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Solivar
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re: [Open RP] Descent

Sensation returned slowly -- seeping up through the cracks in the soothing gray nothing he floated in like the vapors that rose from the vents in Blackrock’s flanks, scorching and poisoning everything they touched. Cold came first and the awareness of it, the realization that, somewhere beyond the comforting emptiness wrapped around him, he was cold -- that his feet and hands ached with it, that every breath was an agony of searing frost and spasming lungs and helpless coughing he had no power to stop. Pain came next, growing out of the distance-dulled aches, the sure knowledge of pierced and frozen flesh, of severed tendons and strained muscles bearing too much weight for too long, of fresh blood on his lips and in his throat and a hot, throbbing agony that went on and on in the center of his chest, stabbing his lungs and stuttering his heart, cutting away at the caul of blessed senselessness wrapped around his slowly waking mind.

Keldris Pellegrin opened his eyes and regretted it more or less instantly as even the pale, dim light speared them without mercy, blurring his already blurry vision even further through a wash of involuntary tears, and, had it be possible, a tide of vituperation would have audibly risen. It was not possible: his throat worked, the breaths were taken, and a pain even more unpleasant arrested the words before they were made, the only sounds making it past the spiked metal bits laying firmly across his tongue and strapped across his jaw and throat a pained and rather wet gurgle as the slightest motion drew blood.

Not good. So very not good.

It took far longer than he liked to clear the tears from his eyes, to force his fear-sped breathing to slow and, even so, his vision remained blurred, his heart continued to pound as though he’d run a mile in full plate, pain pulsing hotly in his chest. A slow and careful test showed him his physical limits -- he couldn’t turn his head too far in any direction without tightening the mechanism strapped across his mouth and throat to a blood-drawing, agony-inducing degree; he couldn’t feel his hands, much less move them, his arms pulled level with his shoulders and to a tension that hovered at the precisely calibrated point between numbness and burning, held in place by something he couldn’t quite see out of the corners of his eyes; a fleeting glance downward showed that he was, in fact, either naked or near enough to it that the difference hardly mattered in the chill air. Nor could he remember, precisely, how he’d come to be where he was -- his mind was a jumble of images, falling snow and slush-slicked streets, the sky over Dalaran fading into a deep blue twilight, shadows dancing on damp stone walls and the glitter of water that wasn’t entirely water.

Nearby, someone was whistling.

He brought his head up from its default position and risked a quick glance. He received the impression of a vast, highly vaulted space, its pale light coming from no readily identifiable source, dark stone walls pierced at intervals by dimly luminous blurs of color and shape, a sense of things in motion just beyond his range of vision.

It was he realized, as he closed his nearly useless eyes and listened, a damnably familiar tune but he couldn’t place it, no matter how hard he tried, and beneath that an echo of softer sound. The hum of well-tuned machinery. The distinctive crackling thrum of leashed arcane forces. Human voices, echoing from far away-closer-far away.

In the beginning was shadow eternal.

Hate blazed forth, and FIRE was born.

Wounds scabbed, and so begat EARTH.

Cries of anguish birthed howling WIND.

Wherein the skies wept seas of TEARS.

We live in the shadow.

The world we know.

Built of rage, hurt, anguish and sorrow.


It was being chanted in responsory form, one voice leading, others -- several others -- making reply, woven together in a way that would have been beautiful were the implications not so horrifying. The Twilight Catechism. And, beneath it, that maddening, familiar tune...

Recognition came upon him even as the unseen source finally gave that song words:

Last night we spoke of love, now we’re forced to part...” The voice would have been a pleasant tenor had it not been so papery, as though its owner were having difficulty singing above a whisper. “I leave to the sound of a marching drum and the beat of a lover’s heart...” Close -- close enough to touch, even by his admittedly distorted sense of space and distance, and yet there was nothing to be seen. “Awake at last. Good morning, Kel.”


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Darren Tereos
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re: [Open RP] Descent

The halls of the Titan Complex, while still murmuring with the vile machines' clatter, seemed quieter with a recent incision through camps of the new residents, the Twilight Cultists. Steadfast had fared well in matching steel and sorcery to strange creations, echoes made of magic and metal, descending through the depths, through the madness, to come face to face with the return of what-should-not-be, the return of Yogg-Saron. All in the name of own of their own, a paladin stolen from them by the machinations of the Old God, dearer still to one of their own who counted him both ally and lover.

With his eyes, the shaman, the Windspeaker, saw a writhing mass of teeth and tentacles. As unreal as such a sight could be, there was something still further from reality, as if the thing before him did not fully align with the world around it. If hope could enter, it would think the Old God's lack of full entry into the world of Azeroth a good thing. But hope tended to find itself as far from such things as possible. But, Jarrand and the rest of Steadfast stood still, hoping to see this battle through to find their lost comrade. Jarrand looked across the threshold, eying the scene with a feeling of battle about to be joined.

His blood sang, a drumbeat pulsing behind his eyes. This was to be the end of the path he and his friends had walked for too long, to end with either victory or their own ends. Either way, what was to happen was as it was meant to be. Beyond what he could see, he could hear the rushing of water, the whistling of the wind, the rumbling of the earth, the crackle of flames. The elements remembered the Old Gods' dominion over them and called the shaman to battle.

Looking to his allies, each united under the banner of Steadfast, Jarrand saw the same call to arms in their eyes. The battle was to be joined, it was inevitable as the forces and machinations that had brought them to this crossroads. As one, they readied their weapons, spells, and souls for the confrontation.

From the distant hum of machinery, another sound rose from the din. A chanting, from many voices, united as one. But, between song and the monster before them, the clear priority was the Old God. The cultists could wait.


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Solivar
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re: [Open RP] Descent

He knew that voice at the same nagging level that he’d known the tune, a minstrel song that had been popular in Lordaeron the summer before the Plague, the familiarity itching at the edges of memory. He blinked, several times, and tried to force is eyes to focus with minimal success.

“I have to say, you’ve looked better -- still better than me, mind you, but then it’s hard to look worse than me if you haven’t been decomposing at the bottom of a well for a month...” A dry, papery chuckle. “Carrying an Elder Squid around inside you does appear to have quite the...deleterious effect on the constitution of the average mortal. Or even other than entirely mortal.”

Keldris’ heart, still maintaining its drumbeat pace, lept directly from its accustomed place in his chest and into a position somewhat further north.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you, you know. Well, on all of my dear old friends, I’ll confess, though some were simpler than others. Solivar never stayed in one place for longer than a week or two until he got that house in Silvermoon. So aggravating, I cannot even begin to describe it. And Talia? In Stormwind? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to keep watch on a woman who lives within spitting distance of the largest cathedral in the world, works within spitting distance of the largest cathedral in the world, and whose babysitter actually is is the largest cathedral chapter in the world? A taxation on my ingenuity, I tell you. Arionne is a beautiful little thing, by the way -- somehow she managed to dodge Aretegos’ nose, which I thought for certain all his children would be cursed with given the frequency of its appearance in all the old Maugrisaine family portraits. You should have made time to go visit her while you had the chance.” The voice turned gently, mockingly chiding. “And you should also pick up your correspondence more than once every six months. Honestly, Kel, what’s the point of having a fixed address if you’re not going to use it for anything? Your sister’s expecting again, by the way, and she’s hoping for a boy this time. Not that it’s going to live long enough to see light, but...”

The voice trailed off in a rattling, melodramatic sigh and the name that had eluded Keldris until that moment lept into his mouth along with his heart and moved his tongue -- a mistake, as metal barbs tore flesh and blood stained his lips and his mind skittered about shouting. His unseen companion chuckled again, a sound like fingernails on over-dried vellum, as the blood trickled down his chin. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”

Cold fingers -- ice cold fingers tipped in naked bone -- reached up stroked over his face, uncomfortably close to his eyes, across the spiked silencing bit, through his freshly drawn blood. “If that was, ‘Why, Vangalos, I haven’t seen you in an age! Not since we abandoned you and Melias to die when Prince Arthas came marching home! How have you been?’...you are indeed correct, Sir Pellegrin, though they tend to call me by another name about the Undercity, just as you’ve taken to pretending you didn’t break poor Solivar’s heart when he asked you to take that name...” Scratched-vellum laughter. “He loved you so much, Kel. If I had a heart left...well. It likely wouldn’t have moved that much...”

Fingertips painted in blood trailed down his chin, his throat, his chest, where the pain was flaring white-hot. Loved?

“As to how I’ve been...? Not well, I’m afraid, not well at all. They ripped her to shreds and ate her before my eyes, Kel. There was nothing I could do. She dropped the portcullis to keep them from swarming the royal bolthole behind me. The only time I’ve been able to not hear her screaming was that brief, halcyon period when I was actually dead. And you see how that turned out!” Barbs of bone dug into his skin, raked idly downwards. “On the other hand...while I was down there in the dark, in the place between all things, I did have a rather...enlightening...conversation with a good friend of yours. And then, when I woke up again...? Well then I was ready to put what I’d learned into action. And by a very happy coincidence, I wasn’t alone. True, my lord?”

“You do, as always, talk too much.” A second voice, echoing from somewhere impossible to see with the restraints holding his head in place, cold and hollow.

Footsteps, a crunch of something fragile, stone or glass, breaking under uncaring bootheels. “Go. Make certain that Jedoga hasn’t fallen down a hole -- her time and ours both grow short.”

The newcomer did not bother to conceal himself in any way. The rune-bordered hood of his cloak was thrown back to pool around his shoulders, exposing glacially pale skin, gleaming ice blue eyes, a waterfall of hair the color of hoarfrost, face sharp and cold and impassive in its beauty. It was impossible not to see them in him -- a trace of Solivar in the shape and hue of his eyes, a touch of Kalthoryn in the finely sculpted angles of his mouth, though both of his sons had ultimately favored their mother more -- but Keldris had no doubt whom he was looking on, and his hands itched for the haft of a hammer, the hilt of a sword, the freedom of a voice to call down the Light. Kalvarin Eventide smiled serenely at the fury Keldris knew he wasn’t hiding at all, the gesture doing nothing to gentle his face, and murmured quietly, “Solivar is dead.”

A scream welled up in Keldris’ chest, one that was only partially his own, searing agony washing away the numbness of flesh and lingering disconnection of mind, and within himself he felt Khaarfur’s wordless howl of anguish.

“He rose too soon -- the infusion of the Old One’s power into his flesh and the union of their essence was not yet complete...nor was the bond between them strong enough to sustain departure from the creche.” In that same cool, quiet voice. “It broke when tried, and what was left of the Old One broke and perished with him.”

It was all he could do not to thrash in his bonds -- Khaarfur’s grief was white-hot and raging, a match and more for his own, and didn’t care how badly it would hurt to tear himself free, how much harm he would do himself, do them, if it ended with his hands around that pale, elegant throat. He could feel muscles beginning to tear, and bones beginning to crack under the strain, and hot blood bubbling up in his throat.

A cold hand came to rest in the center of his chest, and solved his problem for him -- his body went instantly, rigidly immobile, and refused to move again, despite the frenzy churning his mind and soul.

“My comrades down the hall,” Kalvarin continued, smoothly conversational, “have not yet realized that their god is never returning to them, no matter how they chant and pray and mortify themselves in supplication. They did not realize, even had he returned, that it would not have been to exalt them as his most-loyal. They do not know that their particular manias have never been mine, nor will they ever be, and that my interests lie...elsewhere. Their moronic co-religionists and the bastard god they serve have...temporarily...rendered my goals more difficult to reach -- but thankfully not impossible. I do, after all, still have both of you.” A second, infinitely serene smile. “How long have you known, Sir Pellegrin? Is it something you realized immediately -- that when you returned from the place between all things you did not return alone? That you, pure vessel of the Light that you are, carried within you a thing born in the perfect shadow of creation? Do you know how you did it?

Within him, Khaarfur went suddenly, utterly still.

“Ah, yes.” Breathed, a slow, spreading smile. “I see you do. And that you think you will not tell me.” The hand resting on his chest spread its fingers. “Foolish. So foolishly mortal, Old One. But the choice is yours.”


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Jadedinsc
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re: [Open RP] Descent

(( OOC Note: Real life swallowed me whole yesterday, and today my son came home from school with the cold that knocked me out last week. Sorry this is late, and it looks like I won't make it online until tomorrow night since I'm keeping an eye on him tonight. ))

Between the voices in her head, the chanting cultists, and the roar of the old god writhing before her, Folami isn't sure which thoughts are hers anymore. For a terrifying moment she forgets who she is, and then she feels Jarrand's gaze upon her and her eyes fall upon Solivar. The grim determination in the death knight's eyes reminds her why they are here. Someone he cares about, someone she's come to call friend, is waiting for them. In her hand she holds a purple stone. She hopes not to use it, and at the same time hopes that if she must, she reaches Keldris in time to keep his soul with his body. After everything, he at least deserves the chance to say good-bye.

No more fragments. One way or another, it will end tonight.

Haadom roars beside her, the felhound's paws claw at the floor as he crouches before the flesh-imprisoned Yogg-Saron. Arcane magic swirls without and within her and she throws her head back to crow a battle cry, her body shifting and changing until she is more demon than elf. Wings stretch outward from her back and she calls to Haadom in a demonic tongue.

The whispers in her head grow louder and she looks to her comrades to keep herself anchored in the present, still she feels the grip of madness tightening its hold on her mind. One voice in particular rings clearly through the cacophony of sounds, the same voice she heard when she journeyed alone to Deatholme on a fool's errand. Her mother, lost in her own madness, tucked away in Silvermoon, reaching out to her for one brief and painful moment of clarity.

'There is power in surrender." Even in her current form, she can cry. Tears fill her eyes and there in the midst of the chaos of an old god, she finally understands. She knows that even if they survive, she will have to leave her friends. Another path awaits her at the end of this one, a crossraods. She smiles despite her sorrow and wonders if Khaarfur would be amused by her epiphany.

I'm sorry, Yarrow. I made a promise I may not be able to keep.

To her friends, she manages to grunt in broken Orcish, "Let's end this."


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re: [Open RP] Descent

The Spirit of Vengeance stands tall and true as he faces the Old God of Death, his white eyes piercing through this vile chamber of insanity. The judgmental agent changes his appearance from the usual dark and grim into a set of shining armor that lights up the night set in their own personal arena of fate. With an arm extended and palm open, a Great Sword materializes into the being's hand as the fingers clamp down on the hilt. The weapon itself pulses and glows with an otherworldly power, much like its user.

The Spirit turns his eyes over to the group, casting a glance of encouragement and surprising kindness to Steadfast. He takes a few moments to gaze at each one of them before the chaos begins and nods in approval before speaking in a powerful yet calm tone.

"Well said, Warlock."

The hooded and concealed face then pivots over to Solivar.

"Give the order, Death Knight."
Twinyarrow
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re: Meanwhile... Back in Dalaran

A comforting hand set Twinyarrow ajump. His concentration once more focused on maintaining the portal for the group risking their lives. A risk he severely wished to take with them. He growsed inwardly. Too many of those he cared for were gone. To much time wasted now that Solivar was back. To much risk at loosing ANY of them. It was almost more then he could bear. He felt his brother... impressions having grown ever so much stronger since his twin's separation from both the Lich King and the soul of the Old One whom had used him.

He wanted to see Folami... Both lovely and terrible in her Fel wrath. To feel her hand in his. To reassure her she was not going mad and that she was far more capable and able to come to grips with who and what she was then he had ever been. He smiled outwardly at the memory of the forest magicks at the mushroom circle, when he had slipped a ring upon her hand. How she had squeaked as the realization hit her. How she had jumped up and grappled him into an embrace he wished to feel at all times. He could not feel her right now... A fact that concerned him all the more.

His thoughts flowed to Jarrand. The Windspeaker touched by both the Elements and poetic Muse. Gentle natured yet terrible in battle. Given to inflection rather then outburst. He would have something clever and well thought out to say, which would de-fuse him to be sure. Yarrow marveled at him... such a set of conundrums when compared with other members of his race. He was proud to have known him.

He was proud to have known all of them... "No!" The warlock stifled that sort of thought. No goodbyes... No losses... No accepting the possibility. They would all be returning. They would all be hard and hale and once they were done. Oh then would the celebrate. He would buy out the Legerdemain Lounge even if he had to sell everything he owned to do it. The wine and mead would flow like water. Toasts would be raised! Accolades would be given. To blazes with the rest of the world for one night.

But first....

"You be troubled Twinyarrow... Ya needs be letting that jettery go. We no be knowin when we be needed to help them through. Focus and breath... All we gonna be able to do herein now." Revnah's trollish words served their purpose.

"Your right, of course. My appologies. A full half and more of who I am lies within that deep place. I may need you to jogg me once again. With a hammer if needs be."

The Troll smiled at him with a subtle wrinkle o her nose and a wink. "They gonna be fine... You'll see."
Solivar
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re: ((OOC))

Last Call for posts at this juncture of events. I will be posting the next stage this afternoon.


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Solivar
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re: This Post Is Rated...

M FOR MATURE AND CONTAINS:

* Not at all subtle rape metaphors
* Consensual sexual contact between adults
* Extremely unpleasant mental violence
* The implication of torture

It took an exceedingly long time. Even without a voice, he had resources to call on -- inner strengths forged over a decade of warfare with an enemy that needed no rest and comprehended no fear and could only be faced, and fought, by those willing to flense such weaknesses from themselves for the sake of all humanity. The ability to simply endure, when all other strategies, when all other means of survival, were spent was the gift of both the Scarlet Crusade and the Argent Dawn, the Silver Hand’s last true legacy.

In the end, endurance was simply not enough -- not in the face of an enemy armed with weapons torn from the soul of another, edges honed and poisoned with regret.

You were the pain I used to break him, paladin. Even the sure knowledge of his brother’s death was not enough to accomplish that -- but you. You were the end of him. The end of his willingness to fight. The end of his willingness to deny me. The end of his willingness to exist. Your hand, as much as mine, more, destroyed what he was and made him what he became. You could not have killed him more surely had you held the knife yourself.

It sank in, cut, twisted. (In the depths of his own being, he felt the Lord of the Crossroads twist and writhe, cut just as truly, just as deeply.)

And you were so close -- so close to having him back. So close to gathering all the pieces of himself that he lost -- so close to putting them together again. So close to healing the wounds you caused, undoing your own folly, making right what you put wrong. So close.

It spread across the fractured surface of his will, thousands of filaments of hungry darkness, sinking barbs into his mind and soul, forcing wider every crack and drinking deep of what they found inside -- his own human pain, the Old One’s agony -- suckling at a thousand knife-edged memories as they drew blood. He writhed, inwardly, at the sickening intimacy of it, unable to escape, unable to resist, as --


”Come with me.”

It wasn’t quite a question. It wasn’t anything close to a command.

It was an outstretched hand in the firelight and there weren’t enough words in any language anywhere in the world to describe how much he wanted to feel those hands on him, how much he wanted to touch and let himself be touched, it was luminous green eyes too bright to hide how hot they were themselves with that exact same desire, it was a smile that shook, just a little, at the edges with something that might have been fear. He could not, even as his own heart skittered around in his chest, afraid and hungry and beating too hard from the fire-dance and whatever the fel it was Sir Calston used to spike his festival mead, imagine what Solivar had to be afraid of right now, but he was. His hand shook as his fingers closed tight, as they drew him out of the circle of the firelight and into the warm darkness beyond, the shadows dappled with drops of crimson and gold, fire-flowers hung in woven garlands from the trees, the air thick with their rich perfume, their light just enough to show the way to the woodland bowers where lovers celebrated without shame beneath the midsummer sky.

Lovers. Without shame. His own hands couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop as he tugged loose the knotted silk tie Solivar used to hold his braid closed, couldn’t stop as he finally -- finally, at last -- combed his fingers through that silky, sunlight mass, red-golden in the flowers’ light. Couldn’t stop as he let himself be pushed down into the mess of blankets and flower petals and his best friend’s, his lover’s mouth ghosted over his own and his hair fell around them both, a curtain against the world and frankly he didn’t at that moment give one damn who might see them. Couldn’t stop as Solivar’s fingers laced with his own, sweat-slick and shaking in their own right.

He didn’t want that to stop. Never. Not for anything.




”I cannot say that I will never hurt you.” Softly and the gentleness in it pushed the tears lurking just beneath his eyelids over the edge, gave the sob locked in his chest permission to escape. “I cannot say that, for it would be a lie -- a lie meant well, but still one that would cause you more pain in the end. I am not perfect, my heart -- I cannot be perfect, I am as human as you, and as flawed. I have said and done things in the past that I regret, caused pain to others that I cannot take back. But I will tell you this, and I vow it before the Light and the love that I hold for you and will always hold for you, that I will never ask of you what you would not gladly, joyfully give. I promise you that, Keldris Pellegrin, and if you believe nothing I say to you again beyond this moment, take belief in that.”



A gentle shake, warmth and light on his eyelids, an equally warm mouth against his ear, pressing a kiss that sent a jolt down his spine. A low chuckle. “Wake up, sleepy-head. Greatfather Winter has been here and if you want any of the currant cakes, you’d best get up before Ari and Gil eat them all.”



”Peaches.”

“Really. Peaches.”

“Peaches,” In a tone of jokingly lofty superiority, “are a perfectly adequate fruit. I fail to understand why you’re so distracted by them.”

“I’m more than aware of the adequacy issues, Solivar. My real question is...why?”

“Why peaches?”

With infinite patience. “Yes. Why. Peaches.

“Because the climate and soil in the Eastmarch is quite ideal for their growth. A small orchard, perhaps a large one if the local market will support it. And a large garden for vegetables and herbs. The decorative garden will lead up to the steading. Perhaps a water garden if the riding is close to a lake or a stream? I will have to think on it. And pasturage for your horses, of course -- “

My horses? Now I’m involved in this somehow?”

“Of course you are. I could not possibly manage a whole farmstead myself -- I don’t know anything about animal husbandry, and your family breeds horses, so don’t give me that look. How do you feel about sheep? Or possibly goats?”

“I feel, quite strongly, that both sheep and goats are fundamentally stupid creatures that smell terrible, which is why my family generally pays other people to look after them for us, and bring us the wool and other assorted by-products without any stupid, smelly animals actually attached to either. Why?”

“Well, we will require some sources of income beyond the Order’s quarterly stipend. We should save as much of that as we can. Wool and meat for sale could help with the living expenses. And I understand that goat’s milk is quite...a delicacy.”

“Solivar. Have you ever even tasted goat milk?”

“...No?”

“I think I’m really going to have to insist on being there when you do...”




A raucous roar of approval rose from the floor of the great hall, one that shook a couple layers of soot off the ceiling timbers and vibrated the mezzanine floorboards under his feet, even before the muscians began playing the first bars of the chosen song and the dancers took the floor. Talia’s full-throated laughter carried over the whoops and cheers of the assembled throng as she and Aretegos spun through the first measures of a dance that his lady mother would most certainly have dismissed as entirely too peasant by half, along with assorted sorrowful remarks about the tragic paucity of taste in well-born young ladies marrying in wedding dresses a good ten years at least out of fashion. His lord father would, in all likelihood, also have had a thing or two to say about weddings solemnized not by hours of dreary sermonizing about the Awesomely Heavy Duties and Responsibilities of Marriage and the Continuance of the Generations In the Sacred Precincts of the Holy Matrimonial State but by Father Alarich Fairbanks reading a paragraph of appropriate love poetry, asking the couple to make their vows to one another, exchange tokens and kisses, and then jump over a sword for the edification of the crowd, while cheerfully declaring them husband and wife and demanding the first cup of the wedding wine.

“A copper for your thoughts?” At some point since the end of the official part of the wedding and his place in it, Solivar had shed his hideously overwrought borrowed dress armor and put on the last surviving pieces of clothing he’d brought with him from Quel’Thalas -- clothing, he could not help but note, that rather complimented the nuptial colors of blue and silver.

“....I have no idea what she sees in him.” Keldris admitted, nodding down at the happy couple, spinning arm-in-arm in the middle of the dancing crowd. “I still want to break that nose of his at least once a week.”

A low chuckle. “Now. He’s grown up quite a bit -- he’s not half the insufferable wanker he was when we met all those years ago in Stratholme.”

“Yes, well, even less than half the insufferable wanker he was is still more than insufferable enough, thank you kindly. What are you doing up here? Don’t you have some sort of official functions left to perform as the guardian of the bride?”

“Talia graciously released me from any obligation to humiliate myself in public on the dance floor. I may, instead, humiliate myself later when everyone is too drunk to remember it tomorrow.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “So you came up here to hide out with me until that blessed moment arrives?”

“Where else would I be?” Solivar offered a hand and he accepted it, folding their fingers together below the level of the mezzanine railing. “I apologize. I have been neglecting you shamefully these last few weeks, between all the work I have had in the infirmary and preparing for the wedding.”

“It’s nothing. I -- “ Something small and flat and circular, contact-warmed, was resting in Solivar’s palm and now sat securely between their hands. “...What is...”

“No, I am afraid that it is not ‘nothing’. I have been greatly remiss...after all, your happiness is precious to me.” Softly. “If you wish it, I would spend the rest of our lives tending to that happiness.”

“...I...”

“I...know that this is a...rather large thing to ask. And a weighty decision. Do not answer me now, if you do not have an answer yet to give. It is not a thing I ask lightly.”

“I...will. Think about this. Solivar...”

“On a less serious note, how do you feel about publicly humiliating yourself with me in front of a horde of drunken house-knights...?”




The ring, he was forced to admit, looked as though it had been made to sit on his hand. Two intertwined bands of metal, gold-chased truesilver and thorium, sculpted in such a way that, held one way they looked like leaves and the other like dancing flames, with no raised edges to catch on cloth or leather, flatter by far than even the Order signet. On the inside, an inscription in flowing Thalassian script, no word of which he recognized. At first, he thought it was too small to fit on any of his fingers -- but when he slipped it on his shield hand, the band had altered itself to suit, expanding before his eyes to fit snugly in place. When he removed it, it did not return to its original size -- and, even though he didn’t put it on again, he felt it there, around the base of his second-smallest finger.

“It’s Thalassian,” Talia informed him, mock-loftily, when he asked her about it, three days later.

“I know it’s Thalassian, Talia. I know what the Thalassian alphabet looks like. What does it say?

“And is that...thorium? It is thorium. This must have cost a fortune. Well, a small fortune. Maybe it’s an antique he got from someone who didn’t know what they were -- “

Talia.

“Oh, all right. It says, if I’m remembering my declensions correctly, ‘My heart is lost to you.’” She handed it back. “So...when’s the handfasting, Sir Pellegrin?”




”No...no. This is yours. It has...always been for you...and I would not see it on the hand of another.” Solivar folded his hand closed, the ring’s metal not even beginning to cool in the winter air, despite the damp, despite the snow. “I...Forgive me, Keldris. I broke my word to you, without meaning to do so.”



”Are you sure? Absolutely certain? It’s -- “

“If not me, then who? I’ve been granted passage beyond the Thalassian Gate.” Wearily. “If even one of the messages I carry reaches a sympathetic eye -- particularly if the eye belongs to General Windrunner -- relief will be here before the spring. They may not know how dire the situation truly is, particularly if the Convocation is restricting access to that information.”

“I know but...”

“But?”

“Stratholme, Solivar. You have to pass so close to it just to reach the Pass. Too close. The dead are -- “

“Thick as flies in summer, I know. I do not intend to stand and fight. Not now at any rate.” A tired smile. “I promise I will not be more foolish than I have to be.”

“I know. You’re never as -- as much of an idiot as I am, just to pick a random example right off the top of my head. I -- “

“Kel, for the love of the Light, just spit it out. I have to finish packing.”

“I...There was a letter for me with the last courier to come in from Stormwind.” He looked away -- Solivar’s utterly still lack of expression was almost worse than seeing him hurt. “My family is calling me home. As soon as the situation is...stable enough to allow it. I might not be here when you get back from Quel’Thalas.”

“I see.” Softly. A ragged breath. “If...we do not have the chance to see each other again...know that I wish you happiness. That is all that I have wished for since I first knew you were my friend.”




So close...


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re: [Open RP] Descent

The walls of Ulduar begin to shake.


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re: [Open RP] Descent

(( Okay, just to clarify, I'm under the assumption that whatever is happening with Keldris, the rest of us are not privy to? ))

Folami hears the rumble of earth and stone seconds before she feels the vibration beneath her temporarily-cloven feet. Widening her stance for balance she starts scanning the area in front of them for a target, her hands aglow with arcane fire.

I have a sinking feeling whatever coming is going to be decidedly too large to miss...


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((OOCly, you are correct. I'm just providing that for meta purposes.))

From somewhere, nowhere near as far below as anyone might like, the sound of shattering glass and breaking stone rises, and the tremors increase in their severity, bits of imperishable Titan-crafted masonry crashing down from above as even their engineering begins to fail before the forces being brought to bear against it, the heaving of the floor making it difficult to remain standing, the stone beginning to buckle upward and crack.

With a final massive tremor, as strong as the tortured heaving of the earth that rent Kalimdor, those cracks spread, stone shredding as easily as thin fabric under the force of it, the walls bowing inward in an effort to continue supporting the massive weight of the city above, before they also give way, the deepest parts of the fortress collapsing in on themselves with an earthshattering roar.

A cloud of dust flows up from below, choking and blinding. Something moves within that cloud, sinuous and slender, flowing outwards -- slender, spiky filaments of darkness, blindly feeling their way along the shattered floor and walls, the precariously balanced ceiling.


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As the dust from debris and sorted rumble fills the air, Folami flaps her wings to try to disperse it to little avail. She raises her forearm to cover the lower half of her face. She tries to keep her eyes on whatever it is emerging from the ground, but she has to cast the occasional glance skyward to watch for falling masonry from the ceiling and walls. All the magic in the world won't do her any good if she's knocked out by a rock.

In the back of her mind some small part of her feels a sense of fearful awe at the power demonstrated by the old god's emergence. She fights to maintain her focus on the occurrences around her in order not to let herself give into the belief that she and her companions will not be leaving Ulduar alive.


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Last call for reaction posts at this juncture of events.


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In the depths, silence. Solivar felt the deaths of the Twilight cultists as if they were a song suddenly ended -- many silenced in a single instant and more, those that had been closer and clearer, in ones and twos, until there were only two living voices left, so tightly wound together they were nearly indistinguishable from one another.

Are you perceiving this, Old One? Do you know what has happened, what is happening?

No answer in words, but the Old One's fear rang inside him like a struck harpstring, driving him to act, to draw his sword and fling himself at those shadowy tendrils and begin hacking until he reached their mutual goal -- a desire he mastered with only the greatest difficulty. "Lady! We must clear a path, and we must do it without causing any further collapse, if we can. The walls closest to us seem the most sound -- if we drive those...tentacles back, we may be able to make our way further down."


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Rather than try to speak in her current demonic form, Folami nods to Solivar and focuses her fire on the closest tentacle that doesn't appear to be supporting any major part of the architecture. It's difficult to see through the dust and debris, but she manages with Haadom's help, the felhunter darting into fray to begin attacking the same tentacle now enveloped in arcane fire.

In the back of her mind she envisions the path she's trying to make through the pieces of the old god rising up through the floor.

Please, let us be quick enough. If we must die, let it not be in vain, let us put an end to this for the sake of everyone outside of this place.


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