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#Post#: 366--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: Dathous Date: July 30, 2018, 11:57 am
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Tamlan’s head snaps up from the game board excitedly with the
first telling of secrets, a brief glimmer of emerald streaking
across his eyes. “The game begins at last! And such tasty
morsels to start us off.” He hops from his seated position,
landing in a crouch with his hands planted on the ground between
his legs, and focuses on Kiran.
“A merchants daughter? How interesting. I do hope to hear more
as the game progresses. Now... Am I a creature from another
world?” He pauses dramatically, taking the time to look to
everyone. “From? No. I am decidedly of this realm. Born from
simple scholars and raised to be the same. But I have travelled
other worlds, and they do tend to leave their marks.” He lets
his last words hang for a few moments before turning to Hexor
and springing to his feet.
“Murder in the family. Not nearly as surprising, but a worthy
addition to the game. So, what do I intend to do now? Well I
find myself in a unique situation that I never accounted for.
Clear of mind and free to choose. This is foriegn to me, but the
answer is simple. I intend to tear the fabric of reality and
alter time itself!” He finishes his statement with a flourish of
his arms. “There’s an uncountable number of ways it could go
wrong, and will most certainly end in disaster...” You wait for
the ‘but’ to come, but after a few moments of him just smiling
in silence, you realize that was just the end of his statement.
“Well let’s not end the game there.” He spins around, beckoning
to everyone. “There’s so much more to tell!”
#Post#: 368--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: Rojosama Date: July 30, 2018, 12:35 pm
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Hexor ponders this information for a moment, seeming to weigh
some inner choice.
"There is only one real question I want to know, that I want
answered, and it is two fold. What are the circumstances that
caused you to trigger your failsafe from you as-you-are into
Gemflower as-we-knew-him, and what caused you to be chained to
the cave wall where we found you?"
He draws his blades, resting them across his knees.
"These blade hold secrets of their own. They were once wielded
by the Eversun twins, the very same twins that ended the war so
long ago and had the Accords named after them. During that
fight, the blades were damaged when their wielders were killed.
Since then the Enemy has rightly feared them and locked them
away, far from their own lands, where they might once again
spill immortal blood. In time, due to his nature, the Knight
tasked with guarding these artifacts grew bored then disgusted
with his duty and abandoned them, casuing them to become
corrupted. These blades were forged and wielded with one purpose
. . .," He pauses to stare right at Tamlan, eyes flaring with
blue power.
"To kill the Fae, the long forgotten enemy of all mortal lands
and their people, . . . and their servants."
#Post#: 369--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: frostykate Date: July 30, 2018, 1:14 pm
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Kiran tenses up again, sitting straighter. You didn't tell me
about their history, it's quite a bit more than I assumed.
His eyes flick between Hexor, Tamlan, and Halan, hands with
twitching fingers folded in his lap.
#Post#: 370--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: aspockalypse Date: July 30, 2018, 7:00 pm
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things in red mean she whispers quietly to herself
As if snapping out of her shock Talishale jumps up "I take great
offense to what you said. Don't lump me into any 'you all'
statement. I have never once considered you a pet or tool, and
only ever saw you as greater than an equal. I would have done
anything for you, including giving every secret I have ever had.
I cried every second that you were trapped from that stupid deck
of cards."
Her eyes flicker with a little red, but she shakes her head and
they clear I got this
"Before I play any such game, I need one thing answered." her
eyes begin to tear up, she continues with a crack in her voice
"Is the part of you that was my best friend still there, or is
that part only the fail-safe version of you?"
#Post#: 371--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: Dathous Date: July 31, 2018, 2:32 am
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Tamlan looks to Hexor's blades for a moment. "Proxy secrets?
Hmmm. I'll allow it! Though I must say I'm very disappointed you
didn't come forward with the truth of those blades sooner.
Gemflower would have loved for you to try them on him! Though I
doubt they would have been any more effective than the others."
He looks back to Tali, and then returns to Hexor. "Excuse me, I
have something more pressing to attend to first."
Tamlan walks to Tali and gets down on his knees in front of her,
sitting on his heels, so they are eye level. "Oh Tali." He
takes one of her hands into his. "You are now, and have always
been, the exception to the rule. No one else have I ever invited
into my world." As he speaks the ghostly image of a colorful,
alien forest begins to encompass them. "I built you a home
there, and there you have stayed. The part of me that holds our
friendship could never be lost, for it is intrinsic to every
part of me." With that he pulls her into a warm embrace.
He holds the embrace for a while before leaning back and looking
to Hexor. "The story of how I was chained to that wall is really
not a very interesting one. I simply didn't know I was in goblin
territory when I rested for the night, and I was ambushed. Just
because I couldn't be killed doesn't mean I couldn't be
captured. And the rest is history!"
Tamlan takes Tali's hand into his once more. "Now, the cause of
my mental degeneration, that is a harder story to tell. But why
simply tell it when I can show it?" He closes his eyes and
lowers his head. Nothing happens for what seems like an
unusually long time, but then the lights in the room slowly
begin to fade. Soon everyone is encompassed in complete darkness
that not even darkvision can pierce. The silence is ominous as
all you can hear is the subtle shifting of each others
movements. Then Tamlan's voice breaks the silence.
"Some gifts... cannot be refused." There is a pause, then a
sudden wave of screams hit you all. Men. Women. Children.
Agonizing cries. Please for mercy. Pitiful sobbing. Angry
shouting. It rises like a storm, swirling all around, but lasts
only a few moments. Slowly it tapers off until you can hear only
one voice. Still from many sources, but always the same voice.
Like different recordings being played on top of each other. A
light flickers amidst you as a flame appears within a brazier
that wasn't there before, illuminating the surroundings. You
find yourselves no longer in the chamber you were resting in,
but in a large stone room with a low flat ceiling. Archaic and
brutal implementations adorn almost every surface, creating an
almost artistic, though sadistic, decor. The heat is
insufferable and an overwhelming smell of sweat, blood, feces,
and burnt meat assaults your senses. Throughout the room are a
number of humanoids in various stages of torture and
accompanying each is a large bestial creature. None of you have
ever seen nor heard of any creature like this before. It looks
to be approximately 10 feet tall and comprised of living shadow
condensed into a muscular bipedal body. It's hands and feet have
long needle-like claws and it's elongated head holds three sets
of glowing red eyes, a gaping mouth filled with thousands of
needle-like teeth, and a large pair of antlers growing from the
crown of it's head. A soft whisper in an unknown tongue seems to
constantly pour from it's salivating mouth. The screams of the
torture victims can still be heard, though they now seem
slightly muted.
As you examine the horrific scene before you, you catch the face
of one of the victims. And though he is blonde, and slightly
older, it is clearly Tamlan. They are all Tamlan. And you come
to realize that this is not one large scene with many creatures,
but rather a series of smaller scenes, between two creatures,
all playing simultaneously. You see Tamlan stretched between
chains attached to the ceiling and floor. Each of his ribs
having been broken and peeled back, leaving his entire chest
gaping and open. You see another strapped to a vertical slab,
needles boring into his eyes and tiny tools piercing his limbs
to slowly remove one bone after another. A third you can only
assume to be Tamlan as every inch of his flesh has been peeled
off. He hangs over an open grate with flames slowly licking his
entire body. There are many others.
The actually Tamlan still sits among you all, holding Tali's
hand and staring through it all with a cold detachment. "This is
were Gemflower was born."
#Post#: 372--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: Deetoo Date: July 31, 2018, 4:18 am
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Halan appears calm and says "I know people are into extremely
weird things, humans and drow especially," he looks at Hexor,
"but your definition of a 'gift that can't be refused' is wildly
different from mine.
And this whole scene is not quite an answer, only another
question in disguise. This is the process of the degeneration,
not its original cause. It doesn't answer either part of Hexor's
question; before you said that your state was caused by parts of
your soul being held back for your safety, now you seem to say
that it being held back was torture by whatever that thing is,"
he jerks his head toward the monstrosity in the centre. "But I
guess all within the rules of your little game.
You speak of immortality and safety from harm as if they were
nothing, while you show us what I can only assume is the price.
You want to rend reality for no reason other than its disastrous
effects and you claim yourself to be a power higher than this
deck; and you might well be right, I am not going to question
you about that because in your newly discovered ego you yourself
might not know.
Somehow you know I drew a card which in itself is interesting,
as you were already in the bag. Yes, it is true I do like to...
hold all the cards, as it were, but every conman knows that you
cannot plan for everything and sometimes you need to hope for
the best outcome. I decided that my personal potential benefit
was far greater than my potential loss and I gambled and I won."
He takes a deep breath. "As you know, Halan is not my real name.
Halan is the name and face I wear in hopes of one day finding
its owner to whom I hold no ill-will. That is all I am willing
to offer at this point, and all I want to know is what must one
do for power like yours." He stares into Tamlan's eyes and
flashes his changeling eyes, yellow with reptilian slits instead
of normal elven pupils, for a brief second and does not move his
gaze until his offering is either accepted or dismissed.
#Post#: 373--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: Dathous Date: July 31, 2018, 5:17 am
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Tamlan hangs his head and shakes it in disappointment. "Halan...
You're presumptuous nature is getting the better of you. Every
conclusion you just drew is wrong. I will answer your question,
but you must wait." He gestures to the room around him, but
keeps his head down and eyes closed. "This is not the answer to
a question. It is the question itself. We are inside of it."
#Post#: 374--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: Rojosama Date: July 31, 2018, 8:31 am
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Hexor closes his eyes at the wave of his own memories, so much
alike to this scene. When he opens them again, still blazing
with power, he slides his blades away, keeping his hand on their
hilts. Moving closer to the shadow image of the torturing beast,
his eyes study it as if it were something alive, not merely an
illusion.
"I see our past have more in common that I first assumed, but
where my years on the rack forged me, yours seems to have broken
you. To what end though? The Fleshwarpers sought to awaken my
latent powers, and they did, much to their regret, but this
seems pointless." He turns to face Tamlan once more, resting
lightly on the balls of his feet as if expecting an attack at
any moment.
"By the rules of your own game, you still have not earned my
secret. By your own admission, this is not an answer to my
question, simply a display of the question itself, but maybe the
error is mine for not stating my question more clearly. Let me
correct this."
"You say you created Gemflower as a failsafe to protect your
mind, but from what?" He waves his free hand as if to wave the
question away. "More importantly you'd need forewarning of an
event that might require such a failsafe, which means you knew
of danger, or the possibility of danger, to your person before
it happened. You claim to have written a book on the Fae, a bold
claim in-and-of itself, for the Feywild is not a place even I
would tread lightly into without good cause and much advanced
planning, well as much as is possible in that chaotic plane. The
Fae, and since you wrote the book, correct me if I am wrong, but
the Fae do not simply grab up mortals and torture them for no
reason, unlike my people. Yes they enjoy it, but they do so with
purpose, not whimsy."
"My question was this - What event, or series of events, led
Tamlan to create Gemflower, or the idea of him, in the first
place? All this," he pauses and glances around the room at the
illusionary memory. "This is a result of something, some choice
or event, and I want to know what that something is."
#Post#: 375--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: k8bishop Date: July 31, 2018, 2:57 pm
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Mara moves closer to Tali and puts a hand on her back, looking
at Tamlan reproachfully. "You made Tali cry. How can you say
that's all you were to us? I don't have many secrets to share
with you for your game because I don't have much I've wanted to
hide from you. I'd tell you anything you asked. You've all been
my family. I'm happier than I've ever been being on the road
with you." She looks away from Tamlan, blinking back tears. "I
thought you were happy too."
#Post#: 376--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Fates
By: Grymmlock Date: July 31, 2018, 5:27 pm
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"Ah, but Mara, he's not really Gemflower anymore, is he? Not
truly," a smokey, feminine voice adds.
One of Hexor's blades glows brightly for a moment, then everyone
sees the ghostly image of a female drow standing next to the
dragonchess set, her features nearly identical to Hexor's. The
area around her seems to push away the darkness, allowing
everyone to see that space even through Tamlan's illusion. She
places a finger on one of Hexor's chess pieces and clicks her
tongue in disappointment, gently shifting it to a more
advantageous position.
"I thought I taught you better than that, brother." Her gaze
sweeps across the group, taking in the faces of those she knew
and of those her brother has gathered since. "This conversation
was much to entertaining too pass up, so I thought I'd join. And
I am my own secret, I suppose. I have not died, not truly, and I
will not for a long time. And the fact that I can stand here
before you? That was a secret not even Hexor knew."
She steps forward, glancing at the images of torture around her
and making offhand comments about sloppy work and unfocused
purpose, to stand just a few feet from Tamlan. A smirk tilts the
side of her mouth.
"Laelaer found you worth her attention before. I was curious
then, but even more so now. So I ask you: what was the ultimate
goal after obtaining the wand? And what caused your sudden
interest in it in the first place?"
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