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| The Storyline for 2004
Ok, I got way too busy to write. We started by stalking and slaying as Ariel began to encompass the heart of cold, and to stiffen the defense. At last we had slain all but the evil one behind it all, a Necromancer in his lair, surrounded by Kjjtthi he had dominated and was using in his foul sorceries. As Ariel led the Queen's forces through the enemy to meet the Sea Troll marines, Wolfie and I ravened through the last redoubt, but the Necro escaped us. We then returned to the City of Spires where all heck broke loose as someone woke and sent all the shadow vampires at us. That was a war, but finally we stalked the Necromancer behind it with his Kar Manta to his last hidden gate, chasing him through and sealing the gate behind us. Wolfie thought he recognized the place, endless miles of swampy ground. Whatever we did, it was going to be a long trip, so I started having Parakyle teach me more math and we did language and sorcery drills. Michael's white raven led us, ten to fifteen careful miles a day. We studied and we tracked the evil one. We ran into the castle of blood, we crossed a wet desert and, in the endless miles we finally encountered Felicity, who Wolfie knew. He claimed she wasn't a friend, but she put my hackles up. Call it instinct or jealousy.
Should have known, the boy was telling the truth, especially since she is a cat. She had escaped the prison he was in, into this world, though as he remembered it, Leech Kjjtthi swarmed it. They still did, only she now worked for them, luring meals into their trap. We escaped. We traveled on. We faced down swamp cats, tiger-like creatures that hunted the crocodilelike creatures in the deeper swamp and who were immune to the leeches of all kinds that abounded here. But we would have left Felicity with them, closer to her own kind, but she decided to come with us. I guess we should have abandoned her to her friends, but she was part human and that sort of fate seemed to ill. Then we came on the ruined city and could sense the gate within, though Michael told us to wait, and we tarried in a library and battled the denizens there. All that time, the Necromancer was not far before us, and most of his enjarher was shredded and destroyed by the journey and it had turned on him. Michael was right, by waiting we let them destroy themselves, until only he was left. We caught him just before the gate and slew him there, wrenching the capstone of the gate from him. Then we took the only gate out of this world, leaving it sealed behind us, a ruined wreck of poisoned swampland. For a while we journeyed through shadow and unformed realms and pathways. Finally we came beyond the wreck and ruin that seemed to pervade the space we traveled, the long lost echo of some terrible calamity that had rent the planes. We came to a world overrun by undead and demons. Someone had opened the gates of hell into this world, or worse. It had the flavor of the other half (if that makes any sense) of the world we had come from, darkness to that world's perpetual twilight. The white raven could find the path easily enough, and something was harvesting demons and undead, gathering them up from time to time. A few strong warriors still remained, holding out, and they came with us as we found them. Eventually we realized what it was. Something was drafting them, sending out press gangs to force these creatures into a war they would have just as soon ignored, but for the fact that food was running out as they hunted all the prey in this world to extinction. Just as the otherworld was a tainted swamp, this world was a ruined jumble of rock and desert and broken cities. We tracked the press gangs home to the ruined castle at the city's heart, by the riverbed that ran through it. There was a wide road of rubble and blood, ichor and gore, that led to a gate. Beyond it was a throne, and it was easy to see the demon-lord who ruled over what was left of this place and who maintained the gateway. We waited until a horde of demons passed through the gate, and as he let it lapse, we struck at him. You could taste the same foul rank taint that had oozed out of the Necromancer. These two were linked, I suspect the Necromancer had summoned the demon and failed to dominate him. It was a terrible battle, and warriors died, giving Felicity an escort to the beyond as she sacrificed herself to give us the last opening we needed to take this creature down. Then, with the last of the living creatures from this world, we passed through the gate at a full run, using the capstone we had taken from the Necromancer to seal it behind us. With the gate shuddering and folding in on itself, the two worlds we had left behind coming back together once more, we came out to where the gate led. We were in the middle of an army camp of demons and other foul things, and their allies, mostly those of the tiev. At full speed we ran and those who saw us, covered in blood and smoke and trailing fell magic, merely channeled us towards the city in the distance as if we were mere mindless cannon fodder. We came upon the back of an assault team and broke them before they broke through those they were attacking, and then we were through them before they knew who we were and through the gate they had opened to sally forth. They withdrew in good order and we stood there, so that they could parley with us inside the city walls. Since the wards had not riven us, they talked before they attempted to fight and I realized that we were in the realm of the Hetari! They were in a desperate straight. Ducks could face the Demon's shadow-self, but when he did, the wards did not protect the walls and the demons swarmed all about. If he did not face the shadow creature, the Demon-Fetch, then wherever it came against the walls, the wards failed. The city was slowly being reduced, a bite at a time. We had sealed the gateway, but the army facing them was finally too big, given the attrition that had been encompassed. They felt they were doomed, and expected the great assault to come within the week. Of course with us there, things changed, but first we had Christmas, in a land far away. Then, the assault began, and Ducks held to the throne, keeping the wards strong. The shadow-fetch laughed and came against the gate, and as it ravened and twisted, a space cleared around it as the assault readied itself for the certain breach. Then we struck. Amber and Ariel with magic, Marie sending her arrows against the captains of the host, Jean at the head of the host in a counterstrike from the sally port on one side, Tindalasse and his leman leading the rearguard in another sally, and Wolfie, Michael and I against the the Shadow whose concentration was broken. The warriors who remained with us struck for the Shadow-Fetch's hyrthgar and the battle was joined as we broke the creature and then those who followed it paniced and were slain as they fled. The triumph was complete. That done, Ducks could open a gate that we took home, just in time for New Years in the Court of the Joyous King. Lots of celebration, Wolfie proposed and the Bitter King announced it, so much I could write for a week. Since my guardian appeared, I'll tell that in another story and may write for a week, but I'm sure glad he put in a word with the university. |
| Os. Hot baths finally,
though only after leaving Ducky's realm. The siege had them short on
water.
Basically, this is the outline of where the story goes from the beginning of 2004 to the end of 2004. 2005 begins the last semester for some of the group in school, before graduation, though others go into blended graduate programs at this point. [1] necro steals weaver children. He is connected directly to the Great Demon. [2} Shalgathi group kidnaps Thalia/Corrupt Kjjtti brood mass. The connect directly to the BEH Necro. [3] Shalgathi/Kjjtti assault on the City of Spires. Behind them are a layer of female shalgathi, behind them a layer of kjjtti and behind them the BEH necro, an escapee from the Bleak Waste. [4] Civil War in the South. Driven by the nobles and a Necro, but with a layer of Shalgathi. The Necro has various chaos creatures with him as well and is manipulated by kjjtti serving the BEH necro. [5] The shadow vampires sleeping in the City of Spires, roused all at once. [6] The Great (BEH) Necromancer. [7] The Great (BEH) Demon -- in the conflict between the Great Necromancer and the Demon, the Demon came out on top. Wolfie and Indigo get engaged. Cycle complete at this point with the demon behind the hetari slime demons and the old bitter/basilisk king destroyed and his plans unraveled, the flank held in the great war. In addition, during the bleak waste, Indigo rewrites Amber's stories (just as Ariel rewrote her own when she and Amber were trapped). |
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