View From the Bushes

Well, here I go, continuing the opening post from my play by post campaign.

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Displaying something of a passive-aggressive streak, the local legate seems content to let you die of thirst before the time to sacrifice you arrives. Fortunately, one of the orcs inexplicably sneaks you a little bit of water each day, but it seems to be portioned to only keep you alive only long enough to be slain. After losing track of time in the lightless dungeon, you suddenly become aware that your arms have been released from the manacles which kept them suspended over your head. Just before you hit the ground a thick orcish arm scoops you up and tosses you over its shoulder, and you hear the sounds of chanting nearby.

You're carried a short distance into what you assume is an adjoining room, but the darkness is impenatrable by any normal means. You realize that this is where the chanting is coming from. The orc kneels you down, grabbing the back of your neck with his left hand and stretching your right arm out with his right arm. The chanting gets louder with the addition of several new voices. You attempt to twist your head to one side or the other, but the orc has you in a vise-like grip and you're not sure what you hope to see anyway in the unbroken blackness, though you can feel the shoulders of others to both sides of you. The pace of the chant quickens and suddenly the smallest suggestion of a shape begins to appear. In a few seconds the entire scene resolves itself before your eyes.

There is no apparent illumination and you are sickened to realize that the chanting of the legates has summoned the power of Izrador, and it courses through you granting the power to penetrate the unholy darkness. You are kneeling in front of a large, empty stone basin, and though you have never seen it, this can only be a zordrafin corith, a high altar of the Dark God. The other prisoners who made the journey along with you are also arrayed on their knees in a circle around the altar their right arms held out over the basin.

The chanting reaches a crescendo and the evil washes over you as a tangible force, and then, silence. It only lasts for an instant and then a legate leans in and makes a long quick slash in your exposed forearm. With incredible precision and rapidity he repeats the cut eleven more times.

Time slows as the hour of your death arrives. A tiny part of you is surprised to find that you have any blood left in your desiccated body, as it wells up along the cut and drops in a thin stream onto the side of the basin. Seven other streams form near the rim of the basin. Whether due to the skill of the legate or the will of Izrador, it appears that the blood will all reach the center at exactly the same time. You still have no idea as to the purpose of the ceremony but it's obvious that it will reach it's pinnacle when the eight red rivers meet and mix in the center, and indeed, just as it happens, the world goes black and you remember no more...

You have a dream of rain. It is a thunderstorm like you have never experienced. For decades, Izrador has dried up the skies in order to set fire and kill the forests of the Witch Queen. In your dream, the heavens have opened and a downpour not seen for many years rages from the clouds. A bolt of lightning arcs down to the earth; a second later the accompanying thunderclap shakes the earth. You sit up in shock. The rain, the lightning and thunder are real. Apparently you're not the only person the thunderclap awoke. Looking around you see maybe a half dozen other people sitting up. Beyond that the scene around you makes no sense.

You're lying in the bottom of a large crater. Scattered piles of rubble litter the sides. The thunderclouds overhead are so dense that the entire landscape is shrouded in dusky twilight. Before you can entertain any further speculation your overwhelming thirst strikes you like a hammer. You immediately open your mouth into the deluge. You notice some of the others lapping at puddles in the rubble. The downpour is fierce enough that the edge is taken from your thirst in a moment, to be replaced by the dull ache of hunger which has haunted you for untold weeks.

Once your thirst has been somewhat abated your first thought is: "What happened?" And then the question is asked again, "What happened?" Only the voice is not your own. "What's going on? Who's there? Who's talking? Where am I?" Voices flood your head. Through the dimness of the clouds and the concealment of the rain you turn your focus to the people in the crater with you. Those who are closest to you clearly have long cuts in their forearms that appear to have been seared shut. As you look from face to face you realize that though an unknown means you can hear the thoughts of the others in the crater. The revelation seems to strike the others at the same time, as you view your fellow prisoners with a mix of fear and wariness.

After days and days of mind-numbing monotony, suddenly things are happening with alarming alacrity. On top of being able to hear the thoughts of the other people in the crater, you realize that there's something different about you. Your body has changed -- it's different, but things are too confusing for you to determine how.

Looking at your fellow captives who, along with you, have been miraculously spared, and with what seems to be the same thought, (which very well may be the case), you all scramble to the lip of the crater. Looking out through the curtain of rain, you see the ruins of the town where the temple once stood. At first you only see the dark shadows of blasted buildings, but just then a flash of lightning illuminates the landscape. Your hunger-clouded brain finally puts everything into place. Somehow the altar and the temple were destroyed. By what can only be described as the strangest event of all, you and all of the other captives came through unscathed. But the rest of the town is a blasted wasteland full of abandoned buildings and the corpses of the recently dead. Another lightning strike illuminates your field of vision and you see dim figures moving through the ruins. For a moment the hope of assistance flares, but only for a moment before you realize that the figures you see are the bodies of the villagers who died in the explosion. Risen from the dead as Fell and searching among the rubble for the flesh of the living.

Your have been pulled back from the brink of death, but any hope that might have given you dies in your breast as you assess the sitation. Your body has been ravaged by hunger; you have no weapons, your sole raiment consists of a tattered loincloth; you're surrounded by the ravening appetite of hundreds of the walking dead, and if that were not enough, surely the Order of the Shadow will hunt you across the length of Eredane for what happened to the temple. Just then, a distant cry pulls your eyes upwards, as a lightning strike reveals the form of a huge black vulture circling above your heads...

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Ross