Archive Posted January 30, 2003 Report Posted January 30, 2003 Zadown Quill-Bearer Posts: 49 (8/6/01 4:54:05 am) Reply The battle of the Dreams -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thinking on all the information he had gathered from the Huntress, still confused and nervous after the incident over at the Pen is Mightier Than the Sword Cabaret Room, the Dreamer walks to the middle of the small plane he is currently on and sits down to a lotus position to meditate. The great shifting blocks inside his mind (present, past, visions of future and dreams, plans and ideas, fears and emotions), move around in his head with giant steps, making his perception of the world change moment by moment; his eyes flicker and change behind closed eyelids and air itself swirls and boils around him as small pieces of spells and enchantments bleed away from the thinking mind. His outside demeanour is one of Chaos, but his inner world shows that he contains most of it, that his mind is strongly of Order but that the Chaos is even stronger in him. He absorbs the new knowledge, and goes through every moment that has transpired since he tracked down his lost pieces, wayward ideas given life by the excess of power he drained from the god of dreams. The battle and the summoning, the treachery of Spellbinder and the possible wisdom of Yui-chan - he looks at all of these things from many different directions, seeing them as they were, happenings in the stream of time, but seeing also the manipulative hands of the gods in it all, and the ever present forces of Order and Chaos in play. As he unravels the thread of the day, he walks backwards in the time, back ... and back ... and back...
Archive Posted January 30, 2003 Author Report Posted January 30, 2003 Zadown Quill-Bearer Posts: 50 (8/7/01 9:32:14 pm) Reply The Awakening -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He remembers the awakening. A creature blinked, a slow and luxurious blink, the first one for a long time. It rised itself from the ground and looked around, not really understanding anything yet, doing everything by reflexes - its complex mind was slowly bringing itself back to life, a part at a time, and so it did not understand yet what it saw; all was just shapes and colors to it. Nothing looked dangerous, and so the creature walked around, curious and restless, feeling the rising of intelligence inside it and the chaos that it was bringing along, but unable to stop that. It whimpered and whined, then snarled and growled, hugging its own naked body. Then it felt a cold emptiness where a piece of its awakening intelligence should've been - a missing idea or a dream. Everything else was coming back slowly .. and then another empty spot, and another, and another. He dropped to his knees, wailing, and tried to hold his remaining thoughts inside his head. But chaos was truly rising inside him, the chaos of all the dreams he had dreamed after the last strike in the battle, and he hovered at the edge of the darkness. From that blackness one thought emerged - find the lost dreams... ... back ... and back ... and back ...
Archive Posted January 30, 2003 Author Report Posted January 30, 2003 Zadown Quill-Bearer Posts: 53 (8/8/01 11:47:31 pm) Reply The Last Strike -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He walks deeper into his memory .. and finds the moments where the battle ended and the dreaming began. The plane was ruined. It had been a place of dreams and a stronghold of the god he was battling against - now, after days of fighting, all was torn, ripped apart, corrupted, changed by chaos, warped or burned. The energies that had been released here had spoiled it all, killed most of the god's servants and wrecked havoc even with the crystal spheres of the plane itself. The place was groaning and moaning in the pressure and streaming of the Astral around it, and here and there it even leaked, letting in the stuff of the Void. The Dreamer (known by another name, then), noticed all this in the passing, not really paying attention to it. He needed everything he had to survive the battle. Between him and the god lay an semi-invisible battlefield, the lights and colors of the magic showing, but the strands, words, runes and thoughts visible only to the second sight. A bolt of energy sprang forth from his pointing finger, only to be blocked by a shield conjured up by the god; meanwhile, another attack and counterattack was going on in the realm of the mind. Fighting by Order wasn't working, not with all the different ways of attack, all the different combats going on at the same time, and so he gave more room for Chaos .. and more room .. and more... His eyes changed color. And he drowned himself in Chaos, seeing that as the only way to win. One by one, he felt the restrictions imposed on him by Order vanish, and new avenues of attack and defence opened - his mind rearranged itself in mere seconds, and at the same time he let his magic flow by intuition, changing the field of battle in one wild surge. The god was thrown off balance, and there was an opening - a tiny hole in the shifting barriers, preternaturally difficult to use for any kind of advantage. But the planewalker wasn't thinking about difficulties, he just shifted himself, riding the wave of chaos, changing all to strike through that. He left gaping holes in his defence. His other attacks faltered. He should've died, there and then. But he did not, and the attack went through, a spell of vampiric draining striking the god's essence in the core. And the dreams came. ... back ... and back ... and back ...
Archive Posted January 30, 2003 Author Report Posted January 30, 2003 Zadown Quill-Bearer Posts: 55 (8/13/01 4:01:19 am) Reply Anticipation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deeper he goes .. and finds fading and crumbling memories from the time of Order, difficult to keep now, Chaos eating them away, memories of a different being... The planewalker floated in the Astral. Before him shone the crystal wall of the dream-god's plane, reflecting him and the distant lights of other planes beyond. He felt ... peaceful, standing there in the nothing, in his own element. The Lost Paths and the Void between - his playground, his home. He could've stood there for ever, if he wanted to. He let his memories take control, for a second, and blinked. ... running the Paths, young and carefree, halo of power all around him like flames ... >blink< ... a battle with a high arch-angel, a herald of some arrogant god ... >blink< ... getting in the crossfire of one the great Astral battles of the gods powerful enough to walk beyond their homes, wounded and bittered by the experience, receiving the first of the scars ... His eyes snapped open and turned to look at the sphere in front of him, and at the view of what lay past it. Dream fortress, semi-substantial servants, an intangible realm - the planewalker grinned slightly. He took a step and walked through the barrier between peace and war. ... back ... and back ... and back ...
Archive Posted January 30, 2003 Author Report Posted January 30, 2003 Zool47 Elder Posts: 53 (8/13/01 2:50:24 pm) Reply Re: Anticipation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Publish this. ~Zool~ Elder of Elders, The Pen is Mightier than the Sword. Bard of Terra, Patron Saint of Aspiring Bards. Elder than dirt, more foolish than a jester, able to trip over the smallest logic in a single step. It's... Oh, you know.
Archive Posted January 30, 2003 Author Report Posted January 30, 2003 Zadown Quill-Bearer Posts: 58 (8/15/01 9:25:40 pm) Reply Conclusion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- His memory plunges deeper in his history. Pictures, sounds and other sensations brush him gently, but he feels like he is an invader, a stranger in his own mind. He has changed - these are memories of what he used to be, a different person. Sighing softly he rises slowly from the grip of the memories and emerges from the trance he was in, blinking. He stands up, eyes the deep blue of calm. Then he is gone.
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