From quinn@fazigu.org Tue Jan 11 13:57:02 2005 Return-path: Envelope-to: quinn@fazigu.org Delivery-date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:57:02 -0500 Received: from yami.57thstreet.com ([216.110.12.54]) by work.fazigu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CoRCP-0008HI-2I for quinn@fazigu.org; Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:57:02 -0500 Received: from moo.ghostmoo.org (yami.57thstreet.com [216.110.12.54]) by yami.57thstreet.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with SMTP id j0BIwHlb038384 for ; Tue, 11 Jan 2005 18:58:17 GMT (envelope-from quinn@fazigu.org) Message-Id: <200501111858.j0BIwHlb038384@yami.57thstreet.com> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:58:17 -0400 From: "Quinn@Ghostwheel" To: quinn@fazigu.org Subject: Ghostwheel Message(s) 218 - 227 from *storylines (#5236) X-Mail-Agent: Ghostwheel (moo.ghostmoo.org 6969) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.1 (2004-10-22) on work.fazigu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_50 autolearn=ham version=3.0.1 Status: RO Content-Length: 23208 Lines: 437 Message 218 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Wed Nov 24 02:06:48 2004 EST From: DragonBabe (#5288) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Re: DragonRiders OOC: Okay, I was not sure exactly where to post this, so I am posting here, but this is OOC [Out Of Character!] Are there any players out there that would like to belong to the DragonRider Class? If so MOOMAIL, DO NOT PAGE ME IF I AM NOT HERE!, me. If you page me, I will think you are not serious, cause I canna save pages! (You can ask any older players here about DB's problem with recycling items/changing Dragons to Exits/etc unwittingly, and you will understand the emphasis). The DragonRider Class will be going through restructuring if it remains a viable part of GW. How is unknown at this time. Thoughts are also welcome (With the same requirements as above. MOOMAIL DB, Thanx). DB Oh! Yes, I have taken over the Class once more in hopes of helping the class. -------------------------- Message 219 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Wed Nov 24 19:54:09 2004 EST From: Garben (#15950) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Garben Garben paced the fairly luxurious interior of the giant clam husk he called home. Papers and sample dishes strewn across his desk, boots thudding rhythmically against the plush carpet. Top-siders where stranger than he could have imagined, and Running into elendil and Sparhawk, the only two other Submariners he had met since the loss of his parents, had left him completely off kilter. Neither of which helped his current dilema. His broad hands tugged at his hair as he returned once again the the voluminous tome opened on his desk. say "There has to be some truth to it." His finger trailing across the words as he rereads bits and recites them again to himself outloud. Sighing he takes a step back, hands now running across multiple dishes containing plant samples. Methodically he reads the labels and with care straightens them into neat stacks. Softly he repeats to himself. "600 plants, to cure the ailments of the nerves sprung from the corpse of the physicians son." He shakes his head. He knew what he needed was someone to research this on. Someone to test out his theories, to help him discover the plants, and what part of the body they came from on a human... Garben sighs once again, grabbing his Jacket off of the Steamer trunk and fastening it as he slid out the hatch of his abode. Someone would have to be willing to help him -------------------------- Message 220 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Sat Nov 27 22:22:43 2004 EST From: Owen (#15637) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: One Sneaker and One Swim Fin It was like looking at one of those illustrations that you see in yellowed old magazines from time to time. 'What's Wrong With This Picture?' Hold the crumbling page at arm's length and it's a picture of a boy and a dog playing catch at a picnic, while Mom and Dad and Sis look on. It's only when you draw the paper near and study it that you realize that the boy is wearing one sneaker and one swim fin, that the dog has three ears and that Mom in the background is holding a live lobster by the tail. >From a bit of distance, everything had worked like a charm. Owen hadn't been able to reach Darkpaw or Yak when the call came from Dakirion that the ordered 'handmaidens' were ready, but it hadn't been that big a problem. He'd gathered up Mirg, Chaaya, and Leviathan and made sure everyone understood their roles in the final meeting. Once that was done, he contacted the Dakirion sales office and arranged to have the recombs turned over to 'Mr. Harcourt' and 'Padmatil' at the Harper's Haven in N'Orleans. When the programmer arrived with the recombs in tow, there'd been a moment of doubt. A single heartbeat when Owen was sure that it was all going to fail, that their amateurish little trap was about to be sprung by the real experts. Looking back, he wasn't even sure whether it was the usual pre-fight nerves or something else. Something about the programmer, maybe. The way his eyes shone when they rested on the quartet of night-black felines, maybe. Fantacism, lust, and paternalism all tangled up in the man's gaze. Maybe it was just the very competent way the security team had checked the corners and exits of the old bar. But it had gone so smoothly, almost unnaturally so. The only difficult part had been getting Gary, the programmer, to reveal the trigger that would transfer 'ownership' of the recombs in their own minds. But Chaaya had played off the courtesean airs like a born actress, flirting with Gary through her lashes until he accepted her invitation to whisper the passphrase into her ear. Once she had that, it was perfectly simple. Chaaya took the fine chain leashes of her four new possessions, spoke the phrase that would assure that they would follow her as their mistress until the bonding could be completed, then smiled once at Gary and gave the agreed-upon signal. As per the plan, Chaaya pulled the four cats' leashes, tugging them toward the door of the bar. Owen stepped forward with one hand extended as though to shake Gary's hand. As soon as the man smiled and held out his own hand, Owen slammed his fist into the programmer's gut, doubling him over and incapacitating him. Mirg spoke a single word into his communicator then launched himself at the nearest security guard, claws emerging from his fingertips while his body was still in midair. The fight itself was short, brutal, and very bloody. Especially once Leviathan warped in with laser pistol in hand and started vaporizing the brain pans of security guards from behind. Chaaya managed to get the four recombs outside before they realized exactly what had happened, and the three conspiritors inside the bar dispatched the entire eight-man security team in a matter of minutes. When the time came, Owen ended up breaking Gary's neck himself. Part of him thought he really ought to have left the kill to Mirg or Leviathan, let them have the satisfaction. But something about the man disturbed him, he wanted to do the killing himself. Afterward, celebrating in the Claw, it had seemed like the perfect execution of a near-perfect plan. They'd about broken their arms patting one another on the back, and the booze flowed almost as freely as the praise. Mirg took the 'kittens' off to his temple to teach them how to be free, Chaaya kissed everyone's cheek before retreating to Toosay for her 'vacation' and promising to return as soon as someone called to tell her that the coast was clear, and Owen and Leviathan returned to their daily lives with very little interruption, proud of a job well done and blow struck for freedom. But that was the view from a distance. When you looked at the situation up close, the flaws in the picture came clear. Like the fact that Mirg hadn't been seen in over a week. He claimed to be staying in the temple because the kittens needed so much of his attention. But the one night he'd come out for a visit, he'd seemed tired and evasive about the quartet's progress. And he hadn't been there an hour before the four cats came searching for him. They stood in the garden, eight luminous black eyes fixed on Mirg with unnerving intensity. And almost as soon as they arrived, the Cat found an excuse to leave, taking them with him. And like the fact that Chaaya wasn't answering her communicator. Owen had tried calling her a time or two, just to update her on how things were going but he hadn't gotten an answer. One or two missed calls was one thing, but he'd called her seven times without success. Or even more disturbingly, the fact that Gary had been spotted around the R/T, unshaven and only semi-rational. Owen had heard that the man had been fired, thrown out of Dakirion in deep disgrace over the loss of the recombs. And now he was haunting the R/T, making everyone nervous. What worried him the most, though, was the thought that they'd forgotten something. It was a nagging sense, half a memory that haunted Owen and made it hard to sleep at night. Something forgotten. Something they'd neglected to do, something they hadn't considered. But he didn't know /what/. Just that something was forgotten. It was like dream logic, the sense of knowing something is wrong without knowing what it is. Something neglected. Something forgotten. Something wrong with this picture. -------------------------- Message 221 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Sat Nov 27 22:53:02 2004 EST From: Rhianna (#37042) To: *storylines (#5236) Rhianna awoke, sweating and nauseous, the dream still clinging all around her. She flipped on the light, untangled herself from the bedclothes, and went to the window, staring out at the cool, dark night. She put a hand to her forehead, leaning against the window frame, trying to piece the dream back together in her mind. Since she had tried to scale the Mount, the Sight had brought her dreams that were a messy tangle of imagery... impossible to sort out. Shed taken to skipping nights of sleep so as to avoid them. When she couldnt help but sleep, the dreams overtook her, drowning her. Tonight had been different, though. Tonight had been clear, like the last three nights. Shed had the same dream, three nights in a row. She struggled to remember it all. She had slipped down and down through the dreaming until she felt herself whole again. She had found herself standing on an endless moor, extending all around her in the grey mist. At her feet was a dead sparrow. No... not dead. A dying sparrow. As she knelt to examine the bird, she heard a voice and raised her head. A man had stepped out from the mist. She rose, reaching for her sword, and was astonished to see that that he was wearing it. She met his gaze. He looked so like herself that he must be... but his eyes. His eyes were faceted and black, a dragons eyes. And his voice was a mans voice, though it spoke the dragontongue. And then he called her Sparrow which is what her mother called her, once and then he called her daughter. And the ringing rose within her head again as she recalled the dreaming; not a dream of the past, nor of the future, but a dream of the OtherWorld. The Other Shore. And he told her to beware. Thinking on it now only worried her the more. Beware what? Or who? And why? And who exactly was this warning coming from? Touching that part of the memory made her feel sick again, and she stepped outside, into the chill night, rubbing her temples. She knew the answer to that last question, but what she knew did not comfort her, and now, she thought, there was no one left to her that she could discuss it with. -------------------------- Message 223 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Wed Dec 1 02:26:43 2004 EST From: Rhianna (#37042) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Into the Woods . And the next thing she knew, she was falling, a black wind all around her. She did not know if it was worse than the last time because she had fought it so hard for so long, or because it was simply that. Worse than the last time. Her head hurt and her whole body felt as if it were on fire. There were voices on the wind that she did not recognize. Images that were a tangling, burning mess. The sound of falling rocks and wind over mountains and, after a very long time, a sense of quiet. The sound of running water. She felt herself sinking downward and opened her eyes, a waking of a sort, though she knew she was not truly awake. She was lying on her back, under a tree. Breezes smelling of herbs and dragon oil blew across her face. Grass beneath her. She sat up. She was in Morlith's garden, and all was restored. The fountain unbroken, the herb garden her mother had so loved just around the corner. She would have liked to smile, but she knew how the Dreaming played tricks on you. She was being set up for something. And then, she heard his voice. Impossibly, she heard his voice. She did her best to keep her joy down as she turned, still seated, to face him. 'Deirfir,' he said to her, 'You came. I wasn't sure you would.' He was as she remembered him. Slight build, red hair, her father's eyes in her mother's face, or so she'd been told. His blue cloak was ever-so-slightly too small for him, his tunic just a little too large. His lute was strapped over the cloak, and his cloak pin glinted in the light as he sat down next to her.\ 'Rowan, truth be told, I tried not to,' she said, ruefully, afraid to touch him. He nodded, 'I know. I know you'll hate me for this, but you ought to listen to the Fae more often. He knows of what he speaks, more often than not.' She caught sight of her wooden sword lying in the grass, and then turned back to her brother, 'Rowan, where are you?' She could not keep her voice from breaking as she asked, and it shamed her. He reached up to touch her face and it was like light passing through her, 'In good time, you will know. There is another one who will come to you, if you let him. Try not to fight so hard.' Rhianna shrugged, 'Can't help it.' Rowan laughed, like he used to, 'I know, but I give advice anyway. Wander here, see what there is to see. You will not be under long. When the time comes, it will come, and there will be no stopping it.' He gestured toward the fountain; she rose and went to it, leaning against the wall, looking into the crystalline water. Rowan said, 'Remember this.' In the water, there was a sparrow. Drowning. And then she fell deeper within the Awen, dreaming ever downward... -------------------------- Message 225 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Thu Dec 9 11:59:10 2004 EST From: Rhianna (#37042) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Falling into darkness.. In and out of darkness. Caught between sifting through the memories of what went wrong and shoving them away. Remembered pain blazing through her and then gone again. The memory of blades driven through flesh, through muscle... the memory of skin being peeled back... the memory of struggle and failure. The mismatched phrasings of a mind that was not quite broken, but did not wish to be whole again. Rhianna was caught in the middle of her self, images flashing past her minds eye, flicking up, one by one. A parade of remembered agony. Of fierce, broken pride. Of shame. And over and over again the knowledge that her sword had not saved her. That her dagger had been used against her. That, no matter how hard she fought, there was nothing she could do to save herself. They told her she had killed him, the Dakirion-man who had hurt her, and she both believed that she had and believed that there was nothing she had been able to do to free herself. The only thing she wanted was blackness, true sleep, and it would not come to her; whenever she slept, something else, some sound real or imagined, some image, jerked her awake again. Eventually, she ceased to recognize where she was. Wondered at the owl watching her, wondered when she would be allowed to go Home, Home, Home. She dared not call out for anyone, for her mother or her brother or the dragons. She did not want them to hear her -- not the Fae, not even the fire-woman who seemed so kind to her. She burrowed, shivering, under the blankets. Seeking darkness. Striving to silence herself. -------------------------- Message 226 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Thu Dec 9 20:02:37 2004 EST From: Scorch (#16959) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Gary, Rhianna, Owen and The lonely Redhead Scorch sat at the bar in the claw, Whiskey in hand, head hung low. 'Too much had happened lately for her spirits to be high. All starting with catching Rhianna and Owen Cuddled together on the Helipad in the R/T building. That wasnt a pretty sight. Not to mention what happened with Owen almost kiling Garben afterwards' She let her most recent sip of whiskey roll across her tongue as she rolled over the events of the past few months in her head. 'The arrival of Gary didn't help matters any. The once Dakirion employee, now mad as a loon. After his first arrival in the Lounge, his obsession with Rhianna seemed to have grown at an alarming rate, ending how it did with the near tragedy in the wastes. ' 'After the second time they found Rhianna with Gary, his hands around her neck in a choke hold, Scorch thought it would be a good idea to move Rhianna back in the Farmhouse. Bring her somewhere safe where Owen could take care of her. Even if it did pique her sense of Jealousy.' Scorch squeezed her eyes shut thinking of the hostility she'd harbored towards Rhianna in the past, and now she lay broken and bleeding in Owen's own bed. She look down at her hands. 'If it hadn't been for Owen's rescue, they would have lost her in the Lounge then and there.' Scorch rubbed a hand over her eyes trying to get the events straight in her head 'It all seemed to be dancing around something larger, something more than anyone could imagine.' She shook her head hard, attempting to get the last image of Gary out of her head.' Him hanging there in the lands of Fae, blood being drained by a nightmarish looking tree. Suspended like a sick and twisted christ, eyes rolled back in his head, gurgling. Scorch wrinkled her nose. The scene hadnt bothered her so much as the sense that he was getting better than he deserved. That this bleeding was too good for him. She sighed and swallowed her drink. She allowed herself to think back to Rhianna's near corpse lying on the white plastek floor of Gary's cube. Her wrists stuck fast to the floor with daggers . A huge flap of skin from her wrist to shoulder flayed from the muscle oozing blood. There must have been a hundred cuts on her, and the bruising around her neck was darkening by the moment.' Scorch downed the last of her glass and grabbed her Backpack and headed for the door, she looked down at her hands still stained with Rhianna's blood and pushed through the doors of the Claw into the wastes. -------------------------- Message 227 from *storylines (#5236): Date: Fri Dec 10 20:32:42 2004 EST From: Owen (#15637) To: *storylines (#5236) Subject: Lullaby Owen sat at the kitchen table tuning his guitar and watching the cot where Rhianna twisted and whimpered restlessly in her sleep. The excuse was that perhaps music might soothe her uneasy dreams as it had a time or two in the past. The truth was that he needed time to think and this was the only way he could think of to get a break from Scorch's quiet acceptance and too-wise eyes. His fingers began chording the old song without his really intending it. // True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank, a ferlie he spied wi' his een. // Wise man, that Thomas, to see the road before him. So few men managed it any more. But He played on, singing almost sotto voce so he wouldn't wake Rhianna. // 'Harp and carp, Thomas,' she said. 'Harp and carp along wi me. And if ye dare to kiss my lips, sure of your bodie I will be.' // No one could claim the fool wasn't warned. But then, who ever took a well-meant warning in matters of the heart? He'd warned Scorch, he'd warned Rhianna and neither of them really believed him. Even as they'd said they understood, they'd dismissed his warnings as dramatics and storytelling. Well, now at least Scorch understood. Or was coming to understand. // 'True Thomas, ye maun go wi me, and ye maun serve me seven years. Thro weal or woe, as may chance to be. // His lover and his former love, living in the tiny house together for weeks now. A mad arrangement that the three of them had come to out of love and desperation. The problem is once you bind yourself to something like that, it gets harder and harder to get out. Rhianna stirred, whimpered, settled down again though she was worrying at her wrist with her fingertips again, digging at the spot Gary's knife had entered. // 'O see ye not yon narrow road, so thick beset with thorns and briers? That is the path of righteousness, tho after it but few enquires.' // That was the three of them, treading hesitantly down a twisting, dangerous path. Maybe not the path to righteousness in this case, but the only path they could find that let them stay together, let no one lose more than they could bear. Except already they were losing one another in the woods. Rhi sunk into shock and grief, barely looking at him or Scorch even when she could be brought to speak and act. Scorch standing in the wings watching him, watching Rhianna, seeing everything and seemingly half-resigned to an inevitable failure. He could feel her withdrawing from him, growing sad and protected and nothing he did was helping. And he himself stripped of his disguises and protections with nothing to do but try to keep the two of them at arm's reach so they wouldn't be harmed. Owen bent his head forward over the guitar and almost winced as a long lock of ash-white hair slithered forward over his shoulder and fell into his peripheral vision. // 'But, Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue, whatever ye may hear or see. For, if you speak word in Elflyn land ye'll neer get back to your ain countrie.' // That's what was plaguing them all. Silence. Rhi wouldn't speak about what had happened to her in that Plastek cube. Scorch wouldn't speak about what she saw in his and Rhianna's faces in those unguarded moments. And he wouldn't speak about what he knew the consequences would be of that long bad night and the apparently permanent loss of his glamours. Rhianna seemed to be sinking into a deeper and more peaceful sleep. Maybe the music was working, or maybe it was just exhaustion catching up. // And till seven years were gane and past, True Thomas on earth was never seen. // Gods, let this not last seven years. Surely they could find a solution before then? Surely his glamour would return and with it the comfortable barriers between him and his Fae nature, the protections that would keep him even-tempered and human-seeming. Otherwise the damage he'd already done would seem like nothing compared to what he might do. Hadn't Rhi and Scorch been through enough already? As he lifted his hands from the strings of the guitar and let the final chord ring in the still, hot room Owen closed his eyes and tried to build his glamour one more time, tried to force his bones to slide beneath his skin and retreat to a human roundness, tried to fade his hair to dirty blond and eyes to merely grassy green. As the last note faded to nothing he opened his eyes and glanced down at himself. No change. Last song over, new song begins. ***************OOC INFORMATION*************** For those who know Owen, his appearance has altered dramatically since last seen around the R/T. He is recognizable as himself--barely--but these are not subtle changes and if you know Owen and have eyes you are going to notice the difference. Also, if anyone cares, the version of Thomas the Rhymer used for this post was Child Ballad #37, Variant C. The full text is online at http://www.via-francigena.org/ballads/ballad.php?37 --------------------------