Facing Down the Nightmares
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Will: (8)+14: 22
GAME: Telamon rolls Will+6: (8)+12+6: 26
Telamon stands in a familiar setting, a grand hall where corpses chew upon horses cut up and left to be eaten. Cor'lana hangs from the wall. The only difference is that there's no one else here. No one but Karan'taara who is standing beside Cor'lana this time, stroking her raven hair with a dreamy expression on his face. "You'll make such a lovely corpse." He murmurs almost lovingly to her. His blue eyes turn on Telamon as if surprised to see him standing there like he is. "You'll never have the family you promised."
His reaction is instantaneous. Telamon swore once he'd never let Karan'taara hurt Lana ever again. And now, to see him again -- the sorcerer's eyes blaze with rage. "Die," he says flatly. "Pagta zuh, nam-kud kilul," he snarls, the terrible breath-stealing magic lashing out at his hated mirror-image, eager to do nothing less than expunge him from the circles of the world. Seeking to strangle the malevolent necromancer without laying a finger on him.
GAME: Telamon casts Suffocation. Caster Level: 13 DC: 22 GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Fortitude: (4)+8: 12
Once again, Cor'lana is captive. It almost doesn't matter in her thoughts whether it's bound physically by chains and cuffs or if it's simply being too bound by grief and fear to leave the house again, but captivity is something all too familiar for her--familiar in the way that a wound inflicted in the same spot is almost like a dagger cutting deeper into the scar left behind from the last time, familiar in the way that is like the bird rattling at the cage and screaming to be let out. Again. (Again.) Again.
Even Karan'taara's words register and don't register with her. Is he here? Is she here? What purpose does it have to be alive, to exist, to be? Why is she here? Why is she /still/ alive when the cage is shut and she is unable to sing? /Maybe she is better as a corpse/--
And then Telamon's spell is cast. But it doesn't land on Karan'taara. It lands on her, the spectral hands going round her neck, the air leaving her body.
/I want to live!/ is the thought that screams through her head. /Please! I don't want to die!/ But she has no breath with which to scream, and her bound hands can't break herself free.
Because she is trapped. Has always been trapped. /Will always be trapped./ The raven in the cage that will never take flight.
The necromancer laughs at Telamon, mocking him. He wraps one hand around Cor'lana's throat as she starts to choke on the air. "I told you that your hands would kill her didn't I?" He throws a superior look at Telamon and his hand mockingly throttles a woman that already can not breathe. "Haven't you always wondered what she'd look like as a dead body?"
He can hear her. He can -hear- her, screaming to him. Telamon's eyes widen in horror, and he screams, "NO!" Only seconds to act, as he rapidly casts a second invocation, unraveling the strangling spell. "Emegar, sag dar!" And then he's moving towards Karan'taara, fists clenched. "I'm going to be the death of you, -Kar-," he spits. "I don't know how you got here, but you're not going to leave that easily!"
GAME: Telamon casts Dispel Magic. Caster Level: 13 DC: 20
The pleading continues from Cor'lana as she just thinks, recalls, all of the reasons to keep living. The wedding in Mythwood. The confession at the Arcanist's Society courtyard, only a year ago, in the dead of winter. The proposal by the shore. The ambitions they shared. The happy home they'd built. Grandfather, who loved her when it seemed all of her family was gone, dead, or only sought to use her. Pothy, with his bright blue eyes. The garden. The pixies Mirabilis and Lily-of-the-Valley. And...
"Telamon," she whimpers as she begins to... breathe? Yes, she can breathe. "Telamon! If you can get me free, I can help you get rid of him!"
Furious suddenly the necromancer starts to actually throttle Cor'lana, cutting off her air supply for a second time. Ignoring Telamon. "You can't get rid of me that easily!" He's manic, mad really with his desire to see her dead.
Across the way there's a flash of gold and Tanith is suddenly there - here. She flaps her way overhead, trying to get a good view of the struggle that's sure to ensue. "What are peoples _doing_?" She queries.
"Get away from her!" Telamon yells. He's not sure if he can pull Karan'taara off, but then... he realizes he doesn't need to. "Dimma sa irhandi namsita," he chants, the air around him growing sharp, crackling with frost and energy. He gestures, feeling the sense of -energy- around him, trying to grab Karan'taara. When Tanith arrives, he shouts, "Tanith, help! It's Karan'taara, he's trying to kill Lana!"
GAME: Telamon casts Telekinesis. Caster Level: 13 DC: 22 GAME: Telamon rolls 1d20+20: (8)+20: 28 GAME: Telamon rolls Will+6: (2)+12+6: 20 GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Fortitude: (9)+8: 17
Cor'lana gurgles as she's strangled again, and while she's physically bound and can't struggle, the spirit to stay alive burns brightly in her--
And then there's Tanith. She'd express her surprise, but, well, she's occupied, writhing as the hands are wrapped tightly around her neck. /Grandfather, give me... your strength,/ she thinks. How she wishes she could just turn into the child of the Feathered One that she's supposed to be! Tanith swoops down, a trickle of flames eeking out at the edges of her mouth and she actually lands on the ground, hopping around. "Where? I burn feet!" She hops again, turning this way and that as she seeks out this enemy that Telamon is looking for. The one that's... right in front of her.
The necromancer is meanwhile, completely unaffected by Telamon's spell. Spell resistance? Or just that difficult to handle? He cackles at Cor'lana as he chokes her, taunting Telamon. "All your effort - useless! Just like you!"
Meanwhile, Cor'lana begins to glow, her skin illuminating from within which makes the mark on her chest almost seem to sink into the light exiting her. No way of telling what's happening to her.
Telamon looks confused at Tanith. "He's right there! He's got his hands on Lana's throat!" Panic is setting in, he can sense Lana's fear and pain, calling to Grandfather as she does. Desperately he focuses his will, trying to drive Karan'taara off his wife. "Damn you, leave her be!" His face is taut with fear as well, of failure, of not being good enough.
GAME: Telamon rolls 1d20+20: (9)+20: 29
Tel's will uncoils, a wave of impervious mental force that... passes -through- Karan'taara, and shoves Cor'lana wildly to the side. Telamon recoils in confusion, his panic and rage sputtering as he realizes what just happened. "Wh-what? WHAT?"
Cor'lana glows. Incandescent, she sheds light like a beacon, and within herself, she just continues to blaze. The struggle is internal, but her thoughts take on so much more in the way of teeth and claws, growling like the Grandfather--like the /Feathered One/ she is descended from. (I am Cor'lana Lupecyll-Atlon, the Feathered One's child. I have survived you once. I have survived the curse of the Felwood. I have survived meeting with the Queen of Air and Darkness. I will not be--)
In her mind, she pictures brilliant dark wings, the kind she's sprouted before in her own dreams, like the earliest of Grandfather's children had. She pictures herself in flight, frightening, powerful, beautiful, wonderful. How she wants to be that.
How she could be that.
... Could she be that now?
(I. WILL. NOT. BE. BOUND!) she roars within her head, tugging hard at her bonds.
Cor'lana's chains burst, and raven wings burst from her shoulders, exploding into existence with a rain of tiny fluffy ones that drift slowly to the ground. One lands on Tanith's head and she shakes her little golden brow and looks mournfully up at Telamon. "No peoples. No roast feet?" She sounds _sorely_ disappointed.
And then his nemesis just... vanishes. Telamon gapes, looking around. "Wha-- where?" He feels dazed. Lightheaded. Something is wrong. "Tanith... Lana?" His eyes move to his winged bride, love and wonder mixed with confusion and worry. "...Something's wrong. I don't know-- I don't know how I got here. Where are we? Where did that bastard go?" He takes a step forward, wobbling, and goes to one knee next to Tanith.
The winged woman with violet eyes holds her shimmering hand out to Telamon. It is still Cor'lana Lupecyll-Atlon here, bearer of both her name and his, but there's a strange sense of delight in her eyes. She is free. She has proven she is the Feathered One's child. Over and over again, she will never be fettered forever, never again to be captive.
"I know, my love," she says, the wings batting behind her gently as though they were always meant to be there. "He's gone. He can't hurt me again. He can't hurt /us/ again."
Cor'lana turns her gaze down to the little golden dragon. There's a half-formed thought at the edge of her mind as she wonders where they are. Quelynos? Dreaming? Both? But her focus sharpens onto Tanith. "Hello, Tanith. I'm sorry. He was being very mean to me. But he's gone now."
Tanith huffs another sigh but basically jumps up onto Telamon's shoulder. She eyes Cor'lana thoughtfully. There's something... measuring in that gaze, then she flops down and lolls about on Telamon's shoulder lazily. "No roasting!"
Telamon catches Cor'lana's hand, trembling a little. He presses it to his cheek for a moment, before he slowly gets up again... and then wavers when Tanith lands on his shoulder. Looking at Cor'lana in puzzlement, understanding -finally- dawns in his eyes. "We're... dreaming, aren't we? I ... I was trying to bind that totem, and... damn thing was like a vampire." He glances at Tanith. "I think I see why you didn't like them much."
He slowly looks around. "But... why here? I don't understand any of this. I know this was the toughest spot we've ever been in, you and I, but..."
Tanith grumbles. "Peoples think bad things, peoples get bad things." She is in fact pouting. "I don't like it. Cages are bad. Bad, bad-" She goes on.
Cor'lana feels that little tremble, but she just continues to look at him with warm and loving eyes, the joy she feels still radiating in the bond.
She turns to Tanith and nods. "You're right," she says. "It is the dream. We control and influence it with our thoughts when we become aware within the dream. Thus why I am like this."
Her violet eyes turn to delight again in that feytouched manner, consumed with curiosity and that almost dangerous brand of whim she occasionally indulges in. "So. You and I are here. We are protected so long as we know we are protected, I believe. Where are we going, my starborn king?" <Sylvan>
Telamon wraps his arms around Lana then, holding her tightly. He needs this. Just for a moment. And Tanith will just have to hold on for the ride. "Thank you, queen of my heart. I have faltered, but you are here to guide my steps." After a moment... okay, a few moments... he finally releases her. Taking a deep breath, his eyes starting to glow again, the steady light of distant stars.
"I seek the secrets of the Totem of Dreams," he says in a clear voice, "crafted by the hand of Ni'essa Sky-Singer, daughter of the Highest One, Eli. I have passed through bloodshed and fear, faced dangers real and dreaming. I stand with my wife, the child of the Feathered One, and the noble dragon Tanithariairisixchel. I seek to preserve the chains that hold the Nightmare bound, and to defeat the purposes of his minions and of the monster calling itself Kol Demontry."
Tanith giggles from Telamon's shoulder, not really giving way for Cor'lana, but rather being a part of their embrace in her way. She bumps Cor'lana with her head and looks at the darkness that has become their surroundings. "So many things! How would you know what was what when it came if you ask everything all at once?" She climbs down Telamon's shoulder to his arm, making him hold his arm out so she can climb onto his wrist. There she acts like a bracer, although an immensely lovely one, and peers at the pair of them meaningfully.
The head-bump gets a little giggle from Cor'lana. "Boop!" she says in response, and her eyes follow Tanith as she goes to settle onto Telamon's arm.
"She is right, you know," Cor'lana says to Telamon. Clearly in good humor, the joy continuing to radiate through her and in their telepathic bond. "Let's focus. One thing at a time. Shall we start with... just the totem itself? Perhaps we'll get lucky and speak to Ni'essa Herself?"
Telamon slowly relaxes a little further, even with Tanith attached to his arm. "You're right. Both of you," he adds with a grin. Scritching Tanith under the chin, before putting his free hand in Lana's. "Let's start with the totem. Will you be leading us, Tanith?" He offers the little dragon a smile. "This is a new thing, holding onto my arm like this. Never seen you do this before."
At Lana's suggestion they'd meet with Ni'essa, Tel raises an eyebrow. "No offense, but I'm sure she's very busy keeping her eye in orbit during the night. I can't imagine she'd need to spare time to speak to me."
"Peoples are hard to see from the best-perch." Tanith replies airily, but she seems... irritated? Piqued. She sniffs once and tilts her head up as if to show herself off to the best angle. Shining. She's beautiful. It's hard to forget that, particularly when she's showing herself off.
As the pair focuses on the totem, it forms in the hands that they have clasped together. Brought to the dream by their focus? Or perhaps not really there? It's hard to tell what's real here, but Tanith seems mildly nervous all the sudden.
Cor'lana's gaze looks down at the totem and at Tanith's nervousness. "Mmm. No. Not the totem itself," she says, forming the mental image in her head of hiding the totem away. Out of sight... out of the dream. Back into where it cannot be taken. "Not when it makes our sweet Tanith nervous."
Instead, Cor'lana's wings flutter behind her. She's contemplating things. The possibilities--the good ones, the ones where she continues to quietly rejoice in the song of being alive, of being all that she wants to be. "Why do you think she's too busy for you?" she asks Telamon. "This is the dream. You are her follower. /Anything/ can happen here. Including a goddess answering us." It makes perfect sense in feytouched logic... which is not that far off from dream logic.
Telamon's mind clicks into tandem with Lana's, and he nods. "The totem hidden away, outside the dream, back in my hands -- back in reality." He narrows his eyes. "I remember. The totems are vulnerable when they're -here-." He focuses on pushing it back out of the dream, joining his mind to Lana's in the impulse.
When Lana mentions it, Tel arches an eyebrow. "Because..." then he pauses. And he flushes. "Well... yeah. Maybe she would. We... did save her avatar that time. Maybe... she'd give us an audience?" He looks to Tanith. "I know we're the hands of the gods on Ea, but sometimes... I could really use some guidance."
"I'll give you an audience." Comes a male voice, drawling from behind the pair. Tanith's head snaps toward the voice and she kind of huddles closer to Telamon's arm.
"Bad peoples." She murmurs, sounding upset.
The man is familiar to Cor'lana, but not Telamon. He's of stormguardian descent, with green eyes and a large frame. He wears clerical robes but they do not bear the symbol of any deity on them. He smiles at the pair. "Bring the totem back would you? Just hand it over nice and easy." His eyes flicker over Telamon and the smile widens. "Pretty boy you've got there girly. I swear you had something on your arm a moment ago... Another totem you're hiding?"
Tanith is still clinging to Telamon's arm, but for some reason, it seems that the man can't see her?
The Child of the Feathered One stares at the man as she turns to face him. Her wings give a couple of gentle beats, but remain folded. The emotional shift Telamon experiences in the telepathic bond is almost like whiplash, but that's how her emotions and moods shift. The self-confidence, the knowledge that she is the Feathered One's child, still is bright within her.
But that joy converts so quickly. She thinks of her Grandfather--of Alud'rigan, the Feathered One, and how his gentle nature can shift so rapidly to a visage that inspires utter terror. Her violet eyes, so merry and lively before, have the look of quiet rage. She imagines her Grandfather's taloned hands, the threat inherent within. She is the raven, ready to strike.
For the wolves in the wild and the ravens have a curious relationship. The wolves eat their kill, but the ravens drive them off so they can have the remains.
"An audience, but one unasked for. One unwanted," she intones, her gaze boring through this man. "Leave us be. We are not here for you."
(You will not threaten me. You are /nothing/,) she snarls in her head, feeding on the menace she is building herself up to become.
By contrast, Telamon becomes... distant. As cool and remote as the stars, as he regards the man with a vague look of interest. His response is simple, and icy. "No." His hair begins to float gently around his head, as though he's underwater... or if gravity is taking less of an interest in him. "Now, begone. I've business to tend to."
Absently, he shifts his stance, turning so that the arm Tanith is clinging to is now on the side away from the larger man. (No hesitation, beloved. We strike as one if he does not flee.)
"Don't be like that." The man laughs gently, and sniffs the air. Like a dog. His green eyes land on Cor'lana and he grins. "You've got fae blood. Bet you don't know how _dangerous_ this place is for the likes of you. How dangerous this place _can_ be. For both of you."
He makes a motion with his hand and chains rise up from the ground to grasp at arms and legs.
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Will: (18)+14: 32 GAME: Telamon rolls Will+6: (2)+12+6: 20 GAME: Telamon rolls will+6: (7)+12+6: 25
The chains don't even make it to Cor'lana as she continues to stand defiant, her violet eyes boring through the man. Her will is strong, unbending--as she'd declared only moments before in her head, she will never be bound again.
"No," she says, almost roars. "You're the one who's wrong about that. You're a /disgusting/, /tiny/ creature not even worthy of my time." Indeed, she pictures the man in front of her turning into a powerless worm, putting all of her whim and will into it. "/I/ am dangerous. You and your little pack of /dogs/. Where's Zalgiman? Or rather, I should say--hello, Zalgiman."
And she pictures herself as the mighty raven, who, with a tear of her wings, smashes through the chains that hold her beloved mate as she then towers over the powerless worm. (I will tear you apart,) she threatens.
She mimics the motion she pictures in her head with the sweep of her wings, bringing forth the image into reality--the reality of dreaming.
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Will: (3)+14: 17 GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Will: (1)+14: 15 (EPIC FAIL)
Telamon takes a different tack, as the chains lash out around him. His eyes grow ever colder, and frost begins to form on the chains. "As usual, you dabble where we have tread." Focusing on the relentless cold of space, trying to make the chains grow more brittle while they cling to him. "If you run now, you'll live longer," he whispers, his breath forming frosty clouds in the dim light. Then he gives the chains a firm pull, ice tinkling off his garments and hitting the ground as he begins to grin disturbingly.
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Spellcraft: (16)+17: 33 GAME: Telamon rolls spellcraft: (18)+16: 34
While the pair is distracted trying their various efforts to free themselves of the chains, the cleric laughs at Cor'lana. "You don't remember me do you? That's just as well, though I remember _you_." He moves his hands in a complex gesture, rote words leaving his mouth and you both realize that he's about to drop a storm of fire where you're standing. You have virtually no time before that happens.
GAME: Telamon casts Teleport. Caster Level: 13 DC: 22 GAME: Telamon rolls 1d100: (89): 89
Telamon realizes what's going to happen, and as he breaks free of the chains he grabs Lana's hand. "Hang on!" he says. "Kaskal, nu siten, ula'ulla!" And a sphere of light wraps around them, whisking them away from ground zero and throwing them a short distance away to a point behind Zalgiman, where it reforms and drops them.
"Lana dear, would you like to do the honors," Telamon growls, eyes glittering with starlight. He's had about enough of this crap.
"In which case, let me tell you how I know you," Cor'lana informs the robed man. "Dace Zinskas. The Miracle Man. And you're about to not matter anymore."
In her head, in her heart, in her mind, she unifies herself. The child of the Feathered One pulls on her ancestor's destructive power and the phenomenal magic of her maternal bloodline, both sides coming to brew inside of her. A woman between worlds, who used to think of herself as caught between both her paternal, fey-blooded elven ancestry, and her maternal, magic-empowered human ancestry--but in reality, is stronger because of the two. She thinks not only of the Feathered One, now, but also of Mother. Mother Nadina, who shone brighter than anyone, brighter than all the stars in the sky to young Cor'lana. Nadina, who was so, so powerful.
And Cor'lana was already nearly there.
The magic pulls through together in her hands. In her head, she calls out to her ancestors, all of them. All of the inheritors of Apotheosis. All of her paternal ancestors. The Feathered One and his mortal bride. All of them, all of the people who had lived and died to get her here.
And she unleashes it. Trying to unmake this evil servant in front of her. "BEGONE!" she roars.
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Will: (17)+14: 31
Her will meets his, and the force of them stalls in the middle. It's a visual force that can be seen and felt. As if their combined might of will were tangible. Hers the blue of raven feathers, his the green-black of crocodiles. They collide and go no further than the space between them. Then he smiles, pulling a twisted statue from his pocket and cutting his palm with a knife from his other hand.
The realm around you shudders. "You've fed yours, but you sent it away. Foolish children. Coming to the realm of Nightmares with only your will to support you." Blood pours into the statue, and is absorbed. He grows, shifting into something terrible. A monster of epic proportions. A wolf, but only in the way that dogs are distantly related to wolves. This was the father of wolves. Red eyes and black shadows. "My God is with me, and yours is but a dream! Flee!"
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Will: (11)+14: 25 GAME: Telamon rolls Will: (14)+12: 26
The raven-winged sorceress stares down the father of wolves. She is no mother of ravens, and she knows better than to attempt a fight against this. "Telamon," she says simply, "we need to wake up."
Telamon grits his teeth as Lana jousts with the man, and it's just... not... enough. "I know, but..." Then he pauses... and chuckles. "Oh, boy, you -really- need to watch where you're going in the dreamscape."
Because the surroundings are now a mottled gray and brown, with a vast world hanging over head, banded in colors of cream and orange and brown that shift ever so slightly. "Lana, let's -move-." Tel grabs her hand, and pulls her away, as suddenly there's a flash of multicolored light. A wall of shimmering colors that expands to separate Tel and Lana from the cultist and his titanic wolf, a barrier crafted from magic and power.
A wispy voice rings out, stern. (( Depart this place, Telamon and Cor'lana. **AWAKEN**. )) The hovering form of the Watcher in the Dark can be seen in midair, tentacles curling in arcane gestures. The wolf held at bay, as the pair flee for wakefulness.
The pair awaken with a tiny golden dragon clinging to Telamon's arm with watery eyes. "Fish?"
-End