*Enter little-known human, stage left*

[Guest Damienn Ravencroft]

His footsteps were not heard on the cold stone floor... he almost went unseen. As Damienn continued down the shadowed hallway to the application chamber, he was as silent as a mouse...

 

It took practice, of course, but he was renowned (to all who knew him, of course) for both his bow, and sword. He, however, prefered to remain mainly unknown throughout Terra... if your opponants knew your strengths and weaknesses, then you were at an immediate disadvantage.

 

So, he kept to himself, until now. He had never been good at this type of thing... it had always been much easier to slay a man, then to talk to one... He just had problems with words in person, that was all... he could write things down properly. He would try to be silent throughout his application, because of that.

 

As he came to the application office, he sat down in a chair, and filled out a form, and left it on the desk.

 

~3 HOURS LATER~

 

Finally, he got tired of waiting for whomever was in charge, and so Damienn left. He walked out into the tavern... perhaps he could wait there and... have a beer or something.

 

"Hello! Welcome!" said many people as he walked in, obviously friendly and curious to a new face. He looked at the floor, and sat quietly in a corner, and ordered a beer from the bartender. He sipped the drink, and watched... since he had problems talking with people, he watched a lot... he decided that you could learn as much about a person while watching them as you could while talking about them some time ago... if you knew what to look for, and he began to take mental notes on everyone.

 

Suddenly, there was a tapping at the door. Someone went to answer it, and was immediately knocked to the floor... whomever had been at the door had burst through just as it had opened, and knocked the elderly man that had been so kind as to answer it to the ground, out cold. Several men rushed in brandishing knives, daggers, swords, and generally every blade imaginable. He immediately strung his bow, and trained an arrow on one of the dozen or so that had come bursting into the tavern, and fired.

 

The shaft flew straight and true, and caught it's target in the throat, sending him gurgling to the floor. He nocked another arrow, and sent it flying, bringing down another of the intruders. Finally, the rouges find the source of the arrows, and charge at Damienn before he has time to load his bow again, so he tosses it behind the bar... it's a very special bow, after all, and draws his sword and dagger.

 

The first is easy to deal with... single weapon. He counters the first advance, and ties up his sword while his dagger-arm goes in for the kill, and the third man falls.

 

Man after man, he deals with, in one way or another. By now, reinforcements (on his side) are trooping in, and more people are falling by the minute. Friendly healers are also joining the fray, and so none of the Pen's brave fighters are lost.

 

After the battle is over, Damienn recieved a minor cut to his shoulder, and a healer immediately attends to him. He hears just one statement, over the shock of the invasion:

 

"Well, that wasn't very polite, now, was it?"

[Guest Minta Rose]

Rosemary resurfaced with her wrists and face buried in a hot, desiccated body cavity. She shifted her nose from blood to demons and, finding they've fled, peeped out above the rind. Chatter, splatter, dim the senses, no matter. She sends a wave of apathy at Gyrfalcon, who's shaking off the haze of battle-rage and going into the shock of a bartender whose tavern has just been ruined. Gazing intently at the waves of blood-heat coming off of the newcomer's skin, she finds. . .unease? Fascinated, she reaches a bit of her soul out to his, and had almost twanged the string to amplify that unease, before remembering that it would distort the spiral. She slid that bit of soul back into her body and stood up, flicking bits of rogue from her sunshine-bright dress. Cleaning up dead, juicy bodies was beneath her self-control.

[Guest Valdar and Astralis]

(Valdar's Illegal Astral Gateway-Riftroom, Level 36B)

(17 Minutes ago)

 

The silent rift began humming, heralding a new arrival from the great void beyond.

 

The gateway darkened for a moment, as several wards probed the nature of the intruder, and withdrew. The gateway throbbed like a living thing.

 

Without any further warning, the nose of a huge creature very rudeley barged it's way into the chamber, setting alarm bells off throughout the pocket dimension. The gate streached, and almost tore as an even larger beast (than the nose, that is) crashed through and tore a rather impressive looking hole into the wall.

 

Riding atop the great beast, Valdar sighed.

 

His face was blackened with soot and ash, and his boots were charred. Valdar flicked one ear, and a chunk of dirt fell out.

 

"That" he declared. "is the last time im going on THAT putiful route."

Then he realized how quiet it was.

 

"Randal!? Tyr!?" he shouted.

Silence.

"Where in the 18 hells are you people!?" he called out to his mercenaries.

 

De-mounting the groaning orca, he slowly levitated it into a large holding-tank for the time being.

 

He clutched his bow, and began looking for the hired Mercenaries who were supposed to be guarding the damm place.

 

(Wyvren's budget recruiting office, present time)

 

Following the trail of blood with a feeling of despair, Valdar carefully pushed the door open with his mind-and nearly got an arrow up his nose, for his efforts.

 

He jumped back with an oath, and enveloped himself with a thick layer of shields and wards as he would in the Astral.

 

Nocking an arrow, he strode into the room, this time more confident of his survival. . .and tripped over a corpse. It was one of his Mercenaries.

 

"Well, there goes the price of Mercs again" he sighed.

 

Then he looked up, to see a young man pointing an arrow directly at his heart, as if that would really harm him in this universe.

 

"And who may YOU be?" he asked.

 

"And what are all my mercenaries doing dead here?"

 

As if to awnser his question, a chittering sound made him turn his head to one corner of the now ruined office.

 

"BAH!" he cried, and proceeded to swear in several different languages as he got up and went over to the corner, to a cowering little creature.

 

"Dammed Lim-Lim's" he grumbled, picking the previously un-noticed creature.

 

He teleported the small thing back into it's heavily warded cage, and started making his way back out of the room. Then he realized all eyes were on him.

 

"um. .. hi?" he ventured.

 

The silence was oppresing.

 

"Uh. . .that. . .um, Lim-Lim. Very dangerous creature, though it dosn't look it."

[Guest Balladore]

A druid steps forward, and looks about him in disgust.

 

Seeing that the hero of the hour is wounded, he quickly steps forward and begins a healing chant, quickly relieving him of his pain.

 

"You did well... even though it was a bit gruesome, you did do well. I applaud you for that," he said, grim-faced.

 

As soon as he was finished, he set about cleaning up the tavern with his naturalistic magic.

[Wyvern]

The whole time Damienn had been massacring the mercenaries, Wyvern had been huddled behind a bar stool nervously sipping from his Decanter. The overgrown lizard of a recruiter knew that the mercenaries were actually after him...

 

Cursing to himself as four more arrows fly directly over his head and a dying mercenary vomits blood over his brand new tux, Wyvern decides that perhaps ripping off the global corporation 'Mercenaries Inc.' hadn't been such a good idea... The overgrown lizard gulps to himself as the mercenary corporation's solemn oath echos hollowly through his head: "We remain faithfull through thick and thin, friendly through dying dins, loyal and determined to win... unless you rip us off, at which point we simply kill you."

 

After the ruckus has settled, Wyvern slowly raises himself from his hiding place underneath the stool. He gleefully looks at the piles of dead mercenaries on the ground and notices that the warrior Damienn is still standing. Happily grinning and raising both hands in the air, Wyvern exclaims "Damienn, you're-"

 

But before Wyv can complete his sentance, the rest of the bystanders in the bar suddenly wip out 'Mercenary Inc.' brand extra-sharp machetes and grin evily. Wyvern's smile fades and he backs off to the corner of the room...

 

"Haaaaaaalllllllp!" cries the lizard, grabbing a bar tray as some primitive form of self defense...

 

Quickly, Damienn jumps onto a bar table in the center of the room and does a triple somersault into the center of the angry mob of mercenaries. Grabbing a machete from a bewildered mercenary, he procedes to slice down every last one of the hired assasins. Wyvern watches in awe...

 

"Wow... you're excellent!" exclaims Wyv happily, patting Damienn on the back "Now, to finish what I was saying before: Damienn you're..."

 

Wyvern takes out Damienn's application and the warrior grins happily.

 

"... going to have to pay for all the damage you've done to the bar before I accept you."

 

Damienn's smile quickly fades, as he looks around the tavern and realizes that it's become an absolute mess...

 

 

OOC: An ACCEPTED application Damienn, welcome to the Pen. You are hereby an initiate, thanks for joining.

 

[image]http://www.legion-whiterose.com/signatures/aoa/wyv.gif[/image]

 

------------------------------

Almost a Dragon...

"My life is one big crime, I try to scheme through it." -Common, "The 6th Sense"

 

Owner of the Decanter of Endless Booze.

[Gyrfalcon]

*Gyr smiles and walks up to Damienn* "Since yer the only one left alive, sign here." *he points out the bottom of a *looooonnnng* bill, totaling the damages to his bar- hacked tables, chairs, bar top, blood stain removal from just about everything, lost wine, beer, and other spirits, and then fines for spilling blood and shooting people in the bar in the first place... All in all, it was a *massive* bill.

[Guest Damienn Ravencroft]

Silently, Damienn thinks about how, since he SAVED the guild, he probably shouldn't have to pay to repair it... but, since he is being accepted for his efforts, he supposes that it IS the least he could do. After all, he had done some mercenary work himself, and his account had no short-comings in that department.

 

So, finally, Damienn signed the bill that Gyrfalcon had handed him, and sighed. Well, at least he was in.

[Peredhil]

Stepping out of Role Playing, Peredhil turns to Damienn Ravencroft and whispers,

 

If you write an email to peredhil31@hotmail.com and put Mighty Pen in the subject line, I'd be pleased and happy to send you the password to the Critic's Corner...

[Guest Minta Rose]

Tzimfemme waylaid Gyrfalcon behind the bar, hopping cleanly over and looking for a unclaimed body to loot. "You're a wealthy man, Gyrfalcon," she remarked (laying the stress on the second syllable) as she crouched and stripped a corpse of its livery, tossing the loot into a miniportal that snapped open behind her. She straightened up and began backing out from behind the bar, dragging the corpse with her, and remarking, "You stock all your bars with interest on loans due from damage claims, don't you?" Wrestling the stiff body towards the freezers, the naked mage mumbled, "Lim-lim. . .sounds like a bizarre rice dish if you ask me, not a beast. . ." Edited by: Minta Rose at: 1/5/02 9:59:06 pm

[Zadown]

The Dreamer sidestepped into the middle of the bar when Tzimfemme is carrying corpses. The bar remained half-full of the dead bodies, mercenaries staring at the floor with dimmed eyes, laying in pools of their own blood. The planewalker looked around with dark eyes, threads of red and yellow swimming in the blackness. He seemed annoyed and tense when he turned to look at Tzimfemme.

 

"I will take care of the rest of the bodies. Please stand back for your own safety."

 

The words were spoken tonelessly, tossed to the general direction of the listeners while he turned to face the corpses. Without waiting for an answer, the Dreamer raised his hands up to the air and uttered the first words of a grand spell.

 

Air around his hands flared green. A chorus of whispering voices started singing along with the planewalker's spell. The Dreamer spoke rapidly, pronouncing every syllable of the incantation clearly but quickly, condensing the lengthy litany to a few dozen seconds. He let the final word roll out of his lips and for a moment everything was silent. Then, the green light flared again and dissipated, and the rest of the corpses rose slowly and ponderously, grasping their weapons and looking around them with dead bewilderment.

 

The Dreamer muttered mostly to himself:

 

"... I need a few more guardians there ..."

 

He sniffed the air, then shrugged and created a portal with a small motion of his right hand. The newly created zombies lurched mindlessly towards the portal, disappearing through it one by one, the planewalker watching from a distance, looking contemplative.

 

His eyes were pale grey when he finally stepped through the portal himself.

Edited by: Zadown at: 1/6/02 2:01:26 pm

[Guest Valdar and Astralis]

Valdar spared the Lim-Lim but a bare glance, re-embedded in the stasis field.

 

"One of those idiots must have thought it was harmless" he muttered to himself, turning back to the scrying mirror, attuned to the Tavern again.

 

He saw the Dreamer enter, and re-animate the corpses.

 

"What the-?" He exclaimed, pressing the RECORD button on the mirror for later replay of the spell.

 

Well, this was interesting.

 

Then he looked back to the portal, spinning innociously in the centre of the huge, now empty chamber.

 

"Well, there goes the price of Mercenaries again!" he said aloud, half to himself as he got up to make leave to the lands of Blitz guilded.