Chapter 13: Bethrothed in Flames

[Dav Flamerock]

The area they emerged in was almost indistinguishable from the area they had left, aside from the absence of a stone castle. Here, though, the lumps that made up the ground seemed larger, older. Thick, bone spines towered hundreds of feet in the air at odd angles. Here, however, there wasn't the silence that pervaded the area that they had first arrived in. The first thing that the group noticed was the sound of a large number of men and beasts nearby. Immediately, Gha'Dan crouched, motioning for silence, and the group complied. They crept forward, to the top of a small rise where the Elder Inunt sloped downward. Bone spikes protruded outwards, almost parallel to the ground, and Gha'Dan walked out on one to get a better view. Out ahead of them, for as far as any of them could see, were tents, campfires, and soldiers. Interspersed among them were various large creatures, some of them recognizable to the Planeswalkers, some entirely foreign. At the very center of the mass was a large hill, visible in the distance. At first it appeared to be another Elder Inunt, but the group noticed that it appeared to have doors and windows carved into it. No, not carved. Grown. The hill appeared to be only the tip of the iceberg, as most of the Elder Inunt was sunken underground.

"That must be Castle Daravon." Gha'Dan said quietly, for Inunt ears were sharp, and there was the risk of patrols. "I don't understand why there's an army here, however. Didn't Challiag say that all the fighting was taking place along the border?"

"Maybe Challiag wants us to do all his work for him." Eiji commented, his voice just as low as Gha'Dan's. The army in front of him was an impressive sight to behold, and Eiji wondered what they'd have to do to get in. He couldn't think of a way to sneak past an army that could see their every move.

Alisar looked down at the army with a mixture of hunger and frenetic worry. He could not be frightened, having come from such a hellish place as Tarus, but he was not vain enough to ignore the fact that he could not take on the army that stood before them.

“We should sneak past them… but you already knew that.”

Looking off to the side at the group, a concerned expression fell over his face. “Where is Alec?”

Sure enough, the human planeswalker was nowhere to be seen.

(OOC: Shardi, I've got a thing for you but it's not finished yet, so I'll post it as soon as I can.)

[Eiji]

"Either he didn't come with us in the first place," Eiji said, looking around for the missing planeswalker, "or he's already gone off somewhere."

OOC: Eh, it's someone else's turn to post anyway.

[Whizzles]

Milihnia scowled. That bastard, she thought with enough vigor to almost accidentally project the thought to the others. Their alliance with the planeswalker had been a series of tricks and deceit, and even despite her telepathic abilities, she could not predict his every move. She mentally added this predicament to her already lengthy list of reasons not to trust Alec.

She thought ahead to the situation at hand. "I could try to mentally mask our traces, but I doubt I'd be able to keep a hold on the minds of an entire army. Maybe though, if I get close enough..." she lifted her arm, its tone and texture beginning to mimic that of an Inunt, "...I can shift into one of the guards, absorb all the knowledge I need to know, and get you guys where you need to be."

[Zennshi Dormu]

"What do you mean, you could maybe do it?" Zennshi muttered, while still watching the army, "Can you do it or can't you?"

[Whizzles]

Milihnia pondered for a second. It was a difficult task, as it required her to focus all her attention to both her telepathy and her shape-shifting abilities. She didn't have much time to think - she could feel the others' stress, almost as heavy as her own. A single bead of sweat dropped from her brow.

"Yes. I can do it."

[Eiji]

"Just don't blow your cover if you get down there and it's too much." Eiji said, able to sympathize in a small manner with the mind reader. He knew how distracting other people's emotions and blurred thoughts could be, but couldn't imagine combining that task with another that was equally consuming. "You'd be better off coming back than doing anything stupid. Good luck."

[Zennshi Dormu]

"Worse comes to worse, I can get you out of there pretty quick." Zennshi assured her. "And hey, it's not like I haven't fought armies before. It's just that it's easier to defeat an army when you are one."

[Dallas Mathews]

"I knew that Alec was trouble! We should have eviscerated him while we had the chance. He's probably crying to Daravon right now!" Gha'Dan smashed a fist into the ground, grinding his teeth in anger. The next time he laid eyes on Alec... there would be hell to pay.

Gha'Dan listened to Milihnia's idea silently, mulling it over in his head. He didn't like the idea of using mind control on his own people, but he didn't see much of a choice. It seemed to be the only way past the army.

Gha'Dan tensed as a sound from their left caught his attention. It was very faint, but it sounded like someone accidentally bumping up against one of the spines. He slid his hand down to the hilt of his sword, and held up the other to signal the group to be quiet. Gha'Dan took several slow, deliberate, and silent steps in the direction of the sound, and suddenly a flurry of motion burst from behind one of the larger spines and lunged towards Gha'Dan. He drew his sword, barely getting it up in time to block the swift downward slash that would have caught a lesser warrior off guard. The two swords locked, and the group got their first look at their assailant. It was an Inunt, and she was female. Shorter than Gha'Dan, she wore armour made of what appeared to be some kind of leather, studded with steel. A thick, heavy looking horn bow was slung across her back, with an accompanying leather quiver, full of arrows carved of bone. The sword she wielded bore a strong resemblance to the one that Gha'Dan carried, although the carvings in the hilt and blade were different, and somewhat simpler.

The look on the woman's face, at first a mask of concentration and resolve, dissolved into a look of shock and confusion. She took a step back, lowering her sword. Confused, but not willing to let the opening slip by, Gha'Dan lunged forward, slapping the sword out of her hand, and bringing the point of his own to her throat.

"Don't make a sound. If you attempt to signal your friends, I will be forced to kill you." Gha'Dan said, voice leaving no doubt that he would do it if he had to.

"Gha'Dan." she whispered, and Gha'Dan's arm twitched. The voice was familiar, it reminded him of someone. "I didn't think you would come back."

Gha'Dan lowered his blade a fraction of an inch. "Do I know you?" he asked, suspiciously. He had lots of enemies on Rowe, but he didn't recognize this particular girl. That didn't mean she hadn't been hired, or didn't have some hidden vendetta against him.

"I'm Ros'Era. Ros'Era Benosa. You killed Lord Haruwin and took me from his castle." she said quietly, in a matter of fact tone. Gha'Dan inhaled sharply in surprise, lowering his sword slowly. His head swam with questions, but he couldn't decide on one to ask. Instead, he just stood there, trying to wrap his mind around it.

[Zennshi Dormu]

Nobody spoke for a long time, so Zennshi once again took the opportunity to get a remark in, "Jeez, Gha'dan, I don't mean to be pushy. But do we really have the time to go visiting all your old acquaintances?"

[Dav Flamerock]

(OOC: Apologies for all involved—this post took far longer to write than it needed to. Hopefully now that I’ve gotten past this roadblock we can continue to PC with a little more regularity.)

“And to which king do you answer, oh professed friend or victim or Gha’Dan’s?” Alisar asked with narrowed eyes, pounding his staff into the ground for emphasis.

---

“For your sake, I shall try to keep this from getting too convoluted, for there are many things you would not yet understand and there are some of which I would rather not speak. When I brought you to the Etherium Wastes, it was an act of desperation and an attempt to hide from the horrors who sought me out. There are many places in the Multiverse—some great, some terrible. But I’m sure you know this already. What you may not yet know is that of all the terrible places that exist, none are so terrible as those monstrous people who reach out to you in harm and whisper wonderful things, who get inside you and find your darkest and deepest horrors.

“We were not safe here, living on Rowe with Lord Marakis’ people. They were kind and hospitable, and the power here was easy to wield and would have been perfect for me to teach you. But this place flows too strongly with life, and life always attracts death. I thought he was a travelling necromancer who had decided to conquer Rowe and shape it to his whim, to use the Elder Inunt as his monsters against other worlds. If such were true, he would have been easily defeated by the Inunt and myself. But that is not who he was. He was not even a planeswalker, he was the demon who comes in the dark of night and takes your hope, who reaches with icy fingers into your heart and cuts your magic away with the most intense despair you can fathom. I had been fleeing him ever since you were born, but the Father of Nightmare could not be eluded forever. When he arrived on Rowe, I and the Inunt gave him a fight, but it was never a fair battle. In the end, it took me the strongest spell I could muster to halt him, but it didn’t matter—Rowe would not be safe while you and I were here.

“When I took you to Crysanth, it was a paradise. Not by my standards, but that was part of the point. If you could grow up so unlike your heritage that any relation to me would be lost, then you would be that much safer if the Father of Nightmare ever came after you as well. I left you with a kind elven foster family, where you would be safe and could grow up knowing nothing of your family and your past, where you would learn to wield magic in ways unlike myself.

“I did not know about the arrival of the Hate Lord on Crysanth until after the fact, when someone from an interplanar network informed me that their branch on Crysanth was lost to some new power which had shattered the plane. Fearstricken, I returned to find you, but you were already gone. While there I learned of your ascension, but I did not know of your amnesia. I am glad to see you have returned.”

---

“Aren’t you supposed to be going somewhere?”

Alec opened his eyes and turned around, looking at Challiag in confusion. “What?”

“Well, what are you hanging around for? Everyone else has been gone for over a minute.”

“That doesn’t make sense; I was with the Tree of All Souls. I should have traveled!” Alec growled under his breath as he closed his eyes again and attempted to channel his energy. As Challiag watched, he could see the subtle vibrations of the human’s staff as Alec’s lack of success began to manifest as rage. Shortly, the Inunt king had made sense of Alec’s situation.

“You’re not a planeswalker anymore, are you?”

Alec’s eyes shot open and swirled between that of a snake, a cat, and finally restored to that of a human. His expression was most displeased. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came before he closed it, turning instead and slashing at his arm with magically-sharpened claws. His skin parted and the unfamiliar appearance of blood began to pool.

“No!” Alec’s rage suddenly exploded as he lunged the nearest surface—a stone table on the side of the chamber—and shattered it with a fist.

[Shardi]

"Hate Lord...I've heard that name before. His name is Bakaris...but...but I'm I killed him in Tzarial. I used a Mordrian blaster against him, point-blank range..." Ezra responded, rubbing his head in confusion. "I still have questions...who is, well, was, Lord Marakis, I supposed would be the first one. The second...why was it before that my powers almost consumed me, and seemed to be alive of their own account...? Third...who is the Father of Nightmares? Is he an entity of some sort, or perhaps an omniscient being formed from all darkness?"

Not knowing what else to say, Ezra slumped against a wall, feeling weak from everything. Suddenly, a gnawing in the back of his mind gave birth to another question. This question, strangely enough...seemed to matter most to the young planeswalker.

"And...why is my only gift to the Multiverse destruction? Fire does not cleanse...it blackens. It does not plant trees...it burns them to the ground. Death, well...death is an evil power...it allows me to harvest the dead for armies, slowly rot an enemy from the inside out...I've seen bad things and I've done even worse. I cannot revive a loved one, I can't even cure them of illness. At best I can cauterize wounds and draw poison from bodies."

[Dav Flamerock]

“Hate Lord… I’ve heard that name before. His name is Bakaris… but… but I’m—I killed him in Tzarial. I used a Mordrian blaster against him, point-blank range…” Ezra responded, rubbing his head in confusion. A smile dawned on Katlyn’s face when she heard this.

“I still have questions… who is, well, was, Lord Marakis, I supposed would be the first one. The second… why was it before that my powers almost consumed me, and seemed to be alive of their own account?” Katlyn opened her mouth to speak, but Ezra quieted her with a hand. “Third… who is the Father of Nightmares? Is he an entity of some sort, or perhaps an omniscient being formed from all darkness?”

Not knowing what else to say, Ezra slumped against a wall, feeling weak from everything.

“I shall start from the beginning, as you have. Marakis was an Inunt lord who ruled a long time ago. He was a close friend of my own, though as he was merely mortal he died a long time ago. I have kept track of his descendents, but they have faded to obscurity.

“As much as I wish I could answer your second question, I fear I cannot.” Katlyn paused and a certain darkness fell over her face as she considered the implications of his question. “I understand my own abilities, and thought that I would be able to teach you—surely I shall still be able to do so. However, I do not understand the apparent sentience of your magic. What I have learned I have learned through experience, but I have never encountered something such as this.

“What was the third question? Oh, the Father of Nightmares. He… it is a monster beyond description. It is ineffable. You know the demon lord at the end of many native superstitions, the ones used to make children come in at nightfall and the ones personified as the lord of death? That is the Father of Nightmare. He is the dark figure on the edge of your peripheral vision, the one who watches over death and the cloak-shrouded outsider who brings death and destruction to the village and the city. He is the master of plague, fear, and souls of the damned.”

(OOC: I don’t have time to answer your other question, and in order to keep the flow of the conversation going I shall instead allow you to respond to what Katlyn has just said. If Ezra is most interested in the “what about my powers” question, then by all means let him ask it.)

[Dallas Mathews]

Alisar's suspicious tone cut through some of the confusion that was holding Gha'Dan in place. He furrowed his brow, holding his sword halfway at the ready, the tip of the blade pointing towards Ros'Era's stomach.

"Yes, Ros'Era, who holds your allegiance?" Gha'Dan asked, a note of that same suspicion entering his voice. He regretted it a moment later when he saw her reaction to it.

Ros'Era frowned, and Gha'Dan saw a flash of sadness or disappointment flash over her face. To her credit, she only showed a mild surprise at Alisar and the others. She had seen stranger creations down at Daravon's camp, but few of them had ever spoken. She took the development in stride.

"My allegiance lies in no hands but my own." Ros'Era said, standing tall.

"Why, then, do I find you hiding in silence on the edges of the camp of the Lord Daravon, wearing the uniform of his soldiers?" Gha'Dan questioned harshly. Ros'Era matched his gaze calmly.

"Because the army of Daravon is vast, and pays well." she replied dryly, her voice devoid of tone. The tip of Gha'Dan's sword climbed an inch.

"You work for Daravon, then?" animosity, and more than a little grief, entered Gha'Dan's voice. Ros'Era sighed.

"You were always pretty thick, Gha'Dan." she smiled briefly at him to show him it was a joke, before continuing. "I joined Daravon's army for one reason. The same reason you joined Haruwin's army. You didn't have a choice. Neither did I. And... once I got here, I realized I was pretty good at it. And then I decided that I should go for the whole deal. I've spent the rest of my time here trying to get close to Daravon."

"You want to kill him?" Gha'Dan asked, incredulously.

"Yes. You... you haven't seen the things he's done. The things... the things we've done. He's... much, much worse than Haruwin. He needs to die for Rowe to live." She said, looking down at the ground as she spoke. Gha'Dan thought for a second she was ashamed, but he saw that her fists were clenched, and her voice laced with anger.

"You speak the truth. That is why we are here." Gha'Dan sheathed his sword, and retrieved Ros'Era's own, tossing it to her. She caught it, looking up at him. "There is much wrong with this world, and others. We are here to set things right. Will you help us?"

Ros'Era sheathed her own sword. "Of course. It wouldn't be right of me to abandon my cause just because it has a better chance of success now than it ever has." She grinned at him, and he couldn't help returning it.

[Eiji]

"Excuse me." Eiji said, catching Ros'Era's attention. "If you somehow caught a bunch of people and took them as prisoners, and these prisoners happened to be planeswalkers were pretty powerful, what would happen to said prisoners? Would Daravon interrogate them directly?"

[Dav Flamerock]

“Do I want to know where you’re going with this?” Alisar turned to the young jurye with a menacing stare. Black lightning crackled from the crystal on his staff but did not go farther than the confines of his weapon.

[Eiji]

Eiji eyed the magic crackling from his staff. "Well if you object, then go ahead and get past them yourself..." he commented, motioning with a hand to the army. He was confused as to why Alisar reacted that way in the first place; perhaps it was a personal thing that Eiji didn't understand.

[Shardi]

"So...Marakis was a former ally. Then who is this Daravon, and what is this Rift Magic he performs? I've seen enough to know it can't be anything good." Ezra replied, standing up with new-found restlessness. Slowly he began to walk around the room, until he came to rest in front of the window, looking down at the landscape. He could almost see the lands shifting, as the creatures that composed it seemed agitated.

"My powers weren't always so...sentient. I had powers, yes, but the true strength was dormant for the longest time. You see, Mother...they didn't start struggling for power until Ond. Until...I died fighting Kraj." Ezra looked down at his stomach as he said this. Lifting up his shirt, he revealed a darkened area of skin amidst millenniums' worth of battle scars. The darkened area was perfectly cylindrical, a memento of the Lifelink Kraj had skewered Ezra with.

"Father of Nightmares...I will rip his beating heart from his chest." Ezra proclaimed, looking at his outstretched palm whimsically. "And if he doesn't have one...oh, I'll just figure something out. All things must come to an end. Even a God.."

As Ezra talked, he realized Kaitlyn had purposely omitted answering his last question, about his origin. "However...I still need an answer, if only for my sake. Why is it I only have the power to destroy? I don't cleanse things with fire...I blacken them. I don't save lives with darkness...I claim them, I re-animate them..."

As he said this last part, Ezra stared into his mother's eyes, almost pleading for an answer...almost.