit only by the light of the lava, further, deeper beyond the halls.

He remembered this place, this place from long ago one of his greatest losses came from here and one of his worst memories. He remembered his elven friend fall, he remembered the terrible moment he found Amelor's soul would not return.

He turned his head to look at the mines, next thing he knew he had entered the mines, why? He did not know, he was drawn, he couldn't know why, he kept it from himself.

He kept it from himself until the moment he saw it.

It came from the darkness like a beast from the depths of Baator itself. The biggest Elder Xorn he had ever seen. He turned, terror in his heart knowing what his soul was driving him to, he ran, stopped and turned. He threw an axe. It bounced from the things shell without even scratching it.

And then it was upon him.

A huge boulder like body thrust itself at him, heat like that of lava itself scorched at him. He dived and rolled, he dodged the mighty downward sweeps of the creatures burning nose. It tried again and again to floor him.

The blade, the image of the blade he'd crafted in the void, it swung through the air cutting deep into the Xorn, Molten rock poured out over the ground.

Kail rotated the blade, swept low with his frame and cut upwards into the beast again.

It roared with anger beating down upon him. He fell, hitting the ground hard. It felt good, all the pains of his life were forgotten, all he knew was the sheer fear of the end. It beat down again and again, his shield taking the brunt of the attack, good solid Thayan construction. It was a good shield, it had served him well.

He rolled sideways and came to his feet again, cutting up as he did so, again the Xorn screamed, roaring it's hate at Kail.

It came in at him a last time, he stood this time fearless, knowing that what he wanted would come.

Kail watched as his body fell, He stood in the dark just far enough away to watch as the Xorn tore through his armour and ripped into the body within, rolling it about like a defenceless worm in dust of the rocky tunnel floor.

Kail watched thinking, why had he returned? He had no idea. Perhaps he hoped his body could have achieved something, perhaps his soul felt that it was duty bound to aid those he knew. He felt betrayed by the church though. They thought him a slave and yet he was a master. He did not have to suffer their pettiness for his own sake.

The fiend spread his wings, Black demon wings that he had done without during his return to his physical form. He reached down and picked up the blade, the soul of the blade he had never obtained, forged in the void by a desperate soul.

He could not pass it on to his heir, but neither had his father to him. This battle would be fought by another soul.

They were better like this, like this they could do what had to be done without being dragged into the petty affairs of mortals.

Kail watched as the Xorn dragged his body up into the Avers home followed by the screams of fear and sounds of battle that ensued.

The door to the mine knocked closed again and he stood still in the darkness, only the faint red glow of his eyes and the blade in his hand. He stroked it with his dark talons. It was pure, it was all he had left. As soon as he was ready he would take it back to it's physical body and make it whole again.

He would leave it lost once more, for his heirs to find, for the one who would make amends for his and his father’s failings.

Kail’s wings beat down and he passed once again into the plane of shadows. Deeper and deeper he soared through the dark, into the underworld. Deeper and deeper, where dark magic grew and the prime came closer to the shadow than anywhere else.

In a dark city far from the surface, a young half drow slave stirred in his sleep. Scars covered his body, the marks of a whipping, fang marks and surgical wounds. Sorrow filled his soul and despair tore his heart. But for a moment in his dreams something cruel told him he was important.

For a moment in his dreams all was still and the world became empty but for a single presence, a single terrible presence that wanted him. Fear made his heart beat hard in his sleeping chest, palpitations that would wake him if the thing in his mind didn't have such a terrible hold on him in this dark dream.

The fiend looked back at him raising it's blade and pointing it right at him.

If his hand he found a copy of the blade, Solid, different somehow to the fiends own. He stood looking back at into it's red eyes, stood looking back at what he knew would in the end become him too.

Something made him lash out and in the dark of his mind he met his past and his future, as they locked blades, in his mind he became more then just a slave. He was being taught, shown the way.

Locked in his mind forever, a link to an eternal darkness and place where he would fight one on one with this fiend, He would see this scene every time he slept, every time he closed his eyes for even a moment.

Locked in his mind forever came an ideology. He became somebody's son.

Dumah awoke startled. Sadness filled his heart. Something about this life now bit at him. He had accepted what he was long ago, but now a promise filled him. A terrible promise that he could be saved. He looked around in the dark of his prison, he feared the drow and their spiders no more.

There was something beyond them, the very darkness itself.

And another one bites the dust.

Well, I was privy to some of his journey. A shame it ended that way.

I'm glad I could be part of the trail for some time. Beautifully written mate.

What the...
We were not done yet... *sighs*

You told and lived an interesting story,
thank you for letting me be a part in some of it.

/FF

Nice way to end it man. Enjoyed my time bulling Kail around Well played mate and good luck with the newb

Awwwwwwwwwwww

But I like the ending.

I hadn't really thought about what i was doing. Kinda got shoved in an uncomfortable place IG, i went a little crazy.

Though i have to say, i knew i did the right thing the minute i hit the morgue. I felt a huge amount of relief which is odd. My subconcious just took me there. It was time really.

I feel bad cos there were a huge amount of things IG had to be done with my character, but end of the day none of them were actually happening, just things that seemed OOC for me and against Kail's concept for him to be hanging around for.

Situation became manufactured that mean't he was trapped and i think without conciously intending to I did sort of make this happen.

Sorry to the PC's this affects in a negative way and good luck to the ones that this makes life easier for.

I had great fun playing this character for a long long time and out lived many of those who were his allies and friends in the church of Shar.

I may not make another PC until NWN2 comes out. Perhaps i might just be around for a bit with a solid focus on DMing for now. Don't wanna sound like a total PGer but after Kail, the concept of being level 1 again is just unthinkable right now.

"There he goes... You served our goddess better then us.


- Jonah & Evan"

An eerie silence filled the peaks of the Sword Mountains. The sun has risen in the east melting the dew upon the rocky tops and setting flowers open in their lofty abodes.

Down low, low where the sun had not yet reached the twilight still loomed. An eerie time, this place knew only daylight for a few hours of the day when the sun rose to it's zenith.

Here the ugly things walked, ogres, trolls, ettins, giants of the hills and mountains. Here they roamed, here they lived their violent and miserable lives, lives that for millennia had shaped and crafted their races apart from the orcs and goblins. Hardships and brutalities that had spawned races 20 foot tall and 8 foot wide, hideously over muscled and with lives so deprived of interest and mental stimulation that only the most stupid and brute strong could ever bear to survive.

.........................................................................................................


Upon the wreck of a broken air ship a raven pecked at a small chainmail gauntlet, caught up on the highest point of a great slanted mast. The bird's attention was not yet upon the gathering of it's brothers in the sky above.

A dark blot cast in storm clouds lit by the rising sun.

Before long the caws and cries of the crows were enough to make it look up, to make it notice.

A flit of it's wings and the raven was off on the journey to join the great funeral in the sky.

.........................................................................................................


Lava swirled and ran from the rocks. The cold night air had set it's surface hard in places, now in the warmth of the day, the fury of the fire beneath, fought back, cracking the surface. Lumps of new rocks spat and lunged from the pools and lakes of molten ore, noxious gases flowed like rivers out over the canyons beyond.

Nearby, close to the lava, the mountain side moved. Only a speck in the great side of the infinity of this place, near a fallen ruin of some old settlement. A door opened and several dwarven folk poured out of the mountain into the open, driven from their home by some chaos within. From their shoulders and backs, flames roared manes of fire.

The Azers were in turmoil, screams of a giant Xorn, echoed through the valley, but there was nothing here to hear them, not in this place of fire, perhaps only the birds in the sky.

Perhaps only the ravens, that swirled and grouped above.

In their panic none noticed the ravens until they came, hundreds poured through the valley through he clouds of steam and over the rocky islands upon the lake of lava. A wave of blackness swept by and lanced forth through the gateway to the Azer abode below.

..........................................................................................................


Back inside the mountain, Azer bodies lay scattered around the entrance to the mine. The great beast thrashed away at the chains that had been thrown over it. It's great fiery nose bashed down severing the attempts to hold it down.

Magical energies flung forth from a mage, punishing the beasts shell but simply angering it further.

An axe wrought of flame pounded hard upon the Xorn before the brave warrior wielding it was thrown back into the ornate stonework of the wall behind. The Azer ranks began to falter, their mage ripped healing scrolls from her belt trying to save those on the floor, but things were taking a turn for the worse. The great stone door of the mines thumped with the sound of other Xorns behind it, those coming to aid their Elder.

As she cast her last scroll the mage turned to drag the body of one she knew, away from the scene, but there upon his chest sat a single raven. She gasped in surprise, her white hot glowing eyes looked through the flames at the bird of ashes, then beyond to the wave of darkness that followed.

All about, the ravens swirled and turned, culminating into a whirlwind of black. Change crept upon the chaos until with a burst of black tendrils the birds came forth into the figure of a walking fiend.

From it's back, great wings of darkness erupted and at it's side hands, or maybe talons, long dark talons of pure shadow, swept out knocking her aside.

The beast’s clawed feet split the tiled floor as it stepped by her face and on towards the Elder Xorn. It stood still for a second, a second that seemed an eternity as the Xorn rose up over the dark shape.

The Xorns great roar was deafening, a bellow of flame and noxious gas from within the creature, a battle cry directed towards what it saw as a mere duplicate of what it had killed moments before.

It's cry was nothing, nothing compared to the abyssal scream of Abgaziel. In comparison the xorn seemed a whimpering kobold.

A talon lashed out throwing the body of the beast back through the mine door. Rock and metal twisted and splintered. The fiend moved in, seeming to jump the gap on it's enemy in a twisting mist of shadows. Two clawed fists cut deep guages into the creature’s torso. Other Xorns scattered and fell all around from the implosion of the door.

Abgaziel stood in the dark of the mine looking out over the Xorns. Time passed faster here then he was used to. He watched the forms of the alien creatures correct and right themselves and the Elder in front of him twist and squirm in pain.

His arms flung wide as he chanted a prayer in abyssal, his scales moved and unlocked in places, dark muscles rippled beneath as he grew in size.

Two fists punched forth, together, pounding down the Elder Xorn and cracking it's stone shell. Abgaziel's wings beat out holding him firm as he punched.

From the dark tunnels to the right, other Xorns were flung and cut asunder by the approach of a tall, dark blue Vrock. To the left a similar sight, as a hideous doom knight armoured in flesh and bones, cut through several with a gigantic sword.

Abgaziel looked down upon the broken body of his son. He turned and looked back upon the tool of Kail's demise. Behind the terrible face of his fiendish helm, eyes welled in fury as he lunged forward mercilessly rending the Elder Xorn apart piece by piece until nothing but rubble and the peaceful silence of victory remained.

An Azer face peered through the door upon the trio, quickly and wisely withdrawn back where it came from.

"Where is he?" echoed the grim, undead voice of the Doom knight.

Abgaziel’s reply didn't come, for he had no answer. His eyes scanned the halls, looking deep into another plane, searching for a figure resembling his own.

Kail had plans. He was not ready yet.