Fantasy Lands-Gandesha-Let's Roleplay!

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"That was how I understood you." Alaric fell silent, casting out filaments from his mind, seeking the vital signatures of both Irial and Sindri. He tensed for the latter's response; he became aware of Merithae at some distance; he sensed goblins and the presence of Dibble and Tom (he had not expected contacting the latter to be so easy. Attempting to focus on Irial he detected a bond with Marie, and one reciprocal bond from the latter and a fainter one to Sindri. He panicked, realising that he was moving in dark waters...

There was also a link between Marie and Dibble and the latter and Tom. There was also a partially severed bond with Dibble's father. Several links with the Evil Eight including both the goblins and the soul-gobblers and between the latter and... His mind exploded into mental fragments, bringing him close to a return to the madness he had once known. Too late he vainly sought to retract the one word he had deliberately sent through the link, "Come."
"I am getting too old for this sort of thing," he groaned, or would have except his spoken words were incoherent, straining his two companions' comprehension as his broken mind became bare to all those bonded to the link, which gained in intensity...

((You will have to hold on for my post til tomorrow/later today actually as it is 8.30am here and I have to sleep))

Myrrhdyn, Alaric, and Quatermass see a shimmering.

What insane beast from the nether-reaches of the multiverse would now emerge?

Suddenly there is a beast, or is a it man. Dark skinned and somewhat furry, an immense humanoid towering nearly eight feet tall appears from nowhere at a full out run directly towards Myrrhdyn. Raised above his, or its, head is something clearly meant to be a weapon. Nearly as long as the creature wielding it is tall, the weapon appears to be a cross between a great sword and a scythe. It's many edges and pointy bits reflects the sunlight.

The man, who has closed the distance, and is clearly a human of a sort, let's out a half-mad scream. He does not appear to be wearing clothes, though his body had large streaks of red paited all over it. His charge slows when he sees the three companions and a look of bewilderment quickly replaces the bloodlust filled snarl of rage that had just been there.

The Barbarian's eyes then roll back and he collapses in a heap. His sinister looking weapon drops to the ground with a clang. Those red markings, on closer inspection, were not paint at all, but instead blood. As he fell, you think you may have heard a weakly muttered "Help me."

Then the ravaged mind of Alaric bonded with the entity that had occupied Marie since her fateful encounter with the artefact in that chamber in an aged mansion in the city of Gandesha. Sensing this, Ra'a Ruach edged closer to this entity, leading to detection by Sindri, who had a particular interest in the artefact...

The summons was like a battle cry now, roaring indiscriminantly through all minds linked by the Bond. In desperation, with the last vestiges of his sanity Alaric withdrew and implored Myrrhdyn to heal his mind while he sought to regain the strength to prepare for the coming of what promised to be a formidable host with a comparatively small band of allies or in some cases potential allies. Admittedly talented, resourceful and exceedingly powerful allies, some of whom Alaric was honoured to consider friends, but too many were unaware of their full powers and succeptible to eldritch influences.

While his mind had withdrawn from it voluntarily, the Bond with the others did not die but strengthened and formed new connections, summoning Aaron from a ravaged Earth at the edges of an artificial nova from a star of insufficient mass (largely his doing; Ra'a Ruach was grateful to the hybrid's careless explosion of the sun in a fit of pique over some entertainment organisation that the evil being disdained to seek to comprehend from which IT had gleaned vast supplies of energy enabling him to accelerate the entropy in the Fantasy lands, reducing Gandesha's remaining time from a century to three years, and now to nine months). IT summoned hoards of ogres, legions of rakshas, and myriads of orcs. IT called upon Leviathan, and upon Behemoth. IT called upon the Jagaroth Scaroth in various eras, he revived the Mara in the consciousness of mortals, and focussed all the accumulated wrath of ages past upon Myrrhdyn, howling in hatred.

Within ITSELF it communed with the minds of Koschei (who would acknowledge IT as Master now) Omega and Fenric. The fourfold mind called Sutekh and Abaddon by their names innumerable. He brought all into the Bond, wrestling for control of it with the black mage Sindri; Alaric was no threat now to one so puissant as Ra'a Ruach, Terror of the Nine Worlds and More, had now become. The spiritual equivalent of laughter roared through the link, abruptly changing to a wail of pain... Who would dare challenge the sovereignty of Magister Mundorum now? It did not seem like Sindri... Terror seized one more use to administering than feeling the sensation.

Alaric fell into a coma. His mind wandered through the void, calling for his companions. Distant laughter and eerie music drew him into a maelstrom of lights and shadow. He sought the eye of the storm, focussing his mind upon this point and seeking to maintain a fragile calm in the midst of this whirling inferno. His energy was wearing thin, attennuated until its hairthin tendril was imperceptible to Ra'a Ruach... His strength was close to failing. He hoped the others would be able to act swiftly as was needed...

(( if too much is posted I cannot keep up. I wish you had waited alexander as I havent the focus to read through a load of posts to formulate my own...it is too much))

"Damn!" yelled Quatermass. He looked at Myrrhdyn.

"Think you can heal this new fellow? I'm going to knock some sense into Alaric."

The comatose Alaric was on the ground. Quatermass didn't know what was going on, but the way Alaric talked of the Time Lords, then maybe he was one, or part one.

Quatermass himself was not a Time Lord, but he understood the process of regeneration. Due to genetic engineering, a Time Lord had a type of hormone called lindos that flooded the body. They acted like nanomachines, causing rapid change, although the catalyst, artron energy (sometimes known in some cultures as 'qi' or 'chi' energy), actually sped time up in the Time Lord's body.

There was an interesting fact Quatermass knew. It was possible for a Time Lord to have a partial regeneration during serious mental or physical injury at no expense to the 13-body limit normal regeneration had, or changing the physical appearnce of the regenerator. Partial regeneration only occurred in an extreme saturation of artron energy. And even then, experiments on Gallifrey had only produced a 1% success rate. Most merely regenerate fully. Those on their last regeneration merely faded away.

Quatermass had rarely projected artron energy in the form of anything but EON Blasts and healing himself. But he needed to project a field of artron energy and carefully push Alaric's systems with that energy in the right direction.

A multi-colored glow projected from Quatermass' hands, and suffused the comatose being with a glow.

"Please let this work...."

((Sorry, Graelwyn, for the post...))

(( I am confused, Alexander...does this mean that a pile of wrath and hatred has been sent to myrrhdyn or what?....

))

There is a pool of blood slowly spreading from the large newcomer. That large frame can likely hold quite a bit of the red stuff, but that can't be healthy.

The responses here are not instant. I am afraid you will have to wait until it has been verified by alexander what has happened to myself.

((No Rush, just thought bleeding a little would add some flavor, it wasn't meant as a "hurry-up" --sorry if it seemed that way))

Things happened all so quickly, and Myrrhdyn had barely had time to recover from the previous attack. She was about to do as Alaric had requested and try to link to Tom and Dibble, since she had superior telepathic abilities, and had just begin to close off all outside channels to her mind when she sensed danger...not just any danger, but a major danger. Not only could she feel the energy vibration within her head, but also the physical vibration beneath her feet. Opening her eyes, she almost let out a scream...which was atypical for her...on seeing an immense bestial man thundering towards he, dark fur catching the early morning light. Frozen to the spot, she could not even move as this being began to lunge at her with a Bryndlin...a weapon she had not seen in many eons. Finally, after some moments, she found her mobility again and took a few large steps back, only just avoiding being squashed as the giant tumbled to the ground, setting off a minor shuddering of the ground that resembled a richter 3 earthquake.

Trembling, she turned to Alaric, but he was already in the midst of a dangerous mental summons, and requesting her assistance. Trying quickly to calm down, she once more closed her eyes and focussed on sending pale threads of gold protective and restorative mental energy to into Alaric's cortical pathways. Strands melded with strands, forming an intricate web of flaxen gold, but it was rapidly draining her. Just as she reached a point where she felt sure she had covered all the abherrations and was about to withdraw, her protective shield against whatever it was he had connected to began to give signs of struggle, finally disintegrating into thousands if spark red splinters.

Falling to her knees, she let out an agonised scream, hands clapping to the sides of her head as her mind filled with the lifelong rages and resentment of all the beast and beings Alaric had inadvertently summoned for assistance. Wavering on her knees, she opened her heavily bleeding eyes just briefly, and locked them with Quatermass before they rolled back in her head and she fell heavily to her side, consumed by a total darkness.

Tom and Dibble looked up, to see Irial apparently flying from treetop to treetop, carrying a large net, which she used to capture one goblin at a time. Once she had a goblin in her grasp, she hung it from a branch, struggling in its meshed prison. Irial then managed to climb up, and parrying the thrusts of the goblin's large claws, stabbed it in his heart. Then she took the net away from the goblin's corpse, and jumped around, searching for another goblin.

After this had been repeated several times and all the goblins had been killed, an extremely tired Irial fell to the deck, with twigs and leaves in her messy blonde hair.
"Sorry I took so long, I had to make the net. Next time we're attacked, I'll see if I can do that again."

Flashback- Going on inside the Mind of the crumpled man-beast


Retger's tribe had been wiped out. The shame and the pain was nearly overwhelming. He was the villages Keystone! He was the protector! He had failed.

All around him the villagers lie slaughtered. All 46 of his family, his tribe, littered among the hundreds of beast corpses. As the lone warrior of the tribe, it was Retger's sacred duty to protect his family.

He stood there facing the horde of... actually he did not know what the creatures were. As a hunter and a Warrior, Retger knew all the creatures of the land of Grilor. Yet the viloent little creatures that had just destroyed everything he ever cared for, were unknown to him. But such thoughts are for the Afterlife.

Ignoring the pain Retger raised his weapon and screamed at the thousands of snarling creatures. After the first wave, after seeing Retger single handedly slay hundreds of their kind, the creatures stayed back. Again Retger's mind drifted, Why couldn't he have been everywhere at once to protect his kin! How were there so many agressive creatures at once, seemingly to have appeared from nowhere, despite his extensive scouting?

Enough! They would pay with their blood. Retger raised his Bryndlin above his head and slightly askance. His first mighty sweeping swing would clear a swath deeper into the horde, and he would bring many of the demonic creatures down to hell with him before he fell.

He began his charge, again and again and again, in his mind, forever running toward a doom he could not reach, a doom he craved, a doom he deserved.

"Nice net by the way." Tom panted. A few chunks of flesh had been ripped from his body, nothing too serious ((LOL! Oh, wait, unless you're an Icehouse fan, you won't get that)), but it was very painful.

"I'm sorry..." Dibble looked down. "I should have fought harder."

"You're only a monkey, and you're not used to fighting." Tom hugged her. "It's okay."

"You're bleeding all over me." Dibble pointed out.

"Ah nuts." Tom immediately began mopping up his wounds, Dibble wiping them with a funny goo that made them semi-heal.

Abruptly, Alaric heard a call in the midst of the void. His spirit began to drift back. He panicked, striving to halt his slide back into the place where his body lay, but his weakened soul could not manage. He returned to find that a large, hirsuite and apparently unconscious man. Focusing his gaze, he realised that the stranger was wounded. Gathering strength into himself from the vestiges of the link redirected towards the earth, he released this into the Barbarian, seeking to heal but also calm the stranger. Strong, but compared to what was against them not really an immediate threat to Alaric or his two companions. Might prove a useful ally. Besides, he could hardly allow the stranger to bleed to death.

He paused to recover his own strength, warned Myrrhdyn and Quatermass that rather more people than Irial, Sindri and co. were likely to arrive before too much longer, and returned his mind to the fray. He found his way blocked now, though, as Ra'a Ruach's now titanic power swirled through the worlds, drawing upon deep reserves of power, but he sensed amusement giving way to pain. The blocked way became briefly more succeptible, but Alaric needed to return.

Apparently the assembled hosts of Ra'a Ruach had not yet descended upon this part of the woodland. He sensed interdimensional activity somewhere to the north though.

He turned to the Barbarian, and asked him to introduce himself. He wondered what the disturbance in their foe might have been caused by: his own reserves had been too depleted to have quite such an effect. He took comfort from the knowledge that Ra'a Ruach was having some setbacks for a change.

Pulling himself up from the ground, the barbarian took stock of himself. He placed his meaty fingers over the biggest of the remaining wounds, brought the hand, now sticky with his own gore, to his mouth and licked.

"Why? Why do I stand once more?" he muttered to himself as he continued to groom himself. Suddenly he looks up.

"I was once called Retger" he pauses. “Ra’a Ruach? What is that? … You are Alaric” he turns. “ And you, Quatermass.” He turns once more, grimacing as his eyes fall upon Myrrhdyn. “And she… Myrrhdyn, she hurts!”

A look of confusion clouds eyes. He slams his Palms to them, and lets out a howl. “NOOOOO!” “I am not the seer, I am not the giver, I am not the changer, I am not, I am not, not .. Not, I amwas just the Warrior I amwas Retger!” On and on he went, lapsing into gibberish, until…

His hands come down away from his eyes, now clear, yet still clouded with a deep sadness.
“Hello, I am Grilor, I am the last.”

Suddenly, far quicker than anyone can react, and far quicker than a being his size should be able to move, Grilor springs into action.
Reaching down he retrieves his weapon, dips it in the pool of blood he had just stood up out of, twirls the weapon in an airsplitting full arc directly towards Myrrhdyn ‘s head.

The 8 foot long weapon suddenly halts. The very tip of the scythe point touching Myrrhdyn’s cheek. Touching, yet not puncturing. On that tip is Grilor’s blood. Onto that blood drips Myrrhdyn’s blood, from her already bleeding eyes.

“I give you Solace. I give you Strength. I give you Protection. I give you Health.” Grilor intones. Then his Eyes grew large in surprise, which was followed by an almost wicked grin.

“YES, YES, come into ME, beasts! We have a score to settle!” The Beasts that had been ravaging Myrrhdyn Flowed now into Grilor. “HAHAHA, you can winnow all the lands of Grilor, but you cannot kill Grilor!” He continued to laugh maniacally for a few moments.

He then looked to Myrrhdyn, his sad eyes now with a hint of serenity. “It is over, you are safe.”
Finally, he turned to Alaric. “Now, about Ra’a Ruach, and our alliance…”